diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9441-8.txt | 8029 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9441-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 153791 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9441.txt | 8029 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9441.zip | bin | 0 -> 153755 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/7hbn110.txt | 8002 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/7hbn110.zip | bin | 0 -> 156194 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8hbn110.txt | 8002 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8hbn110.zip | bin | 0 -> 156224 bytes |
11 files changed, 32078 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9441-8.txt b/9441-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9714a3a --- /dev/null +++ b/9441-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8029 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #9441] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 1, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas +Berger, and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +HELBECK OF BANNISDALE + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + + ... metus ille ... Acheruntis ... + Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo + + +In two volumes + +Vol. I. + + +To + +E. de V. + +In Memoriam + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I + +BOOK II + +BOOK III + + + + +BOOK I + + +CHAPTER I + +"I must be turning back. A dreary day for anyone coming fresh to these +parts!" + +So saying, Mr. Helbeck stood still--both hands resting on his thick +stick--while his gaze slowly swept the straight white road in front of +him and the landscape to either side. + +Before him stretched the marsh lands of the Flent valley, a broad +alluvial plain brought down by the rivers Flent and Greet on their way to +the estuary and the sea. From the slight rising ground on which he stood, +he could see the great peat mosses about the river-mouths, marked here +and there by lines of weather-beaten trees, or by more solid dots of +black which the eye of the inhabitant knew to be peat stacks. Beyond the +mosses were level lines of greyish white, where the looping rivers passed +into the sea--lines more luminous than the sky at this particular moment +of a damp March afternoon, because of some otherwise invisible radiance, +which, miles away, seemed to be shining upon the water, slipping down to +it from behind a curtain of rainy cloud. + +Nearer by, on either side of the high road which cut the valley from east +to west, were black and melancholy fields, half reclaimed from the peat +moss, fields where the water stood in the furrows, or a plough driven +deep and left, showed the nature of the heavy waterlogged earth, and the +farmer's despair of dealing with it, till the drying winds should come. +Some of it, however, had long before been reclaimed for pasture, so that +strips of sodden green broke up, here and there, the long stretches of +purple black. In the great dykes or drains to which the pastures were +due, the water, swollen with recent rain, could be seen hurrying to join +the rivers and the sea. The clouds overhead hurried like the dykes and +the streams. A perpetual procession from the north-west swept inland from +the sea, pouring from the dark distance of the upper valley, and blotting +out the mountains that stood around its head. + +A desolate scene, on this wild March day; yet full of a sort of beauty, +even so far as the mosslands were concerned. And as Alan Helbeck's glance +travelled along the ridge to his right, he saw it gradually rising from +the marsh in slopes, and scars, and wooded fells, a medley of lovely +lines, of pastures and copses, of villages clinging to the hills, each +with its church tower and its white spreading farms--a laud of homely +charm and comfort, gently bounding the marsh below it, and cut off by the +seething clouds in the north-west from the mountains towards which it +climbed. And as he turned homewards with the moss country behind him, the +hills rose and fell about him in soft undulation more and more rich in +wood, while beside him roared the tumbling Greet, with its flood-voice--a +voice more dear and familiar to Alan Helbeck perhaps, at this moment of +his life, than the voice of any human being. + +He walked fast with his shoulders thrown back, a remarkably tall man, +with a dark head and short grizzled beard. He held himself very erect, as +a soldier holds himself; but he had never been a soldier. + +Once in his rapid course, he paused to look at his watch, then hurried +on, thinking. + +"She stipulates that she is never to be expected to come to prayers," he +repeated to himself, half smiling. "I suppose she thinks of herself as +representing her father--in a nest of Papists. Evidently Augustina has no +chance with her--she has been accustomed to reign! Well, we shall let her +'gang her gait.'" + +His mouth, which was full and strongly closed, took a slight expression +of contempt. As he turned over a bridge, and then into his own gate on +the further side, he passed an old labourer who was scraping the mud from +the road. + +"Have you seen any carriage go by just lately, Reuben?" + +"Noa--" said the man. "Theer's been none this last hour an more--nobbut +carts, an t' Whinthrupp bus." + +Helbeck's pace slackened. He had been very solitary all day, and even the +company of the old road-sweeper was welcome. + +"If we don't get some drying days soon, it'll be bad for all of us, won't +it, Reuben?" + +"Aye, it's a bit clashy," said the man, with stolidity, stopping to spit +into his hands a moment, before resuming his work. + +The mildness of the adjective brought another half-smile to Helbeck's +dark face. A stranger watching it might have wondered, indeed, whether it +could smile with any fulness or spontaneity. + +"But you don't see any good in grumbling--is that it?" + +"Noa--we'se not git ony profit that gate, I reckon," said the old man, +laying his scraper to the mud once more. + +"Well, good-night to you. I'm expecting my sister to-night, you know, my +sister Mrs. Fountain, and her stepdaughter." + +"Eh?" said Reuben slowly. "Then yo'll be hevin cumpany, fer shure. +Good-neet to ye, Misther Helbeck." + +But there was no great cordiality in his tone, and he touched his cap +carelessly, without any sort of unction. The man's manner expressed +familiarity of long habit, but little else. + +Helbeck turned into his own park. The road that led up to the house wound +alongside the river, whereof the banks had suddenly risen into a craggy +wildness. All recollection of the marshland was left behind. The ground +mounted on either side of the stream towards fell-tops, of which the +distant lines could be seen dimly here and there behind the crowding +trees; while, at some turns of the road, where the course of the Greet +made a passage for the eye, one might look far away to the same mingled +blackness of cloud and scar that stood round the head of the estuary. +Clearly the mountains were not far off; and this was a border country +between their ramparts and the sea. + +The light of the March evening was dying, dying in a stormy greyness that +promised more rain for the morrow. Yet the air was soft, and the spring +made itself felt. In some sheltered places by the water, one might +already see a shimmer of buds; and in the grass of the wild untended +park, daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eye +and ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds that +haunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping to +its new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed creeper +moving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a silent and +jealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards other things +and forces in his life. + +As he walked, the manner of the old peasant rankled a little in his +memory. For it implied, if not disrespect, at least a complete absence of +all that the French call "consideration." + +"It's strange how much more alone I've felt in this place of late than I +used to feel," was Helbeck's reflection upon it, at last. "I reckon it's +since I sold the Leasowes land. Or is it perhaps----" + +He fell into a reverie marked by a frowning expression, and a harsh +drawing down of the mouth. But gradually as he swung along, muttered +words began to escape him, and his hand went to a book that he carried in +his pocket.--"_O dust, learn of Me to obey! Learn of Me, O earth and +clay, to humble thyself, and to cast thyself under the feet of all men +for the love of Me._"--As he murmured the words, which soon became +inaudible, his aspect cleared, his eyes raised themselves again to the +landscape, and became once more conscious of its growth and life. + +Presently he reached a gate across the road, where a big sheepdog sprang +out upon him, leaping and barking joyously. Beyond the gates rose a low +pile of buildings, standing round three sides of a yard. They had once +been the stables of the Hall. Now they were put to farm uses, and through +the door of what had formerly been a coachhouse with a coat of arms +worked in white pebbles on its floor, a woman could be seen milking. +Helbeck looked in upon her. + +"No carriage gone by yet, Mrs. Tyson?" + +"Noa, sir," said the woman. "But I'll mebbe prop t' gate open, for it's +aboot time." And she put down her pail. + +"Don't move!" said Helbeck hastily. "I'll do it myself." + +The woman, as she milked, watched him propping the ruinous gate with a +stone; her expression all the time friendly and attentive. His own +people, women especially, somehow always gave him this attention. + +Helbeck hurried forward over a road, once stately, and now badly worn and +ill-mended. The trees, mostly oaks of long growth, which had accompanied +him since the entrance of the park, thickened to a close wood around till +of a sudden he emerged from them, and there, across a wide space, rose a +grey gabled house, sharp against a hillside, with a rainy evening light +full upon it. + +It was an old and weather-beaten house, of a singular character and +dignity; yet not large. It was built of grey stone, covered with a +rough-cast, so tempered by age to the colour and surface of the stone, +that the many patches where it had dropped away produced hardly any +disfiguring effect. The rugged "pele" tower, origin and source of all the +rest, was now grouped with the gables and projections, the broad +casemented windows, and deep doorways of a Tudor manor-house. But the +whole structure seemed still to lean upon and draw towards the tower; and +it was the tower which gave accent to a general expression of austerity, +depending perhaps on the plain simplicity of all the approaches and +immediate neighbourhood of the house. For in front of it were neither +flowers nor shrubs--only wide stretches of plain turf and gravel; while +behind it, beyond some thin intervening trees, rose a grey limestone +fell, into which the house seemed to withdraw itself, as into the rock, +"whence it was hewn." + +There were some lights in the old windows, and the heavy outer door was +open. Helbeck mounted the steps and stood, watch in hand, at the top of +them, looking down the avenue he had just walked through. And very soon, +in spite of the roar of the river, his ear distinguished the wheels he +was listening for. While they approached, he could not keep himself +still, but moved restlessly about the little stone platform. He had been +solitary for many years, and had loved his solitude. + +"They're just coomin', sir," said the voice of his old housekeeper, as +she threw open an inner door behind him, letting a glow of fire and +candles stream out into the twilight. Helbeck meanwhile caught sight for +an instant of a girl's pale face at the window of the approaching +carriage--a face thrust forward eagerly, to gaze at the pele tower. + +The horses stopped, and out sprang the girl. + +"Wait a moment--let me help you, Augustina. How do you do, Mr. Helbeck? +Don't touch my dog, please--he doesn't like men. Fricka, be quiet!" + +For the little black spitz she held in a chain had begun to growl and +bark furiously at the first sight of Helbeck, to the evident anger of the +old housekeeper, who looked at the dog sourly as she went forward to take +some bags and rugs from her master. Helbeck, meanwhile, and the young +girl helped another lady to alight. She came out slowly with the +precautions of an invalid, and Helbeck gave her his arm. + +At the top of the steps she turned and looked round her. + +"Oh, Alan!" she said, "it is so long----" + +Her lips trembled, and her head shook oddly. She was a short woman, with +a thin plaintive face and a nervous jerk of the head, always very marked +at a moment of agitation. As he noticed it, Helbeck felt times long past +rush back upon him. He laid his hand over hers, and tried to say +something; but his shyness oppressed him. When he had led her into the +broad hall, with its firelight and stuccoed roof, she said, turning round +with the same bewildered air-- + +"You saw Laura? You have never seen her before!" + +"Oh yes; we shook hands, Augustina," said a young voice. "Will Mr. +Helbeck please help me with these things?" + +She was laden with shawls and packages, and Helbeck hastily went to her +aid. In the emotion of bringing his sister back into the old house, which +she had left fifteen years before, when he himself was a lad of +two-and-twenty, he had forgotten her stepdaughter. + +But Miss Fountain did not intend to be forgotten. She made him relieve +her of all burdens, and then argue an overcharge with the flyman. And at +last, when all the luggage was in and the fly was driving off, she +mounted the steps deliberately, looking about her all the time, but +principally at the house. The eyes of the housekeeper, who with Mr. +Helbeck was standing in the entrance awaiting her, surveyed both dog and +mistress with equal disapproval. + +But the dusk was fast passing into darkness, and it was not till the girl +came into the brightness of the hall where her stepmother was already +sitting tired and drooping on a settle near the great wood fire, that +Helbeck saw her plainly. + +She was very small and slight, and her hair made a spot of pale gold +against the oak panelling of the walls. Helbeck noticed the slenderness +of her arms, and the prettiness of her little white neck, then the +freedom of her quick gesture as she went up to the elder lady and with a +certain peremptoriness began to loosen her cloak. + +"Augustina ought to go to bed directly," she said, looking at Helbeck. +"The journey tired her dreadfully." + +"Mrs. Fountain's room is quite ready," said the housekeeper, holding +herself stiffly behind her master. She was a woman of middle age, with a +pinkish face, framed between two tiers of short grey curls. + +Laura's eye ran over her. + +"_You_ don't like our coming!" she said to herself. Then to Helbeck-- + +"May I take her up at once? I will unpack, and put her comfortable. Then +she ought to have some food. She has had nothing to-day but some tea at +Lancaster." + +Mrs. Fountain looked up at the girl with feeble acquiescence, as though +depending on her entirely. Helbeck glanced from his pale sister to the +housekeeper in some perplexity. + +"What will you have?" he said nervously to Miss Fountain. "Dinner, I +think, was to be at a quarter to eight." + +"That was the time I was ordered, sir," said Mrs. Denton. + +"Can't it be earlier?" asked the girl impetuously. + +Mrs. Denton did not reply, but her shoulders grew visibly rigid. + +"Do what you can for us, Denton," said her master hastily, and she went +away. Helbeck bent kindly over his sister. + +"You know what a small establishment we have, Augustina. Mrs. Denton, a +rough girl, and a boy--that's all. I do trust they will be able to make +you comfortable." + +"Oh, let me come down, when I have unpacked, and help cook," said Miss +Fountain brightly. "I can do anything of that sort." + +Helbeck smiled for the first time. "I am afraid Mrs. Denton wouldn't take +it kindly. She rules us all in this old place." + +"I dare say," said the girl quietly. "It's fish, of course?" she added, +looking down at her stepmother, and speaking in a meditative voice. + +"It's a Friday's dinner," said Helbeck, flushing suddenly, and looking at +his sister, "except for Miss Fountain. I supposed----" + +Mrs. Fountain rose in some agitation and threw him a piteous look. + +"Of course you did, Alan--of course you did. But the doctor at +Folkestone--he was a Catholic--I took such care about that!--told me I +mustn't fast. And Laura is always worrying me. But indeed I didn't want +to be dispensed!--not yet!" + +Laura said nothing; nor did Helbeck. There was a certain embarrassment in +the looks of both, as though there was more in Mrs. Fountain's words than +appeared. Then the girl, holding herself erect and rather defiant, drew +her stepmother's arm in hers, and turned to Helbeck. + +"Will you please show us the way up?" + +Helbeck took a small hand-lamp and led the way, bidding the newcomers +beware of the slipperiness of the old polished boards. Mrs. Fountain +walked with caution, clinging to her stepdaughter. At the foot of the +staircase she stopped, and looked upward. + +"Alan, I don't see much change!" + +He turned back, the light shining on his fine harsh face and grizzled +hair. + +"Don't you? But it is greatly changed, Augustina. We have shut up half of +it." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed deeply and moved on. Laura, as she mounted the +stairs, looked back at the old hall, its ceiling of creamy stucco, its +panelled walls, and below, the great bare floor of shining oak with +hardly any furniture upon it--a strip of old carpet, a heavy oak table, +and a few battered chairs at long intervals against the panelling. But +the big fire of logs piled upon the hearth filled it all with cheerful +light, and under her indifferent manner, the girl's sense secretly +thrilled with pleasure. She had heard much of "poor Alan's" poverty. +Poverty! As far as his house was concerned, at any rate, it seemed to her +of a very tolerable sort. + + * * * * * + +In a few minutes Helbeck came downstairs again, and stood absently before +the fire on the hearth. After a while, he sat down beside it in his +accustomed chair--a carved chair of black Westmoreland oak--and began to +read from the book which he had been carrying in his pocket out of doors. +He read with his head bent closely over the pages, because of short +sight; and, as a rule, reading absorbed him so completely that he was +conscious of nothing external while it lasted. To-night, however, he +several times looked up to listen to the sounds overhead, unwonted sounds +in this house, over which, as it often seemed to him, a quiet of +centuries had settled down, like a fine dust or deposit, muffling all its +steps and voices. But there was nothing muffled in the voice overhead +which he caught every now and then, through an open door, escaping, eager +and alive, into the silence; or in the occasional sharp bark of the dog. + +"Horrid little wretch!" thought Helbeck. "Denton will loathe it. +Augustina should really have warned me. What shall we do if she and +Denton don't get on? It will never answer if she tries meddling in the +kitchen--I must tell her." + +Presently, however, his inner anxieties grew upon him so much that his +book fell on his knee, and he lost himself in a multitude of small +scruples and torments, such as beset all persons who live alone. Were all +his days now to be made difficult, because he had followed his +conscience, and asked his widowed sister to come and live with him? + +"Augustina and I could have done well enough. But this girl--well, we +must put up with it--we must, Bruno!" + +He laid his hand as he spoke on the neck of a collie that had just +lounged into the hall, and come to lay its nose upon his master's knee. +Suddenly a bark from overhead made the dog start back and prick its ears. + +"Come here, Bruno--be quiet. You're to treat that little brute with +proper contempt--do you hear? Listen to all that scuffling and talking +upstairs--that's the new young woman getting her way with old Denton. +Well, it won't do Denton any harm. We're put upon sometimes, too, aren't +we?" + +And he caressed the dog, his haughty face alive with something half +bitter, half humorous. + +At that moment the old clock in the hall struck a quarter past seven. +Helbeck sprang up. + +"Am I to dress?" he said to himself in some perplexity. + +He considered for a moment or two, looking at his shabby serge suit, then +sat down again resolutely. + +"No! She'll have to live our life. Besides, I don't know what Denton +would think." + +And he lay back in his chair, recalling with some amusement the +criticisms of his housekeeper upon a young Catholic friend of his +who--rare event--had spent a fishing week with him in the autumn, and had +startled the old house and its inmates with his frequent changes of +raiment. "It's yan set o' cloas for breakfast, an anudther for fishin, an +anudther for ridin, an yan for when he cooms in, an a fine suit for +dinner--an anudther fer smoakin--A should think he mut be oftener naked +nor donned!" Denton had said in her grim Westmoreland, and Helbeck had +often chuckled over the remark. + +An hour later, half an hour after the usual time, Helbeck, all the traces +of his muddy walk removed, and garbed with scrupulous neatness in the old +black coat and black tie he always wore of an evening, was sitting +opposite to Miss Fountain at supper. + +"You got everything you wanted for Augustina, I hope?" he said to her +shyly as they sat down. He had awaited her in the dining-room itself, so +as to avoid the awkwardness of taking her in. It was some years since a +woman had stayed under his roof, or since he had been a guest in the same +house with women. + +"Oh yes!" said Miss Fountain. But she threw a sly swift glance towards +Mrs. Denton, who was just coming into the room with some coffee, then +compressed her lips and studied her plate. Helbeck detected the glance, +and saw too that Mrs. Denton's pink face was flushed, and her manner +discomposed. + +"The coffee's noa good," she said abruptly, as she put it down; "I +couldn't keep to 't." + +"No, I'm afraid we disturbed Mrs. Denton dreadfully," said Miss Fountain, +shrugging her shoulders. "We got her to bring up all sorts of things for +Augustina. She was dreadfully tired--I thought she would faint. The +doctor scolded me before we left, about letting her go without food. +Shall I give you some fish, Mr. Helbeck?" + +For, to her astonishment, the fish even--a very small portion--was placed +before herself, side by side with a few fragments of cold chicken; and +she looked in vain for a second plate. + +As she glanced across the table, she caught a momentary shade of +embarrassment in Helbeck's face. + +"No, thank you," he said. "I am provided." + +His provision seemed to be coffee and bread and butter. She raised her +eyebrows involuntarily, but said nothing, and he presently busied himself +in bringing her vegetables and wine, Mrs. Denton having left the room. + +"I trust you will make a good meal," he said gravely, as he waited upon +her. "You have had a long day." + +"Oh, yes!" said Miss Fountain impetuously, "and please don't ever make +any difference for me on Fridays. It doesn't matter to me in the least +what I eat." + +Helbeck offered no reply. Conversation between them indeed did not flow +very readily. They talked a little about the journey from London; and +Laura asked a few questions about the house. She was, indeed, studying +the room in which they sat, and her host himself, all the time. "He may +be a saint," she thought, "but I am sure he knows all the time there are +very few saints of such an old family! His head's splendid--so dark and +fine--with the great waves of grey-black hair--and the long features and +the pointed chin. He's immensely tall too--six feet two at least--taller +than father. He looks hard and bigoted. I suppose most people would be +afraid of him--I'm not!" + +And 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 house. +The March rawness made her shiver, and she looked shrinkingly into the +gloom before her, as she paused outside her own door. There, at the end +of the passage, lay the old tower; so Mrs. Denton had told her. The +thought of all the locked and empty rooms in it,--dark, cold +spaces,--haunted perhaps by strange sounds and presences of the past, +seemed to let loose upon her all at once a little whirlwind of fear. She +hurried into her room, and was just setting down her candle before +turning to lock her door, when a sound from the distant hall caught her +ear. + +A deep monotonous sound, rising and falling at regular intervals, Mr. +Helbeck reading prayers, with the two maids, who represented the only +service of the house. + +Laura lingered with her hand on the door. In the silence of the ancient +house, there was something touching in the sound, a kind of appeal. But +it was an appeal which, in the girl's mind, passed instantly into +reaction. She locked the door, and turned away, breathing fast as though +under some excitement. + +The tears, long held down, were rising, and the room, where a large wood +fire was burning,--wood was the only provision of which there was a +plenty at Bannisdale,--seemed to her suddenly stifling. She went to the +casement window and threw it open. A rush of mild wind came through, and +with it, the roar of the swollen river. + +The girl leant forward, bathing her hot face in the wild air. There was a +dark mist of trees below her, trees tossed by the wind; then, far down, a +ray of moonlight on water; beyond, a fell-side, clear a moment beneath a +sky of sweeping cloud; and last of all, highest of all, amid the clouds, +a dim radiance, intermittent and yet steady, like the radiance of moonlit +snow. + +A strange nobility and freedom breathed from the wide scene; from its +mere depth below her; from the spacious curve of the river, the mountains +half shown, half hidden, the great race of the clouds, the fresh beating +of the wind. The north spoke to her and the mountains. It was like the +rush of something passionate and straining through her girlish sense, +intensifying all that was already there. What was this thirst, this +yearning, this physical anguish of pity that crept back upon her in all +the pauses of the day and night? + +It was nine months since she had lost her father, but all the scenes of +his last days were still so clear to her that it seemed to her often +sheer incredibility that the room, the bed, the helpless form, the noise +of the breathing, the clink of the medicine glasses, the tread of the +doctor, the gasping words of the patient, were all alike fragments and +phantoms of the past,--that the house was empty, the bed sold, the +patient gone. Oh! the clinging of the thin hand round her own, the +piteousness of suffering--of failure! Poor, poor papa!--he would not say, +even to comfort her, that they would meet again. He had not believed it, +and so she must not. + +No, and she would not! She raised her head fiercely and dried her tears. +Only, why was she here, in the house of a man who had never spoken to her +father--his brother-in-law--for thirteen years; who had made his sister +feel that her marriage had been a disgrace; who was all the time, no +doubt, cherishing such thoughts in that black, proud head of his, while +she, her father's daughter, was sitting opposite to him? + +"How am I ever going to bear it--all these months?" she asked herself. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +But the causes which had brought Laura Fountain to Bannisdale were very +simple. It had all come about in the most natural inevitable way. + +When Laura was eight years old--nearly thirteen years before this +date--her father, then a widower with one child, had fallen in with and +married Alan Helbeck's sister. At the time of their first meeting with +the little Catholic spinster, Stephen Fountain and his child were +spending part of the Cambridge vacation at a village on the Cumberland +coast where a fine air could be combined with cheap lodgings. Fountain +himself was from the North Country. His grandfather had been a small +Lancashire yeoman, and Stephen Fountain had an inbred liking for the +fells, the farmhouses, and even the rain of his native district. Before +descending to the sea, he and his child had spent a couple of days with +his cousin by marriage, James Mason, in the lonely stone house among the +hills, which had belonged to the family since the Revolution. He left it +gladly, however, for the farm life seemed to him much harder and more +squalid than he had remembered it to be, and he disliked James Mason's +wife. As he and Laura walked down the long, rough track connecting the +farm with the main road on the day of their departure, Stephen Fountain +whistled so loud and merrily that the skipping child beside him looked at +him with astonishment. + +It was his way no doubt of thanking Providence for the happy chance that +had sent his father to a small local government post at Newcastle, and +himself to a grammar school with openings on the University. Yet as a +rule he thought himself anything but a successful man. He held a +lectureship at Cambridge in an obscure scientific subject; and was in his +way both learned and diligent. But he had few pupils, and had never cared +to have them. They interfered with his own research, and he had the +passionate scorn for popularity which grows up naturally in those who +have no power with the crowd. His religious opinions, or rather the +manner in which he chose to express them, divided him from many good men. +He was poor, and he hated his poverty. A rather imprudent marriage had +turned out neither particularly well nor particularly ill. His wife had +some beauty, however, and there was hardly time for disillusion. She died +when Laura was still a tottering baby, and Stephen had missed her sorely +for a while. Since her death he had grown to be a very lonely man, +silently discontented with himself and sourly critical of his neighbours. +Yet all the same he thanked God that he was not his cousin James. + +Potter's Beach as a watering-place was neither beautiful nor amusing. +Laura was happy there, but that said nothing. All her childhood through, +she had the most surprising gift for happiness. From morning till night +she lived in a flutter of delicious nothings. Unless he watched her +closely, Stephen Fountain could not tell for the life of him what she was +about all day. But he saw that she was endlessly about something; her +little hands and legs never rested; she dug, bathed, dabbled, raced, +kissed, ate, slept, in one happy bustle, which never slackened except for +the hours when she lay rosy and still in her bed. And even then the +pretty mouth was still eagerly open, as though sleep had just breathed +upon its chatter for a few charmed moments, and "the joy within" was +already breaking from the spell. + +Stephen Fountain adored her, but his affections were never enough for +him. In spite of the child's spirits he himself found Potter's Beach a +desolation, all the more that he was cut off from his books for a time by +doctor's orders and his own common sense. Suddenly, as he took his daily +walk over the sands with Laura, he began to notice a thin lady in black, +sitting alone under a bank of sea-thistles, and generally struggling with +an umbrella which she had put up to shelter herself and her book from a +prevailing and boisterous wind. Sometimes when he passed her in the +little street, he caught a glimpse of timid eyes, or he saw and pitied +the slight involuntary jerk of the head and shoulders, which seemed to +tell of nervous delicacy. Presently they made friends, and he found her +lonely and discontented like himself. She was a Catholic, he discovered; +but her Catholicism was not that of the convert, but of an old inherited +sort which sat easily enough on a light nature. Then, to his +astonishment, it appeared that she lived with a brother at an old house +in North Lancashire--a well-known and even, in its degree, famous +house--which lay not seven miles distant from his grandfather's little +property, and had been quite familiar to him by repute, and even by sight +as a child. When he was a small lad staying at Browhead Farm, he had once +or twice found his way to the Greet, and had strayed along its course +through Bannisdale Park. Once even, when he was in the act of fishing a +particular pool where the trout were rising in a manner to tempt a very +archangel, he had been seized and his primitive rod broken over his +shoulder by an old man whom he believed to have been the owner, Mr. +Helbeck himself,--a magnificent white-haired person, about whom tales ran +freely in the country-side. + +So this little, shabby old maid was a Helbeck of Bannisdale! As he looked +at her, Fountain could not help thinking with a hidden amusement of all +the awesome prestige the name had once carried with it for his boyish +ear. Thirty years back, what a gulf had seemed to yawn between the +yeoman's grandson and the lofty owners of that stern and ancient house +upon the Greet! And now, how glad was old Helbeck's daughter to sit or +walk with him and his child!--and how plain it grew, as the weeks passed +on, that if he, Stephen Fountain, willed it, she would make no difficulty +at all about a much longer companionship! Fountain held himself to be the +most convinced of democrats, a man who had a reasoned right to his +Radical opinions that commoner folk must do without. Nevertheless, his +pride fed on this small turn of fortune, and when he carelessly addressed +his new friend, her name gave him pleasure. + +It seemed that she possessed but little else, poor lady. Even in his +young days, Fountain could remember that the Helbecks were reported to be +straitened, to have already much difficulty in keeping up the house and +the estate. But clearly things had fallen by now to a much lower depth. +Miss Helbeck's dress, talk, lodgings, all spoke of poverty, great +poverty. He himself had never known what it was to have a superfluous ten +pounds; but the feverish strain that belongs to such a situation as the +Helbecks' awoke in him a new and sharp pity. He was very sorry for the +little, harassed creature; that physical privation should touch a woman +had always seemed to him a monstrosity. + +What was the brother about?--a great strong fellow by all accounts, +capable, surely, of doing something for the family fortunes. +Instinctively Fountain held him responsible for the sister's fatigue and +delicacy. They had just lost their mother, and Augustina had come to +Potter's Beach to recover from long months of nursing. And presently +Fountain discovered that what stood between her and health was not so +much the past as the future. + +"You don't like the idea of going home," he said to her once, abruptly, +after they had grown intimate. She flushed, and hesitated; then her eyes +filled with tears. + +Gradually he made her explain herself. The brother, it appeared, was +twelve years younger than herself, and had been brought up first at +Stonyhurst, and afterwards at Louvain, in constant separation from the +rest of the family. He had never had much in common with his home, since, +at Stonyhurst, he had come under the influence of a Jesuit teacher, who, +in the language of old Helbeck, had turned him into "a fond sort of +fellow," swarming with notions that could only serve to carry the family +decadence a step further. + +"We have been Catholics for twenty generations," said Augustina, in her +quavering voice. "But our ways--father's ways--weren't good enough for +Alan. We thought he was making up his mind to be a Jesuit, and father was +mad about it, because of the old place. Then father died, and Alan came +home. He and my mother got on best; oh! he was very good to her. But he +and I weren't brought up in the same way; you'd think he was already +under a rule. I don't--know--I suppose it's too high for me----" + +She took up a handful of sand, and threw it, angrily, from her thin +fingers, hurrying on, however, as if the unburdenment, once begun, must +have its course. + +"And it's hard to be always pulled up and set right by some one you've +nursed in his cradle. Oh! I don't mean he says anything; he and I never +had words in our lives. But it's the way he has of doing things--the +changes he makes. You feel how he disapproves of you; he doesn't like my +friends--our old friends; the house is like a desert since he came. And +the money he gives away! The priests just suck us dry--and he hasn't got +it to give. Oh! I know it's all very wicked of me; but when I think of +going back to him--just us two, you know, in that old house--and all the +trouble about money----" + +Her voice failed her. + +"Well, don't go back," said Fountain, laying his hand on her arm. + + * * * * * + +And twenty-four hours later he was still pleased with himself and her. No +doubt she was stupid, poor Augustina, and more ignorant than he had +supposed a human being could be. Her only education seemed to have been +supplied by two years at the "Couvent des Dames Anglaises" at St.-Omer, +and all that she had retained from it was a small stock of French idioms, +most of which she had forgotten how to use, though she did use them +frequently, with a certain timid pretension. Of that habit Fountain, the +fastidious, thought that he should break her. But for the rest, her +religion, her poverty,--well, she had a hundred a year, so that he and +Laura would be no worse off for taking her in, and the child's prospects, +of course, should not suffer by a halfpenny. And as to the Catholicism, +Fountain smiled to himself. No doubt there was some inherited feeling. +But even if she did keep up her little mummeries, he could not see that +they would do him or Laura any harm. And for the rest she suited him. She +somehow crept into his loneliness and fitted it. He was getting too old +to go farther, and he might well fare worse. In spite of her love of +talk, she was not a bad listener; and longer experience showed her to be +in truth the soft and gentle nature that she seemed. She had a curious +kind of vanity which showed itself in her feeling towards her brother. +But Fountain did not find it disagreeable; it even gave him pleasure to +flatter it; as one feeds or caresses some straying half-starved creature, +partly for pity, partly that the human will may feel its power. + +"I wonder how much fuss that young man will make?" Fountain asked +himself, when at last it became necessary to write to Bannisdale. + +Augustina, however, was thirty-five, in full possession of her little +moneys, and had no one to consult but herself. Fountain enjoyed the +writing of the letter, which was brief, if not curt. + +Alan Helbeck appeared without an hour's delay at Potter's Beach. Fountain +felt himself much inclined beforehand to treat the tall dark youth, +sixteen years his junior, as a tutor treats an undergraduate. Oddly +enough, however, when the two men stood face to face, Fountain was once +more awkwardly conscious of that old sense of social distance which the +sister had never recalled to him. The sting of it made him rougher than +he had meant to be. Otherwise the young man's very shabby coat, his +superb good looks, and courteous reserve of manner might almost have +disarmed the irritable scholar. + +As it was, Helbeck soon discovered that Fountain had no intention of +allowing Augustina to apply for any dispensation for the marriage, that +he would make no promise of Catholic bringing-up, supposing there were +children, and that his idea was to be married at a registry office. + +"I am one of those people who don't trouble themselves about the affairs +of another world," said Fountain in a suave voice, as he stood in the +lodging-house window, a bearded, broad-shouldered person, his hands +thrust wilfully into the very baggy pockets of his ill-fitting light +suit. "I won't worry your sister, and I don't suppose there'll be any +children. But if there are, I really can't promise to make Catholics of +them. And as for myself, I don't take things so easy as it's the fashion +to do now. I can't present myself in church, even for Augustina." + +Helbeck sat silent for a few minutes with his eyes on the ground. Then he +rose. + +"You ask what no Catholic should grant," he said slowly. "But that of +course you know. I can have nothing to do with such a marriage, and my +duty naturally will be to dissuade my sister from it as strongly as +possible." + +Fountain bowed. + +"She is expecting you," he said. "I of course await her decision." + +His tone was hardly serious. Nevertheless, during the time that Helbeck +and Augustina were pacing the sands together, Fountain went through a +good deal of uneasiness. One never knew how or where this damned poison +in the blood might break out again. That young fanatic, a Jesuit already +by the look of him, would of course try all their inherited Mumbo Jumbo +upon her; and what woman is at bottom anything more than the prey of the +last speaker? + +When, however, it was all over, and he was allowed to see his Augustina +in the evening, he found her helpless with crying indeed, but as +obstinate as only the meek of the earth can be. She had broken wholly +with her brother and with Bannisdale; and Fountain gathered that, after +all Helbeck's arguments and entreaties, there had flashed a moment of +storm between them, when the fierce "Helbeck temper," traditional through +many generations, had broken down the self-control of the ascetic, and +Augustina must needs have trembled. However, there she was, frightened +and miserable, but still determined. And her terror was much more +concerned with the possibility of any return to live with Alan and his +all-exacting creed than anything else. Fountain caught himself wondering +whether indeed she had imagination enough to lay much hold on those +spiritual terrors with which she had no doubt been threatened. In this, +however, he misjudged her, as will be seen. + +Meanwhile he sent for an elderly Evangelical cousin of his wife's, who +was accustomed to take a friendly interest in his child and himself. She, +in Protestant jubilation over this brand snatched from the burning, came +in haste, very nearly departing, indeed, in similar haste as soon as the +unholy project of the secular marriage was mooted. However, under much +persuasion she remained, lamenting; Augustina sent to Bannisdale for her +few possessions, and the scanty ceremony was soon over. + +Meanwhile Laura had but found in the whole affair one more amusement and +excitement added to the many that, according to her, Potter's Beach +already possessed. The dancing elfish child--who had no memory of her own +mother--had begun by taking the little old maid under her patronising +wing. She graciously allowed Augustina to make a lap for all the briny +treasures she might accumulate in the course of a breathless morning; she +rushed to give her first information whenever that encroaching monster +the sea broke down her castles. And as soon as it appeared that her papa +liked Augustina, and had a use for her, Laura at the age of eight +promptly accepted her as part of the family circle, without the smallest +touch of either sentiment or opposition. She walked gaily hand in hand +with her father to the registry office at St. Bees. The jealously hidden, +stormy little heart knew well enough that it had nothing to fear. + +Then came many quiet years at Cambridge. Augustina spoke no more of her +brother, and apparently let her old creed slip. She conformed herself +wholly to her husband's ways,--a little colourless thread on the stream +of academic life, slightly regarded, and generally silent out of doors, +but at home a gentle, foolish, and often voluble person, very easily made +happy by some small kindness and a few creature comforts. + +Laura meanwhile grew up, and no one exactly knew how. Her education was a +thing of shreds and patches, managed by herself throughout, and +expressing her own strong will or caprice from the beginning. She put +herself to school--a day school only; and took herself away as soon as +she was tired of it. She threw herself madly into physical exercises like +dancing or skating; and excelled in most of them by virtue of a certain +wild grace, a tameless strength of spirits and will. And yet she grew up +small and pale; and it was not till she was about eighteen that she +suddenly blossomed into prettiness. + +"Carrotina--why, what's happened to you?" said her father to her one day. + +She turned in astonishment from her task of putting some books tidy on +his study shelves. Then she coloured half angrily. + +"I must put my hair up some time, I suppose," she said resentfully. There +was something in the abruptness of her father's question, no less than in +the new closeness and sharpness of eye with which he was examining her, +that annoyed her. + +"Well! you've made a young lady of yourself. I dare say I mustn't call +you nicknames any more!" + +"I don't mind," she said indifferently, going on with her work, while he +looked at the golden-red mass she had coiled round her little head, with +an odd half-welcome sense of change, a sudden prescience of the future. + +Then she turned again. + +"If--if you make any absurd changes," she said, with a frown, "I'll--I'll +cut it all off!" + +"You'd better not; there'd be ructions," he said laughing. "It's not +yours till you're twenty-one." + +And to himself he said, "Gracious! I didn't bargain for a pretty +daughter. What am I to do with her? Augustina'll never get her married." + +And certainly during this early youth, Laura showed no signs of getting +herself married. She did not apparently know when a young man was by; and +her bright vehement ways, her sharp turns of speech, went on just the +same; she neither quivered nor thrilled; and her chatter, when she did +chatter, spent itself almost with indifference on anyone who came near +her. She was generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companions +knew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self of +her, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs. +Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks which +contrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hard +to find the clue to them. + +Altogether she passed for a clever girl, even in a University town, where +cleverness is weighed. But her education, except in two points, was, in +truth, of the slightest. Any mechanical drudgery that her father could +set her, she did without a murmur; or, rather, she claimed it jealously, +with a silent passion. But, with an obstinacy equally silent, she set +herself against the drudgery that would have made her his intellectual +companion. + +His rows of technical books, the scholarly and laborious details of his +work, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt to +persuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned and +contemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter. +That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled up for +hours with a book or a piece of work in a corner of his room; that she +should bring him his pipe, and break in upon his work at the right moment +with her peremptory "Papa, come out!"--these things were delightful, nay, +necessary to him. But he had no dreams beyond; and he never thought of +her, her education or her character, as a whole. It was not his way. +Besides, girls took their chance. With a boy, of course, one plans and +looks ahead. But Laura would have 200_l_. a year from her mother whatever +happened, and something more at his own death. Why trouble oneself? + +No doubt indirectly he contributed very largely to her growing up. The +sight of his work and his methods; the occasional talks she overheard +between him and his scientific comrades; the tones of irony and denial in +the atmosphere about him; his antagonisms, his bitternesses, worked +strongly upon her still plastic nature. Moreover she felt to her heart's +core that he was unsuccessful; there were appointments he should have +had, but had failed to get, and it was the religious party, the "clerical +crew" of Convocation, that had stood in the way. From her childhood it +came natural to her to hate bigoted people who believed in ridiculous +things. It was they stood between her father and his deserts. There +loomed up, as it were, on her horizon, something dim and majestic, which +was called Science. Towards this her father pressed, she clinging to him; +while all about them was a black and hindering crowd, through which they +clove their way--contemptuously. + +In one direction, indeed, Fountain admitted her to his mind. Like Mill, +he found the rest and balm of life in poetry; and here he took Laura with +him. They read to each other, they spurred each other to learn by heart. +He kept nothing from her. Shelley was a passion of his own; it became +hers. She taught herself German, that she might read Heine and Goethe +with him; and one evening, when she was little more than sixteen, he +rushed her through the first part of "Faust," so that she lay awake the +whole night afterwards in such a passion of emotion, that it seemed, for +the moment, to change her whole existence. Sometimes it astonished him to +see what capacity she had, not only for the feeling, but for the sensuous +pleasure, of poetry. Lines--sounds--haunted her for days, the beauty of +them would make her start and tremble. + +She did her best, however, to hide this side of her nature even from him. +And it was not difficult. She remained childishly immature and backward +in many things. She was a personality; that was clear; one could hardly +say that she was or had a character. She was a bundle of loves and hates; +a force, not an organism; and her father was often as much puzzled by her +as anyone else. + +Music perhaps was the only study which ever conquered her indolence. Here +it happened that a famous musician, who settled in Cambridge for a time, +came across her gift and took notice of it. And to please him she worked +with industry, even with doggedness. Brahms, Chopin, Wagner--these great +romantics possessed her in music as Shelley or Rossetti did in poetry. +"You little demon, Laura! How do you come to play like that?" a girl +friend--her only intimate friend--said to her once in despair. "It's the +expression. Where do you get it? And I practise, and you don't; it's not +fair." + +"Expression!" said Laura, with annoyance, "what does that matter? That's +the amateur all over. Of course I play like that because I can't do it +any better. If I could _play the notes_"--she clenched her little hand, +with a curious, almost a fierce energy--"if I had any technique--or was +ever likely to have any, what should I want with expression? Any cat can +give you expression! There was one under my window last night--you should +just have heard it!" + +Molly Friedland, the girl friend, shrugged her shoulders. She was as +soft, as normal, as self-controlled, as Laura was wilful and irritable. +But there was a very real affection between them. + +Years passed. Insensibly Augustina's health began to fail; and with it +the new cheerfulness of her middle life. Then Fountain himself fell +suddenly and dangerously ill. All the peaceful habits and small pleasures +of their common existence broke down after a few days, as it were, into a +miserable confusion. Augustina stood bewildered. Then a convulsion of +soul she had expected as little as anyone else, swept upon her. A number +of obscure, inherited, half-dead instincts revived. She lived in terror; +she slept, weeping; and at the back of an old drawer she found a rosary +of her childhood to which her fingers clung night and day. + +Meanwhile Fountain resigned himself to death. During his last days his +dimmed senses did not perceive what was happening to his wife. But he +troubled himself about her a good deal. + +"Take care of her, Laura," he said once, "till she gets strong. Look +after her.--But you can't sacrifice your life.--It may be Christian," he +added, in a murmur, "but it isn't sense." + +Unconsciousness came on. Augustina seemed to lose her wits; and at last +only Laura, sitting pale and fierce beside her father, prevented her +stepmother from bringing a priest to his death-bed. "You would not +_dare_!" said the girl, in her low, quivering voice; and Augustina could +only wring her hands. + + * * * * * + +The day after her husband died Mrs. Fountain returned to her Catholic +duties. When she came back from confession, she slipped as noiselessly as +she could into the darkened house. A door opened upstairs, and Laura came +out of her father's room. + +"You have done it?" she said, as her stepmother, trembling with agitation +and weariness, came towards her. "You have gone back to them?" + +"Oh, Laura! I had to follow the call--my conscience--Laura! oh! your poor +father!" + +And with a burst of weeping the widow held out her hands. + +Laura did not move, and the hands dropped. + +"My father wants nothing," she said. + +The indescribable pride and passion of her accent cowed Augustina, and +she moved away, crying silently. The girl went back to the dead, and sat +beside him, in an anguish that had no more tears, till he was taken from +her. + +Mr. Helbeck wrote kindly to his sister in reply to a letter from her +informing him of her husband's death, and of her own reconciliation with +the Church. He asked whether he should come at once to help them through +the business of the funeral, and the winding up of their Cambridge life. +"Beg him, please, to stay away," said Laura, when the letter was shown +her. "There are plenty of people here." + +And indeed Cambridge, which had taken little notice of the Fountains +during Stephen's lifetime, was even fussily kind after his death to his +widow and child. It was at all times difficult to be kind to Laura in +distress, but there was much true pity felt for her, and a good deal of +curiosity as to her relations with her Catholic stepmother. Only from the +Friedlands, however, would she accept, or allow her stepmother to accept, +any real help. Dr. Friedland was a man of middle age, who had retired on +moderate wealth to devote himself to historical work by the help of the +Cambridge libraries. He had been much drawn to Stephen Fountain, and +Fountain to him. It was a recent and a brief friendship, but there had +been something in it on Dr. Friedland's side--something respectful and +cordial, something generous and understanding, for which Laura loved the +infirm and grey-haired scholar, and would always love him. She shed some +stormy tears after parting with the Friedlands, otherwise she left +Cambridge with joy. + +On the day before they left Cambridge Augustina received a parcel of +books from her brother. For the most part they were kept hidden from +Laura. But in the evening, when the girl was doing some packing in her +stepmother's room, she came across a little volume lying open on its +face. She lifted it, saw that it was called "Outlines of Catholic +Belief," and that one page was still wet with tears. An angry curiosity +made her look at what stood there: "A believer in one God who, without +wilful fault on his part, knows nothing of the Divine Mystery of the +Trinity, is held capable of salvation by many Catholic theologians. And +there is the 'invincible ignorance' of the heathen. What else is possible +to the Divine mercy let none of us presume to know. Our part in these +matters is obedience, not speculation." + +In faint pencil on the margin was written: "My Stephen _could_ not +believe. Mary--pray----" + +The book contained the Bannisdale book-plate, and the name "Alan +Helbeck." Laura threw it down. But her face trembled through its scorn, +and she finished what she was doing in a kind of blind passion. It was as +though she held her father's dying form in her arms, protecting him +against the same meddling and tyrannical force that had injured him while +he lived, and was still making mouths at him now that he was dead. + +She and Augustina went to the sea--to Folkestone, for Augustina's health. +Here Mrs. Fountain began to correspond regularly with her brother, and it +was soon clear that her heart was hungering for him, and for her old home +at Bannisdale. But she was still painfully dependent on Laura. Laura was +her maid and nurse; Laura managed all her business. At last one day she +made her prayer. Would Laura go with her--for a little while--to +Bannisdale? Alan wished it--Alan had invited them both. "He would be so +good to you, Laura--and I'm sure it would set me up." + +Laura gave a gulp. She dropped her little chin on her hands and thought. +Well--why not? It would be all hateful to her--Mr. Helbeck and his house +together. She knew very well, or guessed what his relation to her father +had been. But what if it made Augustina strong, if in time she could be +left with her brother altogether, to live with him?--In one or two of his +letters he had proposed as much. Why, that would bring Laura's +responsibility, her sole responsibility, at any rate, to an end. + +She thought of Molly Friedland--of their girlish plans--of travel, of +music. + +"All right," she said, springing up. "We will go, Augustina. I suppose, +for a little while, Mr. Helbeck and I can keep the peace. You must tell +him to let me alone." + +She paused, then said with sudden vehemence, like one who takes her +stand--"And tell him, please, Augustina--make it very plain--that I shall +never come in to prayers." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The sun was shining into Laura's room when she awoke. She lay still for a +little while, looking about her. + +Her room--which formed part of an eighteenth-century addition to the +Tudor house--was rudely panelled with stained deal, save on the fireplace +wall, where, on either side of the hearth, the plaster had been covered +with tapestry. The subject of the tapestry was Diana hunting. Diana, +white and tall, with her bow and quiver, came, queenly, through a green +forest. Two greyhounds ranged beside her, and in the dim distance of the +wood her maidens followed. On the right an old castle, with pillars like +a Greek temple, rose stately but a little crooked on the edge of a blue +sea; the sea much faded, with the wooden handle of a cupboard thrust +rudely through it. Two long-limbed ladies, with pulled patched faces, +stood on the castle steps. In front was a ship, with a waiting warrior +and a swelling sail; and under him, a blue wave worn very threadbare, +shamed indeed by that intruding handle, but still blue enough, still +windy enough for thoughts of love and flight. + +Laura, half asleep still, with her hands under her cheek, lay staring in +a vague pleasure at the castle and the forest. "Enchanted +casements"--"perilous seas"--"in fairy lands forlorn." The lines ran +sleepily, a little jumbled, in her memory. + +But gradually the morning and the freshness worked; and her spirits, +emerging from their half-dream, began to dance within her. When she +sprang up to throw the window wide, there below her was the sparkling +river, the daffodils waving their pale heads in the delicate Westmoreland +grass, the high white clouds still racing before the wind. How heavenly +to find oneself in this wild clean country!--after all the ugly squalors +of parade and lodging-house, after the dingy bow-windowed streets with +the March dust whirling through them. + +She leant across the broad window-sill, her chin on her hands, absorbed, +drinking it in. The eastern sun, coming slanting-ways, bathed her tumbled +masses of fair hair, her little white form, her bare feet raised tiptoe. + +Suddenly she drew back. She had seen the figure of a man crossing the +park on the further side of the river, and the maidenly instinct drove +her from the window; though the man in question was perhaps a quarter of +a mile away, and had he been looking for her, could not possibly have +made out more than a pale speck on the old wall. + +"Mr. Helbeck,"--she thought--"by the height of him. Where is he off to +before seven o'clock in the morning? I hate a man that can't keep +rational hours like other people! Fricka, come here!" + +For her little dog, who had sprung from the bed after its mistress, was +now stretching and blinking behind her. At Laura's voice it jumped up and +tried to lick her face. Laura caught it in her arms and sat down on the +bed, still hugging it. + +"No, Fricka, I don't like him--I don't, I don't, I _don't!_ But you and I +have just got to behave. If you annoy that big dog downstairs, he'll +break your neck,--he will, Fricka. As for me,"--she shrugged her small +shoulders,--"well, Mr. Helbeck can't break _my_ neck, so I'm dreadfully +afraid I shall annoy him--dreadfully, dreadfully afraid! But I'll try +not. You see, what we've got to do, is just to get Augustina well--stand +over her with a broomstick and pour the tonics down her throat. Then, +Fricka, we'll go our way and have some fun. Now look at us!----" + +She moved a little, so that the cracked glass on the dressing-table +reflected her head and shoulders, with the dog against her neck. + +"You know we're not at all bad-looking, Fricka--neither of us. I've seen +much worse. (Oh, Fricka! I've told you scores of times I can wash my +face--without you--thank you!) There's all sorts of nice things that +might happen if we just put ourselves in the way of them. Oh! I do want +some fun--I do!--at least sometimes!" + +But again the voice dropped suddenly; the big greenish eyes filled in a +moment with inconsistent tears, and Laura sat staring at the sunshine, +while the drops fell on her white nightgown. + +Meanwhile Fricka, being half throttled, made a violent effort and +escaped. Laura too sprang up, wiped away her tears as though she were +furious with them, and began to look about her for the means of dressing. +Everything in the room was of the poorest and scantiest--the cottage +washstand with its crockery, the bare dressing-table and dilapidated +glass. + +"A bath!--my kingdom for a bath! I don't mind starving, but one must +wash. Let's ring for that rough-haired girl, Fricka, and try and get +round her. Goodness!--no bells?" + +After long search, however, she discovered a tattered shred of tapestry +hanging in a corner, and pulled it vigorously. Many efforts, however, +were needed before there was a sound of feet in the passage outside. +Laura hastily donned a blue dressing-gown, and stood expectant. + +The door was opened unceremoniously and a girl thrust in her head. Laura +had made acquaintance with her the night before. She was the +housekeeper's underling and niece. + +"Mrs. Denton says I'm not to stop. She's noa time for answerin bells. And +you'll have some hot water when t' kettle boils." + +The door was just shutting again when Laura sprang at the speaker and +caught her by the arm. + +"My dear," she said, dragging the girl in, "that won't do at all. Now +look here"--she held up her little white hand, shaking the forefinger +with energy--"I don't--want--to give--any trouble, and Mrs. Denton may +keep her hot water. But I must have a bath--and a big can--and somebody +must show me where to go for water--and then--_then_, my dear--if you +make yourself agreeable, I'll--well, I'll teach you how to do your hair +on Sundays--in a way that will surprise you!" + +The girl stared at her in sudden astonishment, her dark stupid eyes +wavering. She had a round, peasant face, not without comeliness, and a +lustreless shock of black hair. Laura laughed. + +"I will," she said, nodding; "you'll see. And I'll give you notions for +your best frock. I'll be a regular elder sister to you--if you'll just do +a few things for me--and Mrs. Fountain. What's your name--Ellen?--that's +all right. Now, is there a bath in the house?" + +The girl unwillingly replied that there was one in the big room at the +end of the passage. + +"Show it me," said Laura, and marched her off there. The rough-headed one +led the way along the panelled passage and opened a door. + +Then it was Laura's turn to stare. + +Inside she saw a vast room with finely panelled walls and a decorated +ceiling. The sunlight poured in through an uncurtained window upon the +only two objects in the room,--a magnificent bed, carved and gilt, with +hangings of tarnished brocade,--and a round tin bath of a common, +old-fashioned make, propped up against the wall. The oak boards were +absolutely bare. The bed and the bath looked at each other. + +"What's become of all the furniture?" said Laura, gazing round her in +astonishment. + +"The gentleman from Edinburgh had it all, lasst month," said the girl, +still sullenly. "He's affther the bed now." + +"Oh!--Does he often come here?" + +The girl hesitated. + +"Well, he's had a lot o' things oot o' t' house, sen I came." + +"Has he?" said Laura. "Now, then--lend a hand." + +Between them they carried off the bath; and then Laura informed herself +where water was to be had, and when breakfast would be ready. + +"T' Squire's gone oot," said Ellen, still watching the newcomer from +under a pair of very black and beetling brows; "and Mrs. Denton said she +supposed yo'd be wantin a tray for Mrs. Fountain." + +"Does the Squire take no breakfast?" + +"Noa. He's away to Mass--ivery mornin, an' he gets his breakfast wi' +Father Bowles." + +The girl's look grew more hostile. + +"Oh, does he?" said Laura in a tone of meditation. "Well, then, look +here. Put another cup and another plate on Mrs. Fountain's tray, and I'll +have mine with her. Shall I come down to the kitchen for it?" + +"Noa," said the girl hastily. "Mrs. Denton doan't like foak i' t' +kitchen." + +At that moment a call in Mrs. Denton's angriest tones came pealing along +the passage outside. Laura laughed and pushed the girl out of the room. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Miss Fountain was ministering to her stepmother in the most +comfortable bedroom that the house afforded. The furniture, indeed, was a +medley. It seemed to have been gathered out of many other rooms. But at +any rate there was abundance of it; a carpet much worn, but still useful, +covered the floor; and Ellen had lit the fire without being summoned to +do it. Laura recognised that Mr. Helbeck must have given a certain number +of precise orders on the subject of his sister. + +Poor Mrs. Fountain, however, was not happy. She was sitting up in bed, +wrapped in an unbecoming flannel jacket--Augustina had no taste in +clothes--and looking with an odd repugnance at the very passable +breakfast that Laura placed before her. Laura did not quite know what to +make of her. In old days she had always regarded her stepmother as an +easy-going, rather self-indulgent creature, who liked pleasant food and +stuffed chairs, and could be best managed or propitiated through some +attention to her taste in sofa-cushions or in tea-cakes. + +No doubt, since Mrs. Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of her +fathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise the +usual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director had +been able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of her +health. And on the whole she had acquiesced readily enough. + +But Laura found her now changed and restless. + +"Oh! Laura, I can't eat all that!" + +"You must," said Laura firmly. "Really, Augustina, you _must_." + +"Alan's gone out," said Augustina, with a wistful inconsequence, +straining her eyes as though to look through the diamond panes of the +window opposite, at the park and the persons walking in it. + +"Yes. He seems to go to Whinthorpe every morning for Mass. Ellen says he +breakfasts with the priest." + +Augustina sighed and fidgeted. But when she was half-way through her +meal, Laura standing over her, she suddenly laid a shaking hand on +Laura's arm. + +"Laura!--Alan's a saint!--he always was--long ago--when I was so blind +and wicked. But now--oh! the things Mrs. Denton's been telling me!" + +"Has she?" said Laura coolly. "Well, make up your mind, Augustina"--she +shook her bright head--"that you can't be the same kind of saint that he +is--anyway." + +Mrs. Fountain withdrew her hand in quick offence. + +"I should be glad if you could talk of these things without flippancy, +Laura. When I think how incapable I have been all these years, of +understanding my dear brother----" + +"No--you see you were living with papa," said Laura slowly. + +She had left her stepmother's side, and was standing with her back to an +old cabinet, resting her elbows upon it. Her brows were drawn together, +and poor Mrs. Fountain, after a glance at her, looked still more +miserable. + +"Your poor papa!" she murmured with a gulp, and then, as though to +propitiate Laura, she drew her breakfast back to her, and again tried to +eat it. Small and slight as they both were, there was a very sharp +contrast between her and her stepdaughter. Laura's features were all +delicately clear, and nothing could have been more definite, more +brilliant than the colour of the eyes and hair, or the whiteness--which +was a beautiful and healthy whiteness--of her skin. Whereas everything +about Mrs. Fountain was indeterminate; the features with their slight +twist to the left; the complexion, once fair, and now reddened by years +and ill-health; the hair, of a yellowish grey; the head and shoulders +with their nervous infirmity. Only the eyes still possessed some purity +of colour. Through all their timidity or wavering, they were still blue +and sweet; perhaps they alone explained why a good many +persons--including her stepdaughter--were fond of Augustina. + +"What has Mrs. Denton been telling you about Mr. Helbeck?" Laura +inquired, speaking with some abruptness, after a pause. + +"You wouldn't have any sympathy, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, in some +agitation. "You see, you don't understand our Catholic principles. I wish +you did!--oh! I wish you did! But you don't. And so perhaps I'd better +not talk about it." + +"It might interest me to know the facts," said Laura, in a little hard +voice. "It seems to me that I'm likely to be Mr. Helbeck's guest for a +good while." + +"But you won't like it, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain--"and you'll +misunderstand Alan. Your poor dear father always misunderstood him." +(Laura made a restless movement.) "It is not because we think we can save +our souls by such things--of course not!--that's the way you Protestants +put it----" + +"I'm not a Protestant!" said Laura hotly. Mrs. Fountain took no notice. + +"But it's what the Church calls 'mortification,'" she said, hurrying on. +"It's keeping the body under--as St. Paul did. That's what makes +saints--and it does make saints--whatever people say. Your poor father +didn't agree, of course. But he didn't know!--oh! dear, dear Stephen!--he +didn't know. And Alan isn't cross, and it doesn't spoil his health--it +doesn't, really." + +"What does he do?" asked Laura, trying for the point. + +But poor Augustina, in her mixed flurry of feeling, could hardly explain. + +"You see, Laura, there's a strict way of keeping Lent, and--well--just +the common way--doing as little as you can. It used to be all much +stricter, of course." + +"In the Dark Ages?" suggested Laura. Augustina took no notice. + +"And what the books tell you now, is much stricter than what anybody +does.--I'm sure I don't know why. But Alan takes it strictly--he wants to +go back to quite the old ways. Oh! I wish I could explain it----" + +Mrs. Fountain stopped bewildered. She was sure she had heard once that in +the early Church people took no food at all till the evening--not even a +drink. But Alan was not going to do that? + +Laura had taken Fricka on her knee, and was straightening the ribbon +round the dog's neck. + +"Does he eat _anything_?" she asked carelessly, looking up. "If it's +_nothing_--that would be interesting." + +"Laura! if you only would try and understand!--Of course Alan doesn't +settle such a thing for himself--nobody does with us. That's only in the +English Church." + +Augustina straightened herself, with an unconscious arrogance. Laura +looked at her, smiling. + +"Who settles it, then?" + +"Why, his director, of course. He must have leave. But they have given +him leave. He has chosen a rule for himself"--Augustina gave a visible +gulp--"and he called Mrs. Denton to him before Lent, and told her about +it. Of course he'll hide it as much as he can. Catholics must never be +singular--never! But if we live in the house with him he can't hide it. +And all Lent, he only eats meat on Sundays, and other days--he wrote down +a list---- Well, it's like the saints--that's all!--I just cried over +it!" + +Mrs. Fountain shook with the emotion of saying such things to Laura, but +her blue eyes flamed. + +"What! fish and eggs?--that kind of thing?" said Laura. "As if there was +any hardship in that!" + +"Laura! how can you be so unkind?--I must just keep it all to myself.--I +won't tell you anything!" cried Augustina in exasperation. + +Laura walked away to the window, and stood looking out at the March buds +on the sycamores shining above the river. + +"Does he make the servants fast too?" she asked presently, turning her +head over her shoulder. + +"No, no," said her stepmother eagerly; "he's never hard on them--only to +himself. The Church doesn't expect anything more than 'abstinence,' you +understand--not real fasting--from people like them--people who work hard +with their hands. But--I really believe--they do very much as he does. +Mrs. Denton seems to keep the house on nothing. Oh! and, Laura--I really +can't be always having extra things!" + +Mrs. Fountain pushed her breakfast away from her. + +"Please remember--nobody settles anything for themselves--in your +Church," said Laura. "You know what that doctor--that Catholic +doctor--said to you at Folkestone." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed. + +"And as to Mrs. Denton, I see--that explains the manners. No +improvement--till Lent's over?" + +"Laura!" + +But her stepdaughter, who was at the window again looking out, paid no +heed, and presently Augustina said with timid softness: + +"Won't you have your breakfast, Laura? You know it's here--on my tray." + +Laura turned, and Augustina to her infinite relief saw not frowns, but a +face all radiance. + +"I've been watching the lambs in the field across the river. Such +ridiculous enchanting things!--such jumps--and affectations. And the +river's heavenly--and all the general _feel_ of it! I really don't know, +Augustina, how you ever came to leave this country when you'd once been +born in it." + +Mrs. Fountain pushed away her tray, shook her head sadly, and said +nothing. + +"What is it?--and who is it?" cried Laura, standing amazed before a +picture in the drawing-room at Bannisdale. + +In front of her, on the panelled wall, hung a dazzling portrait of a girl +in white, a creature light as a flower under wind; eyes upraised and +eager, as though to welcome a lover; fair hair bound turban-like with a +white veil; the pretty hands playing with a book. It shone from the brown +wall with a kind of natural sovereignty over all below it and around it, +so brilliant was the picture, so beautiful the woman. + +Augustina looked up drearily. She was sitting shrunk together in a large +chair, deep in some thoughts of her own. + +"That's our picture--the famous picture," she explained slowly. + +"Your Romney?" said Laura, vaguely recalling some earlier talk of her +stepmother's. + +Augustina nodded. She stared at the picture with a curious agitation, as +though she were seeing its long familiar glories for the first time. +Laura was much puzzled by her. + +"Well, but it's magnificent!" cried the girl. "One needn't know much to +know that. How can Mr. Helbeck call himself poor while he possesses such +a thing?" + +Augustina started. + +"It's worth thousands," she said hastily. "We know that. There was a man +from London came once, years ago. But papa turned him out--he would never +sell his things. And she was our great-grandmother." + +An idea flashed through Laura's mind. + +"You don't mean to say that Mr. Helbeck is going to sell her?" said Laura +impetuously. "It would be a shame!" + +"Alan can do what he likes with anything," said Augustina in a quick +resentment. "And he wants money badly for one of his orphanages--some of +it has to be rebuilt. Oh! those orphanages--how they must have weighed on +him--poor Alan!--poor dear Alan!--all these years!" + +Mrs. Fountain clasped her thin hands together, with a sigh. + +"Is it they that have eaten up the house bit by bit?--poor house!--poor +dear house!" repeated Laura. + +She was staring with an angry championship at the picture. Its sweet +confiding air--as of one cradled in love, happy for generations in the +homage of her kindred and the shelter of the old house--stood for all the +natural human things that creeds and bigots were always trampling under +foot. + +Mrs. Fountain, however, only shook her head. + +"I don't think Alan's settled anything yet. Only Mrs. Denton's +afraid.--There was somebody came to see it a few days ago----" + +"He certainly ought not to sell it," repeated Laura with emphasis. "He +has to think of the people that come after. What will they care for +orphanages? He only holds the picture in trust." + +"There will be no one to come after," said Augustina slowly. "For of +course he will never marry." + +"Is he too great a saint for that too?" cried Laura. "Then all I can say, +Augustina, is that--it--would--do him a great deal of good." + +She beat her little foot on the ground impatiently, pointing the words. + +"You don't know anything about him, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, with an +attempt at spirit. Then she added reproachfully: "And I'm sure he wants +to be kind to you." + +"He thinks me a little heretical toad, thank you!" said Laura, spinning +round on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "But +never mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't there +a great many more rooms to see?" + +Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course," she said, +"and Alan's study----" + +"Oh! we needn't go there," said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel." + +Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. It +was a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that had +once--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and the +treasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled. + +It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gathered +into the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of what +still remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, some +of one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remote +corners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of faded +stuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkey +carpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much as +possible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order and +of comfort. + +The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor new +furnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms on +which Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that first +one Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn; +dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across the +gloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragment +of fine furniture; but as a rule bareness, poverty, and void--nothing +could be more piteous, or, to Mrs. Fountain's memory, more surprising. +For some years before she left Bannisdale, her father had not known where +to turn for a pound of ready money. Yet when she fled from it, the house +and its treasures were still intact. + +The explanation of course was very simple. Alan Helbeck had been living +upon his house, as upon any other capital. Or rather he had been making +alms of it. The house stood gashed and bare that Catholic orphans might +be put to school--was that it? Laura hardly listened to Augustina's +plaintive babble as they crossed the hall. It was all about Alan, of +course--Alan's virtues, Alan's charities. As for the orphans, the girl +hated the thought of them. Grasping little wretches! She could see them +all in a sanctimonious row, their eyes cast up, and rosaries--like the +one Augustina was always trying to hide from her--in their ugly little +hands. + +They turned down a long stone passage leading to the chapel. As they +neared the chapel door there was a sound of voices from the hall at their +back. + +"It's Alan," said Augustina peering, "and Father Bowles!" + +She hurried back to meet them, skirts and cap-strings flying. Laura stood +still. + +But after a few words with his sister, Helbeck came up to his guest with +outstretched hand. + +"I hope we have not kept you waiting for dinner. May I introduce Father +Bowles to you?" + +Laura bowed with all the stiffness of which a young back is capable. She +saw an old grey-haired priest, with a round face and a pair of chubby +hands, which he constantly held crossed or clasped upon his breast. His +long irregular-mouth seemed to fold over at the corners above his very +small and childish chin. The mouth and the light blue eyes wore an +expression of rather mincing gentleness. His short figure, though bent a +little with years, was still vigorous, and his gait quick and bustling. + +He addressed Miss Fountain with a lisping and rather obsequious +politeness, asking a great many unnecessary questions about her journey +and her arrival. + +Laura answered coldly. But when he passed to Mrs. Fountain, Augustina was +all effusion. + +"When I think what has been granted to us since I was here last!" she +said to the priest as they moved on,--clasping her hands, and flushing. + +"The dear Bishop took such trouble about it," he said in a little +murmuring voice. "It was not easy--but the Church loves to content her +children." + +Involuntarily Laura glanced at Helbeck. + +"My sister refers to the permission which has been granted to us to +reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel," he said gravely. "It is a +privilege we never enjoyed till last year." + +Laura made no reply. + +"Shall I slip away?" she thought, looking round her. + +But at that moment Mr. Helbeck lifted the heavy latch of the chapel door; +and her young curiosity was too strong for her. She followed the others. + +Mr. Helbeck held the door open for her. + +"You will perhaps care to look at the frescoes," he said to her as she +hurried past him. She nodded, and walked quickly away to the left, by +herself. Then she turned and looked about her. + +It was the first time that she had entered a Catholic church, and every +detail was new to her. She watched the other three sign themselves with +holy water and drop low on one knee before the altar. So that was the +altar. She stared at it with a scornful repugnance; yet her pulse +quickened as though what she saw excited her. What was that erection +above it, with a veil of red silk drawn round it--and why was that lamp +burning in front of it? + +She recalled Mr. Helbeck's words--"permission to reserve the Blessed +Sacrament." Then, in a flash, a hundred vague memories, the deposit of a +hearsay knowledge, enlightened her. She knew and remembered much less +than any ordinary girl would have done. But still, in the main, she +guessed at what was passing. That of course was the Sacrament, before +which Mr. Helbeck and the others were kneeling!--for instinctively she +felt that it was to no empty shrine the adoration of those silent figures +was being offered. + +Fragments from Augustina's talk at Folkestone came back to her. Once she +had overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother and +a Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the +"Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there, +and that the faithful "visited" it--that these "visits" were indeed +specially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, as +they came home from their daily walk to the beach, Mrs. Fountain would +disappear from her, through the shadowy door of a Catholic church that +stood in the same street as their lodgings--how she would come home half +an hour afterwards, shaken with fresh ardours, fresh remorse. + +But how could such a thing be allowed, be possible, in a private +chapel--in a room that was really part of a private house? GOD--the +Christ of Calvary--in that gilt box, upon that altar! + +The young girl's arms fell by her side in a sudden rigidity. A wave of +the most passionate repulsion swept through her. What a gross, what an +intolerable superstition!--how was she to live with it, beside it? The +next instant it was as though her hand clasped her father's--clinging to +him proudly, against this alien world. Why should she feel lonely?--the +little heretic, left standing there alone in her distant corner. Let her +rather rejoice that she was her father's daughter! + +She drew herself up, and coolly looked about her. The worshippers had +risen; long as the time had seemed to Laura, they had only been two or +three minutes on their knees; and she could see that Augustina was +talking eagerly to her brother, pointing now to the walls, now to the +altar. + +It seemed as though Augustina were no less astonished than her +stepdaughter by the magnificence of the chapel. Was it all new,--the +frescoes, the altar with its marble and its gold, the white figure of the +Virgin, which gleamed above the small side-altar to the left? It had the +air of newness and of costliness, an air which struck the eye all the +more sharply because of the contrast between it and the penury, the +starvation, of the great house that held the chapel in its breast. + +But while Laura was still wondering at the general impression of rich +beauty, at the Lenten purple of the altar, at the candelabra, and the +perfume, certain figures and colours on the wall close to her seized her, +thrusting the rest aside. On either side of the altar, the walls to right +and left, from the entrance up to the sanctuary, were covered with what +appeared to be recent painting--painting, indeed, that was still in the +act. On either hand, long rows of life-sized saints, men and women, +turned their adoring faces towards the Christ looking down upon them from +a crucifix above the tabernacle. On the north wall, about half the row +was unfinished; faces, haloes, drapery, strongly outlined in red, still +waited for the completing hand of the artist. The rest glowed and burned +with colour--colour the most singular, the most daring. The carnations +and rose colours, the golds and purples, the blues and lilacs and +greens--in the whole concert of tone, in spite of its general simplicity +of surface, there was something at once ravishing and troubling, +something that spoke as it were from passion to passion. + +Laura's nature felt the thrill of it at once, just as she had felt the +thrill of the sunshine lighting up the tapestry of her room. + +"Why isn't it crude and hideous?" she asked herself, in a marvel. "But it +isn't. One never saw such blues--except in the sea--or such greens--and +rose! And the angels between!--and the flowers under their +feet!--Heavens! how lovely! Who did it?" + +"Do you admire the frescoes?" said a little voice behind her. + +She turned hastily, and saw Father Bowles smiling upon her, his plump +white hands clasped in front of him, as usual. It was an attitude which +seemed to make the simplest words sound intimate and possessive. Laura +shrank from, it in quick annoyance. + +"They are very strange, and--and startling," she said stiffly, moving as +far away from the grey-haired priest as possible. "Who painted them?" + +"Mr. Helbeck first designed them. But they were carried out for a time by +a youth of great genius." Father Bowles dwelt softly upon the word +"_ge_-nius," as though he loved it. "He was once a lad from these parts, +but has now become a Jesuit. So the work was stopped." + +"What a pity!" said Laura impetuously. "He ought to have been a painter." + +The priest smiled, and made her an odd little bow. Then, without saying +anything more about the artist, he chattered on about the frescoes and +the chapel, as though he had beside him the most sympathetic of +listeners. Nothing that he said was the least interesting or striking; +and Laura, in a passion of silent dislike, kept up a steady movement +towards the door all the time. + +In the passage outside Mrs. Fountain was lingering alone. And when Laura +appeared she caught hold of her stepdaughter and detained her while the +priest passed on. Laura looked at her in surprise, and Mrs. Fountain, in +much agitation, whispered in the girl's ear: + +"Oh, Laura--do remember, dear!--don't ask Alan about those +pictures--those frescoes--by young Williams. I can tell you some +time--and you might say something to hurt him--poor Alan!" + +Laura drew herself away. + +"Why should I say anything to hurt him? What's the mystery?" + +"I can't tell you now"--Mrs. Fountain looked anxiously towards the hall. +"People have been so hard on Alan--_so_ unkind about it! It's been a +regular persecution. And you wouldn't understand--wouldn't +sympathise----" + +"I really don't care to know about it, Augustina! And I'm so +hungry--famished! Look, there's Mr. Helbeck signing to us. Joy!--that's +dinner." + + * * * * * + +Laura expected the midday meal with some curiosity. But she saw no signs +of austerity. Mr. Helbeck pressed the roast chicken on Father Bowles, +took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, and +as to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybody +else. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo your +priest. + +The meal of course was served in the simplest way, and all the waiting +was done by Mr. Helbeck, who would allow nobody to help him in the task. + +The conversation dragged. Laura and her host talked a little about the +country and the weather. Father Bowles and Augustina tried to pick up the +dropped threads of thirteen years; and Mrs. Fountain was alternately +eager for Whinthorpe gossip, or reduced to an abrupt unhappy silence by +some memory of the past. + +Suddenly Father Bowles got up from his chair, ran across the room to the +window with his napkin in his hand, and pounced eagerly upon a fly that +was buzzing on the pane. Then he carefully opened the window, and flicked +the dead thing off the sill. + +"I beg your pardon," he said humbly to Mrs. Fountain as he returned to +his seat. "It was a nasty fly. I can't abide 'em. I always think of +Beelzebub, who was the prince of the flies." + +Laura's mouth twitched with laughter. She promised herself to make a +study of Father Bowles. + +And, indeed, he was a character in his own small way. He was a priest of +an old-fashioned type, with no pretensions to knowledge or to manners. +Wherever he went he was a meek and accommodating guest, for his +recollection went back to days when a priest coming to a private house to +say Mass would as likely as not have his meals in the pantry. And he was +naturally of a gentle and yielding temper--though rather sly. + +But he had several tricks as curious as they were persistent. Not even +the presence of his bishop could make him spare a bluebottle. And he had, +on the other hand, a peculiar passion for the smell of wax. He would blow +out a candle on the altar before the end of Mass that he might enjoy the +smell of it. He disliked Jesuits, and religious generally, if the truth +were known; excepting only the orphanage nuns, who knew his weaknesses +and were kind to them. He had no love for modern innovations, or modern +devotions; there was a hidden Gallican strain in him; and he firmly +believed that in the old days before Catholic emancipation, and before +the Oxford movement, the Church made more converts than she did now. + + * * * * * + +Towards the end of the lunch Laura inquired of Mr. Helbeck whether any +conveyance was to be got in the village. + +"I wish to go to Browhead Farm this afternoon," she said rather shortly. + +"Certainly," said Helbeck. "Certainly. I will see that something is found +for you." + +But his voice had no cordiality, and Laura at once thought him +ungracious. + +"Oh, pray don't give yourself any trouble," she said, flushing, "I can +walk to the village." + +Helbeck paused. + +"If you could wait till to-morrow," he said after a moment, "I could +promise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon." + +"Oh, do wait, Laura!" cried Augustina. "There is so much unpacking to +do." + +"Very well," said the girl unwillingly. + +As she turned away from him Helbeck's look followed her. She was in a +dress of black serge, which followed the delicate girlish frame with +perfect simplicity, and was relieved at the neck and wrists with the +plainest of white collars and cuffs. But there was something so brilliant +in the hair, so fawnlike in the carriage of the head, that she seemed to +Helbeck to be all elegance; had he been asked to describe her, he would +have said she was in _grande toilette_. Little as he spoke to her, he +found himself perpetually conscious of her. Her evident--childishly +evident--dislike of her new surroundings half amused, half embarrassed +him. He did not know what topic to start with her; soon, perhaps, he +might have a difficulty in keeping the peace! It was all very absurd. + +After luncheon they gathered in the hall for a while, Father Bowles +talking eagerly with Helbeck and Augustina about "orphans" and "new +buildings." Laura stood apart awhile--then went for her hat. + +When she reappeared, in walking dress--with Fricka at her heels--Helbeck +opened the heavy outer door for her. + +"May I have Bruno?" she said. + +Helbeck turned and whistled. + +"You are not afraid?" he said, smiling, and looking at Fricka. + +"Oh, dear no! I spent an hour this morning introducing them." + +At that moment Bruno came bounding up. He looked from his master to Laura +in her hat, and seemed to hesitate. Then, as she descended the steps, he +sprang after her. Laura began to run; the two dogs leapt about her; her +light voice, checking or caressing, came back to Helbeck on the spring +wind. He watched her and her companions so long as they were in +sight--the golden hair among the trees, the dancing steps of the girl, +the answering frolic of the dogs. + +Then he turned back to his sister, his grave mouth twitching. + +"How thankful she is to get rid of us!" + +He laughed out. The priest laughed, too, more softly. + +"It was the first time, I presume, that Miss Fountain had ever been +within a Catholic church?" he said to Augustina. + +Augustina flushed. + +"Of course it is the first time. Oh! Alan, you can't think how strange it +is to her." + +She looked rather piteously at her brother. + +"So I perceive," he said. "You told me something, but I had not +realised----" + +"You see, Alan--" cried Augustina, watching her brother's face,--"it was +with the greatest difficulty that her mother got Stephen to consent even +to her being baptized. He opposed it for a long time." + +Father Bowles murmured something under his breath. + +Helbeck paused for a moment, then said: + +"What was her mother like?" + +"Everyone at Cambridge used to say she was 'a sweet woman'--but--but +Stephen,--well, you know, Alan, Stephen always had his way! I always +wonder she managed to persuade him about the baptism." + +She coloured still more deeply as she spoke, and her nervous infirmity +became more pronounced. Alas! it was not only with the first wife that +Stephen had had his way! Her own marriage had begun to seem to her a mere +sinful connection. Poor soul--poor Augustina! + +Her brother must have divined something of what was passing in her mind, +for he looked down upon her with a peculiar gentleness. + +"People are perhaps more ready to talk of that responsibility than to +take it," he said kindly. "But, Augustina,--" his voice changed,--"how +pretty she is!--You hardly prepared me----" + +Father Bowles modestly cast down his eyes. These were not questions that +concerned him. But Helbeck went on, speaking with decision, and looking +at his sister: + +"I confess--her great attractiveness makes me a little anxious--about the +connection with the Masons. Have you ever seen any of them, Augustina?" + +No--Augustina had seen none of them. She believed Stephen had +particularly disliked the mother, the widow of his cousin, who now owned +the farm jointly with her son. + +"Well, no," said Helbeck dryly, "I don't suppose he and she would have +had much in common." + +"Isn't she a dreadful Protestant--Alan?" + +"Oh, she's just a specimen of the ordinary English Bible-worship run +mad," he said, carelessly. "She is a strange woman, very well known about +here. And there's a foolish parson living near them, up in the hills, who +makes her worse. But it's the son I'm thinking of." + +"Why, Alan--isn't he respectable?" + +"Not particularly. He's a splendid athletic fellow--doing his best to +make himself a blackguard, I'm afraid. I've come across him once or +twice, as it happens. He's not a desirable cousin for Miss Fountain--that +I can vouch for! And unluckily," he smiled, "Miss Fountain won't hear any +good of this house at Browhead Farm." + +Even Augustina drew herself up proudly. + +"My dear Alan, what does it matter what that sort of people think?" + +He shook his head. + +"It's a queer business. They were mixed up with young Williams." + +Augustina started. + +"Mrs. Mason was a great friend of his mother, who died. They hate me like +poison. However----" + +The priest interposed. + +"Mrs. Mason is a very violent, a most unseemly woman," he said, in his +mincing voice. "And the father--the old man--who is now dead, was +concerned in the rioting near the bridge----" + +"When Alan was struck? Mrs. Denton told me! How _abominable_!" + +Augustina raised her hands in mingled reprobation and distress. + +Helbeck looked annoyed. + +"That doesn't matter one brass farthing," he said, in some haste. "Father +Bowles was much worse treated than I on that occasion. But you see the +whole thing is unlucky--it makes it difficult to give Miss Fountain the +hints one would like to give her." + +He threw himself down beside his sister, talking to her in low tones. +Father Bowles took up the local paper. + +Presently Augustina broke out--with another wringing of the hands. + +"Don't put it on me, my dear Alan! I tell you--Laura has always done +exactly what she liked since she was a baby." + +Mr. Helbeck rose. His face and air already expressed a certain +haughtiness; and at his sister's words there was a very definite +tightening of the shoulders. + +"I do not intend to have Hubert Mason hanging about the house," he said +quietly, as he thrust his hands into his pockets. + +"Of course not!--but she wouldn't expect it," cried Augustina in dismay. +"It's the keeping her away from them, that's the difficulty. She thinks +so much of her cousins, Alan. They're her father's only relations. I know +she'll want to be with them half her time!" + +"For love of them--or dislike of us? Oh! I dare say it will be all +right," he added abruptly. "Father Bowles, shall I drive you half-way? +The pony will be round directly." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It was a Sunday morning--bright and windy. Miss Fountain was driving a +shabby pony through the park of Bannisdale--driving with a haste and glee +that sent the little cart spinning down the road. + +Six hours--she calculated--till she need see Bannisdale again. Her +cousins would ask her to dinner and to tea. Augustina and Mr. Helbeck +might have all their Sunday antics to themselves. There were several +priests coming to luncheon--and a function in the chapel that afternoon. +Laura flicked the pony sharply as she thought of it. Seven miles between +her and it? Joy! + +Nevertheless, she did not get rid of the old house and its suggestions +quite as easily as she wished. The park and the river had many windings. +Again and again the grey gabled mass thrust itself upon her attention, +recalling each time, against her will, the face of its owner. + +A high brow--hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks--pale +blue eyes--a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair--the +close whiskers black, too, against the skin--a general impression of +pallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force-- + +She burst out laughing. + +A pose!--nothing in the world but a pose. There was a wretched picture of +Charles I. in the dining-room--a daub "after" some famous thing, she +supposed--all eyes and hair, long face, and lace collar. Mr. Helbeck was +"made up" to that--she was sure of it. He had found out the likeness, and +improved upon it. Oh! if one could only present him with the collar and +blue ribbon complete! + +"--Cut his head off, and have done with him!" she said aloud, whipping up +the pony, and laughing at her own petulance. + +Who could live in such a house--such an atmosphere? + +As she drove along, her mind was all in a protesting whirl. On her return +from her walk with the dogs the day before, she had found a service going +on in the chapel, Father Bowles officiating, and some figures in black +gowns and white-winged coifs assisting. She had fled to her own room, but +when she came down again, the black-garbed "Sisters" were still there, +and she had been introduced to them. Ugh! what manners! Must one always, +if one was a Catholic, make that cloying, hypocritical impression? "Three +of them kissed me," she reminded herself, in a quiver of wrath. + +They were Sisters from the orphanage apparently, or one of the +orphanages, and there had been endless talk of new buildings and money, +while she, Laura, sat dumb in her corner looking at old photographs of +the house. Helbeck, indeed, had not talked much. While the black women +were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly +silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through +his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he +pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that +his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other +people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively +than more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl had +an impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, that +held herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, or +awkward--nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon one +sees that he is just looking out for his own way in everything. + +"And as for temper!----" + +After the Sisters departed, a young architect had appeared at supper. A +point of difference had arisen between him and Mr. Helbeck. He was to be +employed, it appeared, in the enlargement of this blessed orphanage. Mr. +Helbeck, no doubt, with a view to his pocket--to do him justice, there +seemed to be no other pocket concerned than his--was of opinion that +certain existing buildings could be made use of in the new scheme. The +architect--a nervous young fellow, with awkward manners, and the +ambitions of an artist--thought not, and held his own, insistently. The +discussion grew vehement. Suddenly Helbeck lost his temper. + +"Mr. Munsey! I must ask you to give more weight, if you please, to my +wishes in this matter! They may be right or wrong--but it would save +time, perhaps, if we assumed that they would prevail." + +The note of anger in the voice made every one look up. The Squire stood +erect a moment; crumpled in his hand a half-sheet of paper on which young +Munsey had been making some calculations, and flung it into the fire. +Augustina sat cowering. The young man himself turned white, bowed, and +said nothing. While Father Bowles, of course, like the old tabby that he +was, had at once begun to purr conciliation. + +"Would I have stood meek and mum if _I'd_ been the young man!" thought +Laura. "Would I! Oh! if I'd had the chance! And he should not have made +up so easily, either." + +For she remembered, also, how, after Father Bowles was gone, she had come +in from the garden to find Mr. Helbeck and the architect pacing the long +hall together, on what seemed to be the friendliest of terms. For nearly +an hour, while she and Augustina sat reading over the fire, the colloquy +went on. + +Helbeck's tones then were of the gentlest; the young man too spoke low +and eagerly, pressing his plans. And once when Laura looked up from her +book, she had seen Helbeck's arm resting for a moment on the young +fellow's shoulder. Oh! no doubt Mr. Helbeck could make himself agreeable +when he chose--and struggling architects must put up with the tempers of +their employers. + +All the more did Miss Fountain like to think that the Squire could compel +no court from her. + +She recalled that when Mr. Munsey had said good-night, and they three +were alone in the firelit hall, Helbeck had come to stand beside her. He +had looked down upon her with an air which was either kindness or +weariness; he had been willing--even, she thought, anxious to talk with +her. But she did not mean to be first trampled on, then patronised, like +the young man. So Mr. Helbeck had hardly begun--with that occasional +timidity which sat so oddly on his dark and strong physique--to speak to +her of the two Sisters of Charity who had been his guests in the +afternoon, when she abruptly discovered it was time to say good-night. +She winced a little as she remembered the sudden stiffening of his look, +the careless touch of his hand. + + * * * * * + +The day was keen and clear. A nipping wind blew beneath the bright sun, +and the opening buds had a parched and hindered look. But to Laura the +air was wine, and the country all delight. She was mounting the flank of +a hill towards a straggling village. Straight along the face of the hill +lay her road, past the villages and woods that clothed the hill slope, +till someone should show her the gate beyond which lay the rough ascent +to Browhead Farm. + +Above her, now, to her right, rose a craggy fell with great screes +plunging sheer down into the woods that sheltered the village; below, in +the valley-plain, stretched the purples and greens of the moss; the +rivers shone in the sun as they came speeding from the mountains to the +sea; and in the far distance the heights of Lakeland made one pageant +with the sun and the clouds--peak after peak thrown blue against the +white, cloud after cloud breaking to show the dappled hills below, in +such a glory of silver and of purple, such a freshness of atmosphere and +light, that mere looking soon became the most thrilling, the most +palpable of joys. Laura's spirits began to sing and soar, with the larks +and the blackcaps! + +Then, when the village was gone, came a high stretch of road, looking +down upon the moss and all its bounding fells, which ran out upon its +purple face like capes upon a sea. And these nearer fields--what were +these thick white specks upon the new-made furrows? Up rose the gulls for +answer; and the girl felt the sea-breath from their dazzling wings, and +turned behind her to look for that pale opening in the south-west through +which the rivers passed. + +And beyond the fields a wood--such a wood as made Laura's south-country +eyes stand wide with wonder! Out she jumped, tied the pony's rein to a +gate beside the road, and ran into the hazel brushwood with little cries +of pleasure. A Westmoreland wood in daffodil time--it was nothing more +and nothing less. But to this child with the young passion in her blood, +it was a dream, an ecstasy. The golden flowers, the slim stalks, rose +from a mist of greenish-blue, made by their speary leaf amid the +encircling browns and purples, the intricate stem and branch-work of the +still winter-bound hazels. Never were daffodils in such a wealth before! +They were flung on the fell-side through a score of acres, in sheets and +tapestries of gold,--such an audacious, unreckoned plenty as went +strangely with the frugal air and temper of the northern country, with +the bare walled fields, the ruggedness of the crags above, and the +melancholy of the treeless marsh below. And within this common +lavishness, all possible delicacy, all possible perfection of the +separate bloom and tuft--each foot of ground had its own glory. For below +the daffodils there was a carpet of dark violets, so dim and close that +it was their scent first bewrayed them; and as Laura lay gathering with +her face among the flowers, she could see behind their gold, and between +the hazel stems, the light-filled greys and azures of the mountain +distance. Each detail in the happy whole struck on the girl's eager sense +and made there a poem of northern spring--spring as the fell-country sees +it, pure, cold, expectant, with flashes of a blossoming beauty amid the +rocks and pastures, unmatched for daintiness and joy. + +Presently Laura found herself sitting--half crying!--on a mossy tuft, +looking along the wood to the distance. What was it in this exquisite +country that seized upon her so--that spoke to her in this intimate, this +appealing voice? + +Why, she was of it--she belonged to it--she felt it in her veins! Old +inherited things leapt within her--or it pleased her to think so. It was +as though she stretched out her arms to the mountains and fields, crying +to them, "I am not a stranger--draw me to you--my life sprang from +yours!" A host of burning and tender thoughts ran through her. Their +first effect was to remind her of the farm and of her cousins; and she +sprang up, and went back to the cart. + +On they rattled again, downhill through the wood, and up on the further +side--still always on the edge of the moss. She loved the villages, and +their medley of grey houses wedged among the rocks; she loved the stone +farms with their wide porches, and the white splashes on their grey +fronts; she loved the tufts of fern in the wall crannies, the limestone +ribs and bonework of the land breaking everywhere through the pastures, +the incomparable purples of the woods, and the first brave leafing of the +larches and the sycamores. Never had she so given her heart to any new +world; and through her delight flashed the sorest, tenderest thoughts of +her father. "Oh! papa--oh, papa!" she said to herself again and again in +a little moan. Every day perhaps he had walked this road as a child, and +she could still see herself as a child, in a very dim vision, trotting +beside him down the Browhead Road. She turned at last into the fell-gate +to which a passing boy directed her, with a long breath that was almost a +sob. + +She had given them no notice; but surely, surely they would be glad to +see her! + +_They_? She tried to split up the notion, to imagine the three people she +was going to see. Cousin Elizabeth--the mother? Ah! she knew her, for +they had never liked Cousin Elizabeth. She herself could dimly remember a +hard face; an obstinate voice raised in discussion with her father. Yet +it was Cousin Elizabeth who was the Fountain born, who had carried the +little family property as her dowry to her husband James Mason. For the +grandfather had been free to leave it as he chose, and on the death of +his eldest son--who had settled at the farm after his marriage, and taken +the heavy work of it off his father's shoulders--the old man had +passionately preferred to leave it to the strong, capable granddaughter, +who was already provided with a lover, who understood the land, moreover, +and could earn and "addle" as he did, rather than to his bookish milksop +of a second son, so richly provided for already, in his father's +contemptuous opinion, by the small government post at Newcastle. + +"Let us always thank God, Laura, that my grandfather was a brute to +yours!" Stephen Fountain would say to his girl on the rare occasions when +he could be induced to speak of his family at all. "But for that I might +be a hedger and ditcher to this day." + +Well, but Cousin Elizabeth's children? Laura herself had some vague +remembrance of them. As the pony climbed the steep lane she shut her eyes +and tried hard to recall them. The fair-haired boy--rather fat and +masterful--who had taken her to find the eggs of a truant hen in a hedge +behind the house--and had pushed her into a puddle on the way home +because she had broken one? Then the girl, the older girl Polly, who had +cleaned her shoes for her, and lent her a pinafore? No! Laura opened her +eyes again--it was no good straining to remember. Too many years had +rolled between that early visit and her present self--years during which +there had been no communication of any sort between Stephen Fountain and +his cousins. + +Why had Augustina been so trying and tiresome about the Masons? Instead +of flying to her cousins on the earliest possible opportunity, here was a +whole fortnight gone since her arrival, and it was not till this Sunday +morning that Laura had been able to achieve her visit. Augustina had been +constantly ailing or fretful; either unwilling to be left alone, or +possessed by absurd desires for useless trifles, only to be satisfied by +Laura's going to shop in Whinthorpe. And such melancholy looks whenever +the Masons were mentioned--coupled with so formal a silence on Mr. +Helbeck's part! What did it all mean? No doubt her relations were vulgar, +low-born folk!--but she did not ask Mr. Helbeck or her stepmother to +entertain them. At last there had been a passage of arms between her and +her stepmother. Perhaps Mr. Helbeck had overheard it, for immediately +afterwards he had emerged from his study into the hall, where she and +Augustina were sitting. + +"Miss Fountain--may I ask--do you wish to be sent into Whinthorpe on +Sunday morning?" + +She had fronted him at once. + +"No, thank you, Mr. Helbeck. I don't go to church--I never did with +papa." + +Had she been defiant? He surely had been stiff. + +"Then, perhaps you would like the pony--for your visit? He is quite at +your service for the day. Would that suit you?" + +"Perfectly." + + * * * * * + +So here she was--at last!--climbing up and up into the heart of the +fells. The cloud-pageant round the high mountains, the valley with its +flashing streams, its distant sands, and widening sea--she had risen as +it seemed above them all; they lay beneath her in a map-like unity. She +could have laughed and sung out of sheer physical joy in the dancing +air--in the play of the cloud gleams and shadows as they swept across +her, chased by the wind. All about her the little mountain sheep were +feeding in the craggy "intaks" or along the edges of the tiny tumbling +streams; and at intervals amid the reds and yellows of the still wintry +grass rose great wind-beaten hollies, sharp and black against the blue +distance, marching beside her, like scattered soldiers, up the height. + +Not a house to be seen, save on the far slopes of distant hills--not a +sound, but the chink of the stone-chat, or the fall of lonely water. + +Soon the road, after its long ascent, began to dip; a few trees appeared +in a hollow, then a gate and some grey walls. + +Laura jumped from the cart. Beyond the gate, the road turned downward a +little, and a great block of barns shut the farmhouse from view till she +was actually upon it. + +But there it was at last--the grey, roughly built house, that she still +vaguely remembered, with the whitewashed porch, the stables and cowsheds +opposite, the little garden to the side, the steep fell behind. + +She stood with her hand on the pony, looking at the house in some +perplexity. Not a soul apparently had heard her coming. Nothing moved in +the farmhouse or outside it. Was everybody at church? But it was nearly +one o'clock. + +The door under the deep porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for +a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle of her whip. + +No answer. She rapped again--louder and louder. At last in the intervals +of knocking, she became conscious of a sound within--something deep and +continuous, like the buzzing of a gigantic bee. + +She put her ear to the door, listening. Then all her face dissolved in +laughter. She raised her arm and brought the whip-handle down noisily on +the old blistered door, so that it shook again. + +"Hullo!" + +There was a sudden sound of chairs overturned, or dragged along a flagged +floor. Then staggering steps--and the door was opened. + +"I say--what's all this--what are you making such a damned noise for?" + +Inside stood a stalwart young man, still half asleep, and drawing his +hand irritably across his blinking eyes. + +"How do you do, Mr. Mason?" + +The young man drew himself together with a start. Suddenly he perceived +that the young girl standing in the shade of the porch was not his +sister, but a stranger. He looked at her with astonishment,--at the +elegance of her dress, and the neatness of her small gloved hand. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure! Did you want anything?" + +The visitor laughed. "Yes, I want a good deal! I came up to see my +cousins--you're my cousin--though of course you don't remember me. I +thought--perhaps--you'd ask me to dinner." + +The young man's yawns ceased. He stared with all his eyes, instinctively +putting his hair and collar straight. + +"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are, Miss," he said at last, +putting out his hand in perplexity to meet hers. "Will you walk in?" + +"Not before you know who I am!"--said Laura, still laughing--"I'm Laura +Fountain. Now do you know?" + +"What--Stephen Fountain's daughter--as married Miss Helbeck?" said the +young man in wonder. His face, which had been at first vague and heavy +with sleep, began to recover its natural expression. + +Laura surveyed him. He had a square, full chin and an upper lip slightly +underhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. He +carried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built, +rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that was +half clumsy, half insolent. + +"That's it," she said, in answer to his question--"I'm staying at +Bannisdale, and I came up to see you all.--Where's Cousin Elizabeth?" + +"Mother, do you mean?--Oh! she's at church." + +"Why aren't you there, too?" + +He opened his blue eyes, taken aback by the cool clearness of her voice. + +"Well, I can't abide the parson--if you want to know. Shall I put up your +pony?" + +"But perhaps you've not had your sleep out?" said Laura, politely +interrogative. + +He reddened, and came forward with a slow and rather shambling gait. + +"I don't know what else there is to do up here of a Sunday morning," he +said, with a boyish sulkiness, as he began to lead the pony towards the +stables opposite. "Besides, I was up half the night seeing to one of the +cows." + +"You don't seem to have many neighbours," said Laura, as she walked +beside him. + +"There's rooks and crows" (which he pronounced broadly--"craws")--"not +much else, I can tell you. Shall I take the pony out?" + +"Please. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for hours!" + +She looked at him merrily, and he returned the scrutiny. She wore the +same thin black dress in which Helbeck had admired her the day before, +and above it a cloth jacket and cap, trimmed with brown fur. Mason was +dazzled a moment by the milky whiteness of the cheek above the fur, by +the brightness of the eyes and hair; then was seized with fresh shyness, +and became extremely busy with the pony. + +"Mother'll be back in about an hour," he said gruffly. + +"Goodness! what'll you do with me till then?" + +They both laughed, he with an embarrassment that annoyed him. He was not +at all accustomed to find himself at a disadvantage with a good-looking +girl. + +"There's a good fire in the house, anyway," he said; "you'll want to warm +yourself, I should think, after driving up here." + +"Oh! I'm not cold--I say, what jolly horses!" + +For Mason had thrown open the large worm-eaten door of the stables, and +inside could be seen the heads and backs of two cart-horses, huge, +majestic creatures, who were peering over the doors of their stalls, as +though they had been listening to the conversation. + +Their owner glanced at them indifferently. + +"Aye, they're not bad. We bred 'em three years ago, and they've taken +more'n one prize already. I dare say old Daffady, now, as looks after +them, would be sorry to part with them." + +"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?" + +The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony, +and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching his +performance. + +"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives," he said at last +with some abruptness. + +"Don't you like it then?" + +"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!" + +His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her. + +"And your mother?" + +"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the +same accent of a sulky child that he had used once before. + +Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he was +beginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious that +she was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no means +indifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep him +shy. + +As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up the +chairs he had overturned in his sudden waking. + +"I say, mother would be mad if she knew you'd come into this scrow!" he +said with vexation, kicking aside some sporting papers that were littered +over the floors, and bringing forward a carved oak chair with a cushion +to place it before the fire for her acceptance. + +"Scrow? What's that?" said Laura, lifting her eyebrows. "Oh, please don't +tidy any more. I really think you make it worse. Besides, it's all right. +What a dear old kitchen!" + +She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slender +foot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat--it hid her +hair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupied +with what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings--to +the old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows. + +Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through +the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the +different objects in a golden light and shade--the brass warming-pan +hanging beside the tall eight-day clock--the table in front of the long +window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth--the carved door of a +cupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679--the miscellaneous store of +things packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools, +bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels, +cattle-medicines, and the like--the heavy oaken chairs--the settle beside +the fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room for +winter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peat +fire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feet +below, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, had +maintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred, +self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of the +farm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned from +October to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there must +be many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in together +from the world outside by wastes of snow. + +Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro--the +rising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side, +wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire. +Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmed +to the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something more +human--more poetic even--than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale. + +She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw Hubert +Mason looking at her. + +Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under the +shelter of her dress. + +"I was thinking of what it must be in winter," she said hurriedly. "I +know I should like it." + +"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then. +It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut your +throat. I say, where are you staying?" + +"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother was +still living, didn't you?" + +"Well, I didn't think aught about it," he said, falling into candour, +because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair and +full upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind. + +"I wrote to you--to Cousin Elizabeth--when my father died," she said +simply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him. + +"Aye--of course you did," he said in haste. "But mother's never yan to +talk aboot letters. And you haven't dropped us a line since, have you?" +he added, almost with timidity. + +"No. I thought I'd surprise you. We've been a fortnight at Bannisdale." + +His face flushed and darkened. + +"Then you've been a fortnight in a queer place!" he said with a sudden, +almost a violent change of tone. "I wonder you can bide so long under +that man's roof!" + +She stared. + +"Do you mean because he disliked my father?" + +"Oh, I don't know nowt about that!" He paused. His young face was +crimson, his eyes angry and sinister. "He's a _snake_--is Helbeck!" he +said slowly, striking his hands together as they hung over his knees. + +Laura recoiled--instinctively straightening herself. + +"Mr. Helbeck is quite kind to me," she said sharply. "I don't know why +you speak of him like that. I'm staying there till my stepmother gets +strong." + +He stared at her, still red and obstinate. + +"Helbeck an his house together stick in folk's gizzards aboot here," he +said. "Yo'll soon find that oot. And good reason too. Did you ever hear +of Teddy Williams?" + +"Williams?" she said, frowning. "Was that the man that painted the +chapel?" + +Mason laughed and slapped his knee. + +"Man, indeed? He was just a lad--down at Marsland School. I was there +myself, you understand, the year after him. He was an awful clever +lad--beat every one at books--an he could draw anything. You couldn't +mak' much oot of his drawins, I daur say--they were queer sorts o' +things. I never could make head or tail on 'em myself. But old Jackson, +our master, thowt a lot of 'em, and so did the passon down at Marsland. +An his father an mother--well, they thowt he was going to make all their +fortunes for 'em. There was a scholarship--or soomthin o' that sort--an +he was to get it an go to college, an make 'em all rich. They were just +common wheelwrights, you understand, down on t' Whinthorpe Road. But my +word, Mr. Helbeck spoilt their game for 'em!" + +He lifted another sod of turf from the basket and flung it on the fire. +The animus of his tone and manner struck Laura oddly. But she was at +least as curious to hear as he was anxious to tell. She drew her chair a +little nearer to him. + +"What did Mr. Helbeck do?" + +Mason laughed. + +"Well, he just made a Papist of Teddy--took him an done him--brown. He +got hold on him in the park one evening--Teddy was drawing a picture of +the bridge, you understand--'ticed him up to his place soomhow--an Teddy +was set to a job of paintin up at the chapel before you could say Jack +Robinson. An in six months they'd settled it between 'em. Teddy wouldn't +go to school no more. And one night he and his father had words; the owd +man gie'd him a thrashing, and Teddy just cut and run. Next thing they +heard he was at a Papist school, somewhere over Lancashire way, an he +sent word to his mother--she was dyin then, you understan'--and she's +dead since--that he'd gone to be a priest, an if they didn't like it, +they might just do the other thing!" + +"And the mother died?" said Laura. + +"Aye--double quick! My mother went down to nurse her. An they sent Teddy +back, just too late to see her. He come in two-three hours after they'd +screwed her down. An his father chivvyed him oot--they wouldn't have him +at the funeral. But folks were a deal madder with Mr. Helbeck, you +understan', nor with Teddy. Teddy's father and brothers are chapel +folk--Primitive Methodists they call 'em. They've got a big chapel in +Whinthorpe--an they raised the whole place on Mr. Helbeck, and one night, +coming out of Whinthorpe, he was set on by a lot of fellows, chapel +fellows, a bit fresh, you understan'. Father was there--he never denied +it--not he! Helbeck just got into the old mill by the bridge in time, but +they'd marked his face for him all the same." + +"Ah!" said Laura, staring into the fire. She had just remembered a dark +scar on Mr. Helbeck's forehead, under the strong ripples of black hair. +"Go on--do!" + +"Oh! afterwards there was a lot of men bound over--father among 'em. +There was a priest with Mr. Helbeck who got it hot too--that old chap +Bowles--I dare say you've seen him. Aye, he's a _snake_, is Helbeck!" the +young man repeated. Then he reddened still more deeply, and added with +vindictive emphasis--"and an interfering,--hypocritical,--canting sort of +party into t' bargain. He'd like to lord it over everybody aboot here, if +he was let. But he's as poor as a church rat--who minds him?" + +The language was extraordinary--so was the tone. Laura had been gazing at +the speaker in a growing amazement. + +"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!--but, +in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of the +gentleman I am staying with!" + +Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to control +himself. + +"I didn't mean no offence," he said at last, with a return of the sulky +voice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, and +not with the likes of us." + +Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing to +say! But I don't mind--I'll forgive you--like I did years ago, when you +pushed me into the puddle!" + +"I pushed you into a puddle? But--I never did owt o' t' sort!" cried +Mason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment. + +"Oh, yes, you did," she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and you +bullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy--and I loved Polly, +who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she at +church?" + +"Aye--I dare say," said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhile +with all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off her +cap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curls +upon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so as +to fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The white +fingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted arms +showed all the young curves of the girl's form. + +Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily +into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair. + +"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?" + +He shook his head. + +"Ah! well"--she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty. + +"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily. + +"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different +voice, "Is this your sitting-room"--she looked round it--"or--or your +kitchen?" + +The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his +feelings. + +Mason jumped up. + +"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust +thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire." + +And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door +ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look +round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its +woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured +carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place +struck her. + +"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen," she said decidedly. "What's +that?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon the +largest possible wool mat in the centre of a table. + +Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fill +out; all his sulky constraint dropped away. + +"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts," he said to her with +condescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for the +County lasst year--no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt--that's +nobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a better +there, by-and-by." + +The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumed +indifference to its inscription. + +"What--football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! I +don't care about football. But I _love_ cricket. Why--you've got a +piano--and a new one!" + +Mason's face cleared again--in quite another fashion. + +"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal of +by them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had done +fust-rate,--an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So I +took no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid the +first instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle--do yo +knaw 'im?--he's the organist at the parish church--he came with me to +choose it." + +"And is it you that play it," said Laura wondering, "or your sister?" + +He looked at her in silence for a moment--and she at him. His aspect +seemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face came +out; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner became +suddenly quiet and manly--though full of an almost tremulous eagerness. + +"You like it?" she asked him. + +"What--music? I should think so." + +"Oh! I forgot--you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?" + +He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leant +over the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused. + +"I say--did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellow +made it--Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further than +just a bit of it." + +He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords that +shook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He played +on--played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling--played with +a mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment that +amazed her--then grew crimson with the effort to remember--wavered--and +stopped. + +"Goodness!"--cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides! +How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it." + +She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling and +transformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found the +after melody, pursued it,--with pauses now and then, in which he would +strike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers--and finally, +after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter and +head-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time with +hands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments. + +"Oh! my goody--isn't that rousing? Play that again--just that +change--just once! Oh! Lord--isn't that good, that chord--and that bit +afterwards, what a bass!--I say, _isn't_ it a bass? Don't you like +it--don't you like it _awfully_?" + +Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, her +hands on her knees. He fell back into a chair. + +"I say"--he said slowly--"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known you +could play like that!" + +Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown. + +"I haven't played--ten notes--since papa died. He liked it so." + +She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at the +top of the piano. + +"But you will play--you'll play to me again"--he said +beseechingly.--"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't I +play if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now and +again, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him--I can +play any thing I hear--and I've made a song--old Castle's writing it +down--he says he'll teach me to do it some day. But of course I'm no good +for playing--I never shall be any good. Look at those fingers--they're +like bits of stick--beastly things!" + +He thrust them out indignantly for her inspection. Laura looked at them +with a professional air. + +"I don't call it a bad hand. I expect you've no patience." + +"Haven't I! I tell you I'd play all day, if it'ld do any good--but it +won't." + +"And how about the poor farm?" said Laura, with a lifted brow. + +"Oh! the farm--the farm--dang the farm!"--said Mason violently, slapping +his knee. + +Suddenly there was a sound of voices outside, a clattering on the stones +of the farmyard. + +Mason sprang up, all frowns. + +"That's mother. Here, let's shut the piano--quick! She can't abide it." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Mason went out to meet his mother, and Laura waited. She stood where she +had risen, beside the piano, looking nervously towards the door. Childish +remembrances and alarms seemed to be thronging back into her mind. + +There was a noise of voices in the outer room. Then a handle was roughly +turned, and Laura saw before her a short, stout woman, with grey hair, +and the most piercing black eyes. Intimidated by the eyes, and by the +sudden pause of the newcomer on the threshold, Miss Fountain could only +look at her interrogatively. + +"Is it Cousin Elizabeth?" she said, holding out a wavering hand. + +Mrs. Mason scarcely allowed her own to be touched. + +"We're not used to visitors i' church-time," she said abruptly, in a deep +funereal voice. "Mappen you'll sit down." + +And still holding the girl with her eyes, she walked across to an old +rocking-chair, let herself fall into it, and with a loud sigh loosened +her bonnet strings. + +Laura, in her amazement, had to strangle a violent inclination to laugh. +Then she flushed brightly, and sat down on the wooden stool in front of +the piano. Mrs. Mason, still staring at her, seemed to wait for her to +speak. But Laura would say nothing. + +"Soa--thoo art Stephen Fountain's dowter--art tha?" + +"Yes--and you have seen me before," was the girl's quiet reply. + +She said to herself that her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. So +black and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggy +hair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her own temper rising. + +"How long is't sen your feyther deed?" + +"Nine months. But you knew that, I think--because I wrote it you." + +Mrs. Mason's heavy lids blinked a moment, then she said with slowly +quickening emphasis, like one mounting to a crisis: + +"Wat art tha doin' wi' Bannisdale Hall? What call has thy feyther's +dowter to be visitin onder Alan Helbeck's roof?" + +Laura's open mouth showed first wonderment, then laughter. + +"Oh! I see," she said impatiently--"you don't seem to understand. But of +course you remember that my father married Miss Helbeck for his second +wife?" + +"Aye, an she cam oot fra amang them," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "she put away +from her the accursed thing!" + +The massive face was all aglow, transformed, with a kind of sombre fire. +Laura stared afresh. + +"She gave up being a Catholic, if that's what you mean," she said after a +moment's pause. "But she couldn't keep to it. When papa fell ill, and she +was unhappy, she went back. And then of course she made it up with her +brother." + +The triumph in Mrs. Mason's face yielded first to astonishment, then to +anger. + +"The poor weak doited thing," she said at last in a tone of indescribable +contempt, "the poor silly fule! But naebody need ha' luked for onything +betther from a Helbeck.--And I daur say"--she lifted her voice +fiercely--"I daur say she took yo' wi' her, an it's along o' thattens as +yo're coom to spy on us oop here?" + +Laura sprang up. + +"Me!" she said indignantly. "You think I'm a Catholic and a spy? How kind +of you! But of course you don't know anything about my father, nor how he +brought me up. As for my poor little stepmother, I came here with her to +get her well, and I shall stay with her till she is well. I really don't +know why you talk to me like this. I suppose you have cause to dislike +Mr. Helbeck, but it is very odd that you should visit it on me, papa's +daughter, when I come to see you!" + +The girl's voice trembled, but she threw back her slender neck with a +gesture that became her. The door, which had been closed, stealthily +opened. Hubert Mason's face appeared in the doorway. It was gazing +eagerly--admiringly--at Miss Fountain. + +Mrs. Mason did not see him. Nor was she daunted by Laura's anger. + +"It's aw yan," she said stubbornly. "Thoo ha' made a covenant wi' the +Amorite an the Amalekite. They ha' called tha, an thoo art eatin o' their +sacrifices!" + +There was an uneasy laugh from the door, and Laura, turning her +astonished eyes in that direction, perceived Hubert standing in the +doorway, and behind him another head thrust eagerly forward--the head of +a young woman in a much betrimmed Sunday hat. + +"I say, mother, let her be, wil tha?" said a hearty voice; and, pushing +Hubert aside, the owner of the hat entered the room. She went up to +Laura, and gave her a loud kiss. + +"I'm Polly--Polly Mason. An I know who you are weel enough. Doan't you +pay ony attention to mother. That's her way. Hubert an I take it very +kind of you to come and see us." + +"Mother's rats on Amorites!" said Hubert, grinning. + +"Rats?--Amorites?"