CHAPTER III
There was a light tap on Mrs. Friend's door. She said "Come in" ratherunwillingly. Some time had elapsed since she had seen Helena's flutteringwhite disappear into the corridor beyond her room; and she had nourisheda secret hope that the appointment had been forgotten. But the dooropened slightly. Mrs. Friend saw first a smiling face, finger on lip.Then the girl slipped in, and closed the door with caution.
"I don't want that 'very magnificent three-tailed Bashaw' to know we arediscussing him. He's somewhere still."
"What did you say?" asked Mrs. Friend, puzzled.
"Oh, it's only a line of an old poem--I don't know by whom--my fatherused to quote it. Well, now--did you see what happened at dinner?"
Helena had established herself comfortably in a capacious arm-chairopposite Mrs. Friend, tucking her feet under her. She was in a whitedressing-gown, and she had hastily tied a white scarf round her loosenedhair. In the dim light of a couple of candles her beauty made an evenmore exciting impression on the woman watching her than it had done inthe lamp-lit drawing-room.
"It's war!" she said firmly, "war between Buntingford and me. I'm sorryit's come so soon--the very first evening!--and I know it'll be beastlyfor you--but I can't help it. I _won't_ be dictated to. If I'm nottwenty-one, I'm old enough to choose my own friends; and if Buntingfordchooses to boycott them, he must take the consequences." And throwing herwhite arms above her head, her eyes looked out from the frame ofthem--eyes sparkling with pride and will.
Mrs. Friend begged for an explanation.
"Well, I happened to tell him that I had invited Lord Donald for Sunday.I'll tell you about Lord Donald presently--and he simply--behaved like abrute! He said he was sorry I hadn't told him, that he couldn't haveDonald here, and would telegraph to him to-morrow--not to come. Justthink of that! So then I said--why? And he said he didn't approve ofDonald--or some nonsense of that sort. I was quite calm. I reminded himhe had promised to let me invite my friends--that was part of thebargain. Yes--he said--but within limits--and Donald was the limit. Thatmade me savage--so I upped and said, very well, if I couldn't see Donaldhere, I should see him somewhere else--and he wouldn't prevent me. Iwasn't going to desert my friends for a lot of silly tales. So then hesaid I didn't know what I was talking about, and turned his back on me.He kept his temper provokingly--and I lost mine--which was idiotic of me.But I mean to be even with him--somehow. And as for Donald, I shall go upto town and lunch with him at the Ritz next week!"
"Oh, no, no, you can't!" cried Mrs. Friend in distress. "You can'ttreat your guardian like that! Do tell me what it's all about!" Andbending forward, she laid her two small hands entreatingly on thegirl's knee. She looked so frail and pitiful as she did so, in herplain black, that Helena was momentarily touched. For the first timeher new chaperon appeared to her as something else than a mere receiverinto which, or at which, it suited her to talk. She laid her own handsoothingly on Mrs. Friend's.
"Of course I'll tell you. I really don't mean to be nasty to you. But allthe same I warn you that it's no good trying to stop me, when I've madeup my mind. Well, now, for Donald. I know, of course, what Cousin Philipmeans. Donald ran away with the wife of a friend of his--ofBuntingford's, I mean--three or four weeks ago."
Mrs. Friend gasped. The modern young woman was becoming altogether toomuch for her. She could only repeat foolishly--"ran away?"
"Yes, ran away. There was no harm done. Sir Luke Preston--that's thehusband--followed them and caught them--and made her go back with him.But Donald didn't mean any mischief. She'd quarrelled with SirLuke--she's an empty-headed little fluffy thing. I know her a little--andshe dared Donald to run away with her--for a lark. So he took her on. Hedidn't mean anything horrid. I don't believe he's that sort. They weregoing down to his yacht at Southampton--there were several other friendsof his on the yacht--and they meant to give Sir Luke a fright--just showhim that he couldn't bully her as he had been doing--being sticky andstupid about her friends, just as Cousin Philip wants to be aboutmine--and quarrelling about her dress-bills--and a lot of things. Well,that's all! What's there in that?"
