The Mansfields’ little flat in College Street had great attraction for
Carey. There was an air of restful quiet about its daintily furnished
drawing-room, which appealed strongly to some of his restless moods.
He liked the old man’s clever, easy talk, and Helen’s quiet presence.
For Helen he began very soon to have an almost affectionate regard.
Reserved, far from brilliant, as she was, there was about her whole
personality an air of silent strength which he was quick to feel. He
liked her tall, graceful figure, (she was considered too thin by most
people,) her clear pale face lighted by very softly shining, steady
blue eyes, and her coils of flaxen hair. She was almost immediately at
home with Carey; and before long an easy natural intimacy had sprung
up between them, rather to Trelawney’s amusement. “Helen’s approval
is about the best testimonial you’ll ever get, old man,” he said
once, with a laugh. “Make the most of it! Such a dainty, _noli me
tangere_ young woman as Helen doesn’t exist! Strangely enough, too,”
he added, confidentially, “for she’s anything but a prude--doesn’t go
in at all for shrinking ignorance, you understand. She knows good and
evil. I’m a little surprised at some of the people she admires and
likes--sometimes--they’re not by any means in Mrs. Grundy’s good books.”
“I didn’t know that Mrs. Grundy was a judge of character,” Carey
remarked.
“Well, no--but a _woman_, you know.”
“My dear Jim, you’re still sojourning in the tents of the Philistines,”
said Carey, with a laugh. “Remember that the former things are passed
away--this is the age of the New Woman!”
“Has one ever a chance of forgetting it? Helen’s not one of the
sisterhood, though, thank Heaven!”
“She is, and a particularly engaging member,” Carey replied, calmly.
He had called one afternoon, rather late, after a hard day’s work.
Helen rose from a low couch drawn close to the fire, as he entered, and
came across the room to meet him.
“Mr. Carey! I’m so glad to see you,” she said, in her gentle fashion,
with a touch of cordiality in her voice which she reserved for welcome
guests.
“Father is out--lecturing, poor dear man! Aunt Charlotte is away for
the day too; so I’m all alone.”
Carey sank into one of the deep chairs with a sigh of pleasure.
“How is it your room is always so charming?” he said, with an
appreciative glance right and left. “It’s like an oasis in the desert.”
Helen laughed softly. “Are things as bad as that? I should hardly have
described London as a desert,--a rather thickly populated one, isn’t
it?”
“Oh! I don’t know,” he replied with a slight, rather weary movement.
“It’s a howling wilderness to me. I hate it. I’ve got the wander-fever
in my blood, I think. I want to be off again, back to ‘them spicy
garlic smells, and the sunshine, and the palm trees.’ I hear the East
a-calling too imperiously sometimes, Miss Mansfield.”
“I expect you are over-working,” Helen said, looking at him with a
little half maternal air of concern.
There were tired lines about his eyes, though they were bright and
alert as ever.
“Well! I’ve got rather a stiff job at present,” he admitted, “but I’m
going to take a holiday in a week or two. Jim’s out of town, I hear?”
“Yes. He’s in Yorkshire. He has an important case on.”
“Won’t you play me something?” Carey asked, after a moment. “I’ve been
thirsting for music all day.”
Helen went to the piano, and he sat absently gazing into the glowing
heart of the fire. The lamps were not yet brought in, and the room
was nearly dark. The firelight fell full upon his face as he sat and
pondered; the lines on his forehead deepened into a frown. From her
seat at the piano, in the gloom, Helen glanced at him now and again,
a little curiously, while her hands stole dreamily over the keys.
There was in his face something that was new to her, something vaguely
dissatisfied. She had an odd fancy that he was experiencing a sensation
new to him also--that he resented it--was unwilling to admit to himself
its existence. She found herself speculating upon its nature before her
thoughts slid into another and sadder channel. The nocturne she was
playing, one of Chopin’s, died away lingeringly, pathetically, and she
rose with a scarcely suppressed sigh.
The door opened at the moment, and the maid came in with the lamps; she
went out again and immediately re-entered with a letter.
Helen took it quickly from the tray.
“You will forgive me one moment?” she said, with a glance at Carey. She
opened the letter hastily, still standing at the piano, and looked at
its contents. Then she came forward slowly, the letter in her hand, and
sat down by the fire. Her face was grave.
“It is from Bridget,” she said, turning to him. He raised his head with
a quick movement.
“Yes?” he replied, and waited. There was something about the tone in
which Helen made the announcement which indicated that she wished to
speak of her friend.
“Mr. Carey,” she said, after a moment, during which she had sat with
averted head, “you were Bridget’s friend.” There was a note of half
interrogation in the words. He stirred a little. “She told me,” Helen
hastened to say. “She tells me everything,” she added with a smile.
Carey looked relieved.
“You know that she has been here?--that she came here the other night?”
“Yes, I heard so. Jim told me.”
“Ah!” she replied quickly, turning appealingly to him. “_I_ want to
tell you about Bridget. Jim and I don’t agree in this matter. But he
has been good,” she added, with a faint smile. “We have settled not to
talk of it. I have known Bridget all my life,” she went on, and there
was a touch of pride in her voice. She lifted her head. “I entirely
approve of the step she has taken. I rejoice that she had the courage
to do it when, and in the manner, she did.” Helen’s pale cheeks
flushed a little as she spoke. She fixed her blue eyes earnestly on
Carey’s face.
