Helen's attempts to interest her father in Harold were crowned with success almost beyond her hopes. Colonel Desmond, who was fond of children, had been already attracted by the boy's singularly handsome face, and having a certain turn for mechanics himself, he was disposed to be sympathetic over Harold's futile efforts to construct organs out of cardboard and to model engines from blocks of wood. More than this, it pleased the colonel to see his little daughter and her small friend together. They had, indeed, an excellent effect upon one another. Both naturally wilful and wayward with others, they seemed to have but one will when together. Harold, who was accustomed to be alternately teased and bullied by his sisters, to be wept over by his mother, and to be treated as a dangerous if beloved animal by his father, looked upon Helen as a superior being, on whose sympathy he could always count, who, in some curious way, understood that it was not the object of his life to outrage the feelings of those around him, and to whom he could safely confide his dearest and most secret projects without fear of ridicule. As for Helen, her feelings for her new friend partook of a motherly as well as of a sisterly character. Her added years and her larger experience, so far from giving her any desire to domineer over Harold, aroused in her heart a sort of tenderness for him, which his sister's treatment of him and the want of sympathy which he experienced at home tended to foster. With regard to Harold's talents Helen had no misgivings; and she was ready to listen patiently for hours whilst he unfolded his schemes to her, ascribing to her own dullness and want of comprehension the seeming vagueness of some of these schemes, promising eagerly to help him in the working out of certain dull yet necessary details of the sort which aspiring geniuses of all ages have been disposed to shirk.
It must not be supposed that this happy friendship was recognized at once by the children's respective belongings. Indeed, had it not been for the colonel's unwonted firmness, the probability is that Harold and Helen, after their first meeting, would have been kept resolutely apart.
"The colonel seems to have taken a fancy to Harold," said Mr. Bayden to his wife one day when Colonel Desmond and Helen had called and invited the boy to accompany them on some distant expedition.
"Such a pity that it was not Agatha!" sighed Mrs. Bayden, taking up a fresh stocking from her heaped-up basket.
Mrs. Bayden was not the only person who considered it a pity that the colonel's fancy had been taken by Harold.
"I could have endured Agatha, but why you choose to annoy me by having that rough boy continually here I cannot understand," observed Mrs. Desmond to her husband.
"My dear wife, why should Harold annoy you? He is scarcely ever in the house, and he can't do much harm in the garden."
"He is the most unsatisfactory of my sister's children. Everyone knows that he is a bad boy. Even Richard, who is a perfect idiot about his children, acknowledges that he can do nothing with Harold."
"All I can say is that Bayden is—well, I must not abuse your relations, Margaret. But, believe me, that boy has some good stuff in him. Besides, he is a fine, handsome little chap, and his resemblance to you is quite astonishing. Surely that ought to recommend him to me."
The colonel's speech, although exceedingly diplomatic, was justified by facts. Harold's face, notwithstanding its rounded outlines, did bear a resemblance to his aunt's. She smiled.
"You may say what you like, John, but I can't believe that Harold and Helen can be good companions for one another. If she had taken a fancy even to Grace I should have made no objection."
"Let the children be," returned the colonel a little testily. "Helen looks better already for young companionship, and we cannot force children's likes and dislikes any more than we can our own."
"That, I suppose, you learnt from Mary Macleod," said Mrs. Desmond, the smile fading from her face. "However, I shall say no more. If any harm comes of your foolish indulgence remember that I warned you."
The colonel did not reply. Why his wife had yielded so readily rather puzzled him. But Mrs. Desmond had her own reasons. Helen had long been a thorn in her side, and the pricking of this poor little thorn was fast becoming unendurable to her. She had resolved, therefore, that her stepdaughter must be sent away, and, like a wise woman, she was husbanding all her forces towards the gaining of this important end, and she was well aware that a little complaisance in an unimportant matter of this kind would make her future task easier.
Helen was even more surprised than her father to find that after her unlucky day at the Rectory no embargo was put upon her intercourse with Harold. How it came about neither they nor their elders exactly knew, but through the long June days the two children were constantly together, either working in a rough workshop which the colonel had extemporized for them in an outbuilding, or rambling about the country in search of flowers and butterflies. Notwithstanding Mrs. Desmond's determination about Helen's future, it is scarcely likely that she could have witnessed her stepdaughter leading a life so opposed to her own preconceived notions without remonstrance had she not been really suffering from the effects of her long anxiety in the spring, and disposed for the first time in her life to let things take their course.
It was a very happy time for Helen, the happiest, perhaps, that she had ever known. In the old days, when all her desires were gratified, her waywardness and wilfulness had thrown a cloud over everything. Now she was honestly trying to do what was right and to keep her temper under due control, whilst healthy, sympathetic companionship kept her mind occupied and prevented her from dwelling upon morbid fancies.
"If only mamma would like me a little," she used to think sometimes as she went off to bed chilled by Mrs. Desmond's frigid good-night, but full of happy plans for the morrow. But even of gaining "mamma's liking" Helen did not altogether despair. She meant to be so good, so obedient, she felt quite sure that she must win her stepmother at last.
"What is it that you wish for most in all the world?" she asked Harold suddenly one evening.
Mrs. Desmond had kept her room all day, and Helen and Harold, having drunk tea in the school-room, with the colonel as their guest, were sitting under an apple-tree in the orchard. The setting sun flooded the fair June landscape, and threw a glory round their young heads, showing to their half-bewildered childish eyes strange visions and "lights that never were on sea or land."
"What do I wish for most!" repeated Harold. "To do something great, I think. What is the good of living if one is only to be just like everyone else. I should like people to point me out as I went by, and to say, 'That is Harold Bayden. He did—' I wonder what I should like them to say, there are so many things it would be nice to be famous for."
"I don't think that I should care to be famous," said Helen gravely. "I should like everyone to like me. It is dreadful not to be liked."
"You can't expect everyone to like you. It is much better to have one or two people who like you very much."
"Yes. But people don't like me. I don't know why it is."
"Oh, Helen! doesn't your father like you? And I think that you are awfully jolly."
"Of course my father likes me, because he is my father. But you know that Grace and Agatha can't bear me. Perhaps you wouldn't like me, Harold, if you knew how wicked I have been."
