“If we talk of your daughter,” I said, “the merest accident—a word spoken at random by. you or me—may be all your memory wants to rouse it.”
He agreed eagerly to this: “Yes! Yes! Let me begin. Helena met you, I think, at the station. Of course, I remember that; it only happened a few hours since. Well?” he went on, with a change in his manner to parental pride, which it was pleasant to see, “did you think my daughter a fine girl? I hope Helena didn’t disappoint you?”
“Quite the contrary.” Having made that necessary reply, I saw my way to keeping his mind occupied by a harmless subject. “It must, however, be owned,” I went on, “that your daughter surprised me.”
“In what way?”
“When she mentioned her name. Who could have supposed that you—an inveterate enemy to the Roman Catholic Church—would have christened your daughter by the name of a Roman Catholic Saint?”
He listened to this with a smile. Had I happily blundered on some association which his mind was still able to pursue?
“You happen to be wrong this time,” he said pleasantly. “I never gave my girl the name of Helena; and, what is more, I never baptized her. You ought to know that. Years and years ago, I wrote to tell you that my poor wife had made me a proud and happy father. And surely I said that the child was born while she was on a visit to her brother’s rectory. Do you remember the name of the place? I told you it was a remote little village, called—Suppose we put your memory to a test? Can you remember the name?” he asked, with a momentary appearance of triumph showing itself, poor fellow, in his face.
After the time that had elapsed, the name had slipped my memory. When I confessed this, he exulted over me, with an unalloyed pleasure which it was cheering to see.
“Your memory is failing you now,” he said. “The name is Long Lanes. And what do you think my wife did—this is so characteristic of her!—when I presented myself at her bedside. Instead of speaking of our own baby, she reminded me of the name that I had given to our adopted daughter when I baptized the child. ‘You chose the ugliest name that a girl can have,’ she said. I begged her to remember that ‘Eunice’ was a name in Scripture. She persisted in spite of me. (What firmness of character!) ‘I detest the name of Eunice!’ she said; ‘and now that I have a girl of my own, it’s my turn to choose the name; I claim it as my right.’ She was beginning to get excited; I allowed her to have her own way, of course. ‘Only let me know,’ I said, ‘what the name is to be when you have thought of it.’ My dear sir, she had the name ready, without thinking about it: ‘My baby shall be called by the name that is sweetest in my ears, the name of my dear lost mother.’ We had—what shall I call it?—a slight difference of opinion when I heard that the name was to be Helena. I really could not reconcile it to my conscience to baptize a child of mine by the name of a Popish saint. My wife’s brother set things right between us. A worthy good man; he died not very long ago—I forget the date. Not to detain you any longer, the rector of Long Lanes baptized our daughter. That is how she comes by her un-English name; and so it happens that her birth is registered in a village which her father has never inhabited. I hope, sir, you think a little better of my memory now?”
I was afraid to tell him what I really did think.