And the girl sat up straight, dropping her slim, white feet, while hergreat eyes challenged her companion to say a word in defence of herguardian. Mrs. Friend's head was turning.
"But it was surely wrong and foolish--" she began. Helenainterrupted her.
"I daresay it was," she said impatiently, "but that's not my affair. It'sLord Donald's. I'm not responsible for him. But he's done nothing that Iknow of to make _me_ cut him--and I won't! He told me all about it quitefrankly. I said I'd stick by him--and I will."
"And Sir Luke Preston is a friend of Lord Buntingford's?"
"Yes--" said Helena unwillingly--"I suppose he is. I didn't know. PerhapsI wouldn't have asked Donald if I'd known. But I did ask him, and heaccepted. And now Buntingford's going to insult him publicly. And that Iwon't stand--I vow I won't! It's insulting me too!"
And springing up, she began a stormy pacing of the room, her white gownfalling back from her neck and throat, and her hair floating behind her.Mrs. Friend had begun to collect herself. In the few hours she had passedunder Lord Buntingford's roof she seemed to herself to have been passingthrough a forcing house. Qualities she had never dreamed of possessing orclaiming she must somehow show, or give up the game. Unless she couldunderstand and get hold of this wholly unexpected situation, as Helenapresented it, she might as well re-pack her box, and order the villagefly for departure.
"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?" she said presently, as thewhite skirts swept past her.
"Mind! Not a bit. What do you want to know?"
"Are you in love with Lord Donald?"
Helena laughed.
"If I were, do you think I'd let him run away with Lady Preston oranybody else? Not at all! Lord Donald's just one of the men I liketalking to. He amuses me. He's very smart. He knows everybody. He's noworse than anybody else. He did all sorts of plucky things in the war. Idon't ask Buntingford to like him, of course. He isn't his sort. But hereally might let me alone!"
"But you asked him to stay in Lord Buntingford's house--and withoutconsulting--"
"Well--and it's going to be _my_ house, too, for two years--if I canpossibly bear it. When Mummy begged me, I told Buntingford my conditions.And he's broken them!"
And standing still, the tempestuous creature drew herself to her fullheight, her arms rigid by her side--a tragic-comic figure in the dimillumination of the two guttering candles.
Mrs. Friend attempted a diversion.
"Who else is coming for the week-end?"
Instantly Helena's mood dissolved in laughter. She came to perch herselfon the arm of Mrs. Friend's chair.
"There--now let's forget my tiresome guardian. I promised to tell youabout my 'boys.' Well, there are two of them coming--and Geoffrey French,besides a nephew of Buntingford's, who'll have this property and most ofthe money some day, always supposing this tyrant of mine doesn't marry,which of course any reasonable man would. Well--there's Peter Dale--thedearest, prettiest little fellow you ever saw. He was aide-de-camp toLord Brent in the war--_very_ smart--up to everything. He's demobbed, andhas gone into the City. Horribly rich already, and will now, of course,make another pile. He dreadfully wants to marry me--but--" she shook herhead with emphasis--"No!--it wouldn't do. He tries to kiss me sometimes.I didn't mind it at first. But I've told him not to do it again. Thenthere's Julian--Julian Horne--Balliol--awfully clever"--she checked offthe various items on her fingers--"as poor as a rat--a Socialist, ofcourse--they all are, that kind--but a real one--not like GeoffreyFrench, who's a sham, though he is in the House, and has joined theLabour party. You see"--her tone grew suddenly serious--"I don't reckonGeoffrey French among my boys."
"He's too old?"
"Oh, he's not so very old. But--I don't think he likes me very much--andI'm not sure whether I like him. He's good fun, however--and he ragsJulian Horne splendidly. That's one of his chief functions--and anotheris, to tak
e a hand in my education--when I allow him--and when Julianisn't about. They both tell me what to read. Julian tells me to readhistory, and gives me lists of books. Geoffrey talks economics--andphilosophy--and I adore it--he talks so well. He gave me Bergson theother day. Have you ever read any of him?"
"Never," said Mrs. Friend, bewildered. "Who is he?"
Helena's laugh woke the echoes of the room. But she checked it at once.
"I don't want _him_ to think we're plotting," she said in astage-whisper, looking round her. "If I do anything I want to springit on him!"
