To a penny I knew the amount of my lady's fortune, and understood Mr.
Harringford's bequest had set her as far above me as the stars are above
the earth.
I had the conduct of most of Miss Elmsdale's business. As a compliment,
perhaps, Mr. Craven entrusted all the work connected with Mr.
Harringford's estate to me, and I accepted that trust as I should have
done any other which he might choose to place in my hands.
But I could have dispensed with his well-meant kindness. Every visit I
paid to Miss Blake filled my soul with bitterness. Had I been a porter,
a crossing-sweeper, or a potman, she might, I suppose, have treated me
with some sort of courtesy; but, as matters stood, her every tone, word,
and look, said, plainly as possible, "If you do not know your station, I
will teach it to you."
As for Helena, she was always the same--sweet, and kind, and grateful,
and gracious; but she had her friends about her: new lovers waiting for
her smiles. And, after a time, the shadow cast across her youth would,
I understood, be altogether removed, and leave her free to begin a new
and beautiful life, unalloyed by that hideous, haunting memory of
suicide, which had changed into melancholy the gay cheerfulness of her
lovely girlhood.
Yes; it was the old story of the streamlet and the snow, of the rose and
the wind. To others my love might not have seemed hopeless, but to me it
was dead as the flowers I had seen blooming a year before.
Not for any earthly consideration would I have made a claim upon her
affection.
What I had done had been done freely and loyally. I gave it all to her
as utterly as I had previously given my heart, and now I could make no
bargain with my dear. I never for a moment thought she owed me anything
for my pains and trouble. Her kindly glances, her sweet words, her
little, thoughtful turns of manner, were free gifts of her goodness, but
in no sense payment for my services.
She understood I could not presume upon them, and was, perhaps, better
satisfied it should be so.
But nothing satisfied Miss Blake, and at length between her and Mr.
Craven there ensued a serious disagreement. She insisted he should not
"send that clerk of his" to the house again, and suggested if Mr. Craven
were too high and mighty to attend to the concerns of Miss Elmsdale
himself, Miss Blake must look out for another solicitor.
"The sooner the better, madam," said Mr. Craven, with great state; and
Miss Blake left in a huff, and actually did go off to a rival attorney,
who, however, firmly declined to undertake her business.
Then Helena came as peacemaker. She smoothed down Mr. Craven's
ruffled feathers and talked him into a good temper, and effected
a reconciliation with her aunt, and then nearly spoilt everything
by adding:
"But indeed I think Mr. Patterson had better not come to see us for the
present, at all events."
"You ungrateful girl!" exclaimed Mr. Craven; but she answered, with a
little sob, that she was not ungrateful, only--only she thought it would
be better if I stayed away.
And so Taylor took my duties on him, and, as a natural consequence, some
very pretty disputes between him and Miss Blake had to be arranged by
Mr. Craven.
Thus the winter passed, and it was spring again--that spring day of
which I have spoken. Mr. Craven and I were alone in the office. He had
come late into town and was reading his letters; whilst I, seated by a
window overlooking the Thames, gave about equal attention to the river
outside and a tedious document lying on my table.
We had not spoken a word, I think, for ten minutes, when a slip of paper
was brought in, on which was written a name.
"Ask her to walk in," said Mr. Craven, and, going to the door, he
greeted the visitor, and led Miss Elmsdale into the room.
I rose, irresolute; but she came forward, and, with a charming
blush, held out her hand, and asked me some commonplace question
about my health.
Then I was going, but she entreated me not to leave the room on
her account.
"This is my birthday, Mr. Craven," she went on, "and I have come to ask
you to wish me many happy returns of the day, and to do something for
me--will you?"
"I wish you every happiness, my dear," he answered, with a tenderness
born, perhaps, of olden memories and of loving-kindness towards one so
sweet, and beautiful, and lonely. "And if there is anything I can do for
you on your birthday, why, it is done, that is all I can say."
