HELEN TAKES ME TO TASK
My Lady's name, when I hear strangers use,
Not meaning her, to me sounds lax misuse;
I love none but my Lady's name;
Maude, Grace, Rose, Marian, all the same,
Are harsh, or blank and tame.
* * * * *
Fresh beauties, howsoe'er she moves, are stirr'd:
As the sunn'd bosom of a humming-bird
At each pant lifts some fiery hue,
Fierce gold, bewildering green or blue;
The same, yet ever new.
--_Thomas Woolner_.
I paced the breezy terrace at Glenarm, studying my problems, and
stumbling into new perplexities at every turn. My judgment has usually
served me poorly in my own affairs, which I have generally confided to
Good Luck, that most amiable of goddesses; and I glanced out upon the
lake with some notion, perhaps, of seeing her fairy sail drifting
toward me. But there, to my vexation, hung the _Stiletto_, scarcely
moving in the indolent air of noon. There was, I felt again, something
sinister in the very whiteness of its pocket-handkerchief of canvas as
it stole lazily before the wind. Did Miss Pat, in the school beyond
the wall, see and understand, or was the yacht hanging there as a
menace or stimulus to Helen Holbrook, to keep her alert in her father's
behalf?
"There are ladies to see you, sir," announced the maid, and I found
Helen and Sister Margaret waiting in the library.
The Sister, as though by prearrangement, went to the farther end of the
room and took up a book.
"I wish to see you alone," said Helen, "and I didn't want Aunt Pat to
know I came," and she glanced toward Sister Margaret, whose brown habit
and nun's bonnet had merged into the shadows of a remote alcove.
The brim of Helen's white-plumed hat made a little dusk about her eyes.
Pink and white became her; she put aside her parasol and folded her
ungloved hands, and then, as she spoke, her head went almost
imperceptibly to one side, and I found myself bending forward as I
studied the differences between her and the girl on the Tippecanoe.
Helen's lips were fuller and ruddier, her eyes darker, her lashes
longer. But there was another difference, too subtle for my powers of
analysis; something less obvious than the length of lash or the color
of eyes; and I was not yet ready to give a name to it. Of one thing I
was sure: my pulses quickened before her; and her glance thrilled
through me as Rosalind's had not.
"Mr. Donovan, I have come to appeal to you to put an end to this
miserable affair into which we have brought you. My own position has
grown too difficult, too equivocal to be borne any longer. You saw
from my father's conduct last night how hopeless it is to try to reason
with him. He has brooded upon his troubles until he is half mad. And
I learned from him what I had not dreamed of, that my Uncle Arthur is
here--here, of all places. I suppose you know that."
"Yes; but it is a mere coincidence. It was a good hiding-place for
him, as well as for us."
"It is very unfortunate for all of us that he should be here. I had
hoped he would bury himself where he would never be heard of again!"
she said, and anger burned for a moment in her face. "If he has any
shame left, I should think he would leave here at once!"
"It's to be remembered, Miss Holbrook, that he came first; and I am
quite satisfied that your father sought him here before you and your
aunt came to Annandale. It seems to me the equity lies with your
uncle--the creek as a hiding-place belongs to him by right of
discovery."
She smiled ready agreement to this, and I felt that she had come to win
support for some plan of her own. She had never been more amiable;
certainly she had never been lovelier.
"You are quite right. We had all of us better go and leave him in
peace. What is it he does there--runs a ferry or manages a boat-house?"
"He is a canoe-maker," I said dryly, "with more than a local
reputation."
Her tone changed at once.
"I'm glad; I'm very glad he has escaped from his old ways; for all our
sakes," she added, with a little sigh. "And poor Rosalind! You may
not know that he has a daughter. She is about a year younger than I.
She must have had a sad time of it. I was named for her mother and she
for mine. If you should meet her, Mr. Donovan, I wish you would tell
her how sorry I am not to be able to see her. But Aunt Pat must not
know that Uncle Arthur is here. I think she has tried to forget him,
and her troubles with my father have effaced everything else. I hope
you will manage that, for me; that Aunt Pat shall not know that Uncle
Arthur and Rosalind are here. It could only distress her. It would be
opening a book that she believes closed forever."
Her solicitude for her aunt's peace of mind, spoken with eyes averted
and in a low tone, lacked nothing.
"I have seen your cousin," I said. "I saw her, in fact, this morning."
"Rosalind? Then you can tell me whether--whether I am really so like
her as they used to think!"
"You _are_ rather like!" I replied lightly. "But I shall not attempt
to tell you how. It would not do--it would involve particulars that
might prove embarrassing. There are times when even I find discretion
better than frankness."
"You wish to save my feelings," she laughed. "But I am really taller!"
"By an inch--she told me that!"
"Then you have seen her more than once?"
"Yes; more than twice even."
"Then you must tell me wherein we are alike; I should really like to
know."
"I have told you I can't; it's beyond my poor powers. I will tell you
this, though--"
"Well?"
"That I think you both delightful."
"I am disappointed in you. I thought you a man of courage, Mr.
Donovan."
"Even brave men falter at the cannon's mouth!"
"You are undoubtedly an Irishman, Mr. Donovan. I am sorry we shan't
have any more tennis."
"You have said so, Miss Holbrook, not I."