--said Laura, looking piteously at Polly, whose hand +she held. + +Polly laughed, a bouncing, good-humoured laugh. She herself was a +bouncing, good-humoured person, the apparent antithesis of her mother +with her lively eyes, her frizzled hair, her high cheek-bones touched +with a bright pink. + +"Yo'll have to get oop early to understan' them two," she declared. +"Mother's allus talkin out o' t' Bible, an Hubert picks up a lot o' low +words out o' Whinthrupp streets--an there 'tis. But now look here--yo'll +stay an tak' a bit o' dinner with us?" + +"I don't want to be in your way," said Laura formally. Really, she had +some difficulty to control the quiver of her lips, though it would have +been difficult to say whether laughter or tears came nearest. + +At this Polly broke out in voluble protestations, investigating her +cousin's dress all the time, fingering her little watch-chain, and even +taking up a corner of the pretty cloth jacket that she might examine the +quality of it. Laura, however, looked at Mrs. Mason. + +"If Cousin Elizabeth wishes me to stay," she said proudly. + +Polly burst into another loud laugh. + +"Yo see, it goes agen mother to be shakin hands wi' yan that's livin wi' +Papists--and Misther Helbeck by the bargain. So wheniver mother talks +aboot Amorites or Jesubites, or any o' thattens, she nobbut means +Papist--Romanists as our minister coes 'em. He's every bit as bad as her. +He would as lief shake hands wi' Mr. Helbeck as wi' the owd 'un!" + +"I'll uphowd ye--Mr. Bayley hasn't preached a sermon this ten year wi'oot +chivvyin Papists!" said Hubert from the door. "An yo'll not find yan o' +them in his parish if yo were to hunt it wi' a lantern for a week o' +Sundays. When I was a lad I thowt Romanists were a soart o' varmin. I +awmost looked to see 'em nailed to t' barndoor, same as stöats!" + +"But how strange!" cried Laura--"when there are so few Catholics about +here. And no one _hates_ Catholics now. One may just--despise them." + +She looked from mother to son in bewilderment. Not only Hubert's speech, +but his whole manner had broadened and coarsened since his mother's +arrival. + +"Well, if there isn't mony, they make a deal o' talk," said +Polly--"onyways sence Mr. Helbeck came to t' hall.--Mother, I'll take +Miss Fountain oopstairs, to get her hat off." + +During all the banter of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in a +disdainful silence, turning her strange eyes--the eyes of a fanatic, in a +singularly shrewd and capable face--now on Laura, now on her children. +Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then an +impulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an impulse of +liking, an impulse of kinship; and as she quickly crossed the room to +Mrs. Mason's side, she said in a pretty pleading voice: + +"But you see, Cousin Elizabeth, I'm not a Catholic--and papa wasn't a +Catholic. And I couldn't help Mrs. Fountain going back to her old +religion--you shouldn't visit it on me!" + +Mrs. Mason looked up. + +"Why art tha not at church on t' Lord's day?" + +The question came stern and quick. + +Laura wavered, then drew herself up. + +"Because I'm not your sort either. I don't believe in your church, or +your ministers. Father didn't, and I'm like him." + +Her voice had grown thick, and she was quite pale. The old woman stared +at her. + +"Then yo're nobbut yan o' the heathen!" she said with slow precision. + +"I dare say!" cried Laura, half laughing, half crying. "That's my affair. +But I declare I think I hate Catholics as much as you--there, Cousin +Elizabeth! I don't hate my stepmother, of course. I promised father to +take care of her. But that's another matter." + +"Dost tha hate Alan Helbeck?" said Mrs. Mason suddenly, her black eyes +opening in a flash. + +The girl hesitated, caught her breath--then was seized with the +strangest, most abject desire to propitiate this grim woman with the +passionate look. + +"Yes!" she said wildly. "No, no!--that's silly. I haven't had time to +hate him. But I don't like him, anyway. I'm nearly sure I _shall_ hate +him!" + +There was no mistaking the truth in her tone. + +Mrs. Mason slowly rose. Her chest heaved with one long breath, then +subsided; her brow tightened. She turned to her son. + +"Art tha goin to let Daffady do all thy work for tha?" she said sharply. +"Has t' roan calf bin looked to?" + +"Aye--I'm going," said Hubert evasively, and sheepishly straightening +himself he made for the front door, throwing back more than one look as +he departed at his new cousin. + +"And you really want me to stay?" repeated Laura insistently, addressing +Mrs. Mason. + +"Yo're welcome," was the stiff reply. "Nobbut yo'd been mair welcome if +yo hadna brokken t' Sabbath to coom here. Mappen yo'll goa wi' Polly, an +tak' your bonnet off." + +Laura hesitated a moment longer, bit her lip, and went. + + * * * * * + +Polly Mason was a great talker. In the few minutes she spent with Laura +upstairs, before she hurried down again to help her mother with the +Sunday dinner, she asked her new cousin innumerable questions, showing an +intense curiosity as to Bannisdale and the Helbecks, a burning desire to +know whether Laura had any money of her own, or was still dependent upon +her stepmother, and a joyous appropriative pride in Miss Fountain's +gentility and good looks. + +The frankness of Polly's flatteries, and the exuberance of her whole +personality, ended by producing a certain stiffness in Laura. Every now +and then, in the intervals of Polly's questions, when she ceased to be +inquisitive and became confidential, Laura would wonder to herself. She +would half shut her eyes, trying to recall the mental image of her +cousins and of the farm, with which she had started that morning from +Bannisdale; or she would think of her father, his modes of life and +speech--was he really connected, and how, with this place and its +inmates? She had expected something simple and patriarchal. She had found +a family of peasants, living in a struggling, penurious way--a grim +mother speaking broad dialect, a son with no pretensions to refinement or +education, except perhaps through his music--and a daughter---- + +Laura turned an attentive eye on Polly, on her high and red cheek-bones, +the extravagant fringe that vulgarised all her honest face, the Sunday +dress of stone-coloured alpaca, profusely trimmed with magenta ribbons. + +"I will--I _will_ like her!" she said to herself--"I am a horrid, +snobbish, fastidious little wretch." + +But her spirits had sunk. When Polly left her she leant for a moment upon +the sill of the open window, and looked out. Across the dirty, uneven +yard, where the manure lay in heaps outside the byre doors, she saw the +rude farm buildings huddled against each other in a mean, unsightly +group. Down below, from the house porch apparently, a cracked bell began +to ring, and from some doors opposite three labourers, the "hired men," +who lived and boarded on the farm, came out. The first two were elderly +men, gnarled and bent like tough trees that have fought the winter; the +third was a youth. They were tidily dressed in Sunday clothes, for their +work was done, and they were ready for the afternoon's holiday. + +They walked across to the farmhouse in silence, one behind the other. Not +even the young fellow raised his eyes to the window and the girl framed +within it. Behind them came a gust of piercing easterly wind. A cloud had +covered the sun. The squalid farmyard, the bare fell-side beyond it, the +distant levels of the marsh, had taken to themselves a cold forbidding +air. Laura again imagined it in December--a waste of snow, with the farm +making an ugly spot upon the white, and the little black-bearded sheep +she could see feeding on the fell, crowding under the rocks for shelter. +But this time she shivered. All the spell was broken. To live up here +with this madwoman, this strange youth--and Polly! Yet it seemed to her +that something drew her to Cousin Elizabeth--if she were not so mad. How +strange to find this abhorrence of Mr. Helbeck among these people--so +different, so remote! She remembered her own words--"I am sure I _shall_ +hate him!"--not without a stab of conscience. What had she been +doing--perhaps--but adding her own injustice to theirs? + +She stood lost in a young puzzle and heat of feeling--half angry, half +repentant. + +But only for a second. Then certain phrases of Augustina's rang through +her mind--she saw herself standing in the corner of the chapel while the +others prayed. Every pulse tightened--her whole nature leapt again in +defiance. She seemed to be holding something at bay--a tyrannous power +that threatened humiliation and hypocrisy, that seemed at the same time +to be prying into secret things--things it should never, never know--and +never rule! Yes, she did understand Cousin Elizabeth--she _did_! + + * * * * * + +The dinner went sadly. The viands were heavy: so were the faces of the +labourers, and the air of the low-raftered kitchen, heated as it was by a +huge fire, and pervaded by the smell from the farmyard. Laura felt it all +very strange, the presence of the farm servants at the same table with +the Masons and herself--the long silences that no one made an effort to +break--the relations between Hubert and his mother. + +As for the labourers, Mason addressed them now and then in a bullying +voice, and they spoke to him as little as they could. It seemed to Laura +that there was an alliance between them and the mother against a lazy and +incompetent master; and that the lad's vanity was perpetually alive to +it. Again and again he would pull himself together, attempt the +gentleman, and devote himself to his young lady guest. But in the midst +of their conversation he would hear something at the other end of the +table, and suddenly there would come a burst of fierce unintelligible +speech between him and the mistress of the house, while the labourers sat +silent and sly, and Polly's loud laugh would break in, trying to make +peace. + +Laura's cool grey eyes followed the youth with a constant critical +wonder. In any other circumstances she would not have thought him worth +an instant's attention. She had all the supercilious impatience of the +pretty girl accustomed to choose her company. But this odd fact of +kinship held and harassed her. She wanted to understand these Masons--her +father's folk. + +"Now he is really talking quite nicely," she said to herself on one +occasion, when Hubert had found in the gifts and accomplishments of his +friend Castle, the organist, a subject that untied his tongue and made +him almost agreeable. Suddenly a question caught his ear. + +"Daffady, did tha turn the coo?" said his mother in a loud voice. Even in +the homeliest question it had the same penetrating, passionate quality +that belonged to her gaze--to her whole personality indeed. + +Hubert dropped his phrase--and his knife and fork--and stared angrily at +Daffady, the old cowman and carter. + +Daffady threw his master a furtive look, then munched through a mouthful +of bread and cheese without replying. + +He was a grey and taciturn person, with a provocative look of patience. + +"What tha bin doin wi' th' coo?" said Hubert sharply. "I left her mysel +nobbut half an hour sen." + +Daffady turned his head again in Hubert's direction for a moment, then +deliberately addressed the mistress. + +"Aye, aye, missus"--he spoke in a high small voice--"A turned her reet +enoof, an a gied her soom fresh straa for her yed. She doin varra +middlin." + +"If she'd been turned yesterday in a proper fashion, she'd ha' bin on her +feet by now," said Mrs. Mason, with a glance at her son. + +"Nowt o' t' soart, mother," cried Hubert. He leant forward, flushed with +wrath, or beer--his potations had begun to fill Laura with dismay--and +spoke with a hectoring violence. "I tell tha when t' farrier cam oop last +night, he said she'd been managed first-rate! If yo and Daffady had yor +way wi' yor fallals an yor nonsense, yo'd never leave a poor sick creetur +alone for five minutes; I towd Daffady to let her be, an I'll let him +knaa who's mëaster here!" + +He glared at the carter, quite regardless of Laura's presence. Polly +coughed loudly, and tried to make a diversion by getting up to clear away +the plates. The three combatants took no notice. + +Daffady slowly ran his tongue round his lips; then he said, again looking +at the mistress: + +"If a hadna turned her I dew believe she'd ha' gien oos t' slip--she was +terr'ble swollen as 'twos." + +"I tell tha to let her be!" thundered Hubert. "If she deas, that's ma +consarn; I'll ha' noa meddlin wi' my orders--dost tha hear?" + +"Aye, it wor thirrty poond thraan awa lasst month, an it'll be thirrty +poond this," said his mother slowly; "thoo art fine at shoutin. Bit thy +fadther had need ha' addlet his brass--to gie thee summat to thraw oot o' +winder." + +Hubert rose from the table with an oath, stood for an instant looking +down at Laura,--glowering, and pulling fiercely at his moustache,--then, +noisily opening the front door, he strode across the yard to the byres. + +There was an instant's silence. Then Mrs. Mason rose with her hands +clasped before her, her eyes half closed. + +"For what we ha' received, the Lord mak' us truly thankful," she said in +a loud, nasal voice. "Amen." + + * * * * * + +After dinner, Laura put on an apron of Polly's, and helped her cousin to +clear away. Mrs. Mason had gruffly bade her sit still, but when the girl +persisted, she herself--flushed with dinner and combat--took her seat on +the settle, opposite to old Daffady, and deliberately made holiday, +watching Stephen's daughter all the time from the black eyes that roved +and shone so strangely under the shaggy brows and the white hair. + +The old cowman sat hunched over the fire, smoking his pipe for a time in +beatific silence. + +But presently Laura, as she went to and fro, caught snatches of +conversation. + +"Did tha go ta Laysgill last Sunday?" said Mrs. Mason abruptly. + +Daffady removed his pipe. + +"Aye, a went, an a preeched. It wor a varra stirrin meetin. Sum o' yor +paid preests sud ha' bin theer. A gien it 'em strang. A tried ta hit 'em +all--baith gert an lile." + +There was a pause, then he added placidly: + +"A likely suden't suit them varra weel. Theer was a mon beside me, as +pooed me down afoor a'd hofe doon." + +"Tha sudna taak o' 'paid preests,' Daffady," said Mrs. Mason severely. +"Tha doosna understand nowt o' thattens." + +Daffady glanced slyly at his mistress--at the "Church-pride" implied in +the attitude of her capacious form, in the shining of the Sunday alpaca +and black silk apron. + +"Mebbe not," he said mildly, "mebbe not." And he resumed his pipe. + +On another occasion, as Laura went flitting across the kitchen, drawing +to herself the looks of both its inmates, she heard what seemed to be a +fragment of talk about a funeral. + +"Aye, poor Jenny!" said Mrs. Mason. "They didna mak' mich account on her +whan t' breath wor yanst oot on her." + +"Nay,"--Daffady shook his head for sympathy,--"it wor a varra poor +set-oot, wor Jenny's buryin. Nowt but tay, an sic-like." + +Mrs. Mason raised two gaunt hands and let them drop again on her knee. + +"I shud ha' thowt they'd ha' bin ashamed," she said. "Jenny's brass ull +do 'em noa gude. She wor a fule to leave it to 'un." + +Daffady withdrew his pipe again. His lantern-jawed face, furrowed with +slow thought, hung over the blaze. + +"Aye," he said, "aye. Wal, I've buried three childer--an I'm nobbut a +labrin mon--but a thank the Lord I ha buried them aw--wi' ham." + +The last words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of the +kitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved in +either face. She sped back into the dairy, and Polly looked up in +astonishment. + +"What ails tha?" she said. + +"Oh, nothing!" said Laura, dashing the merry tears from her eyes. She +proceeded to roll up her sleeves, and plunge her hands and arms into the +bowl of warm water that Polly had set before her. Meanwhile, Polly, very +big and square, much reddened also by the fuss of household work, stood +just behind her cousin's shoulder, looking down, half in envy, half in +admiration, at the slimness of the white wrists and pretty fingers. + +A little later the two girls, all traces of their housework removed, came +back into the kitchen. Daffady and Mrs. Mason had disappeared. + +"Where is Cousin Elizabeth?" said Laura rather sharply, as she looked +round her. + +Polly explained that her mother was probably shut up in her bedroom +reading her Bible. That was her custom on a Sunday afternoon. + +"Why, I haven't spoken to her at all!" cried Laura. Her cheek had +flushed. + +Polly showed embarrassment. + +"Next time yo coom, mother'll tak' mair noatice. She was takkin stock o' +you t' whole time, I'll uphowd yo." + +"That isn't what I wanted," said Laura. + +She walked to the window and leaned her head against the frame. Polly +watched her with compunction, seeing quite plainly the sudden drop of the +lip. All she could do was to propose to show her cousin the house. + +Laura languidly consented. + +So they wandered again through the dark stone-slabbed dairy, with its +milk pans on the one side and its bacon-curing troughs on the other; and +into the little stuffy bedrooms upstairs, each with its small oak +four-poster and patchwork counterpane. They looked at the home-made quilt +of goosedown--Polly's handiwork--that lay on Hubert's bed; at the +clusters of faded photographs and coloured prints that hung on the old +uneven walls; at the vast meal-ark in Polly's room that held the family +store of meal and oatcake for the year. + +"When we wor little 'uns, fadther used to give me an Hubert a silver +saxpence the day he browt home t' fresh melder fro' t' mill," said Polly; +"theer was parlish little nobbut paritch and oatcake to eat when we wor +small. An now I'll uphold yo there isn't a farm servant but wants his +white bread yanst a day whativver happens." + +The house was neat and clean, but there were few comforts in it, and no +luxuries. It showed, too, a number of small dilapidations that a very +little money and care would soon have set to rights. Polly pointed to +them sadly. There was no money, and Hubert didn't trouble himself. +"Fadther was allus workin. He'd be up at half-past four this time o' +year, an he didna go to bed soa early noather. But Hubert'ull do nowt he +can help. Yo can hardly get him to tak' t' peäts i' ter Whinthorpe when +t' peät-cote's brastin wi' 'em. An as fer doin a job o' cartin fer t' +neebors, t' horses may be eatin their heads off, Hubert woan't stir +hissel'. 'Let 'em lead their aan muck for theirsels'--that's what he'll +say. Iver sen fadther deed it's bin janglin atwixt mother an Hubert. It +makes her mad to see iverything goin downhill. An he's that masterful he +woan't be towd. Yo saw how he went on wi' Daffady at dinner. But if it +weren't for Daffady an us, there'd be no stock left." + +And poor Polly, sitting on the edge of the meal-ark and dangling her +large feet, went into a number of plaintive details, that were mostly +unintelligible, sometimes repulsive, in Laura's ears. + +It seemed that Hubert was always threatening to leave the farm. "Give me +a bit of money, and you'll soon be quit of me. I'll go to Froswick, and +make my fortune"--that was what he'd say to his mother. But who was going +to give him money to throw about? And he couldn't sell the farm while +Mrs. Mason lived, by the father's will. + +As to her mother, Polly admitted that she was "gey ill to live wi'." +There was no one like her for "addlin a bit here and addlin a bit there." +She was the best maker and seller of butter in the country-side; but she +had been queer about religion ever since an illness that attacked her as +a young woman. + +And now it was Mr. Bayley, the minister, who excited her, and made her +worse. Polly, for her part, hated him. "My worrd, he do taak!" said she. +And every Sunday he preached against Catholics, and the Pope, and such +like. And as there were no Catholics anywhere near, but Mr. Helbeck at +Bannisdale, and a certain number at Whinthorpe, people didn't know what +to make of him. And they laughed at him, and left off going--except +occasionally for curiosity, because he preached in a black gown, which, +so Polly heard tell, was very uncommon nowadays. But mother would listen +to him by the hour. And it was all along of Teddy Williams. It was that +had set her mad. + +Here, however, Polly broke off to ask an eager question. What had Mr. +Helbeck said when Laura told him of her wish to go and see her cousins? + +"I'll warrant he wasn't best pleased! Feyther couldn't abide him--because +of Teddy. He didn't thraw no stones that neet i' Whinthrupp Lane--feyther +was a strict man and read his Bible reg'lar--but he stood wi' t' lads an +looked on--he didn't say owt to stop 'em. Mr. Helbeck called to him--he +had a priest with him--'Mr. Mason!' he ses, 'this is an old man--speak to +those fellows!' But feyther wouldn't. 'Let 'em trounce tha!' he +ses--'aye, an him too! It'ull do tha noa harm.'--Well, an what did he +say, Mr. Helbeck?--I'd like to know." + +"Say? Nothing--except that it was a long way, and I might have the pony +carriage." + +Laura's tone was rather dry. She was sitting on the edge of Polly's bed, +with her arm round one of its oaken posts. Her cheek was laid against the +post, and her eyes had been wandering about a good deal while Polly +talked. Till the mention of Helbeck. Then her attention came back. And +during Polly's account of the incident in Whinthorpe Lane, she began to +frown. What bigotry, after all! As to the story of young Williams--it was +very perplexing--she would get the truth of it out of Augustina. But it +was extraordinary that it should be so well known in this upland +farm--that it should make a kind of link--a link of hatred--between Mr. +Helbeck and the Masons. After her movement of wild sympathy with Mrs. +Mason, she realised now, as Polly's chatter slipped on, that she +understood her cousins almost as little as she did Helbeck. + +Nay, more. The picture of Helbeck stoned and abused by these rough, +uneducated folk had begun to rouse in her a curious sympathy. Unwillingly +her mind invested him with a new dignity. + +So that when Polly told a rambling story of how Mr. Bayley, after the +street fight, had met Mr. Helbeck at a workhouse meeting and had placed +his hands behind his back when Mr. Helbeck offered his own, Laura tossed +her head. + +"What a ridiculous man!" she said disdainfully; "what can it matter to +Mr. Helbeck whether Mr. Bayley shakes hands with him or not?" + +Polly looked at her in some astonishment, and dropped the subject. The +elder woman, conscious of plainness and inferiority, was humbly anxious +to please her new cousin. The girl's delicate and characteristic +physique, her clear eyes and decided ways, and a certain look she had in +conversation--half absent, half critical--which was inherited from her +father,--all of them combined to intimidate the homely Polly, and she +felt perhaps less at ease with her visitor as she saw more of her. + +Presently they stood before some old photographs on Polly's mantelpiece; +Polly looked timidly at her cousin. + +"Doan't yo think as Hubert's verra handsome?" she said. + +And taking up one of the portraits, she brushed it with her sleeve and +handed it to Laura. + +Laura held it up for scrutiny. + +"No--o," she said coolly, "not really handsome." + +Polly looked disappointed. + +"There's not a mony gells aboot here as doan't coe Hubert handsome," she +said with emphasis. + +"It's Hubert's business to call the girls handsome," said Laura, +laughing, and handing back the picture. + +Polly grinned--then suddenly looked grave. + +"I wish he'd leave t' gells alone!" she said with an accent of some +energy, "he'll mappen get into trooble yan o' these days!" + +"They don't keep him in his place, I suppose," said Laura, flushing, she +hardly knew why. She got up and walked across the room to the window. +What did she want to know about Hubert and "t' gells"? She hated vulgar +and lazy young men!--though they might have a musical gift that, so to +speak, did not belong to them. + +Nevertheless she turned round again to ask, with some imperiousness,-- + +"Where is your brother?--what is he doing all this time?" + +"Sittin alongside the coo, I dare say--lest Daffady should be gettin the +credit of her," said Polly, laughing. "The poor creetur fell three days +sen--summat like a stroke, t' farrier said,--an Hubert's bin that jealous +o' Daffady iver sen. He's actually poo'ed hissel' oot o' bed mornins to +luke after her!--Lord bless us--I mun goa an feed t' calves!" + +And hastily throwing an apron over her Sunday gown, Polly clattered down +the stairs in a whirlwind. + + * * * * * + +Laura followed her more leisurely, passed through the empty kitchen and +opened the front door. + +As she stood under the porch looking out, she put up a small hand to hide +a yawn. When she set out that morning she had meant to spend the whole +day at the farm. Now it was not yet tea-time, and she was more than ready +to go. In truth her heart was hot, and rather bitter. Cousin Elizabeth, +certainly, had treated her with a strange coolness. And as for +Hubert--after that burst of friendship, beside the piano! She drew +herself together sharply--she would go at once and ask him for her pony +cart. + +Lifting her skirt daintily, she picked her way across the dirty yard, and +fumbled at a door opposite--the door whence she had seen old Daffady come +out at dinner-time. + +"Who's there?" shouted a threatening voice from within. + +Laura succeeded in lifting the clumsy latch. Hubert Mason, from inside, +saw a small golden head appear in the doorway. + +"Would you kindly help me get the pony cart?" said the light, +half-sarcastic voice of Miss Fountain. "I must be going, and Polly's +feeding the calves." + +Her eyes at first distinguished nothing but a row of dim animal forms, in +crowded stalls under a low roof. Then she saw a cow lying on the ground, +and Hubert Mason beside her, amid the wreaths of smoke that he was +puffing from a clay pipe. The place was dark, close, and fetid. She +withdrew her head hastily. There was a muttering and movement inside, and +Mason came to the door, thrusting his pipe into his pocket. + +"What do you want to go for, just yet?" he said abruptly. + +"I ought to get home." + +"No; you don't care for us, nor our ways. That's it; an I don't wonder." + +She made polite protestations, but he would not listen to them. He strode +on beside her in a stormy silence, till the impulse to prick him +overmastered her. + +"Do you generally sit with the cows?" she asked him sweetly. She shot her +grey eyes towards him, all mockery and cool examination. He was not +accustomed to such looks from the young women whom he chose to notice. + +"I was not going to stay and be treated like that before strangers!" he +said, with a sulky fierceness. "Mother thinks she and Daffady can just +have their own way with me, as they'd used to do when I was nobbut a lad. +But I'll let her know--aye, and the men too!" + +"But if you hate farming, why don't you let Daffady do the work?" + +Her sly voice stung him afresh. + +"Because I'll be mëaster!" he said, bringing his hand violently down on +the shaft of the pony cart. "If I'm to stay on in this beastly hole I'll +make every one knaw their place. Let mother give me some money, an I'll +soon take myself off, an leave her an Daffady to draw their own water +their own way. But if I'm here I'm _mëaster_!" He struck the cart again. + +"Is it true you don't work nearly as hard as your father?" + +He looked at her amazed. If Susie Flinders down at the mill had spoken to +him like that, he would have known how to shut her mouth for her. + +"An I daur say it is," he said hotly. "I'm not goin to lead the dog's +life my father did--all for the sake of diddlin another sixpence or two +oot o' the neighbours. Let mother give me my money oot o' the farm. I'd +go to Froswick fast enough. That's the place to get on. I've got +friends--I'd work up in no time." + +Laura glanced at him. She said nothing. + +"You doan't think I would?" he asked her angrily, pausing in his handling +of the harness to throw back the challenge of her manner. His wrath +seemed to have made him handsomer, better-braced, more alive. Physically +she admired him for the first time, as he stood confronting her. + +But she only lifted her eyebrows a little. + +"I thought one had to have a particular kind of brains for business--and +begin early, too?" + +"I could learn," he said gruffly, after which they were both silent till +the harnessing was done. + +Then he looked up. + +"I'd like to drive you to the bridge--if you're agreeable?" + +"Oh, don't trouble yourself, pray!" she said in polite haste. + +His brows knit again. + +"I know how 'tis--you won't come here again." + +Her little face changed. + +"I'd like to," she said, her voice wavering, "because papa used to stay +here." + +He stared at her. + +"I do remember Cousin Stephen," he said at last, "though I towd you I +didn't. I can see him standing at the door there--wi' a big hat--an a +beard--like straw--an a check coat wi' great bulgin pockets." + +He stopped in amazement, seeing the sudden beauty of her eyes and cheeks. + +"That's it," she said, leaning towards him. "Oh, that's it!" She closed +her eyes a moment, her small lips trembling. Then she opened them with a +long breath. + +"Yes, you may drive me to the bridge if you like." + + * * * * * + +And on the drive she was another being. She talked to him about music, so +softly and kindly that the young man's head swam with pleasure. All her +own musical enthusiasms and experiences--the music in the college +chapels, the music at the Greek plays, the few London concerts and operas +she had heard, her teachers and her hero-worships--she drew upon it all +in her round light voice, he joining in from time to time with a rough +passion and yearning that seemed to transfigure him. In half an hour, as +it were, they were friends; their relations changed wholly. He looked at +her with all his eyes; hung upon her with all his ears. And she--she +forgot that he was vulgar and a clown; such breathless pleasure, such a +humble absorption in superior wisdom, would have blunted the sternest +standard. + +As for him, the minutes flew. When at last the bridge over the Bannisdale +River came in sight, he began to check the pony. + +"Let's drive on a bit," he said entreatingly. + +"No, no--I must get back to Mrs. Fountain." And she took the reins from +his hands. + +"I say, when will you come again?" + +"Oh, I don't know." She had put on once more the stand-off town-bred +manner that puzzled his countryman's sense. + +"I say, mother shan't talk that stuff to you next time. I'll tell her--" +he said imploringly.--"Halloa! let me out, will you?" + +And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumped +out of the cart. + +"There's Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I'm off. +Good-bye!" + +He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away. + +She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeck +was holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not Father +Bowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from her +cousin. + +Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck's ceremonious +greeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beaten +herself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she have +beaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraid +of? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of her +peasant relations? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"Is that Mrs. Fountain's stepdaughter?" said Helbeck's companion, as +Laura and her cart disappeared round a corner of the winding road on +which the two men were walking. + +Helbeck made a sign of assent. + +"You may very possibly have known her father?" He named the Cambridge +college of which Stephen Fountain had been a Fellow. + +The Jesuit, who was a convert, and had been a distinguished Cambridge +man, considered for a moment. + +"Oh! yes--I remember the man! A strange being, who was only heard of, if +I recollect right, in times of war. If there was any dispute +going--especially on a religious point--Stephen Fountain would rush into +it with broad-sheets. Oh, yes, I remember him perfectly--a great untidy, +fair-haired, truculent fellow, to whom anybody that took any thought for +his soul was either fool or knave. How much of him does the daughter +inherit?" + +Helbeck returned the other's smile. "A large slice, I think. She comes +here in the curious position of having never lived in a Christian +household before, and she seems already to have great difficulty in +putting up with us." + +Father Leadham laughed, then looked reflective. + +"How often have I known that the best of all possible beginnings! Is she +attached to her stepmother?" + +"Yes. But Mrs. Fountain has no influence over her." + +"It is a striking colouring--that white skin and reddish hair. And it is +a face of some power, too." + +"Power?" Helbeck demurred. "I think she is clever," he said dryly. "And, +of course, coming from a university town, she has heard of things that +other girls know nothing of. But she has had no training, moral or +intellectual." + +"And no Christian education?" + +Helbeck shrugged his shoulders. + +"She was only baptized with difficulty. When she was eleven or twelve she +was allowed to go to church two or three times, I understand, on the +helot principle--was soon disgusted--her father of course supplying a +running comment at home--and she has stood absolutely outside religion of +all kinds since." + +"Poor child!" said the priest with heartiness. The paternal note in the +words was more than official. He was a widower, and had lost his wife and +infant daughter two years before his entrance into the Church of Rome. + +Helbeck smiled. "I assure you Miss Fountain spends none of her pity upon +herself." + +"I dare say more than you think. The position of the unbeliever in a +house like yours is always a painful one. You see she is alone. There +must be a sense of exile--of something touching and profound going on +beside her, from which she is excluded. She comes into a house with a +chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, where everybody is +keeping a strict Lent. She has not a single thought in common with you +all. No; I am very sorry for Miss Fountain." + +Helbeck was silent a moment. His dark face showed a shade of disturbance. + +"She has some relations near here," he said at last, "but unfortunately I +can't do much to promote her seeing them. You remember Williams's story?" + +"Of course. You had some local row, didn't you? Ah! I remember." + +And the two men walked on, discussing a case which had been and was still +of great interest to them as Catholics. The hero, moreover--the Jesuit +novice himself--was well known to them both. + +"So Miss Fountain's relations belong to that peasant class?" said the +Jesuit, musing. "How curious that she should find herself in such a +double relation to you and Bannisdale!" + +"Consider me a little, if you please," said Helbeck, with his slight, +rare smile. "While that young lady is under my roof--you see how +attractive she is--I cannot get rid, you will admit, of a certain +responsibility. Augustina has neither the will nor the authority of a +mother, and there is literally no one else. Now there happens to be a +young man in this Mason family----" + +"Ah!" said the priest; "the young gentleman who jumped out at the bridge, +with such a very light pair of heels?" + +Helbeck nodded. "The old people were peasants and fanatics. They thought +ill of me in the Williams affair, and the mother, who is still alive, +would gladly hang and quarter me to-morrow if she could. But that is +another point. The old people had their own dignity, their own manners +and virtues--or, rather, the manners and virtues of their class. The old +man was coarse and boorish, but he was hard-working and honourable, and a +Christian after his own sort. But the old man is dead, and the son, who +now works the farm jointly with his mother, is of no class and no +character. He has just education enough to despise his father and his +father's hard work. He talks the dialect with his inferiors, or his +kindred, and drops it with you and me. The old traditions have no hold +upon him, and he is just a vulgar and rather vicious hybrid, who drinks +more than is good for him and has a natural affinity for any sort of low +love-affair. I came across him at our last hunt ball. I never go to such +things, but last year I went." + +"Good!" ejaculated the Jesuit, turning a friendly face upon the speaker. + +Helbeck paused. The word, still more the emphasis with which it was +thrown out, challenged him. He was about to defend himself against an +implied charge, but thought better of it, and resumed: + +"And unfortunately, considering the way in which all the clan felt +towards me already, I found this youth in the supper-room, misbehaving +himself with a girl of his own sort, and very drunk. I fetched a steward, +and he was told to go. After which, you may imagine that it is scarcely +agreeable to me to see my guest--a very young lady, very pretty, very +distinguished--driving about the country in cousinly relations with this +creature!" + +The last words were spoken with considerable vivacity. The aristocrat and +the ascetic, the man of high family and the man of scrupulous and +fastidious character, were alike expressed in them. + +The Jesuit pondered a little. + +"No; you will have to keep watch. Why not distract her? You must have +plenty of other neighbours to show her." + +Helbeck shook his head. + +"I live like a hermit. My sister is in the first year of her widowhood +and very delicate." + +"I see." The Jesuit hesitated, then said, smiling, in the tone of one who +makes a venture: "The Bishop and I allowed ourselves to discuss these +cloistered ways of yours the other day. We thought you would forgive us +as a pair of old friends." + +"I know," was the somewhat quick interruption, "the Bishop is of +Manning's temper in these things. He believes in acting on and with the +Protestant world--in our claiming prominence as citizens. It was to +please him that I joined one or two committees last year--that I went to +the hunt ball----" + +Then, suddenly, in a very characteristic way, Helbeck checked his own +flow of speech, and resumed more quietly: "Well, all that----" + +"Leaves you of the same opinion still?" said the Jesuit, smiling. + +"Precisely. I don't belong to my neighbours, nor they to me. We don't +speak the same language, and I can't bring myself to speak theirs. The +old conditions are gone, I know. But my feeling remains pretty much, what +that of my forefathers was. I recognise that it is not common +nowadays--but I have the old maxim in my blood: 'Extra ecclesiam nulla +salus.'" + +"There is none which has done us more deadly harm in England," cried the +Jesuit. "We forget that England is a baptized nation, and is therefore in +the supernatural state." + +"I remind myself of it very often," said Helbeck, with a kind of proud +submission; "and I judge no man. But my powers, my time, are all limited. +I prefer to devote them to the 'household of faith.'" + +The two men walked on in silence for a time. Presently Father Leadham's +face showed amusement, and he said: + +"Certainly we modern converts have a better time of it than our +predecessors! The Bishop tells me the most incredible things about the +old feeling towards them in this Vicariate. And wherever I go I seem to +hear the tale of the old priest who thanked God that he had never +received anyone into the Church. Everybody has met someone who knew that +old fellow! He may be a myth--but there is clearly history at the back of +him!" + +"I understand him perfectly," said Helbeck, smiling; and he added +immediately, with a curious intensity, "I, too, have never influenced, +never tried to influence, anyone in my life." + +The priest looked at him, wondering. + +"Not Williams?" + +"Williams! But Williams was born for the faith. Directly he saw what I +wanted to do in the chapel, he prayed to come and help me. It was his +summer holiday--he neglected no duty; it was wonderful to see his +happiness in the work--as I thought, an artistic happiness only. He used +to ask me questions about the different saints; once or twice he borrowed +a book--it was necessary to get the emblems correct. But I never said a +single controversial word to him. I never debated religious subjects with +him at all, till the night when he took refuge with me after his father +had thrashed him so cruelly that he could not stand. Grace taught him, +not I." + +"Grace taught him, but through you," said the priest with quiet emphasis. +"Perhaps I know more about that than you do." + +Helbeck flushed. + +"I think you are mistaken. At any rate, I should prefer that you were +mistaken." + +The priest raised his eyebrows. + +"A man who holds 'no salvation outside the Church,'" he said slowly, "and +rejoices in the thought that he has never influenced anybody?" + +"I should hope little from the work achieved by such an instrument. Some +men have enough to do with their own souls," was the low but vehement +answer. + +The priest threw a wondering glance at his companion, at the signs of +feeling--profound and morbid feeling--on the harsh face beside him. + +"Perhaps you have never cared enough for anyone outside to wish +passionately to bring them within," he said. "But if that ever happens to +you, you will be ready--I think you will be ready--to use any tool, even +yourself." + +The priest's voice changed a little. Helbeck, somewhat startled, recalled +the facts of Father Leadham's personal history, and thought he +understood. The subject was instantly dropped, and the two men walked on +to the house, discussing a great canonisation service at St. Peter's and +the Pope's personal part in it. + + * * * * * + +The old Hall, as Helbeck and Father Leadham approached it, looked down +upon a scene of animation to which in these latter days it was but little +accustomed. The green spaces and gravelled walks in front of it were +sprinkled with groups of children in a blue-and-white uniform. Three or +four Sisters of Mercy in their winged white caps moved about among them, +and some of the children hung clustered like bees about the Sisters' +skirts, while others ran here and there, gleefully picking the scattered +daffodils that starred the grass. + +The invaders came from the Orphanage of St. Ursula, a house founded by +Mr. Helbeck's exertions, which lay half-way between Bannisdale and +Whinthorpe. They had not long arrived, and were now waiting for Rosary +and Benediction in the chapel before they were admitted to the tea which +Mrs. Denton and Augustina had already spread for them in the big hall. + +At sight of the children Helbeck's face lit up and his step quickened. +They on their side ran to him from all parts; and he had hardly time to +greet the Sisters in charge of them, before the eager creatures were +pulling him into the walled garden behind the Hall, one small girl +hanging on his hand, another perched upon his shoulder. Father Leadham +went into the house to prepare for the service. + +The garden was old and dark, like the Tudor house that stood between it +and the sun. Rows of fantastic shapes carved in living yew and box stood +ranged along the straight walks. A bowling-green enclosed in high beech +hedges was placed in the exact centre of the whole formal place, while +the walks and alleys from three sides, west, north, and south, converged +upon it, according to a plan unaltered since it was first laid down in +the days of James II. At this time of the year there were no flowers in +the stiff flower-beds; for Mr. Helbeck had long ceased to spend any but +the most necessary monies upon his garden. Only upon the high stone walls +that begirt this strange and melancholy pleasure-ground, and in the +"wilderness" that lay on the eastern side, between the garden and the +fell, were nature and the spring allowed to show themselves. Their joint +magic had covered the old walls with fruit blossom and spread the +"wilderness" with daffodils. Otherwise all was dark, tortured, fantastic, +a monument of old-world caprice that the heart could not love, though +piety might not destroy it. + +The children, however, brought life and brightness. They chased each +other up and down the paths, and in and out of the bowling-green. Helbeck +set them to games, and played with them himself. Only for the orphans now +did he ever thus recall his youth. + +Two Sisters, one comparatively young, the other a woman of fifty, stood +in an opening of the bowling-green, looking at the games. + +The younger one said to her companion, who was the Superior of the +orphanage, "I do like to see Mr. Helbeck with the children! It seems to +change him altogether." + +She spoke with eager sympathy, while her eyes, the visionary eyes of the +typical religious, sunk in a face that was at once sweet and peevish, +followed the children and their host. + +The other--shrewd-faced and large--had a movement of impatience. + +"I should like to see Mr. Helbeck with some children of his own. For five +years now I have prayed our Blessed Mother to give him a good wife. +That's what he wants. Ah! Mrs. Fountain----" + +And as Augustina advanced with her little languid air, accompanied by her +stepdaughter, the Sisters gathered round her, chattering and cooing, +showing her a hundred attentions, enveloping her in a homage that was +partly addressed to the sister of their benefactor, and partly--as she +well understood--to the sheep that had been lost and was found. To the +stepdaughter they showed a courteous reserve. One or two of them had +already made acquaintance with her, and had not found her amiable. + +And, indeed, Laura held herself aloof, as before. But she shot a glance +of curiosity at the elderly woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. +The girl had caught the remark as she and her stepmother turned the +corner of the dense beechen hedge that, with openings to each point of +the compass, enclosed the bowling-green. + +Presently Helbeck, stopping to take breath in a game of which he had been +the life, caught sight of the slim figure against the red-brown of the +hedge. The next moment he perceived that Miss Fountain was watching him +with an expression of astonishment. + +His first instinct was to let her be. Her manner towards him since her +arrival, with hardly a break, had been such as to chill the most sociable +temper. And Helbeck's temper was far from sociable. + +But something in her attitude--perhaps its solitariness--made him +uncomfortable. He went up to her, dragging with him a crowd of small +children, who tugged at his coat and hands. + +"Miss Fountain, will you take pity on us? My breath is gone." + +He saw her hesitate. Then her sudden smile broke out. + +"What'll you have?" she said, catching hold of the nearest child. "Mother +Bunch?" + +And off she flew, running, twisting, turning with the merriest of them, +her loosened hair gleaming in the sun, her small feet twinkling. Now it +was Helbeck's turn to stand and watch. What a curious grace and purpose +there was in all her movements! Even in her play Miss Fountain was a +personality. + +At last a little girl who was running with her began to drag and turn +pale. Laura stopped to look at her. + +"I can't run any more," said the child piteously. "I had a bone took out +of my leg last year." + +She was a sickly-looking creature, rickety and consumptive, a waif from a +Liverpool slum. Laura picked her up and carried her to a seat in a yew +arbour away from the games. Then the child studied her with shy-looking +eyes, and suddenly slipped an arm like a bit of stick round the pretty +lady's neck. + +"Tell me a story, please, teacher," she said imploringly. + +Laura was taken aback, for she had forgotten the tales of her own +childhood, and had never possessed any younger brothers or sisters, or +paid much attention to children in general. But with some difficulty she +stumbled through Cinderella. + +"Oh, yes, I know that; but it's lovely," said the child, at the end, with +a sigh of content. "Now I'll tell you one." + +And in a high nasal voice, like one repeating a lesson in class, she +began upon something which Laura soon discovered to be the life of a +saint. She followed the phrases of it with a growing repugnance, till at +last the speaker said, with the unction of one sure of her audience: + +"And once the good Father went to a hospital to visit some sick people. +And as he was hearing a poor sailor's confession, he found out that it +was his own brother, whom he had not seen for a long, long time. Now the +sailor was very ill, and going to die, and he had been a bad man, and +done a great many wicked things. But the good Father did not let the poor +man know who he was. He went home and told his Superior that he had found +his brother. And the Superior forbade him to go and see his brother +again, because, he said, God would take care of him. And the Father was +very sad, and the devil tempted him sorely. But he prayed to God, and God +helped him to be obedient. + +"And a great many years afterwards a poor woman came to see the good +Father. And she told him she had seen our Blessed Lady in a vision. And +our Blessed Lady had sent her to tell the Father that because he had been +so obedient, and had not been to see his brother again, our Lady had +prayed our Lord for his brother. And his brother had made a good death, +and was saved, all because the good Father had obeyed what his Superior +told him." + +Laura sprang up. The child, who had expected a kiss and a pious phrase, +looked up, startled. + +"Wasn't that a pretty story?" she said timidly. + +"No; I don't like it at all," said Miss Fountain decidedly. "I wonder +they tell you such tales!" + +The child stared at her for a moment. Then a sudden veil fell across the +clearness of her eyes, which had the preternatural size and brilliance of +disease. Her expression changed. It became the slyness of the watching +animal, that feels the enemy. She said not another word. + +Laura felt a pang of shame, even though she was still vibrating with the +repulsion the child's story had excited in her. + +"Look!" she said, raising the little one in her arms; "the others are all +going into the house. Shall we go too?" + +But the child struggled resolutely. + +"Let me down. I can walk." Laura set her down, and the child walked as +fast as her lame leg would let her to join the others. Once or twice she +looked round furtively at her companion; but she would not take the hand +Laura offered her, and she seemed to have wholly lost her tongue. + +"Little bigot!" thought Laura, half angry, half amused; "do they catch it +from their cradle?" + +Presently they found themselves in the tail of a crowd of children and +Sisters who were ascending the stairs of a doorway opening on the garden. +The doorway led, as Laura knew, to the corridor of the chapel. She let +herself be carried along, irresolute, and presently she found herself +within the curtained doorway, mechanically helping the Sisters and +Augustina to put the children in their places. + +One or two of the older children noticed that the young lady with Mrs. +Fountain did not sign herself with holy water, and did not genuflect in +passing the altar, and they looked at her with a stealthy surprise. A +gentle-looking young Sister came up to her as she was lifting a very +small child to a seat. + +"Thank you," murmured the Sister, "It is very good of you." But the +voice, though so soft, was cold, and Laura at once felt herself the +intruder, and withdrew to the back of the crowd. + +Yet again, as at her first visit to the chapel, so now, she was too +curious, for all her soreness, to go. She must see what they would be at. + + * * * * * + +"Rosary" passed, and she hardly understood a word. The voice of the +Jesuit intoning suggested nothing intelligible to her, and it was some +time before she could even make out what the children were saying in +their loud-voiced responses. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us +sinners, now and at the hour of our death"--was that it? And occasionally +an "Our Father" thrown in--all of it gabbled as fast as possible, as +though the one object of both priest and people were to get through and +make an end. Over and over again, without an inflection, or a +change--with just the one monotonous repetition and the equally +monotonous variation. What a barbarous and foolish business! + +Very soon she gave up listening. Her eyes wandered to the frescoes, to +the bare altar with its purple covering, to the tall candles sparkling +before the tabernacle; and the coloured and scented gloom, pierced with +the distant lights, gave her a vague pleasure. + +Presently there was a pause. The children settled themselves in their +seats with a little clatter. Father Leadham retired, while the Sisters +knelt, each bowed profoundly on herself, eyes closed under her coif, +hands clasped in front of her. + +What were they waiting for? Ah! there was the priest again, but in a +changed dress--a white cope of some splendour. The organ, played by one +of the Sisters, broke out upon the silence, and the voices of the rest +rose suddenly, small and sweet, in a Latin hymn. The priest went to the +tabernacle, and set it open. There was a swinging of incense, and the +waves of fragrant smoke flowed out upon the chapel, dimming the altar and +the figure before it. Laura caught sight for a moment of the young Sister +who had spoken to her. She was kneeling and singing, with sweet, shut +eyes; it was clear that she was possessed by a fervour of feeling. Miss +Fountain thought to herself, with wonder, "She cannot be much older than +I am!" + +After the hymn it was the children's turn. What were they singing so +lustily to so dancing a tune? Laura bent over to look at the book of a +Sister in front of her. + +"Virgo prudentissima, Virgo veneranda, Virgo praedicanda----" + +With difficulty she found the place in another book that lay upon a chair +beside her. Then for a few minutes she lost herself in a first amazement +over that string of epithets and adjectives with which the Catholic +Church throughout the world celebrates day by day and Sunday after Sunday +the glories of Mary. The gay music, the harsh and eager voices of the +children, flowed on, the waves of incense spread throughout the chapel. +When she raised her eyes they fell upon Helbeck's dark head in the far +distance, above his server's cotta. A quick change crossed her face, +transforming it to a passionate contempt. + + * * * * * + +But of her no one thought--save once. The beautiful "moment" of the +ceremony had come. Father Leadham had raised the monstrance, containing +the Host, to give the Benediction. Every Sister, every child, except a +few small and tired ones, was bowed in humblest adoration. + +Mr. Helbeck, too, was kneeling in the little choir. But his attention +wandered. With the exception of his walk with Father Leadham, he had been +in church since early morning, and even for him response was temporarily +exhausted. His look strayed over the chapel. + +It was suddenly arrested. Above the kneeling congregation a distant face +showed plainly in the April dusk amid the dimness of incense and +painting--a girl's face, delicately white and set--a face of revolt. + +"Why is she here?" was his first thought. It came with a rush of +annoyance, even resentment. But immediately other thoughts met it: "She +is lonely; she is here under my roof; she has lost her father; poor +child!" + +The last mental phrase was not so much his own as an echo from Father +Leadham. In Helbeck's mind it was spoken very much as the priest had +spoken it--with that strange tenderness, at once so intimate and so +impersonal, which belongs to the spiritual relations of Catholicism. The +girl's soul--lonely, hostile, uncared for--appealed to the charity of the +believer. At the same time there was something in her defiance, her crude +disapproval of his house and his faith, that stimulated and challenged +the man. Conscious for the first time of a new conflict of feeling within +himself, he looked steadily towards her across the darkness. + +It was as though he had sought and found a way to lift himself above her +young pride, her ignorant enmity. For a moment there was a curious +exaltation and tyranny in his thought. He dropped his head and prayed for +her, the words falling slow and deliberate within his consciousness. And +she could not resent it or stop it. It was an aggression before which she +was helpless; it struck down the protest of her pale look. + + * * * * * + +At supper, when the Sisters and their charges had departed, Father Bowles +appeared, and never before had Helbeck been so lamentably aware of the +absurdities and inferiorities of his parish priest. + +The Jesuit, too, was sharply conscious of them, and even Augustina felt +that something was amiss. Was it that they were all--except Father +Bowles--affected by the presence of the young lady on Helbeck's right--by +the cool detachment of her manner, the self-possession that appealed to +no one and claimed none of the prerogatives of sex and charm, while every +now and then it made itself felt in tacit and resolute opposition to her +environment? + +"He might leave those things alone!" thought the Jesuit angrily, as he +heard Father Bowles giving Mrs. Fountain a gently complacent account of a +geological lecture lately delivered in Whinthorpe. + +"What I always say, you know, my dear lady, is this: you must show me the +evidence! After all, you geologists have done much--you have dug here and +there, it is true. But dig all over the world--dig everywhere--lay it all +bare. Then you may ask me to listen to you!" + +The little round-faced priest looked round the table for support. Laura +bit her lip and bent over her plate. Father Leadham turned hastily to +Helbeck, and began to discuss with him a recent monograph on the Roman +Wall, showing a plentiful and scholarly knowledge of the subject. And +presently he drew in the girl opposite, addressing her with a +man-of-the-world ease and urbanity which disarmed her. It appeared that +he had just come back from mission-work in British Guiana, that he had +been in India, and was in all respects a travelled and accomplished +person. But the girl did not yield herself, though she listened quite +civilly and attentively while he talked. + +But again through the Jesuit's easy or polished phrases there broke the +purring inanity of Father Bowles. + +"Lourdes, my dear lady? Lourdes? How can there be the smallest doubt of +the miracles of Lourdes? Why! they keep two doctors on the spot to verify +everything!" + +The Jesuit's sense of humour was uncomfortably touched. He glanced at +Miss Fountain, but could only see that she was gazing steadily out of +window. + +As for himself, convert and ex-Fellow of a well-known college, he gave a +strong inward assent to the judgment of some of his own leaders, that the +older Catholic priests of this country are as a rule lamentably unfit for +their work. "Our chance in England is broadening every year," he said to +himself. "How are we to seize it with such tools? But all round we want +_men_. Oh! for a few more of those who were 'out in forty-five'!" + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room after dinner Laura, as usual, entrenched herself in +one of the deep oriel windows, behind a heavy table: Augustina showed an +anxious curiosity as to the expedition of the morning--as to the Masons +and their farm. But Laura would say very little about them. + +When the gentlemen came in, Helbeck sent a searching look round the +drawing-room. He had the air of one who enters with a purpose. + +The beautiful old room lay in a half-light. A lamp at either end could do +but little against the shadows that seemed to radiate from the panelled +walls and from the deep red hangings of the windows. But the wood fire on +the hearth sent out a soft glow, which fastened on the few points of +brilliance in the darkness--on the ivory of the fretted ceiling, on the +dazzling dress of the Romney, on the gold of Miss Fountain's hair. + +Laura looked up with some surprise as Helbeck approached her; then, +seeing that he apparently wished to talk, she made a place for him among +the old "Books of Beauty" with which she had been bestrewing the seat +that ran round the window. + +"I trust the pony behaved himself this morning?" he said, as he sat down. + +Laura answered politely. + +"And you found your way without difficulty?" + +"Oh, yes! Your directions were exact." + +Inwardly she said to herself, "Does he want to cross-examine me about the +Masons?" Then, suddenly, she noticed the scar under his hair--a jagged +mark, testifying to a wound of some severity--and it made her +uncomfortable. Nay, it seemed in some curious way to put her in the +wrong, to shake her self-reliance. + +But Helbeck had not come with the intention of talking about the Masons. +His avoidance of their name was indeed a pointed one. He drew out her +admiration of the daffodils and of the view from Browhead Lane. + +"After Easter we must show you something of the high mountains. Augustina +tells me you admire the country. The head of Windermere will delight +you." + +His manner of offering her these civilities was somewhat stiff and +conventional--the manner of one who had been brought up among country +gentry of the old school, apart from London and the _beau monde_. But it +struck Laura that, for the first time, he was speaking to her as a man of +his breeding might be expected to speak to a lady visiting his house. +There was consideration, and an apparent desire to please. It was as +though she had grown all at once into something more in his eyes than +Mrs. Fountain's little stepdaughter, who was, no doubt, useful as a nurse +and a companion, but radically unwelcome and insignificant none the less. + +Inevitably the girl's vanity was smoothed. She began to answer more +naturally; her smile became more frequent. And gradually an unwonted ease +and enjoyment stole over Helbeck also. He talked with so much animation +at last as to draw the attention of another person in the room. Father +Leadham, who had been leaning with some languor against the high, carved +mantel, while Father Bowles and Augustina babbled beneath him, began to +take increasing notice of Miss Fountain, and of her relation to the +Bannisdale household. For a girl who had "no training, moral or +intellectual," she was showing herself, he thought, possessed of more +attraction than might have been expected, for the strict master of the +house. + +Presently Helbeck came to a pause in what he was saying. He had been +describing the country of Wordsworth, and had been dwelling on Grasmere +and Eydal Mount, in the tone, indeed, of one who had no vital concern +whatever with the Lake poets or their poetry, but still with an evident +desire to interest his companion. And following closely on this first +effort to make friends with her something further suggested itself. + +He hesitated, looked at Laura, and at last said, in a lower voice than he +had been using, "I believe your father, Miss Fountain, was a great lover +of Wordsworth. Augustina has told me so. You and he were accustomed, were +you not, to read much together? Your loss must be very great. You will +not wonder, perhaps, that for me there are painful thoughts connected +with your father. But I have not been insensible--I have not been without +feeling--for my sister--and for you." + +He spoke with embarrassment, and a kind of appeal. Laura had been +startled by his first words, and while he spoke she sat very pale and +upright, staring at him. The hand on her lap shook. + +When he ceased she did not answer. She turned her head, and he saw her +pretty throat tremble. Then she hastily raised her handkerchief; a +struggle passed over the face; she wiped away her tears, and threw back +her head, with a sobbing breath and a little shake of the bright hair, +like one who reproves herself. But she said nothing; and it was evident +that she could say nothing without breaking down. + +Deeply touched, Helbeck unconsciously drew a little nearer to her. +Changing the subject at once, he began to talk to her of the children and +the little festival of the afternoon. An hour before he would have +instinctively avoided doing anything of the kind. Now, at last, he +ventured to be himself, or something near it. Laura regained her +composure, and bent her attention upon him, with a slightly frowning +brow. Her mind was divided between the most contradictory impulses and +attractions. How had it come about, she asked herself, after a while, +that _she_ was listening like this to his schemes for his children and +his new orphanage?--she, and not his natural audience, the two priests +and Augustina. + +She actually heard him describe the efforts made by himself and one or +two other Catholics in the county to provide shelter and education for +the county's Catholic orphans. He dwelt on the death and disappearance of +some of his earlier colleagues, on the urgent need for a new building in +the neighbourhood of the county town, and for the enlargement of the +"home" he himself had put up some ten years before, on the Whinthorpe +Road. + +"But, unfortunately, large plans want large means," he added, with a +smile, "and I fear it will come to it--has Augustina said anything to you +about it?--I fear there is nothing for it, but that our beauteous lady +there must provide them." + +He nodded towards the picture that gleamed from the opposite wall. Then +he added gravely, and with a perfect simplicity: + +"It is my last possession of any value." + +Several times during the fortnight that she had known him, Laura had +heard him speak with a similar simplicity about his personal and +pecuniary affairs. That anyone so stately should treat himself and his +own worldly concerns with so much _naïveté_ had been a source of frequent +surprise to her. To what, then, did his dignity, his reserve apply? + +Nevertheless, because, childishly, she had already taken a side, as it +were, about the picture, his manner, with its apparent indifference, +annoyed her. She drew back. + +"Yes, Augustina told me. But isn't it cruel? isn't it unkind? A picture +like that is alive. It has been here so long--one could hardly feel it +belonged only to oneself. It is part of the house, isn't it?--part of the +family? Won't other people--people who come after--reproach you?" + +Helbeck lifted his shoulders, his dark face half amused, half sad. + +"She died a hundred years ago, pretty creature! She has had her turn; so +have we--in the pleasure of looking at her." + +"But she belongs to you," said the girl insistently. "She is your own +kith and kin." + +He hesitated, then said, with a new emphasis that answered her own: + +"Perhaps there are two sorts of kindred----" + +The girl's cheek flushed. + +"And the one you mean may always push out the other? I know, because one +of your children told me a story to-day--such a frightful story!--of a +saint who would not go to see his dying brother, for obedience' sake. She +asked me if I liked it. How could I say I liked it! I told her it was +horrible! I wondered how people could tell her such tales." + +Her bearing was again all hostility--a young defiance. She was delighted +to confess herself. Her crime, untold, had been pressing upon her +conscience, hurting her natural frankness. + +Helbeck's face changed. He looked at her attentively, the fine dark eye, +under the commanding brow, straight and sparkling. + +"You said that to the child?" + +"Yes." + +Her breast fluttered. She trembled, he saw, with an excitement she could +hardly repress. + +He, too, felt a novel excitement--the excitement of a strong will +provoked. It was clear to him that she meant to provoke him--that her +young personality threw itself wantonly across his own. He spoke with a +harsh directness. + +"You did wrong, I think--quite wrong. Excuse the word, but you have +brought me to close quarters. You sowed the seeds of doubt, of revolt, in +a child's mind." + +"Perhaps," said Laura quickly. "What then?" + +She wore her half-wild, half-mocking look. Everything soft and touching +had disappeared. The eyes shone under the golden mass of hair; the small +mouth was close and scornful. Helbeck looked at her in amazement, his own +pulse hurrying. + +"What then?" he echoed, with a sternness that astonished himself. "Ask +your own feeling. What has a child--a little child under orders--to do +with doubt, or revolt? For her--for all of us--doubt is misery." + +Laura rose. She forced down her agitation--made herself speak plainly. + +"Papa taught me--it was life--and I believe him." + +The old clock in the farther corner of the room struck a quarter to +ten--the hour of prayers. The two priests on the farther side of the room +stood up, and Augustina sheathed her knitting-needles. + +Laura turned towards Helbeck and coldly held out her little hand. He +touched it, and she crossed the room. "Good-night, Augustina." + +She kissed her stepmother, and bowed to the two priests. Father Leadham +ceremoniously opened the door for her. Then he and Helbeck, Father Bowles +and Augustina followed across the dark hall on their way to the chapel. +Laura took her candle, and her light figure could be seen ascending the +Jacobean staircase, a slim and charming vision against the shadows of the +old house. + +Father Leadham followed it with eyes and thoughts. Then he glanced +towards Helbeck. An idea--and one that was singularly unwelcome--was +forcing its way into the priest's mind. + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER I + +From that night onwards the relations between Helbeck and his sister's +stepdaughter took another tone. He no longer went his own way, with no +more than a vague consciousness that a curious and difficult girl was in +the house; he watched her with increasing interest; he began to taste, as +it were, the thorny charm that was her peculiar possession. + +Not that he was allowed to see much of the charm. After the conversation +of Passion Sunday her manner to him was no less cold and distant than +before. Their final collision, on the subject of the child, had, he +supposed, undone the effects of his conciliatory words about her father. +It must be so, no doubt, since her hostile observation of him and of his +friends seemed to be in no whit softened. + +That he should be so often conscious of her at this particular time +annoyed and troubled him. It was the most sacred moment of the Catholic +year. Father Leadham, his old Stonyhurst friend, had come to spend +Passion Week and Holy Week at Bannisdale, as a special favour to one whom +the Church justly numbered among the most faithful of her sons; while the +Society of Jesus had many links of mutual service and affection, both +with the Helbeck family in the past and with the present owner of the +Hall. Helbeck, indeed, was of real importance to Catholicism in this +particular district of England. It had once abounded in Catholic +families, but now hardly one of them remained, and upon Helbeck, with his +small resources and dwindling estate, devolved a number of labours which +should have been portioned out among a large circle. Only enthusiasm such +as his could have sufficed for the task. But, for the Church's sake, he +had now remained unmarried some fifteen years. He lived like an ascetic +in the great house, with a couple of women servants; he spent all his +income--except a fraction--on the good works of a wide district; when +larger sums were necessary he was ready, nay, eager, to sell the land +necessary to provide them; and whenever he journeyed to other parts of +England, or to the Continent, it was generally assumed that he had gone, +not as other men go, for pleasure and recreation, but simply that he +might pursue some Catholic end, either of money or administration, among +the rich and powerful of the faith elsewhere. Meanwhile, it was believed +that he had bequeathed the house and park of Bannisdale to a distant +cousin, also a strict Catholic, with the warning that not much else would +remain to his heir from the ancient and splendid inheritance of the +family. + +It was not wonderful, then, that the Jesuits should be glad to do such a +man a service; and no service could have been greater in Helbeck's eyes +than a visit from a priest of their order during these weeks of emotion +and of penance. Every day Mass was said in the little chapel; every +evening a small flock gathered to Litany or Benediction. Ordinary life +went on as it could in the intervals of prayer and meditation. The house +swarmed with priests--with old and infirm priests, many of them from a +Jesuit house of retreat on the western coast, not far away, who found in +a visit to Bannisdale one of the chief pleasures of their suffering or +monotonous lives; while the Superiors of Helbeck's own orphanages were +always ready to help the Bannisdale chapel, on days of special sanctity, +by sending a party of Sisters and children to provide the singing. + +Meanwhile all else was forgotten. As to food, Helbeck and Father +Leadham--according to the letters describing her experiences which Laura +wrote during these weeks to a Cambridge girl friend--lived upon "a cup of +coffee and a banana" per day, and she had endless difficulty in +restraining her charge, Augustina, from doing likewise. For Augustina, +indeed--Stephen Fountain's little black-robed widow--her husband was +daily receding further and further into a dim and dreadful distance, +where she feared and yet wept to think of him. She passed her time in the +intoxication of her recovered faith, excited by the people around her, by +the services in the chapel, and by her very terrors over her own unholy +union, lapse, and restoration. The sound of intoning, the scent, of +incense, seemed to pervade the house; and at the centre of all brooded +that mysterious Presence upon the altar, which drew the passion of +Catholic hearts to itself in ever deeper measure as the great days of +Holy Week and Easter approached. + +Through all this drama of an inventive and exacting faith, Laura Fountain +passed like a being from another world, an alien and a mocking spirit. +She said nothing, but her eyes were satires. The effect of her presence +in the house was felt probably by all its inmates, and by many of its +visitors. She did not again express herself--except rarely to +Augustina--with the vehemence she had shown to the little lame orphan; +she was quite ready to chat and laugh upon occasion with Father Leadham, +who had a pleasant wit, and now and then deliberately sought her society; +and, owing to the feebleness of Augustina, she, quite unconsciously, +established certain household ways which spoke the woman, and were new to +Bannisdale. She filled the drawing-room with daffodils; she made the +tea-table by the hall fire a cheerful place for any who might visit it; +she flitted about the house in the prettiest and neatest of spring +dresses; her hair, her face, her white hands and neck shone amid the +shadows of the panelling like jewels in a casket. Everyone was conscious +of her--uneasily conscious. She yielded herself to no one, was touched by +no one. She stood apart, and through her cold, light ways spoke the world +and the spirit that deny--the world at which the Catholic shudders. + +At the same time, like everybody else in the house--even the sulky +housekeeper--she grew pale and thin from Lenten fare. Mr. Helbeck had of +course given orders to Mrs. Denton that his sister and Miss Fountain were +to be well provided. But Mrs. Denton was grudging or forgetful; and it +amused Laura to see that Augustina was made to eat, while she herself +fared with the rest. The viands of whatever sort were generally scanty +and ill-cooked; and neither the Squire nor Father Leadham cared anything +about the pleasures of the table, in Lent or out of it. Mr. Helbeck +hardly noticed what was set before him. Once or twice indeed he woke up +to the fact that there was not enough for the ladies and would say an +angry word to Mrs. Denton. But on the whole Laura was able to follow her +whim and to try for herself what this Catholic austerity might be like. + +"My dear," she wrote to her friend, "one thing you learn from a Catholic +Lent is that food matters 'nowt at aw,' as they would say in these parts. +You can do just as well without it as with it. Why you should think +yourself a saint for not eating it puzzles me. Otherwise--_vive la faim_! +And as we are none of us likely to starve ourselves half so much as the +poor people of the world, the soldiers, and sailors, and explorers, are +always doing, to please themselves or their country, I don't suppose that +anybody will come to harm. + +"You are to understand, nevertheless, that our austerities are rather +unusual. And when anyone comes in from the outside they are concealed as +much as possible.... The old Helbecks, as far as I can hear, must have +been very different people from their modern descendant. They were quite +good Catholics, understand. What the Church prescribed they did--but not +a fraction beyond. They were like the jolly lazy sort of schoolboy, who +_just_ does his lesson, but would think himself a fool if he did a word +more. Whereas the man who lives here now can never do enough! + +"And in general these old Catholic houses--from Augustina's tales--must +have been full of fun and feasting. Well, I can vouch for it, there is no +fun in Bannisdale now! It is Mr. Helbeck's personality, I suppose. It +makes its own atmosphere. He _can_ laugh--I have seen it myself!--but it +is an event." + + * * * * * + +As Lent went on, the mingling of curiosity and cool criticism with which +Miss Fountain regarded her surroundings became perhaps more apparent. +Father Leadham, in particular, detected the young lady's fasting +experiments. He spoke of them to Helbeck as showing a lack of delicacy +and good taste. But the Squire, it seemed, was rather inclined to regard +them as the whims of a spoilt and wilful child. + +This difference of shade in the judgment of the two men may rank as one +of the first signs of all that was to come. + +Certainly Helbeck had never before felt himself so uncomfortable in his +own house as he had done since the arrival of this girl of twenty-one. +Nevertheless, as the weeks went on, the half-amused, half-contemptuous +embarrassment, which had been the first natural effect of her presence +upon the mind of a man so little used to women and their ways, had passed +imperceptibly into something else. His reserved and formal manner +remained the same. But Miss Fountain's goings and comings had ceased to +be indifferent to him. A silent relation--still unknown to her--had +arisen between them. + +When he first noticed the fact in himself, it produced a strong, +temporary reaction. He reproached himself for a light and unworthy +temper. Had his solitary life so weakened him that any new face and +personality about him could distract and disturb him, even amid the great +thoughts of these solemn days? His heart, his life were in his faith. For +more than twenty years, by prayer and meditation, by all the ingenious +means that the Catholic Church provides, he had developed the +sensibilities of faith; and for the Catholic these sensibilities are +centred upon and sustained by the Passion. Now, hour by hour, his Lord +was moving to the Cross. He stood perpetually beside the sacred form in +the streets of Jerusalem, in Gethsemane, on the steps of the Praetorium. +A varied and dramatic ceremonial was always at hand to stimulate the +imagination, the penitence, and the devotion of the believer. That +anything whatever should break in upon the sacred absorption of these +days would have seemed to him beforehand a calamity to be shrunk +from--nay, a sin to be repented. He had put aside all business that could +be put aside with one object, and one only--to make "a good Easter." + +And yet, no sooner did he come back from service in the chapel, or from +talk of Church matters with Catholic friends, than he found himself +suddenly full of expectation. Was Miss Fountain in the hall, in the +garden? or was she gone to those people at Browhead? If she was not in +the house--above all, if she was with the Masons--he would find it hard +to absorb himself again in the thoughts that had held him before. If she +was there, if he found her sitting reading or working by the hall fire, +with the dogs at her feet, he seldom indeed went to speak to her. He +would go into his library, and force himself to do his business, while +Father Leadham talked to her and Augustina. But the library opened on the +hall, and he could still hear that voice in the distance. Often, when she +caressed the dogs, her tones had the note in them which had startled him +on her very first evening under his roof. It was the emergence of +something hidden and passionate; and it awoke in himself a strange and +troubling echo--the passing surge of an old memory long since thrust down +and buried. How fast his youth was going from him! It was fifteen years +since a woman's voice, a woman's presence, had mattered anything at all +to him. + +So it came about that, in some way or other, he knew, broadly, all that +Miss Fountain did, little as he saw of her. It appeared that she had +discovered a pony carriage for hire in the little village near the +bridge, and once or twice during this fortnight, he learned from +Augustina that she had spent the afternoon at Browhead Farm, while the +Bannisdale household had been absorbed in some function of the season. + +Augustina disliked the news as much as he did, and would throw up her +hands in annoyance. + +"What _can_ she be doing there? They seem the roughest kind of people. +But she says the son plays so wonderfully. I believe she plays duets with +him. She goes out with the cart full of music." + +"Music!" said Helbeck, in frank amazement. "That lout!" + +"Well, she says so," said Augustina crossly, as though it were a personal +affront. "And what do you think, Alan? She talks of going to a dance up +there after Easter--next Thursday, I think." + +"At the farm?" Helbeck's tone was incredulous. + +"No; at the mill--or somewhere. She says the schoolmaster is giving it, +or something of that sort. Of course it's most unsuitable. But what am I +to do, Alan? They _are_ her relations!" + +"At the same time they are not her class," said Helbeck decidedly. "She +has been brought up in a different way, and she cannot behave as though +she belonged to them. And a dance, with that young man to look after her! +You ought to stop it." + +Augustina said dismally that she would try, but her head shook with more +feebleness than usual as she went back to her knitting. + + * * * * * + +Next day Helbeck made a point of finding his sister alone. But she only +threw him a deprecatory look. + +"I tried, Alan--indeed I did. She says that she wants some +amusement--that it will do her good--and that of course her father would +have let her go to a dance with his relations. And when I say anything to +her about not being quite like them, she fires up. She says she would be +ashamed to be thought any better than they, and that Hubert has a great +deal more good in him than some people think." + +"Hubert!" exclaimed Mr. Helbeck, raising his shoulders in disgust. After +a little silence he turned round as he was leaving the room, and said +abruptly: "Is she to stay the night at the farm?" + +"No! oh, no! She wants to come home. She says she won't be late; she +promises not to be late." + +"And that young fellow will drive her home, of course?" + +"Well, she couldn't drive home alone, Alan, at that time of night. It +wouldn't be proper." + +Mr. Helbeck smiled rather sourly. "One may doubt where the propriety +comes in. Well, she seems determined. We must just arrange it. There is +the tower door. Kindly tell her, Augustina, that I will let her have the +key of it. And kindly tell her also--as from yourself, of course--that +she will be treating us all with courtesy if she does come home at a +reasonable hour. We have been a very quiet, prim household all these +years, and Mrs. Denton, for all her virtues, has a tongue." + +"So she has," said Augustina, sighing. "And she doesn't like Laura--not +at all." + +Helbeck raised his head quickly. "She does nothing to make Miss Fountain +uncomfortable, I trust?" + +"Oh--no," said Augustina undecidedly. "Besides, it doesn't matter. Laura +has got Ellen under her thumb." + +Helbeck's grave countenance showed a gleam of amusement. + +"How does Mrs. Denton take that?" + +"Oh! she has to bear it. Haven't you seen, Alan, how the girl has +brightened up? Laura has shown her how to do her hair; she helped her to +make a new frock for Easter; the girl would do anything in the world for +her. It's like Bruno. Do you notice, Alan--I really thought you would be +angry--that the dog will hardly go with you when Laura's there?" + +"Oh! Miss Fountain is a very attractive young lady--to those she likes," +said Helbeck dryly. + +And on that he went away. + +On Good Friday afternoon Laura, in a renewed passion of revolt against +all that was going on in the house, went to her room and wrote to her +friend. Litanies were being said in the chapel. The distant, melancholy +sounds mounted to her now and then. Otherwise the house was wrapped in a +mourning silence; and outside, trailing clouds hung round the old walls, +making a penitential barrier all about it. + +"After this week," wrote Laura to her friend, "I shall always feel kindly +towards 'sin'--and the 'world'! How they have been scouted and scourged! +And what, I ask you, would any of us do without them? The 'world,' +indeed! I seem to hear it go rumbling on, the poor, patient, toiling +thing, while these people are praying. It works, and makes it possible +for them to pray--while they abuse and revile it. + +"And as to 'sin,' and the gloom in which we all live because of it--what +on earth does it really mean to any decently taught and brought-up +creature? You are greedy, or selfish, or idle, or ill-behaved. Very well, +then--nature, or your next-door neighbor, knocks you down for it, and +serve you right. Next time you won't do it again, or not so badly, and by +degrees you don't even like to think of doing it--you would be 'ashamed,' +as people say. It's the process that everybody has to go through, I +suppose--being sent into the world the sort of beings we are, and without +any leave of ours, altogether. But why make such a wailing and woe and +hullabaloo about it! Oh--such a waste of time! Why doesn't Mr. Helbeck go +and learn geology? I vow he hasn't an idea what the rocks of his own +valley are made of! + +"Of course there are the _very_ great villains--I don't like to think +about them. And the people who are born wrong and sick. But by-and-by we +shall have weeded them out, or improved the breed. And why not spend your +energies on doing that, instead of singing litanies, and taking +ridiculous pains not to eat the things you like? + +"...I shall soon be in disgrace with Augustina and Mr. Helbeck, about the +Masons--worse disgrace, that is to say. For now that I have found a pony +of my own, I go up there two or three times a week. And really--in spite +of all those first experiences I told you of--I like it! Cousin Elizabeth +has begun to talk to me; and when I come home, I read the Bible to see +what it was all about. And I don't let her say too bad things about Mr. +Helbeck--it wouldn't be quite gentlemanly on my part. And I know most of +the Williams story now, both from her and Augustina. + +"Imagine, my dear!--a son not allowed to come and see his mother before +she died, though she cried for him night and day. He was at a Jesuit +school in Wales. They shilly-shallied, and wrote endless letters--and at +last they sent him off--the day she died. He arrived three hours too +late, and his father shut the door in his face. 'Noa yo' shan't see her,' +said the grim old fellow--'an if there's a God above, yo' shan't see her +in heaven nayder!' Augustina of course calls it 'holy obedience.' + +"The painting in the chapel is really extraordinary. Mr. Helbeck seems to +have taught the young man, to begin with. He himself used to paint long +ago--not very well, I should think, to judge from the bits of his work +still left in the chapel. But at any rate the youth learnt the rudiments +from him, and then of course went far beyond his teacher. He was almost +two years here, working in the house--tabooed by his family all the time. +Then there seems to have been a year in London, when he gave Mr. Helbeck +some trouble. I don't know--Augustina is vague. How it was that he joined +the Jesuits I can't make out. No doubt Mr. Helbeck induced them to take +him. But _why_--I ask you--with such a gift? They say he will be here in +the summer, and one will have to set one's teeth and shake hands with +him. + +"Oh, that droning in the chapel--there it is again! I will open the +window and let the howl of the rain in to get rid of it. And yet I can't +always keep myself away from it. It is all so new--so horribly intimate. +Every now and then the music or a prayer or something sends a stab right +down to my heart of hearts.--A voice of suffering, of torture--oh! so +ghastly, so _real_. Then I come and read papa's note-books for an hour to +forget it. I wish he had ever taught me anything--strictly! But _of +course_ it was my fault. + +"... As to this dance, why shouldn't I go?--just tell me! It is being +given by the new schoolmaster, and two or three young farmers, in the big +room at the old mill. The schoolmaster is the most tiresomely virtuous +young man, and the whole thing is so respectable, it makes me yawn to +think of it. Polly implores me to go, and I like Polly. (Very soon she'll +let me halve her fringe!) I gave Hubert a preliminary snub, and now he +doesn't dare implore me to go. But that is all the more engaging. I +_don't_ flirt with him!--heavens!--unless you call bear-taming +flirtation. But one can't see his music running to waste in such a bog of +tantrums and tempers. I must try my hand. And as he is my cousin I can +put up with him." + + * * * * * + +After High Mass on Easter Sunday Helbeck walked home from Whinthorpe +alone, as his companion Father Leadham had an engagement in the town. + +Through the greater part of Holy Week the skies had been as grey and +penitential as the season. The fells and the river flats had been +scourged at night with torrents of rain and wind, and in the pale +mornings any passing promise of sun had been drowned again before the day +was high. The roofs and eaves, the small panes of the old house, trickled +and shone with rain; and at night the wind tore through the gorge of the +river with great boomings and onslaughts from the west. But with Easter +eve there had come appeasement--a quiet dying of the long storm. And as +Helbeck made his way along the river on Easter morning, mountain and +flood, grass and tree, were in a glory of recovered sun. The distant +fells were drawn upon the sky in the heavenliest brushings of blue and +purple; the river thundered over its falls and weirs in a foamy +splendour; and the deer were feeding with a new zest amid the +fast-greening grass. + +He stopped a moment to rest upon his stick and look about him. Something +in his own movement reminded him of another solitary walk some five weeks +before. And at the same instant he perceived a small figure sitting on a +stone seat in front of him. It was Miss Fountain. She had a book on her +knee, and the two dogs were beside her. Her white dress and hat seemed to +make the centre of a whole landscape. The river bent inward in a great +sweep at her feet, the crag rose behind her, and the great prospect +beyond the river of dale and wood, of scar and cloud, seemed spread there +for her eyes alone. A strange fancy seized on Helbeck. This was his +world--his world by inheritance and by love. Five weeks before he had +walked about it as a solitary. And now this figure sat enthroned, as it +were, at the heart of it. He roughly shook the fancy off and walked on. + +Miss Fountain greeted him with her usual detachment. He stood a minute or +two irresolute, then threw himself on the slope in front of her. + +"Bruno will hardly look at his master now," he said to her pleasantly, +pointing to the dog's attitude as it lay with its nose upon the hem of +her dress. + +Laura closed her book in some annoyance. He usually returned by the other +side of the river, and she was not grateful to him for his breach of +habit. Why had he been meddling in her affairs? She perfectly understood +why Augustina had been making herself so difficult about the dance, and +about the Masons in general. Let him keep his proprieties to himself. +She, Laura, had nothing to do with them. She was hardly his guest--still +less his ward. She had come to Bannisdale against her will, simply and +solely as Augustina's nurse. In return, let Mr. Helbeck leave her alone +to enjoy her plebeian relations as she pleased. + +Nevertheless, of course she must be civil; and civil she intermittently +tried to be. She answered his remark about Bruno by a caress to the dog +that brought him to lay his muzzle against her knee. + +"Do you mind? Some people do mind. I can easily drive him away." + +"Oh, no! I reckon on recovering him--some day," he said, with a frank +smile. + +Laura flushed. + +"Very soon, I should think. Have you noticed, Mr. Helbeck, how much +better Augustina is already? I believe that by the end of the summer, at +least, she will be able to do without me. And she tells me that the +Superior at the orphanage has a girl to recommend her as a companion when +I go." + +"Rather officious of the Reverend Mother, I think," said Helbeck sharply. +He paused a moment, then added with some emphasis, "Don't imagine, Miss +Fountain, that anybody else can do for my sister what you do." + +"Ah! but--well--one must live one's life--mustn't one, Fricka?"--Fricka +was by this time jealously pawing her dress. "I want to work at my +music--hard--this winter." + +"And I fear that Bannisdale is not a very gay place for a young lady +visitor?" + +He smiled. And so did she; though his tone, with its shade of proud +humility, embarrassed her. + +"It is as beautiful as a dream!" she said, with sudden energy, throwing +up her little hand. And he turned to look, as she was looking, at the +river and the woods. + +"You feel the beauty of it so much?" he asked her, wondering. His own +strong feeling for his native place was all a matter of old habit and +association. The flash of wild pleasure in her face astounded him. There +was in it that fiery, tameless something that was the girl's +distinguishing mark, her very soul and self. Was it beginning to speak +from her blood to his? + +She nodded, then laughed. + +"But, of course, it isn't my business to live here. I have a great +friend--a Cambridge girl--and we have arranged it all. We are to live +together, and travel a great deal, and work at music." + +"That is what young ladies do nowadays, I understand." + +"And why not?" + +He lifted his shoulders, as though to decline the answer, and was +silent--so silent that she was forced at last to take the field. + +"Don't you approve of 'new women,' Mr. Helbeck? Oh! I wish I was a new +woman," she threw out defiantly. "But I'm not good enough--I don't know +anything." + +"I wasn't thinking of them," he said simply. "I was thinking of the life +that women used to live here, in this place, in the past--of my mother +and my grandmother." + +She could not help a stir of interest. What might the Catholic women of +Bannisdale have been like? She looked along the path that led downward to +the house, and seemed to see their figures upon it--not short and sickly +like Augustina, but with the morning in their eyes and on their white +brows, like the Romney lady. Helbeck's thoughts meanwhile were peopled by +the more solid forms of memory. + +"You remember the picture?" he said at last, breaking the silence. "The +husband of that lady was a boor and a gambler. He soon broke her heart. +But her children consoled her to some extent, especially the daughters, +several of whom became nuns. The poor wife came from a large Lancashire +family, but she hardly saw her relations after her marriage; she was +ashamed of her husband's failings and of their growing poverty. She +became very shy and solitary, and very devout. These rock-seats along the +river were placed by her. It is said that she used in summer to spend +long hours on that very seat where you are sitting, doing needlework, or +reading the Little Office of the Virgin, at the hours when her daughters +in their French convent would be saying their office in chapel. She died +before her husband, a very meek, broken creature. I have a little book of +her meditations, that she wrote out by the wish of her confessor. + +"Then my grandmother--ah! well, that is too long a story. She was a +Frenchwoman--we have some of her books in my study. She never got on with +England and English people--and at last, after her husband's death, she +never went outside the house and park. My father owed much of his shyness +and oddity to her bringing up. When she felt herself dying she went over +to her family to die at Nantes. She is buried there; and my father was +sent to the Jesuit school at Nantes for a long time. Then my mother--But +I mustn't bore you with these family tales." + +He turned to look at his listener. Laura was by this time half +embarrassed, half touched. + +"I should like to hear about your mother," she said rather stiffly. + +"You may talk to me if you like, but don't, pray, presume upon it!"--that +was what her manner said. + +Helbeck smiled a little, unseen, under his black moustache. + +"My mother was a great lover of books--the only Helbeck, I think, that +ever read anything. She was a friend and correspondent of Cardinal +Wiseman's--and she tried to make a family history out of the papers here. +But in her later years she was twisted and crippled by rheumatic +gout--her poor fingers could not turn the pages. I used to help her +sometimes; but we none of us shared her tastes. She was a very happy +person, however." + +Happy! Why? Laura felt a fresh prick of irritation as he paused. Was she +never to escape--not even here, in the April sun, beside the river bank! +For, of course, what all this meant was that the really virtuous and +admirable woman does not roam the world in search of art and friendship; +she makes herself happy at home with religion and rheumatic gout. + +But Helbeck resumed. And instantly it struck her that he had dropped a +sentence, and was taking up the thread further on. + +"But there was no priest in the house then, for the Society could not +spare us one; and very few services in the chapel. Through all her young +days nothing could be poorer or raggeder than English Catholicism. There +was no church at Whinthorpe. Sunday after Sunday my father used to read +the prayers in the chapel, which was half a lumber-room. I often think no +Dissent could have been barer; but we heard Mass when we could, and that +was enough for us. One of the priests from Stonyhurst came when she died. +This is her little missal." + +He raised it from the grass--a small volume bound in faded morocco--but +he did not offer to show it to Miss Fountain, and she felt no inclination +to ask for it. + +"Why did they live so much alone?" she asked him, with a little frown. "I +suppose there were always neighbours?" + +He shook his head. + +"A difference that has law and education besides religion behind it, goes +deep. Times are changed, but it goes deep still." + +There was a pause. Then she looked at him with a whimsical lifting of her +brows. + +"Bannisdale was not amusing?" she said. + +He laughed good-humouredly. "Not for a woman, certainly. For a man, yes. +There was plenty of rough sport and card-playing, and a good deal of +drinking. The men were full of character, often full of ability. But +there was no outlet--and a wretched education. My great-grandfather might +have been saved by a commission in the army. But the law forbade it him. +So they lived to themselves and by themselves; they didn't choose to live +with their Protestant neighbours--who had made them outlaws and +inferiors! And, of course, they sank in manners and refinement. You may +see the results in all the minor Catholic families to this day--that is, +the old families. The few great houses that remained faithful escaped +many of the drawbacks of the position. The smaller ones suffered, and +succumbed. But they had their compensations!" + +As he spoke he rose from the grass, and the dogs, springing up, barked +joyously about him. + +"Augustina will be waiting dinner for us, I think." + +Laura, who had meant to stay behind, saw that she was expected to walk +home with him. She rose unwillingly, and moved on beside him. + +"Their compensations?" That meant the Mass and all the rest of this +tyrannous clinging religion. What did it honestly mean to Mr. Helbeck--to +anybody? She remembered her father's rough laugh. "There are twelve +hundred men, my dear, belonging to the Athenaeum Club. I give you the +bishops. After them, what do you suppose religion has to say to the rest +of the twelve hundred? How many of them ever give a thought to it?" + +She raised her eyes, furtively, to Helbeck's face. In spite of its +melancholy lines, she had lately begun to see that its fundamental +expression was a contented one. That, no doubt, came from the +"compensations." But to-day there was more. She was positively startled +by his look of happiness as he strode silently along beside her. It was +all the more striking because of the plain traces left upon him by Lenten +fatigue and "mortification." + +It was Easter day, and she supposed he had come from Communion. + +A little shiver passed through her, caused by the recollection of words +she had heard, acts of which she had been a witness, in the chapel during +the foregoing week--words and acts of emotion, of abandonment--love +crying to love. A momentary thirst seized her--an instant's sense of +privation, of longing, gone almost as soon as it had come. + +Helbeck turned to her. + +"So this dance you are going to is on Thursday?" he said pleasantly. + +She came to herself in a moment. + +"Yes, on Thursday, at eight. I shall go early. I have engaged a fly to +take me to the farm--thank you!--and my cousins will see me home. I am +obliged to you for the key. It will save my giving any trouble." + +"If you did we should not grudge it," he said quietly. + +She was silent for a few more steps, then she said: + +"I quite understand, Mr. Helbeck, that you do not approve of my going. +But I must judge for myself. The Masons are my own people. I am sorry +they should have---- Well--I don't understand--but it seems you have +reason to think badly of them." + +"Not of _them_," he said with emphasis. + +"Of my cousin Hubert, then?" + +He made no answer. She coloured angrily, then broke out, her words +tumbling childishly over one another: + +"There are a great many things said of Hubert that I don't believe he +deserves! He has a great many good tastes--his music is wonderful. At any +rate, he is my cousin; they are papa's only relations in the world. He +would have been kind to Hubert; and he would have despised me if I turned +my back on them because I was staying in a grand house with grand +people!" + +"Grand people!" said Helbeck, raising his eyebrows. "But I am sorry I led +you to say these things, Miss Fountain. Excuse me--may I open this gate +for you?" + +She reached her own room as quickly as possible, and dropped upon the +chair beside her dressing-table in a whirl of angry feeling. A small and +heated face looked out upon her from the glass. But after the first +instinctive moment she took no notice of it. With the mind's eye she +still saw the figure she had just parted from, the noble poise of the +head, thrown back on the broad shoulders, the black and greys of the +hair, the clear penetrating glance--all the slight signs of age and +austerity that had begun to filch away the Squire's youth. It was at +least ten minutes before she could free herself enough from the unwelcome +memories of her walk to find a vindictive pleasure in running hastily to +look at her one white dress--all she had to wear at the Browhead dance. + + * * * * * + +On Thursday afternoon Helbeck was fishing in the park. The sea-trout were +coming up, the day was soft, and he had done well. But just as the +evening rise was beginning he put up his rod and went home. Father +Leadham had taken his departure. Augustina, Miss Fountain, and he were +again alone in the house. + +He went into his study, and left the door open, while he busied himself +with some writing. + +Presently Augustina put her head in. She looked dishevelled, and rather +pinker than usual, as always happened when there was the smallest +disturbance of her routine. + +"Laura has just gone up to dress, Alan. Is it fine?" + +"There is no rain," he said, without turning his head. "Don't shut the +door, please. This fire is oppressive." + +She went away, and he wrote on a little while--then listened. He heard +hurrying feet and movements overhead, and presently a door opened +hastily, and a voice exclaimed, "Just two or three, you know, Ellen--from +that corner under the kitchen-window! Run, there's a good girl!" + +And there was a clattering noise as Ellen ran down the front stairs, and +then flew along the corridor to the garden-door. + +In a minute she was back again, and as she passed his room Helbeck saw +that she was carrying a bunch of white narcissus. + +Then more sounds of laughter and chatter overhead. At last Augustina +hurried down and looked in upon him again, flurried and smiling. + +"Alan, you really must see her. She looks so pretty." + +"I am afraid I'm busy," he said, still writing. And she retired +disappointed, careful, however, to follow his wishes about the door. + +"Augustina, hold Bruno!" cried a light voice suddenly. "If he jumps on me +I'm done for!" + +A swish of soft skirts and she was there--in the hall. Helbeck could see +her quite plainly as she stood by the oak table in her white dress. There +was just room at the throat of it for a pearl necklace, and at the wrists +for some thin gold bracelets. The narcissus were in her hair, which she +had coiled and looped in a wonderful way, so that Helbeck's eyes were +dazzled by its colour and abundance, and by the whiteness of the slender +neck below it. She meanwhile was quite unconscious of his neighbourhood, +and he saw that she was all in a happy flutter, hastily putting on her +gloves, and chattering alternately to Augustina and to the transformed +Ellen, who stood in speechless admiration behind her, holding a cloak. + +"There, Ellen, that'll do. You're a darling--and the flowers are perfect. +Run now, and tell Mrs. Denton that I didn't keep you more than twenty +minutes. Oh, yes, Augustina, I'm quite warm. I can't choke, dear, even to +please you. There now--here goes! If you do lock me out, there's a corner +under the bridge, quite snug. My dress will mind--I shan't. Good-night. +My compliments to Mr. Helbeck." + +Then a hasty kiss to Augustina and she was gone. + +Helbeck went out into the hall. Augustina was standing on the steps, +watching the departing fly. At the sight of her brother she turned back +to him, her poor little face aglow. + +"She did look so nice, Alan! I wish she had gone to a proper dance, and +not to these odd farmers and people. Why, they'll all go in their high +dresses, and think her stuck-up." + +"I assure you I never saw anything so smart as Miss Mason at the hunt +ball," said Helbeck. "Did you give her the key, Augustina? But I shall +probably sit up. There are some Easter accounts that must be done." + + * * * * * + +The old clock in the hall struck one. Helbeck was sitting in his familiar +chair before the log fire, which he had just replenished. In one hand was +a life of St. Philip Neri, the other played absently with Bruno's ears. +In truth he was not reading but listening. + +Suddenly there was a sound. He turned his head, and saw that the door +leading from the hall to the tower staircase, and thence to the kitchen +regions, had been opened. + +"Who's there?" he said in astonishment. + +Mrs. Denton appeared. + +"You, Denton! What are you up for at this time?" + +"I came to see if the yoong lady had coom back," she said in a low voice, +and with her most forbidding manner. "It's late, and I heard nowt." + +"Late? Not at all! Go to bed, Denton, at once; Miss Fountain will be here +directly." + +"I'm not sleepy; I can wait for her," said the housekeeper, advancing a +step or two into the hall. "You mun be tired, sir, and should take your +rest." + +"I'm not the least tired, thank you. Good-night. Let me recommend you to +go to bed as quickly as possible." + +Mrs. Denton lingered for a moment, as though in hesitation, then went +with a sulky unwillingness that was very evident to her master. + +Helbeck laid down his book on his knee with a little laugh. + +"She would have liked to get in a scolding, but we won't give her the +chance." + +The reverie that followed was not a very pleasant one. He seemed to see +Miss Fountain in the large rustic room, with a bevy of young men about +her--young fellows in Sunday coats, with shiny hair and limbs bursting +out of their ill-fitting clothes. There would be loud talking and +laughter, rough jokes that would make her wince, compliments that would +disgust her--they not knowing how to take her, nor she them. She would be +wholly out of her place--a butt for impertinence--perhaps worse. And +there would be a certain sense of dragging a lady from her sphere--of +making free with the old house and the old family. + +He thought of it with disgust. He was an aristocrat to his fingers' ends. + +But how could it have been helped? And when he remembered her as she +stood there in the hall, so young and pretty, so eager for her pleasure, +he said to himself with sudden heartiness: + +"Nonsense! I hope the child has enjoyed herself." It was the first time +that, even in his least formal thoughts, he had applied such a word to +her. + +Silence again. The wind breathed gently round the house. He could hear +the river rushing. + +Once he thought there was a sound of wheels and he went to the outer +door, but there was nothing. Overhead the stars shone, and along the +track of the river lay a white mist. + +As he was turning back to the hall, however, he heard voices from the +mist--a loud man's voice, then a little cry as of some one in fright or +anger, then a song. The rollicking tune of it shouted into the night, +into the stately stillness that surrounded the old house, had the +abruptest, unseemliest effect. + +Helbeck ran down the steps. A dog-cart with lights approached the gateway +in the low stone enclosure before the house. It shot through so fast and +so awkwardly as to graze the inner post. There was another little cry. +Then, with various lurches and lunges, the cart drove round the gravel, +and brought up somewhere near the steps. + +Hubert Mason jumped down. + +"Who's that? Mr. Helbeck? O Lord! glad to see yer, I'm sure! There's that +little silly--she's been making such a' fuss all the way--thought I was +going to upset her into the river, I do believe. She would try and get at +the reins, though I told her it was the worst thing to do, whatever--to +be interfering with the driver. Lord! I thought she'd have used the whip +to me!" + +And Mason stood beside the shafts, with his arms on the side, laughing +loudly and looking at Laura. + +"Stand out of the way, sir!" said Helbeck sternly, "and let me help Miss +Fountain." + +"Oh! I say!--Come now, I'm not going to stand you coming it over me twice +in the same sort--not I," cried the young man with a violent change of +tone. "_You_ get out of the way, d--mn you! I brought Miss Fountain home, +and she's my cousin--so there!--not yours." + +"Hubert, go away at once!" said Laura's shaking but imperious voice. "I +prefer that Mr. Helbeck should help me." + +She had risen and was clinging to the rail of the dog-cart, while her +face drooped so that Helbeck could not see it. + +Mason stepped back with another oath, caught his foot in the reins, which +he had carelessly left hanging, and fell on his knees on the gravel. + +"No matter," said Helbeck, seeing that Laura paused in terror. "Give me +your hand, Miss Fountain." + +She slipped on the step in the darkness, and Helbeck caught her and set +her on her feet. + +"Go in, please. I will look after him." + +She ran up the steps, then turned to look. + +Mason, still swearing and muttering, had some difficulty in getting up. +Helbeck stood by till he had risen and disentangled the reins. + +"If you don't drive carefully down the park in the fog you'll come to +harm," he said, shortly, as Mason mounted to his seat. + +"That's none of your business," said Mason sulkily. "I brought my cousin +all right--I suppose I can take myself. Now, come up, will you!" + +He struck the pony savagely on the back with the reins. The tired animal +started forward; the cart swayed again from side to side. Helbeck held +his breath as it passed the gate-posts; but it shaved through, and soon +nothing but the gallop of retreating hoofs could be heard through the +night. + +He mounted the steps, and shut and barred the outer door. When he entered +the hall, Laura was sitting by the oak table, one hand supporting and +hiding her face, the other hanging listlessly beside her. + +She struggled to her feet as he came in. The hood of her blue cloak had +fallen backwards, and her hair was in confusion round her face and neck. +Her cheeks were very white, and there were tears in her eyes. She had +never seemed to him so small, so childish, or so lovely. + +He took no notice of her agitation or of her efforts to speak. He went to +a tray of wine and biscuits that had been left by his orders on a +side-table, and poured out some wine. + +"No, I don't want it," she said, waving it away. "I don't know what to +say----" + +"You would do best to take it," he said, interrupting her. + +His quiet insistence overcame her, and she drank it. It gave her back her +voice and a little colour. She bit her lip, and looked after Helbeck as +he walked away to the farther end of the hall to light a candle for her. + +"Mr. Helbeck," she began as he came near. Then she gathered force. "You +must--you ought to let me apologise." + +"For what? I am afraid you had a disagreeable and dangerous drive home. +Would you like me to wake one of the servants--Ellen, perhaps--and tell +her to come to you?" + +"Oh! you won't let me say what I ought to say," she exclaimed in despair. +"That my cousin should have behaved like this--should have insulted +you----" + +"No! no!" he said with some peremptoriness. "Your cousin insulted you by +daring to drive with you in such a state. That is all that matters to +me--or should, I think, matter to you. Will you have your candle, and +shall I call anyone?" + +She shook her head and moved towards the staircase, he accompanying her. +When he saw how feebly she walked, he was on the point of asking her to +take his arm and let him help her to her room; but he refrained. + +At the foot of the stairs she paused. Her "good-night" died in her throat +as she offered her hand. Her dejection, her girlish shame, made her +inexpressibly attractive to him; it was the first time he had ever seen +her with all her arms thrown down. But he said nothing. He bade her +good-night with a cheerful courtesy, and, returning to the hall fire, he +stood beside it till he heard the distant shutting of her door. + +Then he sank back into his chair and sat motionless, with knitted brows, +for nearly an hour, staring into the caverns of the fire. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Laura awoke very early the following morning, but though the sun was +bright outside, it brought no gaiety to her. The night before she had +hurried her undressing, that she might bury herself in her pillow as +quickly as possible, and force sleep to come to her. It was her natural +instinct in the face of pain or humiliation. To escape from it by any +summary method was always her first thought. "I will, I must go to +sleep!" she had said to herself, in a miserable fury with herself and +fate; and by the help of an intense exhaustion sleep came. + +But in the morning she could do herself no more violence. Memory took its +course, and a very disquieting course it was. She sat up in bed, with her +hands round her knees, thinking not only of all the wretched and untoward +incidents connected with the ball, but of the whole three weeks that had +gone before it. What had she been doing, how had she been behaving, that +this odious youth should have dared to treat her in such a way? + +Fricka jumped up beside her, and Laura held the dog's nose against her +cheek for comfort, while she confessed herself. Oh! what a fool she had +been. Why, pray, had she been paying all these visits to the farm, and +spending all these hours in this young fellow's company? Her quick +intelligence unravelled all the doubtful skein. Yearning towards her +kindred?--yes, there had been something of that. Recoil from the +Bannisdale ways, an angry eagerness to scout them and fly them?--yes, +that there had always been in plenty. But she dived deeper into her +self-disgust, and brought up the real bottom truth, disagreeable and +hateful as it was: mere excitement about a young man, as a young +man--mere love of power over a great hulking fellow whom other people +found unmanageable! Aye, there it was, in spite of all the glosses she +had put upon it in her letters to Molly Friedland. All through, she had +known perfectly well that Hubert Mason was not her equal; that on a +number of subjects he had vulgar habits and vulgar ideas; that he often +expressed his admiration for her in a way she ought to have resented. +There were whole sides of him, indeed, that she shrank from +exploring--that she wanted, nay, was determined, to know nothing about. + +On the other hand, her young daring, for want of any better prey, had +taken pleasure from the beginning in bringing him under her yoke. With +her second visit to the farm she saw that she could make him her +slave--that she had only to show him a little flattery, a little +encouragement, and he would be as submissive and obedient to her as he +was truculent and ill-tempered towards the rest of the world. And her +vanity had actually plumed itself on so poor a prey! One excuse--yes, +there was the one excuse! With her he had shown the side that she alone +of his kindred could appreciate. But for the fear of Cousin Elizabeth she +could have kept him hanging over the piano hour after hour while she +played, in a passion of delight. Here was common ground. Nay, in native +power he was her superior, though she, with her better musical training, +could help and correct him in a thousand ways. She had the woman's +passion for influence; and he seemed like wax in her hands. Why not help +him to education and refinement, to the cultivation of the best that was +in him? She would persuade Cousin Elizabeth--alter and amend his life for +him--and Mr. Helbeck should see that there were better ways of dealing +with people than by looking down upon them and despising them. + +And now the very thought of these vain and silly dreams set her face +aflame. Power over him? Let her only remember the humiliations, through +which she had been dragged! All the dance came back upon her--the strange +people, the strange young men, the strange, raftered room, with the noise +of the mill-stream and the weir vibrating through it, and mingling with +the chatter of the fiddles. But she had been determined to enjoy it, to +give herself no airs, to forget with all her might that she was anyway +different from these dale-folk, whose blood was hers. And with the older +people all had been easy. With the elderly women especially, in their +dark gowns and large Sunday collars, she had felt herself at home; again +and again she had put herself under their wing, while in their silent way +they turned their shrewd motherly eyes upon her, and took stock of her +and every detail of her dress. And the old men, with their patriarchal +manners and their broad speech--it had been all sweet and pleasant to +her. "Noo, Miss, they tell ma as yo'.are Stephen Fountain's dowter. An I +mut meak bold ter cum an speak to thee, for a knew 'un when he was a lile +lad." Or "Yo'll gee ma your hand, Miss Fountain, for we're pleased and +proud to git, yo' here. Yer fadther an mea gaed to skule togedther. My +worrd, but he was parlish cliver! An I daursay as you teak afther him." +Kind folk! with all the signs of their hard and simple life about them. + +But the young men--how she had hated them!--whether they were shy, or +whether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, and +laughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they wore +their best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced the +polka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of _their_ +class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to put +a pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her white +dress; a third had confided to her that his young lady was "that luvin" +to him in public, he had been fair obliged to bid her "keep hersel to +hersel afore foak." The only partner with whom it had given her the +smallest pleasure to dance had been the schoolmaster and principal host +of the evening, a tall, sickly young man, who wore spectacles and talked +through his nose. But he talked of things she understood, and he danced +tolerably. Alas! there had come the rub. Hubert Mason had stood sentinel +beside her during the early part of the evening. He had assumed the +proudest and most exclusive airs with regard to her, and his chief aim +seemed to be to impress upon her the prestige he enjoyed among his +fellows as a football player and an athlete. In the end his patronage and +his boasting had become insupportable to a girl of any spirit. And his +dancing! It seemed to her that he held her before him like a shield, and +then charged the room with her. She had found herself the centre of all +eyes, her pretty dress torn, her hair about her ears. So that she had +shaken him off--with too much impatience, no doubt, and too little +consideration for the touchiness of his temper. And then, what +stormy looks, what mutterings, what disappearances into the +refreshment-room--and, finally, what, fierce jealousy of the +schoolmaster! Laura awoke at last to the disagreeable fact that she had +to drive home with him--and he had already made her ridiculous. Even +Polly--the bedizened Polly--looked grave, and there had been angry +conferences between her and her brother. + +Then came the departure, Laura by this time full of terrors, but not +knowing what to do, nor how else she was to get home. And, oh! that +grinning band of youths round the door--Mason's triumphant leap into the +cart and boisterous farewell to his friends--and that first perilous +moment, when the pony had almost backed into the mill stream, and was +only set right again by half a dozen stalwart arms, amid the laughter of +the street! + +As for the wild drive through the dark, she shivered again, half with +anger, half with terror, as she thought of it. How had they ever got +home? She could not tell. He was drunk, of course. He seemed to her to +have driven into everything and over everything, abusing the schoolmaster +and Mr. Helbeck and his mother all the time, and turning upon her when +she answered him, or showed any terror of what might happen to them, now +with fury, and now with attempts at love-making which it had taken all +her power over him to quell. + +Their rush up the park had been like the ride of the wild horseman. Every +moment she had expected to be in the river. And with the approach of the +house he had grown wilder and more unmanageable than before. "Dang it! +let's wake up the old Papist!" he had said to her when she had tried to +stop his singing. "What harm'll it do?" + +As for the shame of their arrival, the very thought of Mr. Helbeck +standing silent on the steps as they approached, of Hubert's behaviour, +of her host's manner to her in the hall, made her shut her eyes and hide +her red face against Fricka for sympathy. How was she ever to meet Mr. +Helbeck again, to hold her own against him any more! + + * * * * * + +An hour later Laura, very carefully dressed, and holding herself very +erect, entered Augustina's room. + +"Oh, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain, as the door opened. She was very +flushed, and she stared from her bed at her stepdaughter in an agitated +silence. + +Laura stopped short. + +"Well, what is it, Augustina? What have you heard?" + +"Laura! how _can_ you do such things!" + +And Augustina, who already had her breakfast beside her, raised her +handkerchief to her eyes and began to cry. Laura threw up her head and +walked away to a far window, where she turned and confronted Mrs. +Fountain. + +"Well, he has been quick in telling you," she said, in a low but fierce +voice. + +"He? What do you mean? My brother? As if he had said a word! I don't +believe he ever would. But Mrs. Denton heard it all." + +"Mrs. Denton?" said Laura. "_Mrs. Denton?_ What on earth had she to do +with it?" + +"She heard you drive up. You know her room looks on the front." + +"And she listened? sly old creature!" said Laura, recovering herself. +"Well, it can't be helped. If she heard, she heard, and whatever I may +feel, I'm not going to apologise to Mrs. Denton." + +"But, Laura--Laura--was he----" + +Augustina could not finish the odious question. + +"I suppose he was," said Laura bitterly. "It seems to be the natural +thing for young men of that sort." + +"Laura, do come here." + +Laura came unwillingly, and Augustina took her hands and looked up at +her. + +"And, Laura, he was abominably rude to Alan!" + +"Yes, he was, and I'm very sorry," said the girl slowly. "But it can't be +helped, and it's no good making yourself miserable, Augustina." + +"Miserable? I? It's you, Laura, who look miserable. I never saw you look +so white and dragged. You must never, never see him again." + +The girl's obstinacy awoke in a moment. + +"I don't know that I shall promise that, Augustina." + +"Oh, Laura! as if you could wish to," said Augustina, in tears. + +"I can't give up my father's people," said the girl stiffly. "But he +shall never annoy Mr. Helbeck again, I promise you that, Augustina." + +"Oh! you did look so nice, Laura, and your dress was so pretty!" + +Laura laughed, rather grimly. + +"There's not much of it left this morning," she said. "However, as one of +the gentlemen who kindly helped to ruin it said last night, 'Lor, bless +yer, it'll wesh!'" + + * * * * * + +After breakfast Laura found herself in the drawing-room, looking through +an open window at the spring green in a very strained and irritable mood. + +"I would not begin if I could not go on," she said to herself with +disdain. But her lip trembled. + +So Mr. Helbeck had taken offence, after all. Hardly a word at breakfast, +except such as the briefest, barest civility required. And he was going +away, it appeared, for three days, perhaps a week, on business. If he had +given her the slightest opening, she had meant to master her pride +sufficiently to renew her apologies and ask his advice, subject, of +course, to her own final judgment as to what kindred and kindness might +require of her. But he had given her no opening, and the subject was not, +apparently, to be renewed between them. + +She might have asked him, too, to curb Mrs. Denton's tongue. But no, it +was not to be. Very well. The girl drew her small frame together and +prepared, as no one thought for or befriended her, to think for and +befriend herself. + +She passed the next few days in some depression. Mr. Helbeck was absent. +Augustina was very ailing and querulous, and Laura was made to feel that +it was her fault. Not a word of regret or apology came from Browhead +Farm. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Denton had apparently made her niece understand that there +was to be no more dallying with Miss Fountain. Whenever she and Laura +met, Ellen lowered her head and ran. Laura found that the girl was not +allowed to wait upon her personally any more. Meanwhile the housekeeper +herself passed Miss Fountain with a manner and a silence which were in +themselves an insult. + +And two days after Helbeck's departure, Laura was crossing the hall +towards tea-time, when she saw Mrs. Denton admitting one of the Sisters +from the orphanage. It was the Reverend Mother herself, the portly +shrewd-faced woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. Laura passed +her, and the nun saluted her coldly. "Dear me!--you shall have Augustina +to yourself, my good friend," thought Miss Fountain. "Don't be afraid." +And she turned into the garden. + +An hour later she came back. As she opened the door in the old wall she +saw the Sister on the steps, talking with Mrs. Denton. At sight of her +they parted. The nun drew her long black cloak about her, ran down the +steps, and hurried away. + +And indoors, Laura could not imagine what had happened to her stepmother. +Augustina was clearly excited, yet she would say nothing. Her +restlessness was incessant, and at intervals there were furtive tears. +Once or twice she looked at Laura with the most tragic eyes, but as soon +as Laura approached her she would hastily bury herself in her newspaper, +or begin counting the stitches of her knitting. + +At last, after luncheon, Mrs. Fountain suddenly threw down her work with +a sigh that shook her small person from top to toe. + +"I wish I knew what was wrong with you," said Laura, coming up behind +her, and dropping a pair of soft hands on her shoulders. "Shall I get you +your new tonic?" + +"No!" said Augustina pettishly; then, with a rush of words that she could +not repress: + +"Laura, you must--you positively must give up that young man." + +Laura came round and seated herself on the fender stool in front of her +stepmother. + +"Oh! so that's it. Has anybody else been gossiping?" + +"I do wish you wouldn't--you wouldn't take things so coolly!" cried +Augustina. "I tell you, the least trifle is enough to do a young girl of +your age harm. Your father would have been so annoyed." + +"I don't think so," said Laura quietly. "But who is it now? The Reverend +Mother?" + +Augustina hesitated. She had been recommended to keep things to herself. +But she had no will to set against Laura's, and she was, in fact, +bursting with suppressed remonstrance. + +"It doesn't matter, my dear. One never knows where a story of that kind +will go to. That's just what girls don't remember." + +"Who told a story, and what? I didn't see the Reverend Mother at the +dance." + +"Laura! But you never thought, my dear--you never knew--that there was a +cousin of Father Bowles' there--the man who keeps that little Catholic +shop in Market Street. That's what comes, you see, of going to parties +with people beneath you." + +"Oh! a cousin of Father Bowles was there?" said Laura slowly. "Well, did +he make a pretty tale?" + +"Laura! you are the most provoking--You don't the least understand what +people think. How could you go with him when everybody remonstrated?" + +"Nobody remonstrated," said the girl sharply. + +"His sister begged you not to go." + +"His sister did nothing of the kind. She was staying the night in the +village, and there was literally nothing for me to do but come home with +Hubert or to throw myself on some stranger." + +"And such stories as one hears about this dreadful young man!" cried +Augustina. + +"I dare say. There are always stories." + +"I couldn't even tell you what they are about!" said Augustina. "Your +father would _certainly_ have forbidden it altogether." + +There was a silence. Laura held her head as high as ever. She was, in +fact, in a fever of contradiction and resentment, and the interference of +people like Mrs. Denton and the Sisters was fast bringing about Mason's +forgiveness. Naturally, she was likely to hear the worst of him in that +house. What Helbeck, or what dependent on a Helbeck, would give him the +benefit of any doubt? + +Augustina knitted with all her might for a few minutes, and then looked +up. + +"Don't you think," she said, with a timid change of tone--"don't you +think, dear, you might go to Cambridge for a few weeks? I am sure the +Friedlands would take you in. You would come in for all the parties, +and--and you needn't trouble about me. Sister Angela's niece could come +and stay here for a few weeks. The Reverend Mother told me so." + +Laura rose. + +"Sister Angela suggested that? Thank you, I won't have my plans settled +for me by Sister Angela. If you and Mr. Helbeck want to turn me out, why, +of course I shall go." + +Augustina held out her hands in terror at the girl's attitude and voice. + +"Laura, don't say such things! As if you weren't an angel to me! As if I +could bear the thought of anybody else!" + +A quiver ran through Laura's features. "Well, then, don't bear it," she +said, kneeling down again beside her stepmother. "You look quite ill and +excited, Augustina. I think we'll keep the Reverend Mother out in future. +Won't you lie down and let me cover you up?" + +So it ended for the time--with physical weakness on Augustina's part, and +caresses on Laura's. + +But when she was alone, Miss Fountain sat down and tried to think things +out. + +"What are the Sisters meddling for? Do they find me in their way? I'm +flattered! I wish I was. Well!--is drunkenness the worst thing in the +world?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond a +certain point it is like madness--you must keep out of its way, for your +own sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse. +So there are!--meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of your +soul. As for the other tales, I don't believe them. But if I did, I am +not going to marry him!" + +She felt herself very wise. In truth, as Stephen Fountain had realised +with some anxiety before his death, among Laura's many ignorances, none +was so complete or so dangerous as her ignorance of all the ugly ground +facts that are strewn round us, for the stumbling of mankind. She was as +determined not to know them, as he was invincibly shy of telling them. + +For the rest, her reflections represented, no doubt, many dicta that in +the course of her young life she had heard from her father. To Stephen +Fountain the whole Christian doctrine of sin was "the enemy"; and the +mystical hatred of certain actions and habits, as such, was the fount of +half the world's unreason. + +The following day it was Father Bowles' turn. He came over in what seemed +to be his softest and most catlike mood, rubbing his hands over his chest +in a constant glee at his own jokes. He was amiability itself to Laura. +But he, too, had his twenty minutes alone with Augustina; and afterwards +Mrs. Fountain ventured once more to speak to Laura of change and +amusement. Miss Fountain smiled, and replied as before--that, in the +first place she had no invitations, and in the next, she had no dresses. +But again, as before, if Mr. Helbeck should express a wish that her visit +to Bannisdale should come to an end, that would be another matter. + + * * * * * + +Next morning Laura was taking a walk in the park when a letter was +brought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum. + +She took it to a sheltered nook by the riverside and read it. It was from +Hubert Mason, in his best commercial hand, and it ran as follows: + + +"Dear Miss Fountain,--You would not allow me, I know, to call you Cousin +Laura any more, so I don't attempt it. And of course I don't deserve +it--nor that you should ever shake hands with me again. I can't get over +thinking of what I've done. Mother and Polly will tell you that I have +hardly slept at nights--for of course you won't believe me. How I can +have been such a blackguard I don't understand. I must have taken too +much. All I know is it didn't seem much, and but for the agitation of my +mind, I don't believe anything would ever have gone wrong. But I couldn't +bear to see you dancing with that man and despising me. And there it +is--I can never get over it, and you will never forgive me. I feel I +can't stay here any more, and mother has consented at last to let me have +some money on the farm. If I could just see you before I go, to say +good-bye, and ask your pardon, there would be a better chance for me. I +can't come to Mr. Helbeck's house, of course, and I don't suppose you +would come here. I shall be coming home from Kirby Whardale fair +to-morrow night, and shall be crossing the little bridge in the +park--upper end--some time between eight and nine. But I know you won't +be there. I can't expect it, and I feel it pretty badly, I can tell you. +I did hope I might have become something better through knowing you. +Whatever you may think of me I am always + +"Your respectful and humble cousin, + +"HUBERT MASON." + + +"Well--upon my word!" said Laura. She threw the letter on to the grass +beside her, and sat, with her hands round her knees, staring at the +river, in a sparkle of anger and amazement. + +What audacity!--to expect her to steal out at night--in the dusk, +anyway--to meet him--_him_! She fed her wrath on the imagination of all +the details that would belong to such an escapade. It would be after +supper, of course, in the fast lengthening twilight. Helbeck and his +sister would be in the drawing-room--for Mr. Helbeck was expected home on +the following day--and she might perfectly well leave them, as she often +did, to talk their little Catholic gossip by themselves, and then slip +out by the chapel passage and door, through the old garden, to the gate +in the wall above the river bank, and so to the road that led along the +Greet through the upper end of the park. Nothing, of course, could be +easier--nothing. + +Merely to think of it, for a girl of Laura's temperament, was already bit +by bit to incline to it. She began to turn it over, to taste the +adventure of it--to talk very fast to Fricka, under her breath, with +little gusts of laughter. And no doubt there was something mollifying in +the boy's humble expressions. As for his sleepless nights--how salutary! +how very salutary! Only the nail must be driven in deeper--must be turned +in the wound. + +It would need a vast amount of severity, perhaps, to undo the effects of +her mere obedience to his call--supposing she made up her mind to obey +it. Well! she would be quite equal to severity. She would speak very +plain things to him--very plain things indeed. It was her first serious +adventure with any of these big, foolish, troublesome creatures of the +male sex, and she rose to it much as Helbeck might have risen to the +playing of a salmon in the Greet. Yes! he should say good-bye to her, let +priests and nuns talk what scandal they pleased. Yes! he should go on his +way forgiven and admonished--if he wished it--for kindred's sake. + +Her cheek burned, her heart beat fast. He and she were of one blood--both +of them ill-regarded by aristocrats and holy Romans. As for him, he was +going to ruin at home; and there was in him this strange, artistic gift +to be thought for and rescued. He had all the faults of the young cub. +Was he to be wholly disowned for that? Was she to cast him off for ever +at the mere bidding of the Helbecks and their friends? + +He would never, of course, be allowed to enter the Bannisdale +drawing-room, and she had no intention at present of going to Browhead +Farm. Well, then, under the skies and the clouds! A gracious pardon, an +appropriate lecture--and a short farewell. + + * * * * * + +All that day and the next Laura gave herself to her whim. She was +perfectly conscious, meanwhile, that it was a reckless and a wilful thing +that she was planning. She liked it none the less for that. In fact, the +scheme was the final crystallisation of all that bitterness of mood that +had poisoned and tormented her ever since her first coming to Bannisdale. +And it gave her for the moment the morbid pleasure that all angry people +get from letting loose the angry word or act. + +Meanwhile she became more and more conscious of a certain network of +blame and discussion that seemed to be closing about her and her actions. +It showed itself by a number of small signs. When she went into +Whinthorpe to shop for Augustina she fancied that the assistants in the +shop, and even the portly draper himself, looked at her with a sly +curiosity. The girl's sore pride grew more unmanageable hour by hour. If +there was some ill-natured gossip about her, going the round in the town +and the neighbourhood, had she--till now--given the least shadow of +excuse for it? Not the least shade of a shadow! + + * * * * * + +Mr. Helbeck, his sister, and Laura were in the drawing-room after supper. +Laura had been observing Mrs. Fountain closely. + +"She is longing to have her talk with him," thought the girl; "and she +shall have it--as much as she likes." + +The shutters were not yet closed, and the room, with its crackling logs, +was filled with a gentle mingled light. The sun, indeed, was gone, but +the west still glowed, and the tall larches in the front enclosure stood +black against a golden dome of sky. Laura rose and left the room. As she +opened the door she caught Augustina's quick look of relief and the drop +of the knitting-needles. + +Fricka was safely prisoned upstairs. Laura slipped on a hat and a dark +cloak that were hanging in the hall, and ran down the passage leading to +the chapel. The heavy seventeenth-century door at the end of it took her +some trouble to open without noise, but it was done at last, and she was +in the old garden. + +Her little figure in its cloak, among the dark yews, was hardly to be +seen in the dusk. The garden was silence itself, and the gate in the wall +was open. Once on the road beside the river she could hardly restrain +herself from running, so keen was the air, so free and wide the evening +solitude. All things were at peace; nothing moved but a few birds and the +tiniest intermittent breeze. Overhead, great thunderclouds kept the +sunset; beneath, the blues of the evening were all interwoven with rose; +so, too, were the wood and sky reflections in the gently moving water. In +some of the pools the trout were still lazily rising; pigeons and homing +rooks were slowly passing through the clear space that lay between the +tree-tops and the just emerging stars; and once Laura stopped, holding +her breath, thinking that she saw through the dusk the blue flash of a +kingfisher making for a nest she knew. Even in this dimmed light the +trees had the May magnificence--all but the oaks, which still dreamed of +a best to come. Here and there a few tufts of primroses, on the bosom of +the crag above the river, lonely and self-sufficing, like all loveliest +things, starred the dimness of the rock. + +Laura's feet danced beneath her; the evening beauty and her passionate +response flowed as it were into each other, made one beating pulse; +never, in spite of qualms and angers, had she been more physically happy, +more alive. She passed the seat where she and Helbeck had lingered on +Easter Sunday; then she struck into a path high above the river, under +spreading oaks; and presently a little bridge came in sight, with some +steps in the crag leading down to it. + +At the near end of the bridge, thrown out into the river a little way for +the convenience of fishermen, was a small wooden platform, with a +railing, which held a seat. The seat was well hidden under the trees and +bank, and Laura settled herself there. + +She had hardly waited five minutes, absorbed in the sheer pleasure of the +rippling river and the soft air, when she heard steps approaching the +bank. Looking up, she saw Mason's figure against the sky. He paused at +the top of the rocky staircase, to scan the bridge and its approaches. +Not seeing her, he threw up his hand, with some exclamation that she +could not hear. + +She smiled and rose. + +As her small form became visible between the paleness of the wooden +platform and a luminous patch in the river, she heard a cry, then a +hurrying down the rock steps. + +He stopped about a yard from her. She did not offer her hand, and after +an instant's pause, during which his eyes tried to search her face in the +darkness, he took off his hat and drew his hand across his brow with a +deep breath. + +"I never thought you'd come," he said huskily. + +"Well, certainly you had no business to ask me! And I can only stay a +very few minutes. Suppose you sit down there." + +She pointed to one of the rock steps, while she settled herself again on +the seat, some little distance away from him. + +Then there was an awkward silence, which Laura took no trouble to break. +Mason broke it at last in desperation. + +"You know that I'm an awful hand at saying anything, Miss--Miss Fountain. +I can't--so it's no good. But I've got my lesson. I've had a pretty rough +time of it, I can tell you, since last week." + +"You behaved about as badly as you could--didn't you?" said Laura's soft +yet cutting voice out of the dark. + +Mason fidgeted. + +"I can't make it no better," he said at last. "There's no saying I can, +for I can't. And if I did give you excuses, you'd not believe 'em. There +was a devil got hold of me that evening--that's the truth on't. And it +was only a glass or two I took. Well, there!