And with a fixed eye scann’d
Her father’s face.
*****
He gaz’d on her, and she on him; ‘twas strange
How like they looked! the expression was the same--
Serenely savage, with a little change
In the large dark eye’s mutual darted flame:
For she, too, was as one who could avenge--
If cause should be--a lioness though tame.
Her father’s blood, before her father’s face
Boil’d up, and prov’d her truly of his race.
--Byron.
A child was born.
In sobbing anguish, in cowering shame, in comparative privation, a
little weeping, helpless, weak boy was ushered into life.
Oh! had that proud woman, the parent of the young mother, been present
in that close chamber, where lay fainting the “flower of her flock,”
her heartless pride must have received a blow which could scarcely have
failed to prove beneficial to her humanity! It must surely have roused
up some of those better feelings of womanly nature, of which none of the
sex are wholly divested, unless they are lost indeed.
Upon a poorly furnished but clean bed lay stretched Helen Grahame,
attended only by her ministering angel, Lotte Clinton.
The sudden and wholly unexpected interview with Lester Vane, the
subsequent flight, with all its attendant anxieties, and apprehensions,
and fatigues, all combined to do their work upon her weak frame.
At the expiration of three weeks, she was, however, so far recovered as
to move about again; while Lotte was ill enough--although she would not
acknowledge so much--to take her place in the bed Helen had quitted.
She had been Helen’s gentle nurse; and had attended her with patient,
unwearying assiduity.
It was during this period that Helen’s little store of money was, for
the first time, broken in upon.. Before the birth of the child, Lotte
had been enabled to earn enough to support both--but to save nothing.
When the time came that her whole attention was absorbed by Helen’s
helpless prostration, her labours with her needle were necessarily
stopped; but now that Helen had strength to get about again, and the
money-hoard was growing very low, it became necessary that she should
once more return to her close application in the task of bread-winning.
Was there not another claim, too, now upon her exertion? The little
healthy, bright-eyed boy--of whom, unconsciously, she grew so fond, and
who was caressed and fondled by its young mother with such passionate
devotion that she had no eyes or thought for aught else--seemed to call
upon her to redouble her efforts, that he might be spared the fatal
consequences of wasting privation.
One night she quietly explained to Helen their position and the
necessity there would be for her to again apply to the persons who had
last employed her, to furnish her with work.
“I will be careful,” she said, “to avoid the chances of our residence
being discovered; but we are not fairies, you know, Helen--we must eat
and drink, and pay our way.”
Helen turned her large, dark, eyes upon her face, and fixed them there;
she did not reply, for she had made a discovery.
“I shall be sure to obtain as much as I can do,” continued Lotte,
thoughtfully, “enough, I am convinced, by sitting close to my work, to
support us all, comfortably. You can devote your time to dear little
Hugh, so as to keep him smiling and well, and I can do the rest--all the
rest.”
The child was sleeping, and previous to Lotte’s commencement of the
conversation, Helen was sitting abstracted in deep reflection upon the
past. From this she was roused by Lotte’s remarks, and now she sat and
gazed in painful wonder upon her face.
It was pinched, haggard and wan; it was as different from that round,
sweet, pleasant countenance, she had looked upon with a satisfied
assurance that its owner was entitled to her fullest confidence,
when first alone with her in her own neat little chamber, as could be
conceived.
Lotte’s once well-rounded form was wasted, too; her dress sat loosely
upon her, and her white hands looked long and bony.
The words she uttered rang in Helen’s ears. “By sitting close to my
work, I can support us all comfortably.” She, weak, wasted, and ill, to
devote herself to such a task!
The whole of Lotte’s past services and exertions, and her own
unconscious selfishness, suddenly flashed through Helen’s brain. She
now arrived at a more clear and complete appreciation of what Lotte had
really done for her, what she had sacrificed and what she had suffered.
Then came the question as to motive.
Helen rapidly retraced the events of her past acquaintance with her
young companion, and endeavoured in such prospects of the future as
might have presented themselves to her, to find an incentive for such
tender devotion as she had evinced towards her, from first to last;
but she could discover nothing which detracted from her pure womanly
sympathy, her unselfish disinterestedness.
How Helen’s heart warmed to her, as she reached the only conclusion it
was possible to form.
And Lotte looked so attenuated, so strengthless, so much as though she
had overtaxed her powers, and was gradually sinking into the arms of
death, that, as Helen gazed upon her, her eyes filled with tears, which
shut her out from her sight.
Then she rose up, and moved towards her hastily; she flung her arms
about her, and wept passionately upon her neck; making Lotte both
surprised and alarmed.