"Nonsense, Helen!"
"It isn't nonsense, Harold. Shall I tell you? I hardly like to speak of it. It makes me shudder when I think of what might have been."
"Helen, what on earth do you mean?"
Harold's big eyes were fixed in amazement on his companion's face. She went on speaking more to herself than to him.
"And yet it is true, quite true, though I can scarcely believe it sometimes. And when you say that I am so much nicer and jollier than Grace and Agatha I feel like a hypocrite."
"Helen!"
"They never did what I have done. Just think, Harold, I was so angry and so wicked one day that I tried to run away. Father followed me and brought me back, and he didn't scold me a bit, but he was so sorry that he cried—actuallycried. Did you know that a man could cry?"
"I am not sure," said Harold meditatively. Mr. Bayden's manner when he was unduly annoyed by parochial matters, or provoked by his son's iniquities, was often suggestive of tears, consequently the idea of a man's crying presented nothing very tragic to Harold's imagination. Besides, he was a little puzzled by the intensity of Helen's manner, and scarcely understood her.
"I don't see that there was anything very wicked in running away. Of course you would have gone back. What else could you have done? And I daresay you were provoked." Harold spoke soothingly. He knew what it was to be provoked himself, and had had his own dreams of running away to sea, dreams which, it must be allowed, had never shaped themselves very distinctly in his brain. Still, in virtue of them he could sympathize most fully with Helen in her small escapade.
"Yes; but, Harold, you don't understand," she went on. "It was coming out after me on that bitter night that nearly killed my father. Just think: if—if he had died I should have killed him." Helen's voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands.
"Don't, Helen," said Harold after a moment's perplexed pause. "You didn't, you see. It is all right. Very likely your father would have been ill anyway. And besides—"
"No, Harold, it is no good saying those things," burst out Helen. "As long as I live I shall always see father lying on his bed, too feeble almost to speak, and I shall have the feeling that it was for me. I try to forget it, but it always comes back. I should like to be able to do something very hard for him or for—mamma, just to prove how sorry I am."
"Did he really look as if he were going to die?" asked Harold rather irrelevantly.
Helen nodded. To speak the words again hurt her.
"I wonder what dying is like?" went on Harold.
Suddenly, and almost as he spoke, the sun dropped behind a bank of red clouds. A little breeze sprang up and murmured in the trees overhead.
Helen shuddered and drew closer to her companion.
"It must be very awful," he went on. "And to think that the world will go on just the same when we are gone. The sun will shine and the birds will sing, and we shall be lying in the dreadful cold earth. It is horrible."
"I used to think just like that once, Harold," whispered Helen half-shyly. "I was dreadfully afraid of all sorts of things. I used to think after I had been naughty that perhaps I should go to sleep and wake up in hell. One day I told Cousin Mary—you don't know Cousin Mary, do you? It is so easy to talk to her; one can tell heranything. She thinks that dying will be only like going to sleep in the dark. We shall be a little frightened, perhaps, but we shall know all the time that nothing bad can really happen to us. And if any pain comes to us afterwards it will be quite different from the pain that we suffer now—pain that will never make us impatient or angry, because we shall be able then to understand that it is bringing us nearer to God and heaven. Cousin Mary says that is the end of all pain, only we are not able to understand it quite now."
"Cousin Mary must say very odd things," observed Harold, who had been trying to fathom Helen's meaning, and who felt hopelessly puzzled. "Mother says that she is odd, and father says that some of her notions are not—I forget the word; but they never ask her to stay with us. Is she really very nice?"
"Very," answered Helen emphatically.
There was a pause. Both children were busy with their own thoughts. They made a striking picture as they sat close together beneath the gnarled apple-tree, the dying sunset lights lingering on their fair young heads—a picture that was not without its pathos, because life must pass that way, life—and death.
"I expect that it is getting late, and I ought to be going home," said Harold after a few minutes, wearying of silence, and beginning to feel that even Agatha's teasing would have a refreshingly every-day sound after such serious thoughts.
Helen rose rather reluctantly.
"Very well," she said. "Let us go in and say good-night to father, and afterwards I will walk with you as far as the gate."
"And I say, Helen, you won't forget to cut out those wheels for me to-morrow morning, will you? They must match exactly, remember. And if you could pull out and stretch that wire——"
"I sha'n't forget, Harold. You needn't fear. But, by the way, you never told me about Jim Hunt."
"I heard father saying that he was very ill indeed. Mother stopped him from saying more when she saw that I was there. I was thinking about him just now. I used to hate him sometimes when he sat in the choir and screamed in my ear. But I'm sorry for him now. I wish I hadn't hated him. Father spoke as if he thought he was going to die."
"Couldn't we do something for him?" suggested practical Helen.
"I have sixpence," returned Harold, "if that would do."
Helen shook her head.
"You can't give people money when they are ill. I'll tell you what I might do. I'll ask father if I may gather some strawberries and take them to a sick boy in the village. If you come to-morrow morning directly your lessons are over we might take them together."
"It won't do for Agatha to know. I should never hear the end of it. And, besides, she hates poor people."
"No one need know. Father never asks any questions. He will just say, 'Do as you like.' He is sure to say nothing."
Harold was silent for a moment. A little struggle was going on his mind. He knew that his mother would have disapproved of the project, and that he was never allowed to go near any cottage where sickness was. But he was sorry for Jim Hunt, who had done him many a rough kindness, kindnesses which Harold was conscious of having often ill requited, and he really longed to do the village lad this small service.
"Don't you care to come, Harold?" asked Helen in surprised tones. She was a little annoyed that her plan had not immediately approved itself to Harold, never guessing the reason for his hesitation. "I can go by myself if you are afraid of Agatha."
"I am not afraid of Agatha, and of course I will go too. The strawberries won't be my present, but I will tell Jim that I will give him the engine I am making now when it is finished. And I say, Helen, we might call it 'Jim,' mightn't we? I daresay that would please him."
"I'm sure it would. Then it is settled. I shall be waiting for you in the orchard to-morrow. If we walk fast across the fields we can stay a little while with Jim and get back in plenty of time for lunch."