She laughed, and then glanced toward the brown figure of Sister
Margaret, and was silent for a moment, while the old clock on the stair
boomed out the half-hour and was answered cheerily by the pretty tinkle
of the chapel chime. I counted four poppy-leaves that fluttered free
from a bowl on the book-shelf above her head and lazily fell to the
floor at her feet.
"I had hoped," she said, "that we were good friends, Mr. Donovan."
"I have believed that we were, Miss Holbrook."
"You must see that this situation must terminate, that we are now at a
crisis. You can understand--I need not tell you--how fully my
sympathies lie with my father; it could not be otherwise."
"That is only natural. I have nothing to say on that point."
"And you can understand, too, that it has not been easy for me to be
dependent upon Aunt Pat. You don't know--I have no intention of
talking against her--but you can't blame me for thinking her hard--a
little hard on my father."
I nodded.
"I am sorry, very sorry, that you should have these troubles, Miss
Holbrook."
"I know you are," she replied eagerly, and her eyes brightened. "Your
sympathy has meant so much to Aunt Pat and me. And now, before worse
things happen--"
"Worse things must not happen!"
"Then we must put an end to it all, Mr. Donovan. There is only one
way. My father will never leave here until Aunt Pat has settled with
him. And it is his right to demand it," she hurried on. "I would have
you know that he is not as black as he has been painted. He has been
his own worst enemy; and Uncle Arthur's ill-doings must not be charged
to him. But he has been wrong, terribly wrong, in his conduct toward
Aunt Pat. I do not deny that, and he does not. But it is only a
matter of money, and Aunt Pat has plenty of it; and there can be no
question of honor between Uncle Arthur and father. It was Uncle
Arthur's act that caused all this trouble; father has told me the whole
story. Quite likely father would make no good use of his money--I will
grant that. But think of the strain of these years on all of us; think
of what it has meant to me, to have this cloud hanging over my life!
It is dreadful--beyond any words it is hideous; and I can't stand it
any longer, not another week--not another day! It must end now and
here."
Her tear-filled eyes rested upon me pleadingly, and a sob caught her
throat as she tried to go on.
"But--" I began.
"Please--please!" she broke in, touching her handkerchief to her eyes
and smiling appealingly. "I am asking very little of you, after all."
"Yes, it is little enough; but it seems to me a futile interference.
If your father would go to her himself, if you would take him to
her--that strikes me as the better strategy of the matter."
"Then am I to understand that you will not help; that you will not do
this for us--for me?"
"I am sorry to have to say no, Miss Holbrook," I replied steadily.
"Then I regret that I shall have to go further; I must appeal to you as
a personal matter purely. It is not easy; but if we are really very
good friends--"
She glanced toward Sister Margaret, then rose and walked out upon the
terrace.
"You will hate me--" she began, smiling wanly, the tears bright in her
eyes; and she knew that it was not easy to hate her. "I have taken
money from Mr. Gillespie, for my father, since I came here. It is a
large sum, and when my father left here he went away to spend it--to
waste it. It is all gone, and worse than gone. I must pay that
back--I must not be under obligations to Mr. Gillespie. It was wrong,
it was very wrong of me, but I was distracted, half crazed by my
father's threats of violence against Aunt Pat--against us all. I am
sure that you can see how I came to do it. And now you are my friend;
will you help me?" and she broke off, smiling, tearful, her back to the
balustrade, her hand at her side lightly touching it.
She had confidence, I thought, in the power of tears, as she slipped
her handkerchief into her sleeve and waited for me to answer.
"Of course Mr. Gillespie only loaned you the money to help you over a
difficulty; in some way that must be cared for. I like him; he is a
fellow of good impulses. I repeat that I believe this matter can be
arranged readily enough, by yourself and your father. My intrusion
would only make a worse muddle of your affairs. Send for your father
and let him go to your aunt in the right spirit; and I believe that an
hour's talk will settle everything."
"You seem to have misunderstood my purpose in coming here, Mr.
Donovan," she answered coldly. "I asked your help, not your advice. I
have even thrown myself on your mercy, and you tell me to do what you
know is impossible."
"Nothing is so impossible as the present attitude of your father.
Until that is changed your aunt would be doing your father a great
injury by giving him this money."
"And as for me--" and her eyes blazed--"as for me," she said, choking
with anger, "after I have opened this page of my life to you and you
have given me your fatherly advice--as for me, I will show you, and
Aunt Pat and all of them, that what can not be done one way may be done
in another. If I say the word and let the law take its course with my
uncle--that man who brought all these troubles upon us--you may have
the joy of knowing that it was your fault--your fault, Mr. Donovan!"
"I beg of you, do nothing! If you will not bring your father to Miss
Pat, please let me arrange the meeting."
"He will not listen to you. He looks upon you as a meddler; and so do
I, Mr. Donovan!"
"But your uncle--you must not, you would not!" I cried, terror-struck
to see how fate drew her toward the pitfall from which I hoped to save
her.
"Don't say 'must not' to me, if you please!" she flung back; but when
she reached the door she turned and said calmly, though her eyes still
blazed:
"I suppose it is not necessary for me to ask that you consider what I
have said to you confidential."
"It is quite unnecessary," I said, not knowing whether I loved or
pitied her most; and my wits were busy trying to devise means of saving
her the heartache her ignorance held in store for her.
She called to Sister Margaret in her brightest tone, and when I had
walked with them to St. Agatha's gate she bade me good-by with quite as
demure and Christian an air as the Sister herself.