--I'd have cut my hand off +sooner." + +His tone of miserable humility began to affect her rather strangely. It +was not so easy to drive in the nail. + +"You needn't be so repentant," she said, with a little shrinking laugh. +"One has to forget--everything--in good time. You've given Whinthorpe +people something to talk about at my expense--for which I am not at all +obliged to you. You nearly killed me, which doesn't matter. And you +behaved disgracefully to Mr. Helbeck. But it's done--and now you've got +to make up--somehow." + +"Has he made you pay for it--since?" said Mason eagerly. + +"He? Mr. Helbeck?" She laughed. Then she added, with all the severity +she could muster, "He treated me in a most kind and gentlemanly +way--if you want to know. The great pity is that you--and Cousin +Elizabeth--understand nothing at all about him." + +He groaned. She could hear his feet restlessly moving. + +"Well--and now you are going to Froswick," she resumed. "What are you +going to do there?" + +"There's an uncle of mine in one of the shipbuilding yards there. He's +got leave to take me into the fitting department. If I suit he'll get me +into the office. It's what I've wanted this two years." + +"Well, now you've got it," she said impatiently, "don't be dismal. You +have your chance." + +"Yes, and I don't care a haporth about it," he said, with sudden energy, +throwing his head up and bringing his fist down on his knee. + +She felt her power, and liked it. But she hurried to answer: + +"Oh! yes you do! If you're a man, you _must_. You'll learn a lot of new +things--you'll keep straight, because you'll have plenty to do. Why, it +will 'hatch you over again, and hatch, you different,' as somebody said. +You'll see." + +He looked at her, trying hard to catch her expression in the dusk. + +"And if I do come back different, perhaps--perhaps--soom day you'll not +be ashamed to be seen wi' me? Look here, Miss Laura. From the first time +I set eyes on you--from that day you came up--that Sunday--I haven't been +able to settle to a thing. I felt, right enough, I wasn't fit to speak to +you. And yet I'm your--well, your kith and kin, doan't you see? There +can't be no such tremendous gap atween us as all that. If I can just +manage myself a bit, and find the work that suits me, and get away from +these fellows here, and this beastly farm----" + +"Ah!--have you been quarrelling with Daffady all day?" + +She looked for him to fly out. But he only stared, and then turned away. + +"O Lord! what's the good of talking?" he said, with an accent that +startled her. + +She rose from her seat. + +"Are you sorry I came to talk to you? You didn't deserve it--did you?" + +Her voice was the pearliest, most musical, and yet most distant of +things. He rose, too--held by it. + +"And now you must just go and make a man of yourself. That's what you +have to do--you see? I wish papa was alive. He'd tell you how--I can't. +But if you forget your music, it'll be a sin--and if you send me your +song to write out for you, I'll do it. And tell Polly I'll come and see +her again some day. Now good-night! They'll be locking up if I don't +hurry home." + +But he stood on the step, barring the way. + +"I say, give me something to take with me," he said hoarsely. "What's +that in your hat?" + +"In my hat?" she said, laughing--(but if there had been light he would +have seen that her lips had paled). "Why, a bunch of buttercups. I bought +them at Whinthorpe yesterday." + +"Give me one," he said. + +"Give you a sham buttercup? What nonsense!" + +"It's better than nothing," he said doggedly, and he held out his hand. + +She hesitated; then she took off her hat and quietly loosened one of the +flowers. Her golden hair shone in the dimness. Mason never took his eyes +off her little head. He was keeping a grip on himself that was taxing a +whole new set of powers--straining the lad's unripe nature in wholly new +ways. + +She put the flower in his hand. + +"There; now we're friends again, aren't we? Let me pass, please--and +good-night!" + +He moved to one side, blindly fighting with the impulse to throw his +powerful arms round her and keep her there, or carry her across the +bridge--at his pleasure. + +But her light fearlessness mastered him. He let her go; he watched her +figure on the steps, against the moonlight between the oaks overhead. + +"Good-night!" she dropped again, already far away--far above him. + +The young man felt a sob in his throat. + +"My God! I shan't ever see her again," he said to himself in a sudden +terror. "She is going to that house--to that man!" + +For the first time a wild jealousy of Helbeck awoke in him. He rushed +across the bridge, dropped on a stone half-way up the further bank, then +strained his eyes across the river. + +... Yes, there she passed, a swift moving whiteness, among the great +trees that stood like watchmen along the high edge of the water. Below +him flowed the stream, a gulf of darkness, rent here and there by sheets +and jags of silver. And she, that pale wraith--across it--far away--was +flitting from his ken. + +All the fountains of the youth's nature surged up in one great outcry and +confusion. He thought of his boyish loves and sensualities--of the girls +who had provoked them--of some of the ugly facts connected with them. A +great astonishment, a great sickening, came upon him. He felt the burden +of the flesh, the struggle of the spirit. And through it all, the maddest +and most covetous yearning!--welling up through schemes and hopes, that +like the moonlit ripples on the Greet, dissolved as fast as they took +shape. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Laura went quickly home. A new tenderness, a new remorse +towards the "cub" was in the girl's mind. Ought she to have gone? Had she +been kind? Oh! she would be his friend and good angel--without any +nonsense, of course. + +She hurried through the trees and along the dimly gleaming path. Suddenly +she perceived in the distance the sparkle of a lantern. + +How vexatious! Was there no escape for her? She looked in some trouble at +the climbing woods above, at the steep bank below. + +Ah! well, her hat was large, and hid her face. And her dress was all +covered by her cloak. She hastened on. + +It was a man--an old man--carrying a bundle and a lantern. He seemed to +waver and stop as she approached him, and at the actual moment of her +passing him, to her amazement, he suddenly threw himself against one of +the trees on the mountain side of the path, and his lantern showed her +his face for an instant--a white face, stricken with--fear, was it? or +what? + +Fright gained upon herself. She ran on, and as she ran it seemed to her +that she heard something fall with a clang, and, afterwards, a cry. She +looked back. The old man was still there, erect, but his light was gone. + +Well, no doubt he had dropped his lantern. Let him light it again. It was +no concern, of hers. + +Here was the door in the wall. It opened to her touch. She glided +in--across the garden--found the chapel door ajar, and in a few more +seconds was safe in her own room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Laura was standing before her looking-glass straightening the curls that +her rapid walk had disarranged, when her attention was caught by certain +unusual sounds in the house. There was a hurrying of distant feet--calls, +as though from the kitchen region--and lastly, the deep voice of Mr. +Helbeck. Miss Fountain paused, brush in hand, wondering what had +happened. + +A noise of fluttering skirts, and a cry for "Laura!"--Miss Fountain +opened her door, and saw Augustina, who never ran, hurrying as fast as +her feebleness would let her, towards her stepdaughter. + +"Laura!--where is my sal volatile? You gave me some yesterday, you +remember, for my headache. There's somebody ill, downstairs." + +She paused for breath. + +"Here it is," said Laura, finding the bottle, and bringing it. "What's +wrong?" + +"Oh, my dear, such an adventure! There's an old man fainted in the +kitchen. He came to the back door to ask for a light for his lantern. +Mrs. Denton says he was shaking all over when she first saw him, and as +white as her apron. He told her he'd seen the ghost! 'I've often heard +tell o' the Bannisdale Lady,' he said, 'an now I've seen her!' She asked +him to sit down a minute to rest himself, and he fainted straight away. +He's that old Scarsbrook, you know, whose wife does our washing. They +live in that cottage by the weir, the other end of the park. I must go! +Mrs. Denton's giving him some brandy--and Alan's gone down. Isn't it an +extraordinary thing?" + +"Very," said Laura, accompanying her stepmother along the passage. "What +did he see?" + +She paused, laying a restraining hand on Augustina's arm--cudgelling her +brains the while. Yes! she could remember now a few contemptuous remarks +of Mr. Helbeck to Father Leadham on the subject of a ghost story that had +sprung up during the Squire's memory in connection with the park and the +house--a quite modern story, according to Helbeck, turning on the common +motive of a gypsy woman and her curse, started some forty years before +this date, with a local success not a little offensive, apparently, to +the owner of Bannisdale. + +"What did he see?" repeated the girl. "Don't hurry, Augustina; you know +the doctor told you not. Shall I take the sal volatile?" + +"Oh, no!--they want me." In any matter of doctoring small or great, +Augustina had the happiest sense of her own importance. "I don't know +what he saw exactly. It was a lady, he says--he knew it was, by the hat +and the walk. She was all in black--with 'a Dolly Varden hat'--fancy the +old fellow!--that hid her face--and a little white hand, that shot out +sparks as he came up to her! Did you ever hear such, a tale? Now, Laura, +I'm all right. Let me go. Come when you like." + +Augustina hurried off; Laura was left standing pensive in the passage. + +"H'm, that's unlucky," she said to herself. + +Then she looked down at her right hand. An old-fashioned diamond ring +with a large centre stone, which had been her mother's, shone on the +third finger. With an involuntary smile, she drew off the ring, and went +back to her room. + +"What's to be done now?" she thought, as she put the ring in a drawer. +"Shall I go down and explain--say I was out for a stroll?"--She shook her +head.--"Won't do now--I should have had more presence of mind a minute +ago. Augustina would suspect a hundred things. It's really dramatic. +Shall I go down? He didn't see my face--no, that I'll answer for! Here's +for it!" + +She pulled out the golden mass of her hair till it made a denser frame +than usual round her brow, looked at her white dress--shook her head +dubiously--laughed at her own flushed face in the glass, and calmly went +downstairs. + +She found an anxious group in the great bare servants' hall. The old man, +supported by pillows, was stretched on a wooden settle, with Helbeck, +Augustina, and Mrs. Denton standing by. The first things she saw were the +old peasant's closed eyes and pallid face--then Helbeck's grave and +puzzled countenance above him. The Squire turned at Miss Fountain's step. +Did she imagine it--or was there a peculiar sharpness in his swift +glance? + +Mrs. Denton had just been administering a second dose of brandy, and was +apparently in the midst of her own report to her master of Scarsbrook's +story. + +"'I wor just aboot to pass her,' he said, 'when I nawticed 'at her feet +made noa noise. She keäm glidin--an glidin--an my hair stood reet oop--it +lifted t'whole top o' my yed. An she gaed passt me like a puff o' +wind--as cauld as ice--an I wor mair deed nor alive. An I luked afther +her, an she vanisht i' th' varra middle o' t' path. An my leet went +oot--an I durstn't ha gane on, if it wor iver so--so I juist crawled back +tet hoose----'" + +"The door in the wall!" thought Laura. "He didn't know it was there." + +She had remained in the background while Mrs. Denton was speaking, but +now she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, and +flounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As she +passed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had become +something more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer, +and himself thrust his hands into his pockets and moved away. + +"Have you sent for anyone?" said Laura to Mrs. Fountain. + +"Yes. Wilson's gone in the pony cart for the wife. And if he doesn't come +round by the time she gets here--some one will have to go for the doctor, +Alan?" + +She looked round vaguely. + +"Of course. Wilson must go on," said Helbeck from the distance. "Or I'll +go myself." + +"But he is coming round," said Laura, pointing. + +"If yo'll nobbut move oot o' t' way, Miss, we'll be able to get at 'im," +said Mrs. Denton sharply. Laura hastily obeyed her. The housekeeper +brought more brandy; then signs of returning force grew stronger, and by +the time the wife appeared the old fellow was feebly beginning to move +and look about him. + +Amid the torrent of lamentations, questions, and hypotheses that the wife +poured forth, Laura withdrew into the background. But she could not +prevail on herself to go. Daring or excitement held her there, till the +old man should be quite himself again. + +He struggled to his feet at last, and said, with a long sigh that was +still half a shudder, "Aye--noo I'll goa home--Lisbeth." + +He was a piteous spectacle as he stood there, still trembling through all +his stunted frame, his wrinkled face drawn and bloodless, his grey hair +in a tragic confusion. Suddenly, as he looked at his wife, he said with a +clear solemnity, "Lisbeth--I ha' got my death warrant!" + +"Don't say any such thing, Scarsbrook," said Helbeck, coming forward to +support him. "You know I don't believe in this ghost business--and never +did. You saw some stranger in the park--and she passed you too quickly +for you to see where she went to. You may be sure that'll turn out to be +the truth. You remember--it's a public path--anybody might be there. Just +try and take that view of it--and don't fret, for your wife's sake. We'll +make inquiries, and I'll come and see you to-morrow. And as for death +warrants, we're all in God's care, you know--don't forget that." + +He smiled with a kindly concern and pity on the old man. But Scarsbrook +shook his head. + +"It wur t' Bannisdale Lady," he repeated; "I've often heerd on +her--often--and noo I've seen her." + +"Well, to-morrow you'll be quite proud of it," said Helbeck cheerfully. +"Come, and let me put you into the cart. I think, if we make a +comfortable seat for you, you'll be fit to drive home now." + +Supported by the Squire's strong arm on one side, and his wife on the +other, Scarsbrook managed to hobble down the long passage leading to the +door in the inner courtyard, where the pony cart was standing. It was +evident that his perceptions were still wholly dazed. He had not +recognised or spoken to anyone in the room but the Squire--not even to +his old crony Mrs. Denton. + +Laura drew a long breath. + +"Augustina, do go to bed," she said, going up to her stepmother--"or +you'll be ill next." + +Augustina allowed herself to be led upstairs. But it was long before she +would let her stepdaughter leave her. She was full of supernatural +terrors and excitements, and must talk about all the former appearances +of the ghost--the stories that used to be told in her childhood--the new +or startling details in the old man's version, and so forth. "What could +he have meant by the light on the hand?" she said wondering. "I never +heard of that before. And she used always to be in grey; and now he says +that she had a black dress from top to toe." + +"Their wardrobes are so limited--poor damp, sloppy things!" said Laura +flippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose this +nonsense will be all over the country-side to-morrow, Augustina?" + +"What do you _really_ think he saw, Laura?" cried Mrs. Fountain, wavering +between doubt and belief. + +"Goodness!--don't ask me." Miss Fountain shrugged her small shoulders. "I +don't keep a family ghost." + + * * * * * + +When at last Augustina had been settled in bed, and persuaded to take +some of her sleeping medicine, Laura was bidding her good-night, when +Mrs. Fountain said, "Oh! I forgot, Laura--there was a letter brought in +for you from the post-office, by Wilson this afternoon--he gave it to +Mrs. Denton, and she forgot it till after dinner----" + +"Of course--because it was mine," said Laura vindictively. "Where is it?" + +"On the drawing-room chimney-piece." + +"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck." + +"Oh! no--it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study." + +Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consulting +her watch. + +For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall in +with Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself had +anyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were in +tumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, her +brain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which she +had observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of that +conversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while she +was by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before? +Well!--if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send her +away--by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, was +in all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to lead +her life as she pleased. + +Nevertheless--as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle in +her hand--Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping. +During the months following her father's death, these agonies of crying +had come upon her night after night--unseen by any human being. She felt +now the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't have +this excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "No +nerves would stand it." + +A light under the library door. Well and good. How--she wondered--did he +occupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice she +had heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock. + +Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door, +and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp still +burned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr. +Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture of +astonishment. + +Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. +Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here." + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing. + +"Augustina told me there was a letter for me this evening." + +"Of course. It is here on the mantelpiece. I ought to have remembered +it." + +He took up the letter and held it towards her. Then suddenly he paused, +and sharply withdrawing it, he placed it on a table beside him, and laid +his hand upon it. She saw a flash of quick resolution in his face, and +her own pulses gave a throb. + +"Miss Fountain, will you excuse my detaining you for a moment? I have +been thinking much about this old man's story, and the possible +explanation of it. It struck me in a very singular way. As you know, I +have never paid much attention to the ghost story here--we have never +before had a testimony so direct. Is it possible--that you might throw +some light upon it? You left us, you remember, after dinner. Did you by +chance go into the garden?--the evening was tempting, I think. If so, +your memory might possibly recall to you some--slight thing." + +"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "I did go into the garden." + +His eye gleamed. He came a step nearer. + +"Did you see or hear anything--to explain what happened?" + +She did not answer for a moment. She made a vague movement, as though to +recover her letter--looked curiously into a glass case that stood beside +her, containing a few Stuart relics and autographs. Then, with absolute +self-possession, she turned and confronted him, one hand resting on the +glass case. + +"Yes; I can explain it all. I was the ghost!" + +There was a moment's silence. A smile--a smile that she winced under, +showed itself on Helbeck's lip. + +"I imagined as much," he said quietly. + +She stood there, torn by different impulses. Then a passion of annoyance +with herself, and anger with him, descended on her. + +"Now perhaps you would like to know why I concealed it?" she said, with +all the dignity she could command. "Simply, because I had gone out to +meet and say good-bye to a person--who is my relation--whom I cannot meet +in this house, and against whom there is here an unreasonable--" She +hesitated; then resumed, leaning obstinately on the words--"Yes! take it +all in all, it _is_ an unreasonable prejudice." + +"You mean Mr. Hubert Mason?" + +She nodded. + +"You think it an unreasonable prejudice after what happened the other +night?" + +She wavered. + +"I don't want to defend what happened the other night," she said, while +her voice shook. + +Helbeck observed her carefully. There was a great decision in his manner, +and at the same time a fine courtesy. + +"You knew, then, that he was to be in the park? Forgive my questions. +They are not mere curiosity." + +"Perhaps not," she said indifferently. "But I think I have told you all +that needs to be told. May I have my letter?" + +She stepped forward. + +"One moment. I wonder, Miss Fountain,"--he chose his words slowly--"if I +could make you understand my position. It is this. My sister brings a +young lady, her stepdaughter, to stay under my roof. That young lady +happens to be connected with a family in this neighbourhood, which is +already well known to me. For some of its members I have nothing but +respect--about one I happen to have a strong opinion. I have reasons, for +my opinion. I imagine that very few people of any way of thinking would +hold me either unreasonable or prejudiced in the matter. Naturally, it +gives me some concern that a young lady towards whom I feel a certain +responsibility should be much seen with this young man. He is not her +equal socially, and--pardon me--she knows nothing at all about the type +to which he belongs. Indirectly I try to warn her. I speak to my sister +as gently as I can. But from the first she rejects all I have to say--she +gives me credit for no good intention--and she will have none of my +advice. At last a disagreeable incident happens--and unfortunately the +knowledge of it is not confined to ourselves----" + +Laura threw him a flashing look. + +"No!--there are people who have taken care of that!" she said. + +Helbeck took no notice. + +"It is known not only to ourselves," he repeated steadily. "It starts +gossip. My sister is troubled. She asks you to put an end to this state +of things, and she consults me, feeling that indeed we are all in some +way concerned." + +"Oh, say at once that I have brought scandal on you all!" cried Laura. +"That of course is what Sister Angela and Father Bowles have been saying +to Augustina. They are pleased to show the greatest anxiety about me--so +much so, that they most kindly wish to relieve me of the charge of +Augustina.--So I understand! But I fear I am neither docile nor +grateful!--that I never shall be grateful----" + +Helbeck interrupted. + +"Let us come to that presently. I should like to finish my story. While +my sister and I are consulting, trying to think of all that can be done +to stop a foolish talk and undo an unlucky incident, this same young +lady"--his voice took a cold clearness--"steals out by night to keep an +appointment with this man, who has already done her so great a +disservice. Now I should like to ask her, if all this is kind--is +reasonable--is generous towards the persons with whom she is at present +living--if such conduct is not"--he paused--"unwise towards +herself--unjust towards others." + +His words came out with a strong and vibrating emphasis. Laura confronted +him with crimson cheeks. + +"I think that will do, Mr. Helbeck!" she cried. "You have had your +say.--Now just let me say this,--these people were my relations--I have +no other kith and kin in the world." + +He made a quick step forward as though in distress. But she put up her +hand. + +"I want very much to say this, please. I knew perfectly well when I came +here that you couldn't like the Masons--for many reasons." Her voice +broke again. "You never liked Augustina's marriage--you weren't likely to +want to see anything of papa's people. I didn't ask you to see them. All +my standards and theirs are different from yours. But I prefer +theirs--not yours! I have nothing to do with yours. I was brought +up--well, to _hate_ yours--if one must tell the truth." + +She paused, half suffocated, her chest heaving. Helbeck's glance +enveloped her--took in the contrast between her violent words and the +shrinking delicacy of her small form. A great melting stole over the +man's dark face. But he spoke dryly enough. + +"I imagine the standards of Protestants and Catholics are pretty much +alike in matters of this kind. But don't let us waste time any more over +what has already happened. I should like, I confess, to plead with you as +to the future." + +He looked at her kindly, even entreatingly. All through this scene she +had been unwittingly, angrily conscious of his personal dignity and +charm--a dignity that seemed to emerge in moments of heightened action or +feeling, and to slip out of sight again under the absent hermit-manner of +his ordinary life. She was smarting under his words--ready to concentrate +a double passion of resentment upon them, as soon as she should be alone +and free to recall them. And yet---- + +"As to the future," she said coldly. "That is simple enough as far as one +person is concerned. Hubert Mason is going to Froswick immediately, into +business." + +"I am glad to hear it--it will be very much for his good." + +He stopped a moment, searching for the word of persuasion and +conciliation. + +"Miss Fountain!--if you imagine that certain incidents which happened +here long before you came into this neighbourhood had anything to do with +what I have been saying now, let me assure you--most earnestly--that it +is not so! I recognise fully that with regard to a certain case--of which +you may have heard--the Masons and their friends honestly believed that +wrong and injustice had been done. They attempted personal violence. I +can hardly be expected to think it argument! But I bear them no malice. I +say this because you may have heard of something that happened three or +four years ago--a row in the streets, when Father Bowles and I were set +upon. It has never weighed with me in the slightest, and I could have +shaken hands with old Mason--who was in the crowd, and refused to stop +the stone throwing--the day after. As for Mrs. Mason"--he looked up with +a smile--"if she could possibly have persuaded herself to come with her +daughter and see you here, my welcome would not have been wanting. But, +you know, she would as soon visit Gehenna! Nobody could be more conscious +than I, Miss Fountain, that this is a dreary house for a young lady to +live in--and----" + +The colour mounted into his face, but he did not shrink from what he +meant to say. + +"And you have made us all feel that you regard the practices and +observances by which we try to fill and inspire our lives, as mere +hateful folly and superstition!" He checked himself. "Is that too +strong?" he added, with a sudden eagerness. "If so, I apologise for and +withdraw it!" + +Laura, for a moment, was speechless. Then she gathered her forces, and +said, with a voice she in vain tried to compose: + +"I think you exaggerate, Mr. Helbeck; at any rate, I hope you do. But the +fact is, I--I ought not to have tried to bear it. Considering all that +had happened at home--it was more than I had strength for! And +perhaps--no good will come of going on with it--and it had better cease. +Mr. Helbeck!--if your Superior can really find a good nurse and companion +at once, will you kindly communicate with her? I will go to Cambridge +immediately, as soon as I can arrange with my friends. Augustina, no +doubt, will come and stay with me somewhere at the sea, later on in the +year." + +Helbeck had been listening to her--to the sharp determination of her +voice--in total silence. He was leaning against the high mantelpiece, and +his face was hidden from her. As she ceased to speak, he turned, and his +mere aspect beat down the girl's anger in a moment. He shook his head +sadly. + +"Dr. MacBride stopped me on the bridge yesterday, as he was coming away +from the house." + +Laura drew back. Her eyes fastened upon him. + +"He thinks her in a serious state. We are not to alarm her, or interfere +with her daily habits. There is valvular disease--as I think you +know--and it has advanced. Neither he nor anyone can forecast." + +The girl's head fell. She recognised that the contest was over. She could +not go; she could not leave Augustina; and the inference was clear. There +had not been a word of menace, but she understood. Mr. Helbeck's will +must prevail. She had brought this humiliating half-hour on herself--and +she would have to bear the consequences of it. She moved towards Helbeck. + +"Well then, I must stay," she said huskily, "and I must try to--to +remember where I am in future. I ought to be able to hide everything I +feel--of course! But that unfortunately is what I never learnt. +And--there are some ways of life--that--that are too far apart. +However!"--she raised her hand to her brow, frowned, and thought a +little--"I can't make any promise about my cousins, Mr. Helbeck. _I_ know +perfectly well--whatever may be said--that I have done nothing whatever +to be ashamed of. I have wanted to--to help my cousin. He is worth +helping--in spite of everything--and I _will_ help him, if I can! But if +I am to remain your guest, I see that I must consult your wishes----" + +Helbeck tried again to stop her with a gesture, but she hurried on. + +"As far as this house and neighbourhood are concerned, no one shall have +any reason--to talk." + +Then she threw her head back with a sudden flush. + +"Of course, if people are born to say and think ill-natured things!--like +Mrs. Denton----" + +Helbeck exclaimed. + +"I will see to that," he said. "You shall have no reason to complain, +there." + +Laura shrugged her shoulders. + +"Will you kindly give me my letter?" + +As he handed it to her, she made him a little bow, walked to the door +before he could open it for her, and was gone. + +Helbeck turned back, with a smothered exclamation. He put the lamps out, +and went slowly to his study. + + * * * * * + +As the master of Bannisdale closed the door of his library behind him, +the familiar room produced upon him a sharp and singular impression. The +most sacred and the most critical hours of his life had been passed +within its walls. As he entered it now, it seemed to repulse him, to be +no longer his. + +The room was not large. It was the old library of the house, and the +Helbecks in their palmiest days had never been a literary race. There was +a little seventeenth century theology; and a few English classics. There +were the French books of Helbeck's grandmother--"Madame," as she was +always known at Bannisdale; and amongst them the worn brown volumes of +St. François de Sales, with the yellowish paper slips that Madame had put +in to mark her favourite passages, somewhere in the days of the First +Empire. Near by were some stray military volumes, treatises on tactics +and fortification, that had belonged to a dashing young officer in the +Dillon Regiment, close to some "Epîtres Amoureux," a translation of +"Daphnis and Chloe," and the like--all now sunk together into the same +dusty neglect. + +On the wall above Helbeck's writing-table were ranged the books that had +been his mother's, together with those that he himself habitually used. +Here every volume was an old friend, a familiar tool. Alan Helbeck was +neither a student nor a man of letters; but he had certain passionate +prejudices, instincts, emotions, of which some books were the source and +sustenance. + +For the rest--during some years he had been a member of the Third Order +of St. Francis, and in its other features the room was almost the room of +a religious. A priedieu stood against the inner wall, and a crucifix hung +above it. A little further on was a small altar of St. Joseph with its +pictures, its statuette, and its candles; and a poor lithograph of Pio +Nono looked down from the mantelpiece. The floor was almost bare, save +for a few pieces of old matting here and there. The worn Turkey carpet +that had formerly covered it had been removed to make the drawing-room +comfortable for Augustina; so had most of the chairs. Those left were of +the straightest and hardest. + +In that dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most +intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a +strange sense of wrench--of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went +to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his +watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay upon it. + +The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection of +passages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of his +mother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst. + +On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copied +from one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritual +exercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it. + +"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, my +only good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heart +from every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thy +holy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to please +Thee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Thee +to come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance all +those effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce in +me._" + +He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Then +slowly he turned back to an earlier page-- + +"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must not +be under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first and +chiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul._" + +A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began to +pace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind, +and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle was +harder. The waves of rising passion broke through him. + +"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy to +have forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--to +have felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce with +me--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--she +knows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--I +knew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--from +the first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion for +her father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of me +and of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling for +Augustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two or +three points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps, +that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How she +loathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would sooner +die than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment to +command her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to the +utmost. Ah!" + +He stood still, and with an effort of iron resolution put from him the +fancies that were thronging on the brain. If it were possible for him to +conquer her, conceivable that he might win her--such a dream was +forbidden to him, Alan Helbeck, a thousandfold! Such a marriage would be +the destruction of innumerable schemes for the good of the Church, for +the perfecting of his own life. It would be the betrayal of great trusts, +the abandonment of great opportunities. "My life would centre in her. She +would come first--the Church second. Her nature would work on mine--not +mine on hers. Could I ever speak to her even of what I believe?--the very +alphabet of it is unknown to her. I shrink from proselytism. God forgive +me!--it is her wild pagan self that I love--that I desire----" + +The blast of human longing, human pain, was hard to meet--hard to subdue. +But the Catholic fought--and conquered. + +"I am not my own--I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man could +betray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord--to +his Church. The Church frowns on such a love--such marriages. She does +not forbid them--but they pain her heart. I have accepted her judgment +till now, without difficulty, without conflict. Now to obey is hard. But +I can obey--we are not asked impossibilities." + +He walked to the crucifix, and threw himself down before it. A midnight +stillness brooded over the house. + + * * * * * + +But far away, in an upper room, Laura Fountain had cried herself to +sleep--only to wake again and again, with the tears flooding her cheeks. +Was it merely a disagreeable and exciting scene she had gone through? +What was this new invasion of her life?--this new presence to the inward +eye of a form and look that at once drew her and repulsed her. A hundred +alien forces were threatening and pressing upon her--and out from the +very heart of them came this strange drawing--this magnetism--this +troubling misery. + +To be prisoned in Bannisdale--under Mr. Helbeck's roof--for months and +months longer--this thought was maddening to her. + +But when she imagined herself free to go--and far away once more from +this old and melancholy house--among congenial friends and scenes--she +was no happier than before. A little moan of anger and pain came, that +she stifled against her pillow, calling passionately on the sleep that +would, that must, chase all these phantoms of fatigue or excitement--and +give her back her old free self. + + + + +BOOK III + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"We shall get there in capital time--that's nice!" said Polly Mason, +putting down the little railway guide she had just purchased at Marsland +Station, with a general rustle of satisfaction. + +Polly indeed shone with good temper and new clothes. Her fringe--even +halved--was prodigious. Her cheap lemon-coloured gloves were cracking on +her large hands; and round her beflowered hat she had tied clouds on +clouds of white tulle, which to some extent softened the tans and +crimsons of her complexion. Her dress was of a stiff white cotton stuff, +that fell into the most startling folds and angles; and at every movement +of it, the starch rattled. + +On the opposite seat of the railway carriage was Laura Fountain--an open +book upon her knee that she was not reading. She made no answer, however, +to Polly's remark; the impression left by her attitude was that she took +no interest in it. Miss Fountain herself hardly seemed to have profited +much by that Westmoreland air whereof the qualities were to do so much +for Augustina. It was now June, the end of June, and Laura was certainly +paler, less blooming, than she had been in March. She seemed more +conscious; she was certainly less radiant. Whether her prettiness had +gained by the slight change, might be debated. Polly's eyes, indeed, as +they sped along, paid her cousin one long covetous tribute. The +difficulty that she always had in putting on her own clothes, and +softening her own physical points, made her the more conscious of Laura's +delicate ease, of all the yielding and graceful lines into which the +little black and white muslin frock fell so readily, of all that natural +kinship between Laura and her hats, Laura and her gloves, which poor +Polly fully perceived, knowing well and sadly that she herself could +never attain to it. + +Nevertheless--pretty, Miss Fountain might be; elegant she certainly was; +but Polly did not find her the best of companions for a festal day. They +were going to Froswick--the big town on the coast--to meet Hubert and +another young man, one Mr. Seaton, foreman in a large engineering +concern, whose name Polly had not been able to mention without bridling, +for some time past. + +It was more than a fortnight since the sister, driven by Hubert's +incessant letters, had proposed to Laura that they two should spend a +summer day at Froswick and see the great steel works on which the fame of +that place depended, escorted and entertained by the two young men. Laura +at first had turned a deaf ear. Then all at once--a very flare of +eagerness and acceptance!--a sudden choosing of day and train. And now +that they were actually on their way, with everything arranged, and a +glorious June sun above their heads, Laura was so silent, so reluctant, +so irritable--you might have thought---- + +Well!--Polly really did not know what to think. She was not quite happy +herself. From time to time, as her look dwelt on Laura, she was conscious +of certain guilty reserves and concealments in her own breast. She wished +Hubert had more sense--she hoped to goodness it would all go off nicely! +But of course it would. Polly was an optimist and took all things simply. +Her anxieties for Laura did not long resist the mere pleasure of the +journey and the trip, the flatteries of expectation. What a very +respectable and, on the whole, good-looking young man was Mr. Seaton! +Polly had met him first at the Browhead dance; so that what was a mere +black and ugly spot in Laura's memory shone rosy-red in her cousin's. + +Meanwhile Laura, mainly to avoid Polly's conversation, was looking hard +out of window. They were running along the southern shore of a great +estuary. Behind the loitering train rose the hills they had just left, +the hills that sheltered the stream and the woods of Bannisdale. That +rich, dark patch beneath the further brow was the wood in which the house +stood. To the north, across the bay, ran the line of high mountains, a +dim paradise of sunny slopes and steeps, under the keenest and brightest +of skies--blue ramparts from which the gently opening valleys flowed +downwards, one beside the other, to the estuary and the sea. + +Not that the great plunging sea itself was much to be seen as yet. +Immediately beyond the railway line stretched leagues of firm reddish +sand, pierced by the innumerable channels of the Greet. The sun lay hot +and dazzling on the wide flat surfaces, on the flocks of gulls, on the +pools of clear water. The window was open, and through the June heat +swept a sharp, salt breath. Laura, however, felt none of the physical +exhilaration that as a rule overflowed in her so readily. Was it because +the Bannisdale Woods were still visible? What made the significance of +that dark patch to the girl's restless eye? She came back to it again and +again. It was like a flag, round which a hundred warring thoughts had +come to gather. + +Why? + +Were not she and Mr. Helbeck on the best of terms? Was not Augustina +quite pleased--quite content? "I always knew, my dear Laura, that you and +Alan would get on, in time. Why, anyone could get on with Alan--he's so +kind!" When these things were said, Laura generally laughed. She did not +remind Mrs. Fountain that she, at one time of her existence, had not +found it particularly easy and simple to "get on with Alan"; but the girl +did once allow herself the retort--"It's not so easy to quarrel, is it, +when you don't see a person from week's end to week's end?" "Week's end +to week's end?" Mrs. Fountain repeated vaguely. "Yes--Alan is away a +great deal--people trust him so much--he has so much business." + +Laura was of opinion that his first business might very well have been to +see a little more of his widowed sister! She and Augustina spent days and +days alone, while Mr. Helbeck pursued the affairs of the Church. One +precious attempt indeed had been made to break the dulness of Bannisdale. +Miss Fountain's cheeks burned when she thought of it. There had been an +afternoon party! though Augustina's widowhood was barely a year old! Mrs. +Fountain had been sent about the country delivering notes and cards. And +the result:--oh, such a party!--such an interminable afternoon! Where had +the people come from?--who were they? If Polly, full of curiosity, asked +for some details, Laura would toss her head and reply that she knew +nothing at all about it; that Mrs. Denton had provided bad tea and worse +cakes, and the guests had "filled their chairs," and there was nothing +else to say. Mr. Helbeck's shyness and efforts; the glances of appeal he +threw every now and then towards his sister; his evident depression when +the thing was done--these things were not told to Polly. There was a +place for them in the girl's sore mind; but they did not come to speech. +Anyway she believed--nay, was quite sure--that Bannisdale would not be so +tried a second time. For whose benefit was it done?--whose! + +One evening---- + +As the train crossed the bridge of the estuary, from one stretch of hot +sand to another, Laura, staring at the view, saw really nothing but an +image of the mind, felt nothing except what came through the magic of +memory. + +The hall of Bannisdale, with the lingering daylight of the north still +coming in at ten o'clock through the uncurtained oriel windows--herself +at the piano, Augustina on the settle--a scent of night and flowers +spreading through the dim place from the open windows of the drawing-room +beyond. One candle is beside her--and there are strange glints of +moonlight here and there on the panelling. A tall figure enters from the +chapel passage. Augustina makes room on the settle--the Squire leans back +and listens. And the girl at the piano plays; the stillness and the night +seem to lay releasing hands upon her; bonds that have been stifling and +cramping the soul break down; she plays with all her self, as she might +have talked or wept to a friend--to her father.... And at last, in a +pause, the Squire puts a new candle beside her, and his deep shy voice +commends her, asks her to go on playing. Afterwards, there is a pleasant +and gentle talk for half an hour--Augustina can hardly be made to go to +bed--and when at last she rises, the girl's small hand slips into the +man's, is lost there, feels a new lingering touch, from which both +withdraw in almost equal haste. And the night, for the girl, is broken +with restlessness, with wild efforts to draw the old fetters tight again, +to clamp and prison something that flutters--that struggles. + +Then next morning, there is an empty chair at the breakfast table. "The +Squire left early on business." Without any warning--any courteous +message? One evening at home, after a long absence, and then--off again! +A good Catholic, it seems, lives in the train, and makes himself the +catspaw of all who wish to use him for their own ends! + +... As to that old peasant, Scarsbrook, what could be more arbitrary, +more absurd, than Mr. Helbeck's behaviour? The matter turns out to be +serious. Fright blanches the old fellow's beard and hair; he takes to his +bed, and the doctor talks of severe "nervous shock"--very serious, often +deadly, at the patient's age. Why not confess everything at once, set +things straight, free the poor shaken mind from its oppression? Who's +afraid?--what harm is there in an after-dinner stroll? + +But there!--truth apparently is what no one wants, what no one will +have--least of all, Mr. Helbeck. She sees a meeting in the park, under +the oaks--the same tall man and the girl--the girl bound impetuously for +confession, and the soothing of old Scarsbrook's terrors once for +all--the man standing in the way, as tough and prickly as one of his own +hawthorns. Courtesy, of course! there is no one can make courtesy so +galling; and then such a shooting out of will and personality, so sudden, +so volcanic a heat of remonstrance! And a woman is such a poor ill-strung +creature, even the boldest of them! She yields when she should have +pressed forward--goes home to rage, when she should have stayed to +wrestle. + +Afterwards, another absence--the old house silent as the grave--and +Augustina so fretful, so wearisome! But she is better, much better. How +unscrupulous are doctors, and those other persons who make them say +exactly what suits the moment! + +The dulness seems to grow with the June heat. Soon it becomes +intolerable. Nobody comes, nobody speaks; no mind offers itself to yours +for confidence and sympathy. Well, but change and excitement of some sort +one _must_ have!--who is to blame, if you get it where you can? + +A day in Froswick with Hubert Mason? Yes--why not? Polly proposes it--has +proposed it once or twice before to no purpose. For two months now the +young man has been in training. Polly writes to him often; Laura +sometimes wonders whether the cross-examinations through which Polly puts +her may not partly be for Hubert's benefit. She herself has written twice +to him in answer to some half-dozen letters, has corrected his song for +him--has played altogether a very moral and sisterly part. Is the youth +really in love? Perhaps. Will it do him any harm? + +Augustina of course dislikes the prospect of the Froswick day. But, +really, Augustina must put up with it! The Reverend Mother will come for +the afternoon, and keep her company. Such civility of late on the part of +all the Catholic friends of Bannisdale towards Miss Fountain!--a civility +always on the watch, week by week, day by day--that never yields itself +for an instant, has never a human impulse, an unguarded tone. Father +Leadham is there one day--he makes a point of talking with Miss Fountain. +He leads the conversation to Cambridge, to her father--his keen glance +upon her all the time, the hidden life of the convert and the mystic +leaping every now and then to the surface, and driven down again by a +will that makes itself felt--even by so cool a listener--as a living +tyrannous thing, developed out of all proportion to, nay at the cruel +expense of, the rest of the personality. Yet it is no will of the man's +own--it is the will of his order, of his faith. And why these repeated +stray references to Bannisdale--to its owner--to the owner's goings and +comings? They are hardly questions, but they might easily have done the +work of questions had the person addressed been willing. Laura laughs to +think of it. + +Ah! well--but discretion to-day, discretion to-morrow, discretion always, +is not the most amusing of diets. How dumb, how tame, has she become! +There is no one to fight with, nothing whereon to let loose the +sharp-edged words and sayings that lie so close behind the girl's shut +lips. How amazing that one should positively miss those fuller activities +in the chapel that depend on the Squire's presence! Father Bowles says +Mass there twice a week; the light still burns before the altar; several +times a day Augustina disappears within the heavy doors. But when Mr. +Helbeck is at home, the place becomes, as it were, the strong heart of +the house. It beats through the whole organism; so that no one can ignore +or forget it. + +What is it that makes the difference when he returns? Unwillingly, the +mind shapes its reply. A sense of unity and law comes back into the +house--a hidden dignity and poetry. The Squire's black head carries with +it stern reminders, reminders that challenge or provoke; but "he nothing +common does nor mean," and smaller mortals, as the weeks go by, begin to +feel their hot angers and criticisms driven back upon themselves, to +realise the strange persistency and force of the religious life. + +Inhuman force! But force of any kind tends to draw, to conquer. More than +once Laura sees herself at night, almost on the steps of the chapel, in +the dark shadows of the passage--following Augustina. But she has never +yet mounted the steps--never passed the door. Once or twice she has +angrily snatched herself from listening to the distant voice. + +... Mr. Helbeck makes very little comment on the Froswick plan. One swift +involuntary look at breakfast, as who might say--"Our compact?" But there +was no compact. And go she will. + +And at last all opposition clears away. It must be Mr. Helbeck who has +silenced Augustina--for even she complains no more. Trains are looked +out; arrangements are made to fetch Polly from a half-way village; a fly +is ordered to meet the 9.10 train at night. Why does one feel a culprit +all through? Absurdity! Is one to be mewed up all one's life, to throw +over all fun and frolic at Mr. Helbeck's bidding--Mr. Helbeck, who now +scarcely sets foot in Bannisdale, who seems to have turned his back upon +his own house, since that precise moment when his sister and her +stepdaughter came to inhabit it? Never till this year was he restless in +this way--so says Mrs. Denton, whose temper grows shorter and shorter. + +Oh--as to fun and frolic! The girl yawns as she looks out of window. What +a long hot day it is going to be--and how foolish are all expeditions, +all formal pleasures! 9.10 at Marsland--about seven, she supposes, at +Froswick? Already her thoughts are busy, hungrily busy with the evening, +and the return. + + * * * * * + +The train sped along. They passed a little watering-place under the steep +wooded hills--a furnace of sun on this hot June day, in winter a soft and +sheltered refuge from the north. Further on rose the ruins of a great +Cistercian abbey, great ribs and arches of red sandstone, that still, in +ruin, made the soul and beauty of a quiet valley; then a few busy towns +with mills and factories, the fringe of that industrial district which +lies on the southern and western border of the Lake Country; more wide +valleys sweeping back into blue mountains; a wealth of June leaf and +blossoming tree; and at last docks and buildings, warehouses and "works," +a network of spreading railway lines, and all the other signs of an +important and growing town. The train stopped amid a crowd, and Polly +hurried to the door. + +"Why, Hubert!--Mr. Seaton!--Here we are!" + +She beckoned wildly, and not a few passers-by turned to look at the +nodding clouds of tulle. + +"We shall find them, Polly--don't shout," said Laura behind her, in some +disgust. + +Shout and beckon, however, Polly did and would, till the two young men +were finally secured. + +"Why, Hubert, you never towd me what a big place 'twas," said Polly +joyously. "Lor, Mr. Seaton, doant fash yoursel. This is Miss Fountain--my +cousin. You'll remember her, I knaw." + +Mr. Seaton began a polite and stilted speech while possessing himself of +Polly's shawl and bag. He was a very superior young man of the clerk or +foreman type, somewhat ill put together at the waist, with a flat back to +his head, and a cadaverous countenance. Laura gave him a rapid look. But +her chief curiosity was for Hubert. And at her first glance she saw the +signs of that strong and silent process perpetually going on amongst us +that tames the countryman to the life and habits of the town. It was only +a couple of months since the young athlete from the fells had been +brought within its sway, and already the marks of it were evident in +dress, speech, and manner. The dialect was almost gone; the black Sunday +coat was of the most fashionable cut that Froswick could provide; and as +they walked along, Laura detected more than once in the downcast eyes of +her companion, a stealthy anxiety as to the knees of his new grey +trousers. So far the change was not an embellishment. The first loss of +freedom and rough strength is never that. But it roused the girl's +notice, and a sort of secret sympathy. She too had felt the curb of an +alien life!--she could almost have held out her hand to him as to a +comrade in captivity. + +Outside the station, to Laura's surprise--considering the object of the +expedition--Hubert made a sign to his sister, and they two dropped behind +a little. + +"What's the matter with her?" said Hubert abruptly, as soon as he judged +that they were out of hearing of the couple in front. + +"Who do you mean? Laura? Why, she's well enoof!" + +"Then she don't look it. She's fretting. What's wrong with her?" + +As Hubert looked down upon his sister, Polly was startled by the +impatient annoyance of look and manner. And how red-rimmed and weary were +the lad's eyes! You might have thought he had not slept for a week. +Polly's mind ran through a series of conjectures; and she broke out with +Westmoreland plainness-- + +"Hubert, I do wish tha wouldn't be sich a fool! I've towd tha so times +and times." + +"Aye, and you may tell me so till kingdom come--I shan't mind you," he +said doggedly. "There's something between her and the Squire, I know +there is. I know it by the look of her." + +Polly laughed. + +"How you jump! I tell tha she never says a word aboot him." + +Hubert looked moodily at Laura's little figure in front. + +"All the more reason!" he said between his teeth. "She'd talk about him +when she first came. But I'll find out--never fear." + +"For goodness' sake, Hubert, let her be!" said Polly, entreating. "Sich +wild stuff as thoo's been writin me! Yan might ha thowt yo'd be fer +cuttin yor throat, if yo' didn't get her doon here.--What art tha thinkin +of, lad? She'll never marry tha! She doan't belong to us--and there's noa +undoin it." + +Hubert made no reply, but unconsciously his muscular frame took a +passionate rigidity; his face became set and obstinate. + +"Well, you keep watch," he said. "You'll see--I'll make it worth your +while." + +Polly looked up--half laughing. She understood his reference to herself +and her new sweetheart. Hubert would play her game if she would play his. +Well--she had no objection whatever to help him to the sight of Laura +when she could. Polly's moral sense was not over-delicate, and as to the +upshot and issues of things, her imagination moved but slowly. She did +not like to let herself think of what might have been Hubert's relations +to women--to one or two wild girls about Whinthorpe for instance. But +Laura--Laura who was so much their social better, whose manners and +self-possession awed them both, what smallest harm could ever come to her +from any act or word of Hubert's? For this rustic Westmoreland girl, +Laura Fountain stood on a pedestal robed and sceptred like a little +queen. Hubert was a fool to fret himself--a fool to go courting some one +too high for him. What else was there to say or think about it? + +At the next street corner Laura made a resolute stop. Polly should not +any longer be defrauded of her Mr. Seaton. Besides she, Laura, wished to +talk to Hubert. Mr. Beaton's long words, and way of mouthing his highly +correct phrases, had already seemed to take the savour out of the +morning. + +When the exchange was made--Mr. Seaton alas! showing less eagerness than +might have been expected--Laura quietly examined her companion. It seemed +to her that he was taller than ever; surely she was not much higher than +his elbow! Hubert, conscious that he was being scrutinised, turned red, +looked away, coughed, and apparently could find nothing to say. + +"Well--how are you getting on?" said the light voice, sending its +vibration through all the man's strong frame. + +"I suppose I'm getting on all right," he said, switching at the railings +beside the road with his stick. + +"What sort of work do you do?" + +He gave her a stumbling account, from which she gathered that he was for +the time being the factotum of an office, sent on everybody's errands, +and made responsible for everybody's shortcomings. + +She threw him a glance of pity. This young Hercules, with his open-air +traditions, and his athlete's triumphs behind him, turned into the butt +and underling of half a dozen clerks in a stuffy office! + +"I don't mind," he said hastily. "All the others paid for their places; I +didn't pay for mine. I'll be even with them all some day. It was the +chance I wanted, and my uncle gives me a lift now and then. It was to +please him they gave me the berth; he's worth thousands and thousands a +year to them!" + +And he launched into a boasting account of the importance and abilities +of his uncle, Daniel Mason, who was now managing director of the great +shipbuilding yard into which Hubert had been taken, as a favour to his +kinsman. + +"He began at the bottom, same as me--only he was younger than me," said +Hubert, "so he had the pull. But you'll see, I'll work up. I've learnt a +lot since I've been here. The classes at the Institute--well, they're +fine!" + +Laura showed an astonished glance. New sides of the lad seemed to be +revealing themselves. + +She inquired after his music. But he declared he was too busy to think of +it. By-and-by in the winter he would have lessons. There was a violin +class at the Institute--perhaps he'd join that. Then abruptly, staring +down upon her with his wide blue eyes-- + +"And how have you been getting on with the Squire?" + +He thought she started, but couldn't be quite sure. + +"Getting on with the Squire? Why, capitally! Whenever he's there to get +on with." + +"What--he's been away?" he said eagerly. + +She raised her shoulders. + +"He's always away----" + +"Why, I thought they'd have made a Papist of you by now," he said. + +His laugh was rough, but his eyes held her with a curious insistence. + +"Think something more reasonable, please, next time! Now, where are we +going to lunch?" + +"We've got it all ready. But we must see the yard first.... Miss +Fountain--Laura--I've got that flower you gave me." + +His voice was suddenly hoarse. + +She glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows. + +"Very foolish of you, I'm sure.... Now do tell me, how did you get off so +early?" + +He sulkily explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own +yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in +order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on +night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his +days. But she paid small attention. She was occupied in looking at the +new buildings and streets, the brand new squares and statues of Froswick. + +"How can people build and live in such ugly places?" she said at last, +standing still that she might stare about her--"when there are such +lovely things in the world; Cambridge, for instance--or--Bannisdale." + +The last word slipped out, dreamily, unaware. + +The lad's face flushed furiously. + +"I don't know what there is to see in Bannisdale," he said hotly. "It's a +damp, dark, beastly hole of a place." + +"I prefer Bannisdale to this, thank you," said Laura, making a little +face at the very ample bronze gentleman in a frock coat who was standing +in the centre of a great new-built empty square, haranguing a phantom +crowd. "Oh! how ugly it is to succeed--to have money!" + +Mason looked at her with a half-puzzled frown--a frown that of late had +begun to tease his handsome forehead habitually. + +"What's the harm of having a bit of brass?" he said angrily. "And what's +the beauty o' livin in an old ramshackle place, without a sixpence in +your pocket, and a pride fit to bring you to the workhouse!" + +Laura's little mouth showed amusement, an amusement that stung. She +lifted a little fan that hung at her girdle. + +"Is there any shade in Froswick?" she said, looking round her. + +Mason was silenced, and as Polly and Mr. Seaton joined them, he recovered +his temper with a mighty effort and once more set himself to do the +honours--the slighted honours--of his new home. + +... But oh! the heat of the ship-building yard. Laura was already tired +and faint, and could hardly drag her feet up and down the sides of the +great skeleton ships that lay building in the docks, or through the +interminable "fitting" sheds with their piles of mahogany and teak, their +whirring lathes and saws, their heaps of shavings, their resinous wood +smell. And yet the managing director appeared in person for twenty +minutes, a thin, small, hawk-eyed man, not at all unwilling to give a +brief patronage to the young lady who might be said to link the houses of +Mason and Helbeck in a flattering equality. + +"He wad never ha doon it for _us_!" Polly whispered in her awe to Miss +Fountain. "It's you he's affther!" + +Laura, however, was not grateful. She took her industrial lesson ill, +with much haste and inattention, so that once when the director and his +nephew fell behind, the great man, whose speech to his kinsman in private +was often little less broad than Mrs. Mason's own--said scornfully: + +"An I doan't think much o' your fine cousin, mon! she's nobbut a flighty +miss." + +The young man said nothing. He was still slavishly ill at ease with his +uncle, on whose benevolence all his future depended. + +"Is there something more to see?" said Laura languidly. + +"Only the steel works," said Mr. Seaton, with a patronising smile. "You +young ladies, I presume, would hardly wish to go away without seeing our +chief establishment. Froswick Steel and Hematite Works employ three +thousand workmen." + +"Do they?--and does it matter?" said Laura, playing with the salt. + +She wore a little plaintive, tired air, which suited her soft paleness, +and made her extraordinarily engaging in the eyes of both the young men. +Mason watched her perpetually, anticipating her slightest movement, +waiting on her least want. And Mr. Seaton, usually so certain of his own +emotions and so wholly in command of them, began to feel himself +confused. It was with a distinct slackening of ardour that he looked from +Miss Fountain to Polly--his Polly, as he had almost come to think of her, +honest managing Polly, who would have a bit of "brass," and was in all +respects a tidy and suitable wife for such a man as he. But why had she +wrapped all that silly white stuff round her head? And her hands!--Mr. +Seaton slyly withdrew his eyes from Polly's reddened members to fix them +on the thin white wrist that Laura was holding poised in air, and the +pretty fingers twirling the salt spoon. + +Polly meantime sat up very straight, and was no longer talkative. Lunch +had not improved her complexion, as the mirror hanging opposite showed +her. Every now and then she too threw little restless glances across at +Laura. + +"Why, we needn't go to the works at all if we don't like," said Polly. +"Can't we get a fly, Hubert, and take a jaunt soomwhere?" + +Hubert bent forward with alacrity. Of course they could. If they went +four miles up the river or so, they would come to real nice country and a +farmhouse where they could have tea. + +"Well, I'm game," said Mr. Seaton, magnanimously slapping his pocket. +"Anything to please these ladies." + +"I don't know about that seven o'clock train," said Mason doubtfully. + +"Well, if we can't get that, there's a later one." + +"No, that's the last." + +"You may trust me," said Seaton pompously. "I know my way about a railway +guide. There's one a little after eight." + +Hubert shook his head. He thought Seaton was mistaken. But Laura settled +the matter. + +"Thank you--we'll not miss our train," she said, rising to put her hat +straight before the glass--"so it's the works, please. What is +it--furnaces and red-hot things?" + +In another minute or two they were in the street again. Mr. Seaton +settled the bill with a magnificent "Damn the expense" air, which annoyed +Mason--who was of course a partner in all the charges of the day--and +made Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk with +Miss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemer +process and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which the +little nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which he +found himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs of +Laura and Hubert hurrying along in front, amazed him. + +"Isn't she nice looking?" said poor Polly, as she too stared helplessly +at the distant pair. + +Her shawl weighed upon her arm, Mr. Seaton had forgotten to ask for it. +But there was a little sudden balm in the irritable vexation of his +reply: + +"Some people may be of that opinion, Miss Mason. I own I prefer a greater +degree of balance in the fair sex." + +"Oh! does he mean me?" thought Polly. + +And her spirits revived a little. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, as Laura and Hubert walked along to the desolate road that led +to the great steel works, Hubert knew a kind of jealous and tormented +bliss. She was there, fluttering beside him, her delicate face often +turned to him, her feet keeping step with his. And at the same time what +strong intangible barriers between them! She had put away her mocking +tone--was clearly determined to be kind and cousinly. Yet every word only +set the tides of love and misery swelling more strongly in the lad's +breast. "She doan't belong to us, an there's noa undoin it." Polly's +phrase haunted his ear. Yet he dared ask her no more questions about +Helbeck; small and frail as she was, she could wrap herself in an +unapproachable dignity; nobody had ever yet solved the mystery of Laura's +inmost feeling against her will; and Hubert knew despairingly that his +clumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of rage +that there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something to +know, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not for +his knowing. Ah! that man--that ugly starched hypocrite--after all had he +got hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain--this +pang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle--to that +canting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, he would crush +the life out of her in six months! + +There was a rush and whirl in the lad's senses. A cry of animal +jealousy--of violence--rose in his being. + + * * * * * + +"How wonderful!--how enchanting!" cried Laura, her glance sparkling, her +whole frame quivering with pleasure. + +They had just entered the great main shed of the steel works. The +foreman, who had been induced by the young men to take them through, was +in the act of placing Laura in the shelter of a brick screen, so as to +protect her from a glowing shower of sparks that would otherwise have +swept over her; and the girl had thrown a few startled looks around her. + +A vast shed, much of it in darkness, and crowded with dim forms of iron +and brick--at one end, and one side, openings, where the June day came +through. Within--a grandiose mingling of fire and shadow--a vast glare of +white or bluish flame from a huge furnace roaring against the inner wall +of the shed--sparks, like star showers, whirling through dark +spaces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire passing and +repassing, so that the heat of them scorched the girl's shrinking +cheek--and everywhere, dark against flame, the human movement answering +to the elemental leap and rush of the fire, black forms of men in a +constant activity, masters and ministers at once of this crackling terror +round about them. + +"Aye!" said their guide, answering the girl's questions as well as he +could in the roar--"that's the great furnace where they boil the steel. +Now you watch--when the flame--look! it's white now--turns blue--that +means the process is done--the steel's cooked. Then they'll bring the vat +beneath--turn the furnace over--you'll see the steel pour out." + +"Is that a railway?" + +She pointed to a raised platform in front of the furnace. A truck bearing +a high metal tub was running along it. + +"Yes--it's from there they feed the furnace--in a minute you'll see the +tub tip over." + +There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a great +jet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth had +swallowed down its prey. + +"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go so +close?" + +She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes. + +The foreman laughed. + +"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see the +furnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort and +the barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Stand +back!" + +He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter. + +Laura looked round her. + +"Where are the other two?" she asked. + +"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seaton +knows the man in charge of the testing workshop." + +Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her. +The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers of +sparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed the +stream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the fire +cup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; the +swarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--men +and trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillars +supporting it, all black against the glare---- + +Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But while +she hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. He +was conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in the +little clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in the +glow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wide +black hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The lad +took the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire. + +"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away with +a long breath. + +And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace, +pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travelling +slowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descended +and lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncovering +the four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they moved +across the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another was +lowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became the +prey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath, +to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Then +out again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in it +already half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to be +caught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at last +the quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent, +still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on, +and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort of +platform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, and +brought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerable +fellows, waiting for the market and its buyers. + +"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerly +to her guide--"just for a minute!" + +He smiled at her, unable to say no. + +And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The great +furnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing its +last change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured its +contents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderly +woman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for some +workmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace and +hiding from the sparks. + +Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to be +lowered--and the hell-broth is cooked once again, and will come streaming +forth. + +The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in the +intolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. An +electric bell rings. + +Then---- + +What was that? + +God!--what was that? + +A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewilderment +across her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward. + +"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason. + +But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyes +staring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the little +railway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarm +with running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full of +their cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive. + +Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come to +bring the tea rushed up to her. + +"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend the +heart. + +And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wild +broken words, which neither of them heard or knew. + + +END OF VOL. I + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I *** + +***** This file should be named 9441-8.txt or 9441-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/4/9441/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas +Berger, and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9441-8.zip b/9441-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..266555a --- /dev/null +++ b/9441-8.zip diff --git a/9441.txt b/9441.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a62b58 --- /dev/null +++ b/9441.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8029 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #9441] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 1, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas +Berger, and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +HELBECK OF BANNISDALE + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + + ... metus ille ... Acheruntis ... + Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo + + +In two volumes + +Vol. I. + + +To + +E. de V. + +In Memoriam + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I + +BOOK II + +BOOK III + + + + +BOOK I + + +CHAPTER I + +"I must be turning back. A dreary day for anyone coming fresh to these +parts!" + +So saying, Mr. Helbeck stood still--both hands resting on his thick +stick--while his gaze slowly swept the straight white road in front of +him and the landscape to either side. + +Before him stretched the marsh lands of the Flent valley, a broad +alluvial plain brought down by the rivers Flent and Greet on their way to +the estuary and the sea. From the slight rising ground on which he stood, +he could see the great peat mosses about the river-mouths, marked here +and there by lines of weather-beaten trees, or by more solid dots of +black which the eye of the inhabitant knew to be peat stacks. Beyond the +mosses were level lines of greyish white, where the looping rivers passed +into the sea--lines more luminous than the sky at this particular moment +of a damp March afternoon, because of some otherwise invisible radiance, +which, miles away, seemed to be shining upon the water, slipping down to +it from behind a curtain of rainy cloud. + +Nearer by, on either side of the high road which cut the valley from east +to west, were black and melancholy fields, half reclaimed from the peat +moss, fields where the water stood in the furrows, or a plough driven +deep and left, showed the nature of the heavy waterlogged earth, and the +farmer's despair of dealing with it, till the drying winds should come. +Some of it, however, had long before been reclaimed for pasture, so that +strips of sodden green broke up, here and there, the long stretches of +purple black. In the great dykes or drains to which the pastures were +due, the water, swollen with recent rain, could be seen hurrying to join +the rivers and the sea. The clouds overhead hurried like the dykes and +the streams. A perpetual procession from the north-west swept inland from +the sea, pouring from the dark distance of the upper valley, and blotting +out the mountains that stood around its head. + +A desolate scene, on this wild March day; yet full of a sort of beauty, +even so far as the mosslands were concerned. And as Alan Helbeck's glance +travelled along the ridge to his right, he saw it gradually rising from +the marsh in slopes, and scars, and wooded fells, a medley of lovely +lines, of pastures and copses, of villages clinging to the hills, each +with its church tower and its white spreading farms--a laud of homely +charm and comfort, gently bounding the marsh below it, and cut off by the +seething clouds in the north-west from the mountains towards which it +climbed. And as he turned homewards with the moss country behind him, the +hills rose and fell about him in soft undulation more and more rich in +wood, while beside him roared the tumbling Greet, with its flood-voice--a +voice more dear and familiar to Alan Helbeck perhaps, at this moment of +his life, than the voice of any human being. + +He walked fast with his shoulders thrown back, a remarkably tall man, +with a dark head and short grizzled beard. He held himself very erect, as +a soldier holds himself; but he had never been a soldier. + +Once in his rapid course, he paused to look at his watch, then hurried +on, thinking. + +"She stipulates that she is never to be expected to come to prayers," he +repeated to himself, half smiling. "I suppose she thinks of herself as +representing her father--in a nest of Papists. Evidently Augustina has no +chance with her--she has been accustomed to reign! Well, we shall let her +'gang her gait.'" + +His mouth, which was full and strongly closed, took a slight expression +of contempt. As he turned over a bridge, and then into his own gate on +the further side, he passed an old labourer who was scraping the mud from +the road. + +"Have you seen any carriage go by just lately, Reuben?" + +"Noa--" said the man. "Theer's been none this last hour an more--nobbut +carts, an t' Whinthrupp bus." + +Helbeck's pace slackened. He had been very solitary all day, and even the +company of the old road-sweeper was welcome. + +"If we don't get some drying days soon, it'll be bad for all of us, won't +it, Reuben?" + +"Aye, it's a bit clashy," said the man, with stolidity, stopping to spit +into his hands a moment, before resuming his work. + +The mildness of the adjective brought another half-smile to Helbeck's +dark face. A stranger watching it might have wondered, indeed, whether it +could smile with any fulness or spontaneity. + +"But you don't see any good in grumbling--is that it?" + +"Noa--we'se not git ony profit that gate, I reckon," said the old man, +laying his scraper to the mud once more. + +"Well, good-night to you. I'm expecting my sister to-night, you know, my +sister Mrs. Fountain, and her stepdaughter." + +"Eh?" said Reuben slowly. "Then yo'll be hevin cumpany, fer shure. +Good-neet to ye, Misther Helbeck." + +But there was no great cordiality in his tone, and he touched his cap +carelessly, without any sort of unction. The man's manner expressed +familiarity of long habit, but little else. + +Helbeck turned into his own park. The road that led up to the house wound +alongside the river, whereof the banks had suddenly risen into a craggy +wildness. All recollection of the marshland was left behind. The ground +mounted on either side of the stream towards fell-tops, of which the +distant lines could be seen dimly here and there behind the crowding +trees; while, at some turns of the road, where the course of the Greet +made a passage for the eye, one might look far away to the same mingled +blackness of cloud and scar that stood round the head of the estuary. +Clearly the mountains were not far off; and this was a border country +between their ramparts and the sea. + +The light of the March evening was dying, dying in a stormy greyness that +promised more rain for the morrow. Yet the air was soft, and the spring +made itself felt. In some sheltered places by the water, one might +already see a shimmer of buds; and in the grass of the wild untended +park, daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eye +and ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds that +haunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping to +its new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed creeper +moving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a silent and +jealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards other things +and forces in his life. + +As he walked, the manner of the old peasant rankled a little in his +memory. For it implied, if not disrespect, at least a complete absence of +all that the French call "consideration." + +"It's strange how much more alone I've felt in this place of late than I +used to feel," was Helbeck's reflection upon it, at last. "I reckon it's +since I sold the Leasowes land. Or is it perhaps----" + +He fell into a reverie marked by a frowning expression, and a harsh +drawing down of the mouth. But gradually as he swung along, muttered +words began to escape him, and his hand went to a book that he carried in +his pocket.--"_O dust, learn of Me to obey! Learn of Me, O earth and +clay, to humble thyself, and to cast thyself under the feet of all men +for the love of Me._"--As he murmured the words, which soon became +inaudible, his aspect cleared, his eyes raised themselves again to the +landscape, and became once more conscious of its growth and life. + +Presently he reached a gate across the road, where a big sheepdog sprang +out upon him, leaping and barking joyously. Beyond the gates rose a low +pile of buildings, standing round three sides of a yard. They had once +been the stables of the Hall. Now they were put to farm uses, and through +the door of what had formerly been a coachhouse with a coat of arms +worked in white pebbles on its floor, a woman could be seen milking. +Helbeck looked in upon her. + +"No carriage gone by yet, Mrs. Tyson?" + +"Noa, sir," said the woman. "But I'll mebbe prop t' gate open, for it's +aboot time." And she put down her pail. + +"Don't move!" said Helbeck hastily. "I'll do it myself." + +The woman, as she milked, watched him propping the ruinous gate with a +stone; her expression all the time friendly and attentive. His own +people, women especially, somehow always gave him this attention. + +Helbeck hurried forward over a road, once stately, and now badly worn and +ill-mended. The trees, mostly oaks of long growth, which had accompanied +him since the entrance of the park, thickened to a close wood around till +of a sudden he emerged from them, and there, across a wide space, rose a +grey gabled house, sharp against a hillside, with a rainy evening light +full upon it. + +It was an old and weather-beaten house, of a singular character and +dignity; yet not large. It was built of grey stone, covered with a +rough-cast, so tempered by age to the colour and surface of the stone, +that the many patches where it had dropped away produced hardly any +disfiguring effect. The rugged "pele" tower, origin and source of all the +rest, was now grouped with the gables and projections, the broad +casemented windows, and deep doorways of a Tudor manor-house. But the +whole structure seemed still to lean upon and draw towards the tower; and +it was the tower which gave accent to a general expression of austerity, +depending perhaps on the plain simplicity of all the approaches and +immediate neighbourhood of the house. For in front of it were neither +flowers nor shrubs--only wide stretches of plain turf and gravel; while +behind it, beyond some thin intervening trees, rose a grey limestone +fell, into which the house seemed to withdraw itself, as into the rock, +"whence it was hewn." + +There were some lights in the old windows, and the heavy outer door was +open. Helbeck mounted the steps and stood, watch in hand, at the top of +them, looking down the avenue he had just walked through. And very soon, +in spite of the roar of the river, his ear distinguished the wheels he +was listening for. While they approached, he could not keep himself +still, but moved restlessly about the little stone platform. He had been +solitary for many years, and had loved his solitude. + +"They're just coomin', sir," said the voice of his old housekeeper, as +she threw open an inner door behind him, letting a glow of fire and +candles stream out into the twilight. Helbeck meanwhile caught sight for +an instant of a girl's pale face at the window of the approaching +carriage--a face thrust forward eagerly, to gaze at the pele tower. + +The horses stopped, and out sprang the girl. + +"Wait a moment--let me help you, Augustina. How do you do, Mr. Helbeck? +Don't touch my dog, please--he doesn't like men. Fricka, be quiet!" + +For the little black spitz she held in a chain had begun to growl and +bark furiously at the first sight of Helbeck, to the evident anger of the +old housekeeper, who looked at the dog sourly as she went forward to take +some bags and rugs from her master. Helbeck, meanwhile, and the young +girl helped another lady to alight. She came out slowly with the +precautions of an invalid, and Helbeck gave her his arm. + +At the top of the steps she turned and looked round her. + +"Oh, Alan!" she said, "it is so long----" + +Her lips trembled, and her head shook oddly. She was a short woman, with +a thin plaintive face and a nervous jerk of the head, always very marked +at a moment of agitation. As he noticed it, Helbeck felt times long past +rush back upon him. He laid his hand over hers, and tried to say +something; but his shyness oppressed him. When he had led her into the +broad hall, with its firelight and stuccoed roof, she said, turning round +with the same bewildered air-- + +"You saw Laura? You have never seen her before!" + +"Oh yes; we shook hands, Augustina," said a young voice. "Will Mr. +Helbeck please help me with these things?" + +She was laden with shawls and packages, and Helbeck hastily went to her +aid. In the emotion of bringing his sister back into the old house, which +she had left fifteen years before, when he himself was a lad of +two-and-twenty, he had forgotten her stepdaughter. + +But Miss Fountain did not intend to be forgotten. She made him relieve +her of all burdens, and then argue an overcharge with the flyman. And at +last, when all the luggage was in and the fly was driving off, she +mounted the steps deliberately, looking about her all the time, but +principally at the house. The eyes of the housekeeper, who with Mr. +Helbeck was standing in the entrance awaiting her, surveyed both dog and +mistress with equal disapproval. + +But the dusk was fast passing into darkness, and it was not till the girl +came into the brightness of the hall where her stepmother was already +sitting tired and drooping on a settle near the great wood fire, that +Helbeck saw her plainly. + +She was very small and slight, and her hair made a spot of pale gold +against the oak panelling of the walls. Helbeck noticed the slenderness +of her arms, and the prettiness of her little white neck, then the +freedom of her quick gesture as she went up to the elder lady and with a +certain peremptoriness began to loosen her cloak. + +"Augustina ought to go to bed directly," she said, looking at Helbeck. +"The journey tired her dreadfully." + +"Mrs. Fountain's room is quite ready," said the housekeeper, holding +herself stiffly behind her master. She was a woman of middle age, with a +pinkish face, framed between two tiers of short grey curls. + +Laura's eye ran over her. + +"_You_ don't like our coming!" she said to herself. Then to Helbeck-- + +"May I take her up at once? I will unpack, and put her comfortable. Then +she ought to have some food. She has had nothing to-day but some tea at +Lancaster." + +Mrs. Fountain looked up at the girl with feeble acquiescence, as though +depending on her entirely. Helbeck glanced from his pale sister to the +housekeeper in some perplexity. + +"What will you have?" he said nervously to Miss Fountain. "Dinner, I +think, was to be at a quarter to eight." + +"That was the time I was ordered, sir," said Mrs. Denton. + +"Can't it be earlier?" asked the girl impetuously. + +Mrs. Denton did not reply, but her shoulders grew visibly rigid. + +"Do what you can for us, Denton," said her master hastily, and she went +away. Helbeck bent kindly over his sister. + +"You know what a small establishment we have, Augustina. Mrs. Denton, a +rough girl, and a boy--that's all. I do trust they will be able to make +you comfortable." + +"Oh, let me come down, when I have unpacked, and help cook," said Miss +Fountain brightly. "I can do anything of that sort." + +Helbeck smiled for the first time. "I am afraid Mrs. Denton wouldn't take +it kindly. She rules us all in this old place." + +"I dare say," said the girl quietly. "It's fish, of course?" she added, +looking down at her stepmother, and speaking in a meditative voice. + +"It's a Friday's dinner," said Helbeck, flushing suddenly, and looking at +his sister, "except for Miss Fountain. I supposed----" + +Mrs. Fountain rose in some agitation and threw him a piteous look. + +"Of course you did, Alan--of course you did. But the doctor at +Folkestone--he was a Catholic--I took such care about that!--told me I +mustn't fast. And Laura is always worrying me. But indeed I didn't want +to be dispensed!--not yet!" + +Laura said nothing; nor did Helbeck. There was a certain embarrassment in +the looks of both, as though there was more in Mrs. Fountain's words than +appeared. Then the girl, holding herself erect and rather defiant, drew +her stepmother's arm in hers, and turned to Helbeck. + +"Will you please show us the way up?" + +Helbeck took a small hand-lamp and led the way, bidding the newcomers +beware of the slipperiness of the old polished boards. Mrs. Fountain +walked with caution, clinging to her stepdaughter. At the foot of the +staircase she stopped, and looked upward. + +"Alan, I don't see much change!" + +He turned back, the light shining on his fine harsh face and grizzled +hair. + +"Don't you? But it is greatly changed, Augustina. We have shut up half of +it." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed deeply and moved on. Laura, as she mounted the +stairs, looked back at the old hall, its ceiling of creamy stucco, its +panelled walls, and below, the great bare floor of shining oak with +hardly any furniture upon it--a strip of old carpet, a heavy oak table, +and a few battered chairs at long intervals against the panelling. But +the big fire of logs piled upon the hearth filled it all with cheerful +light, and under her indifferent manner, the girl's sense secretly +thrilled with pleasure. She had heard much of "poor Alan's" poverty. +Poverty! As far as his house was concerned, at any rate, it seemed to her +of a very tolerable sort. + + * * * * * + +In a few minutes Helbeck came downstairs again, and stood absently before +the fire on the hearth. After a while, he sat down beside it in his +accustomed chair--a carved chair of black Westmoreland oak--and began to +read from the book which he had been carrying in his pocket out of doors. +He read with his head bent closely over the pages, because of short +sight; and, as a rule, reading absorbed him so completely that he was +conscious of nothing external while it lasted. To-night, however, he +several times looked up to listen to the sounds overhead, unwonted sounds +in this house, over which, as it often seemed to him, a quiet of +centuries had settled down, like a fine dust or deposit, muffling all its +steps and voices. But there was nothing muffled in the voice overhead +which he caught every now and then, through an open door, escaping, eager +and alive, into the silence; or in the occasional sharp bark of the dog. + +"Horrid little wretch!" thought Helbeck. "Denton will loathe it. +Augustina should really have warned me. What shall we do if she and +Denton don't get on? It will never answer if she tries meddling in the +kitchen--I must tell her." + +Presently, however, his inner anxieties grew upon him so much that his +book fell on his knee, and he lost himself in a multitude of small +scruples and torments, such as beset all persons who live alone. Were all +his days now to be made difficult, because he had followed his +conscience, and asked his widowed sister to come and live with him? + +"Augustina and I could have done well enough. But this girl--well, we +must put up with it--we must, Bruno!" + +He laid his hand as he spoke on the neck of a collie that had just +lounged into the hall, and come to lay its nose upon his master's knee. +Suddenly a bark from overhead made the dog start back and prick its ears. + +"Come here, Bruno--be quiet. You're to treat that little brute with +proper contempt--do you hear? Listen to all that scuffling and talking +upstairs--that's the new young woman getting her way with old Denton. +Well, it won't do Denton any harm. We're put upon sometimes, too, aren't +we?" + +And he caressed the dog, his haughty face alive with something half +bitter, half humorous. + +At that moment the old clock in the hall struck a quarter past seven. +Helbeck sprang up. + +"Am I to dress?" he said to himself in some perplexity. + +He considered for a moment or two, looking at his shabby serge suit, then +sat down again resolutely. + +"No! She'll have to live our life. Besides, I don't know what Denton +would think." + +And he lay back in his chair, recalling with some amusement the +criticisms of his housekeeper upon a young Catholic friend of his +who--rare event--had spent a fishing week with him in the autumn, and had +startled the old house and its inmates with his frequent changes of +raiment. "It's yan set o' cloas for breakfast, an anudther for fishin, an +anudther for ridin, an yan for when he cooms in, an a fine suit for +dinner--an anudther fer smoakin--A should think he mut be oftener naked +nor donned!" Denton had said in her grim Westmoreland, and Helbeck had +often chuckled over the remark. + +An hour later, half an hour after the usual time, Helbeck, all the traces +of his muddy walk removed, and garbed with scrupulous neatness in the old +black coat and black tie he always wore of an evening, was sitting +opposite to Miss Fountain at supper. + +"You got everything you wanted for Augustina, I hope?" he said to her +shyly as they sat down. He had awaited her in the dining-room itself, so +as to avoid the awkwardness of taking her in. It was some years since a +woman had stayed under his roof, or since he had been a guest in the same +house with women. + +"Oh yes!" said Miss Fountain. But she threw a sly swift glance towards +Mrs. Denton, who was just coming into the room with some coffee, then +compressed her lips and studied her plate. Helbeck detected the glance, +and saw too that Mrs. Denton's pink face was flushed, and her manner +discomposed. + +"The coffee's noa good," she said abruptly, as she put it down; "I +couldn't keep to 't." + +"No, I'm afraid we disturbed Mrs. Denton dreadfully," said Miss Fountain, +shrugging her shoulders. "We got her to bring up all sorts of things for +Augustina. She was dreadfully tired--I thought she would faint. The +doctor scolded me before we left, about letting her go without food. +Shall I give you some fish, Mr. Helbeck?" + +For, to her astonishment, the fish even--a very small portion--was placed +before herself, side by side with a few fragments of cold chicken; and +she looked in vain for a second plate. + +As she glanced across the table, she caught a momentary shade of +embarrassment in Helbeck's face. + +"No, thank you," he said. "I am provided." + +His provision seemed to be coffee and bread and butter. She raised her +eyebrows involuntarily, but said nothing, and he presently busied himself +in bringing her vegetables and wine, Mrs. Denton having left the room. + +"I trust you will make a good meal," he said gravely, as he waited upon +her. "You have had a long day." + +"Oh, yes!" said Miss Fountain impetuously, "and please don't ever make +any difference for me on Fridays. It doesn't matter to me in the least +what I eat." + +Helbeck offered no reply. Conversation between them indeed did not flow +very readily. They talked a little about the journey from London; and +Laura asked a few questions about the house. She was, indeed, studying +the room in which they sat, and her host himself, all the time. "He may +be a saint," she thought, "but I am sure he knows all the time there are +very few saints of such an old family! His head's splendid--so dark and +fine--with the great waves of grey-black hair--and the long features and +the pointed chin. He's immensely tall too--six feet two at least--taller +than father. He looks hard and bigoted. I suppose most people would be +afraid of him--I'm not!" + +And 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 house. +The March rawness made her shiver, and she looked shrinkingly into the +gloom before her, as she paused outside her own door. There, at the end +of the passage, lay the old tower; so Mrs. Denton had told her. The +thought of all the locked and empty rooms in it,--dark, cold +spaces,--haunted perhaps by strange sounds and presences of the past, +seemed to let loose upon her all at once a little whirlwind of fear. She +hurried into her room, and was just setting down her candle before +turning to lock her door, when a sound from the distant hall caught her +ear. + +A deep monotonous sound, rising and falling at regular intervals, Mr. +Helbeck reading prayers, with the two maids, who represented the only +service of the house. + +Laura lingered with her hand on the door. In the silence of the ancient +house, there was something touching in the sound, a kind of appeal. But +it was an appeal which, in the girl's mind, passed instantly into +reaction. She locked the door, and turned away, breathing fast as though +under some excitement. + +The tears, long held down, were rising, and the room, where a large wood +fire was burning,--wood was the only provision of which there was a +plenty at Bannisdale,--seemed to her suddenly stifling. She went to the +casement window and threw it open. A rush of mild wind came through, and +with it, the roar of the swollen river. + +The girl leant forward, bathing her hot face in the wild air. There was a +dark mist of trees below her, trees tossed by the wind; then, far down, a +ray of moonlight on water; beyond, a fell-side, clear a moment beneath a +sky of sweeping cloud; and last of all, highest of all, amid the clouds, +a dim radiance, intermittent and yet steady, like the radiance of moonlit +snow. + +A strange nobility and freedom breathed from the wide scene; from its +mere depth below her; from the spacious curve of the river, the mountains +half shown, half hidden, the great race of the clouds, the fresh beating +of the wind. The north spoke to her and the mountains. It was like the +rush of something passionate and straining through her girlish sense, +intensifying all that was already there. What was this thirst, this +yearning, this physical anguish of pity that crept back upon her in all +the pauses of the day and night? + +It was nine months since she had lost her father, but all the scenes of +his last days were still so clear to her that it seemed to her often +sheer incredibility that the room, the bed, the helpless form, the noise +of the breathing, the clink of the medicine glasses, the tread of the +doctor, the gasping words of the patient, were all alike fragments and +phantoms of the past,--that the house was empty, the bed sold, the +patient gone. Oh! the clinging of the thin hand round her own, the +piteousness of suffering--of failure! Poor, poor papa!--he would not say, +even to comfort her, that they would meet again. He had not believed it, +and so she must not. + +No, and she would not! She raised her head fiercely and dried her tears. +Only, why was she here, in the house of a man who had never spoken to her +father--his brother-in-law--for thirteen years; who had made his sister +feel that her marriage had been a disgrace; who was all the time, no +doubt, cherishing such thoughts in that black, proud head of his, while +she, her father's daughter, was sitting opposite to him? + +"How am I ever going to bear it--all these months?" she asked herself. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +But the causes which had brought Laura Fountain to Bannisdale were very +simple. It had all come about in the most natural inevitable way. + +When Laura was eight years old--nearly thirteen years before this +date--her father, then a widower with one child, had fallen in with and +married Alan Helbeck's sister. At the time of their first meeting with +the little Catholic spinster, Stephen Fountain and his child were +spending part of the Cambridge vacation at a village on the Cumberland +coast where a fine air could be combined with cheap lodgings. Fountain +himself was from the North Country. His grandfather had been a small +Lancashire yeoman, and Stephen Fountain had an inbred liking for the +fells, the farmhouses, and even the rain of his native district. Before +descending to the sea, he and his child had spent a couple of days with +his cousin by marriage, James Mason, in the lonely stone house among the +hills, which had belonged to the family since the Revolution. He left it +gladly, however, for the farm life seemed to him much harder and more +squalid than he had remembered it to be, and he disliked James Mason's +wife. As he and Laura walked down the long, rough track connecting the +farm with the main road on the day of their departure, Stephen Fountain +whistled so loud and merrily that the skipping child beside him looked at +him with astonishment. + +It was his way no doubt of thanking Providence for the happy chance that +had sent his father to a small local government post at Newcastle, and +himself to a grammar school with openings on the University. Yet as a +rule he thought himself anything but a successful man. He held a +lectureship at Cambridge in an obscure scientific subject; and was in his +way both learned and diligent. But he had few pupils, and had never cared +to have them. They interfered with his own research, and he had the +passionate scorn for popularity which grows up naturally in those who +have no power with the crowd. His religious opinions, or rather the +manner in which he chose to express them, divided him from many good men. +He was poor, and he hated his poverty. A rather imprudent marriage had +turned out neither particularly well nor particularly ill. His wife had +some beauty, however, and there was hardly time for disillusion. She died +when Laura was still a tottering baby, and Stephen had missed her sorely +for a while. Since her death he had grown to be a very lonely man, +silently discontented with himself and sourly critical of his neighbours. +Yet all the same he thanked God that he was not his cousin James. + +Potter's Beach as a watering-place was neither beautiful nor amusing. +Laura was happy there, but that said nothing. All her childhood through, +she had the most surprising gift for happiness. From morning till night +she lived in a flutter of delicious nothings. Unless he watched her +closely, Stephen Fountain could not tell for the life of him what she was +about all day. But he saw that she was endlessly about something; her +little hands and legs never rested; she dug, bathed, dabbled, raced, +kissed, ate, slept, in one happy bustle, which never slackened except for +the hours when she lay rosy and still in her bed. And even then the +pretty mouth was still eagerly open, as though sleep had just breathed +upon its chatter for a few charmed moments, and "the joy within" was +already breaking from the spell. + +Stephen Fountain adored her, but his affections were never enough for +him. In spite of the child's spirits he himself found Potter's Beach a +desolation, all the more that he was cut off from his books for a time by +doctor's orders and his own common sense. Suddenly, as he took his daily +walk over the sands with Laura, he began to notice a thin lady in black, +sitting alone under a bank of sea-thistles, and generally struggling with +an umbrella which she had put up to shelter herself and her book from a +prevailing and boisterous wind. Sometimes when he passed her in the +little street, he caught a glimpse of timid eyes, or he saw and pitied +the slight involuntary jerk of the head and shoulders, which seemed to +tell of nervous delicacy. Presently they made friends, and he found her +lonely and discontented like himself. She was a Catholic, he discovered; +but her Catholicism was not that of the convert, but of an old inherited +sort which sat easily enough on a light nature. Then, to his +astonishment, it appeared that she lived with a brother at an old house +in North Lancashire--a well-known and even, in its degree, famous +house--which lay not seven miles distant from his grandfather's little +property, and had been quite familiar to him by repute, and even by sight +as a child. When he was a small lad staying at Browhead Farm, he had once +or twice found his way to the Greet, and had strayed along its course +through Bannisdale Park. Once even, when he was in the act of fishing a +particular pool where the trout were rising in a manner to tempt a very +archangel, he had been seized and his primitive rod broken over his +shoulder by an old man whom he believed to have been the owner, Mr. +Helbeck himself,--a magnificent white-haired person, about whom tales ran +freely in the country-side. + +So this little, shabby old maid was a Helbeck of Bannisdale! As he looked +at her, Fountain could not help thinking with a hidden amusement of all +the awesome prestige the name had once carried with it for his boyish +ear. Thirty years back, what a gulf had seemed to yawn between the +yeoman's grandson and the lofty owners of that stern and ancient house +upon the Greet! And now, how glad was old Helbeck's daughter to sit or +walk with him and his child!--and how plain it grew, as the weeks passed +on, that if he, Stephen Fountain, willed it, she would make no difficulty +at all about a much longer companionship! Fountain held himself to be the +most convinced of democrats, a man who had a reasoned right to his +Radical opinions that commoner folk must do without. Nevertheless, his +pride fed on this small turn of fortune, and when he carelessly addressed +his new friend, her name gave him pleasure. + +It seemed that she possessed but little else, poor lady. Even in his +young days, Fountain could remember that the Helbecks were reported to be +straitened, to have already much difficulty in keeping up the house and +the estate. But clearly things had fallen by now to a much lower depth. +Miss Helbeck's dress, talk, lodgings, all spoke of poverty, great +poverty. He himself had never known what it was to have a superfluous ten +pounds; but the feverish strain that belongs to such a situation as the +Helbecks' awoke in him a new and sharp pity. He was very sorry for the +little, harassed creature; that physical privation should touch a woman +had always seemed to him a monstrosity. + +What was the brother about?--a great strong fellow by all accounts, +capable, surely, of doing something for the family fortunes. +Instinctively Fountain held him responsible for the sister's fatigue and +delicacy. They had just lost their mother, and Augustina had come to +Potter's Beach to recover from long months of nursing. And presently +Fountain discovered that what stood between her and health was not so +much the past as the future. + +"You don't like the idea of going home," he said to her once, abruptly, +after they had grown intimate. She flushed, and hesitated; then her eyes +filled with tears. + +Gradually he made her explain herself. The brother, it appeared, was +twelve years younger than herself, and had been brought up first at +Stonyhurst, and afterwards at Louvain, in constant separation from the +rest of the family. He had never had much in common with his home, since, +at Stonyhurst, he had come under the influence of a Jesuit teacher, who, +in the language of old Helbeck, had turned him into "a fond sort of +fellow," swarming with notions that could only serve to carry the family +decadence a step further. + +"We have been Catholics for twenty generations," said Augustina, in her +quavering voice. "But our ways--father's ways--weren't good enough for +Alan. We thought he was making up his mind to be a Jesuit, and father was +mad about it, because of the old place. Then father died, and Alan came +home. He and my mother got on best; oh! he was very good to her. But he +and I weren't brought up in the same way; you'd think he was already +under a rule. I don't--know--I suppose it's too high for me----" + +She took up a handful of sand, and threw it, angrily, from her thin +fingers, hurrying on, however, as if the unburdenment, once begun, must +have its course. + +"And it's hard to be always pulled up and set right by some one you've +nursed in his cradle. Oh! I don't mean he says anything; he and I never +had words in our lives. But it's the way he has of doing things--the +changes he makes. You feel how he disapproves of you; he doesn't like my +friends--our old friends; the house is like a desert since he came. And +the money he gives away! The priests just suck us dry--and he hasn't got +it to give. Oh! I know it's all very wicked of me; but when I think of +going back to him--just us two, you know, in that old house--and all the +trouble about money----" + +Her voice failed her. + +"Well, don't go back," said Fountain, laying his hand on her arm. + + * * * * * + +And twenty-four hours later he was still pleased with himself and her. No +doubt she was stupid, poor Augustina, and more ignorant than he had +supposed a human being could be. Her only education seemed to have been +supplied by two years at the "Couvent des Dames Anglaises" at St.-Omer, +and all that she had retained from it was a small stock of French idioms, +most of which she had forgotten how to use, though she did use them +frequently, with a certain timid pretension. Of that habit Fountain, the +fastidious, thought that he should break her. But for the rest, her +religion, her poverty,--well, she had a hundred a year, so that he and +Laura would be no worse off for taking her in, and the child's prospects, +of course, should not suffer by a halfpenny. And as to the Catholicism, +Fountain smiled to himself. No doubt there was some inherited feeling. +But even if she did keep up her little mummeries, he could not see that +they would do him or Laura any harm. And for the rest she suited him. She +somehow crept into his loneliness and fitted it. He was getting too old +to go farther, and he might well fare worse. In spite of her love of +talk, she was not a bad listener; and longer experience showed her to be +in truth the soft and gentle nature that she seemed. She had a curious +kind of vanity which showed itself in her feeling towards her brother. +But Fountain did not find it disagreeable; it even gave him pleasure to +flatter it; as one feeds or caresses some straying half-starved creature, +partly for pity, partly that the human will may feel its power. + +"I wonder how much fuss that young man will make?" Fountain asked +himself, when at last it became necessary to write to Bannisdale. + +Augustina, however, was thirty-five, in full possession of her little +moneys, and had no one to consult but herself. Fountain enjoyed the +writing of the letter, which was brief, if not curt. + +Alan Helbeck appeared without an hour's delay at Potter's Beach. Fountain +felt himself much inclined beforehand to treat the tall dark youth, +sixteen years his junior, as a tutor treats an undergraduate. Oddly +enough, however, when the two men stood face to face, Fountain was once +more awkwardly conscious of that old sense of social distance which the +sister had never recalled to him. The sting of it made him rougher than +he had meant to be. Otherwise the young man's very shabby coat, his +superb good looks, and courteous reserve of manner might almost have +disarmed the irritable scholar. + +As it was, Helbeck soon discovered that Fountain had no intention of +allowing Augustina to apply for any dispensation for the marriage, that +he would make no promise of Catholic bringing-up, supposing there were +children, and that his idea was to be married at a registry office. + +"I am one of those people who don't trouble themselves about the affairs +of another world," said Fountain in a suave voice, as he stood in the +lodging-house window, a bearded, broad-shouldered person, his hands +thrust wilfully into the very baggy pockets of his ill-fitting light +suit. "I won't worry your sister, and I don't suppose there'll be any +children. But if there are, I really can't promise to make Catholics of +them. And as for myself, I don't take things so easy as it's the fashion +to do now. I can't present myself in church, even for Augustina." + +Helbeck sat silent for a few minutes with his eyes on the ground. Then he +rose. + +"You ask what no Catholic should grant," he said slowly. "But that of +course you know. I can have nothing to do with such a marriage, and my +duty naturally will be to dissuade my sister from it as strongly as +possible." + +Fountain bowed. + +"She is expecting you," he said. "I of course await her decision." + +His tone was hardly serious. Nevertheless, during the time that Helbeck +and Augustina were pacing the sands together, Fountain went through a +good deal of uneasiness. One never knew how or where this damned poison +in the blood might break out again. That young fanatic, a Jesuit already +by the look of him, would of course try all their inherited Mumbo Jumbo +upon her; and what woman is at bottom anything more than the prey of the +last speaker? + +When, however, it was all over, and he was allowed to see his Augustina +in the evening, he found her helpless with crying indeed, but as +obstinate as only the meek of the earth can be. She had broken wholly +with her brother and with Bannisdale; and Fountain gathered that, after +all Helbeck's arguments and entreaties, there had flashed a moment of +storm between them, when the fierce "Helbeck temper," traditional through +many generations, had broken down the self-control of the ascetic, and +Augustina must needs have trembled. However, there she was, frightened +and miserable, but still determined. And her terror was much more +concerned with the possibility of any return to live with Alan and his +all-exacting creed than anything else. Fountain caught himself wondering +whether indeed she had imagination enough to lay much hold on those +spiritual terrors with which she had no doubt been threatened. In this, +however, he misjudged her, as will be seen. + +Meanwhile he sent for an elderly Evangelical cousin of his wife's, who +was accustomed to take a friendly interest in his child and himself. She, +in Protestant jubilation over this brand snatched from the burning, came +in haste, very nearly departing, indeed, in similar haste as soon as the +unholy project of the secular marriage was mooted. However, under much +persuasion she remained, lamenting; Augustina sent to Bannisdale for her +few possessions, and the scanty ceremony was soon over. + +Meanwhile Laura had but found in the whole affair one more amusement and +excitement added to the many that, according to her, Potter's Beach +already possessed. The dancing elfish child--who had no memory of her own +mother--had begun by taking the little old maid under her patronising +wing. She graciously allowed Augustina to make a lap for all the briny +treasures she might accumulate in the course of a breathless morning; she +rushed to give her first information whenever that encroaching monster +the sea broke down her castles. And as soon as it appeared that her papa +liked Augustina, and had a use for her, Laura at the age of eight +promptly accepted her as part of the family circle, without the smallest +touch of either sentiment or opposition. She walked gaily hand in hand +with her father to the registry office at St. Bees. The jealously hidden, +stormy little heart knew well enough that it had nothing to fear. + +Then came many quiet years at Cambridge. Augustina spoke no more of her +brother, and apparently let her old creed slip. She conformed herself +wholly to her husband's ways,--a little colourless thread on the stream +of academic life, slightly regarded, and generally silent out of doors, +but at home a gentle, foolish, and often voluble person, very easily made +happy by some small kindness and a few creature comforts. + +Laura meanwhile grew up, and no one exactly knew how. Her education was a +thing of shreds and patches, managed by herself throughout, and +expressing her own strong will or caprice from the beginning. She put +herself to school--a day school only; and took herself away as soon as +she was tired of it. She threw herself madly into physical exercises like +dancing or skating; and excelled in most of them by virtue of a certain +wild grace, a tameless strength of spirits and will. And yet she grew up +small and pale; and it was not till she was about eighteen that she +suddenly blossomed into prettiness. + +"Carrotina--why, what's happened to you?" said her father to her one day. + +She turned in astonishment from her task of putting some books tidy on +his study shelves. Then she coloured half angrily. + +"I must put my hair up some time, I suppose," she said resentfully. There +was something in the abruptness of her father's question, no less than in +the new closeness and sharpness of eye with which he was examining her, +that annoyed her. + +"Well! you've made a young lady of yourself. I dare say I mustn't call +you nicknames any more!" + +"I don't mind," she said indifferently, going on with her work, while he +looked at the golden-red mass she had coiled round her little head, with +an odd half-welcome sense of change, a sudden prescience of the future. + +Then she turned again. + +"If--if you make any absurd changes," she said, with a frown, "I'll--I'll +cut it all off!" + +"You'd better not; there'd be ructions," he said laughing. "It's not +yours till you're twenty-one." + +And to himself he said, "Gracious! I didn't bargain for a pretty +daughter. What am I to do with her? Augustina'll never get her married." + +And certainly during this early youth, Laura showed no signs of getting +herself married. She did not apparently know when a young man was by; and +her bright vehement ways, her sharp turns of speech, went on just the +same; she neither quivered nor thrilled; and her chatter, when she did +chatter, spent itself almost with indifference on anyone who came near +her. She was generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companions +knew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self of +her, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs. +Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks which +contrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hard +to find the clue to them. + +Altogether she passed for a clever girl, even in a University town, where +cleverness is weighed. But her education, except in two points, was, in +truth, of the slightest. Any mechanical drudgery that her father could +set her, she did without a murmur; or, rather, she claimed it jealously, +with a silent passion. But, with an obstinacy equally silent, she set +herself against the drudgery that would have made her his intellectual +companion. + +His rows of technical books, the scholarly and laborious details of his +work, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt to +persuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned and +contemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter. +That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled up for +hours with a book or a piece of work in a corner of his room; that she +should bring him his pipe, and break in upon his work at the right moment +with her peremptory "Papa, come out!"--these things were delightful, nay, +necessary to him. But he had no dreams beyond; and he never thought of +her, her education or her character, as a whole. It was not his way. +Besides, girls took their chance. With a boy, of course, one plans and +looks ahead. But Laura would have 200_l_. a year from her mother whatever +happened, and something more at his own death. Why trouble oneself? + +No doubt indirectly he contributed very largely to her growing up. The +sight of his work and his methods; the occasional talks she overheard +between him and his scientific comrades; the tones of irony and denial in +the atmosphere about him; his antagonisms, his bitternesses, worked +strongly upon her still plastic nature. Moreover she felt to her heart's +core that he was unsuccessful; there were appointments he should have +had, but had failed to get, and it was the religious party, the "clerical +crew" of Convocation, that had stood in the way. From her childhood it +came natural to her to hate bigoted people who believed in ridiculous +things. It was they stood between her father and his deserts. There +loomed up, as it were, on her horizon, something dim and majestic, which +was called Science. Towards this her father pressed, she clinging to him; +while all about them was a black and hindering crowd, through which they +clove their way--contemptuously. + +In one direction, indeed, Fountain admitted her to his mind. Like Mill, +he found the rest and balm of life in poetry; and here he took Laura with +him. They read to each other, they spurred each other to learn by heart. +He kept nothing from her. Shelley was a passion of his own; it became +hers. She taught herself German, that she might read Heine and Goethe +with him; and one evening, when she was little more than sixteen, he +rushed her through the first part of "Faust," so that she lay awake the +whole night afterwards in such a passion of emotion, that it seemed, for +the moment, to change her whole existence. Sometimes it astonished him to +see what capacity she had, not only for the feeling, but for the sensuous +pleasure, of poetry. Lines--sounds--haunted her for days, the beauty of +them would make her start and tremble. + +She did her best, however, to hide this side of her nature even from him. +And it was not difficult. She remained childishly immature and backward +in many things. She was a personality; that was clear; one could hardly +say that she was or had a character. She was a bundle of loves and hates; +a force, not an organism; and her father was often as much puzzled by her +as anyone else. + +Music perhaps was the only study which ever conquered her indolence. Here +it happened that a famous musician, who settled in Cambridge for a time, +came across her gift and took notice of it. And to please him she worked +with industry, even with doggedness. Brahms, Chopin, Wagner--these great +romantics possessed her in music as Shelley or Rossetti did in poetry. +"You little demon, Laura! How do you come to play like that?" a girl +friend--her only intimate friend--said to her once in despair. "It's the +expression. Where do you get it? And I practise, and you don't; it's not +fair." + +"Expression!" said Laura, with annoyance, "what does that matter? That's +the amateur all over. Of course I play like that because I can't do it +any better. If I could _play the notes_"--she clenched her little hand, +with a curious, almost a fierce energy--"if I had any technique--or was +ever likely to have any, what should I want with expression? Any cat can +give you expression! There was one under my window last night--you should +just have heard it!" + +Molly Friedland, the girl friend, shrugged her shoulders. She was as +soft, as normal, as self-controlled, as Laura was wilful and irritable. +But there was a very real affection between them. + +Years passed. Insensibly Augustina's health began to fail; and with it +the new cheerfulness of her middle life. Then Fountain himself fell +suddenly and dangerously ill. All the peaceful habits and small pleasures +of their common existence broke down after a few days, as it were, into a +miserable confusion. Augustina stood bewildered. Then a convulsion of +soul she had expected as little as anyone else, swept upon her. A number +of obscure, inherited, half-dead instincts revived. She lived in terror; +she slept, weeping; and at the back of an old drawer she found a rosary +of her childhood to which her fingers clung night and day. + +Meanwhile Fountain resigned himself to death. During his last days his +dimmed senses did not perceive what was happening to his wife. But he +troubled himself about her a good deal. + +"Take care of her, Laura," he said once, "till she gets strong. Look +after her.--But you can't sacrifice your life.--It may be Christian," he +added, in a murmur, "but it isn't sense." + +Unconsciousness came on. Augustina seemed to lose her wits; and at last +only Laura, sitting pale and fierce beside her father, prevented her +stepmother from bringing a priest to his death-bed. "You would not +_dare_!" said the girl, in her low, quivering voice; and Augustina could +only wring her hands. + + * * * * * + +The day after her husband died Mrs. Fountain returned to her Catholic +duties. When she came back from confession, she slipped as noiselessly as +she could into the darkened house. A door opened upstairs, and Laura came +out of her father's room. + +"You have done it?" she said, as her stepmother, trembling with agitation +and weariness, came towards her. "You have gone back to them?" + +"Oh, Laura! I had to follow the call--my conscience--Laura! oh! your poor +father!" + +And with a burst of weeping the widow held out her hands. + +Laura did not move, and the hands dropped. + +"My father wants nothing," she said. + +The indescribable pride and passion of her accent cowed Augustina, and +she moved away, crying silently. The girl went back to the dead, and sat +beside him, in an anguish that had no more tears, till he was taken from +her. + +Mr. Helbeck wrote kindly to his sister in reply to a letter from her +informing him of her husband's death, and of her own reconciliation with +the Church. He asked whether he should come at once to help them through +the business of the funeral, and the winding up of their Cambridge life. +"Beg him, please, to stay away," said Laura, when the letter was shown +her. "There are plenty of people here." + +And indeed Cambridge, which had taken little notice of the Fountains +during Stephen's lifetime, was even fussily kind after his death to his +widow and child. It was at all times difficult to be kind to Laura in +distress, but there was much true pity felt for her, and a good deal of +curiosity as to her relations with her Catholic stepmother. Only from the +Friedlands, however, would she accept, or allow her stepmother to accept, +any real help. Dr. Friedland was a man of middle age, who had retired on +moderate wealth to devote himself to historical work by the help of the +Cambridge libraries. He had been much drawn to Stephen Fountain, and +Fountain to him. It was a recent and a brief friendship, but there had +been something in it on Dr. Friedland's side--something respectful and +cordial, something generous and understanding, for which Laura loved the +infirm and grey-haired scholar, and would always love him. She shed some +stormy tears after parting with the Friedlands, otherwise she left +Cambridge with joy. + +On the day before they left Cambridge Augustina received a parcel of +books from her brother. For the most part they were kept hidden from +Laura. But in the evening, when the girl was doing some packing in her +stepmother's room, she came across a little volume lying open on its +face. She lifted it, saw that it was called "Outlines of Catholic +Belief," and that one page was still wet with tears. An angry curiosity +made her look at what stood there: "A believer in one God who, without +wilful fault on his part, knows nothing of the Divine Mystery of the +Trinity, is held capable of salvation by many Catholic theologians. And +there is the 'invincible ignorance' of the heathen. What else is possible +to the Divine mercy let none of us presume to know. Our part in these +matters is obedience, not speculation." + +In faint pencil on the margin was written: "My Stephen _could_ not +believe. Mary--pray----" + +The book contained the Bannisdale book-plate, and the name "Alan +Helbeck." Laura threw it down. But her face trembled through its scorn, +and she finished what she was doing in a kind of blind passion. It was as +though she held her father's dying form in her arms, protecting him +against the same meddling and tyrannical force that had injured him while +he lived, and was still making mouths at him now that he was dead. + +She and Augustina went to the sea--to Folkestone, for Augustina's health. +Here Mrs. Fountain began to correspond regularly with her brother, and it +was soon clear that her heart was hungering for him, and for her old home +at Bannisdale. But she was still painfully dependent on Laura. Laura was +her maid and nurse; Laura managed all her business. At last one day she +made her prayer. Would Laura go with her--for a little while--to +Bannisdale? Alan wished it--Alan had invited them both. "He would be so +good to you, Laura--and I'm sure it would set me up." + +Laura gave a gulp. She dropped her little chin on her hands and thought. +Well--why not? It would be all hateful to her--Mr. Helbeck and his house +together. She knew very well, or guessed what his relation to her father +had been. But what if it made Augustina strong, if in time she could be +left with her brother altogether, to live with him?--In one or two of his +letters he had proposed as much. Why, that would bring Laura's +responsibility, her sole responsibility, at any rate, to an end. + +She thought of Molly Friedland--of their girlish plans--of travel, of +music. + +"All right," she said, springing up. "We will go, Augustina. I suppose, +for a little while, Mr. Helbeck and I can keep the peace. You must tell +him to let me alone." + +She paused, then said with sudden vehemence, like one who takes her +stand--"And tell him, please, Augustina--make it very plain--that I shall +never come in to prayers." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The sun was shining into Laura's room when she awoke. She lay still for a +little while, looking about her. + +Her room--which formed part of an eighteenth-century addition to the +Tudor house--was rudely panelled with stained deal, save on the fireplace +wall, where, on either side of the hearth, the plaster had been covered +with tapestry. The subject of the tapestry was Diana hunting. Diana, +white and tall, with her bow and quiver, came, queenly, through a green +forest. Two greyhounds ranged beside her, and in the dim distance of the +wood her maidens followed. On the right an old castle, with pillars like +a Greek temple, rose stately but a little crooked on the edge of a blue +sea; the sea much faded, with the wooden handle of a cupboard thrust +rudely through it. Two long-limbed ladies, with pulled patched faces, +stood on the castle steps. In front was a ship, with a waiting warrior +and a swelling sail; and under him, a blue wave worn very threadbare, +shamed indeed by that intruding handle, but still blue enough, still +windy enough for thoughts of love and flight. + +Laura, half asleep still, with her hands under her cheek, lay staring in +a vague pleasure at the castle and the forest. "Enchanted +casements"--"perilous seas"--"in fairy lands forlorn." The lines ran +sleepily, a little jumbled, in her memory. + +But gradually the morning and the freshness worked; and her spirits, +emerging from their half-dream, began to dance within her. When she +sprang up to throw the window wide, there below her was the sparkling +river, the daffodils waving their pale heads in the delicate Westmoreland +grass, the high white clouds still racing before the wind. How heavenly +to find oneself in this wild clean country!--after all the ugly squalors +of parade and lodging-house, after the dingy bow-windowed streets with +the March dust whirling through them. + +She leant across the broad window-sill, her chin on her hands, absorbed, +drinking it in. The eastern sun, coming slanting-ways, bathed her tumbled +masses of fair hair, her little white form, her bare feet raised tiptoe. + +Suddenly she drew back. She had seen the figure of a man crossing the +park on the further side of the river, and the maidenly instinct drove +her from the window; though the man in question was perhaps a quarter of +a mile away, and had he been looking for her, could not possibly have +made out more than a pale speck on the old wall. + +"Mr. Helbeck,"--she thought--"by the height of him. Where is he off to +before seven o'clock in the morning? I hate a man that can't keep +rational hours like other people! Fricka, come here!" + +For her little dog, who had sprung from the bed after its mistress, was +now stretching and blinking behind her. At Laura's voice it jumped up and +tried to lick her face. Laura caught it in her arms and sat down on the +bed, still hugging it. + +"No, Fricka, I don't like him--I don't, I don't, I _don't!_ But you and I +have just got to behave. If you annoy that big dog downstairs, he'll +break your neck,--he will, Fricka. As for me,"--she shrugged her small +shoulders,--"well, Mr. Helbeck can't break _my_ neck, so I'm dreadfully +afraid I shall annoy him--dreadfully, dreadfully afraid! But I'll try +not. You see, what we've got to do, is just to get Augustina well--stand +over her with a broomstick and pour the tonics down her throat. Then, +Fricka, we'll go our way and have some fun. Now look at us!----" + +She moved a little, so that the cracked glass on the dressing-table +reflected her head and shoulders, with the dog against her neck. + +"You know we're not at all bad-looking, Fricka--neither of us. I've seen +much worse. (Oh, Fricka! I've told you scores of times I can wash my +face--without you--thank you!) There's all sorts of nice things that +might happen if we just put ourselves in the way of them. Oh! I do want +some fun--I do!--at least sometimes!" + +But again the voice dropped suddenly; the big greenish eyes filled in a +moment with inconsistent tears, and Laura sat staring at the sunshine, +while the drops fell on her white nightgown. + +Meanwhile Fricka, being half throttled, made a violent effort and +escaped. Laura too sprang up, wiped away her tears as though she were +furious with them, and began to look about her for the means of dressing. +Everything in the room was of the poorest and scantiest--the cottage +washstand with its crockery, the bare dressing-table and dilapidated +glass. + +"A bath!--my kingdom for a bath! I don't mind starving, but one must +wash. Let's ring for that rough-haired girl, Fricka, and try and get +round her. Goodness!