“What have I said?” she ejaculated, quickly; “oh! nothing I hope to pain
you, Helen.”
Helen drove back her tears. She raised up her head, seized Lotte’s
hands, and kissed them ardently.
“I am pained, dearest Lotte,” she exclaimed, with quivering earnestness,
but striving to speak collectedly, “because now I see that while
you have been my constant, generous disinterested friend; faithful,
self-sacrificing, and unwearied in your kind, very kind services to me,
I have been altogether selfish, exacting and inconsiderate----”
“Nay, do not say so,” interposed Lotte.
“My sweet friend, who can judge so well as I?” continued Helen. “What am
I to you that you should have done all this for me?”
“I have told you,”--again interrupted Lotte, but Helen would not let her
finish.
“Let me speak, Lotte, darling,” she exclaimed; “it is all unnecessary
for you to say one word; you cannot weaken the fullness of my conviction
nor deter me from a purpose I have determined upon executing. I shall
not tell you what that purpose is, beyond that it embraces nothing your
pure nature would shrink from. I am resolved to act now. Hitherto, you
have done all. I shall do my part in future; it is time. How often,
Lotte dear, have I not quietly submitted to your counsel, and acted as
you have wished. Henceforward for a time, at least, you must obey me.
You must submit for a few days not to think of needlework, but to lay
quiet and still in bed, and let me wait upon you.”
“I could not--oh, I could not!” murmured Lotte, touched by this
acknowledgment.
But Helen kissed her and silenced her and would not hear her objections,
and threatened to do all kind of desperate things unless she assented to
her request. Lotte, alternately coaxed and menaced, obeyed, though she
was restive and uncomfortable under the knowledge that their store was
growing hourly less, while Helen had really no notion of the value of
money or its want.
Unable to remain long in bed under such circumstances, Lotte struggled
through two days; on the third, she persisted in getting up, declaring
she was quite strong, and fit now to undertake anything.
The rest had certainly done her previously exhausted frame good, and
Helen could not help perceiving its effects upon her face, and her
manner, so she made no great objection to her rising; but that same
evening, about six o’clock, she startled Lotte by appearing before her,
dressed as when first they met in Hyde Park.
Lotte was dancing the infant in her arms. Helen took it abruptly from
her, kissed it passionately many times, and then placed it again in
Lotte’s arms.
The latter, overwhelmed with surprise, exclaimed, in a tone of the
greatest astonishment--
“Where are you going, Helen? In Heaven’s name, do not be guilty of
any rash or unadvised step. Oh! I should break my heart if, out of any
mistaken feeling of commiseration or tenderness for me, you should come
to harm!”
“Do not fear for me, dear, dear Lotte,” returned Helen, earnestly. “The
worst that could have fallen upon me has come to pass, and fate will
not persecute me further. I shall return to you and my poor cherub there
very soon, be assured.”
“But in pity tell me whither you are going?” cried Lotte, in tears. She
had some frightful forebodings.
“To my father’s house!” cried Helen, with a bright eye, and compressed
lip.
Before Lotte could recover from the bewilderment into which this
announcement flung her, she heard the outer door slam sharply, and she
knew that Helen was on her way to fulfil her purpose.
She pressed the little babe to her bosom, and sat down to think about
her position, her brother, and, perhaps, Mark Wilton.
While these thoughts were yet passing through Lotte’s brain, Helen
Grahame stood before the house from which, in such shame and anguish,
she had fled.
She grew sick and faint, and, for a moment, her strength and courage
failed her; but she remembered her little child and Lotte’s wan face and
thin figure; then her arm was nerved, and she knocked boldly, as of old,
at the door.
The porter opened it, but, when he saw who it was who claimed admission,
he drew back with an exclamation of surprise. Helen heeded it not, nor
did she utter a word to him, but passed through the hall with a proud
air, as she had been wont to display when at home, and no shadow rested
upon her fair name. As she ascended the staircase, she encountered
Whelks, who, upon thus suddenly coming face to face with her, all but
fainted. Her step, dignified as it was, made scarcely a sound, and her
face, so white and delicate, convinced him that he was confronted by
Helen’s apparition.
She fastened her brilliant black eye upon him, and haughtily inquired
where the family were.
“In the dinin’ room, Miss,” he gasped.
“At dinner?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss,” he replied, not yet certain that he was not holding
converse with a real ghost. “They are all at dinner.”
“My maid, Chayter--where is she?” demanded Helen, in the same imperious
tone.
“She ’ave left, Miss,” responded Whelks, with a gulp. “She ’ave gone
directly after you--some time ago, Miss.” He knew not how to express
himself in his excitement.
