CHAPTER X
TheMansfields’ little flat in College Street had great attraction for Carey. There was an air of restful quiet about its daintily furnished drawing-room, which appealed strongly to some of his restless moods. He liked the old man’s clever, easy talk, and Helen’s quiet presence. For Helen he began very soon to have an almost affectionate regard. Reserved, far from brilliant, as she was, there was about her whole personality an air of silent strength which he was quick to feel. He liked her tall, graceful figure, (she was considered too thin by most people,) her clear pale face lighted by very softly shining, steady blue eyes, and her coils of flaxen hair. She was almost immediately at home with Carey; and before long an easy natural intimacy had sprung up between them, rather to Trelawney’s amusement. “Helen’s approval is about the best testimonial you’ll ever get, old man,” he said once, with a laugh. “Make the most of it! Such a dainty,noli me tangereyoung womanas Helen doesn’t exist! Strangely enough, too,” he added, confidentially, “for she’s anything but a prude—doesn’t go in at all for shrinking ignorance, you understand. She knows good and evil. I’m a little surprised at some of the people she admires and likes—sometimes—they’re not by any means in Mrs. Grundy’s good books.”
“I didn’t know that Mrs. Grundy was a judge of character,” Carey remarked.
“Well, no—but awoman, you know.”
“My dear Jim, you’re still sojourning in the tents of the Philistines,” said Carey, with a laugh. “Remember that the former things are passed away—this is the age of the New Woman!”
“Has one ever a chance of forgetting it? Helen’s not one of the sisterhood, though, thank Heaven!”
“She is, and a particularly engaging member,” Carey replied, calmly.
He had called one afternoon, rather late, after a hard day’s work. Helen rose from a low couch drawn close to the fire, as he entered, and came across the room to meet him.
“Mr. Carey! I’m so glad to see you,” she said, in her gentle fashion, with a touch of cordiality in her voice which she reserved for welcome guests.
“Father is out—lecturing, poor dear man!Aunt Charlotte is away for the day too; so I’m all alone.”
Carey sank into one of the deep chairs with a sigh of pleasure.
“How is it your room is always so charming?” he said, with an appreciative glance right and left. “It’s like an oasis in the desert.”
Helen laughed softly. “Are things as bad as that? I should hardly have described London as a desert,—a rather thickly populated one, isn’t it?”
“Oh! I don’t know,” he replied with a slight, rather weary movement. “It’s a howling wilderness to me. I hate it. I’ve got the wander-fever in my blood, I think. I want to be off again, back to ‘them spicy garlic smells, and the sunshine, and the palm trees.’ I hear the East a-calling too imperiously sometimes, Miss Mansfield.”
“I expect you are over-working,” Helen said, looking at him with a little half maternal air of concern.
There were tired lines about his eyes, though they were bright and alert as ever.
“Well! I’ve got rather a stiff job at present,” he admitted, “but I’m going to take a holiday in a week or two. Jim’s out of town, I hear?”
“Yes. He’s in Yorkshire. He has an important case on.”
“Won’t you play me something?” Carey asked, after a moment. “I’ve been thirsting for music all day.”
Helen went to the piano, and he sat absently gazing into the glowing heart of the fire. The lamps were not yet brought in, and the room was nearly dark. The firelight fell full upon his face as he sat and pondered; the lines on his forehead deepened into a frown. From her seat at the piano, in the gloom, Helen glanced at him now and again, a little curiously, while her hands stole dreamily over the keys. There was in his face something that was new to her, something vaguely dissatisfied. She had an odd fancy that he was experiencing a sensation new to him also—that he resented it—was unwilling to admit to himself its existence. She found herself speculating upon its nature before her thoughts slid into another and sadder channel. The nocturne she was playing, one of Chopin’s, died away lingeringly, pathetically, and she rose with a scarcely suppressed sigh.
The door opened at the moment, and the maid came in with the lamps; she went out again and immediately re-entered with a letter.
Helen took it quickly from the tray.
“You will forgive me one moment?” she said, with a glance at Carey. She opened the letter hastily, still standing at the piano, and lookedat its contents. Then she came forward slowly, the letter in her hand, and sat down by the fire. Her face was grave.
“It is from Bridget,” she said, turning to him. He raised his head with a quick movement.
“Yes?” he replied, and waited. There was something about the tone in which Helen made the announcement which indicated that she wished to speak of her friend.
“Mr. Carey,” she said, after a moment, during which she had sat with averted head, “you were Bridget’s friend.” There was a note of half interrogation in the words. He stirred a little. “She told me,” Helen hastened to say. “She tells me everything,” she added with a smile. Carey looked relieved.
“You know that she has been here?—that she came here the other night?”
“Yes, I heard so. Jim told me.”
“Ah!” she replied quickly, turning appealingly to him. “Iwant to tell you about Bridget. Jim and I don’t agree in this matter. But he has been good,” she added, with a faint smile. “We have settled not to talk of it. I have known Bridget all my life,” she went on, and there was a touch of pride in her voice. She lifted her head. “I entirely approve of the step she has taken. I rejoice that she had the courage to do it when, and in the manner, shedid.” Helen’s pale cheeks flushed a little as she spoke. She fixed her blue eyes earnestly on Carey’s face.