--no bells?" + +After long search, however, she discovered a tattered shred of tapestry +hanging in a corner, and pulled it vigorously. Many efforts, however, +were needed before there was a sound of feet in the passage outside. +Laura hastily donned a blue dressing-gown, and stood expectant. + +The door was opened unceremoniously and a girl thrust in her head. Laura +had made acquaintance with her the night before. She was the +housekeeper's underling and niece. + +"Mrs. Denton says I'm not to stop. She's noa time for answerin bells. And +you'll have some hot water when t' kettle boils." + +The door was just shutting again when Laura sprang at the speaker and +caught her by the arm. + +"My dear," she said, dragging the girl in, "that won't do at all. Now +look here"--she held up her little white hand, shaking the forefinger +with energy--"I don't--want--to give--any trouble, and Mrs. Denton may +keep her hot water. But I must have a bath--and a big can--and somebody +must show me where to go for water--and then--_then_, my dear--if you +make yourself agreeable, I'll--well, I'll teach you how to do your hair +on Sundays--in a way that will surprise you!" + +The girl stared at her in sudden astonishment, her dark stupid eyes +wavering. She had a round, peasant face, not without comeliness, and a +lustreless shock of black hair. Laura laughed. + +"I will," she said, nodding; "you'll see. And I'll give you notions for +your best frock. I'll be a regular elder sister to you--if you'll just do +a few things for me--and Mrs. Fountain. What's your name--Ellen?--that's +all right. Now, is there a bath in the house?" + +The girl unwillingly replied that there was one in the big room at the +end of the passage. + +"Show it me," said Laura, and marched her off there. The rough-headed one +led the way along the panelled passage and opened a door. + +Then it was Laura's turn to stare. + +Inside she saw a vast room with finely panelled walls and a decorated +ceiling. The sunlight poured in through an uncurtained window upon the +only two objects in the room,--a magnificent bed, carved and gilt, with +hangings of tarnished brocade,--and a round tin bath of a common, +old-fashioned make, propped up against the wall. The oak boards were +absolutely bare. The bed and the bath looked at each other. + +"What's become of all the furniture?" said Laura, gazing round her in +astonishment. + +"The gentleman from Edinburgh had it all, lasst month," said the girl, +still sullenly. "He's affther the bed now." + +"Oh!--Does he often come here?" + +The girl hesitated. + +"Well, he's had a lot o' things oot o' t' house, sen I came." + +"Has he?" said Laura. "Now, then--lend a hand." + +Between them they carried off the bath; and then Laura informed herself +where water was to be had, and when breakfast would be ready. + +"T' Squire's gone oot," said Ellen, still watching the newcomer from +under a pair of very black and beetling brows; "and Mrs. Denton said she +supposed yo'd be wantin a tray for Mrs. Fountain." + +"Does the Squire take no breakfast?" + +"Noa. He's away to Mass--ivery mornin, an' he gets his breakfast wi' +Father Bowles." + +The girl's look grew more hostile. + +"Oh, does he?" said Laura in a tone of meditation. "Well, then, look +here. Put another cup and another plate on Mrs. Fountain's tray, and I'll +have mine with her. Shall I come down to the kitchen for it?" + +"Noa," said the girl hastily. "Mrs. Denton doan't like foak i' t' +kitchen." + +At that moment a call in Mrs. Denton's angriest tones came pealing along +the passage outside. Laura laughed and pushed the girl out of the room. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Miss Fountain was ministering to her stepmother in the most +comfortable bedroom that the house afforded. The furniture, indeed, was a +medley. It seemed to have been gathered out of many other rooms. But at +any rate there was abundance of it; a carpet much worn, but still useful, +covered the floor; and Ellen had lit the fire without being summoned to +do it. Laura recognised that Mr. Helbeck must have given a certain number +of precise orders on the subject of his sister. + +Poor Mrs. Fountain, however, was not happy. She was sitting up in bed, +wrapped in an unbecoming flannel jacket--Augustina had no taste in +clothes--and looking with an odd repugnance at the very passable +breakfast that Laura placed before her. Laura did not quite know what to +make of her. In old days she had always regarded her stepmother as an +easy-going, rather self-indulgent creature, who liked pleasant food and +stuffed chairs, and could be best managed or propitiated through some +attention to her taste in sofa-cushions or in tea-cakes. + +No doubt, since Mrs. Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of her +fathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise the +usual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director had +been able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of her +health. And on the whole she had acquiesced readily enough. + +But Laura found her now changed and restless. + +"Oh! Laura, I can't eat all that!" + +"You must," said Laura firmly. "Really, Augustina, you _must_." + +"Alan's gone out," said Augustina, with a wistful inconsequence, +straining her eyes as though to look through the diamond panes of the +window opposite, at the park and the persons walking in it. + +"Yes. He seems to go to Whinthorpe every morning for Mass. Ellen says he +breakfasts with the priest." + +Augustina sighed and fidgeted. But when she was half-way through her +meal, Laura standing over her, she suddenly laid a shaking hand on +Laura's arm. + +"Laura!--Alan's a saint!--he always was--long ago--when I was so blind +and wicked. But now--oh! the things Mrs. Denton's been telling me!" + +"Has she?" said Laura coolly. "Well, make up your mind, Augustina"--she +shook her bright head--"that you can't be the same kind of saint that he +is--anyway." + +Mrs. Fountain withdrew her hand in quick offence. + +"I should be glad if you could talk of these things without flippancy, +Laura. When I think how incapable I have been all these years, of +understanding my dear brother----" + +"No--you see you were living with papa," said Laura slowly. + +She had left her stepmother's side, and was standing with her back to an +old cabinet, resting her elbows upon it. Her brows were drawn together, +and poor Mrs. Fountain, after a glance at her, looked still more +miserable. + +"Your poor papa!" she murmured with a gulp, and then, as though to +propitiate Laura, she drew her breakfast back to her, and again tried to +eat it. Small and slight as they both were, there was a very sharp +contrast between her and her stepdaughter. Laura's features were all +delicately clear, and nothing could have been more definite, more +brilliant than the colour of the eyes and hair, or the whiteness--which +was a beautiful and healthy whiteness--of her skin. Whereas everything +about Mrs. Fountain was indeterminate; the features with their slight +twist to the left; the complexion, once fair, and now reddened by years +and ill-health; the hair, of a yellowish grey; the head and shoulders +with their nervous infirmity. Only the eyes still possessed some purity +of colour. Through all their timidity or wavering, they were still blue +and sweet; perhaps they alone explained why a good many +persons--including her stepdaughter--were fond of Augustina. + +"What has Mrs. Denton been telling you about Mr. Helbeck?" Laura +inquired, speaking with some abruptness, after a pause. + +"You wouldn't have any sympathy, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, in some +agitation. "You see, you don't understand our Catholic principles. I wish +you did!--oh! I wish you did! But you don't. And so perhaps I'd better +not talk about it." + +"It might interest me to know the facts," said Laura, in a little hard +voice. "It seems to me that I'm likely to be Mr. Helbeck's guest for a +good while." + +"But you won't like it, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain--"and you'll +misunderstand Alan. Your poor dear father always misunderstood him." +(Laura made a restless movement.) "It is not because we think we can save +our souls by such things--of course not!--that's the way you Protestants +put it----" + +"I'm not a Protestant!" said Laura hotly. Mrs. Fountain took no notice. + +"But it's what the Church calls 'mortification,'" she said, hurrying on. +"It's keeping the body under--as St. Paul did. That's what makes +saints--and it does make saints--whatever people say. Your poor father +didn't agree, of course. But he didn't know!--oh! dear, dear Stephen!--he +didn't know. And Alan isn't cross, and it doesn't spoil his health--it +doesn't, really." + +"What does he do?" asked Laura, trying for the point. + +But poor Augustina, in her mixed flurry of feeling, could hardly explain. + +"You see, Laura, there's a strict way of keeping Lent, and--well--just +the common way--doing as little as you can. It used to be all much +stricter, of course." + +"In the Dark Ages?" suggested Laura. Augustina took no notice. + +"And what the books tell you now, is much stricter than what anybody +does.--I'm sure I don't know why. But Alan takes it strictly--he wants to +go back to quite the old ways. Oh! I wish I could explain it----" + +Mrs. Fountain stopped bewildered. She was sure she had heard once that in +the early Church people took no food at all till the evening--not even a +drink. But Alan was not going to do that? + +Laura had taken Fricka on her knee, and was straightening the ribbon +round the dog's neck. + +"Does he eat _anything_?" she asked carelessly, looking up. "If it's +_nothing_--that would be interesting." + +"Laura! if you only would try and understand!--Of course Alan doesn't +settle such a thing for himself--nobody does with us. That's only in the +English Church." + +Augustina straightened herself, with an unconscious arrogance. Laura +looked at her, smiling. + +"Who settles it, then?" + +"Why, his director, of course. He must have leave. But they have given +him leave. He has chosen a rule for himself"--Augustina gave a visible +gulp--"and he called Mrs. Denton to him before Lent, and told her about +it. Of course he'll hide it as much as he can. Catholics must never be +singular--never! But if we live in the house with him he can't hide it. +And all Lent, he only eats meat on Sundays, and other days--he wrote down +a list---- Well, it's like the saints--that's all!--I just cried over +it!" + +Mrs. Fountain shook with the emotion of saying such things to Laura, but +her blue eyes flamed. + +"What! fish and eggs?--that kind of thing?" said Laura. "As if there was +any hardship in that!" + +"Laura! how can you be so unkind?--I must just keep it all to myself.--I +won't tell you anything!" cried Augustina in exasperation. + +Laura walked away to the window, and stood looking out at the March buds +on the sycamores shining above the river. + +"Does he make the servants fast too?" she asked presently, turning her +head over her shoulder. + +"No, no," said her stepmother eagerly; "he's never hard on them--only to +himself. The Church doesn't expect anything more than 'abstinence,' you +understand--not real fasting--from people like them--people who work hard +with their hands. But--I really believe--they do very much as he does. +Mrs. Denton seems to keep the house on nothing. Oh! and, Laura--I really +can't be always having extra things!" + +Mrs. Fountain pushed her breakfast away from her. + +"Please remember--nobody settles anything for themselves--in your +Church," said Laura. "You know what that doctor--that Catholic +doctor--said to you at Folkestone." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed. + +"And as to Mrs. Denton, I see--that explains the manners. No +improvement--till Lent's over?" + +"Laura!" + +But her stepdaughter, who was at the window again looking out, paid no +heed, and presently Augustina said with timid softness: + +"Won't you have your breakfast, Laura? You know it's here--on my tray." + +Laura turned, and Augustina to her infinite relief saw not frowns, but a +face all radiance. + +"I've been watching the lambs in the field across the river. Such +ridiculous enchanting things!--such jumps--and affectations. And the +river's heavenly--and all the general _feel_ of it! I really don't know, +Augustina, how you ever came to leave this country when you'd once been +born in it." + +Mrs. Fountain pushed away her tray, shook her head sadly, and said +nothing. + +"What is it?--and who is it?" cried Laura, standing amazed before a +picture in the drawing-room at Bannisdale. + +In front of her, on the panelled wall, hung a dazzling portrait of a girl +in white, a creature light as a flower under wind; eyes upraised and +eager, as though to welcome a lover; fair hair bound turban-like with a +white veil; the pretty hands playing with a book. It shone from the brown +wall with a kind of natural sovereignty over all below it and around it, +so brilliant was the picture, so beautiful the woman. + +Augustina looked up drearily. She was sitting shrunk together in a large +chair, deep in some thoughts of her own. + +"That's our picture--the famous picture," she explained slowly. + +"Your Romney?" said Laura, vaguely recalling some earlier talk of her +stepmother's. + +Augustina nodded. She stared at the picture with a curious agitation, as +though she were seeing its long familiar glories for the first time. +Laura was much puzzled by her. + +"Well, but it's magnificent!" cried the girl. "One needn't know much to +know that. How can Mr. Helbeck call himself poor while he possesses such +a thing?" + +Augustina started. + +"It's worth thousands," she said hastily. "We know that. There was a man +from London came once, years ago. But papa turned him out--he would never +sell his things. And she was our great-grandmother." + +An idea flashed through Laura's mind. + +"You don't mean to say that Mr. Helbeck is going to sell her?" said Laura +impetuously. "It would be a shame!" + +"Alan can do what he likes with anything," said Augustina in a quick +resentment. "And he wants money badly for one of his orphanages--some of +it has to be rebuilt. Oh! those orphanages--how they must have weighed on +him--poor Alan!--poor dear Alan!--all these years!" + +Mrs. Fountain clasped her thin hands together, with a sigh. + +"Is it they that have eaten up the house bit by bit?--poor house!--poor +dear house!" repeated Laura. + +She was staring with an angry championship at the picture. Its sweet +confiding air--as of one cradled in love, happy for generations in the +homage of her kindred and the shelter of the old house--stood for all the +natural human things that creeds and bigots were always trampling under +foot. + +Mrs. Fountain, however, only shook her head. + +"I don't think Alan's settled anything yet. Only Mrs. Denton's +afraid.--There was somebody came to see it a few days ago----" + +"He certainly ought not to sell it," repeated Laura with emphasis. "He +has to think of the people that come after. What will they care for +orphanages? He only holds the picture in trust." + +"There will be no one to come after," said Augustina slowly. "For of +course he will never marry." + +"Is he too great a saint for that too?" cried Laura. "Then all I can say, +Augustina, is that--it--would--do him a great deal of good." + +She beat her little foot on the ground impatiently, pointing the words. + +"You don't know anything about him, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, with an +attempt at spirit. Then she added reproachfully: "And I'm sure he wants +to be kind to you." + +"He thinks me a little heretical toad, thank you!" said Laura, spinning +round on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "But +never mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't there +a great many more rooms to see?" + +Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course," she said, +"and Alan's study----" + +"Oh! we needn't go there," said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel." + +Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. It +was a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that had +once--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and the +treasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled. + +It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gathered +into the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of what +still remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, some +of one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remote +corners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of faded +stuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkey +carpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much as +possible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order and +of comfort. + +The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor new +furnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms on +which Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that first +one Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn; +dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across the +gloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragment +of fine furniture; but as a rule bareness, poverty, and void--nothing +could be more piteous, or, to Mrs. Fountain's memory, more surprising. +For some years before she left Bannisdale, her father had not known where +to turn for a pound of ready money. Yet when she fled from it, the house +and its treasures were still intact. + +The explanation of course was very simple. Alan Helbeck had been living +upon his house, as upon any other capital. Or rather he had been making +alms of it. The house stood gashed and bare that Catholic orphans might +be put to school--was that it? Laura hardly listened to Augustina's +plaintive babble as they crossed the hall. It was all about Alan, of +course--Alan's virtues, Alan's charities. As for the orphans, the girl +hated the thought of them. Grasping little wretches! She could see them +all in a sanctimonious row, their eyes cast up, and rosaries--like the +one Augustina was always trying to hide from her--in their ugly little +hands. + +They turned down a long stone passage leading to the chapel. As they +neared the chapel door there was a sound of voices from the hall at their +back. + +"It's Alan," said Augustina peering, "and Father Bowles!" + +She hurried back to meet them, skirts and cap-strings flying. Laura stood +still. + +But after a few words with his sister, Helbeck came up to his guest with +outstretched hand. + +"I hope we have not kept you waiting for dinner. May I introduce Father +Bowles to you?" + +Laura bowed with all the stiffness of which a young back is capable. She +saw an old grey-haired priest, with a round face and a pair of chubby +hands, which he constantly held crossed or clasped upon his breast. His +long irregular-mouth seemed to fold over at the corners above his very +small and childish chin. The mouth and the light blue eyes wore an +expression of rather mincing gentleness. His short figure, though bent a +little with years, was still vigorous, and his gait quick and bustling. + +He addressed Miss Fountain with a lisping and rather obsequious +politeness, asking a great many unnecessary questions about her journey +and her arrival. + +Laura answered coldly. But when he passed to Mrs. Fountain, Augustina was +all effusion. + +"When I think what has been granted to us since I was here last!" she +said to the priest as they moved on,--clasping her hands, and flushing. + +"The dear Bishop took such trouble about it," he said in a little +murmuring voice. "It was not easy--but the Church loves to content her +children." + +Involuntarily Laura glanced at Helbeck. + +"My sister refers to the permission which has been granted to us to +reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel," he said gravely. "It is a +privilege we never enjoyed till last year." + +Laura made no reply. + +"Shall I slip away?" she thought, looking round her. + +But at that moment Mr. Helbeck lifted the heavy latch of the chapel door; +and her young curiosity was too strong for her. She followed the others. + +Mr. Helbeck held the door open for her. + +"You will perhaps care to look at the frescoes," he said to her as she +hurried past him. She nodded, and walked quickly away to the left, by +herself. Then she turned and looked about her. + +It was the first time that she had entered a Catholic church, and every +detail was new to her. She watched the other three sign themselves with +holy water and drop low on one knee before the altar. So that was the +altar. She stared at it with a scornful repugnance; yet her pulse +quickened as though what she saw excited her. What was that erection +above it, with a veil of red silk drawn round it--and why was that lamp +burning in front of it? + +She recalled Mr. Helbeck's words--"permission to reserve the Blessed +Sacrament." Then, in a flash, a hundred vague memories, the deposit of a +hearsay knowledge, enlightened her. She knew and remembered much less +than any ordinary girl would have done. But still, in the main, she +guessed at what was passing. That of course was the Sacrament, before +which Mr. Helbeck and the others were kneeling!--for instinctively she +felt that it was to no empty shrine the adoration of those silent figures +was being offered. + +Fragments from Augustina's talk at Folkestone came back to her. Once she +had overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother and +a Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the +"Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there, +and that the faithful "visited" it--that these "visits" were indeed +specially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, as +they came home from their daily walk to the beach, Mrs. Fountain would +disappear from her, through the shadowy door of a Catholic church that +stood in the same street as their lodgings--how she would come home half +an hour afterwards, shaken with fresh ardours, fresh remorse. + +But how could such a thing be allowed, be possible, in a private +chapel--in a room that was really part of a private house? GOD--the +Christ of Calvary--in that gilt box, upon that altar! + +The young girl's arms fell by her side in a sudden rigidity. A wave of +the most passionate repulsion swept through her. What a gross, what an +intolerable superstition!--how was she to live with it, beside it? The +next instant it was as though her hand clasped her father's--clinging to +him proudly, against this alien world. Why should she feel lonely?--the +little heretic, left standing there alone in her distant corner. Let her +rather rejoice that she was her father's daughter! + +She drew herself up, and coolly looked about her. The worshippers had +risen; long as the time had seemed to Laura, they had only been two or +three minutes on their knees; and she could see that Augustina was +talking eagerly to her brother, pointing now to the walls, now to the +altar. + +It seemed as though Augustina were no less astonished than her +stepdaughter by the magnificence of the chapel. Was it all new,--the +frescoes, the altar with its marble and its gold, the white figure of the +Virgin, which gleamed above the small side-altar to the left? It had the +air of newness and of costliness, an air which struck the eye all the +more sharply because of the contrast between it and the penury, the +starvation, of the great house that held the chapel in its breast. + +But while Laura was still wondering at the general impression of rich +beauty, at the Lenten purple of the altar, at the candelabra, and the +perfume, certain figures and colours on the wall close to her seized her, +thrusting the rest aside. On either side of the altar, the walls to right +and left, from the entrance up to the sanctuary, were covered with what +appeared to be recent painting--painting, indeed, that was still in the +act. On either hand, long rows of life-sized saints, men and women, +turned their adoring faces towards the Christ looking down upon them from +a crucifix above the tabernacle. On the north wall, about half the row +was unfinished; faces, haloes, drapery, strongly outlined in red, still +waited for the completing hand of the artist. The rest glowed and burned +with colour--colour the most singular, the most daring. The carnations +and rose colours, the golds and purples, the blues and lilacs and +greens--in the whole concert of tone, in spite of its general simplicity +of surface, there was something at once ravishing and troubling, +something that spoke as it were from passion to passion. + +Laura's nature felt the thrill of it at once, just as she had felt the +thrill of the sunshine lighting up the tapestry of her room. + +"Why isn't it crude and hideous?" she asked herself, in a marvel. "But it +isn't. One never saw such blues--except in the sea--or such greens--and +rose! And the angels between!--and the flowers under their +feet!--Heavens! how lovely! Who did it?" + +"Do you admire the frescoes?" said a little voice behind her. + +She turned hastily, and saw Father Bowles smiling upon her, his plump +white hands clasped in front of him, as usual. It was an attitude which +seemed to make the simplest words sound intimate and possessive. Laura +shrank from, it in quick annoyance. + +"They are very strange, and--and startling," she said stiffly, moving as +far away from the grey-haired priest as possible. "Who painted them?" + +"Mr. Helbeck first designed them. But they were carried out for a time by +a youth of great genius." Father Bowles dwelt softly upon the word +"_ge_-nius," as though he loved it. "He was once a lad from these parts, +but has now become a Jesuit. So the work was stopped." + +"What a pity!" said Laura impetuously. "He ought to have been a painter." + +The priest smiled, and made her an odd little bow. Then, without saying +anything more about the artist, he chattered on about the frescoes and +the chapel, as though he had beside him the most sympathetic of +listeners. Nothing that he said was the least interesting or striking; +and Laura, in a passion of silent dislike, kept up a steady movement +towards the door all the time. + +In the passage outside Mrs. Fountain was lingering alone. And when Laura +appeared she caught hold of her stepdaughter and detained her while the +priest passed on. Laura looked at her in surprise, and Mrs. Fountain, in +much agitation, whispered in the girl's ear: + +"Oh, Laura--do remember, dear!--don't ask Alan about those +pictures--those frescoes--by young Williams. I can tell you some +time--and you might say something to hurt him--poor Alan!" + +Laura drew herself away. + +"Why should I say anything to hurt him? What's the mystery?" + +"I can't tell you now"--Mrs. Fountain looked anxiously towards the hall. +"People have been so hard on Alan--_so_ unkind about it! It's been a +regular persecution. And you wouldn't understand--wouldn't +sympathise----" + +"I really don't care to know about it, Augustina! And I'm so +hungry--famished! Look, there's Mr. Helbeck signing to us. Joy!--that's +dinner." + + * * * * * + +Laura expected the midday meal with some curiosity. But she saw no signs +of austerity. Mr. Helbeck pressed the roast chicken on Father Bowles, +took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, and +as to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybody +else. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo your +priest. + +The meal of course was served in the simplest way, and all the waiting +was done by Mr. Helbeck, who would allow nobody to help him in the task. + +The conversation dragged. Laura and her host talked a little about the +country and the weather. Father Bowles and Augustina tried to pick up the +dropped threads of thirteen years; and Mrs. Fountain was alternately +eager for Whinthorpe gossip, or reduced to an abrupt unhappy silence by +some memory of the past. + +Suddenly Father Bowles got up from his chair, ran across the room to the +window with his napkin in his hand, and pounced eagerly upon a fly that +was buzzing on the pane. Then he carefully opened the window, and flicked +the dead thing off the sill. + +"I beg your pardon," he said humbly to Mrs. Fountain as he returned to +his seat. "It was a nasty fly. I can't abide 'em. I always think of +Beelzebub, who was the prince of the flies." + +Laura's mouth twitched with laughter. She promised herself to make a +study of Father Bowles. + +And, indeed, he was a character in his own small way. He was a priest of +an old-fashioned type, with no pretensions to knowledge or to manners. +Wherever he went he was a meek and accommodating guest, for his +recollection went back to days when a priest coming to a private house to +say Mass would as likely as not have his meals in the pantry. And he was +naturally of a gentle and yielding temper--though rather sly. + +But he had several tricks as curious as they were persistent. Not even +the presence of his bishop could make him spare a bluebottle. And he had, +on the other hand, a peculiar passion for the smell of wax. He would blow +out a candle on the altar before the end of Mass that he might enjoy the +smell of it. He disliked Jesuits, and religious generally, if the truth +were known; excepting only the orphanage nuns, who knew his weaknesses +and were kind to them. He had no love for modern innovations, or modern +devotions; there was a hidden Gallican strain in him; and he firmly +believed that in the old days before Catholic emancipation, and before +the Oxford movement, the Church made more converts than she did now. + + * * * * * + +Towards the end of the lunch Laura inquired of Mr. Helbeck whether any +conveyance was to be got in the village. + +"I wish to go to Browhead Farm this afternoon," she said rather shortly. + +"Certainly," said Helbeck. "Certainly. I will see that something is found +for you." + +But his voice had no cordiality, and Laura at once thought him +ungracious. + +"Oh, pray don't give yourself any trouble," she said, flushing, "I can +walk to the village." + +Helbeck paused. + +"If you could wait till to-morrow," he said after a moment, "I could +promise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon." + +"Oh, do wait, Laura!" cried Augustina. "There is so much unpacking to +do." + +"Very well," said the girl unwillingly. + +As she turned away from him Helbeck's look followed her. She was in a +dress of black serge, which followed the delicate girlish frame with +perfect simplicity, and was relieved at the neck and wrists with the +plainest of white collars and cuffs. But there was something so brilliant +in the hair, so fawnlike in the carriage of the head, that she seemed to +Helbeck to be all elegance; had he been asked to describe her, he would +have said she was in _grande toilette_. Little as he spoke to her, he +found himself perpetually conscious of her. Her evident--childishly +evident--dislike of her new surroundings half amused, half embarrassed +him. He did not know what topic to start with her; soon, perhaps, he +might have a difficulty in keeping the peace! It was all very absurd. + +After luncheon they gathered in the hall for a while, Father Bowles +talking eagerly with Helbeck and Augustina about "orphans" and "new +buildings." Laura stood apart awhile--then went for her hat. + +When she reappeared, in walking dress--with Fricka at her heels--Helbeck +opened the heavy outer door for her. + +"May I have Bruno?" she said. + +Helbeck turned and whistled. + +"You are not afraid?" he said, smiling, and looking at Fricka. + +"Oh, dear no! I spent an hour this morning introducing them." + +At that moment Bruno came bounding up. He looked from his master to Laura +in her hat, and seemed to hesitate. Then, as she descended the steps, he +sprang after her. Laura began to run; the two dogs leapt about her; her +light voice, checking or caressing, came back to Helbeck on the spring +wind. He watched her and her companions so long as they were in +sight--the golden hair among the trees, the dancing steps of the girl, +the answering frolic of the dogs. + +Then he turned back to his sister, his grave mouth twitching. + +"How thankful she is to get rid of us!" + +He laughed out. The priest laughed, too, more softly. + +"It was the first time, I presume, that Miss Fountain had ever been +within a Catholic church?" he said to Augustina. + +Augustina flushed. + +"Of course it is the first time. Oh! Alan, you can't think how strange it +is to her." + +She looked rather piteously at her brother. + +"So I perceive," he said. "You told me something, but I had not +realised----" + +"You see, Alan--" cried Augustina, watching her brother's face,--"it was +with the greatest difficulty that her mother got Stephen to consent even +to her being baptized. He opposed it for a long time." + +Father Bowles murmured something under his breath. + +Helbeck paused for a moment, then said: + +"What was her mother like?" + +"Everyone at Cambridge used to say she was 'a sweet woman'--but--but +Stephen,--well, you know, Alan, Stephen always had his way! I always +wonder she managed to persuade him about the baptism." + +She coloured still more deeply as she spoke, and her nervous infirmity +became more pronounced. Alas! it was not only with the first wife that +Stephen had had his way! Her own marriage had begun to seem to her a mere +sinful connection. Poor soul--poor Augustina! + +Her brother must have divined something of what was passing in her mind, +for he looked down upon her with a peculiar gentleness. + +"People are perhaps more ready to talk of that responsibility than to +take it," he said kindly. "But, Augustina,--" his voice changed,--"how +pretty she is!--You hardly prepared me----" + +Father Bowles modestly cast down his eyes. These were not questions that +concerned him. But Helbeck went on, speaking with decision, and looking +at his sister: + +"I confess--her great attractiveness makes me a little anxious--about the +connection with the Masons. Have you ever seen any of them, Augustina?" + +No--Augustina had seen none of them. She believed Stephen had +particularly disliked the mother, the widow of his cousin, who now owned +the farm jointly with her son. + +"Well, no," said Helbeck dryly, "I don't suppose he and she would have +had much in common." + +"Isn't she a dreadful Protestant--Alan?" + +"Oh, she's just a specimen of the ordinary English Bible-worship run +mad," he said, carelessly. "She is a strange woman, very well known about +here. And there's a foolish parson living near them, up in the hills, who +makes her worse. But it's the son I'm thinking of." + +"Why, Alan--isn't he respectable?" + +"Not particularly. He's a splendid athletic fellow--doing his best to +make himself a blackguard, I'm afraid. I've come across him once or +twice, as it happens. He's not a desirable cousin for Miss Fountain--that +I can vouch for! And unluckily," he smiled, "Miss Fountain won't hear any +good of this house at Browhead Farm." + +Even Augustina drew herself up proudly. + +"My dear Alan, what does it matter what that sort of people think?" + +He shook his head. + +"It's a queer business. They were mixed up with young Williams." + +Augustina started. + +"Mrs. Mason was a great friend of his mother, who died. They hate me like +poison. However----" + +The priest interposed. + +"Mrs. Mason is a very violent, a most unseemly woman," he said, in his +mincing voice. "And the father--the old man--who is now dead, was +concerned in the rioting near the bridge----" + +"When Alan was struck? Mrs. Denton told me! How _abominable_!" + +Augustina raised her hands in mingled reprobation and distress. + +Helbeck looked annoyed. + +"That doesn't matter one brass farthing," he said, in some haste. "Father +Bowles was much worse treated than I on that occasion. But you see the +whole thing is unlucky--it makes it difficult to give Miss Fountain the +hints one would like to give her." + +He threw himself down beside his sister, talking to her in low tones. +Father Bowles took up the local paper. + +Presently Augustina broke out--with another wringing of the hands. + +"Don't put it on me, my dear Alan! I tell you--Laura has always done +exactly what she liked since she was a baby." + +Mr. Helbeck rose. His face and air already expressed a certain +haughtiness; and at his sister's words there was a very definite +tightening of the shoulders. + +"I do not intend to have Hubert Mason hanging about the house," he said +quietly, as he thrust his hands into his pockets. + +"Of course not!--but she wouldn't expect it," cried Augustina in dismay. +"It's the keeping her away from them, that's the difficulty. She thinks +so much of her cousins, Alan. They're her father's only relations. I know +she'll want to be with them half her time!" + +"For love of them--or dislike of us? Oh! I dare say it will be all +right," he added abruptly. "Father Bowles, shall I drive you half-way? +The pony will be round directly." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It was a Sunday morning--bright and windy. Miss Fountain was driving a +shabby pony through the park of Bannisdale--driving with a haste and glee +that sent the little cart spinning down the road. + +Six hours--she calculated--till she need see Bannisdale again. Her +cousins would ask her to dinner and to tea. Augustina and Mr. Helbeck +might have all their Sunday antics to themselves. There were several +priests coming to luncheon--and a function in the chapel that afternoon. +Laura flicked the pony sharply as she thought of it. Seven miles between +her and it? Joy! + +Nevertheless, she did not get rid of the old house and its suggestions +quite as easily as she wished. The park and the river had many windings. +Again and again the grey gabled mass thrust itself upon her attention, +recalling each time, against her will, the face of its owner. + +A high brow--hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks--pale +blue eyes--a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair--the +close whiskers black, too, against the skin--a general impression of +pallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force-- + +She burst out laughing. + +A pose!--nothing in the world but a pose. There was a wretched picture of +Charles I. in the dining-room--a daub "after" some famous thing, she +supposed--all eyes and hair, long face, and lace collar. Mr. Helbeck was +"made up" to that--she was sure of it. He had found out the likeness, and +improved upon it. Oh! if one could only present him with the collar and +blue ribbon complete! + +"--Cut his head off, and have done with him!" she said aloud, whipping up +the pony, and laughing at her own petulance. + +Who could live in such a house--such an atmosphere? + +As she drove along, her mind was all in a protesting whirl. On her return +from her walk with the dogs the day before, she had found a service going +on in the chapel, Father Bowles officiating, and some figures in black +gowns and white-winged coifs assisting. She had fled to her own room, but +when she came down again, the black-garbed "Sisters" were still there, +and she had been introduced to them. Ugh! what manners! Must one always, +if one was a Catholic, make that cloying, hypocritical impression? "Three +of them kissed me," she reminded herself, in a quiver of wrath. + +They were Sisters from the orphanage apparently, or one of the +orphanages, and there had been endless talk of new buildings and money, +while she, Laura, sat dumb in her corner looking at old photographs of +the house. Helbeck, indeed, had not talked much. While the black women +were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly +silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through +his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he +pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that +his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other +people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively +than more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl had +an impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, that +held herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, or +awkward--nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon one +sees that he is just looking out for his own way in everything. + +"And as for temper!----" + +After the Sisters departed, a young architect had appeared at supper. A +point of difference had arisen between him and Mr. Helbeck. He was to be +employed, it appeared, in the enlargement of this blessed orphanage. Mr. +Helbeck, no doubt, with a view to his pocket--to do him justice, there +seemed to be no other pocket concerned than his--was of opinion that +certain existing buildings could be made use of in the new scheme. The +architect--a nervous young fellow, with awkward manners, and the +ambitions of an artist--thought not, and held his own, insistently. The +discussion grew vehement. Suddenly Helbeck lost his temper. + +"Mr. Munsey! I must ask you to give more weight, if you please, to my +wishes in this matter! They may be right or wrong--but it would save +time, perhaps, if we assumed that they would prevail." + +The note of anger in the voice made every one look up. The Squire stood +erect a moment; crumpled in his hand a half-sheet of paper on which young +Munsey had been making some calculations, and flung it into the fire. +Augustina sat cowering. The young man himself turned white, bowed, and +said nothing. While Father Bowles, of course, like the old tabby that he +was, had at once begun to purr conciliation. + +"Would I have stood meek and mum if _I'd_ been the young man!" thought +Laura. "Would I! Oh! if I'd had the chance! And he should not have made +up so easily, either." + +For she remembered, also, how, after Father Bowles was gone, she had come +in from the garden to find Mr. Helbeck and the architect pacing the long +hall together, on what seemed to be the friendliest of terms. For nearly +an hour, while she and Augustina sat reading over the fire, the colloquy +went on. + +Helbeck's tones then were of the gentlest; the young man too spoke low +and eagerly, pressing his plans. And once when Laura looked up from her +book, she had seen Helbeck's arm resting for a moment on the young +fellow's shoulder. Oh! no doubt Mr. Helbeck could make himself agreeable +when he chose--and struggling architects must put up with the tempers of +their employers. + +All the more did Miss Fountain like to think that the Squire could compel +no court from her. + +She recalled that when Mr. Munsey had said good-night, and they three +were alone in the firelit hall, Helbeck had come to stand beside her. He +had looked down upon her with an air which was either kindness or +weariness; he had been willing--even, she thought, anxious to talk with +her. But she did not mean to be first trampled on, then patronised, like +the young man. So Mr. Helbeck had hardly begun--with that occasional +timidity which sat so oddly on his dark and strong physique--to speak to +her of the two Sisters of Charity who had been his guests in the +afternoon, when she abruptly discovered it was time to say good-night. +She winced a little as she remembered the sudden stiffening of his look, +the careless touch of his hand. + + * * * * * + +The day was keen and clear. A nipping wind blew beneath the bright sun, +and the opening buds had a parched and hindered look. But to Laura the +air was wine, and the country all delight. She was mounting the flank of +a hill towards a straggling village. Straight along the face of the hill +lay her road, past the villages and woods that clothed the hill slope, +till someone should show her the gate beyond which lay the rough ascent +to Browhead Farm. + +Above her, now, to her right, rose a craggy fell with great screes +plunging sheer down into the woods that sheltered the village; below, in +the valley-plain, stretched the purples and greens of the moss; the +rivers shone in the sun as they came speeding from the mountains to the +sea; and in the far distance the heights of Lakeland made one pageant +with the sun and the clouds--peak after peak thrown blue against the +white, cloud after cloud breaking to show the dappled hills below, in +such a glory of silver and of purple, such a freshness of atmosphere and +light, that mere looking soon became the most thrilling, the most +palpable of joys. Laura's spirits began to sing and soar, with the larks +and the blackcaps! + +Then, when the village was gone, came a high stretch of road, looking +down upon the moss and all its bounding fells, which ran out upon its +purple face like capes upon a sea. And these nearer fields--what were +these thick white specks upon the new-made furrows? Up rose the gulls for +answer; and the girl felt the sea-breath from their dazzling wings, and +turned behind her to look for that pale opening in the south-west through +which the rivers passed. + +And beyond the fields a wood--such a wood as made Laura's south-country +eyes stand wide with wonder! Out she jumped, tied the pony's rein to a +gate beside the road, and ran into the hazel brushwood with little cries +of pleasure. A Westmoreland wood in daffodil time--it was nothing more +and nothing less. But to this child with the young passion in her blood, +it was a dream, an ecstasy. The golden flowers, the slim stalks, rose +from a mist of greenish-blue, made by their speary leaf amid the +encircling browns and purples, the intricate stem and branch-work of the +still winter-bound hazels. Never were daffodils in such a wealth before! +They were flung on the fell-side through a score of acres, in sheets and +tapestries of gold,--such an audacious, unreckoned plenty as went +strangely with the frugal air and temper of the northern country, with +the bare walled fields, the ruggedness of the crags above, and the +melancholy of the treeless marsh below. And within this common +lavishness, all possible delicacy, all possible perfection of the +separate bloom and tuft--each foot of ground had its own glory. For below +the daffodils there was a carpet of dark violets, so dim and close that +it was their scent first bewrayed them; and as Laura lay gathering with +her face among the flowers, she could see behind their gold, and between +the hazel stems, the light-filled greys and azures of the mountain +distance. Each detail in the happy whole struck on the girl's eager sense +and made there a poem of northern spring--spring as the fell-country sees +it, pure, cold, expectant, with flashes of a blossoming beauty amid the +rocks and pastures, unmatched for daintiness and joy. + +Presently Laura found herself sitting--half crying!--on a mossy tuft, +looking along the wood to the distance. What was it in this exquisite +country that seized upon her so--that spoke to her in this intimate, this +appealing voice? + +Why, she was of it--she belonged to it--she felt it in her veins! Old +inherited things leapt within her--or it pleased her to think so. It was +as though she stretched out her arms to the mountains and fields, crying +to them, "I am not a stranger--draw me to you--my life sprang from +yours!" A host of burning and tender thoughts ran through her. Their +first effect was to remind her of the farm and of her cousins; and she +sprang up, and went back to the cart. + +On they rattled again, downhill through the wood, and up on the further +side--still always on the edge of the moss. She loved the villages, and +their medley of grey houses wedged among the rocks; she loved the stone +farms with their wide porches, and the white splashes on their grey +fronts; she loved the tufts of fern in the wall crannies, the limestone +ribs and bonework of the land breaking everywhere through the pastures, +the incomparable purples of the woods, and the first brave leafing of the +larches and the sycamores. Never had she so given her heart to any new +world; and through her delight flashed the sorest, tenderest thoughts of +her father. "Oh! papa--oh, papa!" she said to herself again and again in +a little moan. Every day perhaps he had walked this road as a child, and +she could still see herself as a child, in a very dim vision, trotting +beside him down the Browhead Road. She turned at last into the fell-gate +to which a passing boy directed her, with a long breath that was almost a +sob. + +She had given them no notice; but surely, surely they would be glad to +see her! + +_They_? She tried to split up the notion, to imagine the three people she +was going to see. Cousin Elizabeth--the mother? Ah! she knew her, for +they had never liked Cousin Elizabeth. She herself could dimly remember a +hard face; an obstinate voice raised in discussion with her father. Yet +it was Cousin Elizabeth who was the Fountain born, who had carried the +little family property as her dowry to her husband James Mason. For the +grandfather had been free to leave it as he chose, and on the death of +his eldest son--who had settled at the farm after his marriage, and taken +the heavy work of it off his father's shoulders--the old man had +passionately preferred to leave it to the strong, capable granddaughter, +who was already provided with a lover, who understood the land, moreover, +and could earn and "addle" as he did, rather than to his bookish milksop +of a second son, so richly provided for already, in his father's +contemptuous opinion, by the small government post at Newcastle. + +"Let us always thank God, Laura, that my grandfather was a brute to +yours!" Stephen Fountain would say to his girl on the rare occasions when +he could be induced to speak of his family at all. "But for that I might +be a hedger and ditcher to this day." + +Well, but Cousin Elizabeth's children? Laura herself had some vague +remembrance of them. As the pony climbed the steep lane she shut her eyes +and tried hard to recall them. The fair-haired boy--rather fat and +masterful--who had taken her to find the eggs of a truant hen in a hedge +behind the house--and had pushed her into a puddle on the way home +because she had broken one? Then the girl, the older girl Polly, who had +cleaned her shoes for her, and lent her a pinafore? No! Laura opened her +eyes again--it was no good straining to remember. Too many years had +rolled between that early visit and her present self--years during which +there had been no communication of any sort between Stephen Fountain and +his cousins. + +Why had Augustina been so trying and tiresome about the Masons? Instead +of flying to her cousins on the earliest possible opportunity, here was a +whole fortnight gone since her arrival, and it was not till this Sunday +morning that Laura had been able to achieve her visit. Augustina had been +constantly ailing or fretful; either unwilling to be left alone, or +possessed by absurd desires for useless trifles, only to be satisfied by +Laura's going to shop in Whinthorpe. And such melancholy looks whenever +the Masons were mentioned--coupled with so formal a silence on Mr. +Helbeck's part! What did it all mean? No doubt her relations were vulgar, +low-born folk!--but she did not ask Mr. Helbeck or her stepmother to +entertain them. At last there had been a passage of arms between her and +her stepmother. Perhaps Mr. Helbeck had overheard it, for immediately +afterwards he had emerged from his study into the hall, where she and +Augustina were sitting. + +"Miss Fountain--may I ask--do you wish to be sent into Whinthorpe on +Sunday morning?" + +She had fronted him at once. + +"No, thank you, Mr. Helbeck. I don't go to church--I never did with +papa." + +Had she been defiant? He surely had been stiff. + +"Then, perhaps you would like the pony--for your visit? He is quite at +your service for the day. Would that suit you?" + +"Perfectly." + + * * * * * + +So here she was--at last!--climbing up and up into the heart of the +fells. The cloud-pageant round the high mountains, the valley with its +flashing streams, its distant sands, and widening sea--she had risen as +it seemed above them all; they lay beneath her in a map-like unity. She +could have laughed and sung out of sheer physical joy in the dancing +air--in the play of the cloud gleams and shadows as they swept across +her, chased by the wind. All about her the little mountain sheep were +feeding in the craggy "intaks" or along the edges of the tiny tumbling +streams; and at intervals amid the reds and yellows of the still wintry +grass rose great wind-beaten hollies, sharp and black against the blue +distance, marching beside her, like scattered soldiers, up the height. + +Not a house to be seen, save on the far slopes of distant hills--not a +sound, but the chink of the stone-chat, or the fall of lonely water. + +Soon the road, after its long ascent, began to dip; a few trees appeared +in a hollow, then a gate and some grey walls. + +Laura jumped from the cart. Beyond the gate, the road turned downward a +little, and a great block of barns shut the farmhouse from view till she +was actually upon it. + +But there it was at last--the grey, roughly built house, that she still +vaguely remembered, with the whitewashed porch, the stables and cowsheds +opposite, the little garden to the side, the steep fell behind. + +She stood with her hand on the pony, looking at the house in some +perplexity. Not a soul apparently had heard her coming. Nothing moved in +the farmhouse or outside it. Was everybody at church? But it was nearly +one o'clock. + +The door under the deep porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for +a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle of her whip. + +No answer. She rapped again--louder and louder. At last in the intervals +of knocking, she became conscious of a sound within--something deep and +continuous, like the buzzing of a gigantic bee. + +She put her ear to the door, listening. Then all her face dissolved in +laughter. She raised her arm and brought the whip-handle down noisily on +the old blistered door, so that it shook again. + +"Hullo!" + +There was a sudden sound of chairs overturned, or dragged along a flagged +floor. Then staggering steps--and the door was opened. + +"I say--what's all this--what are you making such a damned noise for?" + +Inside stood a stalwart young man, still half asleep, and drawing his +hand irritably across his blinking eyes. + +"How do you do, Mr. Mason?" + +The young man drew himself together with a start. Suddenly he perceived +that the young girl standing in the shade of the porch was not his +sister, but a stranger. He looked at her with astonishment,--at the +elegance of her dress, and the neatness of her small gloved hand. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure! Did you want anything?" + +The visitor laughed. "Yes, I want a good deal! I came up to see my +cousins--you're my cousin--though of course you don't remember me. I +thought--perhaps--you'd ask me to dinner." + +The young man's yawns ceased. He stared with all his eyes, instinctively +putting his hair and collar straight. + +"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are, Miss," he said at last, +putting out his hand in perplexity to meet hers. "Will you walk in?" + +"Not before you know who I am!"--said Laura, still laughing--"I'm Laura +Fountain. Now do you know?" + +"What--Stephen Fountain's daughter--as married Miss Helbeck?" said the +young man in wonder. His face, which had been at first vague and heavy +with sleep, began to recover its natural expression. + +Laura surveyed him. He had a square, full chin and an upper lip slightly +underhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. He +carried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built, +rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that was +half clumsy, half insolent. + +"That's it," she said, in answer to his question--"I'm staying at +Bannisdale, and I came up to see you all.--Where's Cousin Elizabeth?" + +"Mother, do you mean?--Oh! she's at church." + +"Why aren't you there, too?" + +He opened his blue eyes, taken aback by the cool clearness of her voice. + +"Well, I can't abide the parson--if you want to know. Shall I put up your +pony?" + +"But perhaps you've not had your sleep out?" said Laura, politely +interrogative. + +He reddened, and came forward with a slow and rather shambling gait. + +"I don't know what else there is to do up here of a Sunday morning," he +said, with a boyish sulkiness, as he began to lead the pony towards the +stables opposite. "Besides, I was up half the night seeing to one of the +cows." + +"You don't seem to have many neighbours," said Laura, as she walked +beside him. + +"There's rooks and crows" (which he pronounced broadly--"craws")--"not +much else, I can tell you. Shall I take the pony out?" + +"Please. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for hours!" + +She looked at him merrily, and he returned the scrutiny. She wore the +same thin black dress in which Helbeck had admired her the day before, +and above it a cloth jacket and cap, trimmed with brown fur. Mason was +dazzled a moment by the milky whiteness of the cheek above the fur, by +the brightness of the eyes and hair; then was seized with fresh shyness, +and became extremely busy with the pony. + +"Mother'll be back in about an hour," he said gruffly. + +"Goodness! what'll you do with me till then?" + +They both laughed, he with an embarrassment that annoyed him. He was not +at all accustomed to find himself at a disadvantage with a good-looking +girl. + +"There's a good fire in the house, anyway," he said; "you'll want to warm +yourself, I should think, after driving up here." + +"Oh! I'm not cold--I say, what jolly horses!" + +For Mason had thrown open the large worm-eaten door of the stables, and +inside could be seen the heads and backs of two cart-horses, huge, +majestic creatures, who were peering over the doors of their stalls, as +though they had been listening to the conversation. + +Their owner glanced at them indifferently. + +"Aye, they're not bad. We bred 'em three years ago, and they've taken +more'n one prize already. I dare say old Daffady, now, as looks after +them, would be sorry to part with them." + +"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?" + +The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony, +and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching his +performance. + +"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives," he said at last +with some abruptness. + +"Don't you like it then?" + +"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!" + +His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her. + +"And your mother?" + +"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the +same accent of a sulky child that he had used once before. + +Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he was +beginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious that +she was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no means +indifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep him +shy. + +As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up the +chairs he had overturned in his sudden waking. + +"I say, mother would be mad if she knew you'd come into this scrow!" he +said with vexation, kicking aside some sporting papers that were littered +over the floors, and bringing forward a carved oak chair with a cushion +to place it before the fire for her acceptance. + +"Scrow? What's that?" said Laura, lifting her eyebrows. "Oh, please don't +tidy any more. I really think you make it worse. Besides, it's all right. +What a dear old kitchen!" + +She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slender +foot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat--it hid her +hair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupied +with what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings--to +the old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows. + +Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through +the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the +different objects in a golden light and shade--the brass warming-pan +hanging beside the tall eight-day clock--the table in front of the long +window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth--the carved door of a +cupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679--the miscellaneous store of +things packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools, +bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels, +cattle-medicines, and the like--the heavy oaken chairs--the settle beside +the fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room for +winter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peat +fire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feet +below, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, had +maintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred, +self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of the +farm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned from +October to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there must +be many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in together +from the world outside by wastes of snow. + +Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro--the +rising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side, +wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire. +Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmed +to the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something more +human--more poetic even--than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale. + +She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw Hubert +Mason looking at her. + +Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under the +shelter of her dress. + +"I was thinking of what it must be in winter," she said hurriedly. "I +know I should like it." + +"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then. +It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut your +throat. I say, where are you staying?" + +"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother was +still living, didn't you?" + +"Well, I didn't think aught about it," he said, falling into candour, +because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair and +full upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind. + +"I wrote to you--to Cousin Elizabeth--when my father died," she said +simply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him. + +"Aye--of course you did," he said in haste. "But mother's never yan to +talk aboot letters. And you haven't dropped us a line since, have you?" +he added, almost with timidity. + +"No. I thought I'd surprise you. We've been a fortnight at Bannisdale." + +His face flushed and darkened. + +"Then you've been a fortnight in a queer place!" he said with a sudden, +almost a violent change of tone. "I wonder you can bide so long under +that man's roof!" + +She stared. + +"Do you mean because he disliked my father?" + +"Oh, I don't know nowt about that!" He paused. His young face was +crimson, his eyes angry and sinister. "He's a _snake_--is Helbeck!" he +said slowly, striking his hands together as they hung over his knees. + +Laura recoiled--instinctively straightening herself. + +"Mr. Helbeck is quite kind to me," she said sharply. "I don't know why +you speak of him like that. I'm staying there till my stepmother gets +strong." + +He stared at her, still red and obstinate. + +"Helbeck an his house together stick in folk's gizzards aboot here," he +said. "Yo'll soon find that oot. And good reason too. Did you ever hear +of Teddy Williams?" + +"Williams?" she said, frowning. "Was that the man that painted the +chapel?" + +Mason laughed and slapped his knee. + +"Man, indeed? He was just a lad--down at Marsland School. I was there +myself, you understand, the year after him. He was an awful clever +lad--beat every one at books--an he could draw anything. You couldn't +mak' much oot of his drawins, I daur say--they were queer sorts o' +things. I never could make head or tail on 'em myself. But old Jackson, +our master, thowt a lot of 'em, and so did the passon down at Marsland. +An his father an mother--well, they thowt he was going to make all their +fortunes for 'em. There was a scholarship--or soomthin o' that sort--an +he was to get it an go to college, an make 'em all rich. They were just +common wheelwrights, you understand, down on t' Whinthorpe Road. But my +word, Mr. Helbeck spoilt their game for 'em!" + +He lifted another sod of turf from the basket and flung it on the fire. +The animus of his tone and manner struck Laura oddly. But she was at +least as curious to hear as he was anxious to tell. She drew her chair a +little nearer to him. + +"What did Mr. Helbeck do?" + +Mason laughed. + +"Well, he just made a Papist of Teddy--took him an done him--brown. He +got hold on him in the park one evening--Teddy was drawing a picture of +the bridge, you understand--'ticed him up to his place soomhow--an Teddy +was set to a job of paintin up at the chapel before you could say Jack +Robinson. An in six months they'd settled it between 'em. Teddy wouldn't +go to school no more. And one night he and his father had words; the owd +man gie'd him a thrashing, and Teddy just cut and run. Next thing they +heard he was at a Papist school, somewhere over Lancashire way, an he +sent word to his mother--she was dyin then, you understan'--and she's +dead since--that he'd gone to be a priest, an if they didn't like it, +they might just do the other thing!" + +"And the mother died?" said Laura. + +"Aye--double quick! My mother went down to nurse her. An they sent Teddy +back, just too late to see her. He come in two-three hours after they'd +screwed her down. An his father chivvyed him oot--they wouldn't have him +at the funeral. But folks were a deal madder with Mr. Helbeck, you +understan', nor with Teddy. Teddy's father and brothers are chapel +folk--Primitive Methodists they call 'em. They've got a big chapel in +Whinthorpe--an they raised the whole place on Mr. Helbeck, and one night, +coming out of Whinthorpe, he was set on by a lot of fellows, chapel +fellows, a bit fresh, you understan'. Father was there--he never denied +it--not he! Helbeck just got into the old mill by the bridge in time, but +they'd marked his face for him all the same." + +"Ah!" said Laura, staring into the fire. She had just remembered a dark +scar on Mr. Helbeck's forehead, under the strong ripples of black hair. +"Go on--do!" + +"Oh! afterwards there was a lot of men bound over--father among 'em. +There was a priest with Mr. Helbeck who got it hot too--that old chap +Bowles--I dare say you've seen him. Aye, he's a _snake_, is Helbeck!" the +young man repeated. Then he reddened still more deeply, and added with +vindictive emphasis--"and an interfering,--hypocritical,--canting sort of +party into t' bargain. He'd like to lord it over everybody aboot here, if +he was let. But he's as poor as a church rat--who minds him?" + +The language was extraordinary--so was the tone. Laura had been gazing at +the speaker in a growing amazement. + +"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!--but, +in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of the +gentleman I am staying with!" + +Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to control +himself. + +"I didn't mean no offence," he said at last, with a return of the sulky +voice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, and +not with the likes of us." + +Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing to +say! But I don't mind--I'll forgive you--like I did years ago, when you +pushed me into the puddle!" + +"I pushed you into a puddle? But--I never did owt o' t' sort!" cried +Mason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment. + +"Oh, yes, you did," she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and you +bullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy--and I loved Polly, +who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she at +church?" + +"Aye--I dare say," said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhile +with all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off her +cap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curls +upon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so as +to fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The white +fingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted arms +showed all the young curves of the girl's form. + +Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily +into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair. + +"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?" + +He shook his head. + +"Ah! well"--she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty. + +"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily. + +"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different +voice, "Is this your sitting-room"--she looked round it--"or--or your +kitchen?" + +The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his +feelings. + +Mason jumped up. + +"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust +thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire." + +And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door +ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look +round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its +woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured +carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place +struck her. + +"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen," she said decidedly. "What's +that?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon the +largest possible wool mat in the centre of a table. + +Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fill +out; all his sulky constraint dropped away. + +"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts," he said to her with +condescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for the +County lasst year--no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt--that's +nobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a better +there, by-and-by." + +The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumed +indifference to its inscription. + +"What--football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! I +don't care about football. But I _love_ cricket. Why--you've got a +piano--and a new one!" + +Mason's face cleared again--in quite another fashion. + +"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal of +by them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had done +fust-rate,--an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So I +took no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid the +first instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle--do yo +knaw 'im?--he's the organist at the parish church--he came with me to +choose it." + +"And is it you that play it," said Laura wondering, "or your sister?" + +He looked at her in silence for a moment--and she at him. His aspect +seemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face came +out; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner became +suddenly quiet and manly--though full of an almost tremulous eagerness. + +"You like it?" she asked him. + +"What--music? I should think so." + +"Oh! I forgot--you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?" + +He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leant +over the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused. + +"I say--did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellow +made it--Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further than +just a bit of it." + +He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords that +shook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He played +on--played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling--played with +a mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment that +amazed her--then grew crimson with the effort to remember--wavered--and +stopped. + +"Goodness!"--cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides! +How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it." + +She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling and +transformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found the +after melody, pursued it,--with pauses now and then, in which he would +strike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers--and finally, +after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter and +head-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time with +hands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments. + +"Oh! my goody--isn't that rousing? Play that again--just that +change--just once! Oh! Lord--isn't that good, that chord--and that bit +afterwards, what a bass!--I say, _isn't_ it a bass? Don't you like +it--don't you like it _awfully_?" + +Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, her +hands on her knees. He fell back into a chair. + +"I say"--he said slowly--"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known you +could play like that!" + +Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown. + +"I haven't played--ten notes--since papa died. He liked it so." + +She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at the +top of the piano. + +"But you will play--you'll play to me again"--he said +beseechingly.--"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't I +play if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now and +again, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him--I can +play any thing I hear--and I've made a song--old Castle's writing it +down--he says he'll teach me to do it some day. But of course I'm no good +for playing--I never shall be any good. Look at those fingers--they're +like bits of stick--beastly things!" + +He thrust them out indignantly for her inspection. Laura looked at them +with a professional air. + +"I don't call it a bad hand. I expect you've no patience." + +"Haven't I! I tell you I'd play all day, if it'ld do any good--but it +won't." + +"And how about the poor farm?" said Laura, with a lifted brow. + +"Oh! the farm--the farm--dang the farm!"--said Mason violently, slapping +his knee. + +Suddenly there was a sound of voices outside, a clattering on the stones +of the farmyard. + +Mason sprang up, all frowns. + +"That's mother. Here, let's shut the piano--quick! She can't abide it." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Mason went out to meet his mother, and Laura waited. She stood where she +had risen, beside the piano, looking nervously towards the door. Childish +remembrances and alarms seemed to be thronging back into her mind. + +There was a noise of voices in the outer room. Then a handle was roughly +turned, and Laura saw before her a short, stout woman, with grey hair, +and the most piercing black eyes. Intimidated by the eyes, and by the +sudden pause of the newcomer on the threshold, Miss Fountain could only +look at her interrogatively. + +"Is it Cousin Elizabeth?" she said, holding out a wavering hand. + +Mrs. Mason scarcely allowed her own to be touched. + +"We're not used to visitors i' church-time," she said abruptly, in a deep +funereal voice. "Mappen you'll sit down." + +And still holding the girl with her eyes, she walked across to an old +rocking-chair, let herself fall into it, and with a loud sigh loosened +her bonnet strings. + +Laura, in her amazement, had to strangle a violent inclination to laugh. +Then she flushed brightly, and sat down on the wooden stool in front of +the piano. Mrs. Mason, still staring at her, seemed to wait for her to +speak. But Laura would say nothing. + +"Soa--thoo art Stephen Fountain's dowter--art tha?" + +"Yes--and you have seen me before," was the girl's quiet reply. + +She said to herself that her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. So +black and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggy +hair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her own temper rising. + +"How long is't sen your feyther deed?" + +"Nine months. But you knew that, I think--because I wrote it you." + +Mrs. Mason's heavy lids blinked a moment, then she said with slowly +quickening emphasis, like one mounting to a crisis: + +"Wat art tha doin' wi' Bannisdale Hall? What call has thy feyther's +dowter to be visitin onder Alan Helbeck's roof?" + +Laura's open mouth showed first wonderment, then laughter. + +"Oh! I see," she said impatiently--"you don't seem to understand. But of +course you remember that my father married Miss Helbeck for his second +wife?" + +"Aye, an she cam oot fra amang them," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "she put away +from her the accursed thing!" + +The massive face was all aglow, transformed, with a kind of sombre fire. +Laura stared afresh. + +"She gave up being a Catholic, if that's what you mean," she said after a +moment's pause. "But she couldn't keep to it. When papa fell ill, and she +was unhappy, she went back. And then of course she made it up with her +brother." + +The triumph in Mrs. Mason's face yielded first to astonishment, then to +anger. + +"The poor weak doited thing," she said at last in a tone of indescribable +contempt, "the poor silly fule! But naebody need ha' luked for onything +betther from a Helbeck.--And I daur say"--she lifted her voice +fiercely--"I daur say she took yo' wi' her, an it's along o' thattens as +yo're coom to spy on us oop here?" + +Laura sprang up. + +"Me!" she said indignantly. "You think I'm a Catholic and a spy? How kind +of you! But of course you don't know anything about my father, nor how he +brought me up. As for my poor little stepmother, I came here with her to +get her well, and I shall stay with her till she is well. I really don't +know why you talk to me like this. I suppose you have cause to dislike +Mr. Helbeck, but it is very odd that you should visit it on me, papa's +daughter, when I come to see you!" + +The girl's voice trembled, but she threw back her slender neck with a +gesture that became her. The door, which had been closed, stealthily +opened. Hubert Mason's face appeared in the doorway. It was gazing +eagerly--admiringly--at Miss Fountain. + +Mrs. Mason did not see him. Nor was she daunted by Laura's anger. + +"It's aw yan," she said stubbornly. "Thoo ha' made a covenant wi' the +Amorite an the Amalekite. They ha' called tha, an thoo art eatin o' their +sacrifices!" + +There was an uneasy laugh from the door, and Laura, turning her +astonished eyes in that direction, perceived Hubert standing in the +doorway, and behind him another head thrust eagerly forward--the head of +a young woman in a much betrimmed Sunday hat. + +"I say, mother, let her be, wil tha?" said a hearty voice; and, pushing +Hubert aside, the owner of the hat entered the room. She went up to +Laura, and gave her a loud kiss. + +"I'm Polly--Polly Mason. An I know who you are weel enough. Doan't you +pay ony attention to mother. That's her way. Hubert an I take it very +kind of you to come and see us." + +"Mother's rats on Amorites!" said Hubert, grinning. + +"Rats?--Amorites?"--said Laura, looking piteously at Polly, whose hand +she held. + +Polly laughed, a bouncing, good-humoured laugh. She herself was a +bouncing, good-humoured person, the apparent antithesis of her mother +with her lively eyes, her frizzled hair, her high cheek-bones touched +with a bright pink. + +"Yo'll have to get oop early to understan' them two," she declared. +"Mother's allus talkin out o' t' Bible, an Hubert picks up a lot o' low +words out o' Whinthrupp streets--an there 'tis. But now look here--yo'll +stay an tak' a bit o' dinner with us?" + +"I don't want to be in your way," said Laura formally. Really, she had +some difficulty to control the quiver of her lips, though it would have +been difficult to say whether laughter or tears came nearest. + +At this Polly broke out in voluble protestations, investigating her +cousin's dress all the time, fingering her little watch-chain, and even +taking up a corner of the pretty cloth jacket that she might examine the +quality of it. Laura, however, looked at Mrs. Mason. + +"If Cousin Elizabeth wishes me to stay," she said proudly. + +Polly burst into another loud laugh. + +"Yo see, it goes agen mother to be shakin hands wi' yan that's livin wi' +Papists--and Misther Helbeck by the bargain. So wheniver mother talks +aboot Amorites or Jesubites, or any o' thattens, she nobbut means +Papist--Romanists as our minister coes 'em. He's every bit as bad as her. +He would as lief shake hands wi' Mr. Helbeck as wi' the owd 'un!" + +"I'll uphowd ye--Mr. Bayley hasn't preached a sermon this ten year wi'oot +chivvyin Papists!" said Hubert from the door. "An yo'll not find yan o' +them in his parish if yo were to hunt it wi' a lantern for a week o' +Sundays. When I was a lad I thowt Romanists were a soart o' varmin. I +awmost looked to see 'em nailed to t' barndoor, same as stoeats!" + +"But how strange!" cried Laura--"when there are so few Catholics about +here. And no one _hates_ Catholics now. One may just--despise them." + +She looked from mother to son in bewilderment. Not only Hubert's speech, +but his whole manner had broadened and coarsened since his mother's +arrival. + +"Well, if there isn't mony, they make a deal o' talk," said +Polly--"onyways sence Mr. Helbeck came to t' hall.--Mother, I'll take +Miss Fountain oopstairs, to get her hat off." + +During all the banter of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in a +disdainful silence, turning her strange eyes--the eyes of a fanatic, in a +singularly shrewd and capable face--now on Laura, now on her children. +Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then an +impulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an impulse of +liking, an impulse of kinship; and as she quickly crossed the room to +Mrs. Mason's side, she said in a pretty pleading voice: + +"But you see, Cousin Elizabeth, I'm not a Catholic--and papa wasn't a +Catholic. And I couldn't help Mrs. Fountain going back to her old +religion--you shouldn't visit it on me!" + +Mrs. Mason looked up. + +"Why art tha not at church on t' Lord's day?" + +The question came stern and quick. + +Laura wavered, then drew herself up. + +"Because I'm not your sort either. I don't believe in your church, or +your ministers. Father didn't, and I'm like him." + +Her voice had grown thick, and she was quite pale. The old woman stared +at her. + +"Then yo're nobbut yan o' the heathen!" she said with slow precision. + +"I dare say!" cried Laura, half laughing, half crying. "That's my affair. +But I declare I think I hate Catholics as much as you--there, Cousin +Elizabeth! I don't hate my stepmother, of course. I promised father to +take care of her. But that's another matter." + +"Dost tha hate Alan Helbeck?" said Mrs. Mason suddenly, her black eyes +opening in a flash. + +The girl hesitated, caught her breath--then was seized with the +strangest, most abject desire to propitiate this grim woman with the +passionate look. + +"Yes!" she said wildly. "No, no!--that's silly. I haven't had time to +hate him. But I don't like him, anyway. I'm nearly sure I _shall_ hate +him!" + +There was no mistaking the truth in her tone. + +Mrs. Mason slowly rose. Her chest heaved with one long breath, then +subsided; her brow tightened. She turned to her son. + +"Art tha goin to let Daffady do all thy work for tha?" she said sharply. +"Has t' roan calf bin looked to?" + +"Aye--I'm going," said Hubert evasively, and sheepishly straightening +himself he made for the front door, throwing back more than one look as +he departed at his new cousin. + +"And you really want me to stay?" repeated Laura insistently, addressing +Mrs. Mason. + +"Yo're welcome," was the stiff reply. "Nobbut yo'd been mair welcome if +yo hadna brokken t' Sabbath to coom here. Mappen yo'll goa wi' Polly, an +tak' your bonnet off." + +Laura hesitated a moment longer, bit her lip, and went. + + * * * * * + +Polly Mason was a great talker. In the few minutes she spent with Laura +upstairs, before she hurried down again to help her mother with the +Sunday dinner, she asked her new cousin innumerable questions, showing an +intense curiosity as to Bannisdale and the Helbecks, a burning desire to +know whether Laura had any money of her own, or was still dependent upon +her stepmother, and a joyous appropriative pride in Miss Fountain's +gentility and good looks. + +The frankness of Polly's flatteries, and the exuberance of her whole +personality, ended by producing a certain stiffness in Laura. Every now +and then, in the intervals of Polly's questions, when she ceased to be +inquisitive and became confidential, Laura would wonder to herself. She +would half shut her eyes, trying to recall the mental image of her +cousins and of the farm, with which she had started that morning from +Bannisdale; or she would think of her father, his modes of life and +speech--was he really connected, and how, with this place and its +inmates? She had expected something simple and patriarchal. She had found +a family of peasants, living in a struggling, penurious way--a grim +mother speaking broad dialect, a son with no pretensions to refinement or +education, except perhaps through his music--and a daughter---- + +Laura turned an attentive eye on Polly, on her high and red cheek-bones, +the extravagant fringe that vulgarised all her honest face, the Sunday +dress of stone-coloured alpaca, profusely trimmed with magenta ribbons. + +"I will--I _will_ like her!" she said to herself--"I am a horrid, +snobbish, fastidious little wretch." + +But her spirits had sunk. When Polly left her she leant for a moment upon +the sill of the open window, and looked out. Across the dirty, uneven +yard, where the manure lay in heaps outside the byre doors, she saw the +rude farm buildings huddled against each other in a mean, unsightly +group. Down below, from the house porch apparently, a cracked bell began +to ring, and from some doors opposite three labourers, the "hired men," +who lived and boarded on the farm, came out. The first two were elderly +men, gnarled and bent like tough trees that have fought the winter; the +third was a youth. They were tidily dressed in Sunday clothes, for their +work was done, and they were ready for the afternoon's holiday. + +They walked across to the farmhouse in silence, one behind the other. Not +even the young fellow raised his eyes to the window and the girl framed +within it. Behind them came a gust of piercing easterly wind. A cloud had +covered the sun. The squalid farmyard, the bare fell-side beyond it, the +distant levels of the marsh, had taken to themselves a cold forbidding +air. Laura again imagined it in December--a waste of snow, with the farm +making an ugly spot upon the white, and the little black-bearded sheep +she could see feeding on the fell, crowding under the rocks for shelter. +But this time she shivered. All the spell was broken. To live up here +with this madwoman, this strange youth--and Polly! Yet it seemed to her +that something drew her to Cousin Elizabeth--if she were not so mad. How +strange to find this abhorrence of Mr. Helbeck among these people--so +different, so remote! She remembered her own words--"I am sure I _shall_ +hate him!"--not without a stab of conscience. What had she been +doing--perhaps--but adding her own injustice to theirs? + +She stood lost in a young puzzle and heat of feeling--half angry, half +repentant. + +But only for a second. Then certain phrases of Augustina's rang through +her mind--she saw herself standing in the corner of the chapel while the +others prayed. Every pulse tightened--her whole nature leapt again in +defiance. She seemed to be holding something at bay--a tyrannous power +that threatened humiliation and hypocrisy, that seemed at the same time +to be prying into secret things--things it should never, never know--and +never rule! Yes, she did understand Cousin Elizabeth--she _did_! + + * * * * * + +The dinner went sadly. The viands were heavy: so were the faces of the +labourers, and the air of the low-raftered kitchen, heated as it was by a +huge fire, and pervaded by the smell from the farmyard. Laura felt it all +very strange, the presence of the farm servants at the same table with +the Masons and herself--the long silences that no one made an effort to +break--the relations between Hubert and his mother. + +As for the labourers, Mason addressed them now and then in a bullying +voice, and they spoke to him as little as they could. It seemed to Laura +that there was an alliance between them and the mother against a lazy and +incompetent master; and that the lad's vanity was perpetually alive to +it. Again and again he would pull himself together, attempt the +gentleman, and devote himself to his young lady guest. But in the midst +of their conversation he would hear something at the other end of the +table, and suddenly there would come a burst of fierce unintelligible +speech between him and the mistress of the house, while the labourers sat +silent and sly, and Polly's loud laugh would break in, trying to make +peace. + +Laura's cool grey eyes followed the youth with a constant critical +wonder. In any other circumstances she would not have thought him worth +an instant's attention. She had all the supercilious impatience of the +pretty girl accustomed to choose her company. But this odd fact of +kinship held and harassed her. She wanted to understand these Masons--her +father's folk. + +"Now he is really talking quite nicely," she said to herself on one +occasion, when Hubert had found in the gifts and accomplishments of his +friend Castle, the organist, a subject that untied his tongue and made +him almost agreeable. Suddenly a question caught his ear. + +"Daffady, did tha turn the coo?" said his mother in a loud voice. Even in +the homeliest question it had the same penetrating, passionate quality +that belonged to her gaze--to her whole personality indeed. + +Hubert dropped his phrase--and his knife and fork--and stared angrily at +Daffady, the old cowman and carter. + +Daffady threw his master a furtive look, then munched through a mouthful +of bread and cheese without replying. + +He was a grey and taciturn person, with a provocative look of patience. + +"What tha bin doin wi' th' coo?" said Hubert sharply. "I left her mysel +nobbut half an hour sen." + +Daffady turned his head again in Hubert's direction for a moment, then +deliberately addressed the mistress. + +"Aye, aye, missus"--he spoke in a high small voice--"A turned her reet +enoof, an a gied her soom fresh straa for her yed. She doin varra +middlin." + +"If she'd been turned yesterday in a proper fashion, she'd ha' bin on her +feet by now," said Mrs. Mason, with a glance at her son. + +"Nowt o' t' soart, mother," cried Hubert. He leant forward, flushed with +wrath, or beer--his potations had begun to fill Laura with dismay--and +spoke with a hectoring violence. "I tell tha when t' farrier cam oop last +night, he said she'd been managed first-rate! If yo and Daffady had yor +way wi' yor fallals an yor nonsense, yo'd never leave a poor sick creetur +alone for five minutes; I towd Daffady to let her be, an I'll let him +knaa who's measter here!" + +He glared at the carter, quite regardless of Laura's presence. Polly +coughed loudly, and tried to make a diversion by getting up to clear away +the plates. The three combatants took no notice. + +Daffady slowly ran his tongue round his lips; then he said, again looking +at the mistress: + +"If a hadna turned her I dew believe she'd ha' gien oos t' slip--she was +terr'ble swollen as 'twos." + +"I tell tha to let her be!" thundered Hubert. "If she deas, that's ma +consarn; I'll ha' noa meddlin wi' my orders--dost tha hear?" + +"Aye, it wor thirrty poond thraan awa lasst month, an it'll be thirrty +poond this," said his mother slowly; "thoo art fine at shoutin. Bit thy +fadther had need ha' addlet his brass--to gie thee summat to thraw oot o' +winder." + +Hubert rose from the table with an oath, stood for an instant looking +down at Laura,--glowering, and pulling fiercely at his moustache,--then, +noisily opening the front door, he strode across the yard to the byres. + +There was an instant's silence. Then Mrs. Mason rose with her hands +clasped before her, her eyes half closed. + +"For what we ha' received, the Lord mak' us truly thankful," she said in +a loud, nasal voice. "Amen." + + * * * * * + +After dinner, Laura put on an apron of Polly's, and helped her cousin to +clear away. Mrs. Mason had gruffly bade her sit still, but when the girl +persisted, she herself--flushed with dinner and combat--took her seat on +the settle, opposite to old Daffady, and deliberately made holiday, +watching Stephen's daughter all the time from the black eyes that roved +and shone so strangely under the shaggy brows and the white hair. + +The old cowman sat hunched over the fire, smoking his pipe for a time in +beatific silence. + +But presently Laura, as she went to and fro, caught snatches of +conversation. + +"Did tha go ta Laysgill last Sunday?" said Mrs. Mason abruptly. + +Daffady removed his pipe. + +"Aye, a went, an a preeched. It wor a varra stirrin meetin. Sum o' yor +paid preests sud ha' bin theer. A gien it 'em strang. A tried ta hit 'em +all--baith gert an lile." + +There was a pause, then he added placidly: + +"A likely suden't suit them varra weel. Theer was a mon beside me, as +pooed me down afoor a'd hofe doon." + +"Tha sudna taak o' 'paid preests,' Daffady," said Mrs. Mason severely. +"Tha doosna understand nowt o' thattens." + +Daffady glanced slyly at his mistress--at the "Church-pride" implied in +the attitude of her capacious form, in the shining of the Sunday alpaca +and black silk apron. + +"Mebbe not," he said mildly, "mebbe not." And he resumed his pipe. + +On another occasion, as Laura went flitting across the kitchen, drawing +to herself the looks of both its inmates, she heard what seemed to be a +fragment of talk about a funeral. + +"Aye, poor Jenny!" said Mrs. Mason. "They didna mak' mich account on her +whan t' breath wor yanst oot on her." + +"Nay,"--Daffady shook his head for sympathy,--"it wor a varra poor +set-oot, wor Jenny's buryin. Nowt but tay, an sic-like." + +Mrs. Mason raised two gaunt hands and let them drop again on her knee. + +"I shud ha' thowt they'd ha' bin ashamed," she said. "Jenny's brass ull +do 'em noa gude. She wor a fule to leave it to 'un." + +Daffady withdrew his pipe again. His lantern-jawed face, furrowed with +slow thought, hung over the blaze. + +"Aye," he said, "aye. Wal, I've buried three childer--an I'm nobbut a +labrin mon--but a thank the Lord I ha buried them aw--wi' ham." + +The last words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of the +kitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved in +either face. She sped back into the dairy, and Polly looked up in +astonishment. + +"What ails tha?" she said. + +"Oh, nothing!" said Laura, dashing the merry tears from her eyes. She +proceeded to roll up her sleeves, and plunge her hands and arms into the +bowl of warm water that Polly had set before her. Meanwhile, Polly, very +big and square, much reddened also by the fuss of household work, stood +just behind her cousin's shoulder, looking down, half in envy, half in +admiration, at the slimness of the white wrists and pretty fingers. + +A little later the two girls, all traces of their housework removed, came +back into the kitchen. Daffady and Mrs. Mason had disappeared. + +"Where is Cousin Elizabeth?" said Laura rather sharply, as she looked +round her. + +Polly explained that her mother was probably shut up in her bedroom +reading her Bible. That was her custom on a Sunday afternoon. + +"Why, I haven't spoken to her at all!" cried Laura. Her cheek had +flushed. + +Polly showed embarrassment. + +"Next time yo coom, mother'll tak' mair noatice. She was takkin stock o' +you t' whole time, I'll uphowd yo." + +"That isn't what I wanted," said Laura. + +She walked to the window and leaned her head against the frame. Polly +watched her with compunction, seeing quite plainly the sudden drop of the +lip. All she could do was to propose to show her cousin the house. + +Laura languidly consented. + +So they wandered again through the dark stone-slabbed dairy, with its +milk pans on the one side and its bacon-curing troughs on the other; and +into the little stuffy bedrooms upstairs, each with its small oak +four-poster and patchwork counterpane. They looked at the home-made quilt +of goosedown--Polly's handiwork--that lay on Hubert's bed; at the +clusters of faded photographs and coloured prints that hung on the old +uneven walls; at the vast meal-ark in Polly's room that held the family +store of meal and oatcake for the year. + +"When we wor little 'uns, fadther used to give me an Hubert a silver +saxpence the day he browt home t' fresh melder fro' t' mill," said Polly; +"theer was parlish little nobbut paritch and oatcake to eat when we wor +small. An now I'll uphold yo there isn't a farm servant but wants his +white bread yanst a day whativver happens." + +The house was neat and clean, but there were few comforts in it, and no +luxuries. It showed, too, a number of small dilapidations that a very +little money and care would soon have set to rights. Polly pointed to +them sadly. There was no money, and Hubert didn't trouble himself. +"Fadther was allus workin. He'd be up at half-past four this time o' +year, an he didna go to bed soa early noather. But Hubert'ull do nowt he +can help. Yo can hardly get him to tak' t' peaets i' ter Whinthorpe when +t' peaet-cote's brastin wi' 'em. An as fer doin a job o' cartin fer t' +neebors, t' horses may be eatin their heads off, Hubert woan't stir +hissel'. 'Let 'em lead their aan muck for theirsels'--that's what he'll +say. Iver sen fadther deed it's bin janglin atwixt mother an Hubert. It +makes her mad to see iverything goin downhill. An he's that masterful he +woan't be towd. Yo saw how he went on wi' Daffady at dinner. But if it +weren't for Daffady an us, there'd be no stock left." + +And poor Polly, sitting on the edge of the meal-ark and dangling her +large feet, went into a number of plaintive details, that were mostly +unintelligible, sometimes repulsive, in Laura's ears. + +It seemed that Hubert was always threatening to leave the farm. "Give me +a bit of money, and you'll soon be quit of me. I'll go to Froswick, and +make my fortune"--that was what he'd say to his mother. But who was going +to give him money to throw about? And he couldn't sell the farm while +Mrs. Mason lived, by the father's will. + +As to her mother, Polly admitted that she was "gey ill to live wi'." +There was no one like her for "addlin a bit here and addlin a bit there." +She was the best maker and seller of butter in the country-side; but she +had been queer about religion ever since an illness that attacked her as +a young woman. + +And now it was Mr. Bayley, the minister, who excited her, and made her +worse. Polly, for her part, hated him. "My worrd, he do taak!" said she. +And every Sunday he preached against Catholics, and the Pope, and such +like. And as there were no Catholics anywhere near, but Mr. Helbeck at +Bannisdale, and a certain number at Whinthorpe, people didn't know what +to make of him. And they laughed at him, and left off going--except +occasionally for curiosity, because he preached in a black gown, which, +so Polly heard tell, was very uncommon nowadays. But mother would listen +to him by the hour. And it was all along of Teddy Williams. It was that +had set her mad. + +Here, however, Polly broke off to ask an eager question. What had Mr. +Helbeck said when Laura told him of her wish to go and see her cousins? + +"I'll warrant he wasn't best pleased! Feyther couldn't abide him--because +of Teddy. He didn't thraw no stones that neet i' Whinthrupp Lane--feyther +was a strict man and read his Bible reg'lar--but he stood wi' t' lads an +looked on--he didn't say owt to stop 'em. Mr. Helbeck called to him--he +had a priest with him--'Mr. Mason!' he ses, 'this is an old man--speak to +those fellows!' But feyther wouldn't. 'Let 'em trounce tha!' he +ses--'aye, an him too! It'ull do tha noa harm.'--Well, an what did he +say, Mr. Helbeck?--I'd like to know." + +"Say? Nothing--except that it was a long way, and I might have the pony +carriage." + +Laura's tone was rather dry. She was sitting on the edge of Polly's bed, +with her arm round one of its oaken posts. Her cheek was laid against the +post, and her eyes had been wandering about a good deal while Polly +talked. Till the mention of Helbeck. Then her attention came back. And +during Polly's account of the incident in Whinthorpe Lane, she began to +frown. What bigotry, after all! As to the story of young Williams--it was +very perplexing--she would get the truth of it out of Augustina. But it +was extraordinary that it should be so well known in this upland +farm--that it should make a kind of link--a link of hatred--between Mr. +Helbeck and the Masons. After her movement of wild sympathy with Mrs. +Mason, she realised now, as Polly's chatter slipped on, that she +understood her cousins almost as little as she did Helbeck. + +Nay, more. The picture of Helbeck stoned and abused by these rough, +uneducated folk had begun to rouse in her a curious sympathy. Unwillingly +her mind invested him with a new dignity. + +So that when Polly told a rambling story of how Mr. Bayley, after the +street fight, had met Mr. Helbeck at a workhouse meeting and had placed +his hands behind his back when Mr. Helbeck offered his own, Laura tossed +her head. + +"What a ridiculous man!" she said disdainfully; "what can it matter to +Mr. Helbeck whether Mr. Bayley shakes hands with him or not?" + +Polly looked at her in some astonishment, and dropped the subject. The +elder woman, conscious of plainness and inferiority, was humbly anxious +to please her new cousin. The girl's delicate and characteristic +physique, her clear eyes and decided ways, and a certain look she had in +conversation--half absent, half critical--which was inherited from her +father,--all of them combined to intimidate the homely Polly, and she +felt perhaps less at ease with her visitor as she saw more of her. + +Presently they stood before some old photographs on Polly's mantelpiece; +Polly looked timidly at her cousin. + +"Doan't yo think as Hubert's verra handsome?" she said. + +And taking up one of the portraits, she brushed it with her sleeve and +handed it to Laura. + +Laura held it up for scrutiny. + +"No--o," she said coolly, "not really handsome." + +Polly looked disappointed. + +"There's not a mony gells aboot here as doan't coe Hubert handsome," she +said with emphasis. + +"It's Hubert's business to call the girls handsome," said Laura, +laughing, and handing back the picture. + +Polly grinned--then suddenly looked grave. + +"I wish he'd leave t' gells alone!" she said with an accent of some +energy, "he'll mappen get into trooble yan o' these days!" + +"They don't keep him in his place, I suppose," said Laura, flushing, she +hardly knew why. She got up and walked across the room to the window. +What did she want to know about Hubert and "t' gells"? She hated vulgar +and lazy young men!--though they might have a musical gift that, so to +speak, did not belong to them. + +Nevertheless she turned round again to ask, with some imperiousness,-- + +"Where is your brother?--what is he doing all this time?" + +"Sittin alongside the coo, I dare say--lest Daffady should be gettin the +credit of her," said Polly, laughing. "The poor creetur fell three days +sen--summat like a stroke, t' farrier said,--an Hubert's bin that jealous +o' Daffady iver sen. He's actually poo'ed hissel' oot o' bed mornins to +luke after her!--Lord bless us--I mun goa an feed t' calves!" + +And hastily throwing an apron over her Sunday gown, Polly clattered down +the stairs in a whirlwind. + + * * * * * + +Laura followed her more leisurely, passed through the empty kitchen and +opened the front door. + +As she stood under the porch looking out, she put up a small hand to hide +a yawn. When she set out that morning she had meant to spend the whole +day at the farm. Now it was not yet tea-time, and she was more than ready +to go. In truth her heart was hot, and rather bitter. Cousin Elizabeth, +certainly, had treated her with a strange coolness. And as for +Hubert--after that burst of friendship, beside the piano! She drew +herself together sharply--she would go at once and ask him for her pony +cart. + +Lifting her skirt daintily, she picked her way across the dirty yard, and +fumbled at a door opposite--the door whence she had seen old Daffady come +out at dinner-time. + +"Who's there?" shouted a threatening voice from within. + +Laura succeeded in lifting the clumsy latch. Hubert Mason, from inside, +saw a small golden head appear in the doorway. + +"Would you kindly help me get the pony cart?" said the light, +half-sarcastic voice of Miss Fountain. "I must be going, and Polly's +feeding the calves." + +Her eyes at first distinguished nothing but a row of dim animal forms, in +crowded stalls under a low roof. Then she saw a cow lying on the ground, +and Hubert Mason beside her, amid the wreaths of smoke that he was +puffing from a clay pipe. The place was dark, close, and fetid. She +withdrew her head hastily. There was a muttering and movement inside, and +Mason came to the door, thrusting his pipe into his pocket. + +"What do you want to go for, just yet?" he said abruptly. + +"I ought to get home." + +"No; you don't care for us, nor our ways. That's it; an I don't wonder." + +She made polite protestations, but he would not listen to them. He strode +on beside her in a stormy silence, till the impulse to prick him +overmastered her. + +"Do you generally sit with the cows?" she asked him sweetly. She shot her +grey eyes towards him, all mockery and cool examination. He was not +accustomed to such looks from the young women whom he chose to notice. + +"I was not going to stay and be treated like that before strangers!" he +said, with a sulky fierceness. "Mother thinks she and Daffady can just +have their own way with me, as they'd used to do when I was nobbut a lad. +But I'll let her know--aye, and the men too!" + +"But if you hate farming, why don't you let Daffady do the work?" + +Her sly voice stung him afresh. + +"Because I'll be measter!" he said, bringing his hand violently down on +the shaft of the pony cart. "If I'm to stay on in this beastly hole I'll +make every one knaw their place. Let mother give me some money, an I'll +soon take myself off, an leave her an Daffady to draw their own water +their own way. But if I'm here I'm _measter_!" He struck the cart again. + +"Is it true you don't work nearly as hard as your father?" + +He looked at her amazed. If Susie Flinders down at the mill had spoken to +him like that, he would have known how to shut her mouth for her. + +"An I daur say it is," he said hotly. "I'm not goin to lead the dog's +life my father did--all for the sake of diddlin another sixpence or two +oot o' the neighbours. Let mother give me my money oot o' the farm. I'd +go to Froswick fast enough. That's the place to get on. I've got +friends--I'd work up in no time." + +Laura glanced at him. She said nothing. + +"You doan't think I would?" he asked her angrily, pausing in his handling +of the harness to throw back the challenge of her manner. His wrath +seemed to have made him handsomer, better-braced, more alive. Physically +she admired him for the first time, as he stood confronting her. + +But she only lifted her eyebrows a little. + +"I thought one had to have a particular kind of brains for business--and +begin early, too?" + +"I could learn," he said gruffly, after which they were both silent till +the harnessing was done. + +Then he looked up. + +"I'd like to drive you to the bridge--if you're agreeable?" + +"Oh, don't trouble yourself, pray!" she said in polite haste. + +His brows knit again. + +"I know how 'tis--you won't come here again." + +Her little face changed. + +"I'd like to," she said, her voice wavering, "because papa used to stay +here." + +He stared at her. + +"I do remember Cousin Stephen," he said at last, "though I towd you I +didn't. I can see him standing at the door there--wi' a big hat--an a +beard--like straw--an a check coat wi' great bulgin pockets." + +He stopped in amazement, seeing the sudden beauty of her eyes and cheeks. + +"That's it," she said, leaning towards him. "Oh, that's it!" She closed +her eyes a moment, her small lips trembling. Then she opened them with a +long breath. + +"Yes, you may drive me to the bridge if you like." + + * * * * * + +And on the drive she was another being. She talked to him about music, so +softly and kindly that the young man's head swam with pleasure. All her +own musical enthusiasms and experiences--the music in the college +chapels, the music at the Greek plays, the few London concerts and operas +she had heard, her teachers and her hero-worships--she drew upon it all +in her round light voice, he joining in from time to time with a rough +passion and yearning that seemed to transfigure him. In half an hour, as +it were, they were friends; their relations changed wholly. He looked at +her with all his eyes; hung upon her with all his ears. And she--she +forgot that he was vulgar and a clown; such breathless pleasure, such a +humble absorption in superior wisdom, would have blunted the sternest +standard. + +As for him, the minutes flew. When at last the bridge over the Bannisdale +River came in sight, he began to check the pony. + +"Let's drive on a bit," he said entreatingly. + +"No, no--I must get back to Mrs. Fountain." And she took the reins from +his hands. + +"I say, when will you come again?" + +"Oh, I don't know." She had put on once more the stand-off town-bred +manner that puzzled his countryman's sense. + +"I say, mother shan't talk that stuff to you next time. I'll tell her--" +he said imploringly.--"Halloa! let me out, will you?" + +And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumped +out of the cart. + +"There's Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I'm off. +Good-bye!" + +He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away. + +She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeck +was holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not Father +Bowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from her +cousin. + +Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck's ceremonious +greeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beaten +herself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she have +beaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraid +of? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of her +peasant relations? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"Is that Mrs. Fountain's stepdaughter?" said Helbeck's companion, as +Laura and her cart disappeared round a corner of the winding road on +which the two men were walking. + +Helbeck made a sign of assent. + +"You may very possibly have known her father?" He named the Cambridge +college of which Stephen Fountain had been a Fellow. + +The Jesuit, who was a convert, and had been a distinguished Cambridge +man, considered for a moment. + +"Oh! yes--I remember the man! A strange being, who was only heard of, if +I recollect right, in times of war. If there was any dispute +going--especially on a religious point--Stephen Fountain would rush into +it with broad-sheets. Oh, yes, I remember him perfectly--a great untidy, +fair-haired, truculent fellow, to whom anybody that took any thought for +his soul was either fool or knave. How much of him does the daughter +inherit?" + +Helbeck returned the other's smile. "A large slice, I think. She comes +here in the curious position of having never lived in a Christian +household before, and she seems already to have great difficulty in +putting up with us." + +Father Leadham laughed, then looked reflective. + +"How often have I known that the best of all possible beginnings! Is she +attached to her stepmother?" + +"Yes. But Mrs. Fountain has no influence over her." + +"It is a striking colouring--that white skin and reddish hair. And it is +a face of some power, too." + +"Power?" Helbeck demurred. "I think she is clever," he said dryly. "And, +of course, coming from a university town, she has heard of things that +other girls know nothing of. But she has had no training, moral or +intellectual." + +"And no Christian education?" + +Helbeck shrugged his shoulders. + +"She was only baptized with difficulty. When she was eleven or twelve she +was allowed to go to church two or three times, I understand, on the +helot principle--was soon disgusted--her father of course supplying a +running comment at home--and she has stood absolutely outside religion of +all kinds since." + +"Poor child!" said the priest with heartiness. The paternal note in the +words was more than official. He was a widower, and had lost his wife and +infant daughter two years before his entrance into the Church of Rome. + +Helbeck smiled. "I assure you Miss Fountain spends none of her pity upon +herself." + +"I dare say more than you think. The position of the unbeliever in a +house like yours is always a painful one. You see she is alone. There +must be a sense of exile--of something touching and profound going on +beside her, from which she is excluded. She comes into a house with a +chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, where everybody is +keeping a strict Lent. She has not a single thought in common with you +all. No; I am very sorry for Miss Fountain." + +Helbeck was silent a moment. His dark face showed a shade of disturbance. + +"She has some relations near here," he said at last, "but unfortunately I +can't do much to promote her seeing them. You remember Williams's story?" + +"Of course. You had some local row, didn't you? Ah! I remember." + +And the two men walked on, discussing a case which had been and was still +of great interest to them as Catholics. The hero, moreover--the Jesuit +novice himself--was well known to them both. + +"So Miss Fountain's relations belong to that peasant class?" said the +Jesuit, musing. "How curious that she should find herself in such a +double relation to you and Bannisdale!" + +"Consider me a little, if you please," said Helbeck, with his slight, +rare smile. "While that young lady is under my roof--you see how +attractive she is--I cannot get rid, you will admit, of a certain +responsibility. Augustina has neither the will nor the authority of a +mother, and there is literally no one else. Now there happens to be a +young man in this Mason family----" + +"Ah!" said the priest; "the young gentleman who jumped out at the bridge, +with such a very light pair of heels?" + +Helbeck nodded. "The old people were peasants and fanatics. They thought +ill of me in the Williams affair, and the mother, who is still alive, +would gladly hang and quarter me to-morrow if she could. But that is +another point. The old people had their own dignity, their own manners +and virtues--or, rather, the manners and virtues of their class. The old +man was coarse and boorish, but he was hard-working and honourable, and a +Christian after his own sort. But the old man is dead, and the son, who +now works the farm jointly with his mother, is of no class and no +character. He has just education enough to despise his father and his +father's hard work. He talks the dialect with his inferiors, or his +kindred, and drops it with you and me. The old traditions have no hold +upon him, and he is just a vulgar and rather vicious hybrid, who drinks +more than is good for him and has a natural affinity for any sort of low +love-affair. I came across him at our last hunt ball. I never go to such +things, but last year I went." + +"Good!" ejaculated the Jesuit, turning a friendly face upon the speaker. + +Helbeck paused. The word, still more the emphasis with which it was +thrown out, challenged him. He was about to defend himself against an +implied charge, but thought better of it, and resumed: + +"And unfortunately, considering the way in which all the clan felt +towards me already, I found this youth in the supper-room, misbehaving +himself with a girl of his own sort, and very drunk. I fetched a steward, +and he was told to go. After which, you may imagine that it is scarcely +agreeable to me to see my guest--a very young lady, very pretty, very +distinguished--driving about the country in cousinly relations with this +creature!" + +The last words were spoken with considerable vivacity. The aristocrat and +the ascetic, the man of high family and the man of scrupulous and +fastidious character, were alike expressed in them. + +The Jesuit pondered a little. + +"No; you will have to keep watch. Why not distract her? You must have +plenty of other neighbours to show her." + +Helbeck shook his head. + +"I live like a hermit. My sister is in the first year of her widowhood +and very delicate." + +"I see." The Jesuit hesitated, then said, smiling, in the tone of one who +makes a venture: "The Bishop and I allowed ourselves to discuss these +cloistered ways of yours the other day. We thought you would forgive us +as a pair of old friends." + +"I know," was the somewhat quick interruption, "the Bishop is of +Manning's temper in these things. He believes in acting on and with the +Protestant world--in our claiming prominence as citizens. It was to +please him that I joined one or two committees last year--that I went to +the hunt ball----" + +Then, suddenly, in a very characteristic way, Helbeck checked his own +flow of speech, and resumed more quietly: "Well, all that----" + +"Leaves you of the same opinion still?" said the Jesuit, smiling. + +"Precisely. I don't belong to my neighbours, nor they to me. We don't +speak the same language, and I can't bring myself to speak theirs. The +old conditions are gone, I know. But my feeling remains pretty much, what +that of my forefathers was. I recognise that it is not common +nowadays--but I have the old maxim in my blood: 'Extra ecclesiam nulla +salus.'" + +"There is none which has done us more deadly harm in England," cried the +Jesuit. "We forget that England is a baptized nation, and is therefore in +the supernatural state." + +"I remind myself of it very often," said Helbeck, with a kind of proud +submission; "and I judge no man. But my powers, my time, are all limited. +I prefer to devote them to the 'household of faith.'" + +The two men walked on in silence for a time. Presently Father Leadham's +face showed amusement, and he said: + +"Certainly we modern converts have a better time of it than our +predecessors! The Bishop tells me the most incredible things about the +old feeling towards them in this Vicariate. And wherever I go I seem to +hear the tale of the old priest who thanked God that he had never +received anyone into the Church. Everybody has met someone who knew that +old fellow! He may be a myth--but there is clearly history at the back of +him!" + +"I understand him perfectly," said Helbeck, smiling; and he added +immediately, with a curious intensity, "I, too, have never influenced, +never tried to influence, anyone in my life." + +The priest looked at him, wondering. + +"Not Williams?" + +"Williams! But Williams was born for the faith. Directly he saw what I +wanted to do in the chapel, he prayed to come and help me. It was his +summer holiday--he neglected no duty; it was wonderful to see his +happiness in the work--as I thought, an artistic happiness only. He used +to ask me questions about the different saints; once or twice he borrowed +a book--it was necessary to get the emblems correct. But I never said a +single controversial word to him. I never debated religious subjects with +him at all, till the night when he took refuge with me after his father +had thrashed him so cruelly that he could not stand. Grace taught him, +not I." + +"Grace taught him, but through you," said the priest with quiet emphasis. +"Perhaps I know more about that than you do." + +Helbeck flushed. + +"I think you are mistaken. At any rate, I should prefer that you were +mistaken." + +The priest raised his eyebrows. + +"A man who holds 'no salvation outside the Church,'" he said slowly, "and +rejoices in the thought that he has never influenced anybody?" + +"I should hope little from the work achieved by such an instrument. Some +men have enough to do with their own souls," was the low but vehement +answer. + +The priest threw a wondering glance at his companion, at the signs of +feeling--profound and morbid feeling--on the harsh face beside him. + +"Perhaps you have never cared enough for anyone outside to wish +passionately to bring them within," he said. "But if that ever happens to +you, you will be ready--I think you will be ready--to use any tool, even +yourself." + +The priest's voice changed a little. Helbeck, somewhat startled, recalled +the facts of Father Leadham's personal history, and thought he +understood. The subject was instantly dropped, and the two men walked on +to the house, discussing a great canonisation service at St. Peter's and +the Pope's personal part in it. + + * * * * * + +The old Hall, as Helbeck and Father Leadham approached it, looked down +upon a scene of animation to which in these latter days it was but little +accustomed. The green spaces and gravelled walks in front of it were +sprinkled with groups of children in a blue-and-white uniform. Three or +four Sisters of Mercy in their winged white caps moved about among them, +and some of the children hung clustered like bees about the Sisters' +skirts, while others ran here and there, gleefully picking the scattered +daffodils that starred the grass. + +The invaders came from the Orphanage of St. Ursula, a house founded by +Mr. Helbeck's exertions, which lay half-way between Bannisdale and +Whinthorpe. They had not long arrived, and were now waiting for Rosary +and Benediction in the chapel before they were admitted to the tea which +Mrs. Denton and Augustina had already spread for them in the big hall. + +At sight of the children Helbeck's face lit up and his step quickened. +They on their side ran to him from all parts; and he had hardly time to +greet the Sisters in charge of them, before the eager creatures were +pulling him into the walled garden behind the Hall, one small girl +hanging on his hand, another perched upon his shoulder. Father Leadham +went into the house to prepare for the service. + +The garden was old and dark, like the Tudor house that stood between it +and the sun. Rows of fantastic shapes carved in living yew and box stood +ranged along the straight walks. A bowling-green enclosed in high beech +hedges was placed in the exact centre of the whole formal place, while +the walks and alleys from three sides, west, north, and south, converged +upon it, according to a plan unaltered since it was first laid down in +the days of James II. At this time of the year there were no flowers in +the stiff flower-beds; for Mr. Helbeck had long ceased to spend any but +the most necessary monies upon his garden. Only upon the high stone walls +that begirt this strange and melancholy pleasure-ground, and in the +"wilderness" that lay on the eastern side, between the garden and the +fell, were nature and the spring allowed to show themselves. Their joint +magic had covered the old walls with fruit blossom and spread the +"wilderness" with daffodils. Otherwise all was dark, tortured, fantastic, +a monument of old-world caprice that the heart could not love, though +piety might not destroy it. + +The children, however, brought life and brightness. They chased each +other up and down the paths, and in and out of the bowling-green. Helbeck +set them to games, and played with them himself. Only for the orphans now +did he ever thus recall his youth. + +Two Sisters, one comparatively young, the other a woman of fifty, stood +in an opening of the bowling-green, looking at the games. + +The younger one said to her companion, who was the Superior of the +orphanage, "I do like to see Mr. Helbeck with the children! It seems to +change him altogether." + +She spoke with eager sympathy, while her eyes, the visionary eyes of the +typical religious, sunk in a face that was at once sweet and peevish, +followed the children and their host. + +The other--shrewd-faced and large--had a movement of impatience. + +"I should like to see Mr. Helbeck with some children of his own. For five +years now I have prayed our Blessed Mother to give him a good wife. +That's what he wants. Ah! Mrs. Fountain----" + +And as Augustina advanced with her little languid air, accompanied by her +stepdaughter, the Sisters gathered round her, chattering and cooing, +showing her a hundred attentions, enveloping her in a homage that was +partly addressed to the sister of their benefactor, and partly--as she +well understood--to the sheep that had been lost and was found. To the +stepdaughter they showed a courteous reserve. One or two of them had +already made acquaintance with her, and had not found her amiable. + +And, indeed, Laura held herself aloof, as before. But she shot a glance +of curiosity at the elderly woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. +The girl had caught the remark as she and her stepmother turned the +corner of the dense beechen hedge that, with openings to each point of +the compass, enclosed the bowling-green. + +Presently Helbeck, stopping to take breath in a game of which he had been +the life, caught sight of the slim figure against the red-brown of the +hedge. The next moment he perceived that Miss Fountain was watching him +with an expression of astonishment. + +His first instinct was to let her be. Her manner towards him since her +arrival, with hardly a break, had been such as to chill the most sociable +temper. And Helbeck's temper was far from sociable. + +But something in her attitude--perhaps its solitariness--made him +uncomfortable. He went up to her, dragging with him a crowd of small +children, who tugged at his coat and hands. + +"Miss Fountain, will you take pity on us? My breath is gone." + +He saw her hesitate. Then her sudden smile broke out. + +"What'll you have?" she said, catching hold of the nearest child. "Mother +Bunch?" + +And off she flew, running, twisting, turning with the merriest of them, +her loosened hair gleaming in the sun, her small feet twinkling. Now it +was Helbeck's turn to stand and watch. What a curious grace and purpose +there was in all her movements! Even in her play Miss Fountain was a +personality. + +At last a little girl who was running with her began to drag and turn +pale. Laura stopped to look at her. + +"I can't run any more," said the child piteously. "I had a bone took out +of my leg last year." + +She was a sickly-looking creature, rickety and consumptive, a waif from a +Liverpool slum. Laura picked her up and carried her to a seat in a yew +arbour away from the games. Then the child studied her with shy-looking +eyes, and suddenly slipped an arm like a bit of stick round the pretty +lady's neck. + +"Tell me a story, please, teacher," she said imploringly. + +Laura was taken aback, for she had forgotten the tales of her own +childhood, and had never possessed any younger brothers or sisters, or +paid much attention to children in general. But with some difficulty she +stumbled through Cinderella. + +"Oh, yes, I know that; but it's lovely," said the child, at the end, with +a sigh of content. "Now I'll tell you one." + +And in a high nasal voice, like one repeating a lesson in class, she +began upon something which Laura soon discovered to be the life of a +saint. She followed the phrases of it with a growing repugnance, till at +last the speaker said, with the unction of one sure of her audience: + +"And once the good Father went to a hospital to visit some sick people. +And as he was hearing a poor sailor's confession, he found out that it +was his own brother, whom he had not seen for a long, long time. Now the +sailor was very ill, and going to die, and he had been a bad man, and +done a great many wicked things. But the good Father did not let the poor +man know who he was. He went home and told his Superior that he had found +his brother. And the Superior forbade him to go and see his brother +again, because, he said, God would take care of him. And the Father was +very sad, and the devil tempted him sorely. But he prayed to God, and God +helped him to be obedient. + +"And a great many years afterwards a poor woman came to see the good +Father. And she told him she had seen our Blessed Lady in a vision. And +our Blessed Lady had sent her to tell the Father that because he had been +so obedient, and had not been to see his brother again, our Lady had +prayed our Lord for his brother. And his brother had made a good death, +and was saved, all because the good Father had obeyed what his Superior +told him." + +Laura sprang up. The child, who had expected a kiss and a pious phrase, +looked up, startled. + +"Wasn't that a pretty story?" she said timidly. + +"No; I don't like it at all," said Miss Fountain decidedly. "I wonder +they tell you such tales!" + +The child stared at her for a moment. Then a sudden veil fell across the +clearness of her eyes, which had the preternatural size and brilliance of +disease. Her expression changed. It became the slyness of the watching +animal, that feels the enemy. She said not another word. + +Laura felt a pang of shame, even though she was still vibrating with the +repulsion the child's story had excited in her. + +"Look!" she said, raising the little one in her arms; "the others are all +going into the house. Shall we go too?" + +But the child struggled resolutely. + +"Let me down. I can walk." Laura set her down, and the child walked as +fast as her lame leg would let her to join the others. Once or twice she +looked round furtively at her companion; but she would not take the hand +Laura offered her, and she seemed to have wholly lost her tongue. + +"Little bigot!" thought Laura, half angry, half amused; "do they catch it +from their cradle?" + +Presently they found themselves in the tail of a crowd of children and +Sisters who were ascending the stairs of a doorway opening on the garden. +The doorway led, as Laura knew, to the corridor of the chapel. She let +herself be carried along, irresolute, and presently she found herself +within the curtained doorway, mechanically helping the Sisters and +Augustina to put the children in their places. + +One or two of the older children noticed that the young lady with Mrs. +Fountain did not sign herself with holy water, and did not genuflect in +passing the altar, and they looked at her with a stealthy surprise. A +gentle-looking young Sister came up to her as she was lifting a very +small child to a seat. + +"Thank you," murmured the Sister, "It is very good of you." But the +voice, though so soft, was cold, and Laura at once felt herself the +intruder, and withdrew to the back of the crowd. + +Yet again, as at her first visit to the chapel, so now, she was too +curious, for all her soreness, to go. She must see what they would be at. + + * * * * * + +"Rosary" passed, and she hardly understood a word. The voice of the +Jesuit intoning suggested nothing intelligible to her, and it was some +time before she could even make out what the children were saying in +their loud-voiced responses. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us +sinners, now and at the hour of our death"--was that it? And occasionally +an "Our Father" thrown in--all of it gabbled as fast as possible, as +though the one object of both priest and people were to get through and +make an end. Over and over again, without an inflection, or a +change--with just the one monotonous repetition and the equally +monotonous variation. What a barbarous and foolish business! + +Very soon she gave up listening. Her eyes wandered to the frescoes, to +the bare altar with its purple covering, to the tall candles sparkling +before the tabernacle; and the coloured and scented gloom, pierced with +the distant lights, gave her a vague pleasure. + +Presently there was a pause. The children settled themselves in their +seats with a little clatter. Father Leadham retired, while the Sisters +knelt, each bowed profoundly on herself, eyes closed under her coif, +hands clasped in front of her. + +What were they waiting for? Ah! there was the priest again, but in a +changed dress--a white cope of some splendour. The organ, played by one +of the Sisters, broke out upon the silence, and the voices of the rest +rose suddenly, small and sweet, in a Latin hymn. The priest went to the +tabernacle, and set it open. There was a swinging of incense, and the +waves of fragrant smoke flowed out upon the chapel, dimming the altar and +the figure before it. Laura caught sight for a moment of the young Sister +who had spoken to her. She was kneeling and singing, with sweet, shut +eyes; it was clear that she was possessed by a fervour of feeling. Miss +Fountain thought to herself, with wonder, "She cannot be much older than +I am!" + +After the hymn it was the children's turn. What were they singing so +lustily to so dancing a tune? Laura bent over to look at the book of a +Sister in front of her. + +"Virgo prudentissima, Virgo veneranda, Virgo praedicanda----" + +With difficulty she found the place in another book that lay upon a chair +beside her. Then for a few minutes she lost herself in a first amazement +over that string of epithets and adjectives with which the Catholic +Church throughout the world celebrates day by day and Sunday after Sunday +the glories of Mary. The gay music, the harsh and eager voices of the +children, flowed on, the waves of incense spread throughout the chapel. +When she raised her eyes they fell upon Helbeck's dark head in the far +distance, above his server's cotta. A quick change crossed her face, +transforming it to a passionate contempt. + + * * * * * + +But of her no one thought--save once. The beautiful "moment" of the +ceremony had come. Father Leadham had raised the monstrance, containing +the Host, to give the Benediction. Every Sister, every child, except a +few small and tired ones, was bowed in humblest adoration. + +Mr. Helbeck, too, was kneeling in the little choir. But his attention +wandered. With the exception of his walk with Father Leadham, he had been +in church since early morning, and even for him response was temporarily +exhausted. His look strayed over the chapel. + +It was suddenly arrested. Above the kneeling congregation a distant face +showed plainly in the April dusk amid the dimness of incense and +painting--a girl's face, delicately white and set--a face of revolt. + +"Why is she here?" was his first thought. It came with a rush of +annoyance, even resentment. But immediately other thoughts met it: "She +is lonely; she is here under my roof; she has lost her father; poor +child!" + +The last mental phrase was not so much his own as an echo from Father +Leadham. In Helbeck's mind it was spoken very much as the priest had +spoken it--with that strange tenderness, at once so intimate and so +impersonal, which belongs to the spiritual relations of Catholicism. The +girl's soul--lonely, hostile, uncared for--appealed to the charity of the +believer. At the same time there was something in her defiance, her crude +disapproval of his house and his faith, that stimulated and challenged +the man. Conscious for the first time of a new conflict of feeling within +himself, he looked steadily towards her across the darkness. + +It was as though he had sought and found a way to lift himself above her +young pride, her ignorant enmity. For a moment there was a curious +exaltation and tyranny in his thought. He dropped his head and prayed for +her, the words falling slow and deliberate within his consciousness. And +she could not resent it or stop it. It was an aggression before which she +was helpless; it struck down the protest of her pale look. + + * * * * * + +At supper, when the Sisters and their charges had departed, Father Bowles +appeared, and never before had Helbeck been so lamentably aware of the +absurdities and inferiorities of his parish priest. + +The Jesuit, too, was sharply conscious of them, and even Augustina felt +that something was amiss. Was it that they were all--except Father +Bowles--affected by the presence of the young lady on Helbeck's right--by +the cool detachment of her manner, the self-possession that appealed to +no one and claimed none of the prerogatives of sex and charm, while every +now and then it made itself felt in tacit and resolute opposition to her +environment? + +"He might leave those things alone!" thought the Jesuit angrily, as he +heard Father Bowles giving Mrs. Fountain a gently complacent account of a +geological lecture lately delivered in Whinthorpe. + +"What I always say, you know, my dear lady, is this: you must show me the +evidence! After all, you geologists have done much--you have dug here and +there, it is true. But dig all over the world--dig everywhere--lay it all +bare. Then you may ask me to listen to you!" + +The little round-faced priest looked round the table for support. Laura +bit her lip and bent over her plate. Father Leadham turned hastily to +Helbeck, and began to discuss with him a recent monograph on the Roman +Wall, showing a plentiful and scholarly knowledge of the subject. And +presently he drew in the girl opposite, addressing her with a +man-of-the-world ease and urbanity which disarmed her. It appeared that +he had just come back from mission-work in British Guiana, that he had +been in India, and was in all respects a travelled and accomplished +person. But the girl did not yield herself, though she listened quite +civilly and attentively while he talked. + +But again through the Jesuit's easy or polished phrases there broke the +purring inanity of Father Bowles. + +"Lourdes, my dear lady? Lourdes? How can there be the smallest doubt of +the miracles of Lourdes? Why! they keep two doctors on the spot to verify +everything!" + +The Jesuit's sense of humour was uncomfortably touched. He glanced at +Miss Fountain, but could only see that she was gazing steadily out of +window. + +As for himself, convert and ex-Fellow of a well-known college, he gave a +strong inward assent to the judgment of some of his own leaders, that the +older Catholic priests of this country are as a rule lamentably unfit for +their work. "Our chance in England is broadening every year," he said to +himself. "How are we to seize it with such tools? But all round we want +_men_. Oh! for a few more of those who were 'out in forty-five'!" + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room after dinner Laura, as usual, entrenched herself in +one of the deep oriel windows, behind a heavy table: Augustina showed an +anxious curiosity as to the expedition of the morning--as to the Masons +and their farm. But Laura would say very little about them. + +When the gentlemen came in, Helbeck sent a searching look round the +drawing-room. He had the air of one who enters with a purpose. + +The beautiful old room lay in a half-light. A lamp at either end could do +but little against the shadows that seemed to radiate from the panelled +walls and from the deep red hangings of the windows. But the wood fire on +the hearth sent out a soft glow, which fastened on the few points of +brilliance in the darkness--on the ivory of the fretted ceiling, on the +dazzling dress of the Romney, on the gold of Miss Fountain's hair. + +Laura looked up with some surprise as Helbeck approached her; then, +seeing that he apparently wished to talk, she made a place for him among +the old "Books of Beauty" with which she had been bestrewing the seat +that ran round the window. + +"I trust the pony behaved himself this morning?" he said, as he sat down. + +Laura answered politely. + +"And you found your way without difficulty?" + +"Oh, yes! Your directions were exact." + +Inwardly she said to herself, "Does he want to cross-examine me about the +Masons?" Then, suddenly, she noticed the scar under his hair--a jagged +mark, testifying to a wound of some severity--and it made her +uncomfortable. Nay, it seemed in some curious way to put her in the +wrong, to shake her self-reliance. + +But Helbeck had not come with the intention of talking about the Masons. +His avoidance of their name was indeed a pointed one. He drew out her +admiration of the daffodils and of the view from Browhead Lane. + +"After Easter we must show you something of the high mountains. Augustina +tells me you admire the country. The head of Windermere will delight +you." + +His manner of offering her these civilities was somewhat stiff and +conventional--the manner of one who had been brought up among country +gentry of the old school, apart from London and the _beau monde_. But it +struck Laura that, for the first time, he was speaking to her as a man of +his breeding might be expected to speak to a lady visiting his house. +There was consideration, and an apparent desire to please. It was as +though she had grown all at once into something more in his eyes than +Mrs. Fountain's little stepdaughter, who was, no doubt, useful as a nurse +and a companion, but radically unwelcome and insignificant none the less. + +Inevitably the girl's vanity was smoothed. She began to answer more +naturally; her smile became more frequent. And gradually an unwonted ease +and enjoyment stole over Helbeck also. He talked with so much animation +at last as to draw the attention of another person in the room. Father +Leadham, who had been leaning with some languor against the high, carved +mantel, while Father Bowles and Augustina babbled beneath him, began to +take increasing notice of Miss Fountain, and of her relation to the +Bannisdale household. For a girl who had "no training, moral or +intellectual," she was showing herself, he thought, possessed of more +attraction than might have been expected, for the strict master of the +house. + +Presently Helbeck came to a pause in what he was saying. He had been +describing the country of Wordsworth, and had been dwelling on Grasmere +and Eydal Mount, in the tone, indeed, of one who had no vital concern +whatever with the Lake poets or their poetry, but still with an evident +desire to interest his companion. And following closely on this first +effort to make friends with her something further suggested itself. + +He hesitated, looked at Laura, and at last said, in a lower voice than he +had been using, "I believe your father, Miss Fountain, was a great lover +of Wordsworth. Augustina has told me so. You and he were accustomed, were +you not, to read much together? Your loss must be very great. You will +not wonder, perhaps, that for me there are painful thoughts connected +with your father. But I have not been insensible--I have not been without +feeling--for my sister--and for you." + +He spoke with embarrassment, and a kind of appeal. Laura had been +startled by his first words, and while he spoke she sat very pale and +upright, staring at him. The hand on her lap shook. + +When he ceased she did not answer. She turned her head, and he saw her +pretty throat tremble. Then she hastily raised her handkerchief; a +struggle passed over the face; she wiped away her tears, and threw back +her head, with a sobbing breath and a little shake of the bright hair, +like one who reproves herself. But she said nothing; and it was evident +that she could say nothing without breaking down. + +Deeply touched, Helbeck unconsciously drew a little nearer to her. +Changing the subject at once, he began to talk to her of the children and +the little festival of the afternoon. An hour before he would have +instinctively avoided doing anything of the kind. Now, at last, he +ventured to be himself, or something near it. Laura regained her +composure, and bent her attention upon him, with a slightly frowning +brow. Her mind was divided between the most contradictory impulses and +attractions. How had it come about, she asked herself, after a while, +that _she_ was listening like this to his schemes for his children and +his new orphanage?