A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.

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




"Carrotina--why, what's happened to you?" said her father to her one day.

She turned in astonishment from her task of putting some books tidy on
his study shelves. Then she coloured half angrily.

"I must put my hair up some time, I suppose," she said resentfully. There
was something in the abruptness of her father's question, no less than in
the new closeness and sharpness of eye with which he was examining her,
that annoyed her.

"Well! you've made a young lady of yourself. I dare say I mustn't call
you nicknames any more!"

"I don't mind," she said indifferently, going on with her work, while he
looked at the golden-red mass she had coiled round her little head, with
an odd half-welcome sense of change, a sudden prescience of the future.

Then she turned again.

"If--if you make any absurd changes," she said, with a frown, "I'll--I'll
cut it all off!"

"You'd better not; there'd be ructions," he said laughing. "It's not
yours till you're twenty-one."

And to himself he said, "Gracious! I didn't bargain for a pretty
daughter. What am I to do with her? Augustina'll never get her married."

And certainly during this early youth, Laura showed no signs of getting
herself married. She did not apparently know when a young man was by; and
her bright vehement ways, her sharp turns of speech, went on just the
same; she neither quivered nor thrilled; and her chatter, when she did
chatter, spent itself almost with indifference on anyone who came near
her. She was generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companions
knew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self of
her, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs.
Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks which
contrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hard
to find the clue to them.

Altogether she passed for a clever girl, even in a University town, where
cleverness is weighed. But her education, except in two points, was, in
truth, of the slightest. Any mechanical drudgery that her father could
set her, she did without a murmur; or, rather, she claimed it jealously,
with a silent passion. But, with an obstinacy equally silent, she set
herself against the drudgery that would have made her his intellectual
companion.

His rows of technical books, the scholarly and laborious details of his
work, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt to
persuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned and
contemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter.
That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled up for
hours with a book or a piece of work in a corner of his room; that she
should bring him his pipe, and break in upon his work at the right moment
with her peremptory "Papa, come out!"--these things were delightful, nay,
necessary to him. But he had no dreams beyond; and he never thought of
her, her education or her character, as a whole. It was not his way.
Besides, girls took their chance. With a boy, of course, one plans and
looks ahead. But Laura would have 200_l_. a year from her mother whatever
happened, and something more at his own death. Why trouble oneself?

No doubt indirectly he contributed very largely to her growing up. The
sight of his work and his methods; the occasional talks she overheard
between him and his scientific comrades; the tones of irony and denial in
the atmosphere about him; his antagonisms, his bitternesses, worked
strongly upon her still plastic nature. Moreover she felt to her heart's
core that he was unsuccessful; there were appointments he should have
had, but had failed to get, and it was the religious party, the "clerical
crew" of Convocation, that had stood in the way. From her childhood it
came natural to her to hate bigoted people who believed in ridiculous
things. It was they stood between her father and his deserts. There
loomed up, as it were, on her horizon, something dim and majestic, which
was called Science. Towards this her father pressed, she clinging to him;
while all about them was a black and hindering crowd, through which they
clove their way--contemptuously.

In one direction, indeed, Fountain admitted her to his mind. Like Mill,
he found the rest and balm of life in poetry; and here he took Laura with
him. They read to each other, they spurred each other to learn by heart.
He kept nothing from her. Shelley was a passion of his own; it became
hers. She taught herself German, that she might read Heine and Goethe
with him; and one evening, when she was little more than sixteen, he
rushed her through the first part of "Faust," so that she lay awake the
whole night afterwards in such a passion of emotion, that it seemed, for
the moment, to change her whole existence. Sometimes it astonished him to
see what capacity she had, not only for the feeling, but for the sensuous
pleasure, of poetry. Lines--sounds--haunted her for days, the beauty of
them would make her start and tremble.

She did her best, however, to hide this side of her nature even from him.
And it was not difficult. She remained childishly immature and backward
in many things. She was a personality; that was clear; one could hardly
say that she was or had a character. She was a bundle of loves and hates;
a force, not an organism; and her father was often as much puzzled by her
as anyone else.