No hitch occurred in the projected arrangements. Mrs. Desmond still kept her room on the following day. Colonel Desmond gladly complied with his little daughter's request, and Helen, basket in hand, was awaiting Harold in the orchard some time before the appointed hour, which, however, passed without bringing him. At last she saw him running across the grass.
"How late you are! I began to think you weren't coming," she cried.
Harold's face was flushed, and did not wear its best expression.
"I came as soon as I could," he said. "Of course, as I was in a hurry everything went wrong. IhateLatin. Why need one learn what one doesn't like? And Agatha—"
"Never mind Agatha," interrupted Helen soothingly. "You have come; that is the great thing. Let us start at once. We can talk as we go."
"How fast you are walking!" said Harold presently, a little note of fretfulness in his voice as, beneath a blazing noonday sun, Helen half-ran across the fields, her companion toiling after her.
"Because we must make haste," returned Helen rather sharply, looking round at Harold. Then she stopped short suddenly. "What is the matter?" she asked in altered tones. "Aren't you well? Let me go alone, and you can wait in the shade till I come back."
"Nonsense, Helen!" said Harold, still fretfully. "I am quite well, only I am hot, and you will walk so fast."
Helen did not reply. She altered her pace and began to talk on other subjects; but Harold was singularly quiet and unresponsive.
In a few minutes the children arrived at a stile, and, leaving the fields, passed into a narrow lane, from which, by a plank that crossed a black, festering ditch, they reached a group of low thatched houses, very picturesque in appearance, but telling a tale of age and decay. Towards one of these, rather larger than the rest, and separated from the road by a strip of garden, Harold now led the way, closely followed by Helen. Harold knocked at the door, and a gruff voice cried "Come in!" Harold walked in boldly; Helen followed timidly. These scenes were new to her, and she felt terribly shy.
The Hunt family was seated at dinner. The father, in his rough working clothes, had already pushed an almost untasted plate of food away from him, but several flaxen heads were busy over the table, whilst Mrs. Hunt, a hard-featured woman, was bustling about and speaking in a sharp, high-pitched key.
"Lor'! be it you, Master Harold?" cried the man, whilst the woman dropped a saucepan lid in her astonishment.
"I—we came to ask about Jim," said Harold.
"Well, he bean't no better as I can see," returned the man. "You can tell the parson so."
"I didn't come from my father, I came for myself," said Harold stoutly; "and please we should like to see Jim if we may."
Husband and wife exchanged glances.
"Won't the young lady sit down?" asked Mrs. Hunt, after an instant's pause, dusting a chair for Helen with her apron.
"No, thank you," replied Helen, "we only came to see Jim, and we haven't much time."
"Let 'em go, then, if they wull," observed the man, answering his wife's unspoken question.
"He won't know you," said Mrs. Hunt, whose eyes were fixed on Helen's basket; "and it's no good giving him things he can't swallow. But if Master Harold and the young lady like to go upstairs they're welcome. He's lying in the room right atop of the stairs. You'll find the door open to keep the room cool."
The visitors needed no second bidding. Stumbling up the dark rotten staircase they soon found themselves in the room where, on a rough bed, Jim, with wide open, blank eyes, lay tossing and tumbling. The atmosphere here was less oppressive than that below, and through the tiny window a little breeze came, and the sunlight made one golden patch upon the rough, dirty floor.
"Don't you know us, Jim?" asked Harold, going up to the sick boy and bending over him.
Jim only replied by an unmeaning stare, and began to mutter inaudibly.
"See, Jim, we have brought you some strawberries," said Helen, advancing and opening her basket.
A glance of intelligence passed over the lad's face as he looked from Helen to the strawberries, but it faded directly, and the low muttering recommenced.
"Can't we do anything for him?" asked Harold in a whisper.
"I think that we might make him more comfortable," said Helen, beginning with deft fingers to straighten the bed-clothes and raise the pillows. "And see, his poor mouth is parched. We might moisten his lips."
"Well, miss, you are kind, to be sure," said Mrs. Hunt's voice from the doorway; "I can't do for him as I would. There's the children; they must be seen to, and the fowls and the pigs. He was a good lad to me, though he is not my own, and we never had a wrong word, never."
"Won't he get better?" asked Harold.
"I don't believe as he will," returned the woman. "The very night as he was took I says to his father, he's took for death. And I believe my words is coming true."
"Water!" murmured Jim, a look of consciousness stealing into his fever-stricken eyes.
The woman hastened to his side and gave the water, not unkindly.
"Who's that?" he asked, pointing at Harold.
"Why, Jim, don't you know? That's Master Harold come to see you. And the young lady from the Grange, she—" But Jim was already beginning to wander again, and both Harold and Helen were almost due at home, and dared not prolong their stay.
"It is so dreadful for him to be alone," said Helen as they stumbled down-stairs preceded by Mrs. Hunt. "May I come and sit with him this afternoon?"
Mrs. Hunt assented. She did not want the young lady "bothering about," but it would never do to risk falling out with the Grange. So it was arranged that Helen should return, and then she and Harold started off homewards at a rapid pace. It did occur to Helen to ask her father's permission for this second visit, but when she arrived at home she found that he was out and not expected back until late in the afternoon. Mrs. Desmond was still upstairs, and Helen lunched alone, and afterwards, her head still full of poor Jim, took a few restless turns up and down the garden walks, and then set out for the village.
Upon the village a sort of afternoon calm seemed to have fallen. The children were in school, the men at work in the fields, a few of the women were straw-plaiting and gossiping idly at their doors, and these stared and whispered one to another as Helen passed them on her way to the Hunts' cottage. Here all was silent, save that through the open window overhead a sound of Jim's unintelligible muttering could be heard occasionally.
"It's you, miss, is it?" said Mrs. Hunt, appearing at last in answer to Helen's timid knocking; "go up if you like. Nobody can do any good, I'm afeard. But it's kind of you to come."