--she, and not his natural audience, the two priests +and Augustina. + +She actually heard him describe the efforts made by himself and one or +two other Catholics in the county to provide shelter and education for +the county's Catholic orphans. He dwelt on the death and disappearance of +some of his earlier colleagues, on the urgent need for a new building in +the neighbourhood of the county town, and for the enlargement of the +"home" he himself had put up some ten years before, on the Whinthorpe +Road. + +"But, unfortunately, large plans want large means," he added, with a +smile, "and I fear it will come to it--has Augustina said anything to you +about it?--I fear there is nothing for it, but that our beauteous lady +there must provide them." + +He nodded towards the picture that gleamed from the opposite wall. Then +he added gravely, and with a perfect simplicity: + +"It is my last possession of any value." + +Several times during the fortnight that she had known him, Laura had +heard him speak with a similar simplicity about his personal and +pecuniary affairs. That anyone so stately should treat himself and his +own worldly concerns with so much _naivete_ had been a source of frequent +surprise to her. To what, then, did his dignity, his reserve apply? + +Nevertheless, because, childishly, she had already taken a side, as it +were, about the picture, his manner, with its apparent indifference, +annoyed her. She drew back. + +"Yes, Augustina told me. But isn't it cruel? isn't it unkind? A picture +like that is alive. It has been here so long--one could hardly feel it +belonged only to oneself. It is part of the house, isn't it?--part of the +family? Won't other people--people who come after--reproach you?" + +Helbeck lifted his shoulders, his dark face half amused, half sad. + +"She died a hundred years ago, pretty creature! She has had her turn; so +have we--in the pleasure of looking at her." + +"But she belongs to you," said the girl insistently. "She is your own +kith and kin." + +He hesitated, then said, with a new emphasis that answered her own: + +"Perhaps there are two sorts of kindred----" + +The girl's cheek flushed. + +"And the one you mean may always push out the other? I know, because one +of your children told me a story to-day--such a frightful story!--of a +saint who would not go to see his dying brother, for obedience' sake. She +asked me if I liked it. How could I say I liked it! I told her it was +horrible! I wondered how people could tell her such tales." + +Her bearing was again all hostility--a young defiance. She was delighted +to confess herself. Her crime, untold, had been pressing upon her +conscience, hurting her natural frankness. + +Helbeck's face changed. He looked at her attentively, the fine dark eye, +under the commanding brow, straight and sparkling. + +"You said that to the child?" + +"Yes." + +Her breast fluttered. She trembled, he saw, with an excitement she could +hardly repress. + +He, too, felt a novel excitement--the excitement of a strong will +provoked. It was clear to him that she meant to provoke him--that her +young personality threw itself wantonly across his own. He spoke with a +harsh directness. + +"You did wrong, I think--quite wrong. Excuse the word, but you have +brought me to close quarters. You sowed the seeds of doubt, of revolt, in +a child's mind." + +"Perhaps," said Laura quickly. "What then?" + +She wore her half-wild, half-mocking look. Everything soft and touching +had disappeared. The eyes shone under the golden mass of hair; the small +mouth was close and scornful. Helbeck looked at her in amazement, his own +pulse hurrying. + +"What then?" he echoed, with a sternness that astonished himself. "Ask +your own feeling. What has a child--a little child under orders--to do +with doubt, or revolt? For her--for all of us--doubt is misery." + +Laura rose. She forced down her agitation--made herself speak plainly. + +"Papa taught me--it was life--and I believe him." + +The old clock in the farther corner of the room struck a quarter to +ten--the hour of prayers. The two priests on the farther side of the room +stood up, and Augustina sheathed her knitting-needles. + +Laura turned towards Helbeck and coldly held out her little hand. He +touched it, and she crossed the room. "Good-night, Augustina." + +She kissed her stepmother, and bowed to the two priests. Father Leadham +ceremoniously opened the door for her. Then he and Helbeck, Father Bowles +and Augustina followed across the dark hall on their way to the chapel. +Laura took her candle, and her light figure could be seen ascending the +Jacobean staircase, a slim and charming vision against the shadows of the +old house. + +Father Leadham followed it with eyes and thoughts. Then he glanced +towards Helbeck. An idea--and one that was singularly unwelcome--was +forcing its way into the priest's mind. + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER I + +From that night onwards the relations between Helbeck and his sister's +stepdaughter took another tone. He no longer went his own way, with no +more than a vague consciousness that a curious and difficult girl was in +the house; he watched her with increasing interest; he began to taste, as +it were, the thorny charm that was her peculiar possession. + +Not that he was allowed to see much of the charm. After the conversation +of Passion Sunday her manner to him was no less cold and distant than +before. Their final collision, on the subject of the child, had, he +supposed, undone the effects of his conciliatory words about her father. +It must be so, no doubt, since her hostile observation of him and of his +friends seemed to be in no whit softened. + +That he should be so often conscious of her at this particular time +annoyed and troubled him. It was the most sacred moment of the Catholic +year. Father Leadham, his old Stonyhurst friend, had come to spend +Passion Week and Holy Week at Bannisdale, as a special favour to one whom +the Church justly numbered among the most faithful of her sons; while the +Society of Jesus had many links of mutual service and affection, both +with the Helbeck family in the past and with the present owner of the +Hall. Helbeck, indeed, was of real importance to Catholicism in this +particular district of England. It had once abounded in Catholic +families, but now hardly one of them remained, and upon Helbeck, with his +small resources and dwindling estate, devolved a number of labours which +should have been portioned out among a large circle. Only enthusiasm such +as his could have sufficed for the task. But, for the Church's sake, he +had now remained unmarried some fifteen years. He lived like an ascetic +in the great house, with a couple of women servants; he spent all his +income--except a fraction--on the good works of a wide district; when +larger sums were necessary he was ready, nay, eager, to sell the land +necessary to provide them; and whenever he journeyed to other parts of +England, or to the Continent, it was generally assumed that he had gone, +not as other men go, for pleasure and recreation, but simply that he +might pursue some Catholic end, either of money or administration, among +the rich and powerful of the faith elsewhere. Meanwhile, it was believed +that he had bequeathed the house and park of Bannisdale to a distant +cousin, also a strict Catholic, with the warning that not much else would +remain to his heir from the ancient and splendid inheritance of the +family. + +It was not wonderful, then, that the Jesuits should be glad to do such a +man a service; and no service could have been greater in Helbeck's eyes +than a visit from a priest of their order during these weeks of emotion +and of penance. Every day Mass was said in the little chapel; every +evening a small flock gathered to Litany or Benediction. Ordinary life +went on as it could in the intervals of prayer and meditation. The house +swarmed with priests--with old and infirm priests, many of them from a +Jesuit house of retreat on the western coast, not far away, who found in +a visit to Bannisdale one of the chief pleasures of their suffering or +monotonous lives; while the Superiors of Helbeck's own orphanages were +always ready to help the Bannisdale chapel, on days of special sanctity, +by sending a party of Sisters and children to provide the singing. + +Meanwhile all else was forgotten. As to food, Helbeck and Father +Leadham--according to the letters describing her experiences which Laura +wrote during these weeks to a Cambridge girl friend--lived upon "a cup of +coffee and a banana" per day, and she had endless difficulty in +restraining her charge, Augustina, from doing likewise. For Augustina, +indeed--Stephen Fountain's little black-robed widow--her husband was +daily receding further and further into a dim and dreadful distance, +where she feared and yet wept to think of him. She passed her time in the +intoxication of her recovered faith, excited by the people around her, by +the services in the chapel, and by her very terrors over her own unholy +union, lapse, and restoration. The sound of intoning, the scent, of +incense, seemed to pervade the house; and at the centre of all brooded +that mysterious Presence upon the altar, which drew the passion of +Catholic hearts to itself in ever deeper measure as the great days of +Holy Week and Easter approached. + +Through all this drama of an inventive and exacting faith, Laura Fountain +passed like a being from another world, an alien and a mocking spirit. +She said nothing, but her eyes were satires. The effect of her presence +in the house was felt probably by all its inmates, and by many of its +visitors. She did not again express herself--except rarely to +Augustina--with the vehemence she had shown to the little lame orphan; +she was quite ready to chat and laugh upon occasion with Father Leadham, +who had a pleasant wit, and now and then deliberately sought her society; +and, owing to the feebleness of Augustina, she, quite unconsciously, +established certain household ways which spoke the woman, and were new to +Bannisdale. She filled the drawing-room with daffodils; she made the +tea-table by the hall fire a cheerful place for any who might visit it; +she flitted about the house in the prettiest and neatest of spring +dresses; her hair, her face, her white hands and neck shone amid the +shadows of the panelling like jewels in a casket. Everyone was conscious +of her--uneasily conscious. She yielded herself to no one, was touched by +no one. She stood apart, and through her cold, light ways spoke the world +and the spirit that deny--the world at which the Catholic shudders. + +At the same time, like everybody else in the house--even the sulky +housekeeper--she grew pale and thin from Lenten fare. Mr. Helbeck had of +course given orders to Mrs. Denton that his sister and Miss Fountain were +to be well provided. But Mrs. Denton was grudging or forgetful; and it +amused Laura to see that Augustina was made to eat, while she herself +fared with the rest. The viands of whatever sort were generally scanty +and ill-cooked; and neither the Squire nor Father Leadham cared anything +about the pleasures of the table, in Lent or out of it. Mr. Helbeck +hardly noticed what was set before him. Once or twice indeed he woke up +to the fact that there was not enough for the ladies and would say an +angry word to Mrs. Denton. But on the whole Laura was able to follow her +whim and to try for herself what this Catholic austerity might be like. + +"My dear," she wrote to her friend, "one thing you learn from a Catholic +Lent is that food matters 'nowt at aw,' as they would say in these parts. +You can do just as well without it as with it. Why you should think +yourself a saint for not eating it puzzles me. Otherwise--_vive la faim_! +And as we are none of us likely to starve ourselves half so much as the +poor people of the world, the soldiers, and sailors, and explorers, are +always doing, to please themselves or their country, I don't suppose that +anybody will come to harm. + +"You are to understand, nevertheless, that our austerities are rather +unusual. And when anyone comes in from the outside they are concealed as +much as possible.... The old Helbecks, as far as I can hear, must have +been very different people from their modern descendant. They were quite +good Catholics, understand. What the Church prescribed they did--but not +a fraction beyond. They were like the jolly lazy sort of schoolboy, who +_just_ does his lesson, but would think himself a fool if he did a word +more. Whereas the man who lives here now can never do enough! + +"And in general these old Catholic houses--from Augustina's tales--must +have been full of fun and feasting. Well, I can vouch for it, there is no +fun in Bannisdale now! It is Mr. Helbeck's personality, I suppose. It +makes its own atmosphere. He _can_ laugh--I have seen it myself!--but it +is an event." + + * * * * * + +As Lent went on, the mingling of curiosity and cool criticism with which +Miss Fountain regarded her surroundings became perhaps more apparent. +Father Leadham, in particular, detected the young lady's fasting +experiments. He spoke of them to Helbeck as showing a lack of delicacy +and good taste. But the Squire, it seemed, was rather inclined to regard +them as the whims of a spoilt and wilful child. + +This difference of shade in the judgment of the two men may rank as one +of the first signs of all that was to come. + +Certainly Helbeck had never before felt himself so uncomfortable in his +own house as he had done since the arrival of this girl of twenty-one. +Nevertheless, as the weeks went on, the half-amused, half-contemptuous +embarrassment, which had been the first natural effect of her presence +upon the mind of a man so little used to women and their ways, had passed +imperceptibly into something else. His reserved and formal manner +remained the same. But Miss Fountain's goings and comings had ceased to +be indifferent to him. A silent relation--still unknown to her--had +arisen between them. + +When he first noticed the fact in himself, it produced a strong, +temporary reaction. He reproached himself for a light and unworthy +temper. Had his solitary life so weakened him that any new face and +personality about him could distract and disturb him, even amid the great +thoughts of these solemn days? His heart, his life were in his faith. For +more than twenty years, by prayer and meditation, by all the ingenious +means that the Catholic Church provides, he had developed the +sensibilities of faith; and for the Catholic these sensibilities are +centred upon and sustained by the Passion. Now, hour by hour, his Lord +was moving to the Cross. He stood perpetually beside the sacred form in +the streets of Jerusalem, in Gethsemane, on the steps of the Praetorium. +A varied and dramatic ceremonial was always at hand to stimulate the +imagination, the penitence, and the devotion of the believer. That +anything whatever should break in upon the sacred absorption of these +days would have seemed to him beforehand a calamity to be shrunk +from--nay, a sin to be repented. He had put aside all business that could +be put aside with one object, and one only--to make "a good Easter." + +And yet, no sooner did he come back from service in the chapel, or from +talk of Church matters with Catholic friends, than he found himself +suddenly full of expectation. Was Miss Fountain in the hall, in the +garden? or was she gone to those people at Browhead? If she was not in +the house--above all, if she was with the Masons--he would find it hard +to absorb himself again in the thoughts that had held him before. If she +was there, if he found her sitting reading or working by the hall fire, +with the dogs at her feet, he seldom indeed went to speak to her. He +would go into his library, and force himself to do his business, while +Father Leadham talked to her and Augustina. But the library opened on the +hall, and he could still hear that voice in the distance. Often, when she +caressed the dogs, her tones had the note in them which had startled him +on her very first evening under his roof. It was the emergence of +something hidden and passionate; and it awoke in himself a strange and +troubling echo--the passing surge of an old memory long since thrust down +and buried. How fast his youth was going from him! It was fifteen years +since a woman's voice, a woman's presence, had mattered anything at all +to him. + +So it came about that, in some way or other, he knew, broadly, all that +Miss Fountain did, little as he saw of her. It appeared that she had +discovered a pony carriage for hire in the little village near the +bridge, and once or twice during this fortnight, he learned from +Augustina that she had spent the afternoon at Browhead Farm, while the +Bannisdale household had been absorbed in some function of the season. + +Augustina disliked the news as much as he did, and would throw up her +hands in annoyance. + +"What _can_ she be doing there? They seem the roughest kind of people. +But she says the son plays so wonderfully. I believe she plays duets with +him. She goes out with the cart full of music." + +"Music!" said Helbeck, in frank amazement. "That lout!" + +"Well, she says so," said Augustina crossly, as though it were a personal +affront. "And what do you think, Alan? She talks of going to a dance up +there after Easter--next Thursday, I think." + +"At the farm?" Helbeck's tone was incredulous. + +"No; at the mill--or somewhere. She says the schoolmaster is giving it, +or something of that sort. Of course it's most unsuitable. But what am I +to do, Alan? They _are_ her relations!" + +"At the same time they are not her class," said Helbeck decidedly. "She +has been brought up in a different way, and she cannot behave as though +she belonged to them. And a dance, with that young man to look after her! +You ought to stop it." + +Augustina said dismally that she would try, but her head shook with more +feebleness than usual as she went back to her knitting. + + * * * * * + +Next day Helbeck made a point of finding his sister alone. But she only +threw him a deprecatory look. + +"I tried, Alan--indeed I did. She says that she wants some +amusement--that it will do her good--and that of course her father would +have let her go to a dance with his relations. And when I say anything to +her about not being quite like them, she fires up. She says she would be +ashamed to be thought any better than they, and that Hubert has a great +deal more good in him than some people think." + +"Hubert!" exclaimed Mr. Helbeck, raising his shoulders in disgust. After +a little silence he turned round as he was leaving the room, and said +abruptly: "Is she to stay the night at the farm?" + +"No! oh, no! She wants to come home. She says she won't be late; she +promises not to be late." + +"And that young fellow will drive her home, of course?" + +"Well, she couldn't drive home alone, Alan, at that time of night. It +wouldn't be proper." + +Mr. Helbeck smiled rather sourly. "One may doubt where the propriety +comes in. Well, she seems determined. We must just arrange it. There is +the tower door. Kindly tell her, Augustina, that I will let her have the +key of it. And kindly tell her also--as from yourself, of course--that +she will be treating us all with courtesy if she does come home at a +reasonable hour. We have been a very quiet, prim household all these +years, and Mrs. Denton, for all her virtues, has a tongue." + +"So she has," said Augustina, sighing. "And she doesn't like Laura--not +at all." + +Helbeck raised his head quickly. "She does nothing to make Miss Fountain +uncomfortable, I trust?" + +"Oh--no," said Augustina undecidedly. "Besides, it doesn't matter. Laura +has got Ellen under her thumb." + +Helbeck's grave countenance showed a gleam of amusement. + +"How does Mrs. Denton take that?" + +"Oh! she has to bear it. Haven't you seen, Alan, how the girl has +brightened up? Laura has shown her how to do her hair; she helped her to +make a new frock for Easter; the girl would do anything in the world for +her. It's like Bruno. Do you notice, Alan--I really thought you would be +angry--that the dog will hardly go with you when Laura's there?" + +"Oh! Miss Fountain is a very attractive young lady--to those she likes," +said Helbeck dryly. + +And on that he went away. + +On Good Friday afternoon Laura, in a renewed passion of revolt against +all that was going on in the house, went to her room and wrote to her +friend. Litanies were being said in the chapel. The distant, melancholy +sounds mounted to her now and then. Otherwise the house was wrapped in a +mourning silence; and outside, trailing clouds hung round the old walls, +making a penitential barrier all about it. + +"After this week," wrote Laura to her friend, "I shall always feel kindly +towards 'sin'--and the 'world'! How they have been scouted and scourged! +And what, I ask you, would any of us do without them? The 'world,' +indeed! I seem to hear it go rumbling on, the poor, patient, toiling +thing, while these people are praying. It works, and makes it possible +for them to pray--while they abuse and revile it. + +"And as to 'sin,' and the gloom in which we all live because of it--what +on earth does it really mean to any decently taught and brought-up +creature? You are greedy, or selfish, or idle, or ill-behaved. Very well, +then--nature, or your next-door neighbor, knocks you down for it, and +serve you right. Next time you won't do it again, or not so badly, and by +degrees you don't even like to think of doing it--you would be 'ashamed,' +as people say. It's the process that everybody has to go through, I +suppose--being sent into the world the sort of beings we are, and without +any leave of ours, altogether. But why make such a wailing and woe and +hullabaloo about it! Oh--such a waste of time! Why doesn't Mr. Helbeck go +and learn geology? I vow he hasn't an idea what the rocks of his own +valley are made of! + +"Of course there are the _very_ great villains--I don't like to think +about them. And the people who are born wrong and sick. But by-and-by we +shall have weeded them out, or improved the breed. And why not spend your +energies on doing that, instead of singing litanies, and taking +ridiculous pains not to eat the things you like? + +"...I shall soon be in disgrace with Augustina and Mr. Helbeck, about the +Masons--worse disgrace, that is to say. For now that I have found a pony +of my own, I go up there two or three times a week. And really--in spite +of all those first experiences I told you of--I like it! Cousin Elizabeth +has begun to talk to me; and when I come home, I read the Bible to see +what it was all about. And I don't let her say too bad things about Mr. +Helbeck--it wouldn't be quite gentlemanly on my part. And I know most of +the Williams story now, both from her and Augustina. + +"Imagine, my dear!--a son not allowed to come and see his mother before +she died, though she cried for him night and day. He was at a Jesuit +school in Wales. They shilly-shallied, and wrote endless letters--and at +last they sent him off--the day she died. He arrived three hours too +late, and his father shut the door in his face. 'Noa yo' shan't see her,' +said the grim old fellow--'an if there's a God above, yo' shan't see her +in heaven nayder!' Augustina of course calls it 'holy obedience.' + +"The painting in the chapel is really extraordinary. Mr. Helbeck seems to +have taught the young man, to begin with. He himself used to paint long +ago--not very well, I should think, to judge from the bits of his work +still left in the chapel. But at any rate the youth learnt the rudiments +from him, and then of course went far beyond his teacher. He was almost +two years here, working in the house--tabooed by his family all the time. +Then there seems to have been a year in London, when he gave Mr. Helbeck +some trouble. I don't know--Augustina is vague. How it was that he joined +the Jesuits I can't make out. No doubt Mr. Helbeck induced them to take +him. But _why_--I ask you--with such a gift? They say he will be here in +the summer, and one will have to set one's teeth and shake hands with +him. + +"Oh, that droning in the chapel--there it is again! I will open the +window and let the howl of the rain in to get rid of it. And yet I can't +always keep myself away from it. It is all so new--so horribly intimate. +Every now and then the music or a prayer or something sends a stab right +down to my heart of hearts.--A voice of suffering, of torture--oh! so +ghastly, so _real_. Then I come and read papa's note-books for an hour to +forget it. I wish he had ever taught me anything--strictly! But _of +course_ it was my fault. + +"... As to this dance, why shouldn't I go?--just tell me! It is being +given by the new schoolmaster, and two or three young farmers, in the big +room at the old mill. The schoolmaster is the most tiresomely virtuous +young man, and the whole thing is so respectable, it makes me yawn to +think of it. Polly implores me to go, and I like Polly. (Very soon she'll +let me halve her fringe!) I gave Hubert a preliminary snub, and now he +doesn't dare implore me to go. But that is all the more engaging. I +_don't_ flirt with him!--heavens!--unless you call bear-taming +flirtation. But one can't see his music running to waste in such a bog of +tantrums and tempers. I must try my hand. And as he is my cousin I can +put up with him." + + * * * * * + +After High Mass on Easter Sunday Helbeck walked home from Whinthorpe +alone, as his companion Father Leadham had an engagement in the town. + +Through the greater part of Holy Week the skies had been as grey and +penitential as the season. The fells and the river flats had been +scourged at night with torrents of rain and wind, and in the pale +mornings any passing promise of sun had been drowned again before the day +was high. The roofs and eaves, the small panes of the old house, trickled +and shone with rain; and at night the wind tore through the gorge of the +river with great boomings and onslaughts from the west. But with Easter +eve there had come appeasement--a quiet dying of the long storm. And as +Helbeck made his way along the river on Easter morning, mountain and +flood, grass and tree, were in a glory of recovered sun. The distant +fells were drawn upon the sky in the heavenliest brushings of blue and +purple; the river thundered over its falls and weirs in a foamy +splendour; and the deer were feeding with a new zest amid the +fast-greening grass. + +He stopped a moment to rest upon his stick and look about him. Something +in his own movement reminded him of another solitary walk some five weeks +before. And at the same instant he perceived a small figure sitting on a +stone seat in front of him. It was Miss Fountain. She had a book on her +knee, and the two dogs were beside her. Her white dress and hat seemed to +make the centre of a whole landscape. The river bent inward in a great +sweep at her feet, the crag rose behind her, and the great prospect +beyond the river of dale and wood, of scar and cloud, seemed spread there +for her eyes alone. A strange fancy seized on Helbeck. This was his +world--his world by inheritance and by love. Five weeks before he had +walked about it as a solitary. And now this figure sat enthroned, as it +were, at the heart of it. He roughly shook the fancy off and walked on. + +Miss Fountain greeted him with her usual detachment. He stood a minute or +two irresolute, then threw himself on the slope in front of her. + +"Bruno will hardly look at his master now," he said to her pleasantly, +pointing to the dog's attitude as it lay with its nose upon the hem of +her dress. + +Laura closed her book in some annoyance. He usually returned by the other +side of the river, and she was not grateful to him for his breach of +habit. Why had he been meddling in her affairs? She perfectly understood +why Augustina had been making herself so difficult about the dance, and +about the Masons in general. Let him keep his proprieties to himself. +She, Laura, had nothing to do with them. She was hardly his guest--still +less his ward. She had come to Bannisdale against her will, simply and +solely as Augustina's nurse. In return, let Mr. Helbeck leave her alone +to enjoy her plebeian relations as she pleased. + +Nevertheless, of course she must be civil; and civil she intermittently +tried to be. She answered his remark about Bruno by a caress to the dog +that brought him to lay his muzzle against her knee. + +"Do you mind? Some people do mind. I can easily drive him away." + +"Oh, no! I reckon on recovering him--some day," he said, with a frank +smile. + +Laura flushed. + +"Very soon, I should think. Have you noticed, Mr. Helbeck, how much +better Augustina is already? I believe that by the end of the summer, at +least, she will be able to do without me. And she tells me that the +Superior at the orphanage has a girl to recommend her as a companion when +I go." + +"Rather officious of the Reverend Mother, I think," said Helbeck sharply. +He paused a moment, then added with some emphasis, "Don't imagine, Miss +Fountain, that anybody else can do for my sister what you do." + +"Ah! but--well--one must live one's life--mustn't one, Fricka?"--Fricka +was by this time jealously pawing her dress. "I want to work at my +music--hard--this winter." + +"And I fear that Bannisdale is not a very gay place for a young lady +visitor?" + +He smiled. And so did she; though his tone, with its shade of proud +humility, embarrassed her. + +"It is as beautiful as a dream!" she said, with sudden energy, throwing +up her little hand. And he turned to look, as she was looking, at the +river and the woods. + +"You feel the beauty of it so much?" he asked her, wondering. His own +strong feeling for his native place was all a matter of old habit and +association. The flash of wild pleasure in her face astounded him. There +was in it that fiery, tameless something that was the girl's +distinguishing mark, her very soul and self. Was it beginning to speak +from her blood to his? + +She nodded, then laughed. + +"But, of course, it isn't my business to live here. I have a great +friend--a Cambridge girl--and we have arranged it all. We are to live +together, and travel a great deal, and work at music." + +"That is what young ladies do nowadays, I understand." + +"And why not?" + +He lifted his shoulders, as though to decline the answer, and was +silent--so silent that she was forced at last to take the field. + +"Don't you approve of 'new women,' Mr. Helbeck? Oh! I wish I was a new +woman," she threw out defiantly. "But I'm not good enough--I don't know +anything." + +"I wasn't thinking of them," he said simply. "I was thinking of the life +that women used to live here, in this place, in the past--of my mother +and my grandmother." + +She could not help a stir of interest. What might the Catholic women of +Bannisdale have been like? She looked along the path that led downward to +the house, and seemed to see their figures upon it--not short and sickly +like Augustina, but with the morning in their eyes and on their white +brows, like the Romney lady. Helbeck's thoughts meanwhile were peopled by +the more solid forms of memory. + +"You remember the picture?" he said at last, breaking the silence. "The +husband of that lady was a boor and a gambler. He soon broke her heart. +But her children consoled her to some extent, especially the daughters, +several of whom became nuns. The poor wife came from a large Lancashire +family, but she hardly saw her relations after her marriage; she was +ashamed of her husband's failings and of their growing poverty. She +became very shy and solitary, and very devout. These rock-seats along the +river were placed by her. It is said that she used in summer to spend +long hours on that very seat where you are sitting, doing needlework, or +reading the Little Office of the Virgin, at the hours when her daughters +in their French convent would be saying their office in chapel. She died +before her husband, a very meek, broken creature. I have a little book of +her meditations, that she wrote out by the wish of her confessor. + +"Then my grandmother--ah! well, that is too long a story. She was a +Frenchwoman--we have some of her books in my study. She never got on with +England and English people--and at last, after her husband's death, she +never went outside the house and park. My father owed much of his shyness +and oddity to her bringing up. When she felt herself dying she went over +to her family to die at Nantes. She is buried there; and my father was +sent to the Jesuit school at Nantes for a long time. Then my mother--But +I mustn't bore you with these family tales." + +He turned to look at his listener. Laura was by this time half +embarrassed, half touched. + +"I should like to hear about your mother," she said rather stiffly. + +"You may talk to me if you like, but don't, pray, presume upon it!"--that +was what her manner said. + +Helbeck smiled a little, unseen, under his black moustache. + +"My mother was a great lover of books--the only Helbeck, I think, that +ever read anything. She was a friend and correspondent of Cardinal +Wiseman's--and she tried to make a family history out of the papers here. +But in her later years she was twisted and crippled by rheumatic +gout--her poor fingers could not turn the pages. I used to help her +sometimes; but we none of us shared her tastes. She was a very happy +person, however." + +Happy! Why? Laura felt a fresh prick of irritation as he paused. Was she +never to escape--not even here, in the April sun, beside the river bank! +For, of course, what all this meant was that the really virtuous and +admirable woman does not roam the world in search of art and friendship; +she makes herself happy at home with religion and rheumatic gout. + +But Helbeck resumed. And instantly it struck her that he had dropped a +sentence, and was taking up the thread further on. + +"But there was no priest in the house then, for the Society could not +spare us one; and very few services in the chapel. Through all her young +days nothing could be poorer or raggeder than English Catholicism. There +was no church at Whinthorpe. Sunday after Sunday my father used to read +the prayers in the chapel, which was half a lumber-room. I often think no +Dissent could have been barer; but we heard Mass when we could, and that +was enough for us. One of the priests from Stonyhurst came when she died. +This is her little missal." + +He raised it from the grass--a small volume bound in faded morocco--but +he did not offer to show it to Miss Fountain, and she felt no inclination +to ask for it. + +"Why did they live so much alone?" she asked him, with a little frown. "I +suppose there were always neighbours?" + +He shook his head. + +"A difference that has law and education besides religion behind it, goes +deep. Times are changed, but it goes deep still." + +There was a pause. Then she looked at him with a whimsical lifting of her +brows. + +"Bannisdale was not amusing?" she said. + +He laughed good-humouredly. "Not for a woman, certainly. For a man, yes. +There was plenty of rough sport and card-playing, and a good deal of +drinking. The men were full of character, often full of ability. But +there was no outlet--and a wretched education. My great-grandfather might +have been saved by a commission in the army. But the law forbade it him. +So they lived to themselves and by themselves; they didn't choose to live +with their Protestant neighbours--who had made them outlaws and +inferiors! And, of course, they sank in manners and refinement. You may +see the results in all the minor Catholic families to this day--that is, +the old families. The few great houses that remained faithful escaped +many of the drawbacks of the position. The smaller ones suffered, and +succumbed. But they had their compensations!" + +As he spoke he rose from the grass, and the dogs, springing up, barked +joyously about him. + +"Augustina will be waiting dinner for us, I think." + +Laura, who had meant to stay behind, saw that she was expected to walk +home with him. She rose unwillingly, and moved on beside him. + +"Their compensations?" That meant the Mass and all the rest of this +tyrannous clinging religion. What did it honestly mean to Mr. Helbeck--to +anybody? She remembered her father's rough laugh. "There are twelve +hundred men, my dear, belonging to the Athenaeum Club. I give you the +bishops. After them, what do you suppose religion has to say to the rest +of the twelve hundred? How many of them ever give a thought to it?" + +She raised her eyes, furtively, to Helbeck's face. In spite of its +melancholy lines, she had lately begun to see that its fundamental +expression was a contented one. That, no doubt, came from the +"compensations." But to-day there was more. She was positively startled +by his look of happiness as he strode silently along beside her. It was +all the more striking because of the plain traces left upon him by Lenten +fatigue and "mortification." + +It was Easter day, and she supposed he had come from Communion. + +A little shiver passed through her, caused by the recollection of words +she had heard, acts of which she had been a witness, in the chapel during +the foregoing week--words and acts of emotion, of abandonment--love +crying to love. A momentary thirst seized her--an instant's sense of +privation, of longing, gone almost as soon as it had come. + +Helbeck turned to her. + +"So this dance you are going to is on Thursday?" he said pleasantly. + +She came to herself in a moment. + +"Yes, on Thursday, at eight. I shall go early. I have engaged a fly to +take me to the farm--thank you!--and my cousins will see me home. I am +obliged to you for the key. It will save my giving any trouble." + +"If you did we should not grudge it," he said quietly. + +She was silent for a few more steps, then she said: + +"I quite understand, Mr. Helbeck, that you do not approve of my going. +But I must judge for myself. The Masons are my own people. I am sorry +they should have---- Well--I don't understand--but it seems you have +reason to think badly of them." + +"Not of _them_," he said with emphasis. + +"Of my cousin Hubert, then?" + +He made no answer. She coloured angrily, then broke out, her words +tumbling childishly over one another: + +"There are a great many things said of Hubert that I don't believe he +deserves! He has a great many good tastes--his music is wonderful. At any +rate, he is my cousin; they are papa's only relations in the world. He +would have been kind to Hubert; and he would have despised me if I turned +my back on them because I was staying in a grand house with grand +people!" + +"Grand people!" said Helbeck, raising his eyebrows. "But I am sorry I led +you to say these things, Miss Fountain. Excuse me--may I open this gate +for you?" + +She reached her own room as quickly as possible, and dropped upon the +chair beside her dressing-table in a whirl of angry feeling. A small and +heated face looked out upon her from the glass. But after the first +instinctive moment she took no notice of it. With the mind's eye she +still saw the figure she had just parted from, the noble poise of the +head, thrown back on the broad shoulders, the black and greys of the +hair, the clear penetrating glance--all the slight signs of age and +austerity that had begun to filch away the Squire's youth. It was at +least ten minutes before she could free herself enough from the unwelcome +memories of her walk to find a vindictive pleasure in running hastily to +look at her one white dress--all she had to wear at the Browhead dance. + + * * * * * + +On Thursday afternoon Helbeck was fishing in the park. The sea-trout were +coming up, the day was soft, and he had done well. But just as the +evening rise was beginning he put up his rod and went home. Father +Leadham had taken his departure. Augustina, Miss Fountain, and he were +again alone in the house. + +He went into his study, and left the door open, while he busied himself +with some writing. + +Presently Augustina put her head in. She looked dishevelled, and rather +pinker than usual, as always happened when there was the smallest +disturbance of her routine. + +"Laura has just gone up to dress, Alan. Is it fine?" + +"There is no rain," he said, without turning his head. "Don't shut the +door, please. This fire is oppressive." + +She went away, and he wrote on a little while--then listened. He heard +hurrying feet and movements overhead, and presently a door opened +hastily, and a voice exclaimed, "Just two or three, you know, Ellen--from +that corner under the kitchen-window! Run, there's a good girl!" + +And there was a clattering noise as Ellen ran down the front stairs, and +then flew along the corridor to the garden-door. + +In a minute she was back again, and as she passed his room Helbeck saw +that she was carrying a bunch of white narcissus. + +Then more sounds of laughter and chatter overhead. At last Augustina +hurried down and looked in upon him again, flurried and smiling. + +"Alan, you really must see her. She looks so pretty." + +"I am afraid I'm busy," he said, still writing. And she retired +disappointed, careful, however, to follow his wishes about the door. + +"Augustina, hold Bruno!" cried a light voice suddenly. "If he jumps on me +I'm done for!" + +A swish of soft skirts and she was there--in the hall. Helbeck could see +her quite plainly as she stood by the oak table in her white dress. There +was just room at the throat of it for a pearl necklace, and at the wrists +for some thin gold bracelets. The narcissus were in her hair, which she +had coiled and looped in a wonderful way, so that Helbeck's eyes were +dazzled by its colour and abundance, and by the whiteness of the slender +neck below it. She meanwhile was quite unconscious of his neighbourhood, +and he saw that she was all in a happy flutter, hastily putting on her +gloves, and chattering alternately to Augustina and to the transformed +Ellen, who stood in speechless admiration behind her, holding a cloak. + +"There, Ellen, that'll do. You're a darling--and the flowers are perfect. +Run now, and tell Mrs. Denton that I didn't keep you more than twenty +minutes. Oh, yes, Augustina, I'm quite warm. I can't choke, dear, even to +please you. There now--here goes! If you do lock me out, there's a corner +under the bridge, quite snug. My dress will mind--I shan't. Good-night. +My compliments to Mr. Helbeck." + +Then a hasty kiss to Augustina and she was gone. + +Helbeck went out into the hall. Augustina was standing on the steps, +watching the departing fly. At the sight of her brother she turned back +to him, her poor little face aglow. + +"She did look so nice, Alan! I wish she had gone to a proper dance, and +not to these odd farmers and people. Why, they'll all go in their high +dresses, and think her stuck-up." + +"I assure you I never saw anything so smart as Miss Mason at the hunt +ball," said Helbeck. "Did you give her the key, Augustina? But I shall +probably sit up. There are some Easter accounts that must be done." + + * * * * * + +The old clock in the hall struck one. Helbeck was sitting in his familiar +chair before the log fire, which he had just replenished. In one hand was +a life of St. Philip Neri, the other played absently with Bruno's ears. +In truth he was not reading but listening. + +Suddenly there was a sound. He turned his head, and saw that the door +leading from the hall to the tower staircase, and thence to the kitchen +regions, had been opened. + +"Who's there?" he said in astonishment. + +Mrs. Denton appeared. + +"You, Denton! What are you up for at this time?" + +"I came to see if the yoong lady had coom back," she said in a low voice, +and with her most forbidding manner. "It's late, and I heard nowt." + +"Late? Not at all! Go to bed, Denton, at once; Miss Fountain will be here +directly." + +"I'm not sleepy; I can wait for her," said the housekeeper, advancing a +step or two into the hall. "You mun be tired, sir, and should take your +rest." + +"I'm not the least tired, thank you. Good-night. Let me recommend you to +go to bed as quickly as possible." + +Mrs. Denton lingered for a moment, as though in hesitation, then went +with a sulky unwillingness that was very evident to her master. + +Helbeck laid down his book on his knee with a little laugh. + +"She would have liked to get in a scolding, but we won't give her the +chance." + +The reverie that followed was not a very pleasant one. He seemed to see +Miss Fountain in the large rustic room, with a bevy of young men about +her--young fellows in Sunday coats, with shiny hair and limbs bursting +out of their ill-fitting clothes. There would be loud talking and +laughter, rough jokes that would make her wince, compliments that would +disgust her--they not knowing how to take her, nor she them. She would be +wholly out of her place--a butt for impertinence--perhaps worse. And +there would be a certain sense of dragging a lady from her sphere--of +making free with the old house and the old family. + +He thought of it with disgust. He was an aristocrat to his fingers' ends. + +But how could it have been helped? And when he remembered her as she +stood there in the hall, so young and pretty, so eager for her pleasure, +he said to himself with sudden heartiness: + +"Nonsense! I hope the child has enjoyed herself." It was the first time +that, even in his least formal thoughts, he had applied such a word to +her. + +Silence again. The wind breathed gently round the house. He could hear +the river rushing. + +Once he thought there was a sound of wheels and he went to the outer +door, but there was nothing. Overhead the stars shone, and along the +track of the river lay a white mist. + +As he was turning back to the hall, however, he heard voices from the +mist--a loud man's voice, then a little cry as of some one in fright or +anger, then a song. The rollicking tune of it shouted into the night, +into the stately stillness that surrounded the old house, had the +abruptest, unseemliest effect. + +Helbeck ran down the steps. A dog-cart with lights approached the gateway +in the low stone enclosure before the house. It shot through so fast and +so awkwardly as to graze the inner post. There was another little cry. +Then, with various lurches and lunges, the cart drove round the gravel, +and brought up somewhere near the steps. + +Hubert Mason jumped down. + +"Who's that? Mr. Helbeck? O Lord! glad to see yer, I'm sure! There's that +little silly--she's been making such a' fuss all the way--thought I was +going to upset her into the river, I do believe. She would try and get at +the reins, though I told her it was the worst thing to do, whatever--to +be interfering with the driver. Lord! I thought she'd have used the whip +to me!" + +And Mason stood beside the shafts, with his arms on the side, laughing +loudly and looking at Laura. + +"Stand out of the way, sir!" said Helbeck sternly, "and let me help Miss +Fountain." + +"Oh! I say!--Come now, I'm not going to stand you coming it over me twice +in the same sort--not I," cried the young man with a violent change of +tone. "_You_ get out of the way, d--mn you! I brought Miss Fountain home, +and she's my cousin--so there!--not yours." + +"Hubert, go away at once!" said Laura's shaking but imperious voice. "I +prefer that Mr. Helbeck should help me." + +She had risen and was clinging to the rail of the dog-cart, while her +face drooped so that Helbeck could not see it. + +Mason stepped back with another oath, caught his foot in the reins, which +he had carelessly left hanging, and fell on his knees on the gravel. + +"No matter," said Helbeck, seeing that Laura paused in terror. "Give me +your hand, Miss Fountain." + +She slipped on the step in the darkness, and Helbeck caught her and set +her on her feet. + +"Go in, please. I will look after him." + +She ran up the steps, then turned to look. + +Mason, still swearing and muttering, had some difficulty in getting up. +Helbeck stood by till he had risen and disentangled the reins. + +"If you don't drive carefully down the park in the fog you'll come to +harm," he said, shortly, as Mason mounted to his seat. + +"That's none of your business," said Mason sulkily. "I brought my cousin +all right--I suppose I can take myself. Now, come up, will you!" + +He struck the pony savagely on the back with the reins. The tired animal +started forward; the cart swayed again from side to side. Helbeck held +his breath as it passed the gate-posts; but it shaved through, and soon +nothing but the gallop of retreating hoofs could be heard through the +night. + +He mounted the steps, and shut and barred the outer door. When he entered +the hall, Laura was sitting by the oak table, one hand supporting and +hiding her face, the other hanging listlessly beside her. + +She struggled to her feet as he came in. The hood of her blue cloak had +fallen backwards, and her hair was in confusion round her face and neck. +Her cheeks were very white, and there were tears in her eyes. She had +never seemed to him so small, so childish, or so lovely. + +He took no notice of her agitation or of her efforts to speak. He went to +a tray of wine and biscuits that had been left by his orders on a +side-table, and poured out some wine. + +"No, I don't want it," she said, waving it away. "I don't know what to +say----" + +"You would do best to take it," he said, interrupting her. + +His quiet insistence overcame her, and she drank it. It gave her back her +voice and a little colour. She bit her lip, and looked after Helbeck as +he walked away to the farther end of the hall to light a candle for her. + +"Mr. Helbeck," she began as he came near. Then she gathered force. "You +must--you ought to let me apologise." + +"For what? I am afraid you had a disagreeable and dangerous drive home. +Would you like me to wake one of the servants--Ellen, perhaps--and tell +her to come to you?" + +"Oh! you won't let me say what I ought to say," she exclaimed in despair. +"That my cousin should have behaved like this--should have insulted +you----" + +"No! no!" he said with some peremptoriness. "Your cousin insulted you by +daring to drive with you in such a state. That is all that matters to +me--or should, I think, matter to you. Will you have your candle, and +shall I call anyone?" + +She shook her head and moved towards the staircase, he accompanying her. +When he saw how feebly she walked, he was on the point of asking her to +take his arm and let him help her to her room; but he refrained. + +At the foot of the stairs she paused. Her "good-night" died in her throat +as she offered her hand. Her dejection, her girlish shame, made her +inexpressibly attractive to him; it was the first time he had ever seen +her with all her arms thrown down. But he said nothing. He bade her +good-night with a cheerful courtesy, and, returning to the hall fire, he +stood beside it till he heard the distant shutting of her door. + +Then he sank back into his chair and sat motionless, with knitted brows, +for nearly an hour, staring into the caverns of the fire. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Laura awoke very early the following morning, but though the sun was +bright outside, it brought no gaiety to her. The night before she had +hurried her undressing, that she might bury herself in her pillow as +quickly as possible, and force sleep to come to her. It was her natural +instinct in the face of pain or humiliation. To escape from it by any +summary method was always her first thought. "I will, I must go to +sleep!" she had said to herself, in a miserable fury with herself and +fate; and by the help of an intense exhaustion sleep came. + +But in the morning she could do herself no more violence. Memory took its +course, and a very disquieting course it was. She sat up in bed, with her +hands round her knees, thinking not only of all the wretched and untoward +incidents connected with the ball, but of the whole three weeks that had +gone before it. What had she been doing, how had she been behaving, that +this odious youth should have dared to treat her in such a way? + +Fricka jumped up beside her, and Laura held the dog's nose against her +cheek for comfort, while she confessed herself. Oh! what a fool she had +been. Why, pray, had she been paying all these visits to the farm, and +spending all these hours in this young fellow's company? Her quick +intelligence unravelled all the doubtful skein. Yearning towards her +kindred?--yes, there had been something of that. Recoil from the +Bannisdale ways, an angry eagerness to scout them and fly them?--yes, +that there had always been in plenty. But she dived deeper into her +self-disgust, and brought up the real bottom truth, disagreeable and +hateful as it was: mere excitement about a young man, as a young +man--mere love of power over a great hulking fellow whom other people +found unmanageable! Aye, there it was, in spite of all the glosses she +had put upon it in her letters to Molly Friedland. All through, she had +known perfectly well that Hubert Mason was not her equal; that on a +number of subjects he had vulgar habits and vulgar ideas; that he often +expressed his admiration for her in a way she ought to have resented. +There were whole sides of him, indeed, that she shrank from +exploring--that she wanted, nay, was determined, to know nothing about. + +On the other hand, her young daring, for want of any better prey, had +taken pleasure from the beginning in bringing him under her yoke. With +her second visit to the farm she saw that she could make him her +slave--that she had only to show him a little flattery, a little +encouragement, and he would be as submissive and obedient to her as he +was truculent and ill-tempered towards the rest of the world. And her +vanity had actually plumed itself on so poor a prey! One excuse--yes, +there was the one excuse! With her he had shown the side that she alone +of his kindred could appreciate. But for the fear of Cousin Elizabeth she +could have kept him hanging over the piano hour after hour while she +played, in a passion of delight. Here was common ground. Nay, in native +power he was her superior, though she, with her better musical training, +could help and correct him in a thousand ways. She had the woman's +passion for influence; and he seemed like wax in her hands. Why not help +him to education and refinement, to the cultivation of the best that was +in him? She would persuade Cousin Elizabeth--alter and amend his life for +him--and Mr. Helbeck should see that there were better ways of dealing +with people than by looking down upon them and despising them. + +And now the very thought of these vain and silly dreams set her face +aflame. Power over him? Let her only remember the humiliations, through +which she had been dragged! All the dance came back upon her--the strange +people, the strange young men, the strange, raftered room, with the noise +of the mill-stream and the weir vibrating through it, and mingling with +the chatter of the fiddles. But she had been determined to enjoy it, to +give herself no airs, to forget with all her might that she was anyway +different from these dale-folk, whose blood was hers. And with the older +people all had been easy. With the elderly women especially, in their +dark gowns and large Sunday collars, she had felt herself at home; again +and again she had put herself under their wing, while in their silent way +they turned their shrewd motherly eyes upon her, and took stock of her +and every detail of her dress. And the old men, with their patriarchal +manners and their broad speech--it had been all sweet and pleasant to +her. "Noo, Miss, they tell ma as yo'.are Stephen Fountain's dowter. An I +mut meak bold ter cum an speak to thee, for a knew 'un when he was a lile +lad." Or "Yo'll gee ma your hand, Miss Fountain, for we're pleased and +proud to git, yo' here. Yer fadther an mea gaed to skule togedther. My +worrd, but he was parlish cliver! An I daursay as you teak afther him." +Kind folk! with all the signs of their hard and simple life about them. + +But the young men--how she had hated them!--whether they were shy, or +whether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, and +laughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they wore +their best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced the +polka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of _their_ +class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to put +a pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her white +dress; a third had confided to her that his young lady was "that luvin" +to him in public, he had been fair obliged to bid her "keep hersel to +hersel afore foak." The only partner with whom it had given her the +smallest pleasure to dance had been the schoolmaster and principal host +of the evening, a tall, sickly young man, who wore spectacles and talked +through his nose. But he talked of things she understood, and he danced +tolerably. Alas! there had come the rub. Hubert Mason had stood sentinel +beside her during the early part of the evening. He had assumed the +proudest and most exclusive airs with regard to her, and his chief aim +seemed to be to impress upon her the prestige he enjoyed among his +fellows as a football player and an athlete. In the end his patronage and +his boasting had become insupportable to a girl of any spirit. And his +dancing! It seemed to her that he held her before him like a shield, and +then charged the room with her. She had found herself the centre of all +eyes, her pretty dress torn, her hair about her ears. So that she had +shaken him off--with too much impatience, no doubt, and too little +consideration for the touchiness of his temper. And then, what +stormy looks, what mutterings, what disappearances into the +refreshment-room--and, finally, what, fierce jealousy of the +schoolmaster! Laura awoke at last to the disagreeable fact that she had +to drive home with him--and he had already made her ridiculous. Even +Polly--the bedizened Polly--looked grave, and there had been angry +conferences between her and her brother. + +Then came the departure, Laura by this time full of terrors, but not +knowing what to do, nor how else she was to get home. And, oh! that +grinning band of youths round the door--Mason's triumphant leap into the +cart and boisterous farewell to his friends--and that first perilous +moment, when the pony had almost backed into the mill stream, and was +only set right again by half a dozen stalwart arms, amid the laughter of +the street! + +As for the wild drive through the dark, she shivered again, half with +anger, half with terror, as she thought of it. How had they ever got +home? She could not tell. He was drunk, of course. He seemed to her to +have driven into everything and over everything, abusing the schoolmaster +and Mr. Helbeck and his mother all the time, and turning upon her when +she answered him, or showed any terror of what might happen to them, now +with fury, and now with attempts at love-making which it had taken all +her power over him to quell. + +Their rush up the park had been like the ride of the wild horseman. Every +moment she had expected to be in the river. And with the approach of the +house he had grown wilder and more unmanageable than before. "Dang it! +let's wake up the old Papist!" he had said to her when she had tried to +stop his singing. "What harm'll it do?" + +As for the shame of their arrival, the very thought of Mr. Helbeck +standing silent on the steps as they approached, of Hubert's behaviour, +of her host's manner to her in the hall, made her shut her eyes and hide +her red face against Fricka for sympathy. How was she ever to meet Mr. +Helbeck again, to hold her own against him any more! + + * * * * * + +An hour later Laura, very carefully dressed, and holding herself very +erect, entered Augustina's room. + +"Oh, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain, as the door opened. She was very +flushed, and she stared from her bed at her stepdaughter in an agitated +silence. + +Laura stopped short. + +"Well, what is it, Augustina? What have you heard?" + +"Laura! how _can_ you do such things!" + +And Augustina, who already had her breakfast beside her, raised her +handkerchief to her eyes and began to cry. Laura threw up her head and +walked away to a far window, where she turned and confronted Mrs. +Fountain. + +"Well, he has been quick in telling you," she said, in a low but fierce +voice. + +"He? What do you mean? My brother? As if he had said a word! I don't +believe he ever would. But Mrs. Denton heard it all." + +"Mrs. Denton?" said Laura. "_Mrs. Denton?_ What on earth had she to do +with it?" + +"She heard you drive up. You know her room looks on the front." + +"And she listened? sly old creature!" said Laura, recovering herself. +"Well, it can't be helped. If she heard, she heard, and whatever I may +feel, I'm not going to apologise to Mrs. Denton." + +"But, Laura--Laura--was he----" + +Augustina could not finish the odious question. + +"I suppose he was," said Laura bitterly. "It seems to be the natural +thing for young men of that sort." + +"Laura, do come here." + +Laura came unwillingly, and Augustina took her hands and looked up at +her. + +"And, Laura, he was abominably rude to Alan!" + +"Yes, he was, and I'm very sorry," said the girl slowly. "But it can't be +helped, and it's no good making yourself miserable, Augustina." + +"Miserable? I? It's you, Laura, who look miserable. I never saw you look +so white and dragged. You must never, never see him again." + +The girl's obstinacy awoke in a moment. + +"I don't know that I shall promise that, Augustina." + +"Oh, Laura! as if you could wish to," said Augustina, in tears. + +"I can't give up my father's people," said the girl stiffly. "But he +shall never annoy Mr. Helbeck again, I promise you that, Augustina." + +"Oh! you did look so nice, Laura, and your dress was so pretty!" + +Laura laughed, rather grimly. + +"There's not much of it left this morning," she said. "However, as one of +the gentlemen who kindly helped to ruin it said last night, 'Lor, bless +yer, it'll wesh!'" + + * * * * * + +After breakfast Laura found herself in the drawing-room, looking through +an open window at the spring green in a very strained and irritable mood. + +"I would not begin if I could not go on," she said to herself with +disdain. But her lip trembled. + +So Mr. Helbeck had taken offence, after all. Hardly a word at breakfast, +except such as the briefest, barest civility required. And he was going +away, it appeared, for three days, perhaps a week, on business. If he had +given her the slightest opening, she had meant to master her pride +sufficiently to renew her apologies and ask his advice, subject, of +course, to her own final judgment as to what kindred and kindness might +require of her. But he had given her no opening, and the subject was not, +apparently, to be renewed between them. + +She might have asked him, too, to curb Mrs. Denton's tongue. But no, it +was not to be. Very well. The girl drew her small frame together and +prepared, as no one thought for or befriended her, to think for and +befriend herself. + +She passed the next few days in some depression. Mr. Helbeck was absent. +Augustina was very ailing and querulous, and Laura was made to feel that +it was her fault. Not a word of regret or apology came from Browhead +Farm. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Denton had apparently made her niece understand that there +was to be no more dallying with Miss Fountain. Whenever she and Laura +met, Ellen lowered her head and ran. Laura found that the girl was not +allowed to wait upon her personally any more. Meanwhile the housekeeper +herself passed Miss Fountain with a manner and a silence which were in +themselves an insult. + +And two days after Helbeck's departure, Laura was crossing the hall +towards tea-time, when she saw Mrs. Denton admitting one of the Sisters +from the orphanage. It was the Reverend Mother herself, the portly +shrewd-faced woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. Laura passed +her, and the nun saluted her coldly. "Dear me!--you shall have Augustina +to yourself, my good friend," thought Miss Fountain. "Don't be afraid." +And she turned into the garden. + +An hour later she came back. As she opened the door in the old wall she +saw the Sister on the steps, talking with Mrs. Denton. At sight of her +they parted. The nun drew her long black cloak about her, ran down the +steps, and hurried away. + +And indoors, Laura could not imagine what had happened to her stepmother. +Augustina was clearly excited, yet she would say nothing. Her +restlessness was incessant, and at intervals there were furtive tears. +Once or twice she looked at Laura with the most tragic eyes, but as soon +as Laura approached her she would hastily bury herself in her newspaper, +or begin counting the stitches of her knitting. + +At last, after luncheon, Mrs. Fountain suddenly threw down her work with +a sigh that shook her small person from top to toe. + +"I wish I knew what was wrong with you," said Laura, coming up behind +her, and dropping a pair of soft hands on her shoulders. "Shall I get you +your new tonic?" + +"No!" said Augustina pettishly; then, with a rush of words that she could +not repress: + +"Laura, you must--you positively must give up that young man." + +Laura came round and seated herself on the fender stool in front of her +stepmother. + +"Oh! so that's it. Has anybody else been gossiping?" + +"I do wish you wouldn't--you wouldn't take things so coolly!" cried +Augustina. "I tell you, the least trifle is enough to do a young girl of +your age harm. Your father would have been so annoyed." + +"I don't think so," said Laura quietly. "But who is it now? The Reverend +Mother?" + +Augustina hesitated. She had been recommended to keep things to herself. +But she had no will to set against Laura's, and she was, in fact, +bursting with suppressed remonstrance. + +"It doesn't matter, my dear. One never knows where a story of that kind +will go to. That's just what girls don't remember." + +"Who told a story, and what? I didn't see the Reverend Mother at the +dance." + +"Laura! But you never thought, my dear--you never knew--that there was a +cousin of Father Bowles' there--the man who keeps that little Catholic +shop in Market Street. That's what comes, you see, of going to parties +with people beneath you." + +"Oh! a cousin of Father Bowles was there?" said Laura slowly. "Well, did +he make a pretty tale?" + +"Laura! you are the most provoking--You don't the least understand what +people think. How could you go with him when everybody remonstrated?" + +"Nobody remonstrated," said the girl sharply. + +"His sister begged you not to go." + +"His sister did nothing of the kind. She was staying the night in the +village, and there was literally nothing for me to do but come home with +Hubert or to throw myself on some stranger." + +"And such stories as one hears about this dreadful young man!" cried +Augustina. + +"I dare say. There are always stories." + +"I couldn't even tell you what they are about!" said Augustina. "Your +father would _certainly_ have forbidden it altogether." + +There was a silence. Laura held her head as high as ever. She was, in +fact, in a fever of contradiction and resentment, and the interference of +people like Mrs. Denton and the Sisters was fast bringing about Mason's +forgiveness. Naturally, she was likely to hear the worst of him in that +house. What Helbeck, or what dependent on a Helbeck, would give him the +benefit of any doubt? + +Augustina knitted with all her might for a few minutes, and then looked +up. + +"Don't you think," she said, with a timid change of tone--"don't you +think, dear, you might go to Cambridge for a few weeks? I am sure the +Friedlands would take you in. You would come in for all the parties, +and--and you needn't trouble about me. Sister Angela's niece could come +and stay here for a few weeks. The Reverend Mother told me so." + +Laura rose. + +"Sister Angela suggested that? Thank you, I won't have my plans settled +for me by Sister Angela. If you and Mr. Helbeck want to turn me out, why, +of course I shall go." + +Augustina held out her hands in terror at the girl's attitude and voice. + +"Laura, don't say such things! As if you weren't an angel to me! As if I +could bear the thought of anybody else!" + +A quiver ran through Laura's features. "Well, then, don't bear it," she +said, kneeling down again beside her stepmother. "You look quite ill and +excited, Augustina. I think we'll keep the Reverend Mother out in future. +Won't you lie down and let me cover you up?" + +So it ended for the time--with physical weakness on Augustina's part, and +caresses on Laura's. + +But when she was alone, Miss Fountain sat down and tried to think things +out. + +"What are the Sisters meddling for? Do they find me in their way? I'm +flattered! I wish I was. Well!--is drunkenness the worst thing in the +world?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond a +certain point it is like madness--you must keep out of its way, for your +own sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse. +So there are!--meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of your +soul. As for the other tales, I don't believe them. But if I did, I am +not going to marry him!" + +She felt herself very wise. In truth, as Stephen Fountain had realised +with some anxiety before his death, among Laura's many ignorances, none +was so complete or so dangerous as her ignorance of all the ugly ground +facts that are strewn round us, for the stumbling of mankind. She was as +determined not to know them, as he was invincibly shy of telling them. + +For the rest, her reflections represented, no doubt, many dicta that in +the course of her young life she had heard from her father. To Stephen +Fountain the whole Christian doctrine of sin was "the enemy"; and the +mystical hatred of certain actions and habits, as such, was the fount of +half the world's unreason. + +The following day it was Father Bowles' turn. He came over in what seemed +to be his softest and most catlike mood, rubbing his hands over his chest +in a constant glee at his own jokes. He was amiability itself to Laura. +But he, too, had his twenty minutes alone with Augustina; and afterwards +Mrs. Fountain ventured once more to speak to Laura of change and +amusement. Miss Fountain smiled, and replied as before--that, in the +first place she had no invitations, and in the next, she had no dresses. +But again, as before, if Mr. Helbeck should express a wish that her visit +to Bannisdale should come to an end, that would be another matter. + + * * * * * + +Next morning Laura was taking a walk in the park when a letter was +brought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum. + +She took it to a sheltered nook by the riverside and read it. It was from +Hubert Mason, in his best commercial hand, and it ran as follows: + + +"Dear Miss Fountain,--You would not allow me, I know, to call you Cousin +Laura any more, so I don't attempt it. And of course I don't deserve +it--nor that you should ever shake hands with me again. I can't get over +thinking of what I've done. Mother and Polly will tell you that I have +hardly slept at nights--for of course you won't believe me. How I can +have been such a blackguard I don't understand. I must have taken too +much. All I know is it didn't seem much, and but for the agitation of my +mind, I don't believe anything would ever have gone wrong. But I couldn't +bear to see you dancing with that man and despising me. And there it +is--I can never get over it, and you will never forgive me. I feel I +can't stay here any more, and mother has consented at last to let me have +some money on the farm. If I could just see you before I go, to say +good-bye, and ask your pardon, there would be a better chance for me. I +can't come to Mr. Helbeck's house, of course, and I don't suppose you +would come here. I shall be coming home from Kirby Whardale fair +to-morrow night, and shall be crossing the little bridge in the +park--upper end--some time between eight and nine. But I know you won't +be there. I can't expect it, and I feel it pretty badly, I can tell you. +I did hope I might have become something better through knowing you. +Whatever you may think of me I am always + +"Your respectful and humble cousin, + +"HUBERT MASON." + + +"Well--upon my word!" said Laura. She threw the letter on to the grass +beside her, and sat, with her hands round her knees, staring at the +river, in a sparkle of anger and amazement. + +What audacity!--to expect her to steal out at night--in the dusk, +anyway--to meet him--_him_! She fed her wrath on the imagination of all +the details that would belong to such an escapade. It would be after +supper, of course, in the fast lengthening twilight. Helbeck and his +sister would be in the drawing-room--for Mr. Helbeck was expected home on +the following day--and she might perfectly well leave them, as she often +did, to talk their little Catholic gossip by themselves, and then slip +out by the chapel passage and door, through the old garden, to the gate +in the wall above the river bank, and so to the road that led along the +Greet through the upper end of the park. Nothing, of course, could be +easier--nothing. + +Merely to think of it, for a girl of Laura's temperament, was already bit +by bit to incline to it. She began to turn it over, to taste the +adventure of it--to talk very fast to Fricka, under her breath, with +little gusts of laughter. And no doubt there was something mollifying in +the boy's humble expressions. As for his sleepless nights--how salutary! +how very salutary! Only the nail must be driven in deeper--must be turned +in the wound. + +It would need a vast amount of severity, perhaps, to undo the effects of +her mere obedience to his call--supposing she made up her mind to obey +it. Well! she would be quite equal to severity. She would speak very +plain things to him--very plain things indeed. It was her first serious +adventure with any of these big, foolish, troublesome creatures of the +male sex, and she rose to it much as Helbeck might have risen to the +playing of a salmon in the Greet. Yes! he should say good-bye to her, let +priests and nuns talk what scandal they pleased. Yes! he should go on his +way forgiven and admonished--if he wished it--for kindred's sake. + +Her cheek burned, her heart beat fast. He and she were of one blood--both +of them ill-regarded by aristocrats and holy Romans. As for him, he was +going to ruin at home; and there was in him this strange, artistic gift +to be thought for and rescued. He had all the faults of the young cub. +Was he to be wholly disowned for that? Was she to cast him off for ever +at the mere bidding of the Helbecks and their friends? + +He would never, of course, be allowed to enter the Bannisdale +drawing-room, and she had no intention at present of going to Browhead +Farm. Well, then, under the skies and the clouds! A gracious pardon, an +appropriate lecture--and a short farewell. + + * * * * * + +All that day and the next Laura gave herself to her whim. She was +perfectly conscious, meanwhile, that it was a reckless and a wilful thing +that she was planning. She liked it none the less for that. In fact, the +scheme was the final crystallisation of all that bitterness of mood that +had poisoned and tormented her ever since her first coming to Bannisdale. +And it gave her for the moment the morbid pleasure that all angry people +get from letting loose the angry word or act. + +Meanwhile she became more and more conscious of a certain network of +blame and discussion that seemed to be closing about her and her actions. +It showed itself by a number of small signs. When she went into +Whinthorpe to shop for Augustina she fancied that the assistants in the +shop, and even the portly draper himself, looked at her with a sly +curiosity. The girl's sore pride grew more unmanageable hour by hour. If +there was some ill-natured gossip about her, going the round in the town +and the neighbourhood, had she--till now--given the least shadow of +excuse for it? Not the least shade of a shadow! + + * * * * * + +Mr. Helbeck, his sister, and Laura were in the drawing-room after supper. +Laura had been observing Mrs. Fountain closely. + +"She is longing to have her talk with him," thought the girl; "and she +shall have it--as much as she likes." + +The shutters were not yet closed, and the room, with its crackling logs, +was filled with a gentle mingled light. The sun, indeed, was gone, but +the west still glowed, and the tall larches in the front enclosure stood +black against a golden dome of sky. Laura rose and left the room. As she +opened the door she caught Augustina's quick look of relief and the drop +of the knitting-needles. + +Fricka was safely prisoned upstairs. Laura slipped on a hat and a dark +cloak that were hanging in the hall, and ran down the passage leading to +the chapel. The heavy seventeenth-century door at the end of it took her +some trouble to open without noise, but it was done at last, and she was +in the old garden. + +Her little figure in its cloak, among the dark yews, was hardly to be +seen in the dusk. The garden was silence itself, and the gate in the wall +was open. Once on the road beside the river she could hardly restrain +herself from running, so keen was the air, so free and wide the evening +solitude. All things were at peace; nothing moved but a few birds and the +tiniest intermittent breeze. Overhead, great thunderclouds kept the +sunset; beneath, the blues of the evening were all interwoven with rose; +so, too, were the wood and sky reflections in the gently moving water. In +some of the pools the trout were still lazily rising; pigeons and homing +rooks were slowly passing through the clear space that lay between the +tree-tops and the just emerging stars; and once Laura stopped, holding +her breath, thinking that she saw through the dusk the blue flash of a +kingfisher making for a nest she knew. Even in this dimmed light the +trees had the May magnificence--all but the oaks, which still dreamed of +a best to come. Here and there a few tufts of primroses, on the bosom of +the crag above the river, lonely and self-sufficing, like all loveliest +things, starred the dimness of the rock. + +Laura's feet danced beneath her; the evening beauty and her passionate +response flowed as it were into each other, made one beating pulse; +never, in spite of qualms and angers, had she been more physically happy, +more alive. She passed the seat where she and Helbeck had lingered on +Easter Sunday; then she struck into a path high above the river, under +spreading oaks; and presently a little bridge came in sight, with some +steps in the crag leading down to it. + +At the near end of the bridge, thrown out into the river a little way for +the convenience of fishermen, was a small wooden platform, with a +railing, which held a seat. The seat was well hidden under the trees and +bank, and Laura settled herself there. + +She had hardly waited five minutes, absorbed in the sheer pleasure of the +rippling river and the soft air, when she heard steps approaching the +bank. Looking up, she saw Mason's figure against the sky. He paused at +the top of the rocky staircase, to scan the bridge and its approaches. +Not seeing her, he threw up his hand, with some exclamation that she +could not hear. + +She smiled and rose. + +As her small form became visible between the paleness of the wooden +platform and a luminous patch in the river, she heard a cry, then a +hurrying down the rock steps. + +He stopped about a yard from her. She did not offer her hand, and after +an instant's pause, during which his eyes tried to search her face in the +darkness, he took off his hat and drew his hand across his brow with a +deep breath. + +"I never thought you'd come," he said huskily. + +"Well, certainly you had no business to ask me! And I can only stay a +very few minutes. Suppose you sit down there." + +She pointed to one of the rock steps, while she settled herself again on +the seat, some little distance away from him. + +Then there was an awkward silence, which Laura took no trouble to break. +Mason broke it at last in desperation. + +"You know that I'm an awful hand at saying anything, Miss--Miss Fountain. +I can't--so it's no good. But I've got my lesson. I've had a pretty rough +time of it, I can tell you, since last week." + +"You behaved about as badly as you could--didn't you?" said Laura's soft +yet cutting voice out of the dark. + +Mason fidgeted. + +"I can't make it no better," he said at last. "There's no saying I can, +for I can't. And if I did give you excuses, you'd not believe 'em. There +was a devil got hold of me that evening--that's the truth on't. And it +was only a glass or two I took. Well, there!--I'd have cut my hand off +sooner." + +His tone of miserable humility began to affect her rather strangely. It +was not so easy to drive in the nail. + +"You needn't be so repentant," she said, with a little shrinking laugh. +"One has to forget--everything--in good time. You've given Whinthorpe +people something to talk about at my expense--for which I am not at all +obliged to you. You nearly killed me, which doesn't matter. And you +behaved disgracefully to Mr. Helbeck. But it's done--and now you've got +to make up--somehow." + +"Has he made you pay for it--since?" said Mason eagerly. + +"He? Mr. Helbeck?" She laughed. Then she added, with all the severity +she could muster, "He treated me in a most kind and gentlemanly +way--if you want to know. The great pity is that you--and Cousin +Elizabeth--understand nothing at all about him." + +He groaned. She could hear his feet restlessly moving. + +"Well--and now you are going to Froswick," she resumed. "What are you +going to do there?" + +"There's an uncle of mine in one of the shipbuilding yards there. He's +got leave to take me into the fitting department. If I suit he'll get me +into the office. It's what I've wanted this two years." + +"Well, now you've got it," she said impatiently, "don't be dismal. You +have your chance." + +"Yes, and I don't care a haporth about it," he said, with sudden energy, +throwing his head up and bringing his fist down on his knee. + +She felt her power, and liked it. But she hurried to answer: + +"Oh! yes you do! If you're a man, you _must_. You'll learn a lot of new +things--you'll keep straight, because you'll have plenty to do. Why, it +will 'hatch you over again, and hatch, you different,' as somebody said. +You'll see." + +He looked at her, trying hard to catch her expression in the dusk. + +"And if I do come back different, perhaps--perhaps--soom day you'll not +be ashamed to be seen wi' me? Look here, Miss Laura. From the first time +I set eyes on you--from that day you came up--that Sunday--I haven't been +able to settle to a thing. I felt, right enough, I wasn't fit to speak to +you. And yet I'm your--well, your kith and kin, doan't you see? There +can't be no such tremendous gap atween us as all that. If I can just +manage myself a bit, and find the work that suits me, and get away from +these fellows here, and this beastly farm----" + +"Ah!--have you been quarrelling with Daffady all day?" + +She looked for him to fly out. But he only stared, and then turned away. + +"O Lord! what's the good of talking?" he said, with an accent that +startled her. + +She rose from her seat. + +"Are you sorry I came to talk to you? You didn't deserve it--did you?" + +Her voice was the pearliest, most musical, and yet most distant of +things. He rose, too--held by it. + +"And now you must just go and make a man of yourself. That's what you +have to do--you see? I wish papa was alive. He'd tell you how--I can't. +But if you forget your music, it'll be a sin--and if you send me your +song to write out for you, I'll do it. And tell Polly I'll come and see +her again some day. Now good-night! They'll be locking up if I don't +hurry home." + +But he stood on the step, barring the way. + +"I say, give me something to take with me," he said hoarsely. "What's +that in your hat?" + +"In my hat?" she said, laughing--(but if there had been light he would +have seen that her lips had paled). "Why, a bunch of buttercups. I bought +them at Whinthorpe yesterday." + +"Give me one," he said. + +"Give you a sham buttercup? What nonsense!" + +"It's better than nothing," he said doggedly, and he held out his hand. + +She hesitated; then she took off her hat and quietly loosened one of the +flowers. Her golden hair shone in the dimness. Mason never took his eyes +off her little head. He was keeping a grip on himself that was taxing a +whole new set of powers--straining the lad's unripe nature in wholly new +ways. + +She put the flower in his hand. + +"There; now we're friends again, aren't we? Let me pass, please--and +good-night!" + +He moved to one side, blindly fighting with the impulse to throw his +powerful arms round her and keep her there, or carry her across the +bridge--at his pleasure. + +But her light fearlessness mastered him. He let her go; he watched her +figure on the steps, against the moonlight between the oaks overhead. + +"Good-night!" she dropped again, already far away--far above him. + +The young man felt a sob in his throat. + +"My God! I shan't ever see her again," he said to himself in a sudden +terror. "She is going to that house--to that man!" + +For the first time a wild jealousy of Helbeck awoke in him. He rushed +across the bridge, dropped on a stone half-way up the further bank, then +strained his eyes across the river. + +... Yes, there she passed, a swift moving whiteness, among the great +trees that stood like watchmen along the high edge of the water. Below +him flowed the stream, a gulf of darkness, rent here and there by sheets +and jags of silver. And she, that pale wraith--across it--far away--was +flitting from his ken. + +All the fountains of the youth's nature surged up in one great outcry and +confusion. He thought of his boyish loves and sensualities--of the girls +who had provoked them--of some of the ugly facts connected with them. A +great astonishment, a great sickening, came upon him. He felt the burden +of the flesh, the struggle of the spirit. And through it all, the maddest +and most covetous yearning!--welling up through schemes and hopes, that +like the moonlit ripples on the Greet, dissolved as fast as they took +shape. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Laura went quickly home. A new tenderness, a new remorse +towards the "cub" was in the girl's mind. Ought she to have gone? Had she +been kind? Oh! she would be his friend and good angel--without any +nonsense, of course. + +She hurried through the trees and along the dimly gleaming path. Suddenly +she perceived in the distance the sparkle of a lantern. + +How vexatious! Was there no escape for her? She looked in some trouble at +the climbing woods above, at the steep bank below. + +Ah! well, her hat was large, and hid her face. And her dress was all +covered by her cloak. She hastened on. + +It was a man--an old man--carrying a bundle and a lantern. He seemed to +waver and stop as she approached him, and at the actual moment of her +passing him, to her amazement, he suddenly threw himself against one of +the trees on the mountain side of the path, and his lantern showed her +his face for an instant--a white face, stricken with--fear, was it? or +what? + +Fright gained upon herself. She ran on, and as she ran it seemed to her +that she heard something fall with a clang, and, afterwards, a cry. She +looked back. The old man was still there, erect, but his light was gone. + +Well, no doubt he had dropped his lantern. Let him light it again. It was +no concern, of hers. + +Here was the door in the wall. It opened to her touch. She glided +in--across the garden--found the chapel door ajar, and in a few more +seconds was safe in her own room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Laura was standing before her looking-glass straightening the curls that +her rapid walk had disarranged, when her attention was caught by certain +unusual sounds in the house. There was a hurrying of distant feet--calls, +as though from the kitchen region--and lastly, the deep voice of Mr. +Helbeck. Miss Fountain paused, brush in hand, wondering what had +happened. + +A noise of fluttering skirts, and a cry for "Laura!"--Miss Fountain +opened her door, and saw Augustina, who never ran, hurrying as fast as +her feebleness would let her, towards her stepdaughter. + +"Laura!--where is my sal volatile? You gave me some yesterday, you +remember, for my headache. There's somebody ill, downstairs." + +She paused for breath. + +"Here it is," said Laura, finding the bottle, and bringing it. "What's +wrong?" + +"Oh, my dear, such an adventure! There's an old man fainted in the +kitchen. He came to the back door to ask for a light for his lantern. +Mrs. Denton says he was shaking all over when she first saw him, and as +white as her apron. He told her he'd seen the ghost! 'I've often heard +tell o' the Bannisdale Lady,' he said, 'an now I've seen her!' She asked +him to sit down a minute to rest himself, and he fainted straight away. +He's that old Scarsbrook, you know, whose wife does our washing. They +live in that cottage by the weir, the other end of the park. I must go! +Mrs. Denton's giving him some brandy--and Alan's gone down. Isn't it an +extraordinary thing?" + +"Very," said Laura, accompanying her stepmother along the passage. "What +did he see?" + +She paused, laying a restraining hand on Augustina's arm--cudgelling her +brains the while. Yes! she could remember now a few contemptuous remarks +of Mr. Helbeck to Father Leadham on the subject of a ghost story that had +sprung up during the Squire's memory in connection with the park and the +house--a quite modern story, according to Helbeck, turning on the common +motive of a gypsy woman and her curse, started some forty years before +this date, with a local success not a little offensive, apparently, to +the owner of Bannisdale. + +"What did he see?" repeated the girl. "Don't hurry, Augustina; you know +the doctor told you not. Shall I take the sal volatile?" + +"Oh, no!--they want me." In any matter of doctoring small or great, +Augustina had the happiest sense of her own importance. "I don't know +what he saw exactly. It was a lady, he says--he knew it was, by the hat +and the walk. She was all in black--with 'a Dolly Varden hat'--fancy the +old fellow!--that hid her face--and a little white hand, that shot out +sparks as he came up to her! Did you ever hear such, a tale? Now, Laura, +I'm all right. Let me go. Come when you like." + +Augustina hurried off; Laura was left standing pensive in the passage. + +"H'm, that's unlucky," she said to herself. + +Then she looked down at her right hand. An old-fashioned diamond ring +with a large centre stone, which had been her mother's, shone on the +third finger. With an involuntary smile, she drew off the ring, and went +back to her room. + +"What's to be done now?" she thought, as she put the ring in a drawer. +"Shall I go down and explain--say I was out for a stroll?"--She shook her +head.--"Won't do now--I should have had more presence of mind a minute +ago. Augustina would suspect a hundred things. It's really dramatic. +Shall I go down? He didn't see my face--no, that I'll answer for! Here's +for it!" + +She pulled out the golden mass of her hair till it made a denser frame +than usual round her brow, looked at her white dress--shook her head +dubiously--laughed at her own flushed face in the glass, and calmly went +downstairs. + +She found an anxious group in the great bare servants' hall. The old man, +supported by pillows, was stretched on a wooden settle, with Helbeck, +Augustina, and Mrs. Denton standing by. The first things she saw were the +old peasant's closed eyes and pallid face--then Helbeck's grave and +puzzled countenance above him. The Squire turned at Miss Fountain's step. +Did she imagine it--or was there a peculiar sharpness in his swift +glance? + +Mrs. Denton had just been administering a second dose of brandy, and was +apparently in the midst of her own report to her master of Scarsbrook's +story. + +"'I wor just aboot to pass her,' he said, 'when I nawticed 'at her feet +made noa noise. She keaem glidin--an glidin--an my hair stood reet oop--it +lifted t'whole top o' my yed. An she gaed passt me like a puff o' +wind--as cauld as ice--an I wor mair deed nor alive. An I luked afther +her, an she vanisht i' th' varra middle o' t' path. An my leet went +oot--an I durstn't ha gane on, if it wor iver so--so I juist crawled back +tet hoose----'" + +"The door in the wall!" thought Laura. "He didn't know it was there." + +She had remained in the background while Mrs. Denton was speaking, but +now she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, and +flounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As she +passed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had become +something more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer, +and himself thrust his hands into his pockets and moved away. + +"Have you sent for anyone?" said Laura to Mrs. Fountain. + +"Yes. Wilson's gone in the pony cart for the wife. And if he doesn't come +round by the time she gets here--some one will have to go for the doctor, +Alan?" + +She looked round vaguely. + +"Of course. Wilson must go on," said Helbeck from the distance. "Or I'll +go myself." + +"But he is coming round," said Laura, pointing. + +"If yo'll nobbut move oot o' t' way, Miss, we'll be able to get at 'im," +said Mrs. Denton sharply. Laura hastily obeyed her. The housekeeper +brought more brandy; then signs of returning force grew stronger, and by +the time the wife appeared the old fellow was feebly beginning to move +and look about him. + +Amid the torrent of lamentations, questions, and hypotheses that the wife +poured forth, Laura withdrew into the background. But she could not +prevail on herself to go. Daring or excitement held her there, till the +old man should be quite himself again. + +He struggled to his feet at last, and said, with a long sigh that was +still half a shudder, "Aye--noo I'll goa home--Lisbeth." + +He was a piteous spectacle as he stood there, still trembling through all +his stunted frame, his wrinkled face drawn and bloodless, his grey hair +in a tragic confusion. Suddenly, as he looked at his wife, he said with a +clear solemnity, "Lisbeth--I ha' got my death warrant!" + +"Don't say any such thing, Scarsbrook," said Helbeck, coming forward to +support him. "You know I don't believe in this ghost business--and never +did. You saw some stranger in the park--and she passed you too quickly +for you to see where she went to. You may be sure that'll turn out to be +the truth. You remember--it's a public path--anybody might be there. Just +try and take that view of it--and don't fret, for your wife's sake. We'll +make inquiries, and I'll come and see you to-morrow. And as for death +warrants, we're all in God's care, you know--don't forget that." + +He smiled with a kindly concern and pity on the old man. But Scarsbrook +shook his head. + +"It wur t' Bannisdale Lady," he repeated; "I've often heerd on +her--often--and noo I've seen her." + +"Well, to-morrow you'll be quite proud of it," said Helbeck cheerfully. +"Come, and let me put you into the cart. I think, if we make a +comfortable seat for you, you'll be fit to drive home now." + +Supported by the Squire's strong arm on one side, and his wife on the +other, Scarsbrook managed to hobble down the long passage leading to the +door in the inner courtyard, where the pony cart was standing. It was +evident that his perceptions were still wholly dazed. He had not +recognised or spoken to anyone in the room but the Squire--not even to +his old crony Mrs. Denton. + +Laura drew a long breath. + +"Augustina, do go to bed," she said, going up to her stepmother--"or +you'll be ill next." + +Augustina allowed herself to be led upstairs. But it was long before she +would let her stepdaughter leave her. She was full of supernatural +terrors and excitements, and must talk about all the former appearances +of the ghost--the stories that used to be told in her childhood--the new +or startling details in the old man's version, and so forth. "What could +he have meant by the light on the hand?" she said wondering. "I never +heard of that before. And she used always to be in grey; and now he says +that she had a black dress from top to toe." + +"Their wardrobes are so limited--poor damp, sloppy things!" said Laura +flippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose this +nonsense will be all over the country-side to-morrow, Augustina?" + +"What do you _really_ think he saw, Laura?" cried Mrs. Fountain, wavering +between doubt and belief. + +"Goodness!--don't ask me." Miss Fountain shrugged her small shoulders. "I +don't keep a family ghost." + + * * * * * + +When at last Augustina had been settled in bed, and persuaded to take +some of her sleeping medicine, Laura was bidding her good-night, when +Mrs. Fountain said, "Oh! I forgot, Laura--there was a letter brought in +for you from the post-office, by Wilson this afternoon--he gave it to +Mrs. Denton, and she forgot it till after dinner----" + +"Of course--because it was mine," said Laura vindictively. "Where is it?" + +"On the drawing-room chimney-piece." + +"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck." + +"Oh! no--it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study." + +Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consulting +her watch. + +For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall in +with Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself had +anyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were in +tumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, her +brain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which she +had observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of that +conversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while she +was by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before? +Well!--if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send her +away--by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, was +in all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to lead +her life as she pleased. + +Nevertheless--as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle in +her hand--Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping. +During the months following her father's death, these agonies of crying +had come upon her night after night--unseen by any human being. She felt +now the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't have +this excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "No +nerves would stand it." + +A light under the library door. Well and good. How--she wondered--did he +occupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice she +had heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock. + +Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door, +and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp still +burned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr. +Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture of +astonishment. + +Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. +Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here." + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing. + +"Augustina told me there was a letter for me this evening." + +"Of course. It is here on the mantelpiece. I ought to have remembered +it." + +He took up the letter and held it towards her. Then suddenly he paused, +and sharply withdrawing it, he placed it on a table beside him, and laid +his hand upon it. She saw a flash of quick resolution in his face, and +her own pulses gave a throb. + +"Miss Fountain, will you excuse my detaining you for a moment? I have +been thinking much about this old man's story, and the possible +explanation of it. It struck me in a very singular way. As you know, I +have never paid much attention to the ghost story here--we have never +before had a testimony so direct. Is it possible--that you might throw +some light upon it? You left us, you remember, after dinner. Did you by +chance go into the garden?--the evening was tempting, I think. If so, +your memory might possibly recall to you some--slight thing." + +"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "I did go into the garden." + +His eye gleamed. He came a step nearer. + +"Did you see or hear anything--to explain what happened?" + +She did not answer for a moment. She made a vague movement, as though to +recover her letter--looked curiously into a glass case that stood beside +her, containing a few Stuart relics and autographs. Then, with absolute +self-possession, she turned and confronted him, one hand resting on the +glass case. + +"Yes; I can explain it all. I was the ghost!" + +There was a moment's silence. A smile--a smile that she winced under, +showed itself on Helbeck's lip. + +"I imagined as much," he said quietly. + +She stood there, torn by different impulses. Then a passion of annoyance +with herself, and anger with him, descended on her. + +"Now perhaps you would like to know why I concealed it?" she said, with +all the dignity she could command. "Simply, because I had gone out to +meet and say good-bye to a person--who is my relation--whom I cannot meet +in this house, and against whom there is here an unreasonable--" She +hesitated; then resumed, leaning obstinately on the words--"Yes! take it +all in all, it _is_ an unreasonable prejudice." + +"You mean Mr. Hubert Mason?" + +She nodded. + +"You think it an unreasonable prejudice after what happened the other +night?" + +She wavered. + +"I don't want to defend what happened the other night," she said, while +her voice shook. + +Helbeck observed her carefully. There was a great decision in his manner, +and at the same time a fine courtesy. + +"You knew, then, that he was to be in the park? Forgive my questions. +They are not mere curiosity." + +"Perhaps not," she said indifferently. "But I think I have told you all +that needs to be told. May I have my letter?" + +She stepped forward. + +"One moment. I wonder, Miss Fountain,"--he chose his words slowly--"if I +could make you understand my position. It is this. My sister brings a +young lady, her stepdaughter, to stay under my roof. That young lady +happens to be connected with a family in this neighbourhood, which is +already well known to me. For some of its members I have nothing but +respect--about one I happen to have a strong opinion. I have reasons, for +my opinion. I imagine that very few people of any way of thinking would +hold me either unreasonable or prejudiced in the matter. Naturally, it +gives me some concern that a young lady towards whom I feel a certain +responsibility should be much seen with this young man. He is not her +equal socially, and--pardon me--she knows nothing at all about the type +to which he belongs. Indirectly I try to warn her. I speak to my sister +as gently as I can. But from the first she rejects all I have to say--she +gives me credit for no good intention--and she will have none of my +advice. At last a disagreeable incident happens--and unfortunately the +knowledge of it is not confined to ourselves----" + +Laura threw him a flashing look. + +"No!--there are people who have taken care of that!" she said. + +Helbeck took no notice. + +"It is known not only to ourselves," he repeated steadily. "It starts +gossip. My sister is troubled. She asks you to put an end to this state +of things, and she consults me, feeling that indeed we are all in some +way concerned." + +"Oh, say at once that I have brought scandal on you all!" cried Laura. +"That of course is what Sister Angela and Father Bowles have been saying +to Augustina. They are pleased to show the greatest anxiety about me--so +much so, that they most kindly wish to relieve me of the charge of +Augustina.--So I understand! But I fear I am neither docile nor +grateful!--that I never shall be grateful----" + +Helbeck interrupted. + +"Let us come to that presently. I should like to finish my story. While +my sister and I are consulting, trying to think of all that can be done +to stop a foolish talk and undo an unlucky incident, this same young +lady"--his voice took a cold clearness--"steals out by night to keep an +appointment with this man, who has already done her so great a +disservice. Now I should like to ask her, if all this is kind--is +reasonable--is generous towards the persons with whom she is at present +living--if such conduct is not"--he paused--"unwise towards +herself--unjust towards others." + +His words came out with a strong and vibrating emphasis. Laura confronted +him with crimson cheeks. + +"I think that will do, Mr. Helbeck!" she cried. "You have had your +say.--Now just let me say this,--these people were my relations--I have +no other kith and kin in the world." + +He made a quick step forward as though in distress. But she put up her +hand. + +"I want very much to say this, please. I knew perfectly well when I came +here that you couldn't like the Masons--for many reasons." Her voice +broke again. "You never liked Augustina's marriage--you weren't likely to +want to see anything of papa's people. I didn't ask you to see them. All +my standards and theirs are different from yours. But I prefer +theirs--not yours! I have nothing to do with yours. I was brought +up--well, to _hate_ yours--if one must tell the truth." + +She paused, half suffocated, her chest heaving. Helbeck's glance +enveloped her--took in the contrast between her violent words and the +shrinking delicacy of her small form. A great melting stole over the +man's dark face. But he spoke dryly enough. + +"I imagine the standards of Protestants and Catholics are pretty much +alike in matters of this kind. But don't let us waste time any more over +what has already happened. I should like, I confess, to plead with you as +to the future." + +He looked at her kindly, even entreatingly. All through this scene she +had been unwittingly, angrily conscious of his personal dignity and +charm--a dignity that seemed to emerge in moments of heightened action or +feeling, and to slip out of sight again under the absent hermit-manner of +his ordinary life. She was smarting under his words--ready to concentrate +a double passion of resentment upon them, as soon as she should be alone +and free to recall them. And yet---- + +"As to the future," she said coldly. "That is simple enough as far as one +person is concerned. Hubert Mason is going to Froswick immediately, into +business." + +"I am glad to hear it--it will be very much for his good." + +He stopped a moment, searching for the word of persuasion and +conciliation. + +"Miss Fountain!--if you imagine that certain incidents which happened +here long before you came into this neighbourhood had anything to do with +what I have been saying now, let me assure you--most earnestly--that it +is not so! I recognise fully that with regard to a certain case--of which +you may have heard--the Masons and their friends honestly believed that +wrong and injustice had been done. They attempted personal violence. I +can hardly be expected to think it argument! But I bear them no malice. I +say this because you may have heard of something that happened three or +four years ago--a row in the streets, when Father Bowles and I were set +upon. It has never weighed with me in the slightest, and I could have +shaken hands with old Mason--who was in the crowd, and refused to stop +the stone throwing--the day after. As for Mrs. Mason"--he looked up with +a smile--"if she could possibly have persuaded herself to come with her +daughter and see you here, my welcome would not have been wanting. But, +you know, she would as soon visit Gehenna! Nobody could be more conscious +than I, Miss Fountain, that this is a dreary house for a young lady to +live in--and----" + +The colour mounted into his face, but he did not shrink from what he +meant to say. + +"And you have made us all feel that you regard the practices and +observances by which we try to fill and inspire our lives, as mere +hateful folly and superstition!" He checked himself. "Is that too +strong?" he added, with a sudden eagerness. "If so, I apologise for and +withdraw it!" + +Laura, for a moment, was speechless. Then she gathered her forces, and +said, with a voice she in vain tried to compose: + +"I think you exaggerate, Mr. Helbeck; at any rate, I hope you do. But the +fact is, I--I ought not to have tried to bear it. Considering all that +had happened at home--it was more than I had strength for! And +perhaps--no good will come of going on with it--and it had better cease. +Mr. Helbeck!--if your Superior can really find a good nurse and companion +at once, will you kindly communicate with her? I will go to Cambridge +immediately, as soon as I can arrange with my friends. Augustina, no +doubt, will come and stay with me somewhere at the sea, later on in the +year." + +Helbeck had been listening to her--to the sharp determination of her +voice--in total silence. He was leaning against the high mantelpiece, and +his face was hidden from her. As she ceased to speak, he turned, and his +mere aspect beat down the girl's anger in a moment. He shook his head +sadly. + +"Dr. MacBride stopped me on the bridge yesterday, as he was coming away +from the house." + +Laura drew back. Her eyes fastened upon him. + +"He thinks her in a serious state. We are not to alarm her, or interfere +with her daily habits. There is valvular disease--as I think you +know--and it has advanced. Neither he nor anyone can forecast." + +The girl's head fell. She recognised that the contest was over. She could +not go; she could not leave Augustina; and the inference was clear. There +had not been a word of menace, but she understood. Mr. Helbeck's will +must prevail. She had brought this humiliating half-hour on herself--and +she would have to bear the consequences of it. She moved towards Helbeck. + +"Well then, I must stay," she said huskily, "and I must try to--to +remember where I am in future. I ought to be able to hide everything I +feel--of course! But that unfortunately is what I never learnt. +And--there are some ways of life--that--that are too far apart. +However!"--she raised her hand to her brow, frowned, and thought a +little--"I can't make any promise about my cousins, Mr. Helbeck. _I_ know +perfectly well--whatever may be said--that I have done nothing whatever +to be ashamed of. I have wanted to--to help my cousin. He is worth +helping--in spite of everything--and I _will_ help him, if I can! But if +I am to remain your guest, I see that I must consult your wishes----" + +Helbeck tried again to stop her with a gesture, but she hurried on. + +"As far as this house and neighbourhood are concerned, no one shall have +any reason--to talk." + +Then she threw her head back with a sudden flush. + +"Of course, if people are born to say and think ill-natured things!--like +Mrs. Denton----" + +Helbeck exclaimed. + +"I will see to that," he said. "You shall have no reason to complain, +there." + +Laura shrugged her shoulders. + +"Will you kindly give me my letter?" + +As he handed it to her, she made him a little bow, walked to the door +before he could open it for her, and was gone. + +Helbeck turned back, with a smothered exclamation. He put the lamps out, +and went slowly to his study. + + * * * * * + +As the master of Bannisdale closed the door of his library behind him, +the familiar room produced upon him a sharp and singular impression. The +most sacred and the most critical hours of his life had been passed +within its walls. As he entered it now, it seemed to repulse him, to be +no longer his. + +The room was not large. It was the old library of the house, and the +Helbecks in their palmiest days had never been a literary race. There was +a little seventeenth century theology; and a few English classics. There +were the French books of Helbeck's grandmother--"Madame," as she was +always known at Bannisdale; and amongst them the worn brown volumes of +St. Francois de Sales, with the yellowish paper slips that Madame had put +in to mark her favourite passages, somewhere in the days of the First +Empire. Near by were some stray military volumes, treatises on tactics +and fortification, that had belonged to a dashing young officer in the +Dillon Regiment, close to some "Epitres Amoureux," a translation of +"Daphnis and Chloe," and the like--all now sunk together into the same +dusty neglect. + +On the wall above Helbeck's writing-table were ranged the books that had +been his mother's, together with those that he himself habitually used. +Here every volume was an old friend, a familiar tool. Alan Helbeck was +neither a student nor a man of letters; but he had certain passionate +prejudices, instincts, emotions, of which some books were the source and +sustenance. + +For the rest--during some years he had been a member of the Third Order +of St. Francis, and in its other features the room was almost the room of +a religious. A priedieu stood against the inner wall, and a crucifix hung +above it. A little further on was a small altar of St. Joseph with its +pictures, its statuette, and its candles; and a poor lithograph of Pio +Nono looked down from the mantelpiece. The floor was almost bare, save +for a few pieces of old matting here and there. The worn Turkey carpet +that had formerly covered it had been removed to make the drawing-room +comfortable for Augustina; so had most of the chairs. Those left were of +the straightest and hardest. + +In that dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most +intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a +strange sense of wrench--of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went +to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his +watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay upon it. + +The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection of +passages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of his +mother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst. + +On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copied +from one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritual +exercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it. + +"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, my +only good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heart +from every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thy +holy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to please +Thee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Thee +to come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance all +those effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce in +me._" + +He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Then +slowly he turned back to an earlier page-- + +"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must not +be under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first and +chiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul._" + +A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began to +pace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind, +and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle was +harder. The waves of rising passion broke through him. + +"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy to +have forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--to +have felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce with +me--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--she +knows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--I +knew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--from +the first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion for +her father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of me +and of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling for +Augustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two or +three points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps, +that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How she +loathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would sooner +die than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment to +command her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to the +utmost. Ah!" + +He stood still, and with an effort of iron resolution put from him the +fancies that were thronging on the brain. If it were possible for him to +conquer her, conceivable that he might win her--such a dream was +forbidden to him, Alan Helbeck, a thousandfold! Such a marriage would be +the destruction of innumerable schemes for the good of the Church, for +the perfecting of his own life. It would be the betrayal of great trusts, +the abandonment of great opportunities. "My life would centre in her. She +would come first--the Church second. Her nature would work on mine--not +mine on hers. Could I ever speak to her even of what I believe?--the very +alphabet of it is unknown to her. I shrink from proselytism. God forgive +me!--it is her wild pagan self that I love--that I desire----" + +The blast of human longing, human pain, was hard to meet--hard to subdue. +But the Catholic fought--and conquered. + +"I am not my own--I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man could +betray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord--to +his Church. The Church frowns on such a love--such marriages. She does +not forbid them--but they pain her heart. I have accepted her judgment +till now, without difficulty, without conflict. Now to obey is hard. But +I can obey--we are not asked impossibilities." + +He walked to the crucifix, and threw himself down before it. A midnight +stillness brooded over the house. + + * * * * * + +But far away, in an upper room, Laura Fountain had cried herself to +sleep--only to wake again and again, with the tears flooding her cheeks. +Was it merely a disagreeable and exciting scene she had gone through? +What was this new invasion of her life?--this new presence to the inward +eye of a form and look that at once drew her and repulsed her. A hundred +alien forces were threatening and pressing upon her--and out from the +very heart of them came this strange drawing--this magnetism--this +troubling misery. + +To be prisoned in Bannisdale--under Mr. Helbeck's roof--for months and +months longer--this thought was maddening to her. + +But when she imagined herself free to go--and far away once more from +this old and melancholy house--among congenial friends and scenes--she +was no happier than before. A little moan of anger and pain came, that +she stifled against her pillow, calling passionately on the sleep that +would, that must, chase all these phantoms of fatigue or excitement--and +give her back her old free self. + + + + +BOOK III + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"We shall get there in capital time--that's nice!" said Polly Mason, +putting down the little railway guide she had just purchased at Marsland +Station, with a general rustle of satisfaction. + +Polly indeed shone with good temper and new clothes. Her fringe--even +halved--was prodigious. Her cheap lemon-coloured gloves were cracking on +her large hands; and round her beflowered hat she had tied clouds on +clouds of white tulle, which to some extent softened the tans and +crimsons of her complexion. Her dress was of a stiff white cotton stuff, +that fell into the most startling folds and angles; and at every movement +of it, the starch rattled. + +On the opposite seat of the railway carriage was Laura Fountain--an open +book upon her knee that she was not reading. She made no answer, however, +to Polly's remark; the impression left by her attitude was that she took +no interest in it. Miss Fountain herself hardly seemed to have profited +much by that Westmoreland air whereof the qualities were to do so much +for Augustina. It was now June, the end of June, and Laura was certainly +paler, less blooming, than she had been in March. She seemed more +conscious; she was certainly less radiant. Whether her prettiness had +gained by the slight change, might be debated. Polly's eyes, indeed, as +they sped along, paid her cousin one long covetous tribute. The +difficulty that she always had in putting on her own clothes, and +softening her own physical points, made her the more conscious of Laura's +delicate ease, of all the yielding and graceful lines into which the +little black and white muslin frock fell so readily, of all that natural +kinship between Laura and her hats, Laura and her gloves, which poor +Polly fully perceived, knowing well and sadly that she herself could +never attain to it. + +Nevertheless--pretty, Miss Fountain might be; elegant she certainly was; +but Polly did not find her the best of companions for a festal day. They +were going to Froswick--the big town on the coast--to meet Hubert and +another young man, one Mr. Seaton, foreman in a large engineering +concern, whose name Polly had not been able to mention without bridling, +for some time past. + +It was more than a fortnight since the sister, driven by Hubert's +incessant letters, had proposed to Laura that they two should spend a +summer day at Froswick and see the great steel works on which the fame of +that place depended, escorted and entertained by the two young men. Laura +at first had turned a deaf ear. Then all at once--a very flare of +eagerness and acceptance!--a sudden choosing of day and train. And now +that they were actually on their way, with everything arranged, and a +glorious June sun above their heads, Laura was so silent, so reluctant, +so irritable--you might have thought---- + +Well!--Polly really did not know what to think. She was not quite happy +herself. From time to time, as her look dwelt on Laura, she was conscious +of certain guilty reserves and concealments in her own breast. She wished +Hubert had more sense--she hoped to goodness it would all go off nicely! +But of course it would. Polly was an optimist and took all things simply. +Her anxieties for Laura did not long resist the mere pleasure of the +journey and the trip, the flatteries of expectation. What a very +respectable and, on the whole, good-looking young man was Mr. Seaton! +Polly had met him first at the Browhead dance; so that what was a mere +black and ugly spot in Laura's memory shone rosy-red in her cousin's. + +Meanwhile Laura, mainly to avoid Polly's conversation, was looking hard +out of window. They were running along the southern shore of a great +estuary. Behind the loitering train rose the hills they had just left, +the hills that sheltered the stream and the woods of Bannisdale. That +rich, dark patch beneath the further brow was the wood in which the house +stood. To the north, across the bay, ran the line of high mountains, a +dim paradise of sunny slopes and steeps, under the keenest and brightest +of skies--blue ramparts from which the gently opening valleys flowed +downwards, one beside the other, to the estuary and the sea. + +Not that the great plunging sea itself was much to be seen as yet. +Immediately beyond the railway line stretched leagues of firm reddish +sand, pierced by the innumerable channels of the Greet. The sun lay hot +and dazzling on the wide flat surfaces, on the flocks of gulls, on the +pools of clear water. The window was open, and through the June heat +swept a sharp, salt breath. Laura, however, felt none of the physical +exhilaration that as a rule overflowed in her so readily. Was it because +the Bannisdale Woods were still visible? What made the significance of +that dark patch to the girl's restless eye? She came back to it again and +again. It was like a flag, round which a hundred warring thoughts had +come to gather. + +Why? + +Were not she and Mr. Helbeck on the best of terms? Was not Augustina +quite pleased--quite content? "I always knew, my dear Laura, that you and +Alan would get on, in time. Why, anyone could get on with Alan--he's so +kind!" When these things were said, Laura generally laughed. She did not +remind Mrs. Fountain that she, at one time of her existence, had not +found it particularly easy and simple to "get on with Alan"; but the girl +did once allow herself the retort--"It's not so easy to quarrel, is it, +when you don't see a person from week's end to week's end?" "Week's end +to week's end?" Mrs. Fountain repeated vaguely. "Yes--Alan is away a +great deal--people trust him so much--he has so much business." + +Laura was of opinion that his first business might very well have been to +see a little more of his widowed sister! She and Augustina spent days and +days alone, while Mr. Helbeck pursued the affairs of the Church. One +precious attempt indeed had been made to break the dulness of Bannisdale. +Miss Fountain's cheeks burned when she thought of it. There had been an +afternoon party! though Augustina's widowhood was barely a year old! Mrs. +Fountain had been sent about the country delivering notes and cards. And +the result:--oh, such a party!--such an interminable afternoon! Where had +the people come from?--who were they? If Polly, full of curiosity, asked +for some details, Laura would toss her head and reply that she knew +nothing at all about it; that Mrs. Denton had provided bad tea and worse +cakes, and the guests had "filled their chairs," and there was nothing +else to say. Mr. Helbeck's shyness and efforts; the glances of appeal he +threw every now and then towards his sister; his evident depression when +the thing was done--these things were not told to Polly. There was a +place for them in the girl's sore mind; but they did not come to speech. +Anyway she believed--nay, was quite sure--that Bannisdale would not be so +tried a second time. For whose benefit was it done?--whose! + +One evening---- + +As the train crossed the bridge of the estuary, from one stretch of hot +sand to another, Laura, staring at the view, saw really nothing but an +image of the mind, felt nothing except what came through the magic of +memory. + +The hall of Bannisdale, with the lingering daylight of the north still +coming in at ten o'clock through the uncurtained oriel windows--herself +at the piano, Augustina on the settle--a scent of night and flowers +spreading through the dim place from the open windows of the drawing-room +beyond. One candle is beside her--and there are strange glints of +moonlight here and there on the panelling. A tall figure enters from the +chapel passage. Augustina makes room on the settle--the Squire leans back +and listens. And the girl at the piano plays; the stillness and the night +seem to lay releasing hands upon her; bonds that have been stifling and +cramping the soul break down; she plays with all her self, as she might +have talked or wept to a friend--to her father.... And at last, in a +pause, the Squire puts a new candle beside her, and his deep shy voice +commends her, asks her to go on playing. Afterwards, there is a pleasant +and gentle talk for half an hour--Augustina can hardly be made to go to +bed--and when at last she rises, the girl's small hand slips into the +man's, is lost there, feels a new lingering touch, from which both +withdraw in almost equal haste. And the night, for the girl, is broken +with restlessness, with wild efforts to draw the old fetters tight again, +to clamp and prison something that flutters--that struggles. + +Then next morning, there is an empty chair at the breakfast table. "The +Squire left early on business." Without any warning--any courteous +message? One evening at home, after a long absence, and then--off again! +A good Catholic, it seems, lives in the train, and makes himself the +catspaw of all who wish to use him for their own ends! + +... As to that old peasant, Scarsbrook, what could be more arbitrary, +more absurd, than Mr. Helbeck's behaviour? The matter turns out to be +serious. Fright blanches the old fellow's beard and hair; he takes to his +bed, and the doctor talks of severe "nervous shock"--very serious, often +deadly, at the patient's age. Why not confess everything at once, set +things straight, free the poor shaken mind from its oppression? Who's +afraid?--what harm is there in an after-dinner stroll? + +But there!--truth apparently is what no one wants, what no one will +have--least of all, Mr. Helbeck. She sees a meeting in the park, under +the oaks--the same tall man and the girl--the girl bound impetuously for +confession, and the soothing of old Scarsbrook's terrors once for +all--the man standing in the way, as tough and prickly as one of his own +hawthorns. Courtesy, of course! there is no one can make courtesy so +galling; and then such a shooting out of will and personality, so sudden, +so volcanic a heat of remonstrance! And a woman is such a poor ill-strung +creature, even the boldest of them! She yields when she should have +pressed forward--goes home to rage, when she should have stayed to +wrestle. + +Afterwards, another absence--the old house silent as the grave--and +Augustina so fretful, so wearisome! But she is better, much better. How +unscrupulous are doctors, and those other persons who make them say +exactly what suits the moment! + +The dulness seems to grow with the June heat. Soon it becomes +intolerable. Nobody comes, nobody speaks; no mind offers itself to yours +for confidence and sympathy. Well, but change and excitement of some sort +one _must_ have!--who is to blame, if you get it where you can? + +A day in Froswick with Hubert Mason? Yes--why not? Polly proposes it--has +proposed it once or twice before to no purpose. For two months now the +young man has been in training. Polly writes to him often; Laura +sometimes wonders whether the cross-examinations through which Polly puts +her may not partly be for Hubert's benefit. She herself has written twice +to him in answer to some half-dozen letters, has corrected his song for +him--has played altogether a very moral and sisterly part. Is the youth +really in love? Perhaps. Will it do him any harm? + +Augustina of course dislikes the prospect of the Froswick day. But, +really, Augustina must put up with it! The Reverend Mother will come for +the afternoon, and keep her company. Such civility of late on the part of +all the Catholic friends of Bannisdale towards Miss Fountain!--a civility +always on the watch, week by week, day by day--that never yields itself +for an instant, has never a human impulse, an unguarded tone. Father +Leadham is there one day--he makes a point of talking with Miss Fountain. +He leads the conversation to Cambridge, to her father--his keen glance +upon her all the time, the hidden life of the convert and the mystic +leaping every now and then to the surface, and driven down again by a +will that makes itself felt--even by so cool a listener--as a living +tyrannous thing, developed out of all proportion to, nay at the cruel +expense of, the rest of the personality. Yet it is no will of the man's +own--it is the will of his order, of his faith. And why these repeated +stray references to Bannisdale--to its owner--to the owner's goings and +comings? They are hardly questions, but they might easily have done the +work of questions had the person addressed been willing. Laura laughs to +think of it. + +Ah! well--but discretion to-day, discretion to-morrow, discretion always, +is not the most amusing of diets. How dumb, how tame, has she become! +There is no one to fight with, nothing whereon to let loose the +sharp-edged words and sayings that lie so close behind the girl's shut +lips. How amazing that one should positively miss those fuller activities +in the chapel that depend on the Squire's presence! Father Bowles says +Mass there twice a week; the light still burns before the altar; several +times a day Augustina disappears within the heavy doors. But when Mr. +Helbeck is at home, the place becomes, as it were, the strong heart of +the house. It beats through the whole organism; so that no one can ignore +or forget it. + +What is it that makes the difference when he returns? Unwillingly, the +mind shapes its reply. A sense of unity and law comes back into the +house--a hidden dignity and poetry. The Squire's black head carries with +it stern reminders, reminders that challenge or provoke; but "he nothing +common does nor mean," and smaller mortals, as the weeks go by, begin to +feel their hot angers and criticisms driven back upon themselves, to +realise the strange persistency and force of the religious life. + +Inhuman force! But force of any kind tends to draw, to conquer. More than +once Laura sees herself at night, almost on the steps of the chapel, in +the dark shadows of the passage--following Augustina. But she has never +yet mounted the steps--never passed the door. Once or twice she has +angrily snatched herself from listening to the distant voice. + +... Mr. Helbeck makes very little comment on the Froswick plan. One swift +involuntary look at breakfast, as who might say--"Our compact?" But there +was no compact. And go she will. + +And at last all opposition clears away. It must be Mr. Helbeck who has +silenced Augustina--for even she complains no more. Trains are looked +out; arrangements are made to fetch Polly from a half-way village; a fly +is ordered to meet the 9.10 train at night. Why does one feel a culprit +all through? Absurdity! Is one to be mewed up all one's life, to throw +over all fun and frolic at Mr. Helbeck's bidding--Mr. Helbeck, who now +scarcely sets foot in Bannisdale, who seems to have turned his back upon +his own house, since that precise moment when his sister and her +stepdaughter came to inhabit it? Never till this year was he restless in +this way--so says Mrs. Denton, whose temper grows shorter and shorter. + +Oh--as to fun and frolic! The girl yawns as she looks out of window. What +a long hot day it is going to be--and how foolish are all expeditions, +all formal pleasures! 9.10 at Marsland--about seven, she supposes, at +Froswick? Already her thoughts are busy, hungrily busy with the evening, +and the return. + + * * * * * + +The train sped along. They passed a little watering-place under the steep +wooded hills--a furnace of sun on this hot June day, in winter a soft and +sheltered refuge from the north. Further on rose the ruins of a great +Cistercian abbey, great ribs and arches of red sandstone, that still, in +ruin, made the soul and beauty of a quiet valley; then a few busy towns +with mills and factories, the fringe of that industrial district which +lies on the southern and western border of the Lake Country; more wide +valleys sweeping back into blue mountains; a wealth of June leaf and +blossoming tree; and at last docks and buildings, warehouses and "works," +a network of spreading railway lines, and all the other signs of an +important and growing town. The train stopped amid a crowd, and Polly +hurried to the door. + +"Why, Hubert!--Mr. Seaton!--Here we are!" + +She beckoned wildly, and not a few passers-by turned to look at the +nodding clouds of tulle. + +"We shall find them, Polly--don't shout," said Laura behind her, in some +disgust. + +Shout and beckon, however, Polly did and would, till the two young men +were finally secured. + +"Why, Hubert, you never towd me what a big place 'twas," said Polly +joyously. "Lor, Mr. Seaton, doant fash yoursel. This is Miss Fountain--my +cousin. You'll remember her, I knaw." + +Mr. Seaton began a polite and stilted speech while possessing himself of +Polly's shawl and bag. He was a very superior young man of the clerk or +foreman type, somewhat ill put together at the waist, with a flat back to +his head, and a cadaverous countenance. Laura gave him a rapid look. But +her chief curiosity was for Hubert. And at her first glance she saw the +signs of that strong and silent process perpetually going on amongst us +that tames the countryman to the life and habits of the town. It was only +a couple of months since the young athlete from the fells had been +brought within its sway, and already the marks of it were evident in +dress, speech, and manner. The dialect was almost gone; the black Sunday +coat was of the most fashionable cut that Froswick could provide; and as +they walked along, Laura detected more than once in the downcast eyes of +her companion, a stealthy anxiety as to the knees of his new grey +trousers. So far the change was not an embellishment. The first loss of +freedom and rough strength is never that. But it roused the girl's +notice, and a sort of secret sympathy. She too had felt the curb of an +alien life!--she could almost have held out her hand to him as to a +comrade in captivity. + +Outside the station, to Laura's surprise--considering the object of the +expedition--Hubert made a sign to his sister, and they two dropped behind +a little. + +"What's the matter with her?" said Hubert abruptly, as soon as he judged +that they were out of hearing of the couple in front. + +"Who do you mean? Laura? Why, she's well enoof!" + +"Then she don't look it. She's fretting. What's wrong with her?" + +As Hubert looked down upon his sister, Polly was startled by the +impatient annoyance of look and manner. And how red-rimmed and weary were +the lad's eyes! You might have thought he had not slept for a week. +Polly's mind ran through a series of conjectures; and she broke out with +Westmoreland plainness-- + +"Hubert, I do wish tha wouldn't be sich a fool! I've towd tha so times +and times." + +"Aye, and you may tell me so till kingdom come--I shan't mind you," he +said doggedly. "There's something between her and the Squire, I know +there is. I know it by the look of her." + +Polly laughed. + +"How you jump! I tell tha she never says a word aboot him." + +Hubert looked moodily at Laura's little figure in front. + +"All the more reason!" he said between his teeth. "She'd talk about him +when she first came. But I'll find out--never fear." + +"For goodness' sake, Hubert, let her be!" said Polly, entreating. "Sich +wild stuff as thoo's been writin me! Yan might ha thowt yo'd be fer +cuttin yor throat, if yo' didn't get her doon here.