She clasped her dear hands round his arm, and led him towards a further
window. I could see her downcast eyes--the long lashes lying on her
cheeks, the soft colour flitting and coming, making her alternately pale
and rosy, and I was jealous. Heaven forgive me! If she had hung so
trustfully about one of the patriarchs, I should have been jealous,
though he reckoned his years by centuries.
What she had to say was said quickly. She spoke in a whisper, bringing
her lips close to his ear, and lifting her eyes imploringly to his when
she had finished.
"Upon my word, miss," he exclaimed, aloud, and he held her from him and
looked at her till the colour rushed in beautiful blushes even to her
temples, and her lashes were wet with tears, and her cheeks dimpled with
smiles. "Upon my word--and you make such a request to me--to me, who
have a character to maintain, and who have daughters of my own to whom I
am bound to set a good example! Patterson, come here. Can you imagine
what this young lady wants me to do for her now? She is twenty-one
to-day, she tells me, and she wants me to ask you to marry her. She says
she will never marry anyone else." Then, as I hung back a little, dazed,
fearful, and unable to credit the evidence of my senses, he added:
"Take her; she means it every word, and you deserve to have her. If she
had chosen anybody else I would never have drawn out her settlements."
But I would not take her, not then. Standing there with the spring
landscape blurred for the moment before me, I tried to tell them both
what I felt. At first, my words were low and broken, for the change from
misery to happiness affected me almost as though I had been suddenly
plunged from happiness into despair. But by degrees I recovered my
senses, and told my darling and Mr. Craven it was not fit she should,
out of very generosity, give herself to me--a man utterly destitute of
fortune--a man who, though he loved her better than life, was only a
clerk at a clerk's salary.
"If I were a duke," I went on, breaking ground at last, "with a duke's
revenue and a duke's rank, I should only value what I had for her sake.
I would carry my money, and my birth, and my position to her, and ask
her to take all, if she would only take me with them; but, as matters
stand, Mr. Craven--"
"I owe everything worth having in life to you," she said, impetuously,
taking my hand in hers. "I should not like you at all if you were a
duke, and had a ducal revenue."
"I think you are too strait-laced, Patterson," agreed Mr. Craven. "She
does owe everything she has to your determination, remember."
"But I undertook to solve the mystery for fifty pounds," I remarked,
smiling in spite of myself.
"Which has never been paid," remarked my employer. "But," he went on,
"you young people come here and sit down, and let us talk the affair
over all together." And so he put us in chairs as if we had been
clients, while he took his professional seat, and, after a pause, began:
"My dear Helena, I think the young man has reason. A woman should marry
her equal. He will, in a worldly sense, be more than your equal some
day; but that is nothing. A man should be head of the household.
"It is good, and nice, and loving of you, my child, to wish to endow
your husband with all your worldly goods; but your husband ought, before
he takes you, to have goods of his own wherewith to endow you. Now, now,
now, don't purse up your pretty mouth, and try to controvert a lawyer's
wisdom. You are both young: you have plenty of time before you.
"He ought to be given an opportunity of showing what he can do, and
you ought to mix in society and see whether you meet anyone you
think you can like better. There is no worse time for finding out a
mistake of that sort, than after marriage." And so the kind soul
prosed on, and would, possibly, have gone on prosing for a few hours
more, had I not interrupted one of his sentences by saying I would
not have Miss Elmsdale bound by any engagement, or consider herself
other than free as air.
"Well, well," he answered, testily, "we understand that thoroughly. But
I suppose you do not intend to cast the young lady's affections from you
as if they were of no value?"
At this juncture her eyes and mine met. She smiled, and I could not help
smiling too.
"Suppose we leave it in this way," Mr. Craven said, addressing
apparently some independent stranger. "If, at the end of a year, Miss
Elmsdale is of the same mind, let her write to me and say so. That
course will leave her free enough, and it will give us twelve months in
which to turn round, and see what we can do in the way of making his
fortune. I do not imagine he will ever be able to count down guineas
against her guineas, or that he wants to do anything so absurd. But he
is right in saying an heiress should not marry a struggling clerk. He
ought to be earning a good income before he is much older, and he shall,
or my name is not William Craven."