Helen made no answer, but climbed the narrow staircase and entered the sick boy's room. There was no change since her last visit, although she fancied that Jim's face brightened a little as she went in. Very gently she attended to his comfort, and she even succeeded in making him swallow some milk that stood by his bedside. Then he closed his eyes, and she went and sat down by the window, wondering whether a sense of human companionship was the comfort to Jim that she fancied it would be to herself under similar circumstances. Very slowly the afternoon wore on. Every now and then the sick boy stirred and recommenced his confused talk. Such strange talk it seemed to Helen to come from dying lips. It was his work that troubled him. The fowls that would lay away, the cows that he could not milk, the sheep that would stray. And he was always late, and father would come home and be angry.
"Poor Jim! perhaps his work is all done. Perhaps no one will ever be angry with him any more," thought Helen, tears rising to her eyes. Seen in this light it did occur to her that dying was not such a very sad thing after all. Here was Jim, whose life had been a hard one, who had known no pleasures, who was stupid, every one said, and whom no one had cared for much. That very night, perhaps, he would know more than the wisest man living; he might be seeing more beautiful things than we can even picture, and be making the most wonderful discoveries about that undying love which Cousin Mary had said was always about us from the moment we were born. And on earth no one would speak his name save gently, no one would remember that he was plain and silly, but he would be thought of tenderly, and even those who had not loved him would have a sigh to give to his memory.
"Was dying so very sad after all?" Helen was still asking herself this question, when from below there came a sound of merry laughter, and of trampling childish feet. The children were coming out from school, and simultaneously the whole village seemed to wake up. Boys shouted and played; lowing cows were brought in to be milked; the women began their preparations for the evening meal, and, from their open doorways, called loudly upon their respective children. Life was there; and here was death. Poor Jim! never to mingle with his fellows again; never to feel the warm sun and the soft air; to go away from the cheerful day into the dark unknown. Yes; it was dreadful, dreadful, and Helen buried her face in her hands to shut out the sad picture.
Just then she heard a sound of voices below. Mrs. Hunt was talking volubly, but who was she addressing? Not her husband certainly. Perhaps it was the doctor. Helen felt a little shamefaced at the idea of being caught watching beside the sick boy, and she advanced to the door to see if there was any chance of escape. Then she felt still more perturbed, for she recognized Mr. Bayden's voice speaking in quick nervous tones.
"Of course, Mrs. Hunt," he was saying, "if I could do the poor lad any good, I would see him directly. But you say that he knows nobody."
"Well, I can't say that exactly. He seemed to brighten up like when Master Harold came in this morning. Not that—"
"Master Harold!"
The words were gasped out in quick, agitated accents.
"Yes, sir; why, bless me! I thought you sent him, him and the young lady from the Grange. They come just as we was sittin' at dinner, and I says to Hunt, says I, I do take it kind like—"
"Do you mean that Master Harold was here this morning? That he saw Jim?"
"I do, sir; and the young lady—"
But there was no need for any more of Mrs. Hunt's roundabout statements. Helen had already guessed from Mr. Bayden's agitated tones that something was wrong, and she now appeared upon the scene.
"What are you doing here?" cried the clergyman, catching sight of her.
"I—I only came to see Jim, he seemed so lonely," faltered Helen. "I am very sorry if I did wrong. Please don't blame Harold. It was all my doing that we came."
"Oh! what have you done! what have you done!" cried Mr. Bayden, wringing his hands. "Come home with me directly. I must see your father."
"Well, I never!" ejaculated Mrs. Hunt in some indignation; whilst Helen, still bewildered, prepared to obey.
"My good woman, don't attempt to interfere," said Mr. Bayden testily, trying to control himself. "Anything that I can do for the poor lad, of course, as a clergyman, I am prepared to do. But I cannot risk my children. Here is money. Get anything that is needed for Jim."
"A pretty clergyman!" muttered Mrs. Hunt, looking sullenly at the money that still lay upon the table, as though half inclined to throw it after its donor, who was by this time half-way down the village street, followed by Helen. "Well, it's lucky for him Jim is none o' mine, or I'd have given him a piece of my mind. A pretty clergyman!"
Mr. Bayden meanwhile, who would have been the last person in the world to wound Mrs. Hunt's feelings wilfully, and who was quite unconscious that in his terror and excitement he had omitted to explain to her the cause of his perturbation at Harold's visit, was half-way across the fields leading to the Grange before he had sufficiently recovered himself even to address Helen.
"Am I walking too fast for you?" he said then.
"Oh, no!" answered Helen, who was nearly out of breath with her efforts to keep up with her companion. "I hope you won't be angry with Harold," she added timidly. "I am quite sure my father won't mind my having gone."
"Not mind your having gone!" repeated Mr. Bayden. "It was a most wicked, thoughtless act. And to lead Harold into mischief too! My poor Harold!"
"Oh, Mr. Bayden, is anything the matter with Harold?"
Helen's agonized tones touched the clergyman, preoccupied as he was.
"I don't know," he returned more gently. "He ate no lunch, and he complained of headache this afternoon. It may be nothing."
"But why—why?" began Helen, when, to her joy, she saw her father a little ahead of them.
"There is father!" she cried joyfully, running after him. Her tale was nearly told before Mr. Bayden came up to them.
"What has my little girl been doing?" asked the colonel, smiling. "Interfering with your sick folk? No harm done, I hope."
"I hope not," answered Mr. Bayden tremulously. "But—shall I speak before her?"
"Run on, Helen," said the colonel. "Now," he went on as Helen obeyed, an anxious look gathering on his face, "what is it?"
"Just this. I met the doctor this afternoon, and he fears an epidemic in the village. Jim Hunt is dying, may be dead already. He ought to have been isolated from the first. But our regular doctor is away, and this one has no sense. As for that silly Mrs. Hunt—"
"Has the doctor pronounced the disease infectious?" interrupted the colonel impatiently.
"He doesn't know what to make of it. Two more children in the village are down with it."
"And our children have been exposed to it?"
Mr. Bayden nodded.
"I am sorry, Bayden," resumed the colonel. "Let us hope that no harm will come of it. Helen has been thoughtless. I will speak to her. The less said to anyone else the better. I daresay it would only unnecessarily alarm your wife. Come in now and have some tea."
"Don't ask me," cried the clergyman, his excitement rising again. "Harold was not well when I left home. Nothing but duty would have taken me out. Good-bye, good-bye!"