--What art tha thinkin +of, lad? She'll never marry tha! She doan't belong to us--and there's noa +undoin it." + +Hubert made no reply, but unconsciously his muscular frame took a +passionate rigidity; his face became set and obstinate. + +"Well, you keep watch," he said. "You'll see--I'll make it worth your +while." + +Polly looked up--half laughing. She understood his reference to herself +and her new sweetheart. Hubert would play her game if she would play his. +Well--she had no objection whatever to help him to the sight of Laura +when she could. Polly's moral sense was not over-delicate, and as to the +upshot and issues of things, her imagination moved but slowly. She did +not like to let herself think of what might have been Hubert's relations +to women--to one or two wild girls about Whinthorpe for instance. But +Laura--Laura who was so much their social better, whose manners and +self-possession awed them both, what smallest harm could ever come to her +from any act or word of Hubert's? For this rustic Westmoreland girl, +Laura Fountain stood on a pedestal robed and sceptred like a little +queen. Hubert was a fool to fret himself--a fool to go courting some one +too high for him. What else was there to say or think about it? + +At the next street corner Laura made a resolute stop. Polly should not +any longer be defrauded of her Mr. Seaton. Besides she, Laura, wished to +talk to Hubert. Mr. Beaton's long words, and way of mouthing his highly +correct phrases, had already seemed to take the savour out of the +morning. + +When the exchange was made--Mr. Seaton alas! showing less eagerness than +might have been expected--Laura quietly examined her companion. It seemed +to her that he was taller than ever; surely she was not much higher than +his elbow! Hubert, conscious that he was being scrutinised, turned red, +looked away, coughed, and apparently could find nothing to say. + +"Well--how are you getting on?" said the light voice, sending its +vibration through all the man's strong frame. + +"I suppose I'm getting on all right," he said, switching at the railings +beside the road with his stick. + +"What sort of work do you do?" + +He gave her a stumbling account, from which she gathered that he was for +the time being the factotum of an office, sent on everybody's errands, +and made responsible for everybody's shortcomings. + +She threw him a glance of pity. This young Hercules, with his open-air +traditions, and his athlete's triumphs behind him, turned into the butt +and underling of half a dozen clerks in a stuffy office! + +"I don't mind," he said hastily. "All the others paid for their places; I +didn't pay for mine. I'll be even with them all some day. It was the +chance I wanted, and my uncle gives me a lift now and then. It was to +please him they gave me the berth; he's worth thousands and thousands a +year to them!" + +And he launched into a boasting account of the importance and abilities +of his uncle, Daniel Mason, who was now managing director of the great +shipbuilding yard into which Hubert had been taken, as a favour to his +kinsman. + +"He began at the bottom, same as me--only he was younger than me," said +Hubert, "so he had the pull. But you'll see, I'll work up. I've learnt a +lot since I've been here. The classes at the Institute--well, they're +fine!" + +Laura showed an astonished glance. New sides of the lad seemed to be +revealing themselves. + +She inquired after his music. But he declared he was too busy to think of +it. By-and-by in the winter he would have lessons. There was a violin +class at the Institute--perhaps he'd join that. Then abruptly, staring +down upon her with his wide blue eyes-- + +"And how have you been getting on with the Squire?" + +He thought she started, but couldn't be quite sure. + +"Getting on with the Squire? Why, capitally! Whenever he's there to get +on with." + +"What--he's been away?" he said eagerly. + +She raised her shoulders. + +"He's always away----" + +"Why, I thought they'd have made a Papist of you by now," he said. + +His laugh was rough, but his eyes held her with a curious insistence. + +"Think something more reasonable, please, next time! Now, where are we +going to lunch?" + +"We've got it all ready. But we must see the yard first.... Miss +Fountain--Laura--I've got that flower you gave me." + +His voice was suddenly hoarse. + +She glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows. + +"Very foolish of you, I'm sure.... Now do tell me, how did you get off so +early?" + +He sulkily explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own +yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in +order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on +night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his +days. But she paid small attention. She was occupied in looking at the +new buildings and streets, the brand new squares and statues of Froswick. + +"How can people build and live in such ugly places?" she said at last, +standing still that she might stare about her--"when there are such +lovely things in the world; Cambridge, for instance--or--Bannisdale." + +The last word slipped out, dreamily, unaware. + +The lad's face flushed furiously. + +"I don't know what there is to see in Bannisdale," he said hotly. "It's a +damp, dark, beastly hole of a place." + +"I prefer Bannisdale to this, thank you," said Laura, making a little +face at the very ample bronze gentleman in a frock coat who was standing +in the centre of a great new-built empty square, haranguing a phantom +crowd. "Oh! how ugly it is to succeed--to have money!" + +Mason looked at her with a half-puzzled frown--a frown that of late had +begun to tease his handsome forehead habitually. + +"What's the harm of having a bit of brass?" he said angrily. "And what's +the beauty o' livin in an old ramshackle place, without a sixpence in +your pocket, and a pride fit to bring you to the workhouse!" + +Laura's little mouth showed amusement, an amusement that stung. She +lifted a little fan that hung at her girdle. + +"Is there any shade in Froswick?" she said, looking round her. + +Mason was silenced, and as Polly and Mr. Seaton joined them, he recovered +his temper with a mighty effort and once more set himself to do the +honours--the slighted honours--of his new home. + +... But oh! the heat of the ship-building yard. Laura was already tired +and faint, and could hardly drag her feet up and down the sides of the +great skeleton ships that lay building in the docks, or through the +interminable "fitting" sheds with their piles of mahogany and teak, their +whirring lathes and saws, their heaps of shavings, their resinous wood +smell. And yet the managing director appeared in person for twenty +minutes, a thin, small, hawk-eyed man, not at all unwilling to give a +brief patronage to the young lady who might be said to link the houses of +Mason and Helbeck in a flattering equality. + +"He wad never ha doon it for _us_!" Polly whispered in her awe to Miss +Fountain. "It's you he's affther!" + +Laura, however, was not grateful. She took her industrial lesson ill, +with much haste and inattention, so that once when the director and his +nephew fell behind, the great man, whose speech to his kinsman in private +was often little less broad than Mrs. Mason's own--said scornfully: + +"An I doan't think much o' your fine cousin, mon! she's nobbut a flighty +miss." + +The young man said nothing. He was still slavishly ill at ease with his +uncle, on whose benevolence all his future depended. + +"Is there something more to see?" said Laura languidly. + +"Only the steel works," said Mr. Seaton, with a patronising smile. "You +young ladies, I presume, would hardly wish to go away without seeing our +chief establishment. Froswick Steel and Hematite Works employ three +thousand workmen." + +"Do they?--and does it matter?" said Laura, playing with the salt. + +She wore a little plaintive, tired air, which suited her soft paleness, +and made her extraordinarily engaging in the eyes of both the young men. +Mason watched her perpetually, anticipating her slightest movement, +waiting on her least want. And Mr. Seaton, usually so certain of his own +emotions and so wholly in command of them, began to feel himself +confused. It was with a distinct slackening of ardour that he looked from +Miss Fountain to Polly--his Polly, as he had almost come to think of her, +honest managing Polly, who would have a bit of "brass," and was in all +respects a tidy and suitable wife for such a man as he. But why had she +wrapped all that silly white stuff round her head? And her hands!--Mr. +Seaton slyly withdrew his eyes from Polly's reddened members to fix them +on the thin white wrist that Laura was holding poised in air, and the +pretty fingers twirling the salt spoon. + +Polly meantime sat up very straight, and was no longer talkative. Lunch +had not improved her complexion, as the mirror hanging opposite showed +her. Every now and then she too threw little restless glances across at +Laura. + +"Why, we needn't go to the works at all if we don't like," said Polly. +"Can't we get a fly, Hubert, and take a jaunt soomwhere?" + +Hubert bent forward with alacrity. Of course they could. If they went +four miles up the river or so, they would come to real nice country and a +farmhouse where they could have tea. + +"Well, I'm game," said Mr. Seaton, magnanimously slapping his pocket. +"Anything to please these ladies." + +"I don't know about that seven o'clock train," said Mason doubtfully. + +"Well, if we can't get that, there's a later one." + +"No, that's the last." + +"You may trust me," said Seaton pompously. "I know my way about a railway +guide. There's one a little after eight." + +Hubert shook his head. He thought Seaton was mistaken. But Laura settled +the matter. + +"Thank you--we'll not miss our train," she said, rising to put her hat +straight before the glass--"so it's the works, please. What is +it--furnaces and red-hot things?" + +In another minute or two they were in the street again. Mr. Seaton +settled the bill with a magnificent "Damn the expense" air, which annoyed +Mason--who was of course a partner in all the charges of the day--and +made Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk with +Miss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemer +process and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which the +little nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which he +found himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs of +Laura and Hubert hurrying along in front, amazed him. + +"Isn't she nice looking?" said poor Polly, as she too stared helplessly +at the distant pair. + +Her shawl weighed upon her arm, Mr. Seaton had forgotten to ask for it. +But there was a little sudden balm in the irritable vexation of his +reply: + +"Some people may be of that opinion, Miss Mason. I own I prefer a greater +degree of balance in the fair sex." + +"Oh! does he mean me?" thought Polly. + +And her spirits revived a little. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, as Laura and Hubert walked along to the desolate road that led +to the great steel works, Hubert knew a kind of jealous and tormented +bliss. She was there, fluttering beside him, her delicate face often +turned to him, her feet keeping step with his. And at the same time what +strong intangible barriers between them! She had put away her mocking +tone--was clearly determined to be kind and cousinly. Yet every word only +set the tides of love and misery swelling more strongly in the lad's +breast. "She doan't belong to us, an there's noa undoin it." Polly's +phrase haunted his ear. Yet he dared ask her no more questions about +Helbeck; small and frail as she was, she could wrap herself in an +unapproachable dignity; nobody had ever yet solved the mystery of Laura's +inmost feeling against her will; and Hubert knew despairingly that his +clumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of rage +that there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something to +know, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not for +his knowing. Ah! that man--that ugly starched hypocrite--after all had he +got hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain--this +pang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle--to that +canting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, he would crush +the life out of her in six months! + +There was a rush and whirl in the lad's senses. A cry of animal +jealousy--of violence--rose in his being. + + * * * * * + +"How wonderful!--how enchanting!" cried Laura, her glance sparkling, her +whole frame quivering with pleasure. + +They had just entered the great main shed of the steel works. The +foreman, who had been induced by the young men to take them through, was +in the act of placing Laura in the shelter of a brick screen, so as to +protect her from a glowing shower of sparks that would otherwise have +swept over her; and the girl had thrown a few startled looks around her. + +A vast shed, much of it in darkness, and crowded with dim forms of iron +and brick--at one end, and one side, openings, where the June day came +through. Within--a grandiose mingling of fire and shadow--a vast glare of +white or bluish flame from a huge furnace roaring against the inner wall +of the shed--sparks, like star showers, whirling through dark +spaces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire passing and +repassing, so that the heat of them scorched the girl's shrinking +cheek--and everywhere, dark against flame, the human movement answering +to the elemental leap and rush of the fire, black forms of men in a +constant activity, masters and ministers at once of this crackling terror +round about them. + +"Aye!" said their guide, answering the girl's questions as well as he +could in the roar--"that's the great furnace where they boil the steel. +Now you watch--when the flame--look! it's white now--turns blue--that +means the process is done--the steel's cooked. Then they'll bring the vat +beneath--turn the furnace over--you'll see the steel pour out." + +"Is that a railway?" + +She pointed to a raised platform in front of the furnace. A truck bearing +a high metal tub was running along it. + +"Yes--it's from there they feed the furnace--in a minute you'll see the +tub tip over." + +There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a great +jet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth had +swallowed down its prey. + +"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go so +close?" + +She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes. + +The foreman laughed. + +"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see the +furnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort and +the barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Stand +back!" + +He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter. + +Laura looked round her. + +"Where are the other two?" she asked. + +"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seaton +knows the man in charge of the testing workshop." + +Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her. +The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers of +sparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed the +stream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the fire +cup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; the +swarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--men +and trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillars +supporting it, all black against the glare---- + +Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But while +she hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. He +was conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in the +little clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in the +glow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wide +black hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The lad +took the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire. + +"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away with +a long breath. + +And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace, +pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travelling +slowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descended +and lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncovering +the four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they moved +across the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another was +lowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became the +prey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath, +to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Then +out again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in it +already half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to be +caught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at last +the quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent, +still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on, +and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort of +platform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, and +brought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerable +fellows, waiting for the market and its buyers. + +"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerly +to her guide--"just for a minute!" + +He smiled at her, unable to say no. + +And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The great +furnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing its +last change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured its +contents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderly +woman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for some +workmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace and +hiding from the sparks. + +Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to be +lowered--and the hell-broth is cooked once again, and will come streaming +forth. + +The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in the +intolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. An +electric bell rings. + +Then---- + +What was that? + +God!--what was that? + +A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewilderment +across her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward. + +"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason. + +But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyes +staring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the little +railway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarm +with running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full of +their cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive. + +Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come to +bring the tea rushed up to her. + +"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend the +heart. + +And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wild +broken words, which neither of them heard or knew. + + +END OF VOL. I + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I *** + +***** This file should be named 9441.txt or 9441.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/4/9441/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas +Berger, and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9441.zip b/9441.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b507bd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/9441.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b52d18 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9441 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9441) diff --git a/old/7hbn110.txt b/old/7hbn110.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eeec41e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7hbn110.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8002 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I., by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9441] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 1, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I. *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Berger, +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +HELBECK OF BANNISDALE + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + + ... metus ille ... Acheruntis ... + Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo + + +In two volumes + +Vol. I. + + +To + +E. de V. + +In Memoriam + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I + +BOOK II + +BOOK III + + + + +BOOK I + + +CHAPTER I + +"I must be turning back. A dreary day for anyone coming fresh to these +parts!" + +So saying, Mr. Helbeck stood still--both hands resting on his thick +stick--while his gaze slowly swept the straight white road in front of +him and the landscape to either side. + +Before him stretched the marsh lands of the Flent valley, a broad +alluvial plain brought down by the rivers Flent and Greet on their way to +the estuary and the sea. From the slight rising ground on which he stood, +he could see the great peat mosses about the river-mouths, marked here +and there by lines of weather-beaten trees, or by more solid dots of +black which the eye of the inhabitant knew to be peat stacks. Beyond the +mosses were level lines of greyish white, where the looping rivers passed +into the sea--lines more luminous than the sky at this particular moment +of a damp March afternoon, because of some otherwise invisible radiance, +which, miles away, seemed to be shining upon the water, slipping down to +it from behind a curtain of rainy cloud. + +Nearer by, on either side of the high road which cut the valley from east +to west, were black and melancholy fields, half reclaimed from the peat +moss, fields where the water stood in the furrows, or a plough driven +deep and left, showed the nature of the heavy waterlogged earth, and the +farmer's despair of dealing with it, till the drying winds should come. +Some of it, however, had long before been reclaimed for pasture, so that +strips of sodden green broke up, here and there, the long stretches of +purple black. In the great dykes or drains to which the pastures were +due, the water, swollen with recent rain, could be seen hurrying to join +the rivers and the sea. The clouds overhead hurried like the dykes and +the streams. A perpetual procession from the north-west swept inland from +the sea, pouring from the dark distance of the upper valley, and blotting +out the mountains that stood around its head. + +A desolate scene, on this wild March day; yet full of a sort of beauty, +even so far as the mosslands were concerned. And as Alan Helbeck's glance +travelled along the ridge to his right, he saw it gradually rising from +the marsh in slopes, and scars, and wooded fells, a medley of lovely +lines, of pastures and copses, of villages clinging to the hills, each +with its church tower and its white spreading farms--a laud of homely +charm and comfort, gently bounding the marsh below it, and cut off by the +seething clouds in the north-west from the mountains towards which it +climbed. And as he turned homewards with the moss country behind him, the +hills rose and fell about him in soft undulation more and more rich in +wood, while beside him roared the tumbling Greet, with its flood-voice--a +voice more dear and familiar to Alan Helbeck perhaps, at this moment of +his life, than the voice of any human being. + +He walked fast with his shoulders thrown back, a remarkably tall man, +with a dark head and short grizzled beard. He held himself very erect, as +a soldier holds himself; but he had never been a soldier. + +Once in his rapid course, he paused to look at his watch, then hurried +on, thinking. + +"She stipulates that she is never to be expected to come to prayers," he +repeated to himself, half smiling. "I suppose she thinks of herself as +representing her father--in a nest of Papists. Evidently Augustina has no +chance with her--she has been accustomed to reign! Well, we shall let her +'gang her gait.'" + +His mouth, which was full and strongly closed, took a slight expression +of contempt. As he turned over a bridge, and then into his own gate on +the further side, he passed an old labourer who was scraping the mud from +the road. + +"Have you seen any carriage go by just lately, Reuben?" + +"Noa--" said the man. "Theer's been none this last hour an more--nobbut +carts, an t' Whinthrupp bus." + +Helbeck's pace slackened. He had been very solitary all day, and even the +company of the old road-sweeper was welcome. + +"If we don't get some drying days soon, it'll be bad for all of us, won't +it, Reuben?" + +"Aye, it's a bit clashy," said the man, with stolidity, stopping to spit +into his hands a moment, before resuming his work. + +The mildness of the adjective brought another half-smile to Helbeck's +dark face. A stranger watching it might have wondered, indeed, whether it +could smile with any fulness or spontaneity. + +"But you don't see any good in grumbling--is that it?" + +"Noa--we'se not git ony profit that gate, I reckon," said the old man, +laying his scraper to the mud once more. + +"Well, good-night to you. I'm expecting my sister to-night, you know, my +sister Mrs. Fountain, and her stepdaughter." + +"Eh?" said Reuben slowly. "Then yo'll be hevin cumpany, fer shure. +Good-neet to ye, Misther Helbeck." + +But there was no great cordiality in his tone, and he touched his cap +carelessly, without any sort of unction. The man's manner expressed +familiarity of long habit, but little else. + +Helbeck turned into his own park. The road that led up to the house wound +alongside the river, whereof the banks had suddenly risen into a craggy +wildness. All recollection of the marshland was left behind. The ground +mounted on either side of the stream towards fell-tops, of which the +distant lines could be seen dimly here and there behind the crowding +trees; while, at some turns of the road, where the course of the Greet +made a passage for the eye, one might look far away to the same mingled +blackness of cloud and scar that stood round the head of the estuary. +Clearly the mountains were not far off; and this was a border country +between their ramparts and the sea. + +The light of the March evening was dying, dying in a stormy greyness that +promised more rain for the morrow. Yet the air was soft, and the spring +made itself felt. In some sheltered places by the water, one might +already see a shimmer of buds; and in the grass of the wild untended +park, daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eye +and ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds that +haunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping to +its new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed creeper +moving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a silent and +jealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards other things +and forces in his life. + +As he walked, the manner of the old peasant rankled a little in his +memory. For it implied, if not disrespect, at least a complete absence of +all that the French call "consideration." + +"It's strange how much more alone I've felt in this place of late than I +used to feel," was Helbeck's reflection upon it, at last. "I reckon it's +since I sold the Leasowes land. Or is it perhaps----" + +He fell into a reverie marked by a frowning expression, and a harsh +drawing down of the mouth. But gradually as he swung along, muttered +words began to escape him, and his hand went to a book that he carried in +his pocket.--"_O dust, learn of Me to obey! Learn of Me, O earth and +clay, to humble thyself, and to cast thyself under the feet of all men +for the love of Me._"--As he murmured the words, which soon became +inaudible, his aspect cleared, his eyes raised themselves again to the +landscape, and became once more conscious of its growth and life. + +Presently he reached a gate across the road, where a big sheepdog sprang +out upon him, leaping and barking joyously. Beyond the gates rose a low +pile of buildings, standing round three sides of a yard. They had once +been the stables of the Hall. Now they were put to farm uses, and through +the door of what had formerly been a coachhouse with a coat of arms +worked in white pebbles on its floor, a woman could be seen milking. +Helbeck looked in upon her. + +"No carriage gone by yet, Mrs. Tyson?" + +"Noa, sir," said the woman. "But I'll mebbe prop t' gate open, for it's +aboot time." And she put down her pail. + +"Don't move!" said Helbeck hastily. "I'll do it myself." + +The woman, as she milked, watched him propping the ruinous gate with a +stone; her expression all the time friendly and attentive. His own +people, women especially, somehow always gave him this attention. + +Helbeck hurried forward over a road, once stately, and now badly worn and +ill-mended. The trees, mostly oaks of long growth, which had accompanied +him since the entrance of the park, thickened to a close wood around till +of a sudden he emerged from them, and there, across a wide space, rose a +grey gabled house, sharp against a hillside, with a rainy evening light +full upon it. + +It was an old and weather-beaten house, of a singular character and +dignity; yet not large. It was built of grey stone, covered with a +rough-cast, so tempered by age to the colour and surface of the stone, +that the many patches where it had dropped away produced hardly any +disfiguring effect. The rugged "pele" tower, origin and source of all the +rest, was now grouped with the gables and projections, the broad +casemented windows, and deep doorways of a Tudor manor-house. But the +whole structure seemed still to lean upon and draw towards the tower; and +it was the tower which gave accent to a general expression of austerity, +depending perhaps on the plain simplicity of all the approaches and +immediate neighbourhood of the house. For in front of it were neither +flowers nor shrubs--only wide stretches of plain turf and gravel; while +behind it, beyond some thin intervening trees, rose a grey limestone +fell, into which the house seemed to withdraw itself, as into the rock, +"whence it was hewn." + +There were some lights in the old windows, and the heavy outer door was +open. Helbeck mounted the steps and stood, watch in hand, at the top of +them, looking down the avenue he had just walked through. And very soon, +in spite of the roar of the river, his ear distinguished the wheels he +was listening for. While they approached, he could not keep himself +still, but moved restlessly about the little stone platform. He had been +solitary for many years, and had loved his solitude. + +"They're just coomin', sir," said the voice of his old housekeeper, as +she threw open an inner door behind him, letting a glow of fire and +candles stream out into the twilight. Helbeck meanwhile caught sight for +an instant of a girl's pale face at the window of the approaching +carriage--a face thrust forward eagerly, to gaze at the pele tower. + +The horses stopped, and out sprang the girl. + +"Wait a moment--let me help you, Augustina. How do you do, Mr. Helbeck? +Don't touch my dog, please--he doesn't like men. Fricka, be quiet!" + +For the little black spitz she held in a chain had begun to growl and +bark furiously at the first sight of Helbeck, to the evident anger of the +old housekeeper, who looked at the dog sourly as she went forward to take +some bags and rugs from her master. Helbeck, meanwhile, and the young +girl helped another lady to alight. She came out slowly with the +precautions of an invalid, and Helbeck gave her his arm. + +At the top of the steps she turned and looked round her. + +"Oh, Alan!" she said, "it is so long----" + +Her lips trembled, and her head shook oddly. She was a short woman, with +a thin plaintive face and a nervous jerk of the head, always very marked +at a moment of agitation. As he noticed it, Helbeck felt times long past +rush back upon him. He laid his hand over hers, and tried to say +something; but his shyness oppressed him. When he had led her into the +broad hall, with its firelight and stuccoed roof, she said, turning round +with the same bewildered air-- + +"You saw Laura? You have never seen her before!" + +"Oh yes; we shook hands, Augustina," said a young voice. "Will Mr. +Helbeck please help me with these things?" + +She was laden with shawls and packages, and Helbeck hastily went to her +aid. In the emotion of bringing his sister back into the old house, which +she had left fifteen years before, when he himself was a lad of +two-and-twenty, he had forgotten her stepdaughter. + +But Miss Fountain did not intend to be forgotten. She made him relieve +her of all burdens, and then argue an overcharge with the flyman. And at +last, when all the luggage was in and the fly was driving off, she +mounted the steps deliberately, looking about her all the time, but +principally at the house. The eyes of the housekeeper, who with Mr. +Helbeck was standing in the entrance awaiting her, surveyed both dog and +mistress with equal disapproval. + +But the dusk was fast passing into darkness, and it was not till the girl +came into the brightness of the hall where her stepmother was already +sitting tired and drooping on a settle near the great wood fire, that +Helbeck saw her plainly. + +She was very small and slight, and her hair made a spot of pale gold +against the oak panelling of the walls. Helbeck noticed the slenderness +of her arms, and the prettiness of her little white neck, then the +freedom of her quick gesture as she went up to the elder lady and with a +certain peremptoriness began to loosen her cloak. + +"Augustina ought to go to bed directly," she said, looking at Helbeck. +"The journey tired her dreadfully." + +"Mrs. Fountain's room is quite ready," said the housekeeper, holding +herself stiffly behind her master. She was a woman of middle age, with a +pinkish face, framed between two tiers of short grey curls. + +Laura's eye ran over her. + +"_You_ don't like our coming!" she said to herself. Then to Helbeck-- + +"May I take her up at once? I will unpack, and put her comfortable. Then +she ought to have some food. She has had nothing to-day but some tea at +Lancaster." + +Mrs. Fountain looked up at the girl with feeble acquiescence, as though +depending on her entirely. Helbeck glanced from his pale sister to the +housekeeper in some perplexity. + +"What will you have?" he said nervously to Miss Fountain. "Dinner, I +think, was to be at a quarter to eight." + +"That was the time I was ordered, sir," said Mrs. Denton. + +"Can't it be earlier?" asked the girl impetuously. + +Mrs. Denton did not reply, but her shoulders grew visibly rigid. + +"Do what you can for us, Denton," said her master hastily, and she went +away. Helbeck bent kindly over his sister. + +"You know what a small establishment we have, Augustina. Mrs. Denton, a +rough girl, and a boy--that's all. I do trust they will be able to make +you comfortable." + +"Oh, let me come down, when I have unpacked, and help cook," said Miss +Fountain brightly. "I can do anything of that sort." + +Helbeck smiled for the first time. "I am afraid Mrs. Denton wouldn't take +it kindly. She rules us all in this old place." + +"I dare say," said the girl quietly. "It's fish, of course?" she added, +looking down at her stepmother, and speaking in a meditative voice. + +"It's a Friday's dinner," said Helbeck, flushing suddenly, and looking at +his sister, "except for Miss Fountain. I supposed----" + +Mrs. Fountain rose in some agitation and threw him a piteous look. + +"Of course you did, Alan--of course you did. But the doctor at +Folkestone--he was a Catholic--I took such care about that!--told me I +mustn't fast. And Laura is always worrying me. But indeed I didn't want +to be dispensed!--not yet!" + +Laura said nothing; nor did Helbeck. There was a certain embarrassment in +the looks of both, as though there was more in Mrs. Fountain's words than +appeared. Then the girl, holding herself erect and rather defiant, drew +her stepmother's arm in hers, and turned to Helbeck. + +"Will you please show us the way up?" + +Helbeck took a small hand-lamp and led the way, bidding the newcomers +beware of the slipperiness of the old polished boards. Mrs. Fountain +walked with caution, clinging to her stepdaughter. At the foot of the +staircase she stopped, and looked upward. + +"Alan, I don't see much change!" + +He turned back, the light shining on his fine harsh face and grizzled +hair. + +"Don't you? But it is greatly changed, Augustina. We have shut up half of +it." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed deeply and moved on. Laura, as she mounted the +stairs, looked back at the old hall, its ceiling of creamy stucco, its +panelled walls, and below, the great bare floor of shining oak with +hardly any furniture upon it--a strip of old carpet, a heavy oak table, +and a few battered chairs at long intervals against the panelling. But +the big fire of logs piled upon the hearth filled it all with cheerful +light, and under her indifferent manner, the girl's sense secretly +thrilled with pleasure. She had heard much of "poor Alan's" poverty. +Poverty! As far as his house was concerned, at any rate, it seemed to her +of a very tolerable sort. + + * * * * * + +In a few minutes Helbeck came downstairs again, and stood absently before +the fire on the hearth. After a while, he sat down beside it in his +accustomed chair--a carved chair of black Westmoreland oak--and began to +read from the book which he had been carrying in his pocket out of doors. +He read with his head bent closely over the pages, because of short +sight; and, as a rule, reading absorbed him so completely that he was +conscious of nothing external while it lasted. To-night, however, he +several times looked up to listen to the sounds overhead, unwonted sounds +in this house, over which, as it often seemed to him, a quiet of +centuries had settled down, like a fine dust or deposit, muffling all its +steps and voices. But there was nothing muffled in the voice overhead +which he caught every now and then, through an open door, escaping, eager +and alive, into the silence; or in the occasional sharp bark of the dog. + +"Horrid little wretch!" thought Helbeck. "Denton will loathe it. +Augustina should really have warned me. What shall we do if she and +Denton don't get on? It will never answer if she tries meddling in the +kitchen--I must tell her." + +Presently, however, his inner anxieties grew upon him so much that his +book fell on his knee, and he lost himself in a multitude of small +scruples and torments, such as beset all persons who live alone. Were all +his days now to be made difficult, because he had followed his +conscience, and asked his widowed sister to come and live with him? + +"Augustina and I could have done well enough. But this girl--well, we +must put up with it--we must, Bruno!" + +He laid his hand as he spoke on the neck of a collie that had just +lounged into the hall, and come to lay its nose upon his master's knee. +Suddenly a bark from overhead made the dog start back and prick its ears. + +"Come here, Bruno--be quiet. You're to treat that little brute with +proper contempt--do you hear? Listen to all that scuffling and talking +upstairs--that's the new young woman getting her way with old Denton. +Well, it won't do Denton any harm. We're put upon sometimes, too, aren't +we?" + +And he caressed the dog, his haughty face alive with something half +bitter, half humorous. + +At that moment the old clock in the hall struck a quarter past seven. +Helbeck sprang up. + +"Am I to dress?" he said to himself in some perplexity. + +He considered for a moment or two, looking at his shabby serge suit, then +sat down again resolutely. + +"No! She'll have to live our life. Besides, I don't know what Denton +would think." + +And he lay back in his chair, recalling with some amusement the +criticisms of his housekeeper upon a young Catholic friend of his +who--rare event--had spent a fishing week with him in the autumn, and had +startled the old house and its inmates with his frequent changes of +raiment. "It's yan set o' cloas for breakfast, an anudther for fishin, an +anudther for ridin, an yan for when he cooms in, an a fine suit for +dinner--an anudther fer smoakin--A should think he mut be oftener naked +nor donned!" Denton had said in her grim Westmoreland, and Helbeck had +often chuckled over the remark. + +An hour later, half an hour after the usual time, Helbeck, all the traces +of his muddy walk removed, and garbed with scrupulous neatness in the old +black coat and black tie he always wore of an evening, was sitting +opposite to Miss Fountain at supper. + +"You got everything you wanted for Augustina, I hope?" he said to her +shyly as they sat down. He had awaited her in the dining-room itself, so +as to avoid the awkwardness of taking her in. It was some years since a +woman had stayed under his roof, or since he had been a guest in the same +house with women. + +"Oh yes!" said Miss Fountain. But she threw a sly swift glance towards +Mrs. Denton, who was just coming into the room with some coffee, then +compressed her lips and studied her plate. Helbeck detected the glance, +and saw too that Mrs. Denton's pink face was flushed, and her manner +discomposed. + +"The coffee's noa good," she said abruptly, as she put it down; "I +couldn't keep to 't." + +"No, I'm afraid we disturbed Mrs. Denton dreadfully," said Miss Fountain, +shrugging her shoulders. "We got her to bring up all sorts of things for +Augustina. She was dreadfully tired--I thought she would faint. The +doctor scolded me before we left, about letting her go without food. +Shall I give you some fish, Mr. Helbeck?" + +For, to her astonishment, the fish even--a very small portion--was placed +before herself, side by side with a few fragments of cold chicken; and +she looked in vain for a second plate. + +As she glanced across the table, she caught a momentary shade of +embarrassment in Helbeck's face. + +"No, thank you," he said. "I am provided." + +His provision seemed to be coffee and bread and butter. She raised her +eyebrows involuntarily, but said nothing, and he presently busied himself +in bringing her vegetables and wine, Mrs. Denton having left the room. + +"I trust you will make a good meal," he said gravely, as he waited upon +her. "You have had a long day." + +"Oh, yes!" said Miss Fountain impetuously, "and please don't ever make +any difference for me on Fridays. It doesn't matter to me in the least +what I eat." + +Helbeck offered no reply. Conversation between them indeed did not flow +very readily. They talked a little about the journey from London; and +Laura asked a few questions about the house. She was, indeed, studying +the room in which they sat, and her host himself, all the time. "He may +be a saint," she thought, "but I am sure he knows all the time there are +very few saints of such an old family! His head's splendid--so dark and +fine--with the great waves of grey-black hair--and the long features and +the pointed chin. He's immensely tall too--six feet two at least--taller +than father. He looks hard and bigoted. I suppose most people would be +afraid of him--I'm not!" + +And 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 house. +The March rawness made her shiver, and she looked shrinkingly into the +gloom before her, as she paused outside her own door. There, at the end +of the passage, lay the old tower; so Mrs. Denton had told her. The +thought of all the locked and empty rooms in it,--dark, cold +spaces,--haunted perhaps by strange sounds and presences of the past, +seemed to let loose upon her all at once a little whirlwind of fear. She +hurried into her room, and was just setting down her candle before +turning to lock her door, when a sound from the distant hall caught her +ear. + +A deep monotonous sound, rising and falling at regular intervals, Mr. +Helbeck reading prayers, with the two maids, who represented the only +service of the house. + +Laura lingered with her hand on the door. In the silence of the ancient +house, there was something touching in the sound, a kind of appeal. But +it was an appeal which, in the girl's mind, passed instantly into +reaction. She locked the door, and turned away, breathing fast as though +under some excitement. + +The tears, long held down, were rising, and the room, where a large wood +fire was burning,--wood was the only provision of which there was a +plenty at Bannisdale,--seemed to her suddenly stifling. She went to the +casement window and threw it open. A rush of mild wind came through, and +with it, the roar of the swollen river. + +The girl leant forward, bathing her hot face in the wild air. There was a +dark mist of trees below her, trees tossed by the wind; then, far down, a +ray of moonlight on water; beyond, a fell-side, clear a moment beneath a +sky of sweeping cloud; and last of all, highest of all, amid the clouds, +a dim radiance, intermittent and yet steady, like the radiance of moonlit +snow. + +A strange nobility and freedom breathed from the wide scene; from its +mere depth below her; from the spacious curve of the river, the mountains +half shown, half hidden, the great race of the clouds, the fresh beating +of the wind. The north spoke to her and the mountains. It was like the +rush of something passionate and straining through her girlish sense, +intensifying all that was already there. What was this thirst, this +yearning, this physical anguish of pity that crept back upon her in all +the pauses of the day and night? + +It was nine months since she had lost her father, but all the scenes of +his last days were still so clear to her that it seemed to her often +sheer incredibility that the room, the bed, the helpless form, the noise +of the breathing, the clink of the medicine glasses, the tread of the +doctor, the gasping words of the patient, were all alike fragments and +phantoms of the past,--that the house was empty, the bed sold, the +patient gone. Oh! the clinging of the thin hand round her own, the +piteousness of suffering--of failure! Poor, poor papa!--he would not say, +even to comfort her, that they would meet again. He had not believed it, +and so she must not. + +No, and she would not! She raised her head fiercely and dried her tears. +Only, why was she here, in the house of a man who had never spoken to her +father--his brother-in-law--for thirteen years; who had made his sister +feel that her marriage had been a disgrace; who was all the time, no +doubt, cherishing such thoughts in that black, proud head of his, while +she, her father's daughter, was sitting opposite to him? + +"How am I ever going to bear it--all these months?" she asked herself. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +But the causes which had brought Laura Fountain to Bannisdale were very +simple. It had all come about in the most natural inevitable way. + +When Laura was eight years old--nearly thirteen years before this +date--her father, then a widower with one child, had fallen in with and +married Alan Helbeck's sister. At the time of their first meeting with +the little Catholic spinster, Stephen Fountain and his child were +spending part of the Cambridge vacation at a village on the Cumberland +coast where a fine air could be combined with cheap lodgings. Fountain +himself was from the North Country. His grandfather had been a small +Lancashire yeoman, and Stephen Fountain had an inbred liking for the +fells, the farmhouses, and even the rain of his native district. Before +descending to the sea, he and his child had spent a couple of days with +his cousin by marriage, James Mason, in the lonely stone house among the +hills, which had belonged to the family since the Revolution. He left it +gladly, however, for the farm life seemed to him much harder and more +squalid than he had remembered it to be, and he disliked James Mason's +wife. As he and Laura walked down the long, rough track connecting the +farm with the main road on the day of their departure, Stephen Fountain +whistled so loud and merrily that the skipping child beside him looked at +him with astonishment. + +It was his way no doubt of thanking Providence for the happy chance that +had sent his father to a small local government post at Newcastle, and +himself to a grammar school with openings on the University. Yet as a +rule he thought himself anything but a successful man. He held a +lectureship at Cambridge in an obscure scientific subject; and was in his +way both learned and diligent. But he had few pupils, and had never cared +to have them. They interfered with his own research, and he had the +passionate scorn for popularity which grows up naturally in those who +have no power with the crowd. His religious opinions, or rather the +manner in which he chose to express them, divided him from many good men. +He was poor, and he hated his poverty. A rather imprudent marriage had +turned out neither particularly well nor particularly ill. His wife had +some beauty, however, and there was hardly time for disillusion. She died +when Laura was still a tottering baby, and Stephen had missed her sorely +for a while. Since her death he had grown to be a very lonely man, +silently discontented with himself and sourly critical of his neighbours. +Yet all the same he thanked God that he was not his cousin James. + +Potter's Beach as a watering-place was neither beautiful nor amusing. +Laura was happy there, but that said nothing. All her childhood through, +she had the most surprising gift for happiness. From morning till night +she lived in a flutter of delicious nothings. Unless he watched her +closely, Stephen Fountain could not tell for the life of him what she was +about all day. But he saw that she was endlessly about something; her +little hands and legs never rested; she dug, bathed, dabbled, raced, +kissed, ate, slept, in one happy bustle, which never slackened except for +the hours when she lay rosy and still in her bed. And even then the +pretty mouth was still eagerly open, as though sleep had just breathed +upon its chatter for a few charmed moments, and "the joy within" was +already breaking from the spell. + +Stephen Fountain adored her, but his affections were never enough for +him. In spite of the child's spirits he himself found Potter's Beach a +desolation, all the more that he was cut off from his books for a time by +doctor's orders and his own common sense. Suddenly, as he took his daily +walk over the sands with Laura, he began to notice a thin lady in black, +sitting alone under a bank of sea-thistles, and generally struggling with +an umbrella which she had put up to shelter herself and her book from a +prevailing and boisterous wind. Sometimes when he passed her in the +little street, he caught a glimpse of timid eyes, or he saw and pitied +the slight involuntary jerk of the head and shoulders, which seemed to +tell of nervous delicacy. Presently they made friends, and he found her +lonely and discontented like himself. She was a Catholic, he discovered; +but her Catholicism was not that of the convert, but of an old inherited +sort which sat easily enough on a light nature. Then, to his +astonishment, it appeared that she lived with a brother at an old house +in North Lancashire--a well-known and even, in its degree, famous +house--which lay not seven miles distant from his grandfather's little +property, and had been quite familiar to him by repute, and even by sight +as a child. When he was a small lad staying at Browhead Farm, he had once +or twice found his way to the Greet, and had strayed along its course +through Bannisdale Park. Once even, when he was in the act of fishing a +particular pool where the trout were rising in a manner to tempt a very +archangel, he had been seized and his primitive rod broken over his +shoulder by an old man whom he believed to have been the owner, Mr. +Helbeck himself,--a magnificent white-haired person, about whom tales ran +freely in the country-side. + +So this little, shabby old maid was a Helbeck of Bannisdale! As he looked +at her, Fountain could not help thinking with a hidden amusement of all +the awesome prestige the name had once carried with it for his boyish +ear. Thirty years back, what a gulf had seemed to yawn between the +yeoman's grandson and the lofty owners of that stern and ancient house +upon the Greet! And now, how glad was old Helbeck's daughter to sit or +walk with him and his child!--and how plain it grew, as the weeks passed +on, that if he, Stephen Fountain, willed it, she would make no difficulty +at all about a much longer companionship! Fountain held himself to be the +most convinced of democrats, a man who had a reasoned right to his +Radical opinions that commoner folk must do without. Nevertheless, his +pride fed on this small turn of fortune, and when he carelessly addressed +his new friend, her name gave him pleasure. + +It seemed that she possessed but little else, poor lady. Even in his +young days, Fountain could remember that the Helbecks were reported to be +straitened, to have already much difficulty in keeping up the house and +the estate. But clearly things had fallen by now to a much lower depth. +Miss Helbeck's dress, talk, lodgings, all spoke of poverty, great +poverty. He himself had never known what it was to have a superfluous ten +pounds; but the feverish strain that belongs to such a situation as the +Helbecks' awoke in him a new and sharp pity. He was very sorry for the +little, harassed creature; that physical privation should touch a woman +had always seemed to him a monstrosity. + +What was the brother about?--a great strong fellow by all accounts, +capable, surely, of doing something for the family fortunes. +Instinctively Fountain held him responsible for the sister's fatigue and +delicacy. They had just lost their mother, and Augustina had come to +Potter's Beach to recover from long months of nursing. And presently +Fountain discovered that what stood between her and health was not so +much the past as the future. + +"You don't like the idea of going home," he said to her once, abruptly, +after they had grown intimate. She flushed, and hesitated; then her eyes +filled with tears. + +Gradually he made her explain herself. The brother, it appeared, was +twelve years younger than herself, and had been brought up first at +Stonyhurst, and afterwards at Louvain, in constant separation from the +rest of the family. He had never had much in common with his home, since, +at Stonyhurst, he had come under the influence of a Jesuit teacher, who, +in the language of old Helbeck, had turned him into "a fond sort of +fellow," swarming with notions that could only serve to carry the family +decadence a step further. + +"We have been Catholics for twenty generations," said Augustina, in her +quavering voice. "But our ways--father's ways--weren't good enough for +Alan. We thought he was making up his mind to be a Jesuit, and father was +mad about it, because of the old place. Then father died, and Alan came +home. He and my mother got on best; oh! he was very good to her. But he +and I weren't brought up in the same way; you'd think he was already +under a rule. I don't--know--I suppose it's too high for me----" + +She took up a handful of sand, and threw it, angrily, from her thin +fingers, hurrying on, however, as if the unburdenment, once begun, must +have its course. + +"And it's hard to be always pulled up and set right by some one you've +nursed in his cradle. Oh! I don't mean he says anything; he and I never +had words in our lives. But it's the way he has of doing things--the +changes he makes. You feel how he disapproves of you; he doesn't like my +friends--our old friends; the house is like a desert since he came. And +the money he gives away! The priests just suck us dry--and he hasn't got +it to give. Oh! I know it's all very wicked of me; but when I think of +going back to him--just us two, you know, in that old house--and all the +trouble about money----" + +Her voice failed her. + +"Well, don't go back," said Fountain, laying his hand on her arm. + + * * * * * + +And twenty-four hours later he was still pleased with himself and her. No +doubt she was stupid, poor Augustina, and more ignorant than he had +supposed a human being could be. Her only education seemed to have been +supplied by two years at the "Couvent des Dames Anglaises" at St.-Omer, +and all that she had retained from it was a small stock of French idioms, +most of which she had forgotten how to use, though she did use them +frequently, with a certain timid pretension. Of that habit Fountain, the +fastidious, thought that he should break her. But for the rest, her +religion, her poverty,--well, she had a hundred a year, so that he and +Laura would be no worse off for taking her in, and the child's prospects, +of course, should not suffer by a halfpenny. And as to the Catholicism, +Fountain smiled to himself. No doubt there was some inherited feeling. +But even if she did keep up her little mummeries, he could not see that +they would do him or Laura any harm. And for the rest she suited him. She +somehow crept into his loneliness and fitted it. He was getting too old +to go farther, and he might well fare worse. In spite of her love of +talk, she was not a bad listener; and longer experience showed her to be +in truth the soft and gentle nature that she seemed. She had a curious +kind of vanity which showed itself in her feeling towards her brother. +But Fountain did not find it disagreeable; it even gave him pleasure to +flatter it; as one feeds or caresses some straying half-starved creature, +partly for pity, partly that the human will may feel its power. + +"I wonder how much fuss that young man will make?" Fountain asked +himself, when at last it became necessary to write to Bannisdale. + +Augustina, however, was thirty-five, in full possession of her little +moneys, and had no one to consult but herself. Fountain enjoyed the +writing of the letter, which was brief, if not curt. + +Alan Helbeck appeared without an hour's delay at Potter's Beach. Fountain +felt himself much inclined beforehand to treat the tall dark youth, +sixteen years his junior, as a tutor treats an undergraduate. Oddly +enough, however, when the two men stood face to face, Fountain was once +more awkwardly conscious of that old sense of social distance which the +sister had never recalled to him. The sting of it made him rougher than +he had meant to be. Otherwise the young man's very shabby coat, his +superb good looks, and courteous reserve of manner might almost have +disarmed the irritable scholar. + +As it was, Helbeck soon discovered that Fountain had no intention of +allowing Augustina to apply for any dispensation for the marriage, that +he would make no promise of Catholic bringing-up, supposing there were +children, and that his idea was to be married at a registry office. + +"I am one of those people who don't trouble themselves about the affairs +of another world," said Fountain in a suave voice, as he stood in the +lodging-house window, a bearded, broad-shouldered person, his hands +thrust wilfully into the very baggy pockets of his ill-fitting light +suit. "I won't worry your sister, and I don't suppose there'll be any +children. But if there are, I really can't promise to make Catholics of +them. And as for myself, I don't take things so easy as it's the fashion +to do now. I can't present myself in church, even for Augustina." + +Helbeck sat silent for a few minutes with his eyes on the ground. Then he +rose. + +"You ask what no Catholic should grant," he said slowly. "But that of +course you know. I can have nothing to do with such a marriage, and my +duty naturally will be to dissuade my sister from it as strongly as +possible." + +Fountain bowed. + +"She is expecting you," he said. "I of course await her decision." + +His tone was hardly serious. Nevertheless, during the time that Helbeck +and Augustina were pacing the sands together, Fountain went through a +good deal of uneasiness. One never knew how or where this damned poison +in the blood might break out again. That young fanatic, a Jesuit already +by the look of him, would of course try all their inherited Mumbo Jumbo +upon her; and what woman is at bottom anything more than the prey of the +last speaker? + +When, however, it was all over, and he was allowed to see his Augustina +in the evening, he found her helpless with crying indeed, but as +obstinate as only the meek of the earth can be. She had broken wholly +with her brother and with Bannisdale; and Fountain gathered that, after +all Helbeck's arguments and entreaties, there had flashed a moment of +storm between them, when the fierce "Helbeck temper," traditional through +many generations, had broken down the self-control of the ascetic, and +Augustina must needs have trembled. However, there she was, frightened +and miserable, but still determined. And her terror was much more +concerned with the possibility of any return to live with Alan and his +all-exacting creed than anything else. Fountain caught himself wondering +whether indeed she had imagination enough to lay much hold on those +spiritual terrors with which she had no doubt been threatened. In this, +however, he misjudged her, as will be seen. + +Meanwhile he sent for an elderly Evangelical cousin of his wife's, who +was accustomed to take a friendly interest in his child and himself. She, +in Protestant jubilation over this brand snatched from the burning, came +in haste, very nearly departing, indeed, in similar haste as soon as the +unholy project of the secular marriage was mooted. However, under much +persuasion she remained, lamenting; Augustina sent to Bannisdale for her +few possessions, and the scanty ceremony was soon over. + +Meanwhile Laura had but found in the whole affair one more amusement and +excitement added to the many that, according to her, Potter's Beach +already possessed. The dancing elfish child--who had no memory of her own +mother--had begun by taking the little old maid under her patronising +wing. She graciously allowed Augustina to make a lap for all the briny +treasures she might accumulate in the course of a breathless morning; she +rushed to give her first information whenever that encroaching monster +the sea broke down her castles. And as soon as it appeared that her papa +liked Augustina, and had a use for her, Laura at the age of eight +promptly accepted her as part of the family circle, without the smallest +touch of either sentiment or opposition. She walked gaily hand in hand +with her father to the registry office at St. Bees. The jealously hidden, +stormy little heart knew well enough that it had nothing to fear. + +Then came many quiet years at Cambridge. Augustina spoke no more of her +brother, and apparently let her old creed slip. She conformed herself +wholly to her husband's ways,--a little colourless thread on the stream +of academic life, slightly regarded, and generally silent out of doors, +but at home a gentle, foolish, and often voluble person, very easily made +happy by some small kindness and a few creature comforts. + +Laura meanwhile grew up, and no one exactly knew how. Her education was a +thing of shreds and patches, managed by herself throughout, and +expressing her own strong will or caprice from the beginning. She put +herself to school--a day school only; and took herself away as soon as +she was tired of it. She threw herself madly into physical exercises like +dancing or skating; and excelled in most of them by virtue of a certain +wild grace, a tameless strength of spirits and will. And yet she grew up +small and pale; and it was not till she was about eighteen that she +suddenly blossomed into prettiness. + +"Carrotina--why, what's happened to you?" said her father to her one day. + +She turned in astonishment from her task of putting some books tidy on +his study shelves. Then she coloured half angrily. + +"I must put my hair up some time, I suppose," she said resentfully. There +was something in the abruptness of her father's question, no less than in +the new closeness and sharpness of eye with which he was examining her, +that annoyed her. + +"Well! you've made a young lady of yourself. I dare say I mustn't call +you nicknames any more!" + +"I don't mind," she said indifferently, going on with her work, while he +looked at the golden-red mass she had coiled round her little head, with +an odd half-welcome sense of change, a sudden prescience of the future. + +Then she turned again. + +"If--if you make any absurd changes," she said, with a frown, "I'll--I'll +cut it all off!" + +"You'd better not; there'd be ructions," he said laughing. "It's not +yours till you're twenty-one." + +And to himself he said, "Gracious! I didn't bargain for a pretty +daughter. What am I to do with her? Augustina'll never get her married." + +And certainly during this early youth, Laura showed no signs of getting +herself married. She did not apparently know when a young man was by; and +her bright vehement ways, her sharp turns of speech, went on just the +same; she neither quivered nor thrilled; and her chatter, when she did +chatter, spent itself almost with indifference on anyone who came near +her. She was generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companions +knew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self of +her, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs. +Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks which +contrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hard +to find the clue to them. + +Altogether she passed for a clever girl, even in a University town, where +cleverness is weighed. But her education, except in two points, was, in +truth, of the slightest. Any mechanical drudgery that her father could +set her, she did without a murmur; or, rather, she claimed it jealously, +with a silent passion. But, with an obstinacy equally silent, she set +herself against the drudgery that would have made her his intellectual +companion. + +His rows of technical books, the scholarly and laborious details of his +work, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt to +persuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned and +contemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter. +That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled up for +hours with a book or a piece of work in a corner of his room; that she +should bring him his pipe, and break in upon his work at the right moment +with her peremptory "Papa, come out!"--these things were delightful, nay, +necessary to him. But he had no dreams beyond; and he never thought of +her, her education or her character, as a whole. It was not his way. +Besides, girls took their chance. With a boy, of course, one plans and +looks ahead. But Laura would have 200_l_. a year from her mother whatever +happened, and something more at his own death. Why trouble oneself? + +No doubt indirectly he contributed very largely to her growing up. The +sight of his work and his methods; the occasional talks she overheard +between him and his scientific comrades; the tones of irony and denial in +the atmosphere about him; his antagonisms, his bitternesses, worked +strongly upon her still plastic nature. Moreover she felt to her heart's +core that he was unsuccessful; there were appointments he should have +had, but had failed to get, and it was the religious party, the "clerical +crew" of Convocation, that had stood in the way. From her childhood it +came natural to her to hate bigoted people who believed in ridiculous +things. It was they stood between her father and his deserts. There +loomed up, as it were, on her horizon, something dim and majestic, which +was called Science. Towards this her father pressed, she clinging to him; +while all about them was a black and hindering crowd, through which they +clove their way--contemptuously. + +In one direction, indeed, Fountain admitted her to his mind. Like Mill, +he found the rest and balm of life in poetry; and here he took Laura with +him. They read to each other, they spurred each other to learn by heart. +He kept nothing from her. Shelley was a passion of his own; it became +hers. She taught herself German, that she might read Heine and Goethe +with him; and one evening, when she was little more than sixteen, he +rushed her through the first part of "Faust," so that she lay awake the +whole night afterwards in such a passion of emotion, that it seemed, for +the moment, to change her whole existence. Sometimes it astonished him to +see what capacity she had, not only for the feeling, but for the sensuous +pleasure, of poetry. Lines--sounds--haunted her for days, the beauty of +them would make her start and tremble. + +She did her best, however, to hide this side of her nature even from him. +And it was not difficult. She remained childishly immature and backward +in many things. She was a personality; that was clear; one could hardly +say that she was or had a character. She was a bundle of loves and hates; +a force, not an organism; and her father was often as much puzzled by her +as anyone else. + +Music perhaps was the only study which ever conquered her indolence. Here +it happened that a famous musician, who settled in Cambridge for a time, +came across her gift and took notice of it. And to please him she worked +with industry, even with doggedness. Brahms, Chopin, Wagner--these great +romantics possessed her in music as Shelley or Rossetti did in poetry. +"You little demon, Laura! How do you come to play like that?" a girl +friend--her only intimate friend--said to her once in despair. "It's the +expression. Where do you get it? And I practise, and you don't; it's not +fair." + +"Expression!" said Laura, with annoyance, "what does that matter? That's +the amateur all over. Of course I play like that because I can't do it +any better. If I could _play the notes_"--she clenched her little hand, +with a curious, almost a fierce energy--"if I had any technique--or was +ever likely to have any, what should I want with expression? Any cat can +give you expression! There was one under my window last night--you should +just have heard it!" + +Molly Friedland, the girl friend, shrugged her shoulders. She was as +soft, as normal, as self-controlled, as Laura was wilful and irritable. +But there was a very real affection between them. + +Years passed. Insensibly Augustina's health began to fail; and with it +the new cheerfulness of her middle life. Then Fountain himself fell +suddenly and dangerously ill. All the peaceful habits and small pleasures +of their common existence broke down after a few days, as it were, into a +miserable confusion. Augustina stood bewildered. Then a convulsion of +soul she had expected as little as anyone else, swept upon her. A number +of obscure, inherited, half-dead instincts revived. She lived in terror; +she slept, weeping; and at the back of an old drawer she found a rosary +of her childhood to which her fingers clung night and day. + +Meanwhile Fountain resigned himself to death. During his last days his +dimmed senses did not perceive what was happening to his wife. But he +troubled himself about her a good deal. + +"Take care of her, Laura," he said once, "till she gets strong. Look +after her.--But you can't sacrifice your life.--It may be Christian," he +added, in a murmur, "but it isn't sense." + +Unconsciousness came on. Augustina seemed to lose her wits; and at last +only Laura, sitting pale and fierce beside her father, prevented her +stepmother from bringing a priest to his death-bed. "You would not +_dare_!" said the girl, in her low, quivering voice; and Augustina could +only wring her hands. + + * * * * * + +The day after her husband died Mrs. Fountain returned to her Catholic +duties. When she came back from confession, she slipped as noiselessly as +she could into the darkened house. A door opened upstairs, and Laura came +out of her father's room. + +"You have done it?" she said, as her stepmother, trembling with agitation +and weariness, came towards her. "You have gone back to them?" + +"Oh, Laura! I had to follow the call--my conscience--Laura! oh! your poor +father!" + +And with a burst of weeping the widow held out her hands. + +Laura did not move, and the hands dropped. + +"My father wants nothing," she said. + +The indescribable pride and passion of her accent cowed Augustina, and +she moved away, crying silently. The girl went back to the dead, and sat +beside him, in an anguish that had no more tears, till he was taken from +her. + +Mr. Helbeck wrote kindly to his sister in reply to a letter from her +informing him of her husband's death, and of her own reconciliation with +the Church. He asked whether he should come at once to help them through +the business of the funeral, and the winding up of their Cambridge life. +"Beg him, please, to stay away," said Laura, when the letter was shown +her. "There are plenty of people here." + +And indeed Cambridge, which had taken little notice of the Fountains +during Stephen's lifetime, was even fussily kind after his death to his +widow and child. It was at all times difficult to be kind to Laura in +distress, but there was much true pity felt for her, and a good deal of +curiosity as to her relations with her Catholic stepmother. Only from the +Friedlands, however, would she accept, or allow her stepmother to accept, +any real help. Dr. Friedland was a man of middle age, who had retired on +moderate wealth to devote himself to historical work by the help of the +Cambridge libraries. He had been much drawn to Stephen Fountain, and +Fountain to him. It was a recent and a brief friendship, but there had +been something in it on Dr. Friedland's side--something respectful and +cordial, something generous and understanding, for which Laura loved the +infirm and grey-haired scholar, and would always love him. She shed some +stormy tears after parting with the Friedlands, otherwise she left +Cambridge with joy. + +On the day before they left Cambridge Augustina received a parcel of +books from her brother. For the most part they were kept hidden from +Laura. But in the evening, when the girl was doing some packing in her +stepmother's room, she came across a little volume lying open on its +face. She lifted it, saw that it was called "Outlines of Catholic +Belief," and that one page was still wet with tears. An angry curiosity +made her look at what stood there: "A believer in one God who, without +wilful fault on his part, knows nothing of the Divine Mystery of the +Trinity, is held capable of salvation by many Catholic theologians. And +there is the 'invincible ignorance' of the heathen. What else is possible +to the Divine mercy let none of us presume to know. Our part in these +matters is obedience, not speculation." + +In faint pencil on the margin was written: "My Stephen _could_ not +believe. Mary--pray----" + +The book contained the Bannisdale book-plate, and the name "Alan +Helbeck." Laura threw it down. But her face trembled through its scorn, +and she finished what she was doing in a kind of blind passion. It was as +though she held her father's dying form in her arms, protecting him +against the same meddling and tyrannical force that had injured him while +he lived, and was still making mouths at him now that he was dead. + +She and Augustina went to the sea--to Folkestone, for Augustina's health. +Here Mrs. Fountain began to correspond regularly with her brother, and it +was soon clear that her heart was hungering for him, and for her old home +at Bannisdale. But she was still painfully dependent on Laura. Laura was +her maid and nurse; Laura managed all her business. At last one day she +made her prayer. Would Laura go with her--for a little while--to +Bannisdale? Alan wished it--Alan had invited them both. "He would be so +good to you, Laura--and I'm sure it would set me up." + +Laura gave a gulp. She dropped her little chin on her hands and thought. +Well--why not? It would be all hateful to her--Mr. Helbeck and his house +together. She knew very well, or guessed what his relation to her father +had been. But what if it made Augustina strong, if in time she could be +left with her brother altogether, to live with him?--In one or two of his +letters he had proposed as much. Why, that would bring Laura's +responsibility, her sole responsibility, at any rate, to an end. + +She thought of Molly Friedland--of their girlish plans--of travel, of +music. + +"All right," she said, springing up. "We will go, Augustina. I suppose, +for a little while, Mr. Helbeck and I can keep the peace. You must tell +him to let me alone." + +She paused, then said with sudden vehemence, like one who takes her +stand--"And tell him, please, Augustina--make it very plain--that I shall +never come in to prayers." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The sun was shining into Laura's room when she awoke. She lay still for a +little while, looking about her. + +Her room--which formed part of an eighteenth-century addition to the +Tudor house--was rudely panelled with stained deal, save on the fireplace +wall, where, on either side of the hearth, the plaster had been covered +with tapestry. The subject of the tapestry was Diana hunting. Diana, +white and tall, with her bow and quiver, came, queenly, through a green +forest. Two greyhounds ranged beside her, and in the dim distance of the +wood her maidens followed. On the right an old castle, with pillars like +a Greek temple, rose stately but a little crooked on the edge of a blue +sea; the sea much faded, with the wooden handle of a cupboard thrust +rudely through it. Two long-limbed ladies, with pulled patched faces, +stood on the castle steps. In front was a ship, with a waiting warrior +and a swelling sail; and under him, a blue wave worn very threadbare, +shamed indeed by that intruding handle, but still blue enough, still +windy enough for thoughts of love and flight. + +Laura, half asleep still, with her hands under her cheek, lay staring in +a vague pleasure at the castle and the forest. "Enchanted +casements"--"perilous seas"--"in fairy lands forlorn." The lines ran +sleepily, a little jumbled, in her memory. + +But gradually the morning and the freshness worked; and her spirits, +emerging from their half-dream, began to dance within her. When she +sprang up to throw the window wide, there below her was the sparkling +river, the daffodils waving their pale heads in the delicate Westmoreland +grass, the high white clouds still racing before the wind. How heavenly +to find oneself in this wild clean country!--after all the ugly squalors +of parade and lodging-house, after the dingy bow-windowed streets with +the March dust whirling through them. + +She leant across the broad window-sill, her chin on her hands, absorbed, +drinking it in. The eastern sun, coming slanting-ways, bathed her tumbled +masses of fair hair, her little white form, her bare feet raised tiptoe. + +Suddenly she drew back. She had seen the figure of a man crossing the +park on the further side of the river, and the maidenly instinct drove +her from the window; though the man in question was perhaps a quarter of +a mile away, and had he been looking for her, could not possibly have +made out more than a pale speck on the old wall. + +"Mr. Helbeck,"--she thought--"by the height of him. Where is he off to +before seven o'clock in the morning? I hate a man that can't keep +rational hours like other people! Fricka, come here!" + +For her little dog, who had sprung from the bed after its mistress, was +now stretching and blinking behind her. At Laura's voice it jumped up and +tried to lick her face. Laura caught it in her arms and sat down on the +bed, still hugging it. + +"No, Fricka, I don't like him--I don't, I don't, I _don't!_ But you and I +have just got to behave. If you annoy that big dog downstairs, he'll +break your neck,--he will, Fricka. As for me,"--she shrugged her small +shoulders,--"well, Mr. Helbeck can't break _my_ neck, so I'm dreadfully +afraid I shall annoy him--dreadfully, dreadfully afraid! But I'll try +not. You see, what we've got to do, is just to get Augustina well--stand +over her with a broomstick and pour the tonics down her throat. Then, +Fricka, we'll go our way and have some fun. Now look at us!----" + +She moved a little, so that the cracked glass on the dressing-table +reflected her head and shoulders, with the dog against her neck. + +"You know we're not at all bad-looking, Fricka--neither of us. I've seen +much worse. (Oh, Fricka! I've told you scores of times I can wash my +face--without you--thank you!) There's all sorts of nice things that +might happen if we just put ourselves in the way of them. Oh! I do want +some fun--I do!--at least sometimes!" + +But again the voice dropped suddenly; the big greenish eyes filled in a +moment with inconsistent tears, and Laura sat staring at the sunshine, +while the drops fell on her white nightgown. + +Meanwhile Fricka, being half throttled, made a violent effort and +escaped. Laura too sprang up, wiped away her tears as though she were +furious with them, and began to look about her for the means of dressing. +Everything in the room was of the poorest and scantiest--the cottage +washstand with its crockery, the bare dressing-table and dilapidated +glass. + +"A bath!--my kingdom for a bath! I don't mind starving, but one must +wash. Let's ring for that rough-haired girl, Fricka, and try and get +round her. Goodness!--no bells?" + +After long search, however, she discovered a tattered shred of tapestry +hanging in a corner, and pulled it vigorously. Many efforts, however, +were needed before there was a sound of feet in the passage outside. +Laura hastily donned a blue dressing-gown, and stood expectant. + +The door was opened unceremoniously and a girl thrust in her head. Laura +had made acquaintance with her the night before. She was the +housekeeper's underling and niece. + +"Mrs. Denton says I'm not to stop. She's noa time for answerin bells. And +you'll have some hot water when t' kettle boils." + +The door was just shutting again when Laura sprang at the speaker and +caught her by the arm. + +"My dear," she said, dragging the girl in, "that won't do at all. Now +look here"--she held up her little white hand, shaking the forefinger +with energy--"I don't--want--to give--any trouble, and Mrs. Denton may +keep her hot water. But I must have a bath--and a big can--and somebody +must show me where to go for water--and then--_then_, my dear--if you +make yourself agreeable, I'll--well, I'll teach you how to do your hair +on Sundays--in a way that will surprise you!" + +The girl stared at her in sudden astonishment, her dark stupid eyes +wavering. She had a round, peasant face, not without comeliness, and a +lustreless shock of black hair. Laura laughed. + +"I will," she said, nodding; "you'll see. And I'll give you notions for +your best frock. I'll be a regular elder sister to you--if you'll just do +a few things for me--and Mrs. Fountain. What's your name--Ellen?--that's +all right. Now, is there a bath in the house?" + +The girl unwillingly replied that there was one in the big room at the +end of the passage. + +"Show it me," said Laura, and marched her off there. The rough-headed one +led the way along the panelled passage and opened a door. + +Then it was Laura's turn to stare. + +Inside she saw a vast room with finely panelled walls and a decorated +ceiling. The sunlight poured in through an uncurtained window upon the +only two objects in the room,--a magnificent bed, carved and gilt, with +hangings of tarnished brocade,--and a round tin bath of a common, +old-fashioned make, propped up against the wall. The oak boards were +absolutely bare. The bed and the bath looked at each other. + +"What's become of all the furniture?" said Laura, gazing round her in +astonishment. + +"The gentleman from Edinburgh had it all, lasst month," said the girl, +still sullenly. "He's affther the bed now." + +"Oh!--Does he often come here?" + +The girl hesitated. + +"Well, he's had a lot o' things oot o' t' house, sen I came." + +"Has he?" said Laura. "Now, then--lend a hand." + +Between them they carried off the bath; and then Laura informed herself +where water was to be had, and when breakfast would be ready. + +"T' Squire's gone oot," said Ellen, still watching the newcomer from +under a pair of very black and beetling brows; "and Mrs. Denton said she +supposed yo'd be wantin a tray for Mrs. Fountain." + +"Does the Squire take no breakfast?" + +"Noa. He's away to Mass--ivery mornin, an' he gets his breakfast wi' +Father Bowles." + +The girl's look grew more hostile. + +"Oh, does he?" said Laura in a tone of meditation. "Well, then, look +here. Put another cup and another plate on Mrs. Fountain's tray, and I'll +have mine with her. Shall I come down to the kitchen for it?" + +"Noa," said the girl hastily. "Mrs. Denton doan't like foak i' t' +kitchen." + +At that moment a call in Mrs. Denton's angriest tones came pealing along +the passage outside. Laura laughed and pushed the girl out of the room. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Miss Fountain was ministering to her stepmother in the most +comfortable bedroom that the house afforded. The furniture, indeed, was a +medley. It seemed to have been gathered out of many other rooms. But at +any rate there was abundance of it; a carpet much worn, but still useful, +covered the floor; and Ellen had lit the fire without being summoned to +do it. Laura recognised that Mr. Helbeck must have given a certain number +of precise orders on the subject of his sister. + +Poor Mrs. Fountain, however, was not happy. She was sitting up in bed, +wrapped in an unbecoming flannel jacket--Augustina had no taste in +clothes--and looking with an odd repugnance at the very passable +breakfast that Laura placed before her. Laura did not quite know what to +make of her. In old days she had always regarded her stepmother as an +easy-going, rather self-indulgent creature, who liked pleasant food and +stuffed chairs, and could be best managed or propitiated through some +attention to her taste in sofa-cushions or in tea-cakes. + +No doubt, since Mrs. Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of her +fathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise the +usual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director had +been able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of her +health. And on the whole she had acquiesced readily enough. + +But Laura found her now changed and restless. + +"Oh! Laura, I can't eat all that!" + +"You must," said Laura firmly. "Really, Augustina, you _must_." + +"Alan's gone out," said Augustina, with a wistful inconsequence, +straining her eyes as though to look through the diamond panes of the +window opposite, at the park and the persons walking in it. + +"Yes. He seems to go to Whinthorpe every morning for Mass. Ellen says he +breakfasts with the priest." + +Augustina sighed and fidgeted. But when she was half-way through her +meal, Laura standing over her, she suddenly laid a shaking hand on +Laura's arm. + +"Laura!--Alan's a saint!--he always was--long ago--when I was so blind +and wicked. But now--oh! the things Mrs. Denton's been telling me!" + +"Has she?" said Laura coolly. "Well, make up your mind, Augustina"--she +shook her bright head--"that you can't be the same kind of saint that he +is--anyway." + +Mrs. Fountain withdrew her hand in quick offence. + +"I should be glad if you could talk of these things without flippancy, +Laura. When I think how incapable I have been all these years, of +understanding my dear brother----" + +"No--you see you were living with papa," said Laura slowly. + +She had left her stepmother's side, and was standing with her back to an +old cabinet, resting her elbows upon it. Her brows were drawn together, +and poor Mrs. Fountain, after a glance at her, looked still more +miserable. + +"Your poor papa!" she murmured with a gulp, and then, as though to +propitiate Laura, she drew her breakfast back to her, and again tried to +eat it. Small and slight as they both were, there was a very sharp +contrast between her and her stepdaughter. Laura's features were all +delicately clear, and nothing could have been more definite, more +brilliant than the colour of the eyes and hair, or the whiteness--which +was a beautiful and healthy whiteness--of her skin. Whereas everything +about Mrs. Fountain was indeterminate; the features with their slight +twist to the left; the complexion, once fair, and now reddened by years +and ill-health; the hair, of a yellowish grey; the head and shoulders +with their nervous infirmity. Only the eyes still possessed some purity +of colour. Through all their timidity or wavering, they were still blue +and sweet; perhaps they alone explained why a good many +persons--including her stepdaughter--were fond of Augustina. + +"What has Mrs. Denton been telling you about Mr. Helbeck?" Laura +inquired, speaking with some abruptness, after a pause. + +"You wouldn't have any sympathy, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, in some +agitation. "You see, you don't understand our Catholic principles. I wish +you did!--oh! I wish you did! But you don't. And so perhaps I'd better +not talk about it." + +"It might interest me to know the facts," said Laura, in a little hard +voice. "It seems to me that I'm likely to be Mr. Helbeck's guest for a +good while." + +"But you won't like it, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain--"and you'll +misunderstand Alan. Your poor dear father always misunderstood him." +(Laura made a restless movement.) "It is not because we think we can save +our souls by such things--of course not!--that's the way you Protestants +put it----" + +"I'm not a Protestant!" said Laura hotly. Mrs. Fountain took no notice. + +"But it's what the Church calls 'mortification,'" she said, hurrying on. +"It's keeping the body under--as St. Paul did. That's what makes +saints--and it does make saints--whatever people say. Your poor father +didn't agree, of course. But he didn't know!--oh! dear, dear Stephen!--he +didn't know. And Alan isn't cross, and it doesn't spoil his health--it +doesn't, really." + +"What does he do?" asked Laura, trying for the point. + +But poor Augustina, in her mixed flurry of feeling, could hardly explain. + +"You see, Laura, there's a strict way of keeping Lent, and--well--just +the common way--doing as little as you can. It used to be all much +stricter, of course." + +"In the Dark Ages?" suggested Laura. Augustina took no notice. + +"And what the books tell you now, is much stricter than what anybody +does.--I'm sure I don't know why. But Alan takes it strictly--he wants to +go back to quite the old ways. Oh! I wish I could explain it----" + +Mrs. Fountain stopped bewildered. She was sure she had heard once that in +the early Church people took no food at all till the evening--not even a +drink. But Alan was not going to do that? + +Laura had taken Fricka on her knee, and was straightening the ribbon +round the dog's neck. + +"Does he eat _anything_?" she asked carelessly, looking up. "If it's +_nothing_--that would be interesting." + +"Laura! if you only would try and understand!--Of course Alan doesn't +settle such a thing for himself--nobody does with us. That's only in the +English Church." + +Augustina straightened herself, with an unconscious arrogance. Laura +looked at her, smiling. + +"Who settles it, then?" + +"Why, his director, of course. He must have leave. But they have given +him leave. He has chosen a rule for himself"--Augustina gave a visible +gulp--"and he called Mrs. Denton to him before Lent, and told her about +it. Of course he'll hide it as much as he can. Catholics must never be +singular--never! But if we live in the house with him he can't hide it. +And all Lent, he only eats meat on Sundays, and other days--he wrote down +a list---- Well, it's like the saints--that's all!--I just cried over +it!" + +Mrs. Fountain shook with the emotion of saying such things to Laura, but +her blue eyes flamed. + +"What! fish and eggs?--that kind of thing?" said Laura. "As if there was +any hardship in that!" + +"Laura! how can you be so unkind?--I must just keep it all to myself.--I +won't tell you anything!" cried Augustina in exasperation. + +Laura walked away to the window, and stood looking out at the March buds +on the sycamores shining above the river. + +"Does he make the servants fast too?" she asked presently, turning her +head over her shoulder. + +"No, no," said her stepmother eagerly; "he's never hard on them--only to +himself. The Church doesn't expect anything more than 'abstinence,' you +understand--not real fasting--from people like them--people who work hard +with their hands. But--I really believe--they do very much as he does. +Mrs. Denton seems to keep the house on nothing. Oh! and, Laura--I really +can't be always having extra things!" + +Mrs. Fountain pushed her breakfast away from her. + +"Please remember--nobody settles anything for themselves--in your +Church," said Laura. "You know what that doctor--that Catholic +doctor--said to you at Folkestone." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed. + +"And as to Mrs. Denton, I see--that explains the manners. No +improvement--till Lent's over?" + +"Laura!" + +But her stepdaughter, who was at the window again looking out, paid no +heed, and presently Augustina said with timid softness: + +"Won't you have your breakfast, Laura? You know it's here--on my tray." + +Laura turned, and Augustina to her infinite relief saw not frowns, but a +face all radiance. + +"I've been watching the lambs in the field across the river. Such +ridiculous enchanting things!--such jumps--and affectations. And the +river's heavenly--and all the general _feel_ of it! I really don't know, +Augustina, how you ever came to leave this country when you'd once been +born in it." + +Mrs. Fountain pushed away her tray, shook her head sadly, and said +nothing. + +"What is it?--and who is it?" cried Laura, standing amazed before a +picture in the drawing-room at Bannisdale. + +In front of her, on the panelled wall, hung a dazzling portrait of a girl +in white, a creature light as a flower under wind; eyes upraised and +eager, as though to welcome a lover; fair hair bound turban-like with a +white veil; the pretty hands playing with a book. It shone from the brown +wall with a kind of natural sovereignty over all below it and around it, +so brilliant was the picture, so beautiful the woman. + +Augustina looked up drearily. She was sitting shrunk together in a large +chair, deep in some thoughts of her own. + +"That's our picture--the famous picture," she explained slowly. + +"Your Romney?" said Laura, vaguely recalling some earlier talk of her +stepmother's. + +Augustina nodded. She stared at the picture with a curious agitation, as +though she were seeing its long familiar glories for the first time. +Laura was much puzzled by her. + +"Well, but it's magnificent!" cried the girl. "One needn't know much to +know that. How can Mr. Helbeck call himself poor while he possesses such +a thing?" + +Augustina started. + +"It's worth thousands," she said hastily. "We know that. There was a man +from London came once, years ago. But papa turned him out--he would never +sell his things. And she was our great-grandmother." + +An idea flashed through Laura's mind. + +"You don't mean to say that Mr. Helbeck is going to sell her?" said Laura +impetuously. "It would be a shame!" + +"Alan can do what he likes with anything," said Augustina in a quick +resentment. "And he wants money badly for one of his orphanages--some of +it has to be rebuilt. Oh! those orphanages--how they must have weighed on +him--poor Alan!--poor dear Alan!--all these years!" + +Mrs. Fountain clasped her thin hands together, with a sigh. + +"Is it they that have eaten up the house bit by bit?--poor house!--poor +dear house!" repeated Laura. + +She was staring with an angry championship at the picture. Its sweet +confiding air--as of one cradled in love, happy for generations in the +homage of her kindred and the shelter of the old house--stood for all the +natural human things that creeds and bigots were always trampling under +foot. + +Mrs. Fountain, however, only shook her head. + +"I don't think Alan's settled anything yet. Only Mrs. Denton's +afraid.--There was somebody came to see it a few days ago----" + +"He certainly ought not to sell it," repeated Laura with emphasis. "He +has to think of the people that come after. What will they care for +orphanages? He only holds the picture in trust." + +"There will be no one to come after," said Augustina slowly. "For of +course he will never marry." + +"Is he too great a saint for that too?" cried Laura. "Then all I can say, +Augustina, is that--it--would--do him a great deal of good." + +She beat her little foot on the ground impatiently, pointing the words. + +"You don't know anything about him, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, with an +attempt at spirit. Then she added reproachfully: "And I'm sure he wants +to be kind to you." + +"He thinks me a little heretical toad, thank you!" said Laura, spinning +round on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "But +never mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't there +a great many more rooms to see?" + +Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course," she said, +"and Alan's study----" + +"Oh! we needn't go there," said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel." + +Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. It +was a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that had +once--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and the +treasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled. + +It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gathered +into the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of what +still remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, some +of one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remote +corners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of faded +stuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkey +carpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much as +possible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order and +of comfort. + +The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor new +furnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms on +which Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that first +one Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn; +dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across the +gloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragment +of fine furniture; but as a rule bareness, poverty, and void--nothing +could be more piteous, or, to Mrs. Fountain's memory, more surprising. +For some years before she left Bannisdale, her father had not known where +to turn for a pound of ready money. Yet when she fled from it, the house +and its treasures were still intact. + +The explanation of course was very simple. Alan Helbeck had been living +upon his house, as upon any other capital. Or rather he had been making +alms of it. The house stood gashed and bare that Catholic orphans might +be put to school--was that it? Laura hardly listened to Augustina's +plaintive babble as they crossed the hall. It was all about Alan, of +course--Alan's virtues, Alan's charities. As for the orphans, the girl +hated the thought of them. Grasping little wretches! She could see them +all in a sanctimonious row, their eyes cast up, and rosaries--like the +one Augustina was always trying to hide from her--in their ugly little +hands. + +They turned down a long stone passage leading to the chapel. As they +neared the chapel door there was a sound of voices from the hall at their +back. + +"It's Alan," said Augustina peering, "and Father Bowles!" + +She hurried back to meet them, skirts and cap-strings flying. Laura stood +still. + +But after a few words with his sister, Helbeck came up to his guest with +outstretched hand. + +"I hope we have not kept you waiting for dinner. May I introduce Father +Bowles to you?" + +Laura bowed with all the stiffness of which a young back is capable. She +saw an old grey-haired priest, with a round face and a pair of chubby +hands, which he constantly held crossed or clasped upon his breast. His +long irregular-mouth seemed to fold over at the corners above his very +small and childish chin. The mouth and the light blue eyes wore an +expression of rather mincing gentleness. His short figure, though bent a +little with years, was still vigorous, and his gait quick and bustling. + +He addressed Miss Fountain with a lisping and rather obsequious +politeness, asking a great many unnecessary questions about her journey +and her arrival. + +Laura answered coldly. But when he passed to Mrs. Fountain, Augustina was +all effusion. + +"When I think what has been granted to us since I was here last!" she +said to the priest as they moved on,--clasping her hands, and flushing. + +"The dear Bishop took such trouble about it," he said in a little +murmuring voice. "It was not easy--but the Church loves to content her +children." + +Involuntarily Laura glanced at Helbeck. + +"My sister refers to the permission which has been granted to us to +reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel," he said gravely. "It is a +privilege we never enjoyed till last year." + +Laura made no reply. + +"Shall I slip away?" she thought, looking round her. + +But at that moment Mr. Helbeck lifted the heavy latch of the chapel door; +and her young curiosity was too strong for her. She followed the others. + +Mr. Helbeck held the door open for her. + +"You will perhaps care to look at the frescoes," he said to her as she +hurried past him. She nodded, and walked quickly away to the left, by +herself. Then she turned and looked about her. + +It was the first time that she had entered a Catholic church, and every +detail was new to her. She watched the other three sign themselves with +holy water and drop low on one knee before the altar. So that was the +altar. She stared at it with a scornful repugnance; yet her pulse +quickened as though what she saw excited her. What was that erection +above it, with a veil of red silk drawn round it--and why was that lamp +burning in front of it? + +She recalled Mr. Helbeck's words--"permission to reserve the Blessed +Sacrament." Then, in a flash, a hundred vague memories, the deposit of a +hearsay knowledge, enlightened her. She knew and remembered much less +than any ordinary girl would have done. But still, in the main, she +guessed at what was passing. That of course was the Sacrament, before +which Mr. Helbeck and the others were kneeling!--for instinctively she +felt that it was to no empty shrine the adoration of those silent figures +was being offered. + +Fragments from Augustina's talk at Folkestone came back to her. Once she +had overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother and +a Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the +"Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there, +and that the faithful "visited" it--that these "visits" were indeed +specially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, as +they came home from their daily walk to the beach, Mrs. Fountain would +disappear from her, through the shadowy door of a Catholic church that +stood in the same street as their lodgings--how she would come home half +an hour afterwards, shaken with fresh ardours, fresh remorse. + +But how could such a thing be allowed, be possible, in a private +chapel--in a room that was really part of a private house? GOD--the +Christ of Calvary--in that gilt box, upon that altar! + +The young girl's arms fell by her side in a sudden rigidity. A wave of +the most passionate repulsion swept through her. What a gross, what an +intolerable superstition!--how was she to live with it, beside it? The +next instant it was as though her hand clasped her father's--clinging to +him proudly, against this alien world. Why should she feel lonely?--the +little heretic, left standing there alone in her distant corner. Let her +rather rejoice that she was her father's daughter! + +She drew herself up, and coolly looked about her. The worshippers had +risen; long as the time had seemed to Laura, they had only been two or +three minutes on their knees; and she could see that Augustina was +talking eagerly to her brother, pointing now to the walls, now to the +altar. + +It seemed as though Augustina were no less astonished than her +stepdaughter by the magnificence of the chapel. Was it all new,--the +frescoes, the altar with its marble and its gold, the white figure of the +Virgin, which gleamed above the small side-altar to the left? It had the +air of newness and of costliness, an air which struck the eye all the +more sharply because of the contrast between it and the penury, the +starvation, of the great house that held the chapel in its breast. + +But while Laura was still wondering at the general impression of rich +beauty, at the Lenten purple of the altar, at the candelabra, and the +perfume, certain figures and colours on the wall close to her seized her, +thrusting the rest aside. On either side of the altar, the walls to right +and left, from the entrance up to the sanctuary, were covered with what +appeared to be recent painting--painting, indeed, that was still in the +act. On either hand, long rows of life-sized saints, men and women, +turned their adoring faces towards the Christ looking down upon them from +a crucifix above the tabernacle. On the north wall, about half the row +was unfinished; faces, haloes, drapery, strongly outlined in red, still +waited for the completing hand of the artist. The rest glowed and burned +with colour--colour the most singular, the most daring. The carnations +and rose colours, the golds and purples, the blues and lilacs and +greens--in the whole concert of tone, in spite of its general simplicity +of surface, there was something at once ravishing and troubling, +something that spoke as it were from passion to passion. + +Laura's nature felt the thrill of it at once, just as she had felt the +thrill of the sunshine lighting up the tapestry of her room. + +"Why isn't it crude and hideous?" she asked herself, in a marvel. "But it +isn't. One never saw such blues--except in the sea--or such greens--and +rose! And the angels between!--and the flowers under their +feet!--Heavens! how lovely! Who did it?" + +"Do you admire the frescoes?" said a little voice behind her. + +She turned hastily, and saw Father Bowles smiling upon her, his plump +white hands clasped in front of him, as usual. It was an attitude which +seemed to make the simplest words sound intimate and possessive. Laura +shrank from, it in quick annoyance. + +"They are very strange, and--and startling," she said stiffly, moving as +far away from the grey-haired priest as possible. "Who painted them?" + +"Mr. Helbeck first designed them. But they were carried out for a time by +a youth of great genius." Father Bowles dwelt softly upon the word +"_ge_-nius," as though he loved it. "He was once a lad from these parts, +but has now become a Jesuit. So the work was stopped." + +"What a pity!" said Laura impetuously. "He ought to have been a painter." + +The priest smiled, and made her an odd little bow. Then, without saying +anything more about the artist, he chattered on about the frescoes and +the chapel, as though he had beside him the most sympathetic of +listeners. Nothing that he said was the least interesting or striking; +and Laura, in a passion of silent dislike, kept up a steady movement +towards the door all the time. + +In the passage outside Mrs. Fountain was lingering alone. And when Laura +appeared she caught hold of her stepdaughter and detained her while the +priest passed on. Laura looked at her in surprise, and Mrs. Fountain, in +much agitation, whispered in the girl's ear: + +"Oh, Laura--do remember, dear!--don't ask Alan about those +pictures--those frescoes--by young Williams. I can tell you some +time--and you might say something to hurt him--poor Alan!" + +Laura drew herself away. + +"Why should I say anything to hurt him? What's the mystery?" + +"I can't tell you now"--Mrs. Fountain looked anxiously towards the hall. +"People have been so hard on Alan--_so_ unkind about it! It's been a +regular persecution. And you wouldn't understand--wouldn't +sympathise----" + +"I really don't care to know about it, Augustina! And I'm so +hungry--famished! Look, there's Mr. Helbeck signing to us. Joy!--that's +dinner." + + * * * * * + +Laura expected the midday meal with some curiosity. But she saw no signs +of austerity. Mr. Helbeck pressed the roast chicken on Father Bowles, +took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, and +as to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybody +else. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo your +priest. + +The meal of course was served in the simplest way, and all the waiting +was done by Mr. Helbeck, who would allow nobody to help him in the task. + +The conversation dragged. Laura and her host talked a little about the +country and the weather. Father Bowles and Augustina tried to pick up the +dropped threads of thirteen years; and Mrs. Fountain was alternately +eager for Whinthorpe gossip, or reduced to an abrupt unhappy silence by +some memory of the past. + +Suddenly Father Bowles got up from his chair, ran across the room to the +window with his napkin in his hand, and pounced eagerly upon a fly that +was buzzing on the pane. Then he carefully opened the window, and flicked +the dead thing off the sill. + +"I beg your pardon," he said humbly to Mrs. Fountain as he returned to +his seat. "It was a nasty fly. I can't abide 'em. I always think of +Beelzebub, who was the prince of the flies." + +Laura's mouth twitched with laughter. She promised herself to make a +study of Father Bowles. + +And, indeed, he was a character in his own small way. He was a priest of +an old-fashioned type, with no pretensions to knowledge or to manners. +Wherever he went he was a meek and accommodating guest, for his +recollection went back to days when a priest coming to a private house to +say Mass would as likely as not have his meals in the pantry. And he was +naturally of a gentle and yielding temper--though rather sly. + +But he had several tricks as curious as they were persistent. Not even +the presence of his bishop could make him spare a bluebottle. And he had, +on the other hand, a peculiar passion for the smell of wax. He would blow +out a candle on the altar before the end of Mass that he might enjoy the +smell of it. He disliked Jesuits, and religious generally, if the truth +were known; excepting only the orphanage nuns, who knew his weaknesses +and were kind to them. He had no love for modern innovations, or modern +devotions; there was a hidden Gallican strain in him; and he firmly +believed that in the old days before Catholic emancipation, and before +the Oxford movement, the Church made more converts than she did now. + + * * * * * + +Towards the end of the lunch Laura inquired of Mr. Helbeck whether any +conveyance was to be got in the village. + +"I wish to go to Browhead Farm this afternoon," she said rather shortly. + +"Certainly," said Helbeck. "Certainly. I will see that something is found +for you." + +But his voice had no cordiality, and Laura at once thought him +ungracious. + +"Oh, pray don't give yourself any trouble," she said, flushing, "I can +walk to the village." + +Helbeck paused. + +"If you could wait till to-morrow," he said after a moment, "I could +promise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon." + +"Oh, do wait, Laura!" cried Augustina. "There is so much unpacking to +do." + +"Very well," said the girl unwillingly. + +As she turned away from him Helbeck's look followed her. She was in a +dress of black serge, which followed the delicate girlish frame with +perfect simplicity, and was relieved at the neck and wrists with the +plainest of white collars and cuffs. But there was something so brilliant +in the hair, so fawnlike in the carriage of the head, that she seemed to +Helbeck to be all elegance; had he been asked to describe her, he would +have said she was in _grande toilette_. Little as he spoke to her, he +found himself perpetually conscious of her. Her evident--childishly +evident--dislike of her new surroundings half amused, half embarrassed +him. He did not know what topic to start with her; soon, perhaps, he +might have a difficulty in keeping the peace! It was all very absurd. + +After luncheon they gathered in the hall for a while, Father Bowles +talking eagerly with Helbeck and Augustina about "orphans" and "new +buildings." Laura stood apart awhile--then went for her hat. + +When she reappeared, in walking dress--with Fricka at her heels--Helbeck +opened the heavy outer door for her. + +"May I have Bruno?" she said. + +Helbeck turned and whistled. + +"You are not afraid?" he said, smiling, and looking at Fricka. + +"Oh, dear no! I spent an hour this morning introducing them." + +At that moment Bruno came bounding up. He looked from his master to Laura +in her hat, and seemed to hesitate. Then, as she descended the steps, he +sprang after her. Laura began to run; the two dogs leapt about her; her +light voice, checking or caressing, came back to Helbeck on the spring +wind. He watched her and her companions so long as they were in +sight--the golden hair among the trees, the dancing steps of the girl, +the answering frolic of the dogs. + +Then he turned back to his sister, his grave mouth twitching. + +"How thankful she is to get rid of us!" + +He laughed out. The priest laughed, too, more softly. + +"It was the first time, I presume, that Miss Fountain had ever been +within a Catholic church?" he said to Augustina. + +Augustina flushed. + +"Of course it is the first time. Oh! Alan, you can't think how strange it +is to her." + +She looked rather piteously at her brother. + +"So I perceive," he said. "You told me something, but I had not +realised----" + +"You see, Alan--" cried Augustina, watching her brother's face,--"it was +with the greatest difficulty that her mother got Stephen to consent even +to her being baptized. He opposed it for a long time." + +Father Bowles murmured something under his breath. + +Helbeck paused for a moment, then said: + +"What was her mother like?" + +"Everyone at Cambridge used to say she was 'a sweet woman'--but--but +Stephen,--well, you know, Alan, Stephen always had his way! I always +wonder she managed to persuade him about the baptism." + +She coloured still more deeply as she spoke, and her nervous infirmity +became more pronounced. Alas! it was not only with the first wife that +Stephen had had his way! Her own marriage had begun to seem to her a mere +sinful connection. Poor soul--poor Augustina! + +Her brother must have divined something of what was passing in her mind, +for he looked down upon her with a peculiar gentleness. + +"People are perhaps more ready to talk of that responsibility than to +take it," he said kindly. "But, Augustina,--" his voice changed,--"how +pretty she is!--You hardly prepared me----" + +Father Bowles modestly cast down his eyes. These were not questions that +concerned him. But Helbeck went on, speaking with decision, and looking +at his sister: + +"I confess--her great attractiveness makes me a little anxious--about the +connection with the Masons. Have you ever seen any of them, Augustina?" + +No--Augustina had seen none of them. She believed Stephen had +particularly disliked the mother, the widow of his cousin, who now owned +the farm jointly with her son. + +"Well, no," said Helbeck dryly, "I don't suppose he and she would have +had much in common." + +"Isn't she a dreadful Protestant--Alan?" + +"Oh, she's just a specimen of the ordinary English Bible-worship run +mad," he said, carelessly. "She is a strange woman, very well known about +here. And there's a foolish parson living near them, up in the hills, who +makes her worse. But it's the son I'm thinking of." + +"Why, Alan--isn't he respectable?" + +"Not particularly. He's a splendid athletic fellow--doing his best to +make himself a blackguard, I'm afraid. I've come across him once or +twice, as it happens. He's not a desirable cousin for Miss Fountain--that +I can vouch for! And unluckily," he smiled, "Miss Fountain won't hear any +good of this house at Browhead Farm." + +Even Augustina drew herself up proudly. + +"My dear Alan, what does it matter what that sort of people think?" + +He shook his head. + +"It's a queer business. They were mixed up with young Williams." + +Augustina started. + +"Mrs. Mason was a great friend of his mother, who died. They hate me like +poison. However----" + +The priest interposed. + +"Mrs. Mason is a very violent, a most unseemly woman," he said, in his +mincing voice. "And the father--the old man--who is now dead, was +concerned in the rioting near the bridge----" + +"When Alan was struck? Mrs. Denton told me! How _abominable_!" + +Augustina raised her hands in mingled reprobation and distress. + +Helbeck looked annoyed. + +"That doesn't matter one brass farthing," he said, in some haste. "Father +Bowles was much worse treated than I on that occasion. But you see the +whole thing is unlucky--it makes it difficult to give Miss Fountain the +hints one would like to give her." + +He threw himself down beside his sister, talking to her in low tones. +Father Bowles took up the local paper. + +Presently Augustina broke out--with another wringing of the hands. + +"Don't put it on me, my dear Alan! I tell you--Laura has always done +exactly what she liked since she was a baby." + +Mr. Helbeck rose. His face and air already expressed a certain +haughtiness; and at his sister's words there was a very definite +tightening of the shoulders. + +"I do not intend to have Hubert Mason hanging about the house," he said +quietly, as he thrust his hands into his pockets. + +"Of course not!--but she wouldn't expect it," cried Augustina in dismay. +"It's the keeping her away from them, that's the difficulty. She thinks +so much of her cousins, Alan. They're her father's only relations. I know +she'll want to be with them half her time!" + +"For love of them--or dislike of us? Oh! I dare say it will be all +right," he added abruptly. "Father Bowles, shall I drive you half-way? +The pony will be round directly." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It was a Sunday morning--bright and windy. Miss Fountain was driving a +shabby pony through the park of Bannisdale--driving with a haste and glee +that sent the little cart spinning down the road. + +Six hours--she calculated--till she need see Bannisdale again. Her +cousins would ask her to dinner and to tea. Augustina and Mr. Helbeck +might have all their Sunday antics to themselves. There were several +priests coming to luncheon--and a function in the chapel that afternoon. +Laura flicked the pony sharply as she thought of it. Seven miles between +her and it? Joy! + +Nevertheless, she did not get rid of the old house and its suggestions +quite as easily as she wished. The park and the river had many windings. +Again and again the grey gabled mass thrust itself upon her attention, +recalling each time, against her will, the face of its owner. + +A high brow--hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks--pale +blue eyes--a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair--the +close whiskers black, too, against the skin--a general impression of +pallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force-- + +She burst out laughing. + +A pose!--nothing in the world but a pose. There was a wretched picture of +Charles I. in the dining-room--a daub "after" some famous thing, she +supposed--all eyes and hair, long face, and lace collar. Mr. Helbeck was +"made up" to that--she was sure of it. He had found out the likeness, and +improved upon it. Oh! if one could only present him with the collar and +blue ribbon complete! + +"--Cut his head off, and have done with him!" she said aloud, whipping up +the pony, and laughing at her own petulance. + +Who could live in such a house--such an atmosphere? + +As she drove along, her mind was all in a protesting whirl. On her return +from her walk with the dogs the day before, she had found a service going +on in the chapel, Father Bowles officiating, and some figures in black +gowns and white-winged coifs assisting. She had fled to her own room, but +when she came down again, the black-garbed "Sisters" were still there, +and she had been introduced to them. Ugh! what manners! Must one always, +if one was a Catholic, make that cloying, hypocritical impression? "Three +of them kissed me," she reminded herself, in a quiver of wrath. + +They were Sisters from the orphanage apparently, or one of the +orphanages, and there had been endless talk of new buildings and money, +while she, Laura, sat dumb in her corner looking at old photographs of +the house. Helbeck, indeed, had not talked much. While the black women +were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly +silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through +his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he +pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that +his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other +people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively +than more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl had +an impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, that +held herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, or +awkward--nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon one +sees that he is just looking out for his own way in everything. + +"And as for temper!----" + +After the Sisters departed, a young architect had appeared at supper. A +point of difference had arisen between him and Mr. Helbeck. He was to be +employed, it appeared, in the enlargement of this blessed orphanage. Mr. +Helbeck, no doubt, with a view to his pocket--to do him justice, there +seemed to be no other pocket concerned than his--was of opinion that +certain existing buildings could be made use of in the new scheme. The +architect--a nervous young fellow, with awkward manners, and the +ambitions of an artist--thought not, and held his own, insistently. The +discussion grew vehement. Suddenly Helbeck lost his temper. + +"Mr. Munsey! I must ask you to give more weight, if you please, to my +wishes in this matter! They may be right or wrong--but it would save +time, perhaps, if we assumed that they would prevail." + +The note of anger in the voice made every one look up. The Squire stood +erect a moment; crumpled in his hand a half-sheet of paper on which young +Munsey had been making some calculations, and flung it into the fire. +Augustina sat cowering. The young man himself turned white, bowed, and +said nothing. While Father Bowles, of course, like the old tabby that he +was, had at once begun to purr conciliation. + +"Would I have stood meek and mum if _I'd_ been the young man!" thought +Laura. "Would I! Oh! if I'd had the chance! And he should not have made +up so easily, either." + +For she remembered, also, how, after Father Bowles was gone, she had come +in from the garden to find Mr. Helbeck and the architect pacing the long +hall together, on what seemed to be the friendliest of terms. For nearly +an hour, while she and Augustina sat reading over the fire, the colloquy +went on. + +Helbeck's tones then were of the gentlest; the young man too spoke low +and eagerly, pressing his plans. And once when Laura looked up from her +book, she had seen Helbeck's arm resting for a moment on the young +fellow's shoulder. Oh! no doubt Mr. Helbeck could make himself agreeable +when he chose--and struggling architects must put up with the tempers of +their employers. + +All the more did Miss Fountain like to think that the Squire could compel +no court from her. + +She recalled that when Mr. Munsey had said good-night, and they three +were alone in the firelit hall, Helbeck had come to stand beside her. He +had looked down upon her with an air which was either kindness or +weariness; he had been willing--even, she thought, anxious to talk with +her. But she did not mean to be first trampled on, then patronised, like +the young man. So Mr. Helbeck had hardly begun--with that occasional +timidity which sat so oddly on his dark and strong physique--to speak to +her of the two Sisters of Charity who had been his guests in the +afternoon, when she abruptly discovered it was time to say good-night. +She winced a little as she remembered the sudden stiffening of his look, +the careless touch of his hand. + + * * * * * + +The day was keen and clear. A nipping wind blew beneath the bright sun, +and the opening buds had a parched and hindered look. But to Laura the +air was wine, and the country all delight. She was mounting the flank of +a hill towards a straggling village. Straight along the face of the hill +lay her road, past the villages and woods that clothed the hill slope, +till someone should show her the gate beyond which lay the rough ascent +to Browhead Farm. + +Above her, now, to her right, rose a craggy fell with great screes +plunging sheer down into the woods that sheltered the village; below, in +the valley-plain, stretched the purples and greens of the moss; the +rivers shone in the sun as they came speeding from the mountains to the +sea; and in the far distance the heights of Lakeland made one pageant +with the sun and the clouds--peak after peak thrown blue against the +white, cloud after cloud breaking to show the dappled hills below, in +such a glory of silver and of purple, such a freshness of atmosphere and +light, that mere looking soon became the most thrilling, the most +palpable of joys. Laura's spirits began to sing and soar, with the larks +and the blackcaps! + +Then, when the village was gone, came a high stretch of road, looking +down upon the moss and all its bounding fells, which ran out upon its +purple face like capes upon a sea. And these nearer fields--what were +these thick white specks upon the new-made furrows? Up rose the gulls for +answer; and the girl felt the sea-breath from their dazzling wings, and +turned behind her to look for that pale opening in the south-west through +which the rivers passed. + +And beyond the fields a wood--such a wood as made Laura's south-country +eyes stand wide with wonder! Out she jumped, tied the pony's rein to a +gate beside the road, and ran into the hazel brushwood with little cries +of pleasure. A Westmoreland wood in daffodil time--it was nothing more +and nothing less. But to this child with the young passion in her blood, +it was a dream, an ecstasy. The golden flowers, the slim stalks, rose +from a mist of greenish-blue, made by their speary leaf amid the +encircling browns and purples, the intricate stem and branch-work of the +still winter-bound hazels. Never were daffodils in such a wealth before! +They were flung on the fell-side through a score of acres, in sheets and +tapestries of gold,--such an audacious, unreckoned plenty as went +strangely with the frugal air and temper of the northern country, with +the bare walled fields, the ruggedness of the crags above, and the +melancholy of the treeless marsh below. And within this common +lavishness, all possible delicacy, all possible perfection of the +separate bloom and tuft--each foot of ground had its own glory. For below +the daffodils there was a carpet of dark violets, so dim and close that +it was their scent first bewrayed them; and as Laura lay gathering with +her face among the flowers, she could see behind their gold, and between +the hazel stems, the light-filled greys and azures of the mountain +distance. Each detail in the happy whole struck on the girl's eager sense +and made there a poem of northern spring--spring as the fell-country sees +it, pure, cold, expectant, with flashes of a blossoming beauty amid the +rocks and pastures, unmatched for daintiness and joy. + +Presently Laura found herself sitting--half crying!--on a mossy tuft, +looking along the wood to the distance. What was it in this exquisite +country that seized upon her so--that spoke to her in this intimate, this +appealing voice? + +Why, she was of it--she belonged to it--she felt it in her veins! Old +inherited things leapt within her--or it pleased her to think so. It was +as though she stretched out her arms to the mountains and fields, crying +to them, "I am not a stranger--draw me to you--my life sprang from +yours!" A host of burning and tender thoughts ran through her. Their +first effect was to remind her of the farm and of her cousins; and she +sprang up, and went back to the cart. + +On they rattled again, downhill through the wood, and up on the further +side--still always on the edge of the moss. She loved the villages, and +their medley of grey houses wedged among the rocks; she loved the stone +farms with their wide porches, and the white splashes on their grey +fronts; she loved the tufts of fern in the wall crannies, the limestone +ribs and bonework of the land breaking everywhere through the pastures, +the incomparable purples of the woods, and the first brave leafing of the +larches and the sycamores. Never had she so given her heart to any new +world; and through her delight flashed the sorest, tenderest thoughts of +her father. "Oh! papa--oh, papa!" she said to herself again and again in +a little moan. Every day perhaps he had walked this road as a child, and +she could still see herself as a child, in a very dim vision, trotting +beside him down the Browhead Road. She turned at last into the fell-gate +to which a passing boy directed her, with a long breath that was almost a +sob. + +She had given them no notice; but surely, surely they would be glad to +see her! + +_They_? She tried to split up the notion, to imagine the three people she +was going to see. Cousin Elizabeth--the mother? Ah! she knew her, for +they had never liked Cousin Elizabeth. She herself could dimly remember a +hard face; an obstinate voice raised in discussion with her father. Yet +it was Cousin Elizabeth who was the Fountain born, who had carried the +little family property as her dowry to her husband James Mason. For the +grandfather had been free to leave it as he chose, and on the death of +his eldest son--who had settled at the farm after his marriage, and taken +the heavy work of it off his father's shoulders--the old man had +passionately preferred to leave it to the strong, capable granddaughter, +who was already provided with a lover, who understood the land, moreover, +and could earn and "addle" as he did, rather than to his bookish milksop +of a second son, so richly provided for already, in his father's +contemptuous opinion, by the small government post at Newcastle. + +"Let us always thank God, Laura, that my grandfather was a brute to +yours!" Stephen Fountain would say to his girl on the rare occasions when +he could be induced to speak of his family at all. "But for that I might +be a hedger and ditcher to this day." + +Well, but Cousin Elizabeth's children? Laura herself had some vague +remembrance of them. As the pony climbed the steep lane she shut her eyes +and tried hard to recall them. The fair-haired boy--rather fat and +masterful--who had taken her to find the eggs of a truant hen in a hedge +behind the house--and had pushed her into a puddle on the way home +because she had broken one? Then the girl, the older girl Polly, who had +cleaned her shoes for her, and lent her a pinafore? No! Laura opened her +eyes again--it was no good straining to remember. Too many years had +rolled between that early visit and her present self--years during which +there had been no communication of any sort between Stephen Fountain and +his cousins. + +Why had Augustina been so trying and tiresome about the Masons? Instead +of flying to her cousins on the earliest possible opportunity, here was a +whole fortnight gone since her arrival, and it was not till this Sunday +morning that Laura had been able to achieve her visit. Augustina had been +constantly ailing or fretful; either unwilling to be left alone, or +possessed by absurd desires for useless trifles, only to be satisfied by +Laura's going to shop in Whinthorpe. And such melancholy looks whenever +the Masons were mentioned--coupled with so formal a silence on Mr. +Helbeck's part! What did it all mean? No doubt her relations were vulgar, +low-born folk!--but she did not ask Mr. Helbeck or her stepmother to +entertain them. At last there had been a passage of arms between her and +her stepmother. Perhaps Mr. Helbeck had overheard it, for immediately +afterwards he had emerged from his study into the hall, where she and +Augustina were sitting. + +"Miss Fountain--may I ask--do you wish to be sent into Whinthorpe on +Sunday morning?" + +She had fronted him at once. + +"No, thank you, Mr. Helbeck. I don't go to church--I never did with +papa." + +Had she been defiant? He surely had been stiff. + +"Then, perhaps you would like the pony--for your visit? He is quite at +your service for the day. Would that suit you?" + +"Perfectly." + + * * * * * + +So here she was--at last!--climbing up and up into the heart of the +fells. The cloud-pageant round the high mountains, the valley with its +flashing streams, its distant sands, and widening sea--she had risen as +it seemed above them all; they lay beneath her in a map-like unity. She +could have laughed and sung out of sheer physical joy in the dancing +air--in the play of the cloud gleams and shadows as they swept across +her, chased by the wind. All about her the little mountain sheep were +feeding in the craggy "intaks" or along the edges of the tiny tumbling +streams; and at intervals amid the reds and yellows of the still wintry +grass rose great wind-beaten hollies, sharp and black against the blue +distance, marching beside her, like scattered soldiers, up the height. + +Not a house to be seen, save on the far slopes of distant hills--not a +sound, but the chink of the stone-chat, or the fall of lonely water. + +Soon the road, after its long ascent, began to dip; a few trees appeared +in a hollow, then a gate and some grey walls. + +Laura jumped from the cart. Beyond the gate, the road turned downward a +little, and a great block of barns shut the farmhouse from view till she +was actually upon it. + +But there it was at last--the grey, roughly built house, that she still +vaguely remembered, with the whitewashed porch, the stables and cowsheds +opposite, the little garden to the side, the steep fell behind. + +She stood with her hand on the pony, looking at the house in some +perplexity. Not a soul apparently had heard her coming. Nothing moved in +the farmhouse or outside it. Was everybody at church? But it was nearly +one o'clock. + +The door under the deep porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for +a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle of her whip. + +No answer. She rapped again--louder and louder. At last in the intervals +of knocking, she became conscious of a sound within--something deep and +continuous, like the buzzing of a gigantic bee. + +She put her ear to the door, listening. Then all her face dissolved in +laughter. She raised her arm and brought the whip-handle down noisily on +the old blistered door, so that it shook again. + +"Hullo!" + +There was a sudden sound of chairs overturned, or dragged along a flagged +floor. Then staggering steps--and the door was opened. + +"I say--what's all this--what are you making such a damned noise for?" + +Inside stood a stalwart young man, still half asleep, and drawing his +hand irritably across his blinking eyes. + +"How do you do, Mr. Mason?" + +The young man drew himself together with a start. Suddenly he perceived +that the young girl standing in the shade of the porch was not his +sister, but a stranger. He looked at her with astonishment,--at the +elegance of her dress, and the neatness of her small gloved hand. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure! Did you want anything?" + +The visitor laughed. "Yes, I want a good deal! I came up to see my +cousins--you're my cousin--though of course you don't remember me. I +thought--perhaps--you'd ask me to dinner." + +The young man's yawns ceased. He stared with all his eyes, instinctively +putting his hair and collar straight. + +"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are, Miss," he said at last, +putting out his hand in perplexity to meet hers. "Will you walk in?" + +"Not before you know who I am!"--said Laura, still laughing--"I'm Laura +Fountain. Now do you know?" + +"What--Stephen Fountain's daughter--as married Miss Helbeck?" said the +young man in wonder. His face, which had been at first vague and heavy +with sleep, began to recover its natural expression. + +Laura surveyed him. He had a square, full chin and an upper lip slightly +underhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. He +carried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built, +rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that was +half clumsy, half insolent. + +"That's it," she said, in answer to his question--"I'm staying at +Bannisdale, and I came up to see you all.--Where's Cousin Elizabeth?" + +"Mother, do you mean?--Oh! she's at church." + +"Why aren't you there, too?" + +He opened his blue eyes, taken aback by the cool clearness of her voice. + +"Well, I can't abide the parson--if you want to know. Shall I put up your +pony?" + +"But perhaps you've not had your sleep out?" said Laura, politely +interrogative. + +He reddened, and came forward with a slow and rather shambling gait. + +"I don't know what else there is to do up here of a Sunday morning," he +said, with a boyish sulkiness, as he began to lead the pony towards the +stables opposite. "Besides, I was up half the night seeing to one of the +cows." + +"You don't seem to have many neighbours," said Laura, as she walked +beside him. + +"There's rooks and crows" (which he pronounced broadly--"craws")--"not +much else, I can tell you. Shall I take the pony out?" + +"Please. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for hours!" + +She looked at him merrily, and he returned the scrutiny. She wore the +same thin black dress in which Helbeck had admired her the day before, +and above it a cloth jacket and cap, trimmed with brown fur. Mason was +dazzled a moment by the milky whiteness of the cheek above the fur, by +the brightness of the eyes and hair; then was seized with fresh shyness, +and became extremely busy with the pony. + +"Mother'll be back in about an hour," he said gruffly. + +"Goodness! what'll you do with me till then?" + +They both laughed, he with an embarrassment that annoyed him. He was not +at all accustomed to find himself at a disadvantage with a good-looking +girl. + +"There's a good fire in the house, anyway," he said; "you'll want to warm +yourself, I should think, after driving up here." + +"Oh! I'm not cold--I say, what jolly horses!" + +For Mason had thrown open the large worm-eaten door of the stables, and +inside could be seen the heads and backs of two cart-horses, huge, +majestic creatures, who were peering over the doors of their stalls, as +though they had been listening to the conversation. + +Their owner glanced at them indifferently. + +"Aye, they're not bad. We bred 'em three years ago, and they've taken +more'n one prize already. I dare say old Daffady, now, as looks after +them, would be sorry to part with them." + +"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?" + +The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony, +and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching his +performance. + +"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives," he said at last +with some abruptness. + +"Don't you like it then?" + +"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!" + +His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her. + +"And your mother?" + +"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the +same accent of a sulky child that he had used once before. + +Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he was +beginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious that +she was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no means +indifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep him +shy. + +As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up the +chairs he had overturned in his sudden waking. + +"I say, mother would be mad if she knew you'd come into this scrow!" he +said with vexation, kicking aside some sporting papers that were littered +over the floors, and bringing forward a carved oak chair with a cushion +to place it before the fire for her acceptance. + +"Scrow? What's that?" said Laura, lifting her eyebrows. "Oh, please don't +tidy any more. I really think you make it worse. Besides, it's all right. +What a dear old kitchen!" + +She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slender +foot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat--it hid her +hair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupied +with what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings--to +the old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows. + +Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through +the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the +different objects in a golden light and shade--the brass warming-pan +hanging beside the tall eight-day clock--the table in front of the long +window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth--the carved door of a +cupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679--the miscellaneous store of +things packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools, +bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels, +cattle-medicines, and the like--the heavy oaken chairs--the settle beside +the fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room for +winter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peat +fire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feet +below, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, had +maintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred, +self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of the +farm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned from +October to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there must +be many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in together +from the world outside by wastes of snow. + +Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro--the +rising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side, +wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire. +Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmed +to the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something more +human--more poetic even--than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale. + +She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw Hubert +Mason looking at her. + +Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under the +shelter of her dress. + +"I was thinking of what it must be in winter," she said hurriedly. "I +know I should like it." + +"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then. +It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut your +throat. I say, where are you staying?" + +"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother was +still living, didn't you?" + +"Well, I didn't think aught about it," he said, falling into candour, +because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair and +full upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind. + +"I wrote to you--to Cousin Elizabeth--when my father died," she said +simply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him. + +"Aye--of course you did," he said in haste. "But mother's never yan to +talk aboot letters. And you haven't dropped us a line since, have you?" +he added, almost with timidity. + +"No. I thought I'd surprise you. We've been a fortnight at Bannisdale." + +His face flushed and darkened. + +"Then you've been a fortnight in a queer place!" he said with a sudden, +almost a violent change of tone. "I wonder you can bide so long under +that man's roof!" + +She stared. + +"Do you mean because he disliked my father?" + +"Oh, I don't know nowt about that!" He paused. His young face was +crimson, his eyes angry and sinister. "He's a _snake_--is Helbeck!" he +said slowly, striking his hands together as they hung over his knees. + +Laura recoiled--instinctively straightening herself. + +"Mr. Helbeck is quite kind to me," she said sharply. "I don't know why +you speak of him like that. I'm staying there till my stepmother gets +strong." + +He stared at her, still red and obstinate. + +"Helbeck an his house together stick in folk's gizzards aboot here," he +said. "Yo'll soon find that oot. And good reason too. Did you ever hear +of Teddy Williams?" + +"Williams?" she said, frowning. "Was that the man that painted the +chapel?" + +Mason laughed and slapped his knee. + +"Man, indeed? He was just a lad--down at Marsland School. I was there +myself, you understand, the year after him. He was an awful clever +lad--beat every one at books--an he could draw anything. You couldn't +mak' much oot of his drawins, I daur say--they were queer sorts o' +things. I never could make head or tail on 'em myself. But old Jackson, +our master, thowt a lot of 'em, and so did the passon down at Marsland. +An his father an mother--well, they thowt he was going to make all their +fortunes for 'em. There was a scholarship--or soomthin o' that sort--an +he was to get it an go to college, an make 'em all rich. They were just +common wheelwrights, you understand, down on t' Whinthorpe Road. But my +word, Mr. Helbeck spoilt their game for 'em!" + +He lifted another sod of turf from the basket and flung it on the fire. +The animus of his tone and manner struck Laura oddly. But she was at +least as curious to hear as he was anxious to tell. She drew her chair a +little nearer to him. + +"What did Mr. Helbeck do?" + +Mason laughed. + +"Well, he just made a Papist of Teddy--took him an done him--brown. He +got hold on him in the park one evening--Teddy was drawing a picture of +the bridge, you understand--'ticed him up to his place soomhow--an Teddy +was set to a job of paintin up at the chapel before you could say Jack +Robinson. An in six months they'd settled it between 'em. Teddy wouldn't +go to school no more. And one night he and his father had words; the owd +man gie'd him a thrashing, and Teddy just cut and run. Next thing they +heard he was at a Papist school, somewhere over Lancashire way, an he +sent word to his mother--she was dyin then, you understan'--and she's +dead since--that he'd gone to be a priest, an if they didn't like it, +they might just do the other thing!" + +"And the mother died?" said Laura. + +"Aye--double quick! My mother went down to nurse her. An they sent Teddy +back, just too late to see her. He come in two-three hours after they'd +screwed her down. An his father chivvyed him oot--they wouldn't have him +at the funeral. But folks were a deal madder with Mr. Helbeck, you +understan', nor with Teddy. Teddy's father and brothers are chapel +folk--Primitive Methodists they call 'em. They've got a big chapel in +Whinthorpe--an they raised the whole place on Mr. Helbeck, and one night, +coming out of Whinthorpe, he was set on by a lot of fellows, chapel +fellows, a bit fresh, you understan'. Father was there--he never denied +it--not he! Helbeck just got into the old mill by the bridge in time, but +they'd marked his face for him all the same." + +"Ah!" said Laura, staring into the fire. She had just remembered a dark +scar on Mr. Helbeck's forehead, under the strong ripples of black hair. +"Go on--do!" + +"Oh! afterwards there was a lot of men bound over--father among 'em. +There was a priest with Mr. Helbeck who got it hot too--that old chap +Bowles--I dare say you've seen him. Aye, he's a _snake_, is Helbeck!" the +young man repeated. Then he reddened still more deeply, and added with +vindictive emphasis--"and an interfering,--hypocritical,--canting sort of +party into t' bargain. He'd like to lord it over everybody aboot here, if +he was let. But he's as poor as a church rat--who minds him?" + +The language was extraordinary--so was the tone. Laura had been gazing at +the speaker in a growing amazement. + +"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!