“And I too, Miss Mansfield,” Carey said quickly.
She flashed a grateful glance at him.
“I am glad,” she said. “Bridget will want all her friends.”
There was a short silence. Helen sat with clasped hands resting on her
lap, looking musingly into the fire.
“You don’t know Mr. Travers, I think?” she asked at last.
“Fortunately--no.”
“Oh, I am glad--I am _glad_ Bridget is free!” Helen broke out all at
once. Her quiet voice was broken and agitated. She rose hurriedly, and
stood leaning against the mantel-piece, clasping and unclasping her
hands nervously. “I distrusted him always--_always!_” she went on;
“yet I don’t wonder that she married him. People have wondered; but I
knew--I understood. No one knows Bridget as I do; no one understands
all the circumstances--” She stopped abruptly.
“I haven’t known you very long,” she began, with a little deprecatory
smile. “I can’t think why I am telling you this; but I feel that
though you know so little of her, you are a good friend of Bridget’s;
besides, her life has been influenced through you--through the stories
you helped her to publish.”
“I am proud to hear anything you choose to tell me,” Carey said
gravely. “I--Mrs. Travers has always interested me greatly. I foretold
for her a brilliant future.”
“Yes, _yes_--and now perhaps she will have her opportunity,” Helen
broke in eagerly. “We have been friends since we were children at
school. Bridget used to write then--school-girl writing, you know; but
oh! alive and clever and vivid, even then--like herself! Her home life
was terrible--unendurable almost. You know she became a teacher? Father
and I were away about the time she first came to town. We left London
before it was settled she was to live here. We did what we could about
asking people to look after her, but we haven’t many acquaintances--and
you know how careless people are; so she had no friends, and was
terribly lonely.”
“I know,” Carey assented.
“Ah, yes! she said how good you were!” Helen paused to say, gratefully.
“Well, we came home at last, just as her first story was published.
People talked about it--some of them met Bridget at our house, and
of course they were charmed with her. She began to be asked to
different houses: presently she met Mr. Travers and his set. They all
raved about her--thought her lovely; and so she was, and is. But you
should have seen her those few months! Her social success came all
at once, following close upon the lonely lodging-house life she had
led for a year. She was _radiantly_ happy. Everything was fresh, of
course--everything was charming. She gave even those decadent people a
new sensation--I believe she galvanized some of them back to life! Mr.
Travers made love to her from the first, and Bridget thought she cared
for him. It was so natural under the circumstances. You see--” She
stopped a moment. “Bridget’s home life,” she began hesitatingly.
“Yes; I know the circumstances of her home life,” Carey said.
“Well, then, you can understand, perhaps. Mr. Travers was brilliant,
talked well, his manner was charming. He was to all appearances a
gentleman. Bridget”--she paused a moment--“Bridget naturally had met
very few gentlemen in her life. Nothing seems to me more natural, in
looking back upon it, than that she should believe she loved him. They
were married after only a few months’ engagement.”
Helen left off speaking a moment, and sat down again in her low chair,
bending thoughtfully a little forward, towards the fire.
Carey waited in silence.
“I really know scarcely anything definitely about their married life,”
she said at last, slowly. “She has said very little, even to me; but
I have been miserable at the change in her. I could read between the
lines. I knew. She grew hard and cynical and brilliant, like the people
she mixed with. Never to me,” she added, turning her head swiftly to
hide the tears in her eyes. “It was in self-defence. She suffered
terribly--_terribly_. I could read it in her face.”
Carey’s hand tightened its hold on the arm of the chair.
“The man never loved her,” she went on. “He was incapable of love,
or of any other human emotion, I believe. It was her beauty--nothing
else--that attracted him. It even made him tolerate her social
position. Bridget told him at once, before they were engaged; but he
taunted her with it after their marriage,” she added bitterly. “I
learnt more than I ever knew before, that dreadful night she came here,
when she left his house,” she continued, in a low tone. “She was more
like her old self than she had been all the three years of her married
life. I cried for thankfulness. If you knew how it hurt me to see her
so changed, so cold, so indifferent, so self-controlled. It was so
unnatural! The Bridget I remembered was fearless and outspoken, with a
fiery Irish temper. You ought to have seen her at school, in a royal
rage; her eyes used to _blaze_--just like stars on a frosty night!”
Helen laughed unsteadily.
There was silence. “Thank you for telling me all this,” Carey said
presently, very gently.
“I wanted you to know--somehow,” she replied, turning to him.
“She is at home now?” he asked.
“Yes, she would go home, to tell her mother herself. Poor Bid!” she
sighed, and glanced at the letter on her lap.
“What is she going to do? She will write, of course. She must write,”
Carey said.
“She talked of teaching again, if possible; but she means to write.
Yes! I believe she will do great things now she is free!” There was
exultation in Helen’s soft voice. “Her work has been at a standstill
for three years,--he hated it, you know, or pretended to. He is one of
those men who can’t endure women to have brains. He says, quite openly
and seriously, they should be purely ornamental. I think he was jealous
of Bridget. Poor Bid! Poor Bid!” she repeated, tenderly.
There was another pause.
“They are to be separated--legally, I think?” Carey asked.
“Yes. Ah, here’s father!” she exclaimed, as the door opened, and Dr.
Mansfield came in with outstretched, welcoming hands.
“You’re tired, father. I shall tell Evans to send you in a cup of tea,”
Helen said, going to the door.