“And Miss Evangeline’s maid?” exclaimed Helen, in a tone of inquiry.
“Oh, her, Miss; she--she are in Miss Evangeline’s room, Miss, upstairs.”
“Enough,” returned Helen, in the same cold, haughty voice, and added,
sternly--“Mention not my arrival to any one. I will announce myself.”
She passed him, and proceeded direct to her sister’s room.
Within it was seated the young maid who attended Evangeline. She had
taken the opportunity, while the family were at dinner, to place herself
very close to the light of a lamp and read over--slowly and earnestly--a
letter addressed to her by one George Jenkins, wherein he had made
statements which made her eyes glitter, and her lips to pucker into a
small circle. She laid her letter in her lap to revel in one enchanting
sentence, when she became conscious of the presence of some one in the
room standing in front of her.
With a slight scream she leaped up, and, crumpling her letter in her
hand, crammed it into her pocket, and, with scarlet face and trembling
limbs, saw that the eldest Miss Grahame, or her wraith, stood before
her.
She was about to make a very lively demonstration, but Helen checked
her.
“Be not alarmed,” she said, hastily; “make no noise; do as I direct you,
for I shall need your assistance.”
“You are really and truly Miss Grahame come home again?” asked the girl,
her eyes almost starting out of their sockets.
Helen almost smiled as she answered in the affirmative, for the features
of the inquirer betrayed so singular an expression.
The girl clapped her hands.
“Oh, how happy you will make Miss Eva!” she exclaimed; “she has done
nothing but weep and sigh for you since you have been away.”
Helen felt a rush of tears to her eyes, but she made no remark in
answer to this observation; she however put some questions to the girl
respecting her own room, and finding that it remained precisely as she
left it, she went to it, followed by the maid.
In a desk belonging to her--and which in her illness she had hidden,
for it contained many of Hugh’s letters--was a store of money, sums the
balances of many quarters’ allowances, hoarded under the impression
that one day they would collectively be sufficient to buy some coveted
jewelled trinket which would exceed in price an amount her father would
be likely to approach in the purchase of a gift for her. The gold was
needed for a very different purpose now.
She discovered the desk precisely as she had left it, and she made
herself at once mistress of what she came to obtain. She went to
her wardrobe. Her dresses hung there as she had left them, and after
surveying them for a minute, she turned to Evangeline’s maid, and said
abruptly--
“Assist me to dress.”
Having selected her most elegant and becoming apparel, she proceeded to
make her toilet, and quickly appeared in full evening dress. When the
girl had almost completed attiring her, Helen said to her--
“Ascertain whether dinner is over, but not a word that I am here.”
The girl, with an air of mystery stamped on her features, proceeded
on tip-toe to the dining-room, and having conferred with the butler,
returned, and said--
“Dessert is on the table, Miss.”
“That is well,” muttered Helen, “_I_ will face them now.”
There was a strange expression upon her features. There was no humility:
her eye, her brow, her lips were all defiant. Having obtained what she
came for, her object in facing her relatives was not altogether clear,
even to herself. It was an impulse she could not resist. She knew how
little real affection she had experienced from her parents and her
sister Margaret; they were all too proud to be fond, and she could
not endure the sting of their accusing thoughts or remarks. She had no
intention to let them know the truth even now, but at the same time,
she wished them to feel that she had acted in a spirit of independent
self-will, and that her course in future would be governed by the same
influence.
She remembered what she had written in the note she had left behind upon
her dressing table, addressed to her mother, when she fled. Its contents
she determined to make the ground-work of her action.
It happened that Mr. Grahame had guests that day. There were two very
high, very proud, very rich members of the aristocracy, a kinsman of his
wife’s, from the north, infinitely more proud than rich, and the young
Duke of St. Allborne, who had recently exhibited symptoms of being
entangled in the meshes which Margaret Grahame had, with cold
calculation and no mean skill, contrived to wind about him.
Helen, perhaps, would have shrunk from encountering this assemblage, had
she known that her relatives were not dining _en famille_. It had
not occurred to her to put the question, and she proceeded to the
dining-room, expecting only to meet her parents, her brother, and her
sisters.
The conversation at the table, when she entered the dining-room, was as
animated and lively as might be expected. Mr. Grahame was endeavouring
to forget that he stood upon a volcano, which roared, and seethed, and
bubbled beneath his feet. He was engaged discussing a political question
with his two aristocratic friends. Mrs. Grahame was occupied with her
kinsman, and Margaret exclusively with the Duke, alternately flattering
him and deferring with the profoundest attention and deference to his
observations, so that he felt quite sure that if she did not possess the
beauty of many he had seen, she had wonderful discrimination. Malcolm
was silently drinking to Lotte, pledging her mentally every time the
bottle came round, and Evangeline, still and retiring as ever, was
thinking about her sister Helen, and perhaps the young pleasant-faced
gentleman, who had lost a sister, too.