Music perhaps was the only study which ever conquered her indolence. Here
it happened that a famous musician, who settled in Cambridge for a time,
came across her gift and took notice of it. And to please him she worked
with industry, even with doggedness. Brahms, Chopin, Wagner--these great
romantics possessed her in music as Shelley or Rossetti did in poetry.
"You little demon, Laura! How do you come to play like that?" a girl
friend--her only intimate friend--said to her once in despair. "It's the
expression. Where do you get it? And I practise, and you don't; it's not
fair."

"Expression!" said Laura, with annoyance, "what does that matter? That's
the amateur all over. Of course I play like that because I can't do it
any better. If I could _play the notes_"--she clenched her little hand,
with a curious, almost a fierce energy--"if I had any technique--or was
ever likely to have any, what should I want with expression? Any cat can
give you expression! There was one under my window last night--you should
just have heard it!"

Molly Friedland, the girl friend, shrugged her shoulders. She was as
soft, as normal, as self-controlled, as Laura was wilful and irritable.
But there was a very real affection between them.

Years passed. Insensibly Augustina's health began to fail; and with it
the new cheerfulness of her middle life. Then Fountain himself fell
suddenly and dangerously ill. All the peaceful habits and small pleasures
of their common existence broke down after a few days, as it were, into a
miserable confusion. Augustina stood bewildered. Then a convulsion of
soul she had expected as little as anyone else, swept upon her. A number
of obscure, inherited, half-dead instincts revived. She lived in terror;
she slept, weeping; and at the back of an old drawer she found a rosary
of her childhood to which her fingers clung night and day.

Meanwhile Fountain resigned himself to death. During his last days his
dimmed senses did not perceive what was happening to his wife. But he
troubled himself about her a good deal.

"Take care of her, Laura," he said once, "till she gets strong. Look
after her.--But you can't sacrifice your life.--It may be Christian," he
added, in a murmur, "but it isn't sense."

Unconsciousness came on. Augustina seemed to lose her wits; and at last
only Laura, sitting pale and fierce beside her father, prevented her
stepmother from bringing a priest to his death-bed. "You would not
_dare_!" said the girl, in her low, quivering voice; and Augustina could
only wring her hands.

* * * * *

The day after her husband died Mrs. Fountain returned to her Catholic
duties. When she came back from confession, she slipped as noiselessly as
she could into the darkened house. A door opened upstairs, and Laura came
out of her father's room.

"You have done it?" she said, as her stepmother, trembling with agitation
and weariness, came towards her. "You have gone back to them?"

"Oh, Laura! I had to follow the call--my conscience--Laura! oh! your poor
father!"

And with a burst of weeping the widow held out her hands.

Laura did not move, and the hands dropped.

"My father wants nothing," she said.

The indescribable pride and passion of her accent cowed Augustina, and
she moved away, crying silently. The girl went back to the dead, and sat
beside him, in an anguish that had no more tears, till he was taken from
her.

Mr. Helbeck wrote kindly to his sister in reply to a letter from her
informing him of her husband's death, and of her own reconciliation with
the Church. He asked whether he should come at once to help them through
the business of the funeral, and the winding up of their Cambridge life.
"Beg him, please, to stay away," said Laura, when the letter was shown
her. "There are plenty of people here."

And indeed Cambridge, which had taken little notice of the Fountains
during Stephen's lifetime, was even fussily kind after his death to his
widow and child. It was at all times difficult to be kind to Laura in
distress, but there was much true pity felt for her, and a good deal of
curiosity as to her relations with her Catholic stepmother. Only from the
Friedlands, however, would she accept, or allow her stepmother to accept,
any real help. Dr. Friedland was a man of middle age, who had retired on
moderate wealth to devote himself to historical work by the help of the
Cambridge libraries. He had been much drawn to Stephen Fountain, and
Fountain to him. It was a recent and a brief friendship, but there had
been something in it on Dr. Friedland's side--something respectful and
cordial, something generous and understanding, for which Laura loved the
infirm and grey-haired scholar, and would always love him. She shed some
stormy tears after parting with the Friedlands, otherwise she left
Cambridge with joy.

On the day before they left Cambridge Augustina received a parcel of
books from her brother. For the most part they were kept hidden from
Laura. But in the evening, when the girl was doing some packing in her
stepmother's room, she came across a little volume lying open on its
face. She lifted it, saw that it was called "Outlines of Catholic
Belief," and that one page was still wet with tears. An angry curiosity
made her look at what stood there: "A believer in one God who, without
wilful fault on his part, knows nothing of the Divine Mystery of the
Trinity, is held capable of salvation by many Catholic theologians. And
there is the 'invincible ignorance' of the heathen. What else is possible
to the Divine mercy let none of us presume to know. Our part in these
matters is obedience, not speculation."