--but, +in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of the +gentleman I am staying with!" + +Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to control +himself. + +"I didn't mean no offence," he said at last, with a return of the sulky +voice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, and +not with the likes of us." + +Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing to +say! But I don't mind--I'll forgive you--like I did years ago, when you +pushed me into the puddle!" + +"I pushed you into a puddle? But--I never did owt o' t' sort!" cried +Mason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment. + +"Oh, yes, you did," she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and you +bullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy--and I loved Polly, +who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she at +church?" + +"Aye--I dare say," said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhile +with all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off her +cap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curls +upon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so as +to fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The white +fingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted arms +showed all the young curves of the girl's form. + +Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily +into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair. + +"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?" + +He shook his head. + +"Ah! well"--she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty. + +"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily. + +"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different +voice, "Is this your sitting-room"--she looked round it--"or--or your +kitchen?" + +The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his +feelings. + +Mason jumped up. + +"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust +thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire." + +And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door +ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look +round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its +woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured +carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place +struck her. + +"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen," she said decidedly. "What's +that?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon the +largest possible wool mat in the centre of a table. + +Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fill +out; all his sulky constraint dropped away. + +"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts," he said to her with +condescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for the +County lasst year--no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt--that's +nobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a better +there, by-and-by." + +The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumed +indifference to its inscription. + +"What--football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! I +don't care about football. But I _love_ cricket. Why--you've got a +piano--and a new one!" + +Mason's face cleared again--in quite another fashion. + +"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal of +by them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had done +fust-rate,--an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So I +took no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid the +first instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle--do yo +knaw 'im?--he's the organist at the parish church--he came with me to +choose it." + +"And is it you that play it," said Laura wondering, "or your sister?" + +He looked at her in silence for a moment--and she at him. His aspect +seemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face came +out; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner became +suddenly quiet and manly--though full of an almost tremulous eagerness. + +"You like it?" she asked him. + +"What--music? I should think so." + +"Oh! I forgot--you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?" + +He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leant +over the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused. + +"I say--did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellow +made it--Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further than +just a bit of it." + +He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords that +shook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He played +on--played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling--played with +a mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment that +amazed her--then grew crimson with the effort to remember--wavered--and +stopped. + +"Goodness!"--cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides! +How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it." + +She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling and +transformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found the +after melody, pursued it,--with pauses now and then, in which he would +strike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers--and finally, +after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter and +head-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time with +hands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments. + +"Oh! my goody--isn't that rousing? Play that again--just that +change--just once! Oh! Lord--isn't that good, that chord--and that bit +afterwards, what a bass!--I say, _isn't_ it a bass? Don't you like +it--don't you like it _awfully_?" + +Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, her +hands on her knees. He fell back into a chair. + +"I say"--he said slowly--"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known you +could play like that!" + +Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown. + +"I haven't played--ten notes--since papa died. He liked it so." + +She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at the +top of the piano. + +"But you will play--you'll play to me again"--he said +beseechingly.--"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't I +play if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now and +again, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him--I can +play any thing I hear--and I've made a song--old Castle's writing it +down--he says he'll teach me to do it some day. But of course I'm no good +for playing--I never shall be any good. Look at those fingers--they're +like bits of stick--beastly things!" + +He thrust them out indignantly for her inspection. Laura looked at them +with a professional air. + +"I don't call it a bad hand. I expect you've no patience." + +"Haven't I! I tell you I'd play all day, if it'ld do any good--but it +won't." + +"And how about the poor farm?" said Laura, with a lifted brow. + +"Oh! the farm--the farm--dang the farm!"--said Mason violently, slapping +his knee. + +Suddenly there was a sound of voices outside, a clattering on the stones +of the farmyard. + +Mason sprang up, all frowns. + +"That's mother. Here, let's shut the piano--quick! She can't abide it." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Mason went out to meet his mother, and Laura waited. She stood where she +had risen, beside the piano, looking nervously towards the door. Childish +remembrances and alarms seemed to be thronging back into her mind. + +There was a noise of voices in the outer room. Then a handle was roughly +turned, and Laura saw before her a short, stout woman, with grey hair, +and the most piercing black eyes. Intimidated by the eyes, and by the +sudden pause of the newcomer on the threshold, Miss Fountain could only +look at her interrogatively. + +"Is it Cousin Elizabeth?" she said, holding out a wavering hand. + +Mrs. Mason scarcely allowed her own to be touched. + +"We're not used to visitors i' church-time," she said abruptly, in a deep +funereal voice. "Mappen you'll sit down." + +And still holding the girl with her eyes, she walked across to an old +rocking-chair, let herself fall into it, and with a loud sigh loosened +her bonnet strings. + +Laura, in her amazement, had to strangle a violent inclination to laugh. +Then she flushed brightly, and sat down on the wooden stool in front of +the piano. Mrs. Mason, still staring at her, seemed to wait for her to +speak. But Laura would say nothing. + +"Soa--thoo art Stephen Fountain's dowter--art tha?" + +"Yes--and you have seen me before," was the girl's quiet reply. + +She said to herself that her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. So +black and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggy +hair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her own temper rising. + +"How long is't sen your feyther deed?" + +"Nine months. But you knew that, I think--because I wrote it you." + +Mrs. Mason's heavy lids blinked a moment, then she said with slowly +quickening emphasis, like one mounting to a crisis: + +"Wat art tha doin' wi' Bannisdale Hall? What call has thy feyther's +dowter to be visitin onder Alan Helbeck's roof?" + +Laura's open mouth showed first wonderment, then laughter. + +"Oh! I see," she said impatiently--"you don't seem to understand. But of +course you remember that my father married Miss Helbeck for his second +wife?" + +"Aye, an she cam oot fra amang them," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "she put away +from her the accursed thing!" + +The massive face was all aglow, transformed, with a kind of sombre fire. +Laura stared afresh. + +"She gave up being a Catholic, if that's what you mean," she said after a +moment's pause. "But she couldn't keep to it. When papa fell ill, and she +was unhappy, she went back. And then of course she made it up with her +brother." + +The triumph in Mrs. Mason's face yielded first to astonishment, then to +anger. + +"The poor weak doited thing," she said at last in a tone of indescribable +contempt, "the poor silly fule! But naebody need ha' luked for onything +betther from a Helbeck.--And I daur say"--she lifted her voice +fiercely--"I daur say she took yo' wi' her, an it's along o' thattens as +yo're coom to spy on us oop here?" + +Laura sprang up. + +"Me!" she said indignantly. "You think I'm a Catholic and a spy? How kind +of you! But of course you don't know anything about my father, nor how he +brought me up. As for my poor little stepmother, I came here with her to +get her well, and I shall stay with her till she is well. I really don't +know why you talk to me like this. I suppose you have cause to dislike +Mr. Helbeck, but it is very odd that you should visit it on me, papa's +daughter, when I come to see you!" + +The girl's voice trembled, but she threw back her slender neck with a +gesture that became her. The door, which had been closed, stealthily +opened. Hubert Mason's face appeared in the doorway. It was gazing +eagerly--admiringly--at Miss Fountain. + +Mrs. Mason did not see him. Nor was she daunted by Laura's anger. + +"It's aw yan," she said stubbornly. "Thoo ha' made a covenant wi' the +Amorite an the Amalekite. They ha' called tha, an thoo art eatin o' their +sacrifices!" + +There was an uneasy laugh from the door, and Laura, turning her +astonished eyes in that direction, perceived Hubert standing in the +doorway, and behind him another head thrust eagerly forward--the head of +a young woman in a much betrimmed Sunday hat. + +"I say, mother, let her be, wil tha?" said a hearty voice; and, pushing +Hubert aside, the owner of the hat entered the room. She went up to +Laura, and gave her a loud kiss. + +"I'm Polly--Polly Mason. An I know who you are weel enough. Doan't you +pay ony attention to mother. That's her way. Hubert an I take it very +kind of you to come and see us." + +"Mother's rats on Amorites!" said Hubert, grinning. + +"Rats?--Amorites?"--said Laura, looking piteously at Polly, whose hand +she held. + +Polly laughed, a bouncing, good-humoured laugh. She herself was a +bouncing, good-humoured person, the apparent antithesis of her mother +with her lively eyes, her frizzled hair, her high cheek-bones touched +with a bright pink. + +"Yo'll have to get oop early to understan' them two," she declared. +"Mother's allus talkin out o' t' Bible, an Hubert picks up a lot o' low +words out o' Whinthrupp streets--an there 'tis. But now look here--yo'll +stay an tak' a bit o' dinner with us?" + +"I don't want to be in your way," said Laura formally. Really, she had +some difficulty to control the quiver of her lips, though it would have +been difficult to say whether laughter or tears came nearest. + +At this Polly broke out in voluble protestations, investigating her +cousin's dress all the time, fingering her little watch-chain, and even +taking up a corner of the pretty cloth jacket that she might examine the +quality of it. Laura, however, looked at Mrs. Mason. + +"If Cousin Elizabeth wishes me to stay," she said proudly. + +Polly burst into another loud laugh. + +"Yo see, it goes agen mother to be shakin hands wi' yan that's livin wi' +Papists--and Misther Helbeck by the bargain. So wheniver mother talks +aboot Amorites or Jesubites, or any o' thattens, she nobbut means +Papist--Romanists as our minister coes 'em. He's every bit as bad as her. +He would as lief shake hands wi' Mr. Helbeck as wi' the owd 'un!" + +"I'll uphowd ye--Mr. Bayley hasn't preached a sermon this ten year wi'oot +chivvyin Papists!" said Hubert from the door. "An yo'll not find yan o' +them in his parish if yo were to hunt it wi' a lantern for a week o' +Sundays. When I was a lad I thowt Romanists were a soart o' varmin. I +awmost looked to see 'em nailed to t' barndoor, same as stoeats!" + +"But how strange!" cried Laura--"when there are so few Catholics about +here. And no one _hates_ Catholics now. One may just--despise them." + +She looked from mother to son in bewilderment. Not only Hubert's speech, +but his whole manner had broadened and coarsened since his mother's +arrival. + +"Well, if there isn't mony, they make a deal o' talk," said +Polly--"onyways sence Mr. Helbeck came to t' hall.--Mother, I'll take +Miss Fountain oopstairs, to get her hat off." + +During all the banter of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in a +disdainful silence, turning her strange eyes--the eyes of a fanatic, in a +singularly shrewd and capable face--now on Laura, now on her children. +Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then an +impulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an impulse of +liking, an impulse of kinship; and as she quickly crossed the room to +Mrs. Mason's side, she said in a pretty pleading voice: + +"But you see, Cousin Elizabeth, I'm not a Catholic--and papa wasn't a +Catholic. And I couldn't help Mrs. Fountain going back to her old +religion--you shouldn't visit it on me!" + +Mrs. Mason looked up. + +"Why art tha not at church on t' Lord's day?" + +The question came stern and quick. + +Laura wavered, then drew herself up. + +"Because I'm not your sort either. I don't believe in your church, or +your ministers. Father didn't, and I'm like him." + +Her voice had grown thick, and she was quite pale. The old woman stared +at her. + +"Then yo're nobbut yan o' the heathen!" she said with slow precision. + +"I dare say!" cried Laura, half laughing, half crying. "That's my affair. +But I declare I think I hate Catholics as much as you--there, Cousin +Elizabeth! I don't hate my stepmother, of course. I promised father to +take care of her. But that's another matter." + +"Dost tha hate Alan Helbeck?" said Mrs. Mason suddenly, her black eyes +opening in a flash. + +The girl hesitated, caught her breath--then was seized with the +strangest, most abject desire to propitiate this grim woman with the +passionate look. + +"Yes!" she said wildly. "No, no!--that's silly. I haven't had time to +hate him. But I don't like him, anyway. I'm nearly sure I _shall_ hate +him!" + +There was no mistaking the truth in her tone. + +Mrs. Mason slowly rose. Her chest heaved with one long breath, then +subsided; her brow tightened. She turned to her son. + +"Art tha goin to let Daffady do all thy work for tha?" she said sharply. +"Has t' roan calf bin looked to?" + +"Aye--I'm going," said Hubert evasively, and sheepishly straightening +himself he made for the front door, throwing back more than one look as +he departed at his new cousin. + +"And you really want me to stay?" repeated Laura insistently, addressing +Mrs. Mason. + +"Yo're welcome," was the stiff reply. "Nobbut yo'd been mair welcome if +yo hadna brokken t' Sabbath to coom here. Mappen yo'll goa wi' Polly, an +tak' your bonnet off." + +Laura hesitated a moment longer, bit her lip, and went. + + * * * * * + +Polly Mason was a great talker. In the few minutes she spent with Laura +upstairs, before she hurried down again to help her mother with the +Sunday dinner, she asked her new cousin innumerable questions, showing an +intense curiosity as to Bannisdale and the Helbecks, a burning desire to +know whether Laura had any money of her own, or was still dependent upon +her stepmother, and a joyous appropriative pride in Miss Fountain's +gentility and good looks. + +The frankness of Polly's flatteries, and the exuberance of her whole +personality, ended by producing a certain stiffness in Laura. Every now +and then, in the intervals of Polly's questions, when she ceased to be +inquisitive and became confidential, Laura would wonder to herself. She +would half shut her eyes, trying to recall the mental image of her +cousins and of the farm, with which she had started that morning from +Bannisdale; or she would think of her father, his modes of life and +speech--was he really connected, and how, with this place and its +inmates? She had expected something simple and patriarchal. She had found +a family of peasants, living in a struggling, penurious way--a grim +mother speaking broad dialect, a son with no pretensions to refinement or +education, except perhaps through his music--and a daughter---- + +Laura turned an attentive eye on Polly, on her high and red cheek-bones, +the extravagant fringe that vulgarised all her honest face, the Sunday +dress of stone-coloured alpaca, profusely trimmed with magenta ribbons. + +"I will--I _will_ like her!" she said to herself--"I am a horrid, +snobbish, fastidious little wretch." + +But her spirits had sunk. When Polly left her she leant for a moment upon +the sill of the open window, and looked out. Across the dirty, uneven +yard, where the manure lay in heaps outside the byre doors, she saw the +rude farm buildings huddled against each other in a mean, unsightly +group. Down below, from the house porch apparently, a cracked bell began +to ring, and from some doors opposite three labourers, the "hired men," +who lived and boarded on the farm, came out. The first two were elderly +men, gnarled and bent like tough trees that have fought the winter; the +third was a youth. They were tidily dressed in Sunday clothes, for their +work was done, and they were ready for the afternoon's holiday. + +They walked across to the farmhouse in silence, one behind the other. Not +even the young fellow raised his eyes to the window and the girl framed +within it. Behind them came a gust of piercing easterly wind. A cloud had +covered the sun. The squalid farmyard, the bare fell-side beyond it, the +distant levels of the marsh, had taken to themselves a cold forbidding +air. Laura again imagined it in December--a waste of snow, with the farm +making an ugly spot upon the white, and the little black-bearded sheep +she could see feeding on the fell, crowding under the rocks for shelter. +But this time she shivered. All the spell was broken. To live up here +with this madwoman, this strange youth--and Polly! Yet it seemed to her +that something drew her to Cousin Elizabeth--if she were not so mad. How +strange to find this abhorrence of Mr. Helbeck among these people--so +different, so remote! She remembered her own words--"I am sure I _shall_ +hate him!"--not without a stab of conscience. What had she been +doing--perhaps--but adding her own injustice to theirs? + +She stood lost in a young puzzle and heat of feeling--half angry, half +repentant. + +But only for a second. Then certain phrases of Augustina's rang through +her mind--she saw herself standing in the corner of the chapel while the +others prayed. Every pulse tightened--her whole nature leapt again in +defiance. She seemed to be holding something at bay--a tyrannous power +that threatened humiliation and hypocrisy, that seemed at the same time +to be prying into secret things--things it should never, never know--and +never rule! Yes, she did understand Cousin Elizabeth--she _did_! + + * * * * * + +The dinner went sadly. The viands were heavy: so were the faces of the +labourers, and the air of the low-raftered kitchen, heated as it was by a +huge fire, and pervaded by the smell from the farmyard. Laura felt it all +very strange, the presence of the farm servants at the same table with +the Masons and herself--the long silences that no one made an effort to +break--the relations between Hubert and his mother. + +As for the labourers, Mason addressed them now and then in a bullying +voice, and they spoke to him as little as they could. It seemed to Laura +that there was an alliance between them and the mother against a lazy and +incompetent master; and that the lad's vanity was perpetually alive to +it. Again and again he would pull himself together, attempt the +gentleman, and devote himself to his young lady guest. But in the midst +of their conversation he would hear something at the other end of the +table, and suddenly there would come a burst of fierce unintelligible +speech between him and the mistress of the house, while the labourers sat +silent and sly, and Polly's loud laugh would break in, trying to make +peace. + +Laura's cool grey eyes followed the youth with a constant critical +wonder. In any other circumstances she would not have thought him worth +an instant's attention. She had all the supercilious impatience of the +pretty girl accustomed to choose her company. But this odd fact of +kinship held and harassed her. She wanted to understand these Masons--her +father's folk. + +"Now he is really talking quite nicely," she said to herself on one +occasion, when Hubert had found in the gifts and accomplishments of his +friend Castle, the organist, a subject that untied his tongue and made +him almost agreeable. Suddenly a question caught his ear. + +"Daffady, did tha turn the coo?" said his mother in a loud voice. Even in +the homeliest question it had the same penetrating, passionate quality +that belonged to her gaze--to her whole personality indeed. + +Hubert dropped his phrase--and his knife and fork--and stared angrily at +Daffady, the old cowman and carter. + +Daffady threw his master a furtive look, then munched through a mouthful +of bread and cheese without replying. + +He was a grey and taciturn person, with a provocative look of patience. + +"What tha bin doin wi' th' coo?" said Hubert sharply. "I left her mysel +nobbut half an hour sen." + +Daffady turned his head again in Hubert's direction for a moment, then +deliberately addressed the mistress. + +"Aye, aye, missus"--he spoke in a high small voice--"A turned her reet +enoof, an a gied her soom fresh straa for her yed. She doin varra +middlin." + +"If she'd been turned yesterday in a proper fashion, she'd ha' bin on her +feet by now," said Mrs. Mason, with a glance at her son. + +"Nowt o' t' soart, mother," cried Hubert. He leant forward, flushed with +wrath, or beer--his potations had begun to fill Laura with dismay--and +spoke with a hectoring violence. "I tell tha when t' farrier cam oop last +night, he said she'd been managed first-rate! If yo and Daffady had yor +way wi' yor fallals an yor nonsense, yo'd never leave a poor sick creetur +alone for five minutes; I towd Daffady to let her be, an I'll let him +knaa who's measter here!" + +He glared at the carter, quite regardless of Laura's presence. Polly +coughed loudly, and tried to make a diversion by getting up to clear away +the plates. The three combatants took no notice. + +Daffady slowly ran his tongue round his lips; then he said, again looking +at the mistress: + +"If a hadna turned her I dew believe she'd ha' gien oos t' slip--she was +terr'ble swollen as 'twos." + +"I tell tha to let her be!" thundered Hubert. "If she deas, that's ma +consarn; I'll ha' noa meddlin wi' my orders--dost tha hear?" + +"Aye, it wor thirrty poond thraan awa lasst month, an it'll be thirrty +poond this," said his mother slowly; "thoo art fine at shoutin. Bit thy +fadther had need ha' addlet his brass--to gie thee summat to thraw oot o' +winder." + +Hubert rose from the table with an oath, stood for an instant looking +down at Laura,--glowering, and pulling fiercely at his moustache,--then, +noisily opening the front door, he strode across the yard to the byres. + +There was an instant's silence. Then Mrs. Mason rose with her hands +clasped before her, her eyes half closed. + +"For what we ha' received, the Lord mak' us truly thankful," she said in +a loud, nasal voice. "Amen." + + * * * * * + +After dinner, Laura put on an apron of Polly's, and helped her cousin to +clear away. Mrs. Mason had gruffly bade her sit still, but when the girl +persisted, she herself--flushed with dinner and combat--took her seat on +the settle, opposite to old Daffady, and deliberately made holiday, +watching Stephen's daughter all the time from the black eyes that roved +and shone so strangely under the shaggy brows and the white hair. + +The old cowman sat hunched over the fire, smoking his pipe for a time in +beatific silence. + +But presently Laura, as she went to and fro, caught snatches of +conversation. + +"Did tha go ta Laysgill last Sunday?" said Mrs. Mason abruptly. + +Daffady removed his pipe. + +"Aye, a went, an a preeched. It wor a varra stirrin meetin. Sum o' yor +paid preests sud ha' bin theer. A gien it 'em strang. A tried ta hit 'em +all--baith gert an lile." + +There was a pause, then he added placidly: + +"A likely suden't suit them varra weel. Theer was a mon beside me, as +pooed me down afoor a'd hofe doon." + +"Tha sudna taak o' 'paid preests,' Daffady," said Mrs. Mason severely. +"Tha doosna understand nowt o' thattens." + +Daffady glanced slyly at his mistress--at the "Church-pride" implied in +the attitude of her capacious form, in the shining of the Sunday alpaca +and black silk apron. + +"Mebbe not," he said mildly, "mebbe not." And he resumed his pipe. + +On another occasion, as Laura went flitting across the kitchen, drawing +to herself the looks of both its inmates, she heard what seemed to be a +fragment of talk about a funeral. + +"Aye, poor Jenny!" said Mrs. Mason. "They didna mak' mich account on her +whan t' breath wor yanst oot on her." + +"Nay,"--Daffady shook his head for sympathy,--"it wor a varra poor +set-oot, wor Jenny's buryin. Nowt but tay, an sic-like." + +Mrs. Mason raised two gaunt hands and let them drop again on her knee. + +"I shud ha' thowt they'd ha' bin ashamed," she said. "Jenny's brass ull +do 'em noa gude. She wor a fule to leave it to 'un." + +Daffady withdrew his pipe again. His lantern-jawed face, furrowed with +slow thought, hung over the blaze. + +"Aye," he said, "aye. Wal, I've buried three childer--an I'm nobbut a +labrin mon--but a thank the Lord I ha buried them aw--wi' ham." + +The last words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of the +kitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved in +either face. She sped back into the dairy, and Polly looked up in +astonishment. + +"What ails tha?" she said. + +"Oh, nothing!" said Laura, dashing the merry tears from her eyes. She +proceeded to roll up her sleeves, and plunge her hands and arms into the +bowl of warm water that Polly had set before her. Meanwhile, Polly, very +big and square, much reddened also by the fuss of household work, stood +just behind her cousin's shoulder, looking down, half in envy, half in +admiration, at the slimness of the white wrists and pretty fingers. + +A little later the two girls, all traces of their housework removed, came +back into the kitchen. Daffady and Mrs. Mason had disappeared. + +"Where is Cousin Elizabeth?" said Laura rather sharply, as she looked +round her. + +Polly explained that her mother was probably shut up in her bedroom +reading her Bible. That was her custom on a Sunday afternoon. + +"Why, I haven't spoken to her at all!" cried Laura. Her cheek had +flushed. + +Polly showed embarrassment. + +"Next time yo coom, mother'll tak' mair noatice. She was takkin stock o' +you t' whole time, I'll uphowd yo." + +"That isn't what I wanted," said Laura. + +She walked to the window and leaned her head against the frame. Polly +watched her with compunction, seeing quite plainly the sudden drop of the +lip. All she could do was to propose to show her cousin the house. + +Laura languidly consented. + +So they wandered again through the dark stone-slabbed dairy, with its +milk pans on the one side and its bacon-curing troughs on the other; and +into the little stuffy bedrooms upstairs, each with its small oak +four-poster and patchwork counterpane. They looked at the home-made quilt +of goosedown--Polly's handiwork--that lay on Hubert's bed; at the +clusters of faded photographs and coloured prints that hung on the old +uneven walls; at the vast meal-ark in Polly's room that held the family +store of meal and oatcake for the year. + +"When we wor little 'uns, fadther used to give me an Hubert a silver +saxpence the day he browt home t' fresh melder fro' t' mill," said Polly; +"theer was parlish little nobbut paritch and oatcake to eat when we wor +small. An now I'll uphold yo there isn't a farm servant but wants his +white bread yanst a day whativver happens." + +The house was neat and clean, but there were few comforts in it, and no +luxuries. It showed, too, a number of small dilapidations that a very +little money and care would soon have set to rights. Polly pointed to +them sadly. There was no money, and Hubert didn't trouble himself. +"Fadther was allus workin. He'd be up at half-past four this time o' +year, an he didna go to bed soa early noather. But Hubert'ull do nowt he +can help. Yo can hardly get him to tak' t' peaets i' ter Whinthorpe when +t' peaet-cote's brastin wi' 'em. An as fer doin a job o' cartin fer t' +neebors, t' horses may be eatin their heads off, Hubert woan't stir +hissel'. 'Let 'em lead their aan muck for theirsels'--that's what he'll +say. Iver sen fadther deed it's bin janglin atwixt mother an Hubert. It +makes her mad to see iverything goin downhill. An he's that masterful he +woan't be towd. Yo saw how he went on wi' Daffady at dinner. But if it +weren't for Daffady an us, there'd be no stock left." + +And poor Polly, sitting on the edge of the meal-ark and dangling her +large feet, went into a number of plaintive details, that were mostly +unintelligible, sometimes repulsive, in Laura's ears. + +It seemed that Hubert was always threatening to leave the farm. "Give me +a bit of money, and you'll soon be quit of me. I'll go to Froswick, and +make my fortune"--that was what he'd say to his mother. But who was going +to give him money to throw about? And he couldn't sell the farm while +Mrs. Mason lived, by the father's will. + +As to her mother, Polly admitted that she was "gey ill to live wi'." +There was no one like her for "addlin a bit here and addlin a bit there." +She was the best maker and seller of butter in the country-side; but she +had been queer about religion ever since an illness that attacked her as +a young woman. + +And now it was Mr. Bayley, the minister, who excited her, and made her +worse. Polly, for her part, hated him. "My worrd, he do taak!" said she. +And every Sunday he preached against Catholics, and the Pope, and such +like. And as there were no Catholics anywhere near, but Mr. Helbeck at +Bannisdale, and a certain number at Whinthorpe, people didn't know what +to make of him. And they laughed at him, and left off going--except +occasionally for curiosity, because he preached in a black gown, which, +so Polly heard tell, was very uncommon nowadays. But mother would listen +to him by the hour. And it was all along of Teddy Williams. It was that +had set her mad. + +Here, however, Polly broke off to ask an eager question. What had Mr. +Helbeck said when Laura told him of her wish to go and see her cousins? + +"I'll warrant he wasn't best pleased! Feyther couldn't abide him--because +of Teddy. He didn't thraw no stones that neet i' Whinthrupp Lane--feyther +was a strict man and read his Bible reg'lar--but he stood wi' t' lads an +looked on--he didn't say owt to stop 'em. Mr. Helbeck called to him--he +had a priest with him--'Mr. Mason!' he ses, 'this is an old man--speak to +those fellows!' But feyther wouldn't. 'Let 'em trounce tha!' he +ses--'aye, an him too! It'ull do tha noa harm.'--Well, an what did he +say, Mr. Helbeck?--I'd like to know." + +"Say? Nothing--except that it was a long way, and I might have the pony +carriage." + +Laura's tone was rather dry. She was sitting on the edge of Polly's bed, +with her arm round one of its oaken posts. Her cheek was laid against the +post, and her eyes had been wandering about a good deal while Polly +talked. Till the mention of Helbeck. Then her attention came back. And +during Polly's account of the incident in Whinthorpe Lane, she began to +frown. What bigotry, after all! As to the story of young Williams--it was +very perplexing--she would get the truth of it out of Augustina. But it +was extraordinary that it should be so well known in this upland +farm--that it should make a kind of link--a link of hatred--between Mr. +Helbeck and the Masons. After her movement of wild sympathy with Mrs. +Mason, she realised now, as Polly's chatter slipped on, that she +understood her cousins almost as little as she did Helbeck. + +Nay, more. The picture of Helbeck stoned and abused by these rough, +uneducated folk had begun to rouse in her a curious sympathy. Unwillingly +her mind invested him with a new dignity. + +So that when Polly told a rambling story of how Mr. Bayley, after the +street fight, had met Mr. Helbeck at a workhouse meeting and had placed +his hands behind his back when Mr. Helbeck offered his own, Laura tossed +her head. + +"What a ridiculous man!" she said disdainfully; "what can it matter to +Mr. Helbeck whether Mr. Bayley shakes hands with him or not?" + +Polly looked at her in some astonishment, and dropped the subject. The +elder woman, conscious of plainness and inferiority, was humbly anxious +to please her new cousin. The girl's delicate and characteristic +physique, her clear eyes and decided ways, and a certain look she had in +conversation--half absent, half critical--which was inherited from her +father,--all of them combined to intimidate the homely Polly, and she +felt perhaps less at ease with her visitor as she saw more of her. + +Presently they stood before some old photographs on Polly's mantelpiece; +Polly looked timidly at her cousin. + +"Doan't yo think as Hubert's verra handsome?" she said. + +And taking up one of the portraits, she brushed it with her sleeve and +handed it to Laura. + +Laura held it up for scrutiny. + +"No--o," she said coolly, "not really handsome." + +Polly looked disappointed. + +"There's not a mony gells aboot here as doan't coe Hubert handsome," she +said with emphasis. + +"It's Hubert's business to call the girls handsome," said Laura, +laughing, and handing back the picture. + +Polly grinned--then suddenly looked grave. + +"I wish he'd leave t' gells alone!" she said with an accent of some +energy, "he'll mappen get into trooble yan o' these days!" + +"They don't keep him in his place, I suppose," said Laura, flushing, she +hardly knew why. She got up and walked across the room to the window. +What did she want to know about Hubert and "t' gells"? She hated vulgar +and lazy young men!--though they might have a musical gift that, so to +speak, did not belong to them. + +Nevertheless she turned round again to ask, with some imperiousness,-- + +"Where is your brother?--what is he doing all this time?" + +"Sittin alongside the coo, I dare say--lest Daffady should be gettin the +credit of her," said Polly, laughing. "The poor creetur fell three days +sen--summat like a stroke, t' farrier said,--an Hubert's bin that jealous +o' Daffady iver sen. He's actually poo'ed hissel' oot o' bed mornins to +luke after her!--Lord bless us--I mun goa an feed t' calves!" + +And hastily throwing an apron over her Sunday gown, Polly clattered down +the stairs in a whirlwind. + + * * * * * + +Laura followed her more leisurely, passed through the empty kitchen and +opened the front door. + +As she stood under the porch looking out, she put up a small hand to hide +a yawn. When she set out that morning she had meant to spend the whole +day at the farm. Now it was not yet tea-time, and she was more than ready +to go. In truth her heart was hot, and rather bitter. Cousin Elizabeth, +certainly, had treated her with a strange coolness. And as for +Hubert--after that burst of friendship, beside the piano! She drew +herself together sharply--she would go at once and ask him for her pony +cart. + +Lifting her skirt daintily, she picked her way across the dirty yard, and +fumbled at a door opposite--the door whence she had seen old Daffady come +out at dinner-time. + +"Who's there?" shouted a threatening voice from within. + +Laura succeeded in lifting the clumsy latch. Hubert Mason, from inside, +saw a small golden head appear in the doorway. + +"Would you kindly help me get the pony cart?" said the light, +half-sarcastic voice of Miss Fountain. "I must be going, and Polly's +feeding the calves." + +Her eyes at first distinguished nothing but a row of dim animal forms, in +crowded stalls under a low roof. Then she saw a cow lying on the ground, +and Hubert Mason beside her, amid the wreaths of smoke that he was +puffing from a clay pipe. The place was dark, close, and fetid. She +withdrew her head hastily. There was a muttering and movement inside, and +Mason came to the door, thrusting his pipe into his pocket. + +"What do you want to go for, just yet?" he said abruptly. + +"I ought to get home." + +"No; you don't care for us, nor our ways. That's it; an I don't wonder." + +She made polite protestations, but he would not listen to them. He strode +on beside her in a stormy silence, till the impulse to prick him +overmastered her. + +"Do you generally sit with the cows?" she asked him sweetly. She shot her +grey eyes towards him, all mockery and cool examination. He was not +accustomed to such looks from the young women whom he chose to notice. + +"I was not going to stay and be treated like that before strangers!" he +said, with a sulky fierceness. "Mother thinks she and Daffady can just +have their own way with me, as they'd used to do when I was nobbut a lad. +But I'll let her know--aye, and the men too!" + +"But if you hate farming, why don't you let Daffady do the work?" + +Her sly voice stung him afresh. + +"Because I'll be measter!" he said, bringing his hand violently down on +the shaft of the pony cart. "If I'm to stay on in this beastly hole I'll +make every one knaw their place. Let mother give me some money, an I'll +soon take myself off, an leave her an Daffady to draw their own water +their own way. But if I'm here I'm _measter_!" He struck the cart again. + +"Is it true you don't work nearly as hard as your father?" + +He looked at her amazed. If Susie Flinders down at the mill had spoken to +him like that, he would have known how to shut her mouth for her. + +"An I daur say it is," he said hotly. "I'm not goin to lead the dog's +life my father did--all for the sake of diddlin another sixpence or two +oot o' the neighbours. Let mother give me my money oot o' the farm. I'd +go to Froswick fast enough. That's the place to get on. I've got +friends--I'd work up in no time." + +Laura glanced at him. She said nothing. + +"You doan't think I would?" he asked her angrily, pausing in his handling +of the harness to throw back the challenge of her manner. His wrath +seemed to have made him handsomer, better-braced, more alive. Physically +she admired him for the first time, as he stood confronting her. + +But she only lifted her eyebrows a little. + +"I thought one had to have a particular kind of brains for business--and +begin early, too?" + +"I could learn," he said gruffly, after which they were both silent till +the harnessing was done. + +Then he looked up. + +"I'd like to drive you to the bridge--if you're agreeable?" + +"Oh, don't trouble yourself, pray!" she said in polite haste. + +His brows knit again. + +"I know how 'tis--you won't come here again." + +Her little face changed. + +"I'd like to," she said, her voice wavering, "because papa used to stay +here." + +He stared at her. + +"I do remember Cousin Stephen," he said at last, "though I towd you I +didn't. I can see him standing at the door there--wi' a big hat--an a +beard--like straw--an a check coat wi' great bulgin pockets." + +He stopped in amazement, seeing the sudden beauty of her eyes and cheeks. + +"That's it," she said, leaning towards him. "Oh, that's it!" She closed +her eyes a moment, her small lips trembling. Then she opened them with a +long breath. + +"Yes, you may drive me to the bridge if you like." + + * * * * * + +And on the drive she was another being. She talked to him about music, so +softly and kindly that the young man's head swam with pleasure. All her +own musical enthusiasms and experiences--the music in the college +chapels, the music at the Greek plays, the few London concerts and operas +she had heard, her teachers and her hero-worships--she drew upon it all +in her round light voice, he joining in from time to time with a rough +passion and yearning that seemed to transfigure him. In half an hour, as +it were, they were friends; their relations changed wholly. He looked at +her with all his eyes; hung upon her with all his ears. And she--she +forgot that he was vulgar and a clown; such breathless pleasure, such a +humble absorption in superior wisdom, would have blunted the sternest +standard. + +As for him, the minutes flew. When at last the bridge over the Bannisdale +River came in sight, he began to check the pony. + +"Let's drive on a bit," he said entreatingly. + +"No, no--I must get back to Mrs. Fountain." And she took the reins from +his hands. + +"I say, when will you come again?" + +"Oh, I don't know." She had put on once more the stand-off town-bred +manner that puzzled his countryman's sense. + +"I say, mother shan't talk that stuff to you next time. I'll tell her--" +he said imploringly.--"Halloa! let me out, will you?" + +And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumped +out of the cart. + +"There's Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I'm off. +Good-bye!" + +He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away. + +She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeck +was holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not Father +Bowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from her +cousin. + +Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck's ceremonious +greeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beaten +herself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she have +beaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraid +of? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of her +peasant relations? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"Is that Mrs. Fountain's stepdaughter?" said Helbeck's companion, as +Laura and her cart disappeared round a corner of the winding road on +which the two men were walking. + +Helbeck made a sign of assent. + +"You may very possibly have known her father?" He named the Cambridge +college of which Stephen Fountain had been a Fellow. + +The Jesuit, who was a convert, and had been a distinguished Cambridge +man, considered for a moment. + +"Oh! yes--I remember the man! A strange being, who was only heard of, if +I recollect right, in times of war. If there was any dispute +going--especially on a religious point--Stephen Fountain would rush into +it with broad-sheets. Oh, yes, I remember him perfectly--a great untidy, +fair-haired, truculent fellow, to whom anybody that took any thought for +his soul was either fool or knave. How much of him does the daughter +inherit?" + +Helbeck returned the other's smile. "A large slice, I think. She comes +here in the curious position of having never lived in a Christian +household before, and she seems already to have great difficulty in +putting up with us." + +Father Leadham laughed, then looked reflective. + +"How often have I known that the best of all possible beginnings! Is she +attached to her stepmother?" + +"Yes. But Mrs. Fountain has no influence over her." + +"It is a striking colouring--that white skin and reddish hair. And it is +a face of some power, too." + +"Power?" Helbeck demurred. "I think she is clever," he said dryly. "And, +of course, coming from a university town, she has heard of things that +other girls know nothing of. But she has had no training, moral or +intellectual." + +"And no Christian education?" + +Helbeck shrugged his shoulders. + +"She was only baptized with difficulty. When she was eleven or twelve she +was allowed to go to church two or three times, I understand, on the +helot principle--was soon disgusted--her father of course supplying a +running comment at home--and she has stood absolutely outside religion of +all kinds since." + +"Poor child!" said the priest with heartiness. The paternal note in the +words was more than official. He was a widower, and had lost his wife and +infant daughter two years before his entrance into the Church of Rome. + +Helbeck smiled. "I assure you Miss Fountain spends none of her pity upon +herself." + +"I dare say more than you think. The position of the unbeliever in a +house like yours is always a painful one. You see she is alone. There +must be a sense of exile--of something touching and profound going on +beside her, from which she is excluded. She comes into a house with a +chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, where everybody is +keeping a strict Lent. She has not a single thought in common with you +all. No; I am very sorry for Miss Fountain." + +Helbeck was silent a moment. His dark face showed a shade of disturbance. + +"She has some relations near here," he said at last, "but unfortunately I +can't do much to promote her seeing them. You remember Williams's story?" + +"Of course. You had some local row, didn't you? Ah! I remember." + +And the two men walked on, discussing a case which had been and was still +of great interest to them as Catholics. The hero, moreover--the Jesuit +novice himself--was well known to them both. + +"So Miss Fountain's relations belong to that peasant class?" said the +Jesuit, musing. "How curious that she should find herself in such a +double relation to you and Bannisdale!" + +"Consider me a little, if you please," said Helbeck, with his slight, +rare smile. "While that young lady is under my roof--you see how +attractive she is--I cannot get rid, you will admit, of a certain +responsibility. Augustina has neither the will nor the authority of a +mother, and there is literally no one else. Now there happens to be a +young man in this Mason family----" + +"Ah!" said the priest; "the young gentleman who jumped out at the bridge, +with such a very light pair of heels?" + +Helbeck nodded. "The old people were peasants and fanatics. They thought +ill of me in the Williams affair, and the mother, who is still alive, +would gladly hang and quarter me to-morrow if she could. But that is +another point. The old people had their own dignity, their own manners +and virtues--or, rather, the manners and virtues of their class. The old +man was coarse and boorish, but he was hard-working and honourable, and a +Christian after his own sort. But the old man is dead, and the son, who +now works the farm jointly with his mother, is of no class and no +character. He has just education enough to despise his father and his +father's hard work. He talks the dialect with his inferiors, or his +kindred, and drops it with you and me. The old traditions have no hold +upon him, and he is just a vulgar and rather vicious hybrid, who drinks +more than is good for him and has a natural affinity for any sort of low +love-affair. I came across him at our last hunt ball. I never go to such +things, but last year I went." + +"Good!" ejaculated the Jesuit, turning a friendly face upon the speaker. + +Helbeck paused. The word, still more the emphasis with which it was +thrown out, challenged him. He was about to defend himself against an +implied charge, but thought better of it, and resumed: + +"And unfortunately, considering the way in which all the clan felt +towards me already, I found this youth in the supper-room, misbehaving +himself with a girl of his own sort, and very drunk. I fetched a steward, +and he was told to go. After which, you may imagine that it is scarcely +agreeable to me to see my guest--a very young lady, very pretty, very +distinguished--driving about the country in cousinly relations with this +creature!" + +The last words were spoken with considerable vivacity. The aristocrat and +the ascetic, the man of high family and the man of scrupulous and +fastidious character, were alike expressed in them. + +The Jesuit pondered a little. + +"No; you will have to keep watch. Why not distract her? You must have +plenty of other neighbours to show her." + +Helbeck shook his head. + +"I live like a hermit. My sister is in the first year of her widowhood +and very delicate." + +"I see." The Jesuit hesitated, then said, smiling, in the tone of one who +makes a venture: "The Bishop and I allowed ourselves to discuss these +cloistered ways of yours the other day. We thought you would forgive us +as a pair of old friends." + +"I know," was the somewhat quick interruption, "the Bishop is of +Manning's temper in these things. He believes in acting on and with the +Protestant world--in our claiming prominence as citizens. It was to +please him that I joined one or two committees last year--that I went to +the hunt ball----" + +Then, suddenly, in a very characteristic way, Helbeck checked his own +flow of speech, and resumed more quietly: "Well, all that----" + +"Leaves you of the same opinion still?" said the Jesuit, smiling. + +"Precisely. I don't belong to my neighbours, nor they to me. We don't +speak the same language, and I can't bring myself to speak theirs. The +old conditions are gone, I know. But my feeling remains pretty much, what +that of my forefathers was. I recognise that it is not common +nowadays--but I have the old maxim in my blood: 'Extra ecclesiam nulla +salus.'" + +"There is none which has done us more deadly harm in England," cried the +Jesuit. "We forget that England is a baptized nation, and is therefore in +the supernatural state." + +"I remind myself of it very often," said Helbeck, with a kind of proud +submission; "and I judge no man. But my powers, my time, are all limited. +I prefer to devote them to the 'household of faith.'" + +The two men walked on in silence for a time. Presently Father Leadham's +face showed amusement, and he said: + +"Certainly we modern converts have a better time of it than our +predecessors! The Bishop tells me the most incredible things about the +old feeling towards them in this Vicariate. And wherever I go I seem to +hear the tale of the old priest who thanked God that he had never +received anyone into the Church. Everybody has met someone who knew that +old fellow! He may be a myth--but there is clearly history at the back of +him!" + +"I understand him perfectly," said Helbeck, smiling; and he added +immediately, with a curious intensity, "I, too, have never influenced, +never tried to influence, anyone in my life." + +The priest looked at him, wondering. + +"Not Williams?" + +"Williams! But Williams was born for the faith. Directly he saw what I +wanted to do in the chapel, he prayed to come and help me. It was his +summer holiday--he neglected no duty; it was wonderful to see his +happiness in the work--as I thought, an artistic happiness only. He used +to ask me questions about the different saints; once or twice he borrowed +a book--it was necessary to get the emblems correct. But I never said a +single controversial word to him. I never debated religious subjects with +him at all, till the night when he took refuge with me after his father +had thrashed him so cruelly that he could not stand. Grace taught him, +not I." + +"Grace taught him, but through you," said the priest with quiet emphasis. +"Perhaps I know more about that than you do." + +Helbeck flushed. + +"I think you are mistaken. At any rate, I should prefer that you were +mistaken." + +The priest raised his eyebrows. + +"A man who holds 'no salvation outside the Church,'" he said slowly, "and +rejoices in the thought that he has never influenced anybody?" + +"I should hope little from the work achieved by such an instrument. Some +men have enough to do with their own souls," was the low but vehement +answer. + +The priest threw a wondering glance at his companion, at the signs of +feeling--profound and morbid feeling--on the harsh face beside him. + +"Perhaps you have never cared enough for anyone outside to wish +passionately to bring them within," he said. "But if that ever happens to +you, you will be ready--I think you will be ready--to use any tool, even +yourself." + +The priest's voice changed a little. Helbeck, somewhat startled, recalled +the facts of Father Leadham's personal history, and thought he +understood. The subject was instantly dropped, and the two men walked on +to the house, discussing a great canonisation service at St. Peter's and +the Pope's personal part in it. + + * * * * * + +The old Hall, as Helbeck and Father Leadham approached it, looked down +upon a scene of animation to which in these latter days it was but little +accustomed. The green spaces and gravelled walks in front of it were +sprinkled with groups of children in a blue-and-white uniform. Three or +four Sisters of Mercy in their winged white caps moved about among them, +and some of the children hung clustered like bees about the Sisters' +skirts, while others ran here and there, gleefully picking the scattered +daffodils that starred the grass. + +The invaders came from the Orphanage of St. Ursula, a house founded by +Mr. Helbeck's exertions, which lay half-way between Bannisdale and +Whinthorpe. They had not long arrived, and were now waiting for Rosary +and Benediction in the chapel before they were admitted to the tea which +Mrs. Denton and Augustina had already spread for them in the big hall. + +At sight of the children Helbeck's face lit up and his step quickened. +They on their side ran to him from all parts; and he had hardly time to +greet the Sisters in charge of them, before the eager creatures were +pulling him into the walled garden behind the Hall, one small girl +hanging on his hand, another perched upon his shoulder. Father Leadham +went into the house to prepare for the service. + +The garden was old and dark, like the Tudor house that stood between it +and the sun. Rows of fantastic shapes carved in living yew and box stood +ranged along the straight walks. A bowling-green enclosed in high beech +hedges was placed in the exact centre of the whole formal place, while +the walks and alleys from three sides, west, north, and south, converged +upon it, according to a plan unaltered since it was first laid down in +the days of James II. At this time of the year there were no flowers in +the stiff flower-beds; for Mr. Helbeck had long ceased to spend any but +the most necessary monies upon his garden. Only upon the high stone walls +that begirt this strange and melancholy pleasure-ground, and in the +"wilderness" that lay on the eastern side, between the garden and the +fell, were nature and the spring allowed to show themselves. Their joint +magic had covered the old walls with fruit blossom and spread the +"wilderness" with daffodils. Otherwise all was dark, tortured, fantastic, +a monument of old-world caprice that the heart could not love, though +piety might not destroy it. + +The children, however, brought life and brightness. They chased each +other up and down the paths, and in and out of the bowling-green. Helbeck +set them to games, and played with them himself. Only for the orphans now +did he ever thus recall his youth. + +Two Sisters, one comparatively young, the other a woman of fifty, stood +in an opening of the bowling-green, looking at the games. + +The younger one said to her companion, who was the Superior of the +orphanage, "I do like to see Mr. Helbeck with the children! It seems to +change him altogether." + +She spoke with eager sympathy, while her eyes, the visionary eyes of the +typical religious, sunk in a face that was at once sweet and peevish, +followed the children and their host. + +The other--shrewd-faced and large--had a movement of impatience. + +"I should like to see Mr. Helbeck with some children of his own. For five +years now I have prayed our Blessed Mother to give him a good wife. +That's what he wants. Ah! Mrs. Fountain----" + +And as Augustina advanced with her little languid air, accompanied by her +stepdaughter, the Sisters gathered round her, chattering and cooing, +showing her a hundred attentions, enveloping her in a homage that was +partly addressed to the sister of their benefactor, and partly--as she +well understood--to the sheep that had been lost and was found. To the +stepdaughter they showed a courteous reserve. One or two of them had +already made acquaintance with her, and had not found her amiable. + +And, indeed, Laura held herself aloof, as before. But she shot a glance +of curiosity at the elderly woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. +The girl had caught the remark as she and her stepmother turned the +corner of the dense beechen hedge that, with openings to each point of +the compass, enclosed the bowling-green. + +Presently Helbeck, stopping to take breath in a game of which he had been +the life, caught sight of the slim figure against the red-brown of the +hedge. The next moment he perceived that Miss Fountain was watching him +with an expression of astonishment. + +His first instinct was to let her be. Her manner towards him since her +arrival, with hardly a break, had been such as to chill the most sociable +temper. And Helbeck's temper was far from sociable. + +But something in her attitude--perhaps its solitariness--made him +uncomfortable. He went up to her, dragging with him a crowd of small +children, who tugged at his coat and hands. + +"Miss Fountain, will you take pity on us? My breath is gone." + +He saw her hesitate. Then her sudden smile broke out. + +"What'll you have?" she said, catching hold of the nearest child. "Mother +Bunch?" + +And off she flew, running, twisting, turning with the merriest of them, +her loosened hair gleaming in the sun, her small feet twinkling. Now it +was Helbeck's turn to stand and watch. What a curious grace and purpose +there was in all her movements! Even in her play Miss Fountain was a +personality. + +At last a little girl who was running with her began to drag and turn +pale. Laura stopped to look at her. + +"I can't run any more," said the child piteously. "I had a bone took out +of my leg last year." + +She was a sickly-looking creature, rickety and consumptive, a waif from a +Liverpool slum. Laura picked her up and carried her to a seat in a yew +arbour away from the games. Then the child studied her with shy-looking +eyes, and suddenly slipped an arm like a bit of stick round the pretty +lady's neck. + +"Tell me a story, please, teacher," she said imploringly. + +Laura was taken aback, for she had forgotten the tales of her own +childhood, and had never possessed any younger brothers or sisters, or +paid much attention to children in general. But with some difficulty she +stumbled through Cinderella. + +"Oh, yes, I know that; but it's lovely," said the child, at the end, with +a sigh of content. "Now I'll tell you one." + +And in a high nasal voice, like one repeating a lesson in class, she +began upon something which Laura soon discovered to be the life of a +saint. She followed the phrases of it with a growing repugnance, till at +last the speaker said, with the unction of one sure of her audience: + +"And once the good Father went to a hospital to visit some sick people. +And as he was hearing a poor sailor's confession, he found out that it +was his own brother, whom he had not seen for a long, long time. Now the +sailor was very ill, and going to die, and he had been a bad man, and +done a great many wicked things. But the good Father did not let the poor +man know who he was. He went home and told his Superior that he had found +his brother. And the Superior forbade him to go and see his brother +again, because, he said, God would take care of him. And the Father was +very sad, and the devil tempted him sorely. But he prayed to God, and God +helped him to be obedient. + +"And a great many years afterwards a poor woman came to see the good +Father. And she told him she had seen our Blessed Lady in a vision. And +our Blessed Lady had sent her to tell the Father that because he had been +so obedient, and had not been to see his brother again, our Lady had +prayed our Lord for his brother. And his brother had made a good death, +and was saved, all because the good Father had obeyed what his Superior +told him." + +Laura sprang up. The child, who had expected a kiss and a pious phrase, +looked up, startled. + +"Wasn't that a pretty story?" she said timidly. + +"No; I don't like it at all," said Miss Fountain decidedly. "I wonder +they tell you such tales!" + +The child stared at her for a moment. Then a sudden veil fell across the +clearness of her eyes, which had the preternatural size and brilliance of +disease. Her expression changed. It became the slyness of the watching +animal, that feels the enemy. She said not another word. + +Laura felt a pang of shame, even though she was still vibrating with the +repulsion the child's story had excited in her. + +"Look!" she said, raising the little one in her arms; "the others are all +going into the house. Shall we go too?" + +But the child struggled resolutely. + +"Let me down. I can walk." Laura set her down, and the child walked as +fast as her lame leg would let her to join the others. Once or twice she +looked round furtively at her companion; but she would not take the hand +Laura offered her, and she seemed to have wholly lost her tongue. + +"Little bigot!" thought Laura, half angry, half amused; "do they catch it +from their cradle?" + +Presently they found themselves in the tail of a crowd of children and +Sisters who were ascending the stairs of a doorway opening on the garden. +The doorway led, as Laura knew, to the corridor of the chapel. She let +herself be carried along, irresolute, and presently she found herself +within the curtained doorway, mechanically helping the Sisters and +Augustina to put the children in their places. + +One or two of the older children noticed that the young lady with Mrs. +Fountain did not sign herself with holy water, and did not genuflect in +passing the altar, and they looked at her with a stealthy surprise. A +gentle-looking young Sister came up to her as she was lifting a very +small child to a seat. + +"Thank you," murmured the Sister, "It is very good of you." But the +voice, though so soft, was cold, and Laura at once felt herself the +intruder, and withdrew to the back of the crowd. + +Yet again, as at her first visit to the chapel, so now, she was too +curious, for all her soreness, to go. She must see what they would be at. + + * * * * * + +"Rosary" passed, and she hardly understood a word. The voice of the +Jesuit intoning suggested nothing intelligible to her, and it was some +time before she could even make out what the children were saying in +their loud-voiced responses. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us +sinners, now and at the hour of our death"--was that it? And occasionally +an "Our Father" thrown in--all of it gabbled as fast as possible, as +though the one object of both priest and people were to get through and +make an end. Over and over again, without an inflection, or a +change--with just the one monotonous repetition and the equally +monotonous variation. What a barbarous and foolish business! + +Very soon she gave up listening. Her eyes wandered to the frescoes, to +the bare altar with its purple covering, to the tall candles sparkling +before the tabernacle; and the coloured and scented gloom, pierced with +the distant lights, gave her a vague pleasure. + +Presently there was a pause. The children settled themselves in their +seats with a little clatter. Father Leadham retired, while the Sisters +knelt, each bowed profoundly on herself, eyes closed under her coif, +hands clasped in front of her. + +What were they waiting for? Ah! there was the priest again, but in a +changed dress--a white cope of some splendour. The organ, played by one +of the Sisters, broke out upon the silence, and the voices of the rest +rose suddenly, small and sweet, in a Latin hymn. The priest went to the +tabernacle, and set it open. There was a swinging of incense, and the +waves of fragrant smoke flowed out upon the chapel, dimming the altar and +the figure before it. Laura caught sight for a moment of the young Sister +who had spoken to her. She was kneeling and singing, with sweet, shut +eyes; it was clear that she was possessed by a fervour of feeling. Miss +Fountain thought to herself, with wonder, "She cannot be much older than +I am!" + +After the hymn it was the children's turn. What were they singing so +lustily to so dancing a tune? Laura bent over to look at the book of a +Sister in front of her. + +"Virgo prudentissima, Virgo veneranda, Virgo praedicanda----" + +With difficulty she found the place in another book that lay upon a chair +beside her. Then for a few minutes she lost herself in a first amazement +over that string of epithets and adjectives with which the Catholic +Church throughout the world celebrates day by day and Sunday after Sunday +the glories of Mary. The gay music, the harsh and eager voices of the +children, flowed on, the waves of incense spread throughout the chapel. +When she raised her eyes they fell upon Helbeck's dark head in the far +distance, above his server's cotta. A quick change crossed her face, +transforming it to a passionate contempt. + + * * * * * + +But of her no one thought--save once. The beautiful "moment" of the +ceremony had come. Father Leadham had raised the monstrance, containing +the Host, to give the Benediction. Every Sister, every child, except a +few small and tired ones, was bowed in humblest adoration. + +Mr. Helbeck, too, was kneeling in the little choir. But his attention +wandered. With the exception of his walk with Father Leadham, he had been +in church since early morning, and even for him response was temporarily +exhausted. His look strayed over the chapel. + +It was suddenly arrested. Above the kneeling congregation a distant face +showed plainly in the April dusk amid the dimness of incense and +painting--a girl's face, delicately white and set--a face of revolt. + +"Why is she here?" was his first thought. It came with a rush of +annoyance, even resentment. But immediately other thoughts met it: "She +is lonely; she is here under my roof; she has lost her father; poor +child!" + +The last mental phrase was not so much his own as an echo from Father +Leadham. In Helbeck's mind it was spoken very much as the priest had +spoken it--with that strange tenderness, at once so intimate and so +impersonal, which belongs to the spiritual relations of Catholicism. The +girl's soul--lonely, hostile, uncared for--appealed to the charity of the +believer. At the same time there was something in her defiance, her crude +disapproval of his house and his faith, that stimulated and challenged +the man. Conscious for the first time of a new conflict of feeling within +himself, he looked steadily towards her across the darkness. + +It was as though he had sought and found a way to lift himself above her +young pride, her ignorant enmity. For a moment there was a curious +exaltation and tyranny in his thought. He dropped his head and prayed for +her, the words falling slow and deliberate within his consciousness. And +she could not resent it or stop it. It was an aggression before which she +was helpless; it struck down the protest of her pale look. + + * * * * * + +At supper, when the Sisters and their charges had departed, Father Bowles +appeared, and never before had Helbeck been so lamentably aware of the +absurdities and inferiorities of his parish priest. + +The Jesuit, too, was sharply conscious of them, and even Augustina felt +that something was amiss. Was it that they were all--except Father +Bowles--affected by the presence of the young lady on Helbeck's right--by +the cool detachment of her manner, the self-possession that appealed to +no one and claimed none of the prerogatives of sex and charm, while every +now and then it made itself felt in tacit and resolute opposition to her +environment? + +"He might leave those things alone!" thought the Jesuit angrily, as he +heard Father Bowles giving Mrs. Fountain a gently complacent account of a +geological lecture lately delivered in Whinthorpe. + +"What I always say, you know, my dear lady, is this: you must show me the +evidence! After all, you geologists have done much--you have dug here and +there, it is true. But dig all over the world--dig everywhere--lay it all +bare. Then you may ask me to listen to you!" + +The little round-faced priest looked round the table for support. Laura +bit her lip and bent over her plate. Father Leadham turned hastily to +Helbeck, and began to discuss with him a recent monograph on the Roman +Wall, showing a plentiful and scholarly knowledge of the subject. And +presently he drew in the girl opposite, addressing her with a +man-of-the-world ease and urbanity which disarmed her. It appeared that +he had just come back from mission-work in British Guiana, that he had +been in India, and was in all respects a travelled and accomplished +person. But the girl did not yield herself, though she listened quite +civilly and attentively while he talked. + +But again through the Jesuit's easy or polished phrases there broke the +purring inanity of Father Bowles. + +"Lourdes, my dear lady? Lourdes? How can there be the smallest doubt of +the miracles of Lourdes? Why! they keep two doctors on the spot to verify +everything!" + +The Jesuit's sense of humour was uncomfortably touched. He glanced at +Miss Fountain, but could only see that she was gazing steadily out of +window. + +As for himself, convert and ex-Fellow of a well-known college, he gave a +strong inward assent to the judgment of some of his own leaders, that the +older Catholic priests of this country are as a rule lamentably unfit for +their work. "Our chance in England is broadening every year," he said to +himself. "How are we to seize it with such tools? But all round we want +_men_. Oh! for a few more of those who were 'out in forty-five'!" + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room after dinner Laura, as usual, entrenched herself in +one of the deep oriel windows, behind a heavy table: Augustina showed an +anxious curiosity as to the expedition of the morning--as to the Masons +and their farm. But Laura would say very little about them. + +When the gentlemen came in, Helbeck sent a searching look round the +drawing-room. He had the air of one who enters with a purpose. + +The beautiful old room lay in a half-light. A lamp at either end could do +but little against the shadows that seemed to radiate from the panelled +walls and from the deep red hangings of the windows. But the wood fire on +the hearth sent out a soft glow, which fastened on the few points of +brilliance in the darkness--on the ivory of the fretted ceiling, on the +dazzling dress of the Romney, on the gold of Miss Fountain's hair. + +Laura looked up with some surprise as Helbeck approached her; then, +seeing that he apparently wished to talk, she made a place for him among +the old "Books of Beauty" with which she had been bestrewing the seat +that ran round the window. + +"I trust the pony behaved himself this morning?" he said, as he sat down. + +Laura answered politely. + +"And you found your way without difficulty?" + +"Oh, yes! Your directions were exact." + +Inwardly she said to herself, "Does he want to cross-examine me about the +Masons?" Then, suddenly, she noticed the scar under his hair--a jagged +mark, testifying to a wound of some severity--and it made her +uncomfortable. Nay, it seemed in some curious way to put her in the +wrong, to shake her self-reliance. + +But Helbeck had not come with the intention of talking about the Masons. +His avoidance of their name was indeed a pointed one. He drew out her +admiration of the daffodils and of the view from Browhead Lane. + +"After Easter we must show you something of the high mountains. Augustina +tells me you admire the country. The head of Windermere will delight +you." + +His manner of offering her these civilities was somewhat stiff and +conventional--the manner of one who had been brought up among country +gentry of the old school, apart from London and the _beau monde_. But it +struck Laura that, for the first time, he was speaking to her as a man of +his breeding might be expected to speak to a lady visiting his house. +There was consideration, and an apparent desire to please. It was as +though she had grown all at once into something more in his eyes than +Mrs. Fountain's little stepdaughter, who was, no doubt, useful as a nurse +and a companion, but radically unwelcome and insignificant none the less. + +Inevitably the girl's vanity was smoothed. She began to answer more +naturally; her smile became more frequent. And gradually an unwonted ease +and enjoyment stole over Helbeck also. He talked with so much animation +at last as to draw the attention of another person in the room. Father +Leadham, who had been leaning with some languor against the high, carved +mantel, while Father Bowles and Augustina babbled beneath him, began to +take increasing notice of Miss Fountain, and of her relation to the +Bannisdale household. For a girl who had "no training, moral or +intellectual," she was showing herself, he thought, possessed of more +attraction than might have been expected, for the strict master of the +house. + +Presently Helbeck came to a pause in what he was saying. He had been +describing the country of Wordsworth, and had been dwelling on Grasmere +and Eydal Mount, in the tone, indeed, of one who had no vital concern +whatever with the Lake poets or their poetry, but still with an evident +desire to interest his companion. And following closely on this first +effort to make friends with her something further suggested itself. + +He hesitated, looked at Laura, and at last said, in a lower voice than he +had been using, "I believe your father, Miss Fountain, was a great lover +of Wordsworth. Augustina has told me so. You and he were accustomed, were +you not, to read much together? Your loss must be very great. You will +not wonder, perhaps, that for me there are painful thoughts connected +with your father. But I have not been insensible--I have not been without +feeling--for my sister--and for you." + +He spoke with embarrassment, and a kind of appeal. Laura had been +startled by his first words, and while he spoke she sat very pale and +upright, staring at him. The hand on her lap shook. + +When he ceased she did not answer. She turned her head, and he saw her +pretty throat tremble. Then she hastily raised her handkerchief; a +struggle passed over the face; she wiped away her tears, and threw back +her head, with a sobbing breath and a little shake of the bright hair, +like one who reproves herself. But she said nothing; and it was evident +that she could say nothing without breaking down. + +Deeply touched, Helbeck unconsciously drew a little nearer to her. +Changing the subject at once, he began to talk to her of the children and +the little festival of the afternoon. An hour before he would have +instinctively avoided doing anything of the kind. Now, at last, he +ventured to be himself, or something near it. Laura regained her +composure, and bent her attention upon him, with a slightly frowning +brow. Her mind was divided between the most contradictory impulses and +attractions. How had it come about, she asked herself, after a while, +that _she_ was listening like this to his schemes for his children and +his new orphanage?--she, and not his natural audience, the two priests +and Augustina. + +She actually heard him describe the efforts made by himself and one or +two other Catholics in the county to provide shelter and education for +the county's Catholic orphans. He dwelt on the death and disappearance of +some of his earlier colleagues, on the urgent need for a new building in +the neighbourhood of the county town, and for the enlargement of the +"home" he himself had put up some ten years before, on the Whinthorpe +Road. + +"But, unfortunately, large plans want large means," he added, with a +smile, "and I fear it will come to it--has Augustina said anything to you +about it?--I fear there is nothing for it, but that our beauteous lady +there must provide them." + +He nodded towards the picture that gleamed from the opposite wall. Then +he added gravely, and with a perfect simplicity: + +"It is my last possession of any value." + +Several times during the fortnight that she had known him, Laura had +heard him speak with a similar simplicity about his personal and +pecuniary affairs. That anyone so stately should treat himself and his +own worldly concerns with so much _naivete_ had been a source of frequent +surprise to her. To what, then, did his dignity, his reserve apply? + +Nevertheless, because, childishly, she had already taken a side, as it +were, about the picture, his manner, with its apparent indifference, +annoyed her. She drew back. + +"Yes, Augustina told me. But isn't it cruel? isn't it unkind? A picture +like that is alive. It has been here so long--one could hardly feel it +belonged only to oneself. It is part of the house, isn't it?--part of the +family? Won't other people--people who come after--reproach you?" + +Helbeck lifted his shoulders, his dark face half amused, half sad. + +"She died a hundred years ago, pretty creature! She has had her turn; so +have we--in the pleasure of looking at her." + +"But she belongs to you," said the girl insistently. "She is your own +kith and kin." + +He hesitated, then said, with a new emphasis that answered her own: + +"Perhaps there are two sorts of kindred----" + +The girl's cheek flushed. + +"And the one you mean may always push out the other? I know, because one +of your children told me a story to-day--such a frightful story!--of a +saint who would not go to see his dying brother, for obedience' sake. She +asked me if I liked it. How could I say I liked it! I told her it was +horrible! I wondered how people could tell her such tales." + +Her bearing was again all hostility--a young defiance. She was delighted +to confess herself. Her crime, untold, had been pressing upon her +conscience, hurting her natural frankness. + +Helbeck's face changed. He looked at her attentively, the fine dark eye, +under the commanding brow, straight and sparkling. + +"You said that to the child?" + +"Yes." + +Her breast fluttered. She trembled, he saw, with an excitement she could +hardly repress. + +He, too, felt a novel excitement--the excitement of a strong will +provoked. It was clear to him that she meant to provoke him--that her +young personality threw itself wantonly across his own. He spoke with a +harsh directness. + +"You did wrong, I think--quite wrong. Excuse the word, but you have +brought me to close quarters. You sowed the seeds of doubt, of revolt, in +a child's mind." + +"Perhaps," said Laura quickly. "What then?" + +She wore her half-wild, half-mocking look. Everything soft and touching +had disappeared. The eyes shone under the golden mass of hair; the small +mouth was close and scornful. Helbeck looked at her in amazement, his own +pulse hurrying. + +"What then?" he echoed, with a sternness that astonished himself. "Ask +your own feeling. What has a child--a little child under orders--to do +with doubt, or revolt? For her--for all of us--doubt is misery." + +Laura rose. She forced down her agitation--made herself speak plainly. + +"Papa taught me--it was life--and I believe him." + +The old clock in the farther corner of the room struck a quarter to +ten--the hour of prayers. The two priests on the farther side of the room +stood up, and Augustina sheathed her knitting-needles. + +Laura turned towards Helbeck and coldly held out her little hand. He +touched it, and she crossed the room. "Good-night, Augustina." + +She kissed her stepmother, and bowed to the two priests. Father Leadham +ceremoniously opened the door for her. Then he and Helbeck, Father Bowles +and Augustina followed across the dark hall on their way to the chapel. +Laura took her candle, and her light figure could be seen ascending the +Jacobean staircase, a slim and charming vision against the shadows of the +old house. + +Father Leadham followed it with eyes and thoughts. Then he glanced +towards Helbeck. An idea--and one that was singularly unwelcome--was +forcing its way into the priest's mind. + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER I + +From that night onwards the relations between Helbeck and his sister's +stepdaughter took another tone. He no longer went his own way, with no +more than a vague consciousness that a curious and difficult girl was in +the house; he watched her with increasing interest; he began to taste, as +it were, the thorny charm that was her peculiar possession. + +Not that he was allowed to see much of the charm. After the conversation +of Passion Sunday her manner to him was no less cold and distant than +before. Their final collision, on the subject of the child, had, he +supposed, undone the effects of his conciliatory words about her father. +It must be so, no doubt, since her hostile observation of him and of his +friends seemed to be in no whit softened. + +That he should be so often conscious of her at this particular time +annoyed and troubled him. It was the most sacred moment of the Catholic +year. Father Leadham, his old Stonyhurst friend, had come to spend +Passion Week and Holy Week at Bannisdale, as a special favour to one whom +the Church justly numbered among the most faithful of her sons; while the +Society of Jesus had many links of mutual service and affection, both +with the Helbeck family in the past and with the present owner of the +Hall. Helbeck, indeed, was of real importance to Catholicism in this +particular district of England. It had once abounded in Catholic +families, but now hardly one of them remained, and upon Helbeck, with his +small resources and dwindling estate, devolved a number of labours which +should have been portioned out among a large circle. Only enthusiasm such +as his could have sufficed for the task. But, for the Church's sake, he +had now remained unmarried some fifteen years. He lived like an ascetic +in the great house, with a couple of women servants; he spent all his +income--except a fraction--on the good works of a wide district; when +larger sums were necessary he was ready, nay, eager, to sell the land +necessary to provide them; and whenever he journeyed to other parts of +England, or to the Continent, it was generally assumed that he had gone, +not as other men go, for pleasure and recreation, but simply that he +might pursue some Catholic end, either of money or administration, among +the rich and powerful of the faith elsewhere. Meanwhile, it was believed +that he had bequeathed the house and park of Bannisdale to a distant +cousin, also a strict Catholic, with the warning that not much else would +remain to his heir from the ancient and splendid inheritance of the +family. + +It was not wonderful, then, that the Jesuits should be glad to do such a +man a service; and no service could have been greater in Helbeck's eyes +than a visit from a priest of their order during these weeks of emotion +and of penance. Every day Mass was said in the little chapel; every +evening a small flock gathered to Litany or Benediction. Ordinary life +went on as it could in the intervals of prayer and meditation. The house +swarmed with priests--with old and infirm priests, many of them from a +Jesuit house of retreat on the western coast, not far away, who found in +a visit to Bannisdale one of the chief pleasures of their suffering or +monotonous lives; while the Superiors of Helbeck's own orphanages were +always ready to help the Bannisdale chapel, on days of special sanctity, +by sending a party of Sisters and children to provide the singing. + +Meanwhile all else was forgotten. As to food, Helbeck and Father +Leadham--according to the letters describing her experiences which Laura +wrote during these weeks to a Cambridge girl friend--lived upon "a cup of +coffee and a banana" per day, and she had endless difficulty in +restraining her charge, Augustina, from doing likewise. For Augustina, +indeed--Stephen Fountain's little black-robed widow--her husband was +daily receding further and further into a dim and dreadful distance, +where she feared and yet wept to think of him. She passed her time in the +intoxication of her recovered faith, excited by the people around her, by +the services in the chapel, and by her very terrors over her own unholy +union, lapse, and restoration. The sound of intoning, the scent, of +incense, seemed to pervade the house; and at the centre of all brooded +that mysterious Presence upon the altar, which drew the passion of +Catholic hearts to itself in ever deeper measure as the great days of +Holy Week and Easter approached. + +Through all this drama of an inventive and exacting faith, Laura Fountain +passed like a being from another world, an alien and a mocking spirit. +She said nothing, but her eyes were satires. The effect of her presence +in the house was felt probably by all its inmates, and by many of its +visitors. She did not again express herself--except rarely to +Augustina--with the vehemence she had shown to the little lame orphan; +she was quite ready to chat and laugh upon occasion with Father Leadham, +who had a pleasant wit, and now and then deliberately sought her society; +and, owing to the feebleness of Augustina, she, quite unconsciously, +established certain household ways which spoke the woman, and were new to +Bannisdale. She filled the drawing-room with daffodils; she made the +tea-table by the hall fire a cheerful place for any who might visit it; +she flitted about the house in the prettiest and neatest of spring +dresses; her hair, her face, her white hands and neck shone amid the +shadows of the panelling like jewels in a casket. Everyone was conscious +of her--uneasily conscious. She yielded herself to no one, was touched by +no one. She stood apart, and through her cold, light ways spoke the world +and the spirit that deny--the world at which the Catholic shudders. + +At the same time, like everybody else in the house--even the sulky +housekeeper--she grew pale and thin from Lenten fare. Mr. Helbeck had of +course given orders to Mrs. Denton that his sister and Miss Fountain were +to be well provided. But Mrs. Denton was grudging or forgetful; and it +amused Laura to see that Augustina was made to eat, while she herself +fared with the rest. The viands of whatever sort were generally scanty +and ill-cooked; and neither the Squire nor Father Leadham cared anything +about the pleasures of the table, in Lent or out of it. Mr. Helbeck +hardly noticed what was set before him. Once or twice indeed he woke up +to the fact that there was not enough for the ladies and would say an +angry word to Mrs. Denton. But on the whole Laura was able to follow her +whim and to try for herself what this Catholic austerity might be like. + +"My dear," she wrote to her friend, "one thing you learn from a Catholic +Lent is that food matters 'nowt at aw,' as they would say in these parts. +You can do just as well without it as with it. Why you should think +yourself a saint for not eating it puzzles me. Otherwise--_vive la faim_! +And as we are none of us likely to starve ourselves half so much as the +poor people of the world, the soldiers, and sailors, and explorers, are +always doing, to please themselves or their country, I don't suppose that +anybody will come to harm. + +"You are to understand, nevertheless, that our austerities are rather +unusual. And when anyone comes in from the outside they are concealed as +much as possible.... The old Helbecks, as far as I can hear, must have +been very different people from their modern descendant. They were quite +good Catholics, understand. What the Church prescribed they did--but not +a fraction beyond. They were like the jolly lazy sort of schoolboy, who +_just_ does his lesson, but would think himself a fool if he did a word +more. Whereas the man who lives here now can never do enough! + +"And in general these old Catholic houses--from Augustina's tales--must +have been full of fun and feasting. Well, I can vouch for it, there is no +fun in Bannisdale now! It is Mr. Helbeck's personality, I suppose. It +makes its own atmosphere. He _can_ laugh--I have seen it myself!--but it +is an event." + + * * * * * + +As Lent went on, the mingling of curiosity and cool criticism with which +Miss Fountain regarded her surroundings became perhaps more apparent. +Father Leadham, in particular, detected the young lady's fasting +experiments. He spoke of them to Helbeck as showing a lack of delicacy +and good taste. But the Squire, it seemed, was rather inclined to regard +them as the whims of a spoilt and wilful child. + +This difference of shade in the judgment of the two men may rank as one +of the first signs of all that was to come. + +Certainly Helbeck had never before felt himself so uncomfortable in his +own house as he had done since the arrival of this girl of twenty-one. +Nevertheless, as the weeks went on, the half-amused, half-contemptuous +embarrassment, which had been the first natural effect of her presence +upon the mind of a man so little used to women and their ways, had passed +imperceptibly into something else. His reserved and formal manner +remained the same. But Miss Fountain's goings and comings had ceased to +be indifferent to him. A silent relation--still unknown to her--had +arisen between them. + +When he first noticed the fact in himself, it produced a strong, +temporary reaction. He reproached himself for a light and unworthy +temper. Had his solitary life so weakened him that any new face and +personality about him could distract and disturb him, even amid the great +thoughts of these solemn days? His heart, his life were in his faith. For +more than twenty years, by prayer and meditation, by all the ingenious +means that the Catholic Church provides, he had developed the +sensibilities of faith; and for the Catholic these sensibilities are +centred upon and sustained by the Passion. Now, hour by hour, his Lord +was moving to the Cross. He stood perpetually beside the sacred form in +the streets of Jerusalem, in Gethsemane, on the steps of the Praetorium. +A varied and dramatic ceremonial was always at hand to stimulate the +imagination, the penitence, and the devotion of the believer. That +anything whatever should break in upon the sacred absorption of these +days would have seemed to him beforehand a calamity to be shrunk +from--nay, a sin to be repented. He had put aside all business that could +be put aside with one object, and one only--to make "a good Easter." + +And yet, no sooner did he come back from service in the chapel, or from +talk of Church matters with Catholic friends, than he found himself +suddenly full of expectation. Was Miss Fountain in the hall, in the +garden? or was she gone to those people at Browhead? If she was not in +the house--above all, if she was with the Masons--he would find it hard +to absorb himself again in the thoughts that had held him before. If she +was there, if he found her sitting reading or working by the hall fire, +with the dogs at her feet, he seldom indeed went to speak to her. He +would go into his library, and force himself to do his business, while +Father Leadham talked to her and Augustina. But the library opened on the +hall, and he could still hear that voice in the distance. Often, when she +caressed the dogs, her tones had the note in them which had startled him +on her very first evening under his roof. It was the emergence of +something hidden and passionate; and it awoke in himself a strange and +troubling echo--the passing surge of an old memory long since thrust down +and buried. How fast his youth was going from him! It was fifteen years +since a woman's voice, a woman's presence, had mattered anything at all +to him. + +So it came about that, in some way or other, he knew, broadly, all that +Miss Fountain did, little as he saw of her. It appeared that she had +discovered a pony carriage for hire in the little village near the +bridge, and once or twice during this fortnight, he learned from +Augustina that she had spent the afternoon at Browhead Farm, while the +Bannisdale household had been absorbed in some function of the season. + +Augustina disliked the news as much as he did, and would throw up her +hands in annoyance. + +"What _can_ she be doing there? They seem the roughest kind of people. +But she says the son plays so wonderfully. I believe she plays duets with +him. She goes out with the cart full of music." + +"Music!" said Helbeck, in frank amazement. "That lout!" + +"Well, she says so," said Augustina crossly, as though it were a personal +affront. "And what do you think, Alan? She talks of going to a dance up +there after Easter--next Thursday, I think." + +"At the farm?" Helbeck's tone was incredulous. + +"No; at the mill--or somewhere. She says the schoolmaster is giving it, +or something of that sort. Of course it's most unsuitable. But what am I +to do, Alan? They _are_ her relations!" + +"At the same time they are not her class," said Helbeck decidedly. "She +has been brought up in a different way, and she cannot behave as though +she belonged to them. And a dance, with that young man to look after her! +You ought to stop it." + +Augustina said dismally that she would try, but her head shook with more +feebleness than usual as she went back to her knitting. + + * * * * * + +Next day Helbeck made a point of finding his sister alone. But she only +threw him a deprecatory look. + +"I tried, Alan--indeed I did. She says that she wants some +amusement--that it will do her good--and that of course her father would +have let her go to a dance with his relations. And when I say anything to +her about not being quite like them, she fires up. She says she would be +ashamed to be thought any better than they, and that Hubert has a great +deal more good in him than some people think." + +"Hubert!" exclaimed Mr. Helbeck, raising his shoulders in disgust. After +a little silence he turned round as he was leaving the room, and said +abruptly: "Is she to stay the night at the farm?" + +"No! oh, no! She wants to come home. She says she won't be late; she +promises not to be late." + +"And that young fellow will drive her home, of course?" + +"Well, she couldn't drive home alone, Alan, at that time of night. It +wouldn't be proper." + +Mr. Helbeck smiled rather sourly. "One may doubt where the propriety +comes in. Well, she seems determined. We must just arrange it. There is +the tower door. Kindly tell her, Augustina, that I will let her have the +key of it. And kindly tell her also--as from yourself, of course--that +she will be treating us all with courtesy if she does come home at a +reasonable hour. We have been a very quiet, prim household all these +years, and Mrs. Denton, for all her virtues, has a tongue." + +"So she has," said Augustina, sighing. "And she doesn't like Laura--not +at all." + +Helbeck raised his head quickly. "She does nothing to make Miss Fountain +uncomfortable, I trust?" + +"Oh--no," said Augustina undecidedly. "Besides, it doesn't matter. Laura +has got Ellen under her thumb." + +Helbeck's grave countenance showed a gleam of amusement. + +"How does Mrs. Denton take that?" + +"Oh! she has to bear it. Haven't you seen, Alan, how the girl has +brightened up? Laura has shown her how to do her hair; she helped her to +make a new frock for Easter; the girl would do anything in the world for +her. It's like Bruno. Do you notice, Alan--I really thought you would be +angry--that the dog will hardly go with you when Laura's there?" + +"Oh! Miss Fountain is a very attractive young lady--to those she likes," +said Helbeck dryly. + +And on that he went away. + +On Good Friday afternoon Laura, in a renewed passion of revolt against +all that was going on in the house, went to her room and wrote to her +friend. Litanies were being said in the chapel. The distant, melancholy +sounds mounted to her now and then. Otherwise the house was wrapped in a +mourning silence; and outside, trailing clouds hung round the old walls, +making a penitential barrier all about it. + +"After this week," wrote Laura to her friend, "I shall always feel kindly +towards 'sin'--and the 'world'! How they have been scouted and scourged! +And what, I ask you, would any of us do without them? The 'world,' +indeed! I seem to hear it go rumbling on, the poor, patient, toiling +thing, while these people are praying. It works, and makes it possible +for them to pray--while they abuse and revile it. + +"And as to 'sin,' and the gloom in which we all live because of it--what +on earth does it really mean to any decently taught and brought-up +creature? You are greedy, or selfish, or idle, or ill-behaved. Very well, +then--nature, or your next-door neighbor, knocks you down for it, and +serve you right. Next time you won't do it again, or not so badly, and by +degrees you don't even like to think of doing it--you would be 'ashamed,' +as people say. It's the process that everybody has to go through, I +suppose--being sent into the world the sort of beings we are, and without +any leave of ours, altogether. But why make such a wailing and woe and +hullabaloo about it! Oh--such a waste of time! Why doesn't Mr. Helbeck go +and learn geology? I vow he hasn't an idea what the rocks of his own +valley are made of! + +"Of course there are the _very_ great villains--I don't like to think +about them. And the people who are born wrong and sick. But by-and-by we +shall have weeded them out, or improved the breed. And why not spend your +energies on doing that, instead of singing litanies, and taking +ridiculous pains not to eat the things you like? + +"...I shall soon be in disgrace with Augustina and Mr. Helbeck, about the +Masons--worse disgrace, that is to say. For now that I have found a pony +of my own, I go up there two or three times a week. And really--in spite +of all those first experiences I told you of--I like it! Cousin Elizabeth +has begun to talk to me; and when I come home, I read the Bible to see +what it was all about. And I don't let her say too bad things about Mr. +Helbeck--it wouldn't be quite gentlemanly on my part. And I know most of +the Williams story now, both from her and Augustina. + +"Imagine, my dear!--a son not allowed to come and see his mother before +she died, though she cried for him night and day. He was at a Jesuit +school in Wales. They shilly-shallied, and wrote endless letters--and at +last they sent him off--the day she died. He arrived three hours too +late, and his father shut the door in his face. 'Noa yo' shan't see her,' +said the grim old fellow--'an if there's a God above, yo' shan't see her +in heaven nayder!' Augustina of course calls it 'holy obedience.' + +"The painting in the chapel is really extraordinary. Mr. Helbeck seems to +have taught the young man, to begin with. He himself used to paint long +ago--not very well, I should think, to judge from the bits of his work +still left in the chapel. But at any rate the youth learnt the rudiments +from him, and then of course went far beyond his teacher. He was almost +two years here, working in the house--tabooed by his family all the time. +Then there seems to have been a year in London, when he gave Mr. Helbeck +some trouble. I don't know--Augustina is vague. How it was that he joined +the Jesuits I can't make out. No doubt Mr. Helbeck induced them to take +him. But _why_--I ask you--with such a gift? They say he will be here in +the summer, and one will have to set one's teeth and shake hands with +him. + +"Oh, that droning in the chapel--there it is again! I will open the +window and let the howl of the rain in to get rid of it. And yet I can't +always keep myself away from it. It is all so new--so horribly intimate. +Every now and then the music or a prayer or something sends a stab right +down to my heart of hearts.--A voice of suffering, of torture--oh! so +ghastly, so _real_. Then I come and read papa's note-books for an hour to +forget it. I wish he had ever taught me anything--strictly! But _of +course_ it was my fault. + +"... As to this dance, why shouldn't I go?--just tell me! It is being +given by the new schoolmaster, and two or three young farmers, in the big +room at the old mill. The schoolmaster is the most tiresomely virtuous +young man, and the whole thing is so respectable, it makes me yawn to +think of it. Polly implores me to go, and I like Polly. (Very soon she'll +let me halve her fringe!) I gave Hubert a preliminary snub, and now he +doesn't dare implore me to go. But that is all the more engaging. I +_don't_ flirt with him!--heavens!--unless you call bear-taming +flirtation. But one can't see his music running to waste in such a bog of +tantrums and tempers. I must try my hand. And as he is my cousin I can +put up with him." + + * * * * * + +After High Mass on Easter Sunday Helbeck walked home from Whinthorpe +alone, as his companion Father Leadham had an engagement in the town. + +Through the greater part of Holy Week the skies had been as grey and +penitential as the season. The fells and the river flats had been +scourged at night with torrents of rain and wind, and in the pale +mornings any passing promise of sun had been drowned again before the day +was high. The roofs and eaves, the small panes of the old house, trickled +and shone with rain; and at night the wind tore through the gorge of the +river with great boomings and onslaughts from the west. But with Easter +eve there had come appeasement--a quiet dying of the long storm. And as +Helbeck made his way along the river on Easter morning, mountain and +flood, grass and tree, were in a glory of recovered sun. The distant +fells were drawn upon the sky in the heavenliest brushings of blue and +purple; the river thundered over its falls and weirs in a foamy +splendour; and the deer were feeding with a new zest amid the +fast-greening grass. + +He stopped a moment to rest upon his stick and look about him. Something +in his own movement reminded him of another solitary walk some five weeks +before. And at the same instant he perceived a small figure sitting on a +stone seat in front of him. It was Miss Fountain. She had a book on her +knee, and the two dogs were beside her. Her white dress and hat seemed to +make the centre of a whole landscape. The river bent inward in a great +sweep at her feet, the crag rose behind her, and the great prospect +beyond the river of dale and wood, of scar and cloud, seemed spread there +for her eyes alone. A strange fancy seized on Helbeck. This was his +world--his world by inheritance and by love. Five weeks before he had +walked about it as a solitary. And now this figure sat enthroned, as it +were, at the heart of it. He roughly shook the fancy off and walked on. + +Miss Fountain greeted him with her usual detachment. He stood a minute or +two irresolute, then threw himself on the slope in front of her. + +"Bruno will hardly look at his master now," he said to her pleasantly, +pointing to the dog's attitude as it lay with its nose upon the hem of +her dress. + +Laura closed her book in some annoyance. He usually returned by the other +side of the river, and she was not grateful to him for his breach of +habit. Why had he been meddling in her affairs? She perfectly understood +why Augustina had been making herself so difficult about the dance, and +about the Masons in general. Let him keep his proprieties to himself. +She, Laura, had nothing to do with them. She was hardly his guest--still +less his ward. She had come to Bannisdale against her will, simply and +solely as Augustina's nurse. In return, let Mr. Helbeck leave her alone +to enjoy her plebeian relations as she pleased. + +Nevertheless, of course she must be civil; and civil she intermittently +tried to be. She answered his remark about Bruno by a caress to the dog +that brought him to lay his muzzle against her knee. + +"Do you mind? Some people do mind. I can easily drive him away." + +"Oh, no! I reckon on recovering him--some day," he said, with a frank +smile. + +Laura flushed. + +"Very soon, I should think. Have you noticed, Mr. Helbeck, how much +better Augustina is already? I believe that by the end of the summer, at +least, she will be able to do without me. And she tells me that the +Superior at the orphanage has a girl to recommend her as a companion when +I go." + +"Rather officious of the Reverend Mother, I think," said Helbeck sharply. +He paused a moment, then added with some emphasis, "Don't imagine, Miss +Fountain, that anybody else can do for my sister what you do." + +"Ah! but--well--one must live one's life--mustn't one, Fricka?"--Fricka +was by this time jealously pawing her dress. "I want to work at my +music--hard--this winter." + +"And I fear that Bannisdale is not a very gay place for a young lady +visitor?" + +He smiled. And so did she; though his tone, with its shade of proud +humility, embarrassed her. + +"It is as beautiful as a dream!" she said, with sudden energy, throwing +up her little hand. And he turned to look, as she was looking, at the +river and the woods. + +"You feel the beauty of it so much?" he asked her, wondering. His own +strong feeling for his native place was all a matter of old habit and +association. The flash of wild pleasure in her face astounded him. There +was in it that fiery, tameless something that was the girl's +distinguishing mark, her very soul and self. Was it beginning to speak +from her blood to his? + +She nodded, then laughed. + +"But, of course, it isn't my business to live here. I have a great +friend--a Cambridge girl--and we have arranged it all. We are to live +together, and travel a great deal, and work at music." + +"That is what young ladies do nowadays, I understand." + +"And why not?" + +He lifted his shoulders, as though to decline the answer, and was +silent--so silent that she was forced at last to take the field. + +"Don't you approve of 'new women,' Mr. Helbeck? Oh! I wish I was a new +woman," she threw out defiantly. "But I'm not good enough--I don't know +anything." + +"I wasn't thinking of them," he said simply. "I was thinking of the life +that women used to live here, in this place, in the past--of my mother +and my grandmother." + +She could not help a stir of interest. What might the Catholic women of +Bannisdale have been like? She looked along the path that led downward to +the house, and seemed to see their figures upon it--not short and sickly +like Augustina, but with the morning in their eyes and on their white +brows, like the Romney lady. Helbeck's thoughts meanwhile were peopled by +the more solid forms of memory. + +"You remember the picture?" he said at last, breaking the silence. "The +husband of that lady was a boor and a gambler. He soon broke her heart. +But her children consoled her to some extent, especially the daughters, +several of whom became nuns. The poor wife came from a large Lancashire +family, but she hardly saw her relations after her marriage; she was +ashamed of her husband's failings and of their growing poverty. She +became very shy and solitary, and very devout. These rock-seats along the +river were placed by her. It is said that she used in summer to spend +long hours on that very seat where you are sitting, doing needlework, or +reading the Little Office of the Virgin, at the hours when her daughters +in their French convent would be saying their office in chapel. She died +before her husband, a very meek, broken creature. I have a little book of +her meditations, that she wrote out by the wish of her confessor. + +"Then my grandmother--ah! well, that is too long a story. She was a +Frenchwoman--we have some of her books in my study. She never got on with +England and English people--and at last, after her husband's death, she +never went outside the house and park. My father owed much of his shyness +and oddity to her bringing up. When she felt herself dying she went over +to her family to die at Nantes. She is buried there; and my father was +sent to the Jesuit school at Nantes for a long time. Then my mother--But +I mustn't bore you with these family tales." + +He turned to look at his listener. Laura was by this time half +embarrassed, half touched. + +"I should like to hear about your mother," she said rather stiffly. + +"You may talk to me if you like, but don't, pray, presume upon it!"--that +was what her manner said. + +Helbeck smiled a little, unseen, under his black moustache. + +"My mother was a great lover of books--the only Helbeck, I think, that +ever read anything. She was a friend and correspondent of Cardinal +Wiseman's--and she tried to make a family history out of the papers here. +But in her later years she was twisted and crippled by rheumatic +gout--her poor fingers could not turn the pages. I used to help her +sometimes; but we none of us shared her tastes. She was a very happy +person, however." + +Happy! Why? Laura felt a fresh prick of irritation as he paused. Was she +never to escape--not even here, in the April sun, beside the river bank! +For, of course, what all this meant was that the really virtuous and +admirable woman does not roam the world in search of art and friendship; +she makes herself happy at home with religion and rheumatic gout. + +But Helbeck resumed. And instantly it struck her that he had dropped a +sentence, and was taking up the thread further on. + +"But there was no priest in the house then, for the Society could not +spare us one; and very few services in the chapel. Through all her young +days nothing could be poorer or raggeder than English Catholicism. There +was no church at Whinthorpe. Sunday after Sunday my father used to read +the prayers in the chapel, which was half a lumber-room. I often think no +Dissent could have been barer; but we heard Mass when we could, and that +was enough for us. One of the priests from Stonyhurst came when she died. +This is her little missal." + +He raised it from the grass--a small volume bound in faded morocco--but +he did not offer to show it to Miss Fountain, and she felt no inclination +to ask for it. + +"Why did they live so much alone?" she asked him, with a little frown. "I +suppose there were always neighbours?" + +He shook his head. + +"A difference that has law and education besides religion behind it, goes +deep. Times are changed, but it goes deep still." + +There was a pause. Then she looked at him with a whimsical lifting of her +brows. + +"Bannisdale was not amusing?" she said. + +He laughed good-humouredly. "Not for a woman, certainly. For a man, yes. +There was plenty of rough sport and card-playing, and a good deal of +drinking. The men were full of character, often full of ability. But +there was no outlet--and a wretched education. My great-grandfather might +have been saved by a commission in the army. But the law forbade it him. +So they lived to themselves and by themselves; they didn't choose to live +with their Protestant neighbours--who had made them outlaws and +inferiors! And, of course, they sank in manners and refinement. You may +see the results in all the minor Catholic families to this day--that is, +the old families. The few great houses that remained faithful escaped +many of the drawbacks of the position. The smaller ones suffered, and +succumbed. But they had their compensations!" + +As he spoke he rose from the grass, and the dogs, springing up, barked +joyously about him. + +"Augustina will be waiting dinner for us, I think." + +Laura, who had meant to stay behind, saw that she was expected to walk +home with him. She rose unwillingly, and moved on beside him. + +"Their compensations?" That meant the Mass and all the rest of this +tyrannous clinging religion. What did it honestly mean to Mr. Helbeck--to +anybody? She remembered her father's rough laugh. "There are twelve +hundred men, my dear, belonging to the Athenaeum Club. I give you the +bishops. After them, what do you suppose religion has to say to the rest +of the twelve hundred? How many of them ever give a thought to it?" + +She raised her eyes, furtively, to Helbeck's face. In spite of its +melancholy lines, she had lately begun to see that its fundamental +expression was a contented one. That, no doubt, came from the +"compensations." But to-day there was more. She was positively startled +by his look of happiness as he strode silently along beside her. It was +all the more striking because of the plain traces left upon him by Lenten +fatigue and "mortification." + +It was Easter day, and she supposed he had come from Communion. + +A little shiver passed through her, caused by the recollection of words +she had heard, acts of which she had been a witness, in the chapel during +the foregoing week--words and acts of emotion, of abandonment--love +crying to love. A momentary thirst seized her--an instant's sense of +privation, of longing, gone almost as soon as it had come. + +Helbeck turned to her. + +"So this dance you are going to is on Thursday?" he said pleasantly. + +She came to herself in a moment. + +"Yes, on Thursday, at eight. I shall go early. I have engaged a fly to +take me to the farm--thank you!--and my cousins will see me home. I am +obliged to you for the key. It will save my giving any trouble." + +"If you did we should not grudge it," he said quietly. + +She was silent for a few more steps, then she said: + +"I quite understand, Mr. Helbeck, that you do not approve of my going. +But I must judge for myself. The Masons are my own people. I am sorry +they should have---- Well--I don't understand--but it seems you have +reason to think badly of them." + +"Not of _them_," he said with emphasis. + +"Of my cousin Hubert, then?" + +He made no answer. She coloured angrily, then broke out, her words +tumbling childishly over one another: + +"There are a great many things said of Hubert that I don't believe he +deserves! He has a great many good tastes--his music is wonderful. At any +rate, he is my cousin; they are papa's only relations in the world. He +would have been kind to Hubert; and he would have despised me if I turned +my back on them because I was staying in a grand house with grand +people!" + +"Grand people!" said Helbeck, raising his eyebrows. "But I am sorry I led +you to say these things, Miss Fountain. Excuse me--may I open this gate +for you?" + +She reached her own room as quickly as possible, and dropped upon the +chair beside her dressing-table in a whirl of angry feeling. A small and +heated face looked out upon her from the glass. But after the first +instinctive moment she took no notice of it. With the mind's eye she +still saw the figure she had just parted from, the noble poise of the +head, thrown back on the broad shoulders, the black and greys of the +hair, the clear penetrating glance--all the slight signs of age and +austerity that had begun to filch away the Squire's youth. It was at +least ten minutes before she could free herself enough from the unwelcome +memories of her walk to find a vindictive pleasure in running hastily to +look at her one white dress--all she had to wear at the Browhead dance. + + * * * * * + +On Thursday afternoon Helbeck was fishing in the park. The sea-trout were +coming up, the day was soft, and he had done well. But just as the +evening rise was beginning he put up his rod and went home. Father +Leadham had taken his departure. Augustina, Miss Fountain, and he were +again alone in the house. + +He went into his study, and left the door open, while he busied himself +with some writing. + +Presently Augustina put her head in. She looked dishevelled, and rather +pinker than usual, as always happened when there was the smallest +disturbance of her routine. + +"Laura has just gone up to dress, Alan. Is it fine?" + +"There is no rain," he said, without turning his head. "Don't shut the +door, please. This fire is oppressive." + +She went away, and he wrote on a little while--then listened. He heard +hurrying feet and movements overhead, and presently a door opened +hastily, and a voice exclaimed, "Just two or three, you know, Ellen--from +that corner under the kitchen-window! Run, there's a good girl!" + +And there was a clattering noise as Ellen ran down the front stairs, and +then flew along the corridor to the garden-door. + +In a minute she was back again, and as she passed his room Helbeck saw +that she was carrying a bunch of white narcissus. + +Then more sounds of laughter and chatter overhead. At last Augustina +hurried down and looked in upon him again, flurried and smiling. + +"Alan, you really must see her. She looks so pretty." + +"I am afraid I'm busy," he said, still writing. And she retired +disappointed, careful, however, to follow his wishes about the door. + +"Augustina, hold Bruno!" cried a light voice suddenly. "If he jumps on me +I'm done for!" + +A swish of soft skirts and she was there--in the hall. Helbeck could see +her quite plainly as she stood by the oak table in her white dress. There +was just room at the throat of it for a pearl necklace, and at the wrists +for some thin gold bracelets. The narcissus were in her hair, which she +had coiled and looped in a wonderful way, so that Helbeck's eyes were +dazzled by its colour and abundance, and by the whiteness of the slender +neck below it. She meanwhile was quite unconscious of his neighbourhood, +and he saw that she was all in a happy flutter, hastily putting on her +gloves, and chattering alternately to Augustina and to the transformed +Ellen, who stood in speechless admiration behind her, holding a cloak. + +"There, Ellen, that'll do. You're a darling--and the flowers are perfect. +Run now, and tell Mrs. Denton that I didn't keep you more than twenty +minutes. Oh, yes, Augustina, I'm quite warm. I can't choke, dear, even to +please you. There now--here goes! If you do lock me out, there's a corner +under the bridge, quite snug. My dress will mind--I shan't. Good-night. +My compliments to Mr. Helbeck." + +Then a hasty kiss to Augustina and she was gone. + +Helbeck went out into the hall. Augustina was standing on the steps, +watching the departing fly. At the sight of her brother she turned back +to him, her poor little face aglow. + +"She did look so nice, Alan! I wish she had gone to a proper dance, and +not to these odd farmers and people. Why, they'll all go in their high +dresses, and think her stuck-up." + +"I assure you I never saw anything so smart as Miss Mason at the hunt +ball," said Helbeck. "Did you give her the key, Augustina? But I shall +probably sit up. There are some Easter accounts that must be done." + + * * * * * + +The old clock in the hall struck one. Helbeck was sitting in his familiar +chair before the log fire, which he had just replenished. In one hand was +a life of St. Philip Neri, the other played absently with Bruno's ears. +In truth he was not reading but listening. + +Suddenly there was a sound. He turned his head, and saw that the door +leading from the hall to the tower staircase, and thence to the kitchen +regions, had been opened. + +"Who's there?" he said in astonishment. + +Mrs. Denton appeared. + +"You, Denton! What are you up for at this time?" + +"I came to see if the yoong lady had coom back," she said in a low voice, +and with her most forbidding manner. "It's late, and I heard nowt." + +"Late? Not at all! Go to bed, Denton, at once; Miss Fountain will be here +directly." + +"I'm not sleepy; I can wait for her," said the housekeeper, advancing a +step or two into the hall. "You mun be tired, sir, and should take your +rest." + +"I'm not the least tired, thank you. Good-night. Let me recommend you to +go to bed as quickly as possible." + +Mrs. Denton lingered for a moment, as though in hesitation, then went +with a sulky unwillingness that was very evident to her master. + +Helbeck laid down his book on his knee with a little laugh. + +"She would have liked to get in a scolding, but we won't give her the +chance." + +The reverie that followed was not a very pleasant one. He seemed to see +Miss Fountain in the large rustic room, with a bevy of young men about +her--young fellows in Sunday coats, with shiny hair and limbs bursting +out of their ill-fitting clothes. There would be loud talking and +laughter, rough jokes that would make her wince, compliments that would +disgust her--they not knowing how to take her, nor she them. She would be +wholly out of her place--a butt for impertinence--perhaps worse. And +there would be a certain sense of dragging a lady from her sphere--of +making free with the old house and the old family. + +He thought of it with disgust. He was an aristocrat to his fingers' ends. + +But how could it have been helped? And when he remembered her as she +stood there in the hall, so young and pretty, so eager for her pleasure, +he said to himself with sudden heartiness: + +"Nonsense! I hope the child has enjoyed herself." It was the first time +that, even in his least formal thoughts, he had applied such a word to +her. + +Silence again. The wind breathed gently round the house. He could hear +the river rushing. + +Once he thought there was a sound of wheels and he went to the outer +door, but there was nothing. Overhead the stars shone, and along the +track of the river lay a white mist. + +As he was turning back to the hall, however, he heard voices from the +mist--a loud man's voice, then a little cry as of some one in fright or +anger, then a song. The rollicking tune of it shouted into the night, +into the stately stillness that surrounded the old house, had the +abruptest, unseemliest effect. + +Helbeck ran down the steps. A dog-cart with lights approached the gateway +in the low stone enclosure before the house. It shot through so fast and +so awkwardly as to graze the inner post. There was another little cry. +Then, with various lurches and lunges, the cart drove round the gravel, +and brought up somewhere near the steps. + +Hubert Mason jumped down. + +"Who's that? Mr. Helbeck? O Lord! glad to see yer, I'm sure! There's that +little silly--she's been making such a' fuss all the way--thought I was +going to upset her into the river, I do believe. She would try and get at +the reins, though I told her it was the worst thing to do, whatever--to +be interfering with the driver. Lord! I thought she'd have used the whip +to me!" + +And Mason stood beside the shafts, with his arms on the side, laughing +loudly and looking at Laura. + +"Stand out of the way, sir!" said Helbeck sternly, "and let me help Miss +Fountain." + +"Oh! I say!--Come now, I'm not going to stand you coming it over me twice +in the same sort--not I," cried the young man with a violent change of +tone. "_You_ get out of the way, d--mn you! I brought Miss Fountain home, +and she's my cousin--so there!--not yours." + +"Hubert, go away at once!" said Laura's shaking but imperious voice. "I +prefer that Mr. Helbeck should help me." + +She had risen and was clinging to the rail of the dog-cart, while her +face drooped so that Helbeck could not see it. + +Mason stepped back with another oath, caught his foot in the reins, which +he had carelessly left hanging, and fell on his knees on the gravel. + +"No matter," said Helbeck, seeing that Laura paused in terror. "Give me +your hand, Miss Fountain." + +She slipped on the step in the darkness, and Helbeck caught her and set +her on her feet. + +"Go in, please. I will look after him." + +She ran up the steps, then turned to look. + +Mason, still swearing and muttering, had some difficulty in getting up. +Helbeck stood by till he had risen and disentangled the reins. + +"If you don't drive carefully down the park in the fog you'll come to +harm," he said, shortly, as Mason mounted to his seat. + +"That's none of your business," said Mason sulkily. "I brought my cousin +all right--I suppose I can take myself. Now, come up, will you!" + +He struck the pony savagely on the back with the reins. The tired animal +started forward; the cart swayed again from side to side. Helbeck held +his breath as it passed the gate-posts; but it shaved through, and soon +nothing but the gallop of retreating hoofs could be heard through the +night. + +He mounted the steps, and shut and barred the outer door. When he entered +the hall, Laura was sitting by the oak table, one hand supporting and +hiding her face, the other hanging listlessly beside her. + +She struggled to her feet as he came in. The hood of her blue cloak had +fallen backwards, and her hair was in confusion round her face and neck. +Her cheeks were very white, and there were tears in her eyes. She had +never seemed to him so small, so childish, or so lovely. + +He took no notice of her agitation or of her efforts to speak. He went to +a tray of wine and biscuits that had been left by his orders on a +side-table, and poured out some wine. + +"No, I don't want it," she said, waving it away. "I don't know what to +say----" + +"You would do best to take it," he said, interrupting her. + +His quiet insistence overcame her, and she drank it. It gave her back her +voice and a little colour. She bit her lip, and looked after Helbeck as +he walked away to the farther end of the hall to light a candle for her. + +"Mr. Helbeck," she began as he came near. Then she gathered force. "You +must--you ought to let me apologise." + +"For what? I am afraid you had a disagreeable and dangerous drive home. +Would you like me to wake one of the servants--Ellen, perhaps--and tell +her to come to you?" + +"Oh! you won't let me say what I ought to say," she exclaimed in despair. +"That my cousin should have behaved like this--should have insulted +you----" + +"No! no!" he said with some peremptoriness. "Your cousin insulted you by +daring to drive with you in such a state. That is all that matters to +me--or should, I think, matter to you. Will you have your candle, and +shall I call anyone?" + +She shook her head and moved towards the staircase, he accompanying her. +When he saw how feebly she walked, he was on the point of asking her to +take his arm and let him help her to her room; but he refrained. + +At the foot of the stairs she paused. Her "good-night" died in her throat +as she offered her hand. Her dejection, her girlish shame, made her +inexpressibly attractive to him; it was the first time he had ever seen +her with all her arms thrown down. But he said nothing. He bade her +good-night with a cheerful courtesy, and, returning to the hall fire, he +stood beside it till he heard the distant shutting of her door. + +Then he sank back into his chair and sat motionless, with knitted brows, +for nearly an hour, staring into the caverns of the fire. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Laura awoke very early the following morning, but though the sun was +bright outside, it brought no gaiety to her. The night before she had +hurried her undressing, that she might bury herself in her pillow as +quickly as possible, and force sleep to come to her. It was her natural +instinct in the face of pain or humiliation. To escape from it by any +summary method was always her first thought. "I will, I must go to +sleep!" she had said to herself, in a miserable fury with herself and +fate; and by the help of an intense exhaustion sleep came. + +But in the morning she could do herself no more violence. Memory took its +course, and a very disquieting course it was. She sat up in bed, with her +hands round her knees, thinking not only of all the wretched and untoward +incidents connected with the ball, but of the whole three weeks that had +gone before it. What had she been doing, how had she been behaving, that +this odious youth should have dared to treat her in such a way? + +Fricka jumped up beside her, and Laura held the dog's nose against her +cheek for comfort, while she confessed herself. Oh! what a fool she had +been. Why, pray, had she been paying all these visits to the farm, and +spending all these hours in this young fellow's company? Her quick +intelligence unravelled all the doubtful skein. Yearning towards her +kindred?--yes, there had been something of that. Recoil from the +Bannisdale ways, an angry eagerness to scout them and fly them?--yes, +that there had always been in plenty. But she dived deeper into her +self-disgust, and brought up the real bottom truth, disagreeable and +hateful as it was: mere excitement about a young man, as a young +man--mere love of power over a great hulking fellow whom other people +found unmanageable! Aye, there it was, in spite of all the glosses she +had put upon it in her letters to Molly Friedland. All through, she had +known perfectly well that Hubert Mason was not her equal; that on a +number of subjects he had vulgar habits and vulgar ideas; that he often +expressed his admiration for her in a way she ought to have resented. +There were whole sides of him, indeed, that she shrank from +exploring--that she wanted, nay, was determined, to know nothing about. + +On the other hand, her young daring, for want of any better prey, had +taken pleasure from the beginning in bringing him under her yoke. With +her second visit to the farm she saw that she could make him her +slave--that she had only to show him a little flattery, a little +encouragement, and he would be as submissive and obedient to her as he +was truculent and ill-tempered towards the rest of the world. And her +vanity had actually plumed itself on so poor a prey! One excuse--yes, +there was the one excuse! With her he had shown the side that she alone +of his kindred could appreciate. But for the fear of Cousin Elizabeth she +could have kept him hanging over the piano hour after hour while she +played, in a passion of delight. Here was common ground. Nay, in native +power he was her superior, though she, with her better musical training, +could help and correct him in a thousand ways. She had the woman's +passion for influence; and he seemed like wax in her hands. Why not help +him to education and refinement, to the cultivation of the best that was +in him? She would persuade Cousin Elizabeth--alter and amend his life for +him--and Mr. Helbeck should see that there were better ways of dealing +with people than by looking down upon them and despising them. + +And now the very thought of these vain and silly dreams set her face +aflame. Power over him? Let her only remember the humiliations, through +which she had been dragged! All the dance came back upon her--the strange +people, the strange young men, the strange, raftered room, with the noise +of the mill-stream and the weir vibrating through it, and mingling with +the chatter of the fiddles. But she had been determined to enjoy it, to +give herself no airs, to forget with all her might that she was anyway +different from these dale-folk, whose blood was hers. And with the older +people all had been easy. With the elderly women especially, in their +dark gowns and large Sunday collars, she had felt herself at home; again +and again she had put herself under their wing, while in their silent way +they turned their shrewd motherly eyes upon her, and took stock of her +and every detail of her dress. And the old men, with their patriarchal +manners and their broad speech--it had been all sweet and pleasant to +her. "Noo, Miss, they tell ma as yo'.are Stephen Fountain's dowter. An I +mut meak bold ter cum an speak to thee, for a knew 'un when he was a lile +lad." Or "Yo'll gee ma your hand, Miss Fountain, for we're pleased and +proud to git, yo' here. Yer fadther an mea gaed to skule togedther. My +worrd, but he was parlish cliver! An I daursay as you teak afther him." +Kind folk! with all the signs of their hard and simple life about them. + +But the young men--how she had hated them!--whether they were shy, or +whether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, and +laughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they wore +their best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced the +polka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of _their_ +class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to put +a pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her white +dress; a third had confided to her that his young lady was "that luvin" +to him in public, he had been fair obliged to bid her "keep hersel to +hersel afore foak." The only partner with whom it had given her the +smallest pleasure to dance had been the schoolmaster and principal host +of the evening, a tall, sickly young man, who wore spectacles and talked +through his nose. But he talked of things she understood, and he danced +tolerably. Alas! there had come the rub. Hubert Mason had stood sentinel +beside her during the early part of the evening. He had assumed the +proudest and most exclusive airs with regard to her, and his chief aim +seemed to be to impress upon her the prestige he enjoyed among his +fellows as a football player and an athlete. In the end his patronage and +his boasting had become insupportable to a girl of any spirit. And his +dancing! It seemed to her that he held her before him like a shield, and +then charged the room with her. She had found herself the centre of all +eyes, her pretty dress torn, her hair about her ears. So that she had +shaken him off--with too much impatience, no doubt, and too little +consideration for the touchiness of his temper. And then, what +stormy looks, what mutterings, what disappearances into the +refreshment-room--and, finally, what, fierce jealousy of the +schoolmaster! Laura awoke at last to the disagreeable fact that she had +to drive home with him--and he had already made her ridiculous. Even +Polly--the bedizened Polly--looked grave, and there had been angry +conferences between her and her brother. + +Then came the departure, Laura by this time full of terrors, but not +knowing what to do, nor how else she was to get home. And, oh! that +grinning band of youths round the door--Mason's triumphant leap into the +cart and boisterous farewell to his friends--and that first perilous +moment, when the pony had almost backed into the mill stream, and was +only set right again by half a dozen stalwart arms, amid the laughter of +the street! + +As for the wild drive through the dark, she shivered again, half with +anger, half with terror, as she thought of it. How had they ever got +home? She could not tell. He was drunk, of course. He seemed to her to +have driven into everything and over everything, abusing the schoolmaster +and Mr. Helbeck and his mother all the time, and turning upon her when +she answered him, or showed any terror of what might happen to them, now +with fury, and now with attempts at love-making which it had taken all +her power over him to quell. + +Their rush up the park had been like the ride of the wild horseman. Every +moment she had expected to be in the river. And with the approach of the +house he had grown wilder and more unmanageable than before. "Dang it! +let's wake up the old Papist!" he had said to her when she had tried to +stop his singing. "What harm'll it do?" + +As for the shame of their arrival, the very thought of Mr. Helbeck +standing silent on the steps as they approached, of Hubert's behaviour, +of her host's manner to her in the hall, made her shut her eyes and hide +her red face against Fricka for sympathy. How was she ever to meet Mr. +Helbeck again, to hold her own against him any more! + + * * * * * + +An hour later Laura, very carefully dressed, and holding herself very +erect, entered Augustina's room. + +"Oh, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain, as the door opened. She was very +flushed, and she stared from her bed at her stepdaughter in an agitated +silence. + +Laura stopped short. + +"Well, what is it, Augustina? What have you heard?" + +"Laura! how _can_ you do such things!" + +And Augustina, who already had her breakfast beside her, raised her +handkerchief to her eyes and began to cry. Laura threw up her head and +walked away to a far window, where she turned and confronted Mrs. +Fountain. + +"Well, he has been quick in telling you," she said, in a low but fierce +voice. + +"He? What do you mean? My brother? As if he had said a word! I don't +believe he ever would. But Mrs. Denton heard it all." + +"Mrs. Denton?" said Laura. "_Mrs. Denton?