"Dear Miss Pitstone--please understand!--I can't help you to plot againstLord Buntingford. You must see I can't. He's my employer and yourguardian. If I helped you to do what he disapproves I should simply bedoing a dishonourable thing."
"Yes," said Helena reflectively. "Of course I see that. It's awkward. Isuppose you promised and vowed a great many things--like one's godmothersand godfathers?"
"No, I didn't promise anything--except that I would go out with you, makemyself useful to you, if I could--and help you with foreign languages."
"Goody," said Helena. "Do you _really_ know French--and German?" The tonewas incredulous. "I wish I did."
"Well, I was two years in France, and a year and a half in Germany when Iwas a girl. My parents wanted me to be a governess."
"And then you married?"
"Yes--just the year before the war."
"And your husband was killed?" The tone was low and soft. Mrs. Friendgave a mute assent. Suddenly Helena laid an arm round the littlewoman's neck.
"I want you to be friends with me--will you? I hated the thought of achaperon--I may as well tell you frankly. I thought I should probablyquarrel with you in a week. That was before I arrived. Then when I sawyou, I suddenly felt--'I shall like her! I'm glad she's here--I shan'tmind telling her my affairs.' I suppose it was because you lookedso--well, so meek and mild--so different from me--as though a puff wouldblow you away. One can't account for those things, can one? Do tell meyour Christian name! I won't call you by it--if you don't like it."
"My name is Lucy," said Mrs. Friend faintly. There was something soseductive in the neighbourhood of the girl's warm youth and in the newsweetness of her voice that she could not make any further defence of her"dignity."
"I might have guessed Lucy. It's just like you," said the girltriumphantly. "Wordsworth's Lucy--do you remember her?--'A violet by amossy stone'--That's you exactly. I _adore_ Wordsworth. Do you careabout poetry?"
The eager eyes looked peremptorily into hers.
"Yes," said Mrs. Friend shyly--"I'm very fond of some things. But you'dthink them old-fashioned!"
"What--Byron?--Shelley? They're never old-fashioned!"
"I never read much of them. But--I love Tennyson--and Mrs. Browning."
Helena made a face--
"Oh, I don't care a hang for her. She's so dreadfully pious andsentimental. I laughed till I cried over 'Aurora Leigh.' But now--Frenchthings! If you lived all that time in France, you must have read Frenchpoetry. Alfred de Musset?--Madame de Noailles?"
Mrs. Friend shook her head.
"We went to lectures. I learnt a great deal of Racine--a little VictorHugo--and Rostand--because the people I boarded with took me to'Cyrano'!"
"Ah, Rostand--" cried Helena, springing up. "Well, of course he's _vieuxjeu_ now. The best people make mock of him. Julian does. I don't care--hegives me thrills down my back, and I love him. But then _panache_ means agood deal to me. And Julian doesn't care a bit. He despises people whotalk about glory and honour--and that kind of thing. Well--Lucy--"
She stopped mischievously, her head on one side.
"Sorry!--but it slipped out. Lucy--good-night."
Mrs. Friend hurriedly caught hold of her.
"And you won't do anything hasty--about Lord Donald?"
"Oh, I can't promise anything. One must stand by one's friends. Onesimply must. But I'll take care Cousin Philip doesn't blame you."
"If I'm no use, you know--I can't stay."
"No use to Cousin Philip, you mean, in policing me?" said Helena, with agood-humoured laugh. "Well, we'll talk about it again to-morrow.Good-night--Lucy!"
The sly gaiety of the voice was most disarming.
"Good-night, Miss Pitstone."
"No, that won't do. It's absurd! I never ask people to call me Helena,unless I like them. I certainly never expected--there, I'll befrank!--that I should want to ask you--the very first night too. But I dowant you to. Please, Lucy, call me Helena. _Please_!"
Mrs. Friend did as she was told.
"Sleep well," said Helena from the door. "I hope the housemaid's putenough on your bed, and given you a hot water-bottle? If anything scaresyou in the night, wake me--that is, if you can!" She disappeared.