In faint pencil on the margin was written: "My Stephen _could_ not
believe. Mary--pray----"

The book contained the Bannisdale book-plate, and the name "Alan
Helbeck." Laura threw it down. But her face trembled through its scorn,
and she finished what she was doing in a kind of blind passion. It was as
though she held her father's dying form in her arms, protecting him
against the same meddling and tyrannical force that had injured him while
he lived, and was still making mouths at him now that he was dead.

She and Augustina went to the sea--to Folkestone, for Augustina's health.
Here Mrs. Fountain began to correspond regularly with her brother, and it
was soon clear that her heart was hungering for him, and for her old home
at Bannisdale. But she was still painfully dependent on Laura. Laura was
her maid and nurse; Laura managed all her business. At last one day she
made her prayer. Would Laura go with her--for a little while--to
Bannisdale? Alan wished it--Alan had invited them both. "He would be so
good to you, Laura--and I'm sure it would set me up."

Laura gave a gulp. She dropped her little chin on her hands and thought.
Well--why not? It would be all hateful to her--Mr. Helbeck and his house
together. She knew very well, or guessed what his relation to her father
had been. But what if it made Augustina strong, if in time she could be
left with her brother altogether, to live with him?--In one or two of his
letters he had proposed as much. Why, that would bring Laura's
responsibility, her sole responsibility, at any rate, to an end.

She thought of Molly Friedland--of their girlish plans--of travel, of
music.

"All right," she said, springing up. "We will go, Augustina. I suppose,
for a little while, Mr. Helbeck and I can keep the peace. You must tell
him to let me alone."

She paused, then said with sudden vehemence, like one who takes her
stand--"And tell him, please, Augustina--make it very plain--that I shall
never come in to prayers."




CHAPTER III

The sun was shining into Laura's room when she awoke. She lay still for a
little while, looking about her.

Her room--which formed part of an eighteenth-century addition to the
Tudor house--was rudely panelled with stained deal, save on the fireplace
wall, where, on either side of the hearth, the plaster had been covered
with tapestry. The subject of the tapestry was Diana hunting. Diana,
white and tall, with her bow and quiver, came, queenly, through a green
forest. Two greyhounds ranged beside her, and in the dim distance of the
wood her maidens followed. On the right an old castle, with pillars like
a Greek temple, rose stately but a little crooked on the edge of a blue
sea; the sea much faded, with the wooden handle of a cupboard thrust
rudely through it. Two long-limbed ladies, with pulled patched faces,
stood on the castle steps. In front was a ship, with a waiting warrior
and a swelling sail; and under him, a blue wave worn very threadbare,
shamed indeed by that intruding handle, but still blue enough, still
windy enough for thoughts of love and flight.

Laura, half asleep still, with her hands under her cheek, lay staring in
a vague pleasure at the castle and the forest. "Enchanted
casements"--"perilous seas"--"in fairy lands forlorn." The lines ran
sleepily, a little jumbled, in her memory.

But gradually the morning and the freshness worked; and her spirits,
emerging from their half-dream, began to dance within her. When she
sprang up to throw the window wide, there below her was the sparkling
river, the daffodils waving their pale heads in the delicate Westmoreland
grass, the high white clouds still racing before the wind. How heavenly
to find oneself in this wild clean country!--after all the ugly squalors
of parade and lodging-house, after the dingy bow-windowed streets with
the March dust whirling through them.

She leant across the broad window-sill, her chin on her hands, absorbed,
drinking it in. The eastern sun, coming slanting-ways, bathed her tumbled
masses of fair hair, her little white form, her bare feet raised tiptoe.

Suddenly she drew back. She had seen the figure of a man crossing the
park on the further side of the river, and the maidenly instinct drove
her from the window; though the man in question was perhaps a quarter of
a mile away, and had he been looking for her, could not possibly have
made out more than a pale speck on the old wall.

"Mr. Helbeck,"--she thought--"by the height of him. Where is he off to
before seven o'clock in the morning? I hate a man that can't keep
rational hours like other people! Fricka, come here!"

