Helbeck of Bannisdale. Mrs. Humphry Ward
as though to prove even to herself she was not, she carried on a rattle of questions. How old was the tower? How old was the room in which they were sitting? She looked round it with ignorant, girlish eyes.
He pointed her to the date on the carved mantelpiece—1583.
"That is a very important date for us," he began, then checked himself.
"Why?"
He seemed to find a difficulty in going on, but at last he said:
"The man who put up that chimney-piece was hanged at Manchester later in the same year."
"Why?—what for?"
He suddenly noticed the delicacy of her tiny wrist as her hand paused at the edge of her plate, and the brilliance of her eyes—large and greenish-grey, with a marked black line round the iris. The very perception perhaps made his answer more cold and measured.
"He was a Catholic recusant, under Elizabeth. He had harboured a priest, and he and the priest and a friend suffered death for it together at Manchester. Afterwards their heads were fixed on the outside of Manchester parish church."
"How horrible!" said Miss Fountain, frowning. "Do you know anything more about him?"
"Yes, we have letters——"
But he would say no more, and the subject dropped. Not to let the conversation also come to an end, he pointed to some old gilded leather which covered one side of the room, while the other three walls were oak-panelled from ceiling to floor.
"It is very dim and dingy now," said Helbeck; "but when it was fresh, it was the wonder of the place. The room got the name of Paradise from it. There are many mentions of it in the old letters."
"Who put it up?"
"The brother of the martyr—twenty years later."
"The martyr!" she thought, half scornfully. "No doubt he is as proud of that as of his twenty generations!"
He told her a few more antiquarian facts about the room, and its builders, she meanwhile looking in some perplexity from the rich embossments of the ceiling with its Tudor roses and crowns, from the stately mantelpiece and canopied doors, to the few pieces of shabby modern furniture which disfigured the room, the half-dozen cane chairs, the ugly lodging-house carpet and sideboard. What had become of the old furnishings? How could they have disappeared so utterly?
Helbeck, however, did not enlighten her. He talked indeed with no freedom, merely to pass the time.
She perfectly recognised that he was not at ease with her, and she hurried her meal, in spite of her very frank hunger, that she might set him free. But, as she was putting down her coffee-cup for the last time, she suddenly said:
"It's a very good air here, isn't it, Mr. Helbeck?"
"I believe so," he replied, in some surprise. "It's a mixture of the sea and the mountains. Everybody here—most of the poor people—live to a great age."
"That's all right! Then Augustina will soon get strong here. She can't do without me yet—but you know, of course—I have decided—about myself?"
Somehow, as she looked across to her host, her little figure, in its plain white dress and black ribbons, expressed a curious tension. "She wants to make it very plain to me," thought Helbeck, "that if she comes here as my guest, it is only as a favour, to look after my sister."
Aloud he said:
"Augustina told me she could not hope to keep you for long."
"No!" said the girl sharply. "No! I must take up a profession. I have a little money, you know, from papa. I shall go to Cambridge, or to London, perhaps to live with a friend. Oh! you darling!—you darling!"
Helbeck opened his eyes in amazement. Miss Fountain had sprung from her seat, and thrown herself on her knees beside his old collie Bruno. Her arms were round the dog's neck, and she was pressing her cheek against his brown nose. Perhaps she caught her host's look of astonishment, for she rose at once in a flush of some feeling she tried to put down, and said, still holding the dog's head against her dress:
"I didn't know you had a dog like this. It's so like ours—you see—like papa's. I had to give ours away when we left Folkestone. You dear, dear thing!"—(the caressing intensity in the girl's young voice made Helbeck shrink and turn away)—"now you won't kill my Fricka, will you? She's curled up, such a delicious black ball, on my bed; you couldn't—you couldn't have the heart! I'll take you up and introduce you—I'll do everything proper!"
The dog looked up at her, with its soft, quiet eyes, as though it weighed her pleadings.
"There," she said triumphantly. "It's all right—he winked. Come along, my dear, and let's make real friends."
And she led the dog into the hall, Helbeck ceremoniously opening the door for her.
She sat herself down in the oak settle beside the hall fire, where for some minutes she occupied herself entirely with the dog, talking a sort of baby language to him that left Helbeck absolutely dumb. When she raised her head, she flung, dartlike, another question at her host.
"Have you many neighbours, Mr. Helbeck?"
Her voice startled his look away from her.
"Not many," he said, hesitating. "And I know little of those there are."
"Indeed! Don't you like—society?"
He laughed with some embarrassment. "I don't get much of it," he said simply.
"Don't you? What a pity!—isn't it, Bruno? I like society dreadfully—dances, theatres, parties—all sorts of things. Or I did—once."
She paused and stared at Helbeck. He did not speak, however. She sat up very straight and pushed the dog from her. "By the way," she said, in a shrill voice, "there are my cousins, the Masons. How far are they?"
"About seven miles."
"Quite up in the mountains, isn't it?"
Helbeck assented.
"Oh! I shall go there at once, I shall go tomorrow," said the girl, with emphasis, resting her small chin lightly on the head of the dog, while she fixed her eyes—her hostile eyes—upon her host.
Helbeck made no answer. He went to fetch another log for the fire.
"Why doesn't he say something about them?" she thought angrily. "Why doesn't he say something about papa?—about his illness?—ask me any questions? He may have hated him, but it would be only decent. He is a very grand, imposing person, I suppose, with his melancholy airs, and his family. Papa was worth a hundred of him! Oh! past a quarter to ten? Time to go, and let him have his prayers to himself. Augustina told me ten."
She sprang up, and stiffly held out her hand.
"Good-night, Mr. Helbeck. I ought to go to Augustina and settle her for the night. To-morrow I should like to tell you what the doctor said about her; she is not strong at all. What time do you breakfast?"
"Half-past eight. But, of course——"
"Oh, no! of course Augustina won't come down! I will carry her up her tray myself. Good-night."
Helbeck touched her hand. But as she turned away, he followed her a few steps irresolutely, and then said: "Miss Fountain,"—she looked round in surprise—"I should like you to understand that everything that can be done in this poor house for my sister's comfort, and yours, I should wish done. My resources are not great, but my will is good."
He raised his eyelids, and she saw the eyes beneath, full, for the first time—eyes grey like her own, but far darker and profounder. She felt a momentary flutter, perhaps of compunction. Then she thanked him and went her way.
* * * * *
When she had made her stepmother comfortable for the night, Laura Fountain went back to her room, shielding her candle with difficulty from the gusts that seemed to tear along the dark passages of the old