Outside Mrs. Friend's door the old house was in darkness, save for asingle light in the hall, which burnt all night. The hall was the featureof the house. A gallery ran round it supported by columns from below, andspaced by answering columns which carried the roof. The bedrooms ranround the hall, and opened into the gallery. The columns were of yellowmarble brought from Italy, and faded blue curtains hung between them.Helena went cautiously to the balustrade, drew one of the blue curtainsround her, and looked down into the hall. Was everybody gone to bed? No.There were movements in a distant room. Somebody coughed, and seemed tobe walking about. But she couldn't hear any talking. If Cousin Philipwere still up, he was alone.
Her anger came back upon her, and then curiosity. What was he thinkingabout, as he paced his room like a caged squirrel? About the trouble shewas likely to give him--and what a fool he had been to take the job? Shewould like to go and reason with him. The excess of vitality that was inher, sighing for fresh worlds to conquer, urged her to vehement andself-confident action,--action for its own sake, for the mere joy of theheat and movement that go with it. Part of the impulse depended on thenew light in which the gentleman walking about downstairs had begun toappear to her. She had known him hitherto as "Mummy's friend," always tobe counted upon when any practical difficulty arose, and ready onoccasion to put in a sharp word in defence of an invalid's peace, when agirl's unruliness threatened it. Remembering one or two such collisions,Helena felt her cheeks burn, as she hung over the hall, in the darkness.But those had been such passing matters. Now, as she recalled theexpression of his eyes, during their clash at the dinner-table, sherealized, with an excitement which was not disagreeable, that somethingmuch more prolonged and serious might lie before her. Accomplishedmodern, as she knew him to be in most things, he was going to be "stuffy"and "stupid" in some. Lord Donald's proceedings in the matter of LadyPreston evidently seemed to him--she had been made to feel it--franklyabominable. And he was not going to ask the man capable of them withinhis own doors. Well and good. "But as I don't agree with him--Donald wasonly larking!--I shall take my own way. A telegram goes anyway to Donaldto-morrow morning--and we shall see. So good-night, Cousin Philip!" Andblowing a kiss towards the empty hall, she gathered her white skirtsround her, and fled laughing towards her own room.
But just as she neared it, a door in front of her, leading to astaircase, opened, and a man in khaki appeared, carrying a candle. It wasCaptain Lodge, her neighbour at the dinner-table. The young man staredwith amazement at the apparition rushing along the gallery towardshim,--the girl's floating hair, and flushed loveliness as his candlerevealed it. Helena evidently enjoyed his astonishment, and his suddenlook of admiration. But before he could speak, she had vanished withinher own door, just holding it open long enough to give him a laughing nodbefore it shut, and darkness closed with it on the gallery.
"A man would need to keep his head with that girl!" thought CaptainLodge, with tantalized amusement. "But, my hat, what a beauty!"
Meanwhile in the library downstairs a good deal of thinking was going on.Lord Buntingford was taking more serious stock of his new duties than hehad done yet. As he walked, smoking, up and down, his thoughts were fullof his poor little cousin Rachel Pi
tstone. She had always been afavourite of his; and she had always known him better than any otherperson among his kinsfolk. He had found it easy to tell her secrets, whennobody else could have dragged a word from him; and as a matter of factshe had known before she died practically all that there was to knowabout him. And she had been so kind, and simple and wise. Had she perhapsonce had a _tendresse_ for him--before she met Ned Pitstone?--and ifthings had gone--differently--might he not, perhaps, have married her?Quite possibly. In any case the bond between them had always been one ofpeculiar intimacy; and in looking back on it he had nothing to reproachhimself with. He had done what he could to ease her suffering life.Struck down in her prime by a mortal disease, a widow at thirty, with herone beautiful child, her chief misfortune had been the melancholy andsensitive temperament, which filled the rooms in which she lived as fullof phantoms as the palace of Odysseus in the vision of Theoclymenus.
She was afraid for her child; afraid for her friend; afraid for theworld. The only hope of happiness for a woman, she believed, lay in anhonest lover, if such a lover could be found. Herself an intellectual,and a freed spirit, she had no trust in any of the new professional andtechnical careers into which she saw women crowding. Sex seemed to hernow as always the dominating fact of life. Votes did not matter, ordegrees, or the astonishing but quite irrelevant fact, as the papersannounced it, that women should now be able not only to fit but to plan abattleship. Love, and a child's clinging mouth, and the sweetness of aDarby and Joan old age, for these all but the perverted women had alwayslived, and would always live.