The door flew open widely.
“Miss Grahame!” shouted the butler, with extended orbs and inflated
nostrils.
Helen, full dressed, pale as marble, but stately as a queen, walked up
the room to an unoccupied seat upon the right hand of her mother. She
made a slight inclination of her head to those present, and then seated
herself, with a self-possession, considering the events which had
happened, quite startling.
“Miss Grahame!” was involuntarily repeated by every one present, and
naturally all eyes rested upon her.
A strange and, as it were, a solemn stillness followed her appearance.
Her face was so white, so transparent and colourless; her eyes shone
with such unearthly brilliancy; her hair lay so black and glossy upon
her brow, contrasting powerfully with her snowy temples; she sat so
erect, and gazed around her with so haughty and defiant a mien--that if
not deemed a phantom by those who were strangers to her, they, at least,
suspected that she had risen from a bed of sickness; and, in a fit
of temporary derangement, had decked herself out in ball attire and
presented herself, thus suddenly and unexpectedly, before them.
The eyes of the guests next sought the face of Mr. Grahame, to learn
what effect this apparition had upon him. .
His face had become as white as that of his own child.
He could have screamed with horror when he saw her bend her full dark
eye on his, and slowly and calmly seat herself before him.
A thousand thoughts passed through his already tortured mind. Whither
had she been?--whence had she come?--and in that dread interval what had
happened? How had she come back?--and for why did she now appear, and
thus?
She was his own child--there could be no doubt about that; but oh! so
changed, so dreadfully changed--a spectral shadow only of her former
self was she now!
What was he to do? What could he do? He dare not, for very pride sake,
hazard a scene. But how receive her? what could he say? She anticipated
him.
In a firm, clear voice, she exclaimed, addressing herself to him--
“I was unaware that you were honoured with the presence of guests,
sir, or I should have not joined the circle until you assembled in
the drawing-room. I hope they and you will accept my apologies for
presenting myself here, either too soon or too late.”
“For coming here at all,” thought Grahame, with an inward groan.
Mrs. Grahame seemed to contract--to shrivel into a thin, old
woman--while Margaret let her eyes close, and her brow fall. She sealed
her lips, too, and sat like a granite figure, and became almost of the
same hue.
Malcolm looked at his sister, and drank another glass of port.
“It appears to me,” he thought, “that by-and-bye there will be a serious
disturbance in this house.”
Of all, Evangeline alone recognised her sister as her sister. Retiring
by nature, she may have been, but she was bold in this. She rose from
her seat, and passing with more display than she was in the habit of
making behind those who sat between her and Helen, she heeded not her
father’s stern look or her mother’s stony aspect, but she caught her
sister’s hands, and pressed them. She bent over, and kissed her cold,
cold forehead.
“Welcome home, Helen, dearest!” she said with passionate tenderness; but
there her speech left her, and tears thronged into her eyes.
Helen could not now articulate a word, if her life had depended on it.
She squeezed Evangeline’s hands, and oh! how she longed to kiss her, but
she felt she dare not.
At a glance from Helen, Eva resumed her seat.
The little incident of which Evangeline had been the heroine seemed
to assure the guests that they had surmised wrongly, and the two
aristocrats at once bent over to Mr. Grahame, and requested, to his
dismay, to be introduced to his eldest daughter.
The Duke of St. Allborne sprang to his feet, and cried, with some
vivacity--
“Pawmit me, Lindsay and Elsingham, to have that honaw. I have had the
vewy gweat playshaw of enjoying the agweeable society of Miss Gwahame
on vawious occasions, always with incweasing delight; and in dwawing you
together, I feel convinced I shall be confawing on you both a happiness
of which at pwesent you have no notion.”
But Mr. Grahame, in a voice scarcely articulate, thanked him, declined
his services, and took the office upon himself. He went through the
ceremony of introduction with frigid formality, and Helen supported it
with a grace and dignity which elevated her in the estimation of the
gentlemen to whom she was introduced, although they had yet a misgiving
respecting her, from the continued cold silence towards her of every
member of her family, save Evangeline.
The Duke began to engage her in conversation, made some remarks
respecting the delicate health her appearance betrayed, and was in
full career to forget Margaret entirely in his increasing admiration of
Helen’s beauty, when once more the door of the room was flung wide, and
the butler announced, “The Honorable Lester Vane.”
