HELEN WITH A SECRET.
When Helen came out into the corridor, she saw that the day was
breaking. A dim, dreary light filled the dismal house, but the
candle had prevented her from perceiving the little of it that could
enter that room withdrawn. A pang of fear shot to her soul, and like
a belated spectre or a roused somnambulist she fled across the park.
It was all so like a horrible dream, from which she must wake in
bed! yet she knew there was no such hope for her. Her darling lay in
that frightful house, and if anyone should see her, it might be
death to him. But yet it was very early, and two hours would pass
before any of the workmen would be on their way to the new house.
Yet, like a murderer shaken out of the earth by the light, she fled.
When she was safe in her own room, ere she could get into bed, she
once more turned deadly sick, and next knew by the agonies of coming
to herself that she had fainted.
A troubled, weary, EXCITED sleep followed. She woke with many a
start, as if she had sinned in sleeping, and instantly for very
weariness, dozed off again. How kind is weariness sometimes! It is
like the Father's hand laid a little heavy on the heart to make it
still. But her dreams were full of torture, and even when she had no
definite dream, she was haunted by the vague presence of blood. It
was considerably past her usual time for rising when at length she
heard her maid in the room. She got up wearily, but beyond the
heaviest of hearts and a general sense of misery, nothing ailed her.
Nor even did her head ache.
But she had lived an age since she woke last; and the wonder was,
not that she felt so different, but that she should be aware of
being the same person as before notwithstanding all that had passed.
Her business now was to keep herself from thinking until breakfast
should be over. She must hold the "ebony box" of last night close
shut even from her own eyes, lest the demons of which it was full
should rush out and darken the world about her. She hurried to her
bath for strength: the friendly water would rouse her to the
present, make the past recede like a dream, and give her courage to
face the future. Her very body seemed defiled by the knowledge that
was within it. Alas! how must poor Leopold feel, then! But she must
not think.
All the time she was dressing, her thoughts kept hovering round the
awful thing like moths around a foul flame, from which she could not
drive them away. Ever and again she said to herself that she must
not, yet ever and again she found herself peeping through the chinks
of the thought-chamber at the terrible thing inside--the form of
which she could not see--saw only the colour--red,--red mingled with
ghastly whiteness. In all the world, her best-loved, her brother,
the child of her grandfather, was the only one who knew how that
thing came there.
But while Helen's being was in such tumult that she could never more
be the cool, indifferent, self-contented person she had hitherto
been, her old habits and forms of existence were now of endless help
to the retaining of her composure and the covering of her secret. A
dim gleam of gladness woke in her at the sight of the unfinished
cap, than which she could not have a better excuse for her lateness,
and when she showed it to her aunt with the wish of many happy
returns of the day, no second glance from Mrs. Ramshorn added to her
uneasiness.
But oh, how terribly the time crept in its going! for she dared not
approach the deserted house while the daylight kept watching it like
a dog; and what if Leopold should have destroyed himself in the
madness of his despair before she could go to him! She had not a
friend to help her. George Bascombe?--she shuddered at the thought
of him. With his grand ideas of duty, he would be for giving up
Leopold that very moment! Naturally the clergyman was the one to go
to--and Mr. Wingfold had himself done wrong. But he had confessed
it! No--he was a poor creature, and would not hold his tongue! She
shook at every knock at the door, every ring at the bell, lest it
should be the police. To be sure, he had been comparatively little
there, and naturally they would seek him first at Goldswyre--but
where next? At Glaston, of course. Every time a servant entered the
room she turned away, lest her ears should make her countenance a
traitor. The police might be watching the house, and might follow
her when she went to him! With her opera-glass, she examined the
meadow, then ran to the bottom of the garden, and lying down, peered
over the sunk fence. But not a human being was in sight. Next she
put on her bonnet, with the pretence of shopping, to see if there
were any suspicious-looking persons in the street. But she did not
meet a single person unknown to her between her aunt's door and Mr.
Drew the linendraper's. There she bought a pair of gloves, and
walked quietly back, passing the house, and going on to the Abbey,
without meeting one person at whom she had to look twice.
All the time her consciousness was like a single intense point of
light in the middle of a darkness it could do nothing to illuminate.
She knew nothing but that her brother lay in that horrible empty
house, and that, if his words were not the ravings of a maniac, the
law, whether it yet suspected him or not, was certainly after him,
and if it had not yet struck upon his trail, was every moment on the
point of finding it, and must sooner or later come up with him. She
MUST save him--all that was left of him to save! But poor Helen knew
very little about saving.
One thing more she became suddenly aware of as she re-entered the
house--the possession of a power of dissimulation, of hiding
herself, hitherto strange to her, for hitherto she had had nothing,
hardly even a passing dislike to conceal. The consciousness brought
only exultation with it, for her nature was not yet delicate enough
to feel the jar of the thought that neither words nor looks must any
more be an index to what lay within her.