The thought of revenge which had thus entered Helen's mind might have
died out of it naturally, or it might have been overcome by better
thoughts. All the passion and conflict of her life had died into
stillness; six years had come and gone since the great storm had passed
over her, which had changed her existence, and though that had not come
to any satisfactory conclusion, but only raged itself out, leaving germs
that might grow into tumultuous life again--so long an interval of quiet
had buried these germs very deep. She had grown tranquil in spite of
herself; the calm routine of her life had taken hold upon her, and she
had made that change which is so imperceptible while in progress, so
real and all-influencing when once accomplished--the change which steals
away the individuality of existence, and introduces that life by proxy,
to which we all--or at least to which, all women--must come.
Insensibly, without knowing it, Helen had grafted herself into her
child. She had lived for Norah, and now she lived in Norah, regarding
the events of the world and the days as they passed solely in reference
to the new creature who had a new career to weave out of them. This
change has a wonderful effect upon the mind and being. Her sphere of
interests was altered, her hopes and wishes were altered, her very modes
of thought. The gravity of her nature gave way before this potent
influence. Had she been in the way of it, Helen, who had lived through
her own youth with a certain serious dignity, accepting her pleasures as
a necessity rather than entering into them with enthusiasm, would have
acquired for herself, no doubt, the character of a frivolous woman, fond
of balls and gaiety, all because of the gayer temper of her child. She
felt with Norah that thrill of wonder about Cyril Rivers; her own heart
began to beat a little quicker when she heard him coming; a reflection
of Norah's blush passed over her. She had to make an effort now and then
not to be altogether carried away by this strange entry she had made
into another nature; for Norah was not like her mother in nature;
training and constant association had made them alike, and it was quite
possible that Norah in later life might become Helen, as Helen for the
moment had become Norah. But this wondrous double life that ebbs and
flows from one heart to another as from one vessel to another--the same
blood, the same soul--is not very explicable in words. It was only when
Helen sat, as she did at the moment we are now describing, all by
herself over her little fire, and felt the silence round her, and
realized her own individuality separate from the rest of the world, that
the old strain of her thoughts came back to her, and for half an hour at
a time she became herself once more.
It was a month after the day of the picnic. The guests at Dura had
departed, or rather had been succeeded by new ones, of whom the
Drummonds knew nothing. A breach had been made between the great house
and the village--a breach which the Daltons murmured and wondered at,
but which no one attributed distinctly to its true cause. That cause,
Mrs Drummond knew very well, was Norah. They had been invited once more
to Dura after the picnic, and Mr Rivers once more had constituted
himself their attendant. By this time all other motives except one had
ceased to influence the young man. He had ceased to think of the
Burtons' claims or of Clara's fury--things which, no doubt, had at first
made the pursuit of Norah piquant and attractive to him. What he thought
of now was Norah herself. He had no intention of committing himself--no
thought of compromising his future by a foolish match; but he fell in
love--he could not help it. It is a thing which men of the best
principles, men incapable of ruining themselves by an absurd marriage,
will nevertheless do from time to time. How he should get out of it he
did not know, and when he ventured to think at all, he was very sorry
for himself for the fatality which made Norah impossible. But impossible
or not, this was what had happened to him; he had fallen in love. The
sensation itself was sweet; and Clara's perpetual angry pout, her flash
of wrath when he approached Norah, her impatient exclamation at the
sound of her name, amused him immensely, and at the same time flattered
his vanity. So did Ned's lowering brows and unhappy looks. Mr Rivers was
tickled with his own position, flattered and amused by the effect his
erratic proceedings had produced. And he had fallen in love. I am sorry
to say that Mrs Drummond encouraged him on that evening which she and
her daughter spent at Dura after the picnic. She waved him, as it were,
in the faces of the Burtons like a flag of triumph. She took pleasure in
Ned's misery, though she liked Ned--and in Clara's wrath. They had
scorned her child; but her child was able to turn all their plans to
confusion, and break up their most skilful combinations. Norah was the
queen of the moment, and the others were crushed under her little foot.
She was able to make Ned's life a burden to him and destroy Clara's
prospects. I am very sorry to have to say this of Helen; but I have
never set her up as possessing the highest type of character, and it was
true.
She was heartily sorry for it afterwards, however, it must be added.