For her little dog, who had sprung from the bed after its mistress, was
now stretching and blinking behind her. At Laura's voice it jumped up and
tried to lick her face. Laura caught it in her arms and sat down on the
bed, still hugging it.

"No, Fricka, I don't like him--I don't, I don't, I _don't!_ But you and I
have just got to behave. If you annoy that big dog downstairs, he'll
break your neck,--he will, Fricka. As for me,"--she shrugged her small
shoulders,--"well, Mr. Helbeck can't break _my_ neck, so I'm dreadfully
afraid I shall annoy him--dreadfully, dreadfully afraid! But I'll try
not. You see, what we've got to do, is just to get Augustina well--stand
over her with a broomstick and pour the tonics down her throat. Then,
Fricka, we'll go our way and have some fun. Now look at us!----"

She moved a little, so that the cracked glass on the dressing-table
reflected her head and shoulders, with the dog against her neck.

"You know we're not at all bad-looking, Fricka--neither of us. I've seen
much worse. (Oh, Fricka! I've told you scores of times I can wash my
face--without you--thank you!) There's all sorts of nice things that
might happen if we just put ourselves in the way of them. Oh! I do want
some fun--I do!--at least sometimes!"

But again the voice dropped suddenly; the big greenish eyes filled in a
moment with inconsistent tears, and Laura sat staring at the sunshine,
while the drops fell on her white nightgown.

Meanwhile Fricka, being half throttled, made a violent effort and
escaped. Laura too sprang up, wiped away her tears as though she were
furious with them, and began to look about her for the means of dressing.
Everything in the room was of the poorest and scantiest--the cottage
washstand with its crockery, the bare dressing-table and dilapidated
glass.

"A bath!--my kingdom for a bath! I don't mind starving, but one must
wash. Let's ring for that rough-haired girl, Fricka, and try and get
round her. Goodness!--no bells?"

After long search, however, she discovered a tattered shred of tapestry
hanging in a corner, and pulled it vigorously. Many efforts, however,
were needed before there was a sound of feet in the passage outside.
Laura hastily donned a blue dressing-gown, and stood expectant.

The door was opened unceremoniously and a girl thrust in her head. Laura
had made acquaintance with her the night before. She was the
housekeeper's underling and niece.

"Mrs. Denton says I'm not to stop. She's noa time for answerin bells. And
you'll have some hot water when t' kettle boils."

The door was just shutting again when Laura sprang at the speaker and
caught her by the arm.

"My dear," she said, dragging the girl in, "that won't do at all. Now
look here"--she held up her little white hand, shaking the forefinger
with energy--"I don't--want--to give--any trouble, and Mrs. Denton may
keep her hot water. But I must have a bath--and a big can--and somebody
must show me where to go for water--and then--_then_, my dear--if you
make yourself agreeable, I'll--well, I'll teach you how to do your hair
on Sundays--in a way that will surprise you!"

The girl stared at her in sudden astonishment, her dark stupid eyes
wavering. She had a round, peasant face, not without comeliness, and a
lustreless shock of black hair. Laura laughed.

"I will," she said, nodding; "you'll see. And I'll give you notions for
your best frock. I'll be a regular elder sister to you--if you'll just do
a few things for me--and Mrs. Fountain. What's your name--Ellen?--that's
all right. Now, is there a bath in the house?"

The girl unwillingly replied that there was one in the big room at the
end of the passage.

"Show it me," said Laura, and marched her off there. The rough-headed one
led the way along the panelled passage and opened a door.

Then it was Laura's turn to stare.

Inside she saw a vast room with finely panelled walls and a decorated
ceiling. The sunlight poured in through an uncurtained window upon the
only two objects in the room,--a magnificent bed, carved and gilt, with
hangings of tarnished brocade,--and a round tin bath of a common,
old-fashioned make, propped up against the wall. The oak boards were
absolutely bare. The bed and the bath looked at each other.

"What's become of all the furniture?" said Laura, gazing round her in
astonishment.

"The gentleman from Edinburgh had it all, lasst month," said the girl,
still sullenly. "He's affther the bed now."

"Oh!--Does he often come here?"

The girl hesitated.

"Well, he's had a lot o' things oot o' t' house, sen I came."

"Has he?" said Laura. "Now, then--lend a hand."