Mr. Bayden hurried away a good deal annoyed with Colonel Desmond for his apparent unconcern, and resolved to impart the whole affair to his wife as soon as possible.
Helen rejoined her father.
"Oh, Helen!" said the latter gravely, "this is a bad business. What could have induced you to go to the Hunts' cottage, and to take Harold with you? I am really vexed with you."
"Indeed, father," faltered Helen, "I did not think that I was doing anything wrong."
"Didn't you know that Jim has a fever. And now Mr. Bayden says that Harold has taken it."
Helen gave a little cry and buried her face in her hands. She understood it all now, Mr. Bayden's distress and her father's annoyance. And Harold? Then her thoughts stopped, they dared not travel further.
"Let this be a lesson to you, Helen," went on the colonel seriously, still annoyed and a little anxious, although sorry for the child's evident distress. "You are too heedless. That is at the root of all your troubles. There, run in now and get yourself cool. We mustn't have you laid up, and the heat to-day is quite Indian. Cheer up! I daresay Harold will be well to-morrow."
Thus dismissed, Helen went her way. She was very sad and downcast, and her old morbid fancies returned in full force. Two days of terrible suspense followed, during which even Mrs. Desmond remarked upon the girl's altered looks. On the third day a hurried note from Mrs. Bayden informed her sister that Harold was dangerously ill, and alluded to his visit to Jim in Helen's company in terms that there was no mistaking. Mrs. Desmond's annoyance at the reception of this information was not lessened by the fact of its having been hitherto kept from her knowledge. But Helen was too unhappy to suffer greatly from her stepmother's reproaches, too down-hearted to take comfort even from her father's assurances that Harold must have taken the fever before his visit to Jim, as otherwise it would not have declared itself so speedily.
There was, in fact, no comfort for poor Helen, not even the comfort of knowing from hour to hour how the sufferer fared. All communication between the Rectory and the Grange was stopped, and Mrs. Desmond was making hasty preparations for departure. Helen wandered about, a forlorn little figure, generally alone, but occasionally accompanied by her father.
It was upon one of these latter occasions on the very last day of their stay at the Grange, that the father and daughter, walking sadly through the lanes, encountered Mr. Bayden. The clergyman tried to pass on, but the colonel interposed.
"We're not afraid of infection here, Bayden. How is the lad?"
Mr. Bayden shook his head. "He is very, very ill," he answered brokenly.
"Dear me! Such a fine little fellow! He is sure to pull through."
"I dare not hope for it," returned the clergyman; "though I would give my life for him."
As he spoke he passed on, and the colonel and Helen continued their walk in sad silence. Colonel Desmond was half surprised at his little girl's silence. He even thought that she ought to have spoken, and hoped that she was not growing hard-hearted.
He did not look at her face, or its strained unchildlike expression might have alarmed him. Neither could he see her when, finding herself alone in her own room, she sat down and buried her face in her hands, moaning, "I would give my life for him, my life for him," while tearless sobs shook her slight frame.
No one thought of Helen through those sad days, no one pitied her. Even her father was vexed that through her thoughtlessness she had made it possible for people to say that she was answerable for Harold's illness. More and more the poor little head puzzled itself over questions that can find no answer here; but strangest of all it seemed to her to think of the days when Harold was the Rectory grievance, the bitterest drop in his mother's cup, and to contrast them with the present, when love was fighting its bitter battle over him with death.
How miserable Agatha had looked in church last Sunday! Perhaps even Agatha knew that she loved her brother now. How sad that love and tenderness should come too late! Was it always so?
Dearly as Mrs. Desmond loved London and the comforts of her own home, she had no desire to spend the last days of sultry July in Bloomsbury Square. The Grange being no longer, in her eyes, a safe abode, the difficult question now arose where next to go. Long and anxious were the consultations that took place between husband and wife upon this subject. At last Colonel Desmond, glancing over theTimesadvertisement sheet, read of a pleasure steamer which was to start for the Baltic and St. Petersburg on the 1st of August. An idea struck him. Mrs. Desmond owned some property in Russia. Would she not like to see it? The short voyage would be agreeable. They might return by Vienna and Germany. Should they go? The idea actually found favour in Mrs. Desmond's eyes. She had had no experience of travelling by sea, and fancied that a voyage would be pleasant enough. And if they returned by Germany even the colonel might be brought to see the wisdom of placing Helen at one of those excellent German schools of which Mrs. Desmond had been wont to speak scornfully enough in times gone by. She did not forget that she had done so; but the knowledge that Helen had forced her to act in a manner contrary to her openly-expressed opinions added to the bitterness of her feelings towards the girl.
Rather to the colonel's surprise his wife raised no question about Helen's accompanying them on the projected trip. Longford Grange was deserted in all haste. Mrs. Desmond declared that the place had not suited her, and that she was thankful to see the last of it. Neither was the colonel sorry. Only Helen's heart ached as she drove with her parents through the village on her way to the station, straining her eyes to catch a last glimpse of the Rectory, where Harold lay, as they had just heard, between life and death.
"My poor sister!" sighed Mrs. Desmond, who was in a pleasant mood, thankful to be getting safely away from the neighbourhood of the fever. "My poor sister! No doubt she will feel the boy's loss; but, after all, there will be one less to provide for. And Harold was the most troublesome of them all. These trials are often blessings in disguise."
"Nonsense!" said the colonel, with a quick glance at Helen. "Harold will live to trouble them yet. You see if he doesn't. And as for his being troublesome, it's my belief that parents like the tiresome children best."
Mrs. Desmond pursed up her thin lips, and glanced at Helen in her turn.
"You speak without knowledge, John," she returned coldly. "To love a child that is continually paining you is impossible. It is a piece of modern cant to say that it is. Of course one must do one'sdutytowards a troublesome child. That is what you mean, I suppose."
The colonel merely shrugged his shoulders and made no reply. He did not find his wife charming when she took this tone.
"I know some one who is sorry to leave Longford," he said after a pause, looking kindly at Helen, who, white and silent, sat opposite to her father.
"Sorry!" began Helen half-stupidly. She was putting a strong restraint upon herself, for she dreaded showing any feeling before her stepmother.