When she got home she felt ashamed, but rather for having done something
that did not come up to her own ideal of womanly or lady-like behaviour,
than for the pain she had helped to inflict. Even while she was sorry
for having 'encouraged' (women are so conscious of all that word means)
Mr Rivers, she was not sorry for Ned's despair, which rather amused
her--nor for Clara's fury, which made her so angry that she would have
liked to whip Clara. She was only ashamed of the deed; she did not
dislike the results. Norah, as so often happens, did not know half, nor
nearly half, of what it all meant. She was flattered by Mr Rivers's
attention; she admired him, she liked him. He was the hero, and he had
taken her for his heroine. The thought entranced her girlish fancy, and
seduced her into a thousand dreams. She wondered would he 'speak' to
her, and what should she answer him? She framed pictures to herself of
how he should be brought to the very verge of that 'speaking,' and then
by chance prevented and sent away, and longing and anxious, while Norah
herself would get a respite. She imagined the most touching scenes--how
somebody unknown would be found to watch over her, to bring wonderful
good fortune to her, to be at hand when she was in any danger, to save
her life, and perform all kinds of wonders; and how at last, suddenly
turning upon this anonymous guardian angel, she should find that it was
he. Everything that a true knight had ever done for his lady she dreamt
of having done for her, and a sweet exultation, a grateful sense of her
own humility and yet grandeur would fill her foolish little mind. But
still, even in her fancy, Norah held as far off as possible the
inevitable response. No lady, of course, could accept such devotion
without sooner or later bestowing the reward; but the devotion, and not
the reward, was the thing it pleased her to contemplate. It surrounded
with a halo of glory not only herself, the recipient, but even in a
higher degree the man who was capable of bestowing such exquisite, and
delicate, and generous service. Such are the fantastic fancies of a girl
when she finds herself wafted into the land of old romance by the
astounding, delicious, incomprehensible discovery that some one has
fallen in love with her. She was not in the very least in love with him.
All this is a long way from the November evening when Helen sat over her
fire, and became for the periodical half-hour herself, and not simply
Norah's mother. Thinking it all over, she blushed a little over her own
conduct. Mr Rivers had left Dura, but he kept writing to her on one
absurd pretext after another. Mrs Drummond had answered very briefly one
of these notes, and she was taking herself to task for it now. Was she
right to 'encourage' Cyril Rivers? It had punished the Burtons, and she
was not sorry for that. But was such a mode of revenge permissible? Was
it consistent with her own dignity, or such a thing as ought to be?
Susan had not yet brought in the lamp, and she was sitting in the ruddy
darkness, scarcely illuminated, yet made rosy by the brilliant
not-flaming redness of the fire. Norah even now would have been
frightened to sit so in that haunted room; but it was not haunted to
Helen. It was a clear, moonlight evening out of doors, and the thin long
lines of window at the other end of the room let in each a strip of dark
wintry blue between the brown-gray curtains. This cold light, and the
ruddy, suppressed glow of the fire, balanced each other, holding each
their own half of the room like two armies, of which the red one made
continual sorties upon the realm of the other, and the blue one stood
fast without a movement. It was a curious little interior, but Helen did
not see it. She sat, as thoughtful people so often sit, with her eyes
fixed upon the red glow of the embers. In a variation of the same
attitude, half visible as the light rose and fell, like a spell-bound
woman, her image shone in the round mirror.
Norah was at the Rectory spending the evening, and Norah's mother had
changed into Helen herself, and not another. How many old thoughts came
and went through her mind it is needless to say; but they resolved
themselves into this, that she had sacrificed her own dignity, that what
she was doing was not the thing she ought to do. What was the punishment
of the Burtons to her? Why should she like to give a heart-ache to a boy
and girl who had done her no harm? It was to get at their father, and
give him a stab through their means; but was that a kind of warfare for
a woman--a lady? Helen started in the dark, though no one could see her.
She had a high, almost fantastic, sense of honour and generosity, yet in
this she was sacrificing both.
I do not know what impulse it was which made her, when the fire began to
burn low and wanted refreshment, go to the window and look out--no
reason in particular--because it was a beautiful night. She stood
looking out on the moonlight, on the silent country road, and the lively
lights which shone in the Rectory windows opposite. She had rung for the
lamp; she was going to have her woman's meal, her cup of tea, in the
solitude which was not grievous, for to be sure it would last but an
hour or two. On the table there was a basket full of work, some
dress-making for Norah, and a novel, for still Helen loved the novels
which took her into other lives. All these placid details gave an air of
profoundest peace to the scene, and the white, clear moonlight shone
outside, and the stars, sharpened and brightened by frost, fluttered, as
if they had wings or a heart that throbbed, out of the blue of the sky;
when suddenly the place became clamorous, the silence fled, the echoes
carried circles of sound all over the unseen country. Mr Burton was
coming home. A slight smile came upon Helen's face. All this ostentation
and noise of wealth did not irritate her as it used to do. The phaeton
came dashing along, and paused a moment at the corner, where Williams's
shop threw out a stream of illumination. Some one else sat by Mr
Burton's side--some one who suddenly, as they passed, turned his face
full into the light.