“And I too, Miss Mansfield,” Carey said quickly.
She flashed a grateful glance at him.
“I am glad,” she said. “Bridget will want all her friends.”
There was a short silence. Helen sat with clasped hands resting on her lap, looking musingly into the fire.
“You don’t know Mr. Travers, I think?” she asked at last.
“Fortunately—no.”
“Oh, I am glad—I amgladBridget is free!” Helen broke out all at once. Her quiet voice was broken and agitated. She rose hurriedly, and stood leaning against the mantel-piece, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously. “I distrusted him always—always!” she went on; “yet I don’t wonder that she married him. People have wondered; but I knew—I understood. No one knows Bridget as I do; no one understands all the circumstances—” She stopped abruptly.
“I haven’t known you very long,” she began, with a little deprecatory smile. “I can’t think why I am telling you this; but I feel that though you know so little of her, you are a good friendof Bridget’s; besides, her life has been influenced through you—through the stories you helped her to publish.”
“I am proud to hear anything you choose to tell me,” Carey said gravely. “I—Mrs. Travers has always interested me greatly. I foretold for her a brilliant future.”
“Yes,yes—and now perhaps she will have her opportunity,” Helen broke in eagerly. “We have been friends since we were children at school. Bridget used to write then—school-girl writing, you know; but oh! alive and clever and vivid, even then—like herself! Her home life was terrible—unendurable almost. You know she became a teacher? Father and I were away about the time she first came to town. We left London before it was settled she was to live here. We did what we could about asking people to look after her, but we haven’t many acquaintances—and you know how careless people are; so she had no friends, and was terribly lonely.”
“I know,” Carey assented.
“Ah, yes! she said how good you were!” Helen paused to say, gratefully. “Well, we came home at last, just as her first story was published. People talked about it—some of them met Bridget at our house, and of course they were charmed with her. She began tobe asked to different houses: presently she met Mr. Travers and his set. They all raved about her—thought her lovely; and so she was, and is. But you should have seen her those few months! Her social success came all at once, following close upon the lonely lodging-house life she had led for a year. She wasradiantlyhappy. Everything was fresh, of course—everything was charming. She gave even those decadent people a new sensation—I believe she galvanized some of them back to life! Mr. Travers made love to her from the first, and Bridget thought she cared for him. It was so natural under the circumstances. You see—” She stopped a moment. “Bridget’s home life,” she began hesitatingly.
“Yes; I know the circumstances of her home life,” Carey said.
“Well, then, you can understand, perhaps. Mr. Travers was brilliant, talked well, his manner was charming. He was to all appearances a gentleman. Bridget”—she paused a moment—“Bridget naturally had met very few gentlemen in her life. Nothing seems to me more natural, in looking back upon it, than that she should believe she loved him. They were married after only a few months’ engagement.”
Helen left off speaking a moment, and satdown again in her low chair, bending thoughtfully a little forward, towards the fire.
Carey waited in silence.
“I really know scarcely anything definitely about their married life,” she said at last, slowly. “She has said very little, even to me; but I have been miserable at the change in her. I could read between the lines. I knew. She grew hard and cynical and brilliant, like the people she mixed with. Never to me,” she added, turning her head swiftly to hide the tears in her eyes. “It was in self-defence. She suffered terribly—terribly. I could read it in her face.”
Carey’s hand tightened its hold on the arm of the chair.
“The man never loved her,” she went on. “He was incapable of love, or of any other human emotion, I believe. It was her beauty—nothing else—that attracted him. It even made him tolerate her social position. Bridget told him at once, before they were engaged; but he taunted her with it after their marriage,” she added bitterly. “I learnt more than I ever knew before, that dreadful night she came here, when she left his house,” she continued, in a low tone. “She was more like her old self than she had been all the three years of her married life. I cried for thankfulness. If youknew how it hurt me to see her so changed, so cold, so indifferent, so self-controlled. It was so unnatural! The Bridget I remembered was fearless and outspoken, with a fiery Irish temper. You ought to have seen her at school, in a royal rage; her eyes used toblaze—just like stars on a frosty night!” Helen laughed unsteadily.
There was silence. “Thank you for telling me all this,” Carey said presently, very gently.
“I wanted you to know—somehow,” she replied, turning to him.
“She is at home now?” he asked.
“Yes, she would go home, to tell her mother herself. Poor Bid!” she sighed, and glanced at the letter on her lap.
“What is she going to do? She will write, of course. She must write,” Carey said.
“She talked of teaching again, if possible; but she means to write. Yes! I believe she will do great things now she is free!” There was exultation in Helen’s soft voice. “Her work has been at a standstill for three years,—he hated it, you know, or pretended to. He is one of those men who can’t endure women to have brains. He says, quite openly and seriously, they should be purely ornamental. I think he was jealous of Bridget. Poor Bid! Poor Bid!” she repeated, tenderly.
There was another pause.
“They are to be separated—legally, I think?” Carey asked.
“Yes. Ah, here’s father!” she exclaimed, as the door opened, and Dr. Mansfield came in with outstretched, welcoming hands.
“You’re tired, father. I shall tell Evans to send you in a cup of tea,” Helen said, going to the door.