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Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.




"What's to be done now?" she thought, as she put the ring in a drawer.
"Shall I go down and explain--say I was out for a stroll?"--She shook her
head.--"Won't do now--I should have had more presence of mind a minute
ago. Augustina would suspect a hundred things. It's really dramatic.
Shall I go down? He didn't see my face--no, that I'll answer for! Here's
for it!"

She pulled out the golden mass of her hair till it made a denser frame
than usual round her brow, looked at her white dress--shook her head
dubiously--laughed at her own flushed face in the glass, and calmly went
downstairs.

She found an anxious group in the great bare servants' hall. The old man,
supported by pillows, was stretched on a wooden settle, with Helbeck,
Augustina, and Mrs. Denton standing by. The first things she saw were the
old peasant's closed eyes and pallid face--then Helbeck's grave and
puzzled countenance above him. The Squire turned at Miss Fountain's step.
Did she imagine it--or was there a peculiar sharpness in his swift
glance?

Mrs. Denton had just been administering a second dose of brandy, and was
apparently in the midst of her own report to her master of Scarsbrook's
story.

"'I wor just aboot to pass her,' he said, 'when I nawticed 'at her feet
made noa noise. She keäm glidin--an glidin--an my hair stood reet oop--it
lifted t'whole top o' my yed. An she gaed passt me like a puff o'
wind--as cauld as ice--an I wor mair deed nor alive. An I luked afther
her, an she vanisht i' th' varra middle o' t' path. An my leet went
oot--an I durstn't ha gane on, if it wor iver so--so I juist crawled back
tet hoose----'"

"The door in the wall!" thought Laura. "He didn't know it was there."

She had remained in the background while Mrs. Denton was speaking, but
now she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, and
flounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As she
passed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had become
something more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer,
and himself thrust his hands into his pockets and moved away.

"Have you sent for anyone?" said Laura to Mrs. Fountain.

"Yes. Wilson's gone in the pony cart for the wife. And if he doesn't come
round by the time she gets here--some one will have to go for the doctor,
Alan?"

She looked round vaguely.

"Of course. Wilson must go on," said Helbeck from the distance. "Or I'll
go myself."

"But he is coming round," said Laura, pointing.

"If yo'll nobbut move oot o' t' way, Miss, we'll be able to get at 'im,"
said Mrs. Denton sharply. Laura hastily obeyed her. The housekeeper
brought more brandy; then signs of returning force grew stronger, and by
the time the wife appeared the old fellow was feebly beginning to move
and look about him.

Amid the torrent of lamentations, questions, and hypotheses that the wife
poured forth, Laura withdrew into the background. But she could not
prevail on herself to go. Daring or excitement held her there, till the
old man should be quite himself again.

He struggled to his feet at last, and said, with a long sigh that was
still half a shudder, "Aye--noo I'll goa home--Lisbeth."

He was a piteous spectacle as he stood there, still trembling through all
his stunted frame, his wrinkled face drawn and bloodless, his grey hair
in a tragic confusion. Suddenly, as he looked at his wife, he said with a
clear solemnity, "Lisbeth--I ha' got my death warrant!"

"Don't say any such thing, Scarsbrook," said Helbeck, coming forward to
support him. "You know I don't believe in this ghost business--and never
did. You saw some stranger in the park--and she passed you too quickly
for you to see where she went to. You may be sure that'll turn out to be
the truth. You remember--it's a public path--anybody might be there. Just
try and take that view of it--and don't fret, for your wife's sake. We'll
make inquiries, and I'll come and see you to-morrow. And as for death
warrants, we're all in God's care, you know--don't forget that."

He smiled with a kindly concern and pity on the old man. But Scarsbrook
shook his head.

"It wur t' Bannisdale Lady," he repeated; "I've often heerd on
her--often--and noo I've seen her."

"Well, to-morrow you'll be quite proud of it," said Helbeck cheerfully.
"Come, and let me put you into the cart. I think, if we make a
comfortable seat for you, you'll be fit to drive home now."

Supported by the Squire's strong arm on one side, and his wife on the
other, Scarsbrook managed to hobble down the long passage leading to the
door in the inner courtyard, where the pony cart was standing. It was
evident that his perceptions were still wholly dazed. He had not
recognised or spoken to anyone in the room but the Squire--not even to
his old crony Mrs. Denton.

Laura drew a long breath.

"Augustina, do go to bed," she said, going up to her stepmother--"or
you'll be ill next."

Augustina allowed herself to be led upstairs. But it was long before she
would let her stepdaughter leave her. She was full of supernatural
terrors and excitements, and must talk about all the former appearances
of the ghost--the stories that used to be told in her childhood--the new
or startling details in the old man's version, and so forth. "What could
he have meant by the light on the hand?" she said wondering. "I never
heard of that before. And she used always to be in grey; and now he says
that she had a black dress from top to toe."