In a moment Helen's heart had begun to beat like an engine suddenly set
in motion; the blood mounted up into her ears, to her heart, like its
moving wheels and piston. She clenched her hand, and a sudden demon
seemed to wake up and come into existence all in a moment. It was the
man whom she believed to be her husband's murderer--the destroyer of her
own happiness and of Robert's good name. She stood as if spell-bound
while they drove past the window, laughing and talking. Nay, there was
even a half pause, and Mr Burton made some explanation, and pointed to
the Gatehouse, not seeing the secret spectator. She heard the sound of
their voices--the laugh; and clenched her hands tighter, and through her
mind there passed words which a woman should not say.
It was then that Susan came into the room with the lamp. When she had
set it down on the table, and turned round to close the window, it
startled her to see where Helen was standing. Susan uttered an
exclamation; it gave her 'a turn;' and she had a still greater turn when
she perceived the change in Mrs Drummond's face. But for the moment she
did not say anything. It was only when she had arranged the tea and put
everything ready that she ventured to look again, and encountered
Helen's eyes, which were fixed, and did not see her.
'Lord bless us!' said Susan, 'if something has happened, 'm, don't look
dreadful like that, but say it out.'
Helen woke up at the sound of her voice. She tried to smile and clear
her countenance.
'Nothing has happened,' she said; and it startled her to find how hoarse
she was. 'I was thinking only about old times.'
'That comes o' Miss Norah being out to tea,' said Susan. 'I'd think of
old times fast enough if I could do any good. But what's the use?
Thinking and thinking only moiders a body's brain. I've give it up for
my part.'
'It is the wisest way,' said Helen, trying to smile.
'Shall I ask Miss Jane to come and stay with you a bit? or shall I run
for Miss Norah?' asked Susan, who was practical-minded, and felt that
something ought to be done.
'Never mind, Susan. It is very kind of you to think of me. It will pass
over directly,' said Helen; and she was so decided and imperative that
Susan was forced to yield.
When she was gone, Mrs Drummond rose and walked about the room with
hasty, tremulous steps. She was not sick nor sorry, as the woman
thought, but burning with wild indignation, sudden rage. Her better
feelings were overwhelmed by the tide of passion that rushed into her
mind. 'Golden and Burton! Golden and Burton!' When she had last repeated
these words she had felt herself powerless, helpless, unable to inflict
any punishment upon them, compelled to subside into silence, knowing
that neither her voice nor anything she could do would reach them. It
was different now, she said to herself, with fierce satisfaction. Now
she had indeed something in her power; now she could indeed reach the
very heart of one of them. Her cheek glowed, her eyes blazed in her
solitude. She would do it. She would abstract Mr Rivers from them
utterly, and she would break the heart of their boy. She seemed to hold
it in her hand, and crush it, as she pursued these thoughts. This was
the horrible effect produced upon a reasonable woman by the appearance
of a man who had wronged her. It is not easy to bear the seeming
prosperity of the wicked. He had taken from Helen all, except Norah,
that made life worth having, and he himself had appeared to her full of
jovial talk and laughter, going to visit at Dura, evidently a favoured
guest. The difficulty was one which David felt even more deeply, and has
argued with himself upon in many a strain which religion has made
familiar to us as the air we breathe. In the Psalms it is never said
that it is wrong to chafe at the prosperity of evil-doers, but only that
that prosperity is short-lived, and that ruin is coming. When Helen
suddenly saw her enemy, the wicked man _par excellence_, the incarnation
of wrong and cruelty, flourishing like the green bay-tree, gay and
confident as he had always been, it was not wonderful if she took the
Old Testament rather than the New for her guide. The only strange thing
was, that with the curious inconsistency of human nature, she grasped
the weapon that she had suddenly found at her side, to strike, not him,
but his companion. Golden and Burton! Once more they had become one to
her; her enemies--the incarnation of murder, slander, and wrong!
'Mamma, Ned has walked across with me,' said Norah, running in all fresh
from the outer air, with a red hood over her brown hair. 'May I ask him
to come in? He looks so unhappy, mamma.'
'I don't see that we have anything to do with his unhappiness,' said
Helen; but already he was standing at the door, looking in very
wistfully. Norah was rather wistful too; her heart was relenting over
her old vassal; and now there was no Mr Rivers in the way to take
possession of her, and come between her and the looks of others.
Ned came in with very doubtful step, not knowing whether to be
frightened or glad. He was not afraid of Mrs Drummond; she had never
been unkind to him, and there seemed a possibility now that his misery
might be over, and that Norah might relent. But it was a shock to Ned to
find that she did not offer him her hand, but only bowed stiffly, and
began to speak to her daughter.