"Surely Helen must be rather glad than sorry," interposed the latter. "If I were in her place I should pray that I might never see Longford again."
Both the colonel and Helen understood Mrs. Desmond's meaning. But although the former threw himself back with an impatient gesture, while Helen's lips quivered and her cheeks flushed, they both took refuge in silence, which remained unbroken until the station was reached.
A fortnight later and the days at Longford seemed almost like a dream to Helen, so changed were the outward surroundings of her life.
The steamer in which our friends had embarked had reached the landlocked Baltic. The lingering northern twilight was slowly, reluctantly giving place to night, such night as northern latitudes know even in late summer, when a sort of delicate gray veil, through which every object is distinctly visible, shrouds the earth for a few hours between sunset and sunrise. These nights possess a poetical charm that almost defies description, a charm that touches the most unimaginative with a vague sense of the nearness of an intangible other-world. There is a darkening and a hush. Nature, weary with the long day, rests; but rests, as it were, awake, waiting for the quick-coming dawn. Helen, sitting a little apart from a merry group of fellow-passengers on the steamer's deck, was under the spell of this wonderful summer's night. There are certain phases in nature which seem to work upon highly-strung people until they experience a kind of spiritual quickening, some such quickening as we imagine may come to us after death. It was this influence that was upon Helen now. The day had passed pleasantly enough except for one incident. Mrs. Desmond had not found the voyage come up to her expectations. In crossing the North Sea she had been horribly sea-sick, and now, although scarcely a ripple disturbed the surface of the Baltic, she found it hard to forget her previous sufferings. Upon this day, however, she had ventured up on deck for the first time. Helen, noticing her stepmother shivering, had run unasked to fetch her a wrap. Heedlessly catching up the first she could find, a white fleecy shawl, she ran up the companion with it in her hand. Just as she reached the top a steward, carrying a plate of soup, passed her. How it came about Helen scarcely knew, but the ship lurched, and the contents of the plate were bestowed upon the delicate white shawl. Mrs. Desmond from her chair watched the scene, and gave a little cry of dismay as she saw the rich soup dyeing her favourite shawl.
Tears rushed to Helen's eyes.
"I am very sorry," she stammered, going forward slowly and hanging her head.
Inwardly Mrs. Desmond felt convinced that Helen had acted from first to last with the sole purpose of annoying her. A good many people, however, were sitting and standing near her, and she controlled her anger.
"Why did you fetch the shawl?" she asked coldly.
"I—I thought it would make you more comfortable."
There was a second's pause, during which Mrs. Desmond mentally decided that Helen was lying deliberately.
"Take the thing away, please," she said at last. "It is utterly ruined. The very sight of it makes me feel ill."
"What an unlucky little girl it is!" said Colonel Desmond, patting Helen's shoulder as she turned silently away.
"And what a pity to see such a lovely shawl ruined!" ejaculated a lady who was sitting next to Mrs. Desmond, and who thought that that lady had displayed remarkable forbearance.
"What an unlucky little girl!" The words haunted Helen all day. They rang in her ears persistently. Was she unlucky? Would she always be unlucky? always doing things that hurt others? Would she never have a chance of showing that she was not really wicked? that she longed to do those sweet gracious actions that came so naturally from some people? Would no one ever love her except her father, whom she was always disappointing, whose chief trouble and anxiety she was, her stepmother said?
"I try, I try!" cried Helen to herself; "but I always do the wrong thing. I am unlucky."
Dusky night came on. No one noticed Helen as she sat alone in her quiet corner. Mrs. Desmond had retired long ago. Colonel Desmond had gone his own way, imagining his little girl safely in bed. Gradually the various groups of passengers dispersed, calling out merry good-nights to one another. Silence fell, broken only by the faint lapping of the sea against the ship as she went swiftly through the water.
With wide-open eyes, full of sad questionings, Helen looked out over the still waters and watched a faint coast-line that showed itself far away against the horizon. There was no moon visible, only that curious gray shroud veiled sea and sky, making everything look unreal and ghost-like, its effect heightened by the peculiar stillness of the sultry atmosphere.
Intensely wide awake, Helen sat and watched, while every incident in her short life seemed to pass in review before her. More vividly than any other, there came back to her the scene in Jim Hunt's dying chamber. She could almost have fancied that she was sitting once more by the little open window, listening to the sick boy's rambling talk, while the children shouted and laughed below.
Then the scene changed. What had happened? Where was the ship and the gray waters and shadowy, distant land? Had she been dreaming? Where was she?
In a sick-room, not bare and comfortless like Jim Hunt's, but bright and cheerful, lit with shaded lamps, and filled with tokens of thoughtful love. On the bed someone was lying, but from where Helen stood only a curly head was visible. At a small table by the bedside sat a lady, busy, apparently, over a gaily-coloured scrap-book. Her back was turned to Helen, but as the girl advanced timidly she raised her head and said: "I think I have done enough to-night, Harold. I will put the rest in to-morrow." "Not to-morrow;" and the little figure in its eagerness tried, though vainly, to raise itself in bed. "Not to-morrow. Mother, mother, do finish it to-night."
Helen clasped her hands. This was Harold. She pressed forward and tried to speak, but no words came. It was all curious, for Mrs. Bayden must surely see her now, and yet she made no sign. Helen looked at Harold, but his eyes were closed.
Mrs. Bayden glanced anxiously at Harold and then bent once more over the scrap-book. Helen stood quite still, gazing at Harold. His beautiful rounded face had grown pale and pinched, and it was almost difficult to recognize him, so changed was he. He lay quite still for what seemed to Helen a long time, but at last he moved and opened his eyes. Then he saw Helen standing at the foot of his bed, and he sat up and stretched out his arms to her, his face beaming with joy.
"Helen, Helen!" he cried. "Don't you see her, mother? I am coming. Helen, wait for me."
As the sound of his voice died away, the vision faded. Helen looked round, and found herself upon the sea, and heard again the water lapping against the ship. Only there was a change. The air was cold and charged with moisture. The distant coast-line had disappeared from sight, and the delicate gray veil had given place to a thick mist, through which the pale dawn strove in vain to pierce.
She sat quite still, trying to collect her thoughts. The impression left upon her by her dream was so vivid that it was at first impossible to believe that she had been asleep, and even when she succeeded in persuading herself that this had been the case the conviction remained that Harold lived, that he was waiting for her, and that they would meet again. This conviction gave her neither pleasure nor pain, but was so settled that it would have surprised her more to have seen her father standing beside her than Harold. She was curiously tranquillized too. All the vain longings and regrets that had troubled her so sorely of late were stilled. She felt quite happy and at rest, and regardless of the rolling mist which seemed to be closing in round the ship, she curled herself up in her long chair and fell fast asleep.
The child slept soundly, although the mist thickened and increased rapidly, and the captain, hastily aroused, paced the deck anxiously. Speed was reduced, all hands were on the alert, and discordant blasts on the fog-horn disturbed the quiet. Still Helen did not stir, until, suddenly, from the look-out there came a ringing cry, "Ship ahead!" Then she started up and saw what looked through the mist like a phantom ship bearing down upon the doomed vessel on which she stood. Half paralysed by vague fear, although quite ignorant of the reality of the peril, Helen remained rooted to the spot, whilst a few minutes of agonizing suspense ensued, and the captain's voice rang out his orders and each man went to his post. Then came a crash, a shock, under which the vessel shuddered like a living thing, and, almost as it seemed the next moment, the phantom-like ship, her deadly work done, was moving away, disregarding the affrighted shrieks with which the air was suddenly filled.
The passengers, rudely awakened, rushed on deck. Cries and shrieks were soon redoubled, for almost immediately after she was struck the ship stopped, and it became known that water was pouring into the engine-room, extinguishing the fires. There followed a few minutes of indescribable confusion, during which the men held bravely to their posts, until, once more, and for the last time, the captain's voice rang out clear and calm from the bridge:
"All hands clear away the boats! Save yourselves! To the boats!"
Instantly there was a rush for the boats, one of which was lashed to the ship close to where Helen was standing wringing her hands and calling wildly for her father.
Before the boat could be lowered it was filled, but a ship's officer, compassionating the lonely, terrified child, was just about to place Helen in the already heavily-weighted craft, when a woman, who, with a child in her arms, had just managed to scramble in, started up, screaming:
"My boy, my boy! He is not here! Save him, oh, save him!"
At sound of her voice a delicate, lame boy, between whom and Helen there had been a sort of friendship, pressed forward, but was instantly borne back by the excited crowd.
"Help him, I can manage for myself," said Helen, disengaging herself from her would-be deliverer's grasp and pointing to the boy.
There was no time for parleying. Crying, "Make way for the women and children," the officer, fancying that Helen also was safe, thrust the lame boy over the ship's side, and the over-filled boat moved away.
This half-instinctive act of generosity restored Helen to her presence of mind. The frantic crowd that had surged round her melted away as the boat passed out of sight. She rallied her courage and looked around her, wondering how she could best set about finding her father.
At this period the scene was a terrible one. The vessel was sinking fast, and already, where Helen stood, the water was almost up to her knees. Heart-rending cries and pitiful prayers filled the air. Mothers were calling wildly on their children, husbands on their wives, for the heavy mist and darkness added to the horror of the scene, making it difficult for people to distinguish one another.
Obtaining no answer to her repeated cries, Helen determined to advance cautiously. Clinging to the bulwarks, stumbling at every step, half drenched with water and benumbed with cold, she scrambled on for some distance. Once or twice she fancied that she heard her father's voice calling her, and replying as well as she was able, she struggled on in the direction from which the sound came. To reach him was her one absorbing desire. She felt certain that his strong arms would save her, that he would not let her perish.
Dawn came slowly. The mists lifted, but only to show a wild waste of water ruffled by a rising wind, and the sea-horses moaning and fretting round the doomed vessel, as though waiting for their prey. Helen shivered, and her courage began to fail. The water was rising, and people were climbing into the rigging.
"Father! father!" she cried wildly; but there was no answer, only a faint moan that sounded as though it came from someone quite close to her.
Helen paused. The sound was so pitiful it arrested her attention. She looked about, and presently she descried a crouched-up figure close beside her clinging to a hand-rail that had formed part of some steps leading to the bridge. The girl put out her hand and touched the recumbent figure.
"Are you hurt?" she asked. "Can I help you?"
Helen felt her hand clutched, and the figure raised itself. Then she started back, for in the wild, terror-stricken face that met her gaze she recognized her stepmother.
"Mamma!"
"Helen!"
"Where is my father?"
The words burst from Helen's lips in agonized entreaty.
Mrs. Desmond shook her head.
"I do not know," she answered feebly. "He left me safe, as he thought. I only went back to fetch a few things that I was trying to preserve, and that he had taken from me and thrown on the deck. There was plenty of time, everyone said. And when I returned my place was taken. It was wicked, cowardly. And I have been alone ever since."
"But my father, my father?" repeated Helen impatiently.
"How can I tell? He went in search of you. It was a terrible risk; I told him so. You should have been with us."
A pang smote Helen's heart. She had been unlucky again. But for that profound sleep that had fallen upon her on deck she might easily have found her father at the first alarm.
"He cannot be far away. He would never forsake us," she said, wrenching her hand from her stepmother's grasp. "I must find him."
"O, Helen, do not leave me!" moaned Mrs. Desmond, raising herself and clinging to the girl's drenched skirts, "it is so terrible to be alone, and I am so weak. If any help came I might be passed over and forgotten. I cannot scream as some people do. Stay with me, Helen, stay with me."
Helen stood for a moment irresolute. If she remained here she must abandon all hope of finding her father, almost, it seemed to her, all hope of life. And the water was always mounting higher. She was not weak like her stepmother. If no other help was at hand she might climb with others into the rigging and wait for the aid that must surely come. And there would be always that chance of finding her father.
"If I find father he will be able to help you," she said, moving away a little.