Between them they carried off the bath; and then Laura informed herself
where water was to be had, and when breakfast would be ready.

"T' Squire's gone oot," said Ellen, still watching the newcomer from
under a pair of very black and beetling brows; "and Mrs. Denton said she
supposed yo'd be wantin a tray for Mrs. Fountain."

"Does the Squire take no breakfast?"

"Noa. He's away to Mass--ivery mornin, an' he gets his breakfast wi'
Father Bowles."

The girl's look grew more hostile.

"Oh, does he?" said Laura in a tone of meditation. "Well, then, look
here. Put another cup and another plate on Mrs. Fountain's tray, and I'll
have mine with her. Shall I come down to the kitchen for it?"

"Noa," said the girl hastily. "Mrs. Denton doan't like foak i' t'
kitchen."

At that moment a call in Mrs. Denton's angriest tones came pealing along
the passage outside. Laura laughed and pushed the girl out of the room.

* * * * *

An hour later Miss Fountain was ministering to her stepmother in the most
comfortable bedroom that the house afforded. The furniture, indeed, was a
medley. It seemed to have been gathered out of many other rooms. But at
any rate there was abundance of it; a carpet much worn, but still useful,
covered the floor; and Ellen had lit the fire without being summoned to
do it. Laura recognised that Mr. Helbeck must have given a certain number
of precise orders on the subject of his sister.

Poor Mrs. Fountain, however, was not happy. She was sitting up in bed,
wrapped in an unbecoming flannel jacket--Augustina had no taste in
clothes--and looking with an odd repugnance at the very passable
breakfast that Laura placed before her. Laura did not quite know what to
make of her. In old days she had always regarded her stepmother as an
easy-going, rather self-indulgent creature, who liked pleasant food and
stuffed chairs, and could be best managed or propitiated through some
attention to her taste in sofa-cushions or in tea-cakes.

No doubt, since Mrs. Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of her
fathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise the
usual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director had
been able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of her
health. And on the whole she had acquiesced readily enough.

But Laura found her now changed and restless.

"Oh! Laura, I can't eat all that!"

"You must," said Laura firmly. "Really, Augustina, you _must_."

"Alan's gone out," said Augustina, with a wistful inconsequence,
straining her eyes as though to look through the diamond panes of the
window opposite, at the park and the persons walking in it.

"Yes. He seems to go to Whinthorpe every morning for Mass. Ellen says he
breakfasts with the priest."

Augustina sighed and fidgeted. But when she was half-way through her
meal, Laura standing over her, she suddenly laid a shaking hand on
Laura's arm.

"Laura!--Alan's a saint!--he always was--long ago--when I was so blind
and wicked. But now--oh! the things Mrs. Denton's been telling me!"

"Has she?" said Laura coolly. "Well, make up your mind, Augustina"--she
shook her bright head--"that you can't be the same kind of saint that he
is--anyway."

Mrs. Fountain withdrew her hand in quick offence.

"I should be glad if you could talk of these things without flippancy,
Laura. When I think how incapable I have been all these years, of
understanding my dear brother----"

"No--you see you were living with papa," said Laura slowly.

She had left her stepmother's side, and was standing with her back to an
old cabinet, resting her elbows upon it. Her brows were drawn together,
and poor Mrs. Fountain, after a glance at her, looked still more
miserable.

"Your poor papa!" she murmured with a gulp, and then, as though to
propitiate Laura, she drew her breakfast back to her, and again tried to
eat it. Small and slight as they both were, there was a very sharp
contrast between her and her stepdaughter. Laura's features were all
delicately clear, and nothing could have been more definite, more
brilliant than the colour of the eyes and hair, or the whiteness--which
was a beautiful and healthy whiteness--of her skin. Whereas everything
about Mrs. Fountain was indeterminate; the features with their slight
twist to the left; the complexion, once fair, and now reddened by years
and ill-health; the hair, of a yellowish grey; the head and shoulders
with their nervous infirmity. Only the eyes still possessed some purity
of colour. Through all their timidity or wavering, they were still blue
and sweet; perhaps they alone explained why a good many
persons--including her stepdaughter--were fond of Augustina.

"What has Mrs. Denton been telling you about Mr. Helbeck?" Laura
inquired, speaking with some abruptness, after a pause.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.