'You are early to-night,' she said. 'I did not expect you so soon.'
'Oh, mamma, soon! Why, it is eleven; and you have the tea-things still
on the table. Mamma, I shall never be able to go anywhere, if you behave
so. You have not had any tea.'
'I have not wanted it. I did not observe that it was there,' said Helen,
seating herself on her former seat by the fire. In doing this, she
turned her back upon Ned, who, startled and wounded, did not know what
to do. Norah was alarmed too. She made a sign to him to sit down, and
then went to her mother, taking her hand,
'Mamma, you are not well,' she said.
'I am quite well. I fear, however, I shall not be good company for--Mr
Burton to-night.'
'Mamma! Why it is only Ned!'
'He is Mr Burton's son,' said Helen, trembling with emotion. 'Norah, do
you remember the man who murdered your father, and tried to disgrace
him--Golden--_that_ man? Well, I have just seen him drive up with Mr
Burton to Dura. They paused, and pointed out this house to each
other--the place where their victims were living. You may understand why
I am not fit company for--Mr Burton to-night.'
'Oh, my poor, dear mother! have you had this to bear, with no one to
support you? I will never go out and leave you again.'
'The sight of his face is like a curse to me,' said Helen, scarcely
knowing what she said. 'I have had as much as I can bear for one
night.'
'Yes, dear mamma, so you have,' said soothing Norah. And then behind her
mother's back she made an imperative sign to poor Ned, whispering, 'Go
away; go away!'
He stumbled up to his feet, poor fellow! so dreadfully disappointed that
he could scarcely find voice enough to speak. But yet his instinct was
to strike one blow in self-defence.
'Mrs Drummond,' he said, clearing his voice, 'I don't know much about Mr
Golden; but if he is such a man as you say, my father must be deceived;
and I have nothing at all to do with it. Is it fair to punish me?'
'Oh, your father!' said Helen, facing suddenly round upon him, with a
flush on her face, and the tremulous movement of passion in all her
frame. If she had not been so agitated, she would not have spoken so,
let us hope, to the man's son. 'Your father is not deceived. I don't say
you know. But you are his son.'
'Good evening, Norah!' said Ned; he crushed his hat between his hands,
and went straight out without another word. What a change from the
hopeful spirit in which he had crossed the threshold two minutes before!
But like many a man who makes an abrupt retreat, Ned found he fared the
worse for his impetuosity when he had got outside. He might have stayed
and asked some questions about it, fathomed it somehow, tried to
discover what was the meaning of it. He walked up the avenue, upon which
the moon was shining bright, so confused and troubled that he could not
tell certainly which was the cloud floating along at a break-neck pace
before the wind and which the true shadows, themselves immovable, which
his rapid progress made almost as wildly fugitive. He thought he had
been on the eve of renewed happiness, and lo! now he found himself
pushed further off than ever; repulsed, he could not tell how. A tide of
wild fancy rushed through his mind, carrying a hundred thoughts upon it
as the wind carried the cloud. Sometimes it was the image of Mrs
Drummond which was uppermost, sometimes a wondering puzzled question
about his father, sometimes the name of Golden. He remembered dimly the
trial and the comments upon the latter, and how his own young mind had
glowed half with indignation, half with sympathy. He was better able to
judge now; but Helen's language sounded violent and exaggerated to him.
'The man who murdered your father'--'the sight of his face is like a
curse.' What language was this for any one in their senses to use?
A stormy night with a full moon is perhaps the most dramatic spectacle
in nature. The world was flooded with light as Ned, a dark speck in all
that whiteness, came out into the open lawns amid which his father's
house stood. The wind was driving the clouds across the clear blue at
such a desperate pace as might become the pursued and terrified
stragglers of a great army; and the army itself, piled up in dark
confused masses in the north, loomed behind the house of Dura, which was
inundated by the white radiance. These angry forces were turning to bay,
heaping themselves in a threatening mass, glooming in silent opposition
to all the splendour and glory of the light. Ned's heart was so sick and
sore that he gazed at this sight with unusual force of fancy, wondering
if it could mean anything? The moon and the wind were doing all they
could to disperse these vapours; they were driven back upon each other,
heaped up in masses, pursued off the face of the sky, which over Ned's
head was blue and clear as a summer noon. But yet the clouds gathered,
held together, stood, as it were, at bay. Did it mean anything? Was
that storm about to burst over the house, which stood so tranquilly,
whitened over by the moon, below. This was what Ned asked himself
(though he was not usually imaginative) as he went in with an ache in
his heart to his father's house.
END OF VOL. II.
JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.
End of Project Gutenberg's At His Gates, Vol. 2(of 3), by Margaret Oliphant