"Their wardrobes are so limited--poor damp, sloppy things!" said Laura
flippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose this
nonsense will be all over the country-side to-morrow, Augustina?"

"What do you _really_ think he saw, Laura?" cried Mrs. Fountain, wavering
between doubt and belief.

"Goodness!--don't ask me." Miss Fountain shrugged her small shoulders. "I
don't keep a family ghost."

* * * * *

When at last Augustina had been settled in bed, and persuaded to take
some of her sleeping medicine, Laura was bidding her good-night, when
Mrs. Fountain said, "Oh! I forgot, Laura--there was a letter brought in
for you from the post-office, by Wilson this afternoon--he gave it to
Mrs. Denton, and she forgot it till after dinner----"

"Of course--because it was mine," said Laura vindictively. "Where is it?"

"On the drawing-room chimney-piece."

"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck."

"Oh! no--it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study."

Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consulting
her watch.

For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall in
with Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself had
anyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were in
tumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, her
brain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which she
had observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of that
conversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while she
was by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before?
Well!--if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send her
away--by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, was
in all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to lead
her life as she pleased.

Nevertheless--as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle in
her hand--Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping.
During the months following her father's death, these agonies of crying
had come upon her night after night--unseen by any human being. She felt
now the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't have
this excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "No
nerves would stand it."

A light under the library door. Well and good. How--she wondered--did he
occupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice she
had heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock.

Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door,
and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp still
burned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr.
Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture of
astonishment.

Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr.
Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing.

"Augustina told me there was a letter for me this evening."

"Of course. It is here on the mantelpiece. I ought to have remembered
it."

He took up the letter and held it towards her. Then suddenly he paused,
and sharply withdrawing it, he placed it on a table beside him, and laid
his hand upon it. She saw a flash of quick resolution in his face, and
her own pulses gave a throb.

"Miss Fountain, will you excuse my detaining you for a moment? I have
been thinking much about this old man's story, and the possible
explanation of it. It struck me in a very singular way. As you know, I
have never paid much attention to the ghost story here--we have never
before had a testimony so direct. Is it possible--that you might throw
some light upon it? You left us, you remember, after dinner. Did you by
chance go into the garden?--the evening was tempting, I think. If so,
your memory might possibly recall to you some--slight thing."

"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "I did go into the garden."

His eye gleamed. He came a step nearer.

"Did you see or hear anything--to explain what happened?"

She did not answer for a moment. She made a vague movement, as though to
recover her letter--looked curiously into a glass case that stood beside
her, containing a few Stuart relics and autographs. Then, with absolute
self-possession, she turned and confronted him, one hand resting on the
glass case.

"Yes; I can explain it all. I was the ghost!"

There was a moment's silence. A smile--a smile that she winced under,
showed itself on Helbeck's lip.

"I imagined as much," he said quietly.

She stood there, torn by different impulses. Then a passion of annoyance
with herself, and anger with him, descended on her.

"Now perhaps you would like to know why I concealed it?" she said, with
all the dignity she could command. "Simply, because I had gone out to
meet and say good-bye to a person--who is my relation--whom I cannot meet
in this house, and against whom there is here an unreasonable--" She
hesitated; then resumed, leaning obstinately on the words--"Yes! take it
all in all, it _is_ an unreasonable prejudice."

"You mean Mr. Hubert Mason?"

She nodded.

"You think it an unreasonable prejudice after what happened the other
night?"

She wavered.

"I don't want to defend what happened the other night," she said, while
her voice shook.

Helbeck observed her carefully. There was a great decision in his manner,
and at the same time a fine courtesy.

"You knew, then, that he was to be in the park? Forgive my questions.
They are not mere curiosity."

"Perhaps not," she said indifferently. "But I think I have told you all
that needs to be told. May I have my letter?"

She stepped forward.

"One moment. I wonder, Miss Fountain,"--he chose his words slowly--"if I
could make you understand my position. It is this. My sister brings a
young lady, her stepdaughter, to stay under my roof. That young lady
happens to be connected with a family in this neighbourhood, which is
already well known to me. For some of its members I have nothing but
respect--about one I happen to have a strong opinion. I have reasons, for
my opinion. I imagine that very few people of any way of thinking would
hold me either unreasonable or prejudiced in the matter. Naturally, it
gives me some concern that a young lady towards whom I feel a certain
responsibility should be much seen with this young man. He is not her
equal socially, and--pardon me--she knows nothing at all about the type
to which he belongs. Indirectly I try to warn her. I speak to my sister
as gently as I can. But from the first she rejects all I have to say--she
gives me credit for no good intention--and she will have none of my
advice. At last a disagreeable incident happens--and unfortunately the
knowledge of it is not confined to ourselves----"

Laura threw him a flashing look.