Helen set her teeth together hard; she drew her form proudly erect, and
sat more like a queen than ever.
“Youaw man should have announced the ‘late Honawable Lestaw Vane,’ I
think, Gwahame,” exclaimed the young Duke, with a slight laugh.
“I beg your pardon, my lord duke,” returned Vane, calmly, suffering his
gaze to wander slowly round the table; “Mr. Grahame was conscious that
I should be unable to join until this hour, and kindly consented to
waive----”
His eye fell upon Helen Grahame, and he paused.
His face betrayed an aspect of intense amazement; then his eye ran
rapidly round upon the countenances of all there. Another instant, and
he had recovered his self-possession. He went on speaking.
“To waive the usual observances in my favour, and admit me at any hour I
might be able to reach here.”
A few words of vapid nothings, and Lester seated himself before his
wine, that he might more quietly and coolly examine the vision before
him, and learn, if possible, the cause of her being here, where, after
his interview with her at the humble lodgings, he least of all expected
to meet her.
He had been soundly thrashed by Bantom; but, though he was confined
for a week to his chamber, he had got over it; without, however, as yet
discovering the individual who had subjected him to the outrage.
Once his eyes and Helen’s met; but there was an expression in her bright
orbs which he could not bear unmoved, and he looked away from her.
Suddenly Mrs. Grahame rose from her seat, and prepared to quit the room.
The gentlemen rose up too.
The mother seemed to shrink and totter as she passed the child, at whom
only she had looked once since she entered, but to whom she had not
uttered a word. Margaret would have haughtily, though hastily, followed
her, but that Helen, with an imperial bearing, stood before her, and
compelled her to halt while she took her place, as the eldest daughter,
next to her mother.
The incident was but momentary, and might have been considered
accidental, but for the decisive action and even grand bearing of Helen,
whiter still from the insult her sister Margaret would have publicly
forced upon her. Every one observed it, and the sympathy of the guests
at least was with her.
They passed out of the room. Mrs. Grahame hurrying to her own chamber,
and fastening herself within, as if in fear that Helen should seek her
there. Margaret copied her example, but Helen went only where she
wished to go--to Evangeline’s room--to have a few loving words with her
youngest sister, before she took her leave of her home for ever.
She had attained her object--if any she had--and she intended to leave
as abruptly as she had entered, caring not to see one of her relatives,
save Evangeline, more.
When the door closed, one of the distinguished guests, a peer and a
bachelor, known to be enormously wealthy, turned to his half distracted
host and said--
“Grahame, your eldest daughter is the most lovely woman I ever beheld;
she has the dignity of an empress and the form of a goddess; Cleopatra
herself could not have been more grandly beautiful.”
Mr. Grahame bowed, distressed beyond measure. He knew not how to answer.
“Gentlemen,” the peer added, addressing the guests, “pray honour my
toast with bumpers--Miss Grahame!” He drained his glass to the dregs, so
did all but Grahame. The wine tasted like molten lead in his mouth; he
put down his glass scarcely touched.
“Upon my life,” exclaimed the young Duke, with his vacant laugh--“I do
believe you aw smitten with Miss Gwahame’s chawms, Elsingham.”
“I accept your tribute to my taste,” he answered, with a seriousness of
tone, which there was no mistaking; “a man honoured with the hand of one
so beautiful ought to wish for no greater exaltation on earth. Were Miss
Grahame heart-free, and would she condescend to turn her eyes upon one
who would offer her a waning life’s devotion, I think, upon my faith,
your Grace would have good reason to find your suggestion not very wide
of the truth.”
The Duke laughed loudly, and was echoed by one or two others. Lester
Vane sat grimly silent; so did Grahame. The latter suddenly rose up, and
bade his son Malcolm do the honours of the table for him, during a short
absence.
He had caught at a straw. He had been long drowning, and everything
resembling a straw, approaching the vortex in which he was slowly and
surely revolving, he clutched at.
His daughter Helen might yet be a peeress, the idol of a nobleman
of vast wealth. She might now be the means of plucking him from
destruction, even while the destroying waters were bubbling on his lips.
Helen and Evangeline had but interchanged a few hurried words, when
their father suddenly stood before them.
They both rose.
“Helen,” he exclaimed, sternly and coldly, “attend me to my library.”
Not a word more. He made a gesture which was so imperious in character,
that she could not but involuntarily obey it, and she went in the
direction in which he pointed.
He followed her, and when they were within the room, he locked the door.
Evangeline crept after them. She stood at the library door in silence
but in tears.
END OF VOL. II.