_ What on earth had she to do +with it?" + +"She heard you drive up. You know her room looks on the front." + +"And she listened? sly old creature!" said Laura, recovering herself. +"Well, it can't be helped. If she heard, she heard, and whatever I may +feel, I'm not going to apologise to Mrs. Denton." + +"But, Laura--Laura--was he----" + +Augustina could not finish the odious question. + +"I suppose he was," said Laura bitterly. "It seems to be the natural +thing for young men of that sort." + +"Laura, do come here." + +Laura came unwillingly, and Augustina took her hands and looked up at +her. + +"And, Laura, he was abominably rude to Alan!" + +"Yes, he was, and I'm very sorry," said the girl slowly. "But it can't be +helped, and it's no good making yourself miserable, Augustina." + +"Miserable? I? It's you, Laura, who look miserable. I never saw you look +so white and dragged. You must never, never see him again." + +The girl's obstinacy awoke in a moment. + +"I don't know that I shall promise that, Augustina." + +"Oh, Laura! as if you could wish to," said Augustina, in tears. + +"I can't give up my father's people," said the girl stiffly. "But he +shall never annoy Mr. Helbeck again, I promise you that, Augustina." + +"Oh! you did look so nice, Laura, and your dress was so pretty!" + +Laura laughed, rather grimly. + +"There's not much of it left this morning," she said. "However, as one of +the gentlemen who kindly helped to ruin it said last night, 'Lor, bless +yer, it'll wesh!'" + + * * * * * + +After breakfast Laura found herself in the drawing-room, looking through +an open window at the spring green in a very strained and irritable mood. + +"I would not begin if I could not go on," she said to herself with +disdain. But her lip trembled. + +So Mr. Helbeck had taken offence, after all. Hardly a word at breakfast, +except such as the briefest, barest civility required. And he was going +away, it appeared, for three days, perhaps a week, on business. If he had +given her the slightest opening, she had meant to master her pride +sufficiently to renew her apologies and ask his advice, subject, of +course, to her own final judgment as to what kindred and kindness might +require of her. But he had given her no opening, and the subject was not, +apparently, to be renewed between them. + +She might have asked him, too, to curb Mrs. Denton's tongue. But no, it +was not to be. Very well. The girl drew her small frame together and +prepared, as no one thought for or befriended her, to think for and +befriend herself. + +She passed the next few days in some depression. Mr. Helbeck was absent. +Augustina was very ailing and querulous, and Laura was made to feel that +it was her fault. Not a word of regret or apology came from Browhead +Farm. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Denton had apparently made her niece understand that there +was to be no more dallying with Miss Fountain. Whenever she and Laura +met, Ellen lowered her head and ran. Laura found that the girl was not +allowed to wait upon her personally any more. Meanwhile the housekeeper +herself passed Miss Fountain with a manner and a silence which were in +themselves an insult. + +And two days after Helbeck's departure, Laura was crossing the hall +towards tea-time, when she saw Mrs. Denton admitting one of the Sisters +from the orphanage. It was the Reverend Mother herself, the portly +shrewd-faced woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. Laura passed +her, and the nun saluted her coldly. "Dear me!--you shall have Augustina +to yourself, my good friend," thought Miss Fountain. "Don't be afraid." +And she turned into the garden. + +An hour later she came back. As she opened the door in the old wall she +saw the Sister on the steps, talking with Mrs. Denton. At sight of her +they parted. The nun drew her long black cloak about her, ran down the +steps, and hurried away. + +And indoors, Laura could not imagine what had happened to her stepmother. +Augustina was clearly excited, yet she would say nothing. Her +restlessness was incessant, and at intervals there were furtive tears. +Once or twice she looked at Laura with the most tragic eyes, but as soon +as Laura approached her she would hastily bury herself in her newspaper, +or begin counting the stitches of her knitting. + +At last, after luncheon, Mrs. Fountain suddenly threw down her work with +a sigh that shook her small person from top to toe. + +"I wish I knew what was wrong with you," said Laura, coming up behind +her, and dropping a pair of soft hands on her shoulders. "Shall I get you +your new tonic?" + +"No!" said Augustina pettishly; then, with a rush of words that she could +not repress: + +"Laura, you must--you positively must give up that young man." + +Laura came round and seated herself on the fender stool in front of her +stepmother. + +"Oh! so that's it. Has anybody else been gossiping?" + +"I do wish you wouldn't--you wouldn't take things so coolly!" cried +Augustina. "I tell you, the least trifle is enough to do a young girl of +your age harm. Your father would have been so annoyed." + +"I don't think so," said Laura quietly. "But who is it now? The Reverend +Mother?" + +Augustina hesitated. She had been recommended to keep things to herself. +But she had no will to set against Laura's, and she was, in fact, +bursting with suppressed remonstrance. + +"It doesn't matter, my dear. One never knows where a story of that kind +will go to. That's just what girls don't remember." + +"Who told a story, and what? I didn't see the Reverend Mother at the +dance." + +"Laura! But you never thought, my dear--you never knew--that there was a +cousin of Father Bowles' there--the man who keeps that little Catholic +shop in Market Street. That's what comes, you see, of going to parties +with people beneath you." + +"Oh! a cousin of Father Bowles was there?" said Laura slowly. "Well, did +he make a pretty tale?" + +"Laura! you are the most provoking--You don't the least understand what +people think. How could you go with him when everybody remonstrated?" + +"Nobody remonstrated," said the girl sharply. + +"His sister begged you not to go." + +"His sister did nothing of the kind. She was staying the night in the +village, and there was literally nothing for me to do but come home with +Hubert or to throw myself on some stranger." + +"And such stories as one hears about this dreadful young man!" cried +Augustina. + +"I dare say. There are always stories." + +"I couldn't even tell you what they are about!" said Augustina. "Your +father would _certainly_ have forbidden it altogether." + +There was a silence. Laura held her head as high as ever. She was, in +fact, in a fever of contradiction and resentment, and the interference of +people like Mrs. Denton and the Sisters was fast bringing about Mason's +forgiveness. Naturally, she was likely to hear the worst of him in that +house. What Helbeck, or what dependent on a Helbeck, would give him the +benefit of any doubt? + +Augustina knitted with all her might for a few minutes, and then looked +up. + +"Don't you think," she said, with a timid change of tone--"don't you +think, dear, you might go to Cambridge for a few weeks? I am sure the +Friedlands would take you in. You would come in for all the parties, +and--and you needn't trouble about me. Sister Angela's niece could come +and stay here for a few weeks. The Reverend Mother told me so." + +Laura rose. + +"Sister Angela suggested that? Thank you, I won't have my plans settled +for me by Sister Angela. If you and Mr. Helbeck want to turn me out, why, +of course I shall go." + +Augustina held out her hands in terror at the girl's attitude and voice. + +"Laura, don't say such things! As if you weren't an angel to me! As if I +could bear the thought of anybody else!" + +A quiver ran through Laura's features. "Well, then, don't bear it," she +said, kneeling down again beside her stepmother. "You look quite ill and +excited, Augustina. I think we'll keep the Reverend Mother out in future. +Won't you lie down and let me cover you up?" + +So it ended for the time--with physical weakness on Augustina's part, and +caresses on Laura's. + +But when she was alone, Miss Fountain sat down and tried to think things +out. + +"What are the Sisters meddling for? Do they find me in their way? I'm +flattered! I wish I was. Well!--is drunkenness the worst thing in the +world?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond a +certain point it is like madness--you must keep out of its way, for your +own sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse. +So there are!--meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of your +soul. As for the other tales, I don't believe them. But if I did, I am +not going to marry him!" + +She felt herself very wise. In truth, as Stephen Fountain had realised +with some anxiety before his death, among Laura's many ignorances, none +was so complete or so dangerous as her ignorance of all the ugly ground +facts that are strewn round us, for the stumbling of mankind. She was as +determined not to know them, as he was invincibly shy of telling them. + +For the rest, her reflections represented, no doubt, many dicta that in +the course of her young life she had heard from her father. To Stephen +Fountain the whole Christian doctrine of sin was "the enemy"; and the +mystical hatred of certain actions and habits, as such, was the fount of +half the world's unreason. + +The following day it was Father Bowles' turn. He came over in what seemed +to be his softest and most catlike mood, rubbing his hands over his chest +in a constant glee at his own jokes. He was amiability itself to Laura. +But he, too, had his twenty minutes alone with Augustina; and afterwards +Mrs. Fountain ventured once more to speak to Laura of change and +amusement. Miss Fountain smiled, and replied as before--that, in the +first place she had no invitations, and in the next, she had no dresses. +But again, as before, if Mr. Helbeck should express a wish that her visit +to Bannisdale should come to an end, that would be another matter. + + * * * * * + +Next morning Laura was taking a walk in the park when a letter was +brought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum. + +She took it to a sheltered nook by the riverside and read it. It was from +Hubert Mason, in his best commercial hand, and it ran as follows: + + +"Dear Miss Fountain,--You would not allow me, I know, to call you Cousin +Laura any more, so I don't attempt it. And of course I don't deserve +it--nor that you should ever shake hands with me again. I can't get over +thinking of what I've done. Mother and Polly will tell you that I have +hardly slept at nights--for of course you won't believe me. How I can +have been such a blackguard I don't understand. I must have taken too +much. All I know is it didn't seem much, and but for the agitation of my +mind, I don't believe anything would ever have gone wrong. But I couldn't +bear to see you dancing with that man and despising me. And there it +is--I can never get over it, and you will never forgive me. I feel I +can't stay here any more, and mother has consented at last to let me have +some money on the farm. If I could just see you before I go, to say +good-bye, and ask your pardon, there would be a better chance for me. I +can't come to Mr. Helbeck's house, of course, and I don't suppose you +would come here. I shall be coming home from Kirby Whardale fair +to-morrow night, and shall be crossing the little bridge in the +park--upper end--some time between eight and nine. But I know you won't +be there. I can't expect it, and I feel it pretty badly, I can tell you. +I did hope I might have become something better through knowing you. +Whatever you may think of me I am always + +"Your respectful and humble cousin, + +"HUBERT MASON." + + +"Well--upon my word!" said Laura. She threw the letter on to the grass +beside her, and sat, with her hands round her knees, staring at the +river, in a sparkle of anger and amazement. + +What audacity!--to expect her to steal out at night--in the dusk, +anyway--to meet him--_him_! She fed her wrath on the imagination of all +the details that would belong to such an escapade. It would be after +supper, of course, in the fast lengthening twilight. Helbeck and his +sister would be in the drawing-room--for Mr. Helbeck was expected home on +the following day--and she might perfectly well leave them, as she often +did, to talk their little Catholic gossip by themselves, and then slip +out by the chapel passage and door, through the old garden, to the gate +in the wall above the river bank, and so to the road that led along the +Greet through the upper end of the park. Nothing, of course, could be +easier--nothing. + +Merely to think of it, for a girl of Laura's temperament, was already bit +by bit to incline to it. She began to turn it over, to taste the +adventure of it--to talk very fast to Fricka, under her breath, with +little gusts of laughter. And no doubt there was something mollifying in +the boy's humble expressions. As for his sleepless nights--how salutary! +how very salutary! Only the nail must be driven in deeper--must be turned +in the wound. + +It would need a vast amount of severity, perhaps, to undo the effects of +her mere obedience to his call--supposing she made up her mind to obey +it. Well! she would be quite equal to severity. She would speak very +plain things to him--very plain things indeed. It was her first serious +adventure with any of these big, foolish, troublesome creatures of the +male sex, and she rose to it much as Helbeck might have risen to the +playing of a salmon in the Greet. Yes! he should say good-bye to her, let +priests and nuns talk what scandal they pleased. Yes! he should go on his +way forgiven and admonished--if he wished it--for kindred's sake. + +Her cheek burned, her heart beat fast. He and she were of one blood--both +of them ill-regarded by aristocrats and holy Romans. As for him, he was +going to ruin at home; and there was in him this strange, artistic gift +to be thought for and rescued. He had all the faults of the young cub. +Was he to be wholly disowned for that? Was she to cast him off for ever +at the mere bidding of the Helbecks and their friends? + +He would never, of course, be allowed to enter the Bannisdale +drawing-room, and she had no intention at present of going to Browhead +Farm. Well, then, under the skies and the clouds! A gracious pardon, an +appropriate lecture--and a short farewell. + + * * * * * + +All that day and the next Laura gave herself to her whim. She was +perfectly conscious, meanwhile, that it was a reckless and a wilful thing +that she was planning. She liked it none the less for that. In fact, the +scheme was the final crystallisation of all that bitterness of mood that +had poisoned and tormented her ever since her first coming to Bannisdale. +And it gave her for the moment the morbid pleasure that all angry people +get from letting loose the angry word or act. + +Meanwhile she became more and more conscious of a certain network of +blame and discussion that seemed to be closing about her and her actions. +It showed itself by a number of small signs. When she went into +Whinthorpe to shop for Augustina she fancied that the assistants in the +shop, and even the portly draper himself, looked at her with a sly +curiosity. The girl's sore pride grew more unmanageable hour by hour. If +there was some ill-natured gossip about her, going the round in the town +and the neighbourhood, had she--till now--given the least shadow of +excuse for it? Not the least shade of a shadow! + + * * * * * + +Mr. Helbeck, his sister, and Laura were in the drawing-room after supper. +Laura had been observing Mrs. Fountain closely. + +"She is longing to have her talk with him," thought the girl; "and she +shall have it--as much as she likes." + +The shutters were not yet closed, and the room, with its crackling logs, +was filled with a gentle mingled light. The sun, indeed, was gone, but +the west still glowed, and the tall larches in the front enclosure stood +black against a golden dome of sky. Laura rose and left the room. As she +opened the door she caught Augustina's quick look of relief and the drop +of the knitting-needles. + +Fricka was safely prisoned upstairs. Laura slipped on a hat and a dark +cloak that were hanging in the hall, and ran down the passage leading to +the chapel. The heavy seventeenth-century door at the end of it took her +some trouble to open without noise, but it was done at last, and she was +in the old garden. + +Her little figure in its cloak, among the dark yews, was hardly to be +seen in the dusk. The garden was silence itself, and the gate in the wall +was open. Once on the road beside the river she could hardly restrain +herself from running, so keen was the air, so free and wide the evening +solitude. All things were at peace; nothing moved but a few birds and the +tiniest intermittent breeze. Overhead, great thunderclouds kept the +sunset; beneath, the blues of the evening were all interwoven with rose; +so, too, were the wood and sky reflections in the gently moving water. In +some of the pools the trout were still lazily rising; pigeons and homing +rooks were slowly passing through the clear space that lay between the +tree-tops and the just emerging stars; and once Laura stopped, holding +her breath, thinking that she saw through the dusk the blue flash of a +kingfisher making for a nest she knew. Even in this dimmed light the +trees had the May magnificence--all but the oaks, which still dreamed of +a best to come. Here and there a few tufts of primroses, on the bosom of +the crag above the river, lonely and self-sufficing, like all loveliest +things, starred the dimness of the rock. + +Laura's feet danced beneath her; the evening beauty and her passionate +response flowed as it were into each other, made one beating pulse; +never, in spite of qualms and angers, had she been more physically happy, +more alive. She passed the seat where she and Helbeck had lingered on +Easter Sunday; then she struck into a path high above the river, under +spreading oaks; and presently a little bridge came in sight, with some +steps in the crag leading down to it. + +At the near end of the bridge, thrown out into the river a little way for +the convenience of fishermen, was a small wooden platform, with a +railing, which held a seat. The seat was well hidden under the trees and +bank, and Laura settled herself there. + +She had hardly waited five minutes, absorbed in the sheer pleasure of the +rippling river and the soft air, when she heard steps approaching the +bank. Looking up, she saw Mason's figure against the sky. He paused at +the top of the rocky staircase, to scan the bridge and its approaches. +Not seeing her, he threw up his hand, with some exclamation that she +could not hear. + +She smiled and rose. + +As her small form became visible between the paleness of the wooden +platform and a luminous patch in the river, she heard a cry, then a +hurrying down the rock steps. + +He stopped about a yard from her. She did not offer her hand, and after +an instant's pause, during which his eyes tried to search her face in the +darkness, he took off his hat and drew his hand across his brow with a +deep breath. + +"I never thought you'd come," he said huskily. + +"Well, certainly you had no business to ask me! And I can only stay a +very few minutes. Suppose you sit down there." + +She pointed to one of the rock steps, while she settled herself again on +the seat, some little distance away from him. + +Then there was an awkward silence, which Laura took no trouble to break. +Mason broke it at last in desperation. + +"You know that I'm an awful hand at saying anything, Miss--Miss Fountain. +I can't--so it's no good. But I've got my lesson. I've had a pretty rough +time of it, I can tell you, since last week." + +"You behaved about as badly as you could--didn't you?" said Laura's soft +yet cutting voice out of the dark. + +Mason fidgeted. + +"I can't make it no better," he said at last. "There's no saying I can, +for I can't. And if I did give you excuses, you'd not believe 'em. There +was a devil got hold of me that evening--that's the truth on't. And it +was only a glass or two I took. Well, there!--I'd have cut my hand off +sooner." + +His tone of miserable humility began to affect her rather strangely. It +was not so easy to drive in the nail. + +"You needn't be so repentant," she said, with a little shrinking laugh. +"One has to forget--everything--in good time. You've given Whinthorpe +people something to talk about at my expense--for which I am not at all +obliged to you. You nearly killed me, which doesn't matter. And you +behaved disgracefully to Mr. Helbeck. But it's done--and now you've got +to make up--somehow." + +"Has he made you pay for it--since?" said Mason eagerly. + +"He? Mr. Helbeck?" She laughed. Then she added, with all the severity +she could muster, "He treated me in a most kind and gentlemanly +way--if you want to know. The great pity is that you--and Cousin +Elizabeth--understand nothing at all about him." + +He groaned. She could hear his feet restlessly moving. + +"Well--and now you are going to Froswick," she resumed. "What are you +going to do there?" + +"There's an uncle of mine in one of the shipbuilding yards there. He's +got leave to take me into the fitting department. If I suit he'll get me +into the office. It's what I've wanted this two years." + +"Well, now you've got it," she said impatiently, "don't be dismal. You +have your chance." + +"Yes, and I don't care a haporth about it," he said, with sudden energy, +throwing his head up and bringing his fist down on his knee. + +She felt her power, and liked it. But she hurried to answer: + +"Oh! yes you do! If you're a man, you _must_. You'll learn a lot of new +things--you'll keep straight, because you'll have plenty to do. Why, it +will 'hatch you over again, and hatch, you different,' as somebody said. +You'll see." + +He looked at her, trying hard to catch her expression in the dusk. + +"And if I do come back different, perhaps--perhaps--soom day you'll not +be ashamed to be seen wi' me? Look here, Miss Laura. From the first time +I set eyes on you--from that day you came up--that Sunday--I haven't been +able to settle to a thing. I felt, right enough, I wasn't fit to speak to +you. And yet I'm your--well, your kith and kin, doan't you see? There +can't be no such tremendous gap atween us as all that. If I can just +manage myself a bit, and find the work that suits me, and get away from +these fellows here, and this beastly farm----" + +"Ah!--have you been quarrelling with Daffady all day?" + +She looked for him to fly out. But he only stared, and then turned away. + +"O Lord! what's the good of talking?" he said, with an accent that +startled her. + +She rose from her seat. + +"Are you sorry I came to talk to you? You didn't deserve it--did you?" + +Her voice was the pearliest, most musical, and yet most distant of +things. He rose, too--held by it. + +"And now you must just go and make a man of yourself. That's what you +have to do--you see? I wish papa was alive. He'd tell you how--I can't. +But if you forget your music, it'll be a sin--and if you send me your +song to write out for you, I'll do it. And tell Polly I'll come and see +her again some day. Now good-night! They'll be locking up if I don't +hurry home." + +But he stood on the step, barring the way. + +"I say, give me something to take with me," he said hoarsely. "What's +that in your hat?" + +"In my hat?" she said, laughing--(but if there had been light he would +have seen that her lips had paled). "Why, a bunch of buttercups. I bought +them at Whinthorpe yesterday." + +"Give me one," he said. + +"Give you a sham buttercup? What nonsense!" + +"It's better than nothing," he said doggedly, and he held out his hand. + +She hesitated; then she took off her hat and quietly loosened one of the +flowers. Her golden hair shone in the dimness. Mason never took his eyes +off her little head. He was keeping a grip on himself that was taxing a +whole new set of powers--straining the lad's unripe nature in wholly new +ways. + +She put the flower in his hand. + +"There; now we're friends again, aren't we? Let me pass, please--and +good-night!" + +He moved to one side, blindly fighting with the impulse to throw his +powerful arms round her and keep her there, or carry her across the +bridge--at his pleasure. + +But her light fearlessness mastered him. He let her go; he watched her +figure on the steps, against the moonlight between the oaks overhead. + +"Good-night!" she dropped again, already far away--far above him. + +The young man felt a sob in his throat. + +"My God! I shan't ever see her again," he said to himself in a sudden +terror. "She is going to that house--to that man!" + +For the first time a wild jealousy of Helbeck awoke in him. He rushed +across the bridge, dropped on a stone half-way up the further bank, then +strained his eyes across the river. + +... Yes, there she passed, a swift moving whiteness, among the great +trees that stood like watchmen along the high edge of the water. Below +him flowed the stream, a gulf of darkness, rent here and there by sheets +and jags of silver. And she, that pale wraith--across it--far away--was +flitting from his ken. + +All the fountains of the youth's nature surged up in one great outcry and +confusion. He thought of his boyish loves and sensualities--of the girls +who had provoked them--of some of the ugly facts connected with them. A +great astonishment, a great sickening, came upon him. He felt the burden +of the flesh, the struggle of the spirit. And through it all, the maddest +and most covetous yearning!--welling up through schemes and hopes, that +like the moonlit ripples on the Greet, dissolved as fast as they took +shape. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Laura went quickly home. A new tenderness, a new remorse +towards the "cub" was in the girl's mind. Ought she to have gone? Had she +been kind? Oh! she would be his friend and good angel--without any +nonsense, of course. + +She hurried through the trees and along the dimly gleaming path. Suddenly +she perceived in the distance the sparkle of a lantern. + +How vexatious! Was there no escape for her? She looked in some trouble at +the climbing woods above, at the steep bank below. + +Ah! well, her hat was large, and hid her face. And her dress was all +covered by her cloak. She hastened on. + +It was a man--an old man--carrying a bundle and a lantern. He seemed to +waver and stop as she approached him, and at the actual moment of her +passing him, to her amazement, he suddenly threw himself against one of +the trees on the mountain side of the path, and his lantern showed her +his face for an instant--a white face, stricken with--fear, was it? or +what? + +Fright gained upon herself. She ran on, and as she ran it seemed to her +that she heard something fall with a clang, and, afterwards, a cry. She +looked back. The old man was still there, erect, but his light was gone. + +Well, no doubt he had dropped his lantern. Let him light it again. It was +no concern, of hers. + +Here was the door in the wall. It opened to her touch. She glided +in--across the garden--found the chapel door ajar, and in a few more +seconds was safe in her own room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Laura was standing before her looking-glass straightening the curls that +her rapid walk had disarranged, when her attention was caught by certain +unusual sounds in the house. There was a hurrying of distant feet--calls, +as though from the kitchen region--and lastly, the deep voice of Mr. +Helbeck. Miss Fountain paused, brush in hand, wondering what had +happened. + +A noise of fluttering skirts, and a cry for "Laura!"--Miss Fountain +opened her door, and saw Augustina, who never ran, hurrying as fast as +her feebleness would let her, towards her stepdaughter. + +"Laura!--where is my sal volatile? You gave me some yesterday, you +remember, for my headache. There's somebody ill, downstairs." + +She paused for breath. + +"Here it is," said Laura, finding the bottle, and bringing it. "What's +wrong?" + +"Oh, my dear, such an adventure! There's an old man fainted in the +kitchen. He came to the back door to ask for a light for his lantern. +Mrs. Denton says he was shaking all over when she first saw him, and as +white as her apron. He told her he'd seen the ghost! 'I've often heard +tell o' the Bannisdale Lady,' he said, 'an now I've seen her!' She asked +him to sit down a minute to rest himself, and he fainted straight away. +He's that old Scarsbrook, you know, whose wife does our washing. They +live in that cottage by the weir, the other end of the park. I must go! +Mrs. Denton's giving him some brandy--and Alan's gone down. Isn't it an +extraordinary thing?" + +"Very," said Laura, accompanying her stepmother along the passage. "What +did he see?" + +She paused, laying a restraining hand on Augustina's arm--cudgelling her +brains the while. Yes! she could remember now a few contemptuous remarks +of Mr. Helbeck to Father Leadham on the subject of a ghost story that had +sprung up during the Squire's memory in connection with the park and the +house--a quite modern story, according to Helbeck, turning on the common +motive of a gypsy woman and her curse, started some forty years before +this date, with a local success not a little offensive, apparently, to +the owner of Bannisdale. + +"What did he see?" repeated the girl. "Don't hurry, Augustina; you know +the doctor told you not. Shall I take the sal volatile?" + +"Oh, no!--they want me." In any matter of doctoring small or great, +Augustina had the happiest sense of her own importance. "I don't know +what he saw exactly. It was a lady, he says--he knew it was, by the hat +and the walk. She was all in black--with 'a Dolly Varden hat'--fancy the +old fellow!--that hid her face--and a little white hand, that shot out +sparks as he came up to her! Did you ever hear such, a tale? Now, Laura, +I'm all right. Let me go. Come when you like." + +Augustina hurried off; Laura was left standing pensive in the passage. + +"H'm, that's unlucky," she said to herself. + +Then she looked down at her right hand. An old-fashioned diamond ring +with a large centre stone, which had been her mother's, shone on the +third finger. With an involuntary smile, she drew off the ring, and went +back to her room. + +"What's to be done now?" she thought, as she put the ring in a drawer. +"Shall I go down and explain--say I was out for a stroll?"--She shook her +head.--"Won't do now--I should have had more presence of mind a minute +ago. Augustina would suspect a hundred things. It's really dramatic. +Shall I go down? He didn't see my face--no, that I'll answer for! Here's +for it!" + +She pulled out the golden mass of her hair till it made a denser frame +than usual round her brow, looked at her white dress--shook her head +dubiously--laughed at her own flushed face in the glass, and calmly went +downstairs. + +She found an anxious group in the great bare servants' hall. The old man, +supported by pillows, was stretched on a wooden settle, with Helbeck, +Augustina, and Mrs. Denton standing by. The first things she saw were the +old peasant's closed eyes and pallid face--then Helbeck's grave and +puzzled countenance above him. The Squire turned at Miss Fountain's step. +Did she imagine it--or was there a peculiar sharpness in his swift +glance? + +Mrs. Denton had just been administering a second dose of brandy, and was +apparently in the midst of her own report to her master of Scarsbrook's +story. + +"'I wor just aboot to pass her,' he said, 'when I nawticed 'at her feet +made noa noise. She keaem glidin--an glidin--an my hair stood reet oop--it +lifted t'whole top o' my yed. An she gaed passt me like a puff o' +wind--as cauld as ice--an I wor mair deed nor alive. An I luked afther +her, an she vanisht i' th' varra middle o' t' path. An my leet went +oot--an I durstn't ha gane on, if it wor iver so--so I juist crawled back +tet hoose----'" + +"The door in the wall!" thought Laura. "He didn't know it was there." + +She had remained in the background while Mrs. Denton was speaking, but +now she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, and +flounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As she +passed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had become +something more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer, +and himself thrust his hands into his pockets and moved away. + +"Have you sent for anyone?" said Laura to Mrs. Fountain. + +"Yes. Wilson's gone in the pony cart for the wife. And if he doesn't come +round by the time she gets here--some one will have to go for the doctor, +Alan?" + +She looked round vaguely. + +"Of course. Wilson must go on," said Helbeck from the distance. "Or I'll +go myself." + +"But he is coming round," said Laura, pointing. + +"If yo'll nobbut move oot o' t' way, Miss, we'll be able to get at 'im," +said Mrs. Denton sharply. Laura hastily obeyed her. The housekeeper +brought more brandy; then signs of returning force grew stronger, and by +the time the wife appeared the old fellow was feebly beginning to move +and look about him. + +Amid the torrent of lamentations, questions, and hypotheses that the wife +poured forth, Laura withdrew into the background. But she could not +prevail on herself to go. Daring or excitement held her there, till the +old man should be quite himself again. + +He struggled to his feet at last, and said, with a long sigh that was +still half a shudder, "Aye--noo I'll goa home--Lisbeth." + +He was a piteous spectacle as he stood there, still trembling through all +his stunted frame, his wrinkled face drawn and bloodless, his grey hair +in a tragic confusion. Suddenly, as he looked at his wife, he said with a +clear solemnity, "Lisbeth--I ha' got my death warrant!" + +"Don't say any such thing, Scarsbrook," said Helbeck, coming forward to +support him. "You know I don't believe in this ghost business--and never +did. You saw some stranger in the park--and she passed you too quickly +for you to see where she went to. You may be sure that'll turn out to be +the truth. You remember--it's a public path--anybody might be there. Just +try and take that view of it--and don't fret, for your wife's sake. We'll +make inquiries, and I'll come and see you to-morrow. And as for death +warrants, we're all in God's care, you know--don't forget that." + +He smiled with a kindly concern and pity on the old man. But Scarsbrook +shook his head. + +"It wur t' Bannisdale Lady," he repeated; "I've often heerd on +her--often--and noo I've seen her." + +"Well, to-morrow you'll be quite proud of it," said Helbeck cheerfully. +"Come, and let me put you into the cart. I think, if we make a +comfortable seat for you, you'll be fit to drive home now." + +Supported by the Squire's strong arm on one side, and his wife on the +other, Scarsbrook managed to hobble down the long passage leading to the +door in the inner courtyard, where the pony cart was standing. It was +evident that his perceptions were still wholly dazed. He had not +recognised or spoken to anyone in the room but the Squire--not even to +his old crony Mrs. Denton. + +Laura drew a long breath. + +"Augustina, do go to bed," she said, going up to her stepmother--"or +you'll be ill next." + +Augustina allowed herself to be led upstairs. But it was long before she +would let her stepdaughter leave her. She was full of supernatural +terrors and excitements, and must talk about all the former appearances +of the ghost--the stories that used to be told in her childhood--the new +or startling details in the old man's version, and so forth. "What could +he have meant by the light on the hand?" she said wondering. "I never +heard of that before. And she used always to be in grey; and now he says +that she had a black dress from top to toe." + +"Their wardrobes are so limited--poor damp, sloppy things!" said Laura +flippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose this +nonsense will be all over the country-side to-morrow, Augustina?" + +"What do you _really_ think he saw, Laura?" cried Mrs. Fountain, wavering +between doubt and belief. + +"Goodness!--don't ask me." Miss Fountain shrugged her small shoulders. "I +don't keep a family ghost." + + * * * * * + +When at last Augustina had been settled in bed, and persuaded to take +some of her sleeping medicine, Laura was bidding her good-night, when +Mrs. Fountain said, "Oh! I forgot, Laura--there was a letter brought in +for you from the post-office, by Wilson this afternoon--he gave it to +Mrs. Denton, and she forgot it till after dinner----" + +"Of course--because it was mine," said Laura vindictively. "Where is it?" + +"On the drawing-room chimney-piece." + +"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck." + +"Oh! no--it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study." + +Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consulting +her watch. + +For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall in +with Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself had +anyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were in +tumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, her +brain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which she +had observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of that +conversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while she +was by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before? +Well!--if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send her +away--by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, was +in all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to lead +her life as she pleased. + +Nevertheless--as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle in +her hand--Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping. +During the months following her father's death, these agonies of crying +had come upon her night after night--unseen by any human being. She felt +now the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't have +this excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "No +nerves would stand it." + +A light under the library door. Well and good. How--she wondered--did he +occupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice she +had heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock. + +Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door, +and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp still +burned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr. +Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture of +astonishment. + +Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. +Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here." + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing. + +"Augustina told me there was a letter for me this evening." + +"Of course. It is here on the mantelpiece. I ought to have remembered +it." + +He took up the letter and held it towards her. Then suddenly he paused, +and sharply withdrawing it, he placed it on a table beside him, and laid +his hand upon it. She saw a flash of quick resolution in his face, and +her own pulses gave a throb. + +"Miss Fountain, will you excuse my detaining you for a moment? I have +been thinking much about this old man's story, and the possible +explanation of it. It struck me in a very singular way. As you know, I +have never paid much attention to the ghost story here--we have never +before had a testimony so direct. Is it possible--that you might throw +some light upon it? You left us, you remember, after dinner. Did you by +chance go into the garden?--the evening was tempting, I think. If so, +your memory might possibly recall to you some--slight thing." + +"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "I did go into the garden." + +His eye gleamed. He came a step nearer. + +"Did you see or hear anything--to explain what happened?" + +She did not answer for a moment. She made a vague movement, as though to +recover her letter--looked curiously into a glass case that stood beside +her, containing a few Stuart relics and autographs. Then, with absolute +self-possession, she turned and confronted him, one hand resting on the +glass case. + +"Yes; I can explain it all. I was the ghost!" + +There was a moment's silence. A smile--a smile that she winced under, +showed itself on Helbeck's lip. + +"I imagined as much," he said quietly. + +She stood there, torn by different impulses. Then a passion of annoyance +with herself, and anger with him, descended on her. + +"Now perhaps you would like to know why I concealed it?" she said, with +all the dignity she could command. "Simply, because I had gone out to +meet and say good-bye to a person--who is my relation--whom I cannot meet +in this house, and against whom there is here an unreasonable--" She +hesitated; then resumed, leaning obstinately on the words--"Yes! take it +all in all, it _is_ an unreasonable prejudice." + +"You mean Mr. Hubert Mason?" + +She nodded. + +"You think it an unreasonable prejudice after what happened the other +night?" + +She wavered. + +"I don't want to defend what happened the other night," she said, while +her voice shook. + +Helbeck observed her carefully. There was a great decision in his manner, +and at the same time a fine courtesy. + +"You knew, then, that he was to be in the park? Forgive my questions. +They are not mere curiosity." + +"Perhaps not," she said indifferently. "But I think I have told you all +that needs to be told. May I have my letter?" + +She stepped forward. + +"One moment. I wonder, Miss Fountain,"--he chose his words slowly--"if I +could make you understand my position. It is this. My sister brings a +young lady, her stepdaughter, to stay under my roof. That young lady +happens to be connected with a family in this neighbourhood, which is +already well known to me. For some of its members I have nothing but +respect--about one I happen to have a strong opinion. I have reasons, for +my opinion. I imagine that very few people of any way of thinking would +hold me either unreasonable or prejudiced in the matter. Naturally, it +gives me some concern that a young lady towards whom I feel a certain +responsibility should be much seen with this young man. He is not her +equal socially, and--pardon me--she knows nothing at all about the type +to which he belongs. Indirectly I try to warn her. I speak to my sister +as gently as I can. But from the first she rejects all I have to say--she +gives me credit for no good intention--and she will have none of my +advice. At last a disagreeable incident happens--and unfortunately the +knowledge of it is not confined to ourselves----" + +Laura threw him a flashing look. + +"No!--there are people who have taken care of that!" she said. + +Helbeck took no notice. + +"It is known not only to ourselves," he repeated steadily. "It starts +gossip. My sister is troubled. She asks you to put an end to this state +of things, and she consults me, feeling that indeed we are all in some +way concerned." + +"Oh, say at once that I have brought scandal on you all!" cried Laura. +"That of course is what Sister Angela and Father Bowles have been saying +to Augustina. They are pleased to show the greatest anxiety about me--so +much so, that they most kindly wish to relieve me of the charge of +Augustina.--So I understand! But I fear I am neither docile nor +grateful!--that I never shall be grateful----" + +Helbeck interrupted. + +"Let us come to that presently. I should like to finish my story. While +my sister and I are consulting, trying to think of all that can be done +to stop a foolish talk and undo an unlucky incident, this same young +lady"--his voice took a cold clearness--"steals out by night to keep an +appointment with this man, who has already done her so great a +disservice. Now I should like to ask her, if all this is kind--is +reasonable--is generous towards the persons with whom she is at present +living--if such conduct is not"--he paused--"unwise towards +herself--unjust towards others." + +His words came out with a strong and vibrating emphasis. Laura confronted +him with crimson cheeks. + +"I think that will do, Mr. Helbeck!" she cried. "You have had your +say.--Now just let me say this,--these people were my relations--I have +no other kith and kin in the world." + +He made a quick step forward as though in distress. But she put up her +hand. + +"I want very much to say this, please. I knew perfectly well when I came +here that you couldn't like the Masons--for many reasons." Her voice +broke again. "You never liked Augustina's marriage--you weren't likely to +want to see anything of papa's people. I didn't ask you to see them. All +my standards and theirs are different from yours. But I prefer +theirs--not yours! I have nothing to do with yours. I was brought +up--well, to _hate_ yours--if one must tell the truth." + +She paused, half suffocated, her chest heaving. Helbeck's glance +enveloped her--took in the contrast between her violent words and the +shrinking delicacy of her small form. A great melting stole over the +man's dark face. But he spoke dryly enough. + +"I imagine the standards of Protestants and Catholics are pretty much +alike in matters of this kind. But don't let us waste time any more over +what has already happened. I should like, I confess, to plead with you as +to the future." + +He looked at her kindly, even entreatingly. All through this scene she +had been unwittingly, angrily conscious of his personal dignity and +charm--a dignity that seemed to emerge in moments of heightened action or +feeling, and to slip out of sight again under the absent hermit-manner of +his ordinary life. She was smarting under his words--ready to concentrate +a double passion of resentment upon them, as soon as she should be alone +and free to recall them. And yet---- + +"As to the future," she said coldly. "That is simple enough as far as one +person is concerned. Hubert Mason is going to Froswick immediately, into +business." + +"I am glad to hear it--it will be very much for his good." + +He stopped a moment, searching for the word of persuasion and +conciliation. + +"Miss Fountain!--if you imagine that certain incidents which happened +here long before you came into this neighbourhood had anything to do with +what I have been saying now, let me assure you--most earnestly--that it +is not so! I recognise fully that with regard to a certain case--of which +you may have heard--the Masons and their friends honestly believed that +wrong and injustice had been done. They attempted personal violence. I +can hardly be expected to think it argument! But I bear them no malice. I +say this because you may have heard of something that happened three or +four years ago--a row in the streets, when Father Bowles and I were set +upon. It has never weighed with me in the slightest, and I could have +shaken hands with old Mason--who was in the crowd, and refused to stop +the stone throwing--the day after. As for Mrs. Mason"--he looked up with +a smile--"if she could possibly have persuaded herself to come with her +daughter and see you here, my welcome would not have been wanting. But, +you know, she would as soon visit Gehenna! Nobody could be more conscious +than I, Miss Fountain, that this is a dreary house for a young lady to +live in--and----" + +The colour mounted into his face, but he did not shrink from what he +meant to say. + +"And you have made us all feel that you regard the practices and +observances by which we try to fill and inspire our lives, as mere +hateful folly and superstition!" He checked himself. "Is that too +strong?" he added, with a sudden eagerness. "If so, I apologise for and +withdraw it!" + +Laura, for a moment, was speechless. Then she gathered her forces, and +said, with a voice she in vain tried to compose: + +"I think you exaggerate, Mr. Helbeck; at any rate, I hope you do. But the +fact is, I--I ought not to have tried to bear it. Considering all that +had happened at home--it was more than I had strength for! And +perhaps--no good will come of going on with it--and it had better cease. +Mr. Helbeck!--if your Superior can really find a good nurse and companion +at once, will you kindly communicate with her? I will go to Cambridge +immediately, as soon as I can arrange with my friends. Augustina, no +doubt, will come and stay with me somewhere at the sea, later on in the +year." + +Helbeck had been listening to her--to the sharp determination of her +voice--in total silence. He was leaning against the high mantelpiece, and +his face was hidden from her. As she ceased to speak, he turned, and his +mere aspect beat down the girl's anger in a moment. He shook his head +sadly. + +"Dr. MacBride stopped me on the bridge yesterday, as he was coming away +from the house." + +Laura drew back. Her eyes fastened upon him. + +"He thinks her in a serious state. We are not to alarm her, or interfere +with her daily habits. There is valvular disease--as I think you +know--and it has advanced. Neither he nor anyone can forecast." + +The girl's head fell. She recognised that the contest was over. She could +not go; she could not leave Augustina; and the inference was clear. There +had not been a word of menace, but she understood. Mr. Helbeck's will +must prevail. She had brought this humiliating half-hour on herself--and +she would have to bear the consequences of it. She moved towards Helbeck. + +"Well then, I must stay," she said huskily, "and I must try to--to +remember where I am in future. I ought to be able to hide everything I +feel--of course! But that unfortunately is what I never learnt. +And--there are some ways of life--that--that are too far apart. +However!"--she raised her hand to her brow, frowned, and thought a +little--"I can't make any promise about my cousins, Mr. Helbeck. _I_ know +perfectly well--whatever may be said--that I have done nothing whatever +to be ashamed of. I have wanted to--to help my cousin. He is worth +helping--in spite of everything--and I _will_ help him, if I can! But if +I am to remain your guest, I see that I must consult your wishes----" + +Helbeck tried again to stop her with a gesture, but she hurried on. + +"As far as this house and neighbourhood are concerned, no one shall have +any reason--to talk." + +Then she threw her head back with a sudden flush. + +"Of course, if people are born to say and think ill-natured things!--like +Mrs. Denton----" + +Helbeck exclaimed. + +"I will see to that," he said. "You shall have no reason to complain, +there." + +Laura shrugged her shoulders. + +"Will you kindly give me my letter?" + +As he handed it to her, she made him a little bow, walked to the door +before he could open it for her, and was gone. + +Helbeck turned back, with a smothered exclamation. He put the lamps out, +and went slowly to his study. + + * * * * * + +As the master of Bannisdale closed the door of his library behind him, +the familiar room produced upon him a sharp and singular impression. The +most sacred and the most critical hours of his life had been passed +within its walls. As he entered it now, it seemed to repulse him, to be +no longer his. + +The room was not large. It was the old library of the house, and the +Helbecks in their palmiest days had never been a literary race. There was +a little seventeenth century theology; and a few English classics. There +were the French books of Helbeck's grandmother--"Madame," as she was +always known at Bannisdale; and amongst them the worn brown volumes of +St. Francois de Sales, with the yellowish paper slips that Madame had put +in to mark her favourite passages, somewhere in the days of the First +Empire. Near by were some stray military volumes, treatises on tactics +and fortification, that had belonged to a dashing young officer in the +Dillon Regiment, close to some "Epitres Amoureux," a translation of +"Daphnis and Chloe," and the like--all now sunk together into the same +dusty neglect. + +On the wall above Helbeck's writing-table were ranged the books that had +been his mother's, together with those that he himself habitually used. +Here every volume was an old friend, a familiar tool. Alan Helbeck was +neither a student nor a man of letters; but he had certain passionate +prejudices, instincts, emotions, of which some books were the source and +sustenance. + +For the rest--during some years he had been a member of the Third Order +of St. Francis, and in its other features the room was almost the room of +a religious. A priedieu stood against the inner wall, and a crucifix hung +above it. A little further on was a small altar of St. Joseph with its +pictures, its statuette, and its candles; and a poor lithograph of Pio +Nono looked down from the mantelpiece. The floor was almost bare, save +for a few pieces of old matting here and there. The worn Turkey carpet +that had formerly covered it had been removed to make the drawing-room +comfortable for Augustina; so had most of the chairs. Those left were of +the straightest and hardest. + +In that dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most +intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a +strange sense of wrench--of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went +to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his +watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay upon it. + +The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection of +passages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of his +mother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst. + +On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copied +from one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritual +exercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it. + +"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, my +only good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heart +from every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thy +holy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to please +Thee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Thee +to come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance all +those effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce in +me._" + +He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Then +slowly he turned back to an earlier page-- + +"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must not +be under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first and +chiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul._" + +A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began to +pace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind, +and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle was +harder. The waves of rising passion broke through him. + +"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy to +have forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--to +have felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce with +me--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--she +knows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--I +knew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--from +the first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion for +her father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of me +and of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling for +Augustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two or +three points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps, +that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How she +loathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would sooner +die than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment to +command her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to the +utmost. Ah!" + +He stood still, and with an effort of iron resolution put from him the +fancies that were thronging on the brain. If it were possible for him to +conquer her, conceivable that he might win her--such a dream was +forbidden to him, Alan Helbeck, a thousandfold! Such a marriage would be +the destruction of innumerable schemes for the good of the Church, for +the perfecting of his own life. It would be the betrayal of great trusts, +the abandonment of great opportunities. "My life would centre in her. She +would come first--the Church second. Her nature would work on mine--not +mine on hers. Could I ever speak to her even of what I believe?--the very +alphabet of it is unknown to her. I shrink from proselytism. God forgive +me!--it is her wild pagan self that I love--that I desire----" + +The blast of human longing, human pain, was hard to meet--hard to subdue. +But the Catholic fought--and conquered. + +"I am not my own--I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man could +betray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord--to +his Church. The Church frowns on such a love--such marriages. She does +not forbid them--but they pain her heart. I have accepted her judgment +till now, without difficulty, without conflict. Now to obey is hard. But +I can obey--we are not asked impossibilities." + +He walked to the crucifix, and threw himself down before it. A midnight +stillness brooded over the house. + + * * * * * + +But far away, in an upper room, Laura Fountain had cried herself to +sleep--only to wake again and again, with the tears flooding her cheeks. +Was it merely a disagreeable and exciting scene she had gone through? +What was this new invasion of her life?--this new presence to the inward +eye of a form and look that at once drew her and repulsed her. A hundred +alien forces were threatening and pressing upon her--and out from the +very heart of them came this strange drawing--this magnetism--this +troubling misery. + +To be prisoned in Bannisdale--under Mr. Helbeck's roof--for months and +months longer--this thought was maddening to her. + +But when she imagined herself free to go--and far away once more from +this old and melancholy house--among congenial friends and scenes--she +was no happier than before. A little moan of anger and pain came, that +she stifled against her pillow, calling passionately on the sleep that +would, that must, chase all these phantoms of fatigue or excitement--and +give her back her old free self. + + + + +BOOK III + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"We shall get there in capital time--that's nice!" said Polly Mason, +putting down the little railway guide she had just purchased at Marsland +Station, with a general rustle of satisfaction. + +Polly indeed shone with good temper and new clothes. Her fringe--even +halved--was prodigious. Her cheap lemon-coloured gloves were cracking on +her large hands; and round her beflowered hat she had tied clouds on +clouds of white tulle, which to some extent softened the tans and +crimsons of her complexion. Her dress was of a stiff white cotton stuff, +that fell into the most startling folds and angles; and at every movement +of it, the starch rattled. + +On the opposite seat of the railway carriage was Laura Fountain--an open +book upon her knee that she was not reading. She made no answer, however, +to Polly's remark; the impression left by her attitude was that she took +no interest in it. Miss Fountain herself hardly seemed to have profited +much by that Westmoreland air whereof the qualities were to do so much +for Augustina. It was now June, the end of June, and Laura was certainly +paler, less blooming, than she had been in March. She seemed more +conscious; she was certainly less radiant. Whether her prettiness had +gained by the slight change, might be debated. Polly's eyes, indeed, as +they sped along, paid her cousin one long covetous tribute. The +difficulty that she always had in putting on her own clothes, and +softening her own physical points, made her the more conscious of Laura's +delicate ease, of all the yielding and graceful lines into which the +little black and white muslin frock fell so readily, of all that natural +kinship between Laura and her hats, Laura and her gloves, which poor +Polly fully perceived, knowing well and sadly that she herself could +never attain to it. + +Nevertheless--pretty, Miss Fountain might be; elegant she certainly was; +but Polly did not find her the best of companions for a festal day. They +were going to Froswick--the big town on the coast--to meet Hubert and +another young man, one Mr. Seaton, foreman in a large engineering +concern, whose name Polly had not been able to mention without bridling, +for some time past. + +It was more than a fortnight since the sister, driven by Hubert's +incessant letters, had proposed to Laura that they two should spend a +summer day at Froswick and see the great steel works on which the fame of +that place depended, escorted and entertained by the two young men. Laura +at first had turned a deaf ear. Then all at once--a very flare of +eagerness and acceptance!--a sudden choosing of day and train. And now +that they were actually on their way, with everything arranged, and a +glorious June sun above their heads, Laura was so silent, so reluctant, +so irritable--you might have thought---- + +Well!--Polly really did not know what to think. She was not quite happy +herself. From time to time, as her look dwelt on Laura, she was conscious +of certain guilty reserves and concealments in her own breast. She wished +Hubert had more sense--she hoped to goodness it would all go off nicely! +But of course it would. Polly was an optimist and took all things simply. +Her anxieties for Laura did not long resist the mere pleasure of the +journey and the trip, the flatteries of expectation. What a very +respectable and, on the whole, good-looking young man was Mr. Seaton! +Polly had met him first at the Browhead dance; so that what was a mere +black and ugly spot in Laura's memory shone rosy-red in her cousin's. + +Meanwhile Laura, mainly to avoid Polly's conversation, was looking hard +out of window. They were running along the southern shore of a great +estuary. Behind the loitering train rose the hills they had just left, +the hills that sheltered the stream and the woods of Bannisdale. That +rich, dark patch beneath the further brow was the wood in which the house +stood. To the north, across the bay, ran the line of high mountains, a +dim paradise of sunny slopes and steeps, under the keenest and brightest +of skies--blue ramparts from which the gently opening valleys flowed +downwards, one beside the other, to the estuary and the sea. + +Not that the great plunging sea itself was much to be seen as yet. +Immediately beyond the railway line stretched leagues of firm reddish +sand, pierced by the innumerable channels of the Greet. The sun lay hot +and dazzling on the wide flat surfaces, on the flocks of gulls, on the +pools of clear water. The window was open, and through the June heat +swept a sharp, salt breath. Laura, however, felt none of the physical +exhilaration that as a rule overflowed in her so readily. Was it because +the Bannisdale Woods were still visible? What made the significance of +that dark patch to the girl's restless eye? She came back to it again and +again. It was like a flag, round which a hundred warring thoughts had +come to gather. + +Why? + +Were not she and Mr. Helbeck on the best of terms? Was not Augustina +quite pleased--quite content? "I always knew, my dear Laura, that you and +Alan would get on, in time. Why, anyone could get on with Alan--he's so +kind!" When these things were said, Laura generally laughed. She did not +remind Mrs. Fountain that she, at one time of her existence, had not +found it particularly easy and simple to "get on with Alan"; but the girl +did once allow herself the retort--"It's not so easy to quarrel, is it, +when you don't see a person from week's end to week's end?" "Week's end +to week's end?" Mrs. Fountain repeated vaguely. "Yes--Alan is away a +great deal--people trust him so much--he has so much business." + +Laura was of opinion that his first business might very well have been to +see a little more of his widowed sister! She and Augustina spent days and +days alone, while Mr. Helbeck pursued the affairs of the Church. One +precious attempt indeed had been made to break the dulness of Bannisdale. +Miss Fountain's cheeks burned when she thought of it. There had been an +afternoon party! though Augustina's widowhood was barely a year old! Mrs. +Fountain had been sent about the country delivering notes and cards. And +the result:--oh, such a party!--such an interminable afternoon! Where had +the people come from?--who were they? If Polly, full of curiosity, asked +for some details, Laura would toss her head and reply that she knew +nothing at all about it; that Mrs. Denton had provided bad tea and worse +cakes, and the guests had "filled their chairs," and there was nothing +else to say. Mr. Helbeck's shyness and efforts; the glances of appeal he +threw every now and then towards his sister; his evident depression when +the thing was done--these things were not told to Polly. There was a +place for them in the girl's sore mind; but they did not come to speech. +Anyway she believed--nay, was quite sure--that Bannisdale would not be so +tried a second time. For whose benefit was it done?--whose! + +One evening---- + +As the train crossed the bridge of the estuary, from one stretch of hot +sand to another, Laura, staring at the view, saw really nothing but an +image of the mind, felt nothing except what came through the magic of +memory. + +The hall of Bannisdale, with the lingering daylight of the north still +coming in at ten o'clock through the uncurtained oriel windows--herself +at the piano, Augustina on the settle--a scent of night and flowers +spreading through the dim place from the open windows of the drawing-room +beyond. One candle is beside her--and there are strange glints of +moonlight here and there on the panelling. A tall figure enters from the +chapel passage. Augustina makes room on the settle--the Squire leans back +and listens. And the girl at the piano plays; the stillness and the night +seem to lay releasing hands upon her; bonds that have been stifling and +cramping the soul break down; she plays with all her self, as she might +have talked or wept to a friend--to her father.... And at last, in a +pause, the Squire puts a new candle beside her, and his deep shy voice +commends her, asks her to go on playing. Afterwards, there is a pleasant +and gentle talk for half an hour--Augustina can hardly be made to go to +bed--and when at last she rises, the girl's small hand slips into the +man's, is lost there, feels a new lingering touch, from which both +withdraw in almost equal haste. And the night, for the girl, is broken +with restlessness, with wild efforts to draw the old fetters tight again, +to clamp and prison something that flutters--that struggles. + +Then next morning, there is an empty chair at the breakfast table. "The +Squire left early on business." Without any warning--any courteous +message? One evening at home, after a long absence, and then--off again! +A good Catholic, it seems, lives in the train, and makes himself the +catspaw of all who wish to use him for their own ends! + +... As to that old peasant, Scarsbrook, what could be more arbitrary, +more absurd, than Mr. Helbeck's behaviour? The matter turns out to be +serious. Fright blanches the old fellow's beard and hair; he takes to his +bed, and the doctor talks of severe "nervous shock"--very serious, often +deadly, at the patient's age. Why not confess everything at once, set +things straight, free the poor shaken mind from its oppression? Who's +afraid?--what harm is there in an after-dinner stroll? + +But there!--truth apparently is what no one wants, what no one will +have--least of all, Mr. Helbeck. She sees a meeting in the park, under +the oaks--the same tall man and the girl--the girl bound impetuously for +confession, and the soothing of old Scarsbrook's terrors once for +all--the man standing in the way, as tough and prickly as one of his own +hawthorns. Courtesy, of course! there is no one can make courtesy so +galling; and then such a shooting out of will and personality, so sudden, +so volcanic a heat of remonstrance! And a woman is such a poor ill-strung +creature, even the boldest of them! She yields when she should have +pressed forward--goes home to rage, when she should have stayed to +wrestle. + +Afterwards, another absence--the old house silent as the grave--and +Augustina so fretful, so wearisome! But she is better, much better. How +unscrupulous are doctors, and those other persons who make them say +exactly what suits the moment! + +The dulness seems to grow with the June heat. Soon it becomes +intolerable. Nobody comes, nobody speaks; no mind offers itself to yours +for confidence and sympathy. Well, but change and excitement of some sort +one _must_ have!--who is to blame, if you get it where you can? + +A day in Froswick with Hubert Mason? Yes--why not? Polly proposes it--has +proposed it once or twice before to no purpose. For two months now the +young man has been in training. Polly writes to him often; Laura +sometimes wonders whether the cross-examinations through which Polly puts +her may not partly be for Hubert's benefit. She herself has written twice +to him in answer to some half-dozen letters, has corrected his song for +him--has played altogether a very moral and sisterly part. Is the youth +really in love? Perhaps. Will it do him any harm? + +Augustina of course dislikes the prospect of the Froswick day. But, +really, Augustina must put up with it! The Reverend Mother will come for +the afternoon, and keep her company. Such civility of late on the part of +all the Catholic friends of Bannisdale towards Miss Fountain!--a civility +always on the watch, week by week, day by day--that never yields itself +for an instant, has never a human impulse, an unguarded tone. Father +Leadham is there one day--he makes a point of talking with Miss Fountain. +He leads the conversation to Cambridge, to her father--his keen glance +upon her all the time, the hidden life of the convert and the mystic +leaping every now and then to the surface, and driven down again by a +will that makes itself felt--even by so cool a listener--as a living +tyrannous thing, developed out of all proportion to, nay at the cruel +expense of, the rest of the personality. Yet it is no will of the man's +own--it is the will of his order, of his faith. And why these repeated +stray references to Bannisdale--to its owner--to the owner's goings and +comings? They are hardly questions, but they might easily have done the +work of questions had the person addressed been willing. Laura laughs to +think of it. + +Ah! well--but discretion to-day, discretion to-morrow, discretion always, +is not the most amusing of diets. How dumb, how tame, has she become! +There is no one to fight with, nothing whereon to let loose the +sharp-edged words and sayings that lie so close behind the girl's shut +lips. How amazing that one should positively miss those fuller activities +in the chapel that depend on the Squire's presence! Father Bowles says +Mass there twice a week; the light still burns before the altar; several +times a day Augustina disappears within the heavy doors. But when Mr. +Helbeck is at home, the place becomes, as it were, the strong heart of +the house. It beats through the whole organism; so that no one can ignore +or forget it. + +What is it that makes the difference when he returns? Unwillingly, the +mind shapes its reply. A sense of unity and law comes back into the +house--a hidden dignity and poetry. The Squire's black head carries with +it stern reminders, reminders that challenge or provoke; but "he nothing +common does nor mean," and smaller mortals, as the weeks go by, begin to +feel their hot angers and criticisms driven back upon themselves, to +realise the strange persistency and force of the religious life. + +Inhuman force! But force of any kind tends to draw, to conquer. More than +once Laura sees herself at night, almost on the steps of the chapel, in +the dark shadows of the passage--following Augustina. But she has never +yet mounted the steps--never passed the door. Once or twice she has +angrily snatched herself from listening to the distant voice. + +... Mr. Helbeck makes very little comment on the Froswick plan. One swift +involuntary look at breakfast, as who might say--"Our compact?" But there +was no compact. And go she will. + +And at last all opposition clears away. It must be Mr. Helbeck who has +silenced Augustina--for even she complains no more. Trains are looked +out; arrangements are made to fetch Polly from a half-way village; a fly +is ordered to meet the 9.10 train at night. Why does one feel a culprit +all through? Absurdity! Is one to be mewed up all one's life, to throw +over all fun and frolic at Mr. Helbeck's bidding--Mr. Helbeck, who now +scarcely sets foot in Bannisdale, who seems to have turned his back upon +his own house, since that precise moment when his sister and her +stepdaughter came to inhabit it? Never till this year was he restless in +this way--so says Mrs. Denton, whose temper grows shorter and shorter. + +Oh--as to fun and frolic! The girl yawns as she looks out of window. What +a long hot day it is going to be--and how foolish are all expeditions, +all formal pleasures! 9.10 at Marsland--about seven, she supposes, at +Froswick? Already her thoughts are busy, hungrily busy with the evening, +and the return. + + * * * * * + +The train sped along. They passed a little watering-place under the steep +wooded hills--a furnace of sun on this hot June day, in winter a soft and +sheltered refuge from the north. Further on rose the ruins of a great +Cistercian abbey, great ribs and arches of red sandstone, that still, in +ruin, made the soul and beauty of a quiet valley; then a few busy towns +with mills and factories, the fringe of that industrial district which +lies on the southern and western border of the Lake Country; more wide +valleys sweeping back into blue mountains; a wealth of June leaf and +blossoming tree; and at last docks and buildings, warehouses and "works," +a network of spreading railway lines, and all the other signs of an +important and growing town. The train stopped amid a crowd, and Polly +hurried to the door. + +"Why, Hubert!--Mr. Seaton!--Here we are!" + +She beckoned wildly, and not a few passers-by turned to look at the +nodding clouds of tulle. + +"We shall find them, Polly--don't shout," said Laura behind her, in some +disgust. + +Shout and beckon, however, Polly did and would, till the two young men +were finally secured. + +"Why, Hubert, you never towd me what a big place 'twas," said Polly +joyously. "Lor, Mr. Seaton, doant fash yoursel. This is Miss Fountain--my +cousin. You'll remember her, I knaw." + +Mr. Seaton began a polite and stilted speech while possessing himself of +Polly's shawl and bag. He was a very superior young man of the clerk or +foreman type, somewhat ill put together at the waist, with a flat back to +his head, and a cadaverous countenance. Laura gave him a rapid look. But +her chief curiosity was for Hubert. And at her first glance she saw the +signs of that strong and silent process perpetually going on amongst us +that tames the countryman to the life and habits of the town. It was only +a couple of months since the young athlete from the fells had been +brought within its sway, and already the marks of it were evident in +dress, speech, and manner. The dialect was almost gone; the black Sunday +coat was of the most fashionable cut that Froswick could provide; and as +they walked along, Laura detected more than once in the downcast eyes of +her companion, a stealthy anxiety as to the knees of his new grey +trousers. So far the change was not an embellishment. The first loss of +freedom and rough strength is never that. But it roused the girl's +notice, and a sort of secret sympathy. She too had felt the curb of an +alien life!--she could almost have held out her hand to him as to a +comrade in captivity. + +Outside the station, to Laura's surprise--considering the object of the +expedition--Hubert made a sign to his sister, and they two dropped behind +a little. + +"What's the matter with her?" said Hubert abruptly, as soon as he judged +that they were out of hearing of the couple in front. + +"Who do you mean? Laura? Why, she's well enoof!" + +"Then she don't look it. She's fretting. What's wrong with her?" + +As Hubert looked down upon his sister, Polly was startled by the +impatient annoyance of look and manner. And how red-rimmed and weary were +the lad's eyes! You might have thought he had not slept for a week. +Polly's mind ran through a series of conjectures; and she broke out with +Westmoreland plainness-- + +"Hubert, I do wish tha wouldn't be sich a fool! I've towd tha so times +and times." + +"Aye, and you may tell me so till kingdom come--I shan't mind you," he +said doggedly. "There's something between her and the Squire, I know +there is. I know it by the look of her." + +Polly laughed. + +"How you jump! I tell tha she never says a word aboot him." + +Hubert looked moodily at Laura's little figure in front. + +"All the more reason!" he said between his teeth. "She'd talk about him +when she first came. But I'll find out--never fear." + +"For goodness' sake, Hubert, let her be!" said Polly, entreating. "Sich +wild stuff as thoo's been writin me! Yan might ha thowt yo'd be fer +cuttin yor throat, if yo' didn't get her doon here.--What art tha thinkin +of, lad? She'll never marry tha! She doan't belong to us--and there's noa +undoin it." + +Hubert made no reply, but unconsciously his muscular frame took a +passionate rigidity; his face became set and obstinate. + +"Well, you keep watch," he said. "You'll see--I'll make it worth your +while." + +Polly looked up--half laughing. She understood his reference to herself +and her new sweetheart. Hubert would play her game if she would play his. +Well--she had no objection whatever to help him to the sight of Laura +when she could. Polly's moral sense was not over-delicate, and as to the +upshot and issues of things, her imagination moved but slowly. She did +not like to let herself think of what might have been Hubert's relations +to women--to one or two wild girls about Whinthorpe for instance. But +Laura--Laura who was so much their social better, whose manners and +self-possession awed them both, what smallest harm could ever come to her +from any act or word of Hubert's? For this rustic Westmoreland girl, +Laura Fountain stood on a pedestal robed and sceptred like a little +queen. Hubert was a fool to fret himself--a fool to go courting some one +too high for him. What else was there to say or think about it? + +At the next street corner Laura made a resolute stop. Polly should not +any longer be defrauded of her Mr. Seaton. Besides she, Laura, wished to +talk to Hubert. Mr. Beaton's long words, and way of mouthing his highly +correct phrases, had already seemed to take the savour out of the +morning. + +When the exchange was made--Mr. Seaton alas! showing less eagerness than +might have been expected--Laura quietly examined her companion. It seemed +to her that he was taller than ever; surely she was not much higher than +his elbow! Hubert, conscious that he was being scrutinised, turned red, +looked away, coughed, and apparently could find nothing to say. + +"Well--how are you getting on?" said the light voice, sending its +vibration through all the man's strong frame. + +"I suppose I'm getting on all right," he said, switching at the railings +beside the road with his stick. + +"What sort of work do you do?" + +He gave her a stumbling account, from which she gathered that he was for +the time being the factotum of an office, sent on everybody's errands, +and made responsible for everybody's shortcomings. + +She threw him a glance of pity. This young Hercules, with his open-air +traditions, and his athlete's triumphs behind him, turned into the butt +and underling of half a dozen clerks in a stuffy office! + +"I don't mind," he said hastily. "All the others paid for their places; I +didn't pay for mine. I'll be even with them all some day. It was the +chance I wanted, and my uncle gives me a lift now and then. It was to +please him they gave me the berth; he's worth thousands and thousands a +year to them!" + +And he launched into a boasting account of the importance and abilities +of his uncle, Daniel Mason, who was now managing director of the great +shipbuilding yard into which Hubert had been taken, as a favour to his +kinsman. + +"He began at the bottom, same as me--only he was younger than me," said +Hubert, "so he had the pull. But you'll see, I'll work up. I've learnt a +lot since I've been here. The classes at the Institute--well, they're +fine!" + +Laura showed an astonished glance. New sides of the lad seemed to be +revealing themselves. + +She inquired after his music. But he declared he was too busy to think of +it. By-and-by in the winter he would have lessons. There was a violin +class at the Institute--perhaps he'd join that. Then abruptly, staring +down upon her with his wide blue eyes-- + +"And how have you been getting on with the Squire?" + +He thought she started, but couldn't be quite sure. + +"Getting on with the Squire? Why, capitally! Whenever he's there to get +on with." + +"What--he's been away?" he said eagerly. + +She raised her shoulders. + +"He's always away----" + +"Why, I thought they'd have made a Papist of you by now," he said. + +His laugh was rough, but his eyes held her with a curious insistence. + +"Think something more reasonable, please, next time! Now, where are we +going to lunch?" + +"We've got it all ready. But we must see the yard first.... Miss +Fountain--Laura--I've got that flower you gave me." + +His voice was suddenly hoarse. + +She glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows. + +"Very foolish of you, I'm sure.... Now do tell me, how did you get off so +early?" + +He sulkily explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own +yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in +order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on +night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his +days. But she paid small attention. She was occupied in looking at the +new buildings and streets, the brand new squares and statues of Froswick. + +"How can people build and live in such ugly places?" she said at last, +standing still that she might stare about her--"when there are such +lovely things in the world; Cambridge, for instance--or--Bannisdale." + +The last word slipped out, dreamily, unaware. + +The lad's face flushed furiously. + +"I don't know what there is to see in Bannisdale," he said hotly. "It's a +damp, dark, beastly hole of a place." + +"I prefer Bannisdale to this, thank you," said Laura, making a little +face at the very ample bronze gentleman in a frock coat who was standing +in the centre of a great new-built empty square, haranguing a phantom +crowd. "Oh! how ugly it is to succeed--to have money!" + +Mason looked at her with a half-puzzled frown--a frown that of late had +begun to tease his handsome forehead habitually. + +"What's the harm of having a bit of brass?" he said angrily. "And what's +the beauty o' livin in an old ramshackle place, without a sixpence in +your pocket, and a pride fit to bring you to the workhouse!" + +Laura's little mouth showed amusement, an amusement that stung. She +lifted a little fan that hung at her girdle. + +"Is there any shade in Froswick?" she said, looking round her. + +Mason was silenced, and as Polly and Mr. Seaton joined them, he recovered +his temper with a mighty effort and once more set himself to do the +honours--the slighted honours--of his new home. + +... But oh! the heat of the ship-building yard. Laura was already tired +and faint, and could hardly drag her feet up and down the sides of the +great skeleton ships that lay building in the docks, or through the +interminable "fitting" sheds with their piles of mahogany and teak, their +whirring lathes and saws, their heaps of shavings, their resinous wood +smell. And yet the managing director appeared in person for twenty +minutes, a thin, small, hawk-eyed man, not at all unwilling to give a +brief patronage to the young lady who might be said to link the houses of +Mason and Helbeck in a flattering equality. + +"He wad never ha doon it for _us_!" Polly whispered in her awe to Miss +Fountain. "It's you he's affther!" + +Laura, however, was not grateful. She took her industrial lesson ill, +with much haste and inattention, so that once when the director and his +nephew fell behind, the great man, whose speech to his kinsman in private +was often little less broad than Mrs. Mason's own--said scornfully: + +"An I doan't think much o' your fine cousin, mon! she's nobbut a flighty +miss." + +The young man said nothing. He was still slavishly ill at ease with his +uncle, on whose benevolence all his future depended. + +"Is there something more to see?" said Laura languidly. + +"Only the steel works," said Mr. Seaton, with a patronising smile. "You +young ladies, I presume, would hardly wish to go away without seeing our +chief establishment. Froswick Steel and Hematite Works employ three +thousand workmen." + +"Do they?--and does it matter?" said Laura, playing with the salt. + +She wore a little plaintive, tired air, which suited her soft paleness, +and made her extraordinarily engaging in the eyes of both the young men. +Mason watched her perpetually, anticipating her slightest movement, +waiting on her least want. And Mr. Seaton, usually so certain of his own +emotions and so wholly in command of them, began to feel himself +confused. It was with a distinct slackening of ardour that he looked from +Miss Fountain to Polly--his Polly, as he had almost come to think of her, +honest managing Polly, who would have a bit of "brass," and was in all +respects a tidy and suitable wife for such a man as he. But why had she +wrapped all that silly white stuff round her head? And her hands!--Mr. +Seaton slyly withdrew his eyes from Polly's reddened members to fix them +on the thin white wrist that Laura was holding poised in air, and the +pretty fingers twirling the salt spoon. + +Polly meantime sat up very straight, and was no longer talkative. Lunch +had not improved her complexion, as the mirror hanging opposite showed +her. Every now and then she too threw little restless glances across at +Laura. + +"Why, we needn't go to the works at all if we don't like," said Polly. +"Can't we get a fly, Hubert, and take a jaunt soomwhere?" + +Hubert bent forward with alacrity. Of course they could. If they went +four miles up the river or so, they would come to real nice country and a +farmhouse where they could have tea. + +"Well, I'm game," said Mr. Seaton, magnanimously slapping his pocket. +"Anything to please these ladies." + +"I don't know about that seven o'clock train," said Mason doubtfully. + +"Well, if we can't get that, there's a later one." + +"No, that's the last." + +"You may trust me," said Seaton pompously. "I know my way about a railway +guide. There's one a little after eight." + +Hubert shook his head. He thought Seaton was mistaken. But Laura settled +the matter. + +"Thank you--we'll not miss our train," she said, rising to put her hat +straight before the glass--"so it's the works, please. What is +it--furnaces and red-hot things?" + +In another minute or two they were in the street again. Mr. Seaton +settled the bill with a magnificent "Damn the expense" air, which annoyed +Mason--who was of course a partner in all the charges of the day--and +made Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk with +Miss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemer +process and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which the +little nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which he +found himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs of +Laura and Hubert hurrying along in front, amazed him. + +"Isn't she nice looking?" said poor Polly, as she too stared helplessly +at the distant pair. + +Her shawl weighed upon her arm, Mr. Seaton had forgotten to ask for it. +But there was a little sudden balm in the irritable vexation of his +reply: + +"Some people may be of that opinion, Miss Mason. I own I prefer a greater +degree of balance in the fair sex." + +"Oh! does he mean me?" thought Polly. + +And her spirits revived a little. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, as Laura and Hubert walked along to the desolate road that led +to the great steel works, Hubert knew a kind of jealous and tormented +bliss. She was there, fluttering beside him, her delicate face often +turned to him, her feet keeping step with his. And at the same time what +strong intangible barriers between them! She had put away her mocking +tone--was clearly determined to be kind and cousinly. Yet every word only +set the tides of love and misery swelling more strongly in the lad's +breast. "She doan't belong to us, an there's noa undoin it." Polly's +phrase haunted his ear. Yet he dared ask her no more questions about +Helbeck; small and frail as she was, she could wrap herself in an +unapproachable dignity; nobody had ever yet solved the mystery of Laura's +inmost feeling against her will; and Hubert knew despairingly that his +clumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of rage +that there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something to +know, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not for +his knowing. Ah! that man--that ugly starched hypocrite--after all had he +got hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain--this +pang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle--to that +canting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, he would crush +the life out of her in six months! + +There was a rush and whirl in the lad's senses. A cry of animal +jealousy--of violence--rose in his being. + + * * * * * + +"How wonderful!--how enchanting!" cried Laura, her glance sparkling, her +whole frame quivering with pleasure. + +They had just entered the great main shed of the steel works. The +foreman, who had been induced by the young men to take them through, was +in the act of placing Laura in the shelter of a brick screen, so as to +protect her from a glowing shower of sparks that would otherwise have +swept over her; and the girl had thrown a few startled looks around her. + +A vast shed, much of it in darkness, and crowded with dim forms of iron +and brick--at one end, and one side, openings, where the June day came +through. Within--a grandiose mingling of fire and shadow--a vast glare of +white or bluish flame from a huge furnace roaring against the inner wall +of the shed--sparks, like star showers, whirling through dark +spaces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire passing and +repassing, so that the heat of them scorched the girl's shrinking +cheek--and everywhere, dark against flame, the human movement answering +to the elemental leap and rush of the fire, black forms of men in a +constant activity, masters and ministers at once of this crackling terror +round about them. + +"Aye!" said their guide, answering the girl's questions as well as he +could in the roar--"that's the great furnace where they boil the steel. +Now you watch--when the flame--look! it's white now--turns blue--that +means the process is done--the steel's cooked. Then they'll bring the vat +beneath--turn the furnace over--you'll see the steel pour out." + +"Is that a railway?" + +She pointed to a raised platform in front of the furnace. A truck bearing +a high metal tub was running along it. + +"Yes--it's from there they feed the furnace--in a minute you'll see the +tub tip over." + +There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a great +jet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth had +swallowed down its prey. + +"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go so +close?" + +She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes. + +The foreman laughed. + +"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see the +furnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort and +the barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Stand +back!" + +He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter. + +Laura looked round her. + +"Where are the other two?" she asked. + +"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seaton +knows the man in charge of the testing workshop." + +Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her. +The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers of +sparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed the +stream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the fire +cup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; the +swarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--men +and trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillars +supporting it, all black against the glare---- + +Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But while +she hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. He +was conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in the +little clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in the +glow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wide +black hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The lad +took the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire. + +"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away with +a long breath. + +And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace, +pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travelling +slowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descended +and lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncovering +the four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they moved +across the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another was +lowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became the +prey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath, +to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Then +out again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in it +already half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to be +caught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at last +the quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent, +still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on, +and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort of +platform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, and +brought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerable +fellows, waiting for the market and its buyers. + +"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerly +to her guide--"just for a minute!" + +He smiled at her, unable to say no. + +And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The great +furnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing its +last change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured its +contents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderly +woman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for some +workmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace and +hiding from the sparks. + +Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to be +lowered--and the hell-broth is cooked once again, and will come streaming +forth. + +The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in the +intolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. An +electric bell rings. + +Then---- + +What was that? + +God!--what was that? + +A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewilderment +across her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward. + +"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason. + +But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyes +staring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the little +railway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarm +with running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full of +their cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive. + +Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come to +bring the tea rushed up to her. + +"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend the +heart. + +And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wild +broken words, which neither of them heard or knew. + + +END OF VOL. I + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. +by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I. *** + +This file should be named 7hbn110.txt or 7hbn110.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7hbn111.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7hbn110a.txt + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Berger, +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/7hbn110.zip b/old/7hbn110.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7abb4ac --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7hbn110.zip diff --git a/old/8hbn110.txt b/old/8hbn110.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5487c8c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8hbn110.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8002 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I., by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9441] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 1, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I. *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Berger, +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +HELBECK OF BANNISDALE + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + + ... metus ille ... Acheruntis ... + Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo + + +In two volumes + +Vol. I. + + +To + +E. de V. + +In Memoriam + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I + +BOOK II + +BOOK III + + + + +BOOK I + + +CHAPTER I + +"I must be turning back. A dreary day for anyone coming fresh to these +parts!" + +So saying, Mr. Helbeck stood still--both hands resting on his thick +stick--while his gaze slowly swept the straight white road in front of +him and the landscape to either side. + +Before him stretched the marsh lands of the Flent valley, a broad +alluvial plain brought down by the rivers Flent and Greet on their way to +the estuary and the sea. From the slight rising ground on which he stood, +he could see the great peat mosses about the river-mouths, marked here +and there by lines of weather-beaten trees, or by more solid dots of +black which the eye of the inhabitant knew to be peat stacks. Beyond the +mosses were level lines of greyish white, where the looping rivers passed +into the sea--lines more luminous than the sky at this particular moment +of a damp March afternoon, because of some otherwise invisible radiance, +which, miles away, seemed to be shining upon the water, slipping down to +it from behind a curtain of rainy cloud. + +Nearer by, on either side of the high road which cut the valley from east +to west, were black and melancholy fields, half reclaimed from the peat +moss, fields where the water stood in the furrows, or a plough driven +deep and left, showed the nature of the heavy waterlogged earth, and the +farmer's despair of dealing with it, till the drying winds should come. +Some of it, however, had long before been reclaimed for pasture, so that +strips of sodden green broke up, here and there, the long stretches of +purple black. In the great dykes or drains to which the pastures were +due, the water, swollen with recent rain, could be seen hurrying to join +the rivers and the sea. The clouds overhead hurried like the dykes and +the streams. A perpetual procession from the north-west swept inland from +the sea, pouring from the dark distance of the upper valley, and blotting +out the mountains that stood around its head. + +A desolate scene, on this wild March day; yet full of a sort of beauty, +even so far as the mosslands were concerned. And as Alan Helbeck's glance +travelled along the ridge to his right, he saw it gradually rising from +the marsh in slopes, and scars, and wooded fells, a medley of lovely +lines, of pastures and copses, of villages clinging to the hills, each +with its church tower and its white spreading farms--a laud of homely +charm and comfort, gently bounding the marsh below it, and cut off by the +seething clouds in the north-west from the mountains towards which it +climbed. And as he turned homewards with the moss country behind him, the +hills rose and fell about him in soft undulation more and more rich in +wood, while beside him roared the tumbling Greet, with its flood-voice--a +voice more dear and familiar to Alan Helbeck perhaps, at this moment of +his life, than the voice of any human being. + +He walked fast with his shoulders thrown back, a remarkably tall man, +with a dark head and short grizzled beard. He held himself very erect, as +a soldier holds himself; but he had never been a soldier. + +Once in his rapid course, he paused to look at his watch, then hurried +on, thinking. + +"She stipulates that she is never to be expected to come to prayers," he +repeated to himself, half smiling. "I suppose she thinks of herself as +representing her father--in a nest of Papists. Evidently Augustina has no +chance with her--she has been accustomed to reign! Well, we shall let her +'gang her gait.'" + +His mouth, which was full and strongly closed, took a slight expression +of contempt. As he turned over a bridge, and then into his own gate on +the further side, he passed an old labourer who was scraping the mud from +the road. + +"Have you seen any carriage go by just lately, Reuben?" + +"Noa--" said the man. "Theer's been none this last hour an more--nobbut +carts, an t' Whinthrupp bus." + +Helbeck's pace slackened. He had been very solitary all day, and even the +company of the old road-sweeper was welcome. + +"If we don't get some drying days soon, it'll be bad for all of us, won't +it, Reuben?" + +"Aye, it's a bit clashy," said the man, with stolidity, stopping to spit +into his hands a moment, before resuming his work. + +The mildness of the adjective brought another half-smile to Helbeck's +dark face. A stranger watching it might have wondered, indeed, whether it +could smile with any fulness or spontaneity. + +"But you don't see any good in grumbling--is that it?" + +"Noa--we'se not git ony profit that gate, I reckon," said the old man, +laying his scraper to the mud once more. + +"Well, good-night to you. I'm expecting my sister to-night, you know, my +sister Mrs. Fountain, and her stepdaughter." + +"Eh?" said Reuben slowly. "Then yo'll be hevin cumpany, fer shure. +Good-neet to ye, Misther Helbeck." + +But there was no great cordiality in his tone, and he touched his cap +carelessly, without any sort of unction. The man's manner expressed +familiarity of long habit, but little else. + +Helbeck turned into his own park. The road that led up to the house wound +alongside the river, whereof the banks had suddenly risen into a craggy +wildness. All recollection of the marshland was left behind. The ground +mounted on either side of the stream towards fell-tops, of which the +distant lines could be seen dimly here and there behind the crowding +trees; while, at some turns of the road, where the course of the Greet +made a passage for the eye, one might look far away to the same mingled +blackness of cloud and scar that stood round the head of the estuary. +Clearly the mountains were not far off; and this was a border country +between their ramparts and the sea. + +The light of the March evening was dying, dying in a stormy greyness that +promised more rain for the morrow. Yet the air was soft, and the spring +made itself felt. In some sheltered places by the water, one might +already see a shimmer of buds; and in the grass of the wild untended +park, daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eye +and ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds that +haunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping to +its new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed creeper +moving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a silent and +jealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards other things +and forces in his life. + +As he walked, the manner of the old peasant rankled a little in his +memory. For it implied, if not disrespect, at least a complete absence of +all that the French call "consideration." + +"It's strange how much more alone I've felt in this place of late than I +used to feel," was Helbeck's reflection upon it, at last. "I reckon it's +since I sold the Leasowes land. Or is it perhaps----" + +He fell into a reverie marked by a frowning expression, and a harsh +drawing down of the mouth. But gradually as he swung along, muttered +words began to escape him, and his hand went to a book that he carried in +his pocket.--"_O dust, learn of Me to obey! Learn of Me, O earth and +clay, to humble thyself, and to cast thyself under the feet of all men +for the love of Me._"--As he murmured the words, which soon became +inaudible, his aspect cleared, his eyes raised themselves again to the +landscape, and became once more conscious of its growth and life. + +Presently he reached a gate across the road, where a big sheepdog sprang +out upon him, leaping and barking joyously. Beyond the gates rose a low +pile of buildings, standing round three sides of a yard. They had once +been the stables of the Hall. Now they were put to farm uses, and through +the door of what had formerly been a coachhouse with a coat of arms +worked in white pebbles on its floor, a woman could be seen milking. +Helbeck looked in upon her. + +"No carriage gone by yet, Mrs. Tyson?" + +"Noa, sir," said the woman. "But I'll mebbe prop t' gate open, for it's +aboot time." And she put down her pail. + +"Don't move!" said Helbeck hastily. "I'll do it myself." + +The woman, as she milked, watched him propping the ruinous gate with a +stone; her expression all the time friendly and attentive. His own +people, women especially, somehow always gave him this attention. + +Helbeck hurried forward over a road, once stately, and now badly worn and +ill-mended. The trees, mostly oaks of long growth, which had accompanied +him since the entrance of the park, thickened to a close wood around till +of a sudden he emerged from them, and there, across a wide space, rose a +grey gabled house, sharp against a hillside, with a rainy evening light +full upon it. + +It was an old and weather-beaten house, of a singular character and +dignity; yet not large. It was built of grey stone, covered with a +rough-cast, so tempered by age to the colour and surface of the stone, +that the many patches where it had dropped away produced hardly any +disfiguring effect. The rugged "pele" tower, origin and source of all the +rest, was now grouped with the gables and projections, the broad +casemented windows, and deep doorways of a Tudor manor-house. But the +whole structure seemed still to lean upon and draw towards the tower; and +it was the tower which gave accent to a general expression of austerity, +depending perhaps on the plain simplicity of all the approaches and +immediate neighbourhood of the house. For in front of it were neither +flowers nor shrubs--only wide stretches of plain turf and gravel; while +behind it, beyond some thin intervening trees, rose a grey limestone +fell, into which the house seemed to withdraw itself, as into the rock, +"whence it was hewn." + +There were some lights in the old windows, and the heavy outer door was +open. Helbeck mounted the steps and stood, watch in hand, at the top of +them, looking down the avenue he had just walked through. And very soon, +in spite of the roar of the river, his ear distinguished the wheels he +was listening for. While they approached, he could not keep himself +still, but moved restlessly about the little stone platform. He had been +solitary for many years, and had loved his solitude. + +"They're just coomin', sir," said the voice of his old housekeeper, as +she threw open an inner door behind him, letting a glow of fire and +candles stream out into the twilight. Helbeck meanwhile caught sight for +an instant of a girl's pale face at the window of the approaching +carriage--a face thrust forward eagerly, to gaze at the pele tower. + +The horses stopped, and out sprang the girl. + +"Wait a moment--let me help you, Augustina. How do you do, Mr. Helbeck? +Don't touch my dog, please--he doesn't like men. Fricka, be quiet!" + +For the little black spitz she held in a chain had begun to growl and +bark furiously at the first sight of Helbeck, to the evident anger of the +old housekeeper, who looked at the dog sourly as she went forward to take +some bags and rugs from her master. Helbeck, meanwhile, and the young +girl helped another lady to alight. She came out slowly with the +precautions of an invalid, and Helbeck gave her his arm. + +At the top of the steps she turned and looked round her. + +"Oh, Alan!" she said, "it is so long----" + +Her lips trembled, and her head shook oddly. She was a short woman, with +a thin plaintive face and a nervous jerk of the head, always very marked +at a moment of agitation. As he noticed it, Helbeck felt times long past +rush back upon him. He laid his hand over hers, and tried to say +something; but his shyness oppressed him. When he had led her into the +broad hall, with its firelight and stuccoed roof, she said, turning round +with the same bewildered air-- + +"You saw Laura? You have never seen her before!" + +"Oh yes; we shook hands, Augustina," said a young voice. "Will Mr. +Helbeck please help me with these things?" + +She was laden with shawls and packages, and Helbeck hastily went to her +aid. In the emotion of bringing his sister back into the old house, which +she had left fifteen years before, when he himself was a lad of +two-and-twenty, he had forgotten her stepdaughter. + +But Miss Fountain did not intend to be forgotten. She made him relieve +her of all burdens, and then argue an overcharge with the flyman. And at +last, when all the luggage was in and the fly was driving off, she +mounted the steps deliberately, looking about her all the time, but +principally at the house. The eyes of the housekeeper, who with Mr. +Helbeck was standing in the entrance awaiting her, surveyed both dog and +mistress with equal disapproval. + +But the dusk was fast passing into darkness, and it was not till the girl +came into the brightness of the hall where her stepmother was already +sitting tired and drooping on a settle near the great wood fire, that +Helbeck saw her plainly. + +She was very small and slight, and her hair made a spot of pale gold +against the oak panelling of the walls. Helbeck noticed the slenderness +of her arms, and the prettiness of her little white neck, then the +freedom of her quick gesture as she went up to the elder lady and with a +certain peremptoriness began to loosen her cloak. + +"Augustina ought to go to bed directly," she said, looking at Helbeck. +"The journey tired her dreadfully." + +"Mrs. Fountain's room is quite ready," said the housekeeper, holding +herself stiffly behind her master. She was a woman of middle age, with a +pinkish face, framed between two tiers of short grey curls. + +Laura's eye ran over her. + +"_You_ don't like our coming!" she said to herself. Then to Helbeck-- + +"May I take her up at once? I will unpack, and put her comfortable. Then +she ought to have some food. She has had nothing to-day but some tea at +Lancaster." + +Mrs. Fountain looked up at the girl with feeble acquiescence, as though +depending on her entirely. Helbeck glanced from his pale sister to the +housekeeper in some perplexity. + +"What will you have?" he said nervously to Miss Fountain. "Dinner, I +think, was to be at a quarter to eight." + +"That was the time I was ordered, sir," said Mrs. Denton. + +"Can't it be earlier?" asked the girl impetuously. + +Mrs. Denton did not reply, but her shoulders grew visibly rigid. + +"Do what you can for us, Denton," said her master hastily, and she went +away. Helbeck bent kindly over his sister. + +"You know what a small establishment we have, Augustina. Mrs. Denton, a +rough girl, and a boy--that's all. I do trust they will be able to make +you comfortable." + +"Oh, let me come down, when I have unpacked, and help cook," said Miss +Fountain brightly. "I can do anything of that sort." + +Helbeck smiled for the first time. "I am afraid Mrs. Denton wouldn't take +it kindly. She rules us all in this old place." + +"I dare say," said the girl quietly. "It's fish, of course?" she added, +looking down at her stepmother, and speaking in a meditative voice. + +"It's a Friday's dinner," said Helbeck, flushing suddenly, and looking at +his sister, "except for Miss Fountain. I supposed----" + +Mrs. Fountain rose in some agitation and threw him a piteous look. + +"Of course you did, Alan--of course you did. But the doctor at +Folkestone--he was a Catholic--I took such care about that!--told me I +mustn't fast. And Laura is always worrying me. But indeed I didn't want +to be dispensed!--not yet!" + +Laura said nothing; nor did Helbeck. There was a certain embarrassment in +the looks of both, as though there was more in Mrs. Fountain's words than +appeared. Then the girl, holding herself erect and rather defiant, drew +her stepmother's arm in hers, and turned to Helbeck. + +"Will you please show us the way up?" + +Helbeck took a small hand-lamp and led the way, bidding the newcomers +beware of the slipperiness of the old polished boards. Mrs. Fountain +walked with caution, clinging to her stepdaughter. At the foot of the +staircase she stopped, and looked upward. + +"Alan, I don't see much change!" + +He turned back, the light shining on his fine harsh face and grizzled +hair. + +"Don't you? But it is greatly changed, Augustina. We have shut up half of +it." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed deeply and moved on. Laura, as she mounted the +stairs, looked back at the old hall, its ceiling of creamy stucco, its +panelled walls, and below, the great bare floor of shining oak with +hardly any furniture upon it--a strip of old carpet, a heavy oak table, +and a few battered chairs at long intervals against the panelling. But +the big fire of logs piled upon the hearth filled it all with cheerful +light, and under her indifferent manner, the girl's sense secretly +thrilled with pleasure. She had heard much of "poor Alan's" poverty. +Poverty! As far as his house was concerned, at any rate, it seemed to her +of a very tolerable sort. + + * * * * * + +In a few minutes Helbeck came downstairs again, and stood absently before +the fire on the hearth. After a while, he sat down beside it in his +accustomed chair--a carved chair of black Westmoreland oak--and began to +read from the book which he had been carrying in his pocket out of doors. +He read with his head bent closely over the pages, because of short +sight; and, as a rule, reading absorbed him so completely that he was +conscious of nothing external while it lasted. To-night, however, he +several times looked up to listen to the sounds overhead, unwonted sounds +in this house, over which, as it often seemed to him, a quiet of +centuries had settled down, like a fine dust or deposit, muffling all its +steps and voices. But there was nothing muffled in the voice overhead +which he caught every now and then, through an open door, escaping, eager +and alive, into the silence; or in the occasional sharp bark of the dog. + +"Horrid little wretch!" thought Helbeck. "Denton will loathe it. +Augustina should really have warned me. What shall we do if she and +Denton don't get on? It will never answer if she tries meddling in the +kitchen--I must tell her." + +Presently, however, his inner anxieties grew upon him so much that his +book fell on his knee, and he lost himself in a multitude of small +scruples and torments, such as beset all persons who live alone. Were all +his days now to be made difficult, because he had followed his +conscience, and asked his widowed sister to come and live with him? + +"Augustina and I could have done well enough. But this girl--well, we +must put up with it--we must, Bruno!" + +He laid his hand as he spoke on the neck of a collie that had just +lounged into the hall, and come to lay its nose upon his master's knee. +Suddenly a bark from overhead made the dog start back and prick its ears. + +"Come here, Bruno--be quiet. You're to treat that little brute with +proper contempt--do you hear? Listen to all that scuffling and talking +upstairs--that's the new young woman getting her way with old Denton. +Well, it won't do Denton any harm. We're put upon sometimes, too, aren't +we?" + +And he caressed the dog, his haughty face alive with something half +bitter, half humorous. + +At that moment the old clock in the hall struck a quarter past seven. +Helbeck sprang up. + +"Am I to dress?" he said to himself in some perplexity. + +He considered for a moment or two, looking at his shabby serge suit, then +sat down again resolutely. + +"No! She'll have to live our life. Besides, I don't know what Denton +would think." + +And he lay back in his chair, recalling with some amusement the +criticisms of his housekeeper upon a young Catholic friend of his +who--rare event--had spent a fishing week with him in the autumn, and had +startled the old house and its inmates with his frequent changes of +raiment. "It's yan set o' cloas for breakfast, an anudther for fishin, an +anudther for ridin, an yan for when he cooms in, an a fine suit for +dinner--an anudther fer smoakin--A should think he mut be oftener naked +nor donned!" Denton had said in her grim Westmoreland, and Helbeck had +often chuckled over the remark. + +An hour later, half an hour after the usual time, Helbeck, all the traces +of his muddy walk removed, and garbed with scrupulous neatness in the old +black coat and black tie he always wore of an evening, was sitting +opposite to Miss Fountain at supper. + +"You got everything you wanted for Augustina, I hope?" he said to her +shyly as they sat down. He had awaited her in the dining-room itself, so +as to avoid the awkwardness of taking her in. It was some years since a +woman had stayed under his roof, or since he had been a guest in the same +house with women. + +"Oh yes!" said Miss Fountain. But she threw a sly swift glance towards +Mrs. Denton, who was just coming into the room with some coffee, then +compressed her lips and studied her plate. Helbeck detected the glance, +and saw too that Mrs. Denton's pink face was flushed, and her manner +discomposed. + +"The coffee's noa good," she said abruptly, as she put it down; "I +couldn't keep to 't." + +"No, I'm afraid we disturbed Mrs. Denton dreadfully," said Miss Fountain, +shrugging her shoulders. "We got her to bring up all sorts of things for +Augustina. She was dreadfully tired--I thought she would faint. The +doctor scolded me before we left, about letting her go without food. +Shall I give you some fish, Mr. Helbeck?" + +For, to her astonishment, the fish even--a very small portion--was placed +before herself, side by side with a few fragments of cold chicken; and +she looked in vain for a second plate. + +As she glanced across the table, she caught a momentary shade of +embarrassment in Helbeck's face. + +"No, thank you," he said. "I am provided." + +His provision seemed to be coffee and bread and butter. She raised her +eyebrows involuntarily, but said nothing, and he presently busied himself +in bringing her vegetables and wine, Mrs. Denton having left the room. + +"I trust you will make a good meal," he said gravely, as he waited upon +her. "You have had a long day." + +"Oh, yes!" said Miss Fountain impetuously, "and please don't ever make +any difference for me on Fridays. It doesn't matter to me in the least +what I eat." + +Helbeck offered no reply. Conversation between them indeed did not flow +very readily. They talked a little about the journey from London; and +Laura asked a few questions about the house. She was, indeed, studying +the room in which they sat, and her host himself, all the time. "He may +be a saint," she thought, "but I am sure he knows all the time there are +very few saints of such an old family! His head's splendid--so dark and +fine--with the great waves of grey-black hair--and the long features and +the pointed chin. He's immensely tall too--six feet two at least--taller +than father. He looks hard and bigoted. I suppose most people would be +afraid of him--I'm not!" + +And 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 house. +The March rawness made her shiver, and she looked shrinkingly into the +gloom before her, as she paused outside her own door. There, at the end +of the passage, lay the old tower; so Mrs. Denton had told her. The +thought of all the locked and empty rooms in it,--dark, cold +spaces,--haunted perhaps by strange sounds and presences of the past, +seemed to let loose upon her all at once a little whirlwind of fear. She +hurried into her room, and was just setting down her candle before +turning to lock her door, when a sound from the distant hall caught her +ear. + +A deep monotonous sound, rising and falling at regular intervals, Mr. +Helbeck reading prayers, with the two maids, who represented the only +service of the house. + +Laura lingered with her hand on the door. In the silence of the ancient +house, there was something touching in the sound, a kind of appeal. But +it was an appeal which, in the girl's mind, passed instantly into +reaction. She locked the door, and turned away, breathing fast as though +under some excitement. + +The tears, long held down, were rising, and the room, where a large wood +fire was burning,--wood was the only provision of which there was a +plenty at Bannisdale,--seemed to her suddenly stifling. She went to the +casement window and threw it open. A rush of mild wind came through, and +with it, the roar of the swollen river. + +The girl leant forward, bathing her hot face in the wild air. There was a +dark mist of trees below her, trees tossed by the wind; then, far down, a +ray of moonlight on water; beyond, a fell-side, clear a moment beneath a +sky of sweeping cloud; and last of all, highest of all, amid the clouds, +a dim radiance, intermittent and yet steady, like the radiance of moonlit +snow. + +A strange nobility and freedom breathed from the wide scene; from its +mere depth below her; from the spacious curve of the river, the mountains +half shown, half hidden, the great race of the clouds, the fresh beating +of the wind. The north spoke to her and the mountains. It was like the +rush of something passionate and straining through her girlish sense, +intensifying all that was already there. What was this thirst, this +yearning, this physical anguish of pity that crept back upon her in all +the pauses of the day and night? + +It was nine months since she had lost her father, but all the scenes of +his last days were still so clear to her that it seemed to her often +sheer incredibility that the room, the bed, the helpless form, the noise +of the breathing, the clink of the medicine glasses, the tread of the +doctor, the gasping words of the patient, were all alike fragments and +phantoms of the past,--that the house was empty, the bed sold, the +patient gone. Oh! the clinging of the thin hand round her own, the +piteousness of suffering--of failure! Poor, poor papa!--he would not say, +even to comfort her, that they would meet again. He had not believed it, +and so she must not. + +No, and she would not! She raised her head fiercely and dried her tears. +Only, why was she here, in the house of a man who had never spoken to her +father--his brother-in-law--for thirteen years; who had made his sister +feel that her marriage had been a disgrace; who was all the time, no +doubt, cherishing such thoughts in that black, proud head of his, while +she, her father's daughter, was sitting opposite to him? + +"How am I ever going to bear it--all these months?" she asked herself. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +But the causes which had brought Laura Fountain to Bannisdale were very +simple. It had all come about in the most natural inevitable way. + +When Laura was eight years old--nearly thirteen years before this +date--her father, then a widower with one child, had fallen in with and +married Alan Helbeck's sister. At the time of their first meeting with +the little Catholic spinster, Stephen Fountain and his child were +spending part of the Cambridge vacation at a village on the Cumberland +coast where a fine air could be combined with cheap lodgings. Fountain +himself was from the North Country. His grandfather had been a small +Lancashire yeoman, and Stephen Fountain had an inbred liking for the +fells, the farmhouses, and even the rain of his native district. Before +descending to the sea, he and his child had spent a couple of days with +his cousin by marriage, James Mason, in the lonely stone house among the +hills, which had belonged to the family since the Revolution. He left it +gladly, however, for the farm life seemed to him much harder and more +squalid than he had remembered it to be, and he disliked James Mason's +wife. As he and Laura walked down the long, rough track connecting the +farm with the main road on the day of their departure, Stephen Fountain +whistled so loud and merrily that the skipping child beside him looked at +him with astonishment. + +It was his way no doubt of thanking Providence for the happy chance that +had sent his father to a small local government post at Newcastle, and +himself to a grammar school with openings on the University. Yet as a +rule he thought himself anything but a successful man. He held a +lectureship at Cambridge in an obscure scientific subject; and was in his +way both learned and diligent. But he had few pupils, and had never cared +to have them. They interfered with his own research, and he had the +passionate scorn for popularity which grows up naturally in those who +have no power with the crowd. His religious opinions, or rather the +manner in which he chose to express them, divided him from many good men. +He was poor, and he hated his poverty. A rather imprudent marriage had +turned out neither particularly well nor particularly ill. His wife had +some beauty, however, and there was hardly time for disillusion. She died +when Laura was still a tottering baby, and Stephen had missed her sorely +for a while. Since her death he had grown to be a very lonely man, +silently discontented with himself and sourly critical of his neighbours. +Yet all the same he thanked God that he was not his cousin James. + +Potter's Beach as a watering-place was neither beautiful nor amusing. +Laura was happy there, but that said nothing. All her childhood through, +she had the most surprising gift for happiness. From morning till night +she lived in a flutter of delicious nothings. Unless he watched her +closely, Stephen Fountain could not tell for the life of him what she was +about all day. But he saw that she was endlessly about something; her +little hands and legs never rested; she dug, bathed, dabbled, raced, +kissed, ate, slept, in one happy bustle, which never slackened except for +the hours when she lay rosy and still in her bed. And even then the +pretty mouth was still eagerly open, as though sleep had just breathed +upon its chatter for a few charmed moments, and "the joy within" was +already breaking from the spell. + +Stephen Fountain adored her, but his affections were never enough for +him. In spite of the child's spirits he himself found Potter's Beach a +desolation, all the more that he was cut off from his books for a time by +doctor's orders and his own common sense. Suddenly, as he took his daily +walk over the sands with Laura, he began to notice a thin lady in black, +sitting alone under a bank of sea-thistles, and generally struggling with +an umbrella which she had put up to shelter herself and her book from a +prevailing and boisterous wind. Sometimes when he passed her in the +little street, he caught a glimpse of timid eyes, or he saw and pitied +the slight involuntary jerk of the head and shoulders, which seemed to +tell of nervous delicacy. Presently they made friends, and he found her +lonely and discontented like himself. She was a Catholic, he discovered; +but her Catholicism was not that of the convert, but of an old inherited +sort which sat easily enough on a light nature. Then, to his +astonishment, it appeared that she lived with a brother at an old house +in North Lancashire--a well-known and even, in its degree, famous +house--which lay not seven miles distant from his grandfather's little +property, and had been quite familiar to him by repute, and even by sight +as a child. When he was a small lad staying at Browhead Farm, he had once +or twice found his way to the Greet, and had strayed along its course +through Bannisdale Park. Once even, when he was in the act of fishing a +particular pool where the trout were rising in a manner to tempt a very +archangel, he had been seized and his primitive rod broken over his +shoulder by an old man whom he believed to have been the owner, Mr. +Helbeck himself,--a magnificent white-haired person, about whom tales ran +freely in the country-side. + +So this little, shabby old maid was a Helbeck of Bannisdale! As he looked +at her, Fountain could not help thinking with a hidden amusement of all +the awesome prestige the name had once carried with it for his boyish +ear. Thirty years back, what a gulf had seemed to yawn between the +yeoman's grandson and the lofty owners of that stern and ancient house +upon the Greet! And now, how glad was old Helbeck's daughter to sit or +walk with him and his child!--and how plain it grew, as the weeks passed +on, that if he, Stephen Fountain, willed it, she would make no difficulty +at all about a much longer companionship! Fountain held himself to be the +most convinced of democrats, a man who had a reasoned right to his +Radical opinions that commoner folk must do without. Nevertheless, his +pride fed on this small turn of fortune, and when he carelessly addressed +his new friend, her name gave him pleasure. + +It seemed that she possessed but little else, poor lady. Even in his +young days, Fountain could remember that the Helbecks were reported to be +straitened, to have already much difficulty in keeping up the house and +the estate. But clearly things had fallen by now to a much lower depth. +Miss Helbeck's dress, talk, lodgings, all spoke of poverty, great +poverty. He himself had never known what it was to have a superfluous ten +pounds; but the feverish strain that belongs to such a situation as the +Helbecks' awoke in him a new and sharp pity. He was very sorry for the +little, harassed creature; that physical privation should touch a woman +had always seemed to him a monstrosity. + +What was the brother about?--a great strong fellow by all accounts, +capable, surely, of doing something for the family fortunes. +Instinctively Fountain held him responsible for the sister's fatigue and +delicacy. They had just lost their mother, and Augustina had come to +Potter's Beach to recover from long months of nursing. And presently +Fountain discovered that what stood between her and health was not so +much the past as the future. + +"You don't like the idea of going home," he said to her once, abruptly, +after they had grown intimate. She flushed, and hesitated; then her eyes +filled with tears. + +Gradually he made her explain herself. The brother, it appeared, was +twelve years younger than herself, and had been brought up first at +Stonyhurst, and afterwards at Louvain, in constant separation from the +rest of the family. He had never had much in common with his home, since, +at Stonyhurst, he had come under the influence of a Jesuit teacher, who, +in the language of old Helbeck, had turned him into "a fond sort of +fellow," swarming with notions that could only serve to carry the family +decadence a step further. + +"We have been Catholics for twenty generations," said Augustina, in her +quavering voice. "But our ways--father's ways--weren't good enough for +Alan. We thought he was making up his mind to be a Jesuit, and father was +mad about it, because of the old place. Then father died, and Alan came +home. He and my mother got on best; oh! he was very good to her. But he +and I weren't brought up in the same way; you'd think he was already +under a rule. I don't--know--I suppose it's too high for me----" + +She took up a handful of sand, and threw it, angrily, from her thin +fingers, hurrying on, however, as if the unburdenment, once begun, must +have its course. + +"And it's hard to be always pulled up and set right by some one you've +nursed in his cradle. Oh! I don't mean he says anything; he and I never +had words in our lives. But it's the way he has of doing things--the +changes he makes. You feel how he disapproves of you; he doesn't like my +friends--our old friends; the house is like a desert since he came. And +the money he gives away! The priests just suck us dry--and he hasn't got +it to give. Oh! I know it's all very wicked of me; but when I think of +going back to him--just us two, you know, in that old house--and all the +trouble about money----" + +Her voice failed her. + +"Well, don't go back," said Fountain, laying his hand on her arm. + + * * * * * + +And twenty-four hours later he was still pleased with himself and her. No +doubt she was stupid, poor Augustina, and more ignorant than he had +supposed a human being could be. Her only education seemed to have been +supplied by two years at the "Couvent des Dames Anglaises" at St.-Omer, +and all that she had retained from it was a small stock of French idioms, +most of which she had forgotten how to use, though she did use them +frequently, with a certain timid pretension. Of that habit Fountain, the +fastidious, thought that he should break her. But for the rest, her +religion, her poverty,--well, she had a hundred a year, so that he and +Laura would be no worse off for taking her in, and the child's prospects, +of course, should not suffer by a halfpenny. And as to the Catholicism, +Fountain smiled to himself. No doubt there was some inherited feeling. +But even if she did keep up her little mummeries, he could not see that +they would do him or Laura any harm. And for the rest she suited him. She +somehow crept into his loneliness and fitted it. He was getting too old +to go farther, and he might well fare worse. In spite of her love of +talk, she was not a bad listener; and longer experience showed her to be +in truth the soft and gentle nature that she seemed. She had a curious +kind of vanity which showed itself in her feeling towards her brother. +But Fountain did not find it disagreeable; it even gave him pleasure to +flatter it; as one feeds or caresses some straying half-starved creature, +partly for pity, partly that the human will may feel its power. + +"I wonder how much fuss that young man will make?" Fountain asked +himself, when at last it became necessary to write to Bannisdale. + +Augustina, however, was thirty-five, in full possession of her little +moneys, and had no one to consult but herself. Fountain enjoyed the +writing of the letter, which was brief, if not curt. + +Alan Helbeck appeared without an hour's delay at Potter's Beach. Fountain +felt himself much inclined beforehand to treat the tall dark youth, +sixteen years his junior, as a tutor treats an undergraduate. Oddly +enough, however, when the two men stood face to face, Fountain was once +more awkwardly conscious of that old sense of social distance which the +sister had never recalled to him. The sting of it made him rougher than +he had meant to be. Otherwise the young man's very shabby coat, his +superb good looks, and courteous reserve of manner might almost have +disarmed the irritable scholar. + +As it was, Helbeck soon discovered that Fountain had no intention of +allowing Augustina to apply for any dispensation for the marriage, that +he would make no promise of Catholic bringing-up, supposing there were +children, and that his idea was to be married at a registry office. + +"I am one of those people who don't trouble themselves about the affairs +of another world," said Fountain in a suave voice, as he stood in the +lodging-house window, a bearded, broad-shouldered person, his hands +thrust wilfully into the very baggy pockets of his ill-fitting light +suit. "I won't worry your sister, and I don't suppose there'll be any +children. But if there are, I really can't promise to make Catholics of +them. And as for myself, I don't take things so easy as it's the fashion +to do now. I can't present myself in church, even for Augustina." + +Helbeck sat silent for a few minutes with his eyes on the ground. Then he +rose. + +"You ask what no Catholic should grant," he said slowly. "But that of +course you know. I can have nothing to do with such a marriage, and my +duty naturally will be to dissuade my sister from it as strongly as +possible." + +Fountain bowed. + +"She is expecting you," he said. "I of course await her decision." + +His tone was hardly serious. Nevertheless, during the time that Helbeck +and Augustina were pacing the sands together, Fountain went through a +good deal of uneasiness. One never knew how or where this damned poison +in the blood might break out again. That young fanatic, a Jesuit already +by the look of him, would of course try all their inherited Mumbo Jumbo +upon her; and what woman is at bottom anything more than the prey of the +last speaker? + +When, however, it was all over, and he was allowed to see his Augustina +in the evening, he found her helpless with crying indeed, but as +obstinate as only the meek of the earth can be. She had broken wholly +with her brother and with Bannisdale; and Fountain gathered that, after +all Helbeck's arguments and entreaties, there had flashed a moment of +storm between them, when the fierce "Helbeck temper," traditional through +many generations, had broken down the self-control of the ascetic, and +Augustina must needs have trembled. However, there she was, frightened +and miserable, but still determined. And her terror was much more +concerned with the possibility of any return to live with Alan and his +all-exacting creed than anything else. Fountain caught himself wondering +whether indeed she had imagination enough to lay much hold on those +spiritual terrors with which she had no doubt been threatened. In this, +however, he misjudged her, as will be seen. + +Meanwhile he sent for an elderly Evangelical cousin of his wife's, who +was accustomed to take a friendly interest in his child and himself. She, +in Protestant jubilation over this brand snatched from the burning, came +in haste, very nearly departing, indeed, in similar haste as soon as the +unholy project of the secular marriage was mooted. However, under much +persuasion she remained, lamenting; Augustina sent to Bannisdale for her +few possessions, and the scanty ceremony was soon over. + +Meanwhile Laura had but found in the whole affair one more amusement and +excitement added to the many that, according to her, Potter's Beach +already possessed. The dancing elfish child--who had no memory of her own +mother--had begun by taking the little old maid under her patronising +wing. She graciously allowed Augustina to make a lap for all the briny +treasures she might accumulate in the course of a breathless morning; she +rushed to give her first information whenever that encroaching monster +the sea broke down her castles. And as soon as it appeared that her papa +liked Augustina, and had a use for her, Laura at the age of eight +promptly accepted her as part of the family circle, without the smallest +touch of either sentiment or opposition. She walked gaily hand in hand +with her father to the registry office at St. Bees. The jealously hidden, +stormy little heart knew well enough that it had nothing to fear. + +Then came many quiet years at Cambridge. Augustina spoke no more of her +brother, and apparently let her old creed slip. She conformed herself +wholly to her husband's ways,--a little colourless thread on the stream +of academic life, slightly regarded, and generally silent out of doors, +but at home a gentle, foolish, and often voluble person, very easily made +happy by some small kindness and a few creature comforts. + +Laura meanwhile grew up, and no one exactly knew how. Her education was a +thing of shreds and patches, managed by herself throughout, and +expressing her own strong will or caprice from the beginning. She put +herself to school--a day school only; and took herself away as soon as +she was tired of it. She threw herself madly into physical exercises like +dancing or skating; and excelled in most of them by virtue of a certain +wild grace, a tameless strength of spirits and will. And yet she grew up +small and pale; and it was not till she was about eighteen that she +suddenly blossomed into prettiness. + +"Carrotina--why, what's happened to you?" said her father to her one day. + +She turned in astonishment from her task of putting some books tidy on +his study shelves. Then she coloured half angrily. + +"I must put my hair up some time, I suppose," she said resentfully. There +was something in the abruptness of her father's question, no less than in +the new closeness and sharpness of eye with which he was examining her, +that annoyed her. + +"Well! you've made a young lady of yourself. I dare say I mustn't call +you nicknames any more!" + +"I don't mind," she said indifferently, going on with her work, while he +looked at the golden-red mass she had coiled round her little head, with +an odd half-welcome sense of change, a sudden prescience of the future. + +Then she turned again. + +"If--if you make any absurd changes," she said, with a frown, "I'll--I'll +cut it all off!" + +"You'd better not; there'd be ructions," he said laughing. "It's not +yours till you're twenty-one." + +And to himself he said, "Gracious! I didn't bargain for a pretty +daughter. What am I to do with her? Augustina'll never get her married." + +And certainly