"No!--there are people who have taken care of that!" she said.

Helbeck took no notice.

"It is known not only to ourselves," he repeated steadily. "It starts
gossip. My sister is troubled. She asks you to put an end to this state
of things, and she consults me, feeling that indeed we are all in some
way concerned."

"Oh, say at once that I have brought scandal on you all!" cried Laura.
"That of course is what Sister Angela and Father Bowles have been saying
to Augustina. They are pleased to show the greatest anxiety about me--so
much so, that they most kindly wish to relieve me of the charge of
Augustina.--So I understand! But I fear I am neither docile nor
grateful!--that I never shall be grateful----"

Helbeck interrupted.

"Let us come to that presently. I should like to finish my story. While
my sister and I are consulting, trying to think of all that can be done
to stop a foolish talk and undo an unlucky incident, this same young
lady"--his voice took a cold clearness--"steals out by night to keep an
appointment with this man, who has already done her so great a
disservice. Now I should like to ask her, if all this is kind--is
reasonable--is generous towards the persons with whom she is at present
living--if such conduct is not"--he paused--"unwise towards
herself--unjust towards others."

His words came out with a strong and vibrating emphasis. Laura confronted
him with crimson cheeks.

"I think that will do, Mr. Helbeck!" she cried. "You have had your
say.--Now just let me say this,--these people were my relations--I have
no other kith and kin in the world."

He made a quick step forward as though in distress. But she put up her
hand.

"I want very much to say this, please. I knew perfectly well when I came
here that you couldn't like the Masons--for many reasons." Her voice
broke again. "You never liked Augustina's marriage--you weren't likely to
want to see anything of papa's people. I didn't ask you to see them. All
my standards and theirs are different from yours. But I prefer
theirs--not yours! I have nothing to do with yours. I was brought
up--well, to _hate_ yours--if one must tell the truth."

She paused, half suffocated, her chest heaving. Helbeck's glance
enveloped her--took in the contrast between her violent words and the
shrinking delicacy of her small form. A great melting stole over the
man's dark face. But he spoke dryly enough.

"I imagine the standards of Protestants and Catholics are pretty much
alike in matters of this kind. But don't let us waste time any more over
what has already happened. I should like, I confess, to plead with you as
to the future."

He looked at her kindly, even entreatingly. All through this scene she
had been unwittingly, angrily conscious of his personal dignity and
charm--a dignity that seemed to emerge in moments of heightened action or
feeling, and to slip out of sight again under the absent hermit-manner of
his ordinary life. She was smarting under his words--ready to concentrate
a double passion of resentment upon them, as soon as she should be alone
and free to recall them. And yet----

"As to the future," she said coldly. "That is simple enough as far as one
person is concerned. Hubert Mason is going to Froswick immediately, into
business."

"I am glad to hear it--it will be very much for his good."

He stopped a moment, searching for the word of persuasion and
conciliation.

"Miss Fountain!--if you imagine that certain incidents which happened
here long before you came into this neighbourhood had anything to do with
what I have been saying now, let me assure you--most earnestly--that it
is not so! I recognise fully that with regard to a certain case--of which
you may have heard--the Masons and their friends honestly believed that
wrong and injustice had been done. They attempted personal violence. I
can hardly be expected to think it argument! But I bear them no malice. I
say this because you may have heard of something that happened three or
four years ago--a row in the streets, when Father Bowles and I were set
upon. It has never weighed with me in the slightest, and I could have
shaken hands with old Mason--who was in the crowd, and refused to stop
the stone throwing--the day after. As for Mrs. Mason"--he looked up with
a smile--"if she could possibly have persuaded herself to come with her
daughter and see you here, my welcome would not have been wanting. But,
you know, she would as soon visit Gehenna! Nobody could be more conscious
than I, Miss Fountain, that this is a dreary house for a young lady to
live in--and----"

The colour mounted into his face, but he did not shrink from what he
meant to say.

"And you have made us all feel that you regard the practices and
observances by which we try to fill and inspire our lives, as mere
hateful folly and superstition!" He checked himself. "Is that too
strong?" he added, with a sudden eagerness. "If so, I apologise for and
withdraw it!"

Laura, for a moment, was speechless. Then she gathered her forces, and
said, with a voice she in vain tried to compose:

"I think you exaggerate, Mr. Helbeck; at any rate, I hope you do. But the
fact is, I--I ought not to have tried to bear it. Considering all that
had happened at home--it was more than I had strength for! And
perhaps--no good will come of going on with it--and it had better cease.
Mr. Helbeck!--if your Superior can really find a good nurse and companion
at once, will you kindly communicate with her? I will go to Cambridge
immediately, as soon as I can arrange with my friends. Augustina, no
doubt, will come and stay with me somewhere at the sea, later on in the
year."