She saw in her Helena the strong beginnings of sex. But she also realizedthe promise of intelligence, of remarkable brain development, and itseemed to her of supreme importance that sex should have the firstinnings in her child's life.
"If she goes to college at once, as soon as I am gone, and her brain andher ambition are appealed to, before she has time to fall in love, shewill develop on that side, prematurely--marvellously--and the rest willatrophy. And then when the moment for falling in love is over--and withher it mayn't be a long one--she will be a lecturer, a member ofParliament perhaps--a Socialist agitator--a woman preacher,--whoknows?--there are all kinds of possibilities in Helena. But she will havemissed her chance of being a woman, and a happy one; and thirty yearshence she will realize it, when it is too late, and think bitterly of usboth. Believe me, dear Philip, the moment for love won't last long inHelena's life. I have seen it come and go so rapidly, in the case of someof the most charming women. For after all, the world is now so muchricher for women; and many women don't know their own minds in time, orget lost among the new landmarks. And of course all women can't marry;and thank God, there are a thousand new chances of happiness for thosewho don't. But there are some--and Helena, I am certain, will be one--whowill be miserable, and probably wicked, unless they fall in love, and arehappy. And it is a strait gate they will have to pass through. For theirown natures and the new voices in the world will tempt them to this sideand that. And before they know where they are--the moment will havegone--the wish--and the power.
"So, dear Philip, lend yourself to my plan; though you may seem toyourself the wrong person, and though it imposes--as I know it will--arather heavy responsibility on you. But once or twice you have told methat I have helped you--through difficult places. That makes me dare toask you this thing. There is no one else I can ask. And it won't be badfor you, Philip,--it is good for us all, to have to thinkintimately--seriously--for some other human being or beings; and owingto circumstances, not your own fault, you have missed just this inlife--except for your thoughts and care for me--bless you always, mydear friend.
"Am I preaching? Well, in my case the time for make-believe is over. Iam too near the end. The simple and austere soul of things seems toshine out--
"And yet what I ask you is neither simple, nor austere! Take care ofHelena for two years. Give her fun, and society,--a good time, and everychance to marry. Then, after two years, if she hasn't married--if shehasn't fallen in love---she must choose her course.
"You may well feel you are too young--indeed I wish, for this business,you were older!--but you will find some nice woman to be hostess andchaperon; the experiment will interest and amuse you, and the time willsoon go. You know I _could_ not ask you--unless some things were--as theyare. But that being so, I feel as if I were putting into your hands thechance of a good deed, a kind deed,--blessing, possibly, him that gives,and her that takes. And I am just now in the mood to feel that kindnessis all that matters, in this mysterious life of ours. Oh, I wish I hadbeen kinder--to so many people!--I wish--I wish! The hands stretched outto me in the dark that I have passed by--the voices that have piped tome, and I have not danced--
"I mustn't cry. It is hard that in one of the few cases when I had thechance to be kind, and did not wholly miss it, I should be making in theend a selfish bargain of it--claiming so much more than I ever gave!
"Forgive me, my best of friends--
"You shall come and see me once about this letter, and then we won'tdiscuss it again--ever. I have talked over the business side of it withmy lawyer, and asked him to tell you anything you don't yet know about myaffairs and Helena's. We needn't go into them."
"One of the few cases where I had the chance to be kind." Why, RachelPitstone's life had been one continuous selfless offering to God and man,from her childhood to her last hour! He knew very well what he had owedher--what others had owed--to her genius for sympathy, for understanding,for a compassion which was also a stimulus. He missed her sorely. At thatvery moment, he was in great practical need of her help, her guidance.
Whereas it was _he_--worse luck!--who must be the stumbling andunwelcomed guide of Rachel's child! How, in the name of mystery, had thechild grown up so different from the mother? Well, impatience wouldn'thelp him--he must set his mind to it. That scoundrel, Jim Donald!