"No, no, Helen; you must not leave me," cried Mrs. Desmond; and again she clutched the girl's hand, those strong young fingers that had closed so appealingly on hers once, but that were irresponsive now. Did a recollection of that day, when Helen had appealed to her in vain, return to Mrs. Desmond? Perhaps so, for there was a real ring of sorrow in her voice as she said:
"I daresay I have been hard upon you, Helen; but I meant to do my duty by you. And if at first—"
For once Mrs. Desmond had touched the right chord in Helen's breast. There was no need for more words. The past flashed back upon the girl's mind. Here was the chance for which she had longed, and she had been going to throw it away.
"Of course I will stay with you," she cried impulsively, flinging herself down beside her stepmother. "Don't be so sad, mamma," she went on soothingly. "Father is sure to come to us. We shall be saved, I am sure."
"Do you really think so, Helen?" moaned Mrs. Desmond. "I wish I could believe it. Couldn't you say a prayer, child? I can't remember one, although I have always said my prayers, night and morning; and I have always tried to do my duty—always."
Tenderly supporting her stepmother's head on her poor, drenched lap, Helen whispered our Lord's prayer, and then Mrs. Desmond wandered on again, wondering about this and that, and chiefly why such a terrible crisis should have come into her tranquil life.
"It has been all sorrow and trouble," she said, remembering the troubled course of the past year. "I couldn't bear you, Helen. You must forgive me. We must forgive everyone now."
With tears in her eyes Helen gave the required forgiveness. How strange it all seemed! She and her stepmother alone together, with an awful death creeping close up to them, and the understanding that would have sweetened both their lives coming too late. Presently Mrs. Desmond's mind began to wander. Helen listened to her disjointed talk, soothing her as well as she was able; raising her voice occasionally to call imploringly on her father, little dreaming that he, having left his wife as he believed in safety, and having received an assurance from a ship's officer that Helen had been placed in the first boat that left the ship, had provided himself with a life-buoy, and was now battling with the waves, trusting to the chance of keeping himself afloat and of being eventually picked up by a passing vessel.
The desire of life was strong in Helen. It was terrible to her to remain inactive and to watch the water gradually engulfing the ship. Sometimes she felt almost unable to endure it longer; but at her least movement Mrs. Desmond would start up, imploring her to remain.
"I would come back," she said once or twice. "I only want to find another place where we might be a little safer. The water is coming in upon us so fast."
But Mrs. Desmond was almost past fear itself now, and her only reply was to cling yet more closely to the lithe young figure by her side; and Helen could not steel her heart against such an appeal.
Still the ordeal was a terrible one. Awful as the scene had been when the vessel had first struck, it became more appalling now, as, gradually, cries were hushed, those few left upon the wreck reserving all their strength for their fight with death, and the cold dawn showed still only that vast expanse of gray, seething waters, unbroken by even a passing sail. Helen's heart sank within her. Must it come, this awful death? Was there no help anywhere? The strong life within her rebelled at the thought, and she looked round her, wondering whether her strength would enable her to drag Mrs. Desmond with her to a place of greater safety. Still holding her stepmother's hand, she managed to drag herself to her feet, and as she did so she caught sight of a rude raft, composed of a few planks hastily fastened together, on which two men were standing, having apparently just put off from the wreck.
"Help!" she cried.
The raft drifted on and there came no answer. With the courage of despair she repeated her cry, and the men looked round. Possibly the sight of the forlorn childish figure standing, as it appeared, utterly alone on the doomed vessel, touched them, for, notwithstanding the danger of returning to the fast-submerging wreck, they altered their course and came within hail.
"You must jump!" shouted one, throwing a rope to Helen, who stood with both hands outstretched, calling out words of encouragement to Mrs. Desmond, who still clung to her, and who was too dazed with terror and exhaustion to understand that help was at hand.
"Quick!" shouted their deliverers. "Pass the rope round you and trust to it. We can come no nearer."
"Quick!" they cried again as they saw Helen stooping down and adjusting the rope, not round herself, but round a figure that lay at her feet.
"Courage, mamma, courage!" she said. "Hold fast to the rope! We are saved, we are saved!"
"Saved!" echoed Mrs. Desmond, clutching feebly at the rope. "Don't leave me, Helen."
"Come," shouted the men, "there is not a moment to lose."
"Hold fast, dear, hold fast!" said Helen, beginning to attach herself also to the rope. But it was too late. Crying "Ready?" the men pulled the rope. With a faint scream Mrs. Desmond disappeared alone into the swirling water. A minute or two later her dripping, senseless form lay upon the raft, which was itself almost engulfed immediately afterwards as, with an awful booming sound, the wreck settled down lower into the water. A rising wave caught Helen and carried her off her feet. She caught at some floating wreckage, which supported her for a moment, and looked round her for the last time. The raft had disappeared from sight. She was alone.
Day broke. The mist melted away as the sun rose sparkling on the water that, swept by a light wind, danced gaily in the glad morning light. But of the ship that had moved so gallantly over those same waters only a few short hours before, no trace remained, save here and there some floating wreckage. No trace either of the brave little soul whose perplexities were all over now, who would never be unlucky any more, to whom death had come gently and tenderly at last, and to whom it had been given to offer the supremest sacrifice, even its own life, for another.
Colonel and Mrs. Desmond were amongst the survivors on that fatal night, whose terrible events cost the latter a long and painful illness. On her recovery she burst into tears when Helen's name was mentioned in her presence for the first time. Whether she was fully conscious of her stepdaughter's heroic behaviour towards her no one ever exactly knew. Her husband learnt much of what had passed through her ravings during her illness, but he dreaded recurring to so painful a subject. Very sadly, after many months had elapsed, they returned to their home in Bloomsbury Square, and from that day forward no untoward event occurred to mar the outward calm of the lives of this middle-aged couple as they went down into what seemed serene old age; but the colonel's hair whitened rapidly, and Mrs. Desmond realized too late all that she had missed.
Spring was in the land once more when Colonel and Mrs. Desmond, aged and saddened, stood again in sight of Longford Grange. Mrs. Desmond trembled as she walked, and the colonel took her hand gently and led her towards the churchyard. There, at the head of a little mound, bright with spring flowers, a marble cross had been placed. On it was written—
And below—
Mrs. Desmond knelt down and kissed the cold stone. "If I had but loved her," she said.