Helbeck had been listening to her--to the sharp determination of her
voice--in total silence. He was leaning against the high mantelpiece, and
his face was hidden from her. As she ceased to speak, he turned, and his
mere aspect beat down the girl's anger in a moment. He shook his head
sadly.

"Dr. MacBride stopped me on the bridge yesterday, as he was coming away
from the house."

Laura drew back. Her eyes fastened upon him.

"He thinks her in a serious state. We are not to alarm her, or interfere
with her daily habits. There is valvular disease--as I think you
know--and it has advanced. Neither he nor anyone can forecast."

The girl's head fell. She recognised that the contest was over. She could
not go; she could not leave Augustina; and the inference was clear. There
had not been a word of menace, but she understood. Mr. Helbeck's will
must prevail. She had brought this humiliating half-hour on herself--and
she would have to bear the consequences of it. She moved towards Helbeck.

"Well then, I must stay," she said huskily, "and I must try to--to
remember where I am in future. I ought to be able to hide everything I
feel--of course! But that unfortunately is what I never learnt.
And--there are some ways of life--that--that are too far apart.
However!"--she raised her hand to her brow, frowned, and thought a
little--"I can't make any promise about my cousins, Mr. Helbeck. _I_ know
perfectly well--whatever may be said--that I have done nothing whatever
to be ashamed of. I have wanted to--to help my cousin. He is worth
helping--in spite of everything--and I _will_ help him, if I can! But if
I am to remain your guest, I see that I must consult your wishes----"

Helbeck tried again to stop her with a gesture, but she hurried on.

"As far as this house and neighbourhood are concerned, no one shall have
any reason--to talk."

Then she threw her head back with a sudden flush.

"Of course, if people are born to say and think ill-natured things!--like
Mrs. Denton----"

Helbeck exclaimed.

"I will see to that," he said. "You shall have no reason to complain,
there."

Laura shrugged her shoulders.

"Will you kindly give me my letter?"

As he handed it to her, she made him a little bow, walked to the door
before he could open it for her, and was gone.

Helbeck turned back, with a smothered exclamation. He put the lamps out,
and went slowly to his study.

* * * * *

As the master of Bannisdale closed the door of his library behind him,
the familiar room produced upon him a sharp and singular impression. The
most sacred and the most critical hours of his life had been passed
within its walls. As he entered it now, it seemed to repulse him, to be
no longer his.

The room was not large. It was the old library of the house, and the
Helbecks in their palmiest days had never been a literary race. There was
a little seventeenth century theology; and a few English classics. There
were the French books of Helbeck's grandmother--"Madame," as she was
always known at Bannisdale; and amongst them the worn brown volumes of
St. François de Sales, with the yellowish paper slips that Madame had put
in to mark her favourite passages, somewhere in the days of the First
Empire. Near by were some stray military volumes, treatises on tactics
and fortification, that had belonged to a dashing young officer in the
Dillon Regiment, close to some "Epîtres Amoureux," a translation of
"Daphnis and Chloe," and the like--all now sunk together into the same
dusty neglect.

On the wall above Helbeck's writing-table were ranged the books that had
been his mother's, together with those that he himself habitually used.
Here every volume was an old friend, a familiar tool. Alan Helbeck was
neither a student nor a man of letters; but he had certain passionate
prejudices, instincts, emotions, of which some books were the source and
sustenance.

For the rest--during some years he had been a member of the Third Order
of St. Francis, and in its other features the room was almost the room of
a religious. A priedieu stood against the inner wall, and a crucifix hung
above it. A little further on was a small altar of St. Joseph with its
pictures, its statuette, and its candles; and a poor lithograph of Pio
Nono looked down from the mantelpiece. The floor was almost bare, save
for a few pieces of old matting here and there. The worn Turkey carpet
that had formerly covered it had been removed to make the drawing-room
comfortable for Augustina; so had most of the chairs. Those left were of
the straightest and hardest.

In that dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most
intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a
strange sense of wrench--of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went
to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his
watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay upon it.

The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection of
passages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of his
mother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst.

On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copied
from one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritual
exercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it.

"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, my
only good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heart
from every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thy
holy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to please
Thee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Thee
to come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance all
those effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce in
me._"

He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Then
slowly he turned back to an earlier page--

"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must not
be under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first and
chiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul._"

A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began to
pace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind,
and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle was
harder. The waves of rising passion broke through him.

"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy to
have forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--to
have felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce with
me--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--she
knows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--I
knew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--from
the first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion for
her father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of me
and of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling for
Augustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two or
three points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps,
that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How she
loathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would sooner
die than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment to
command her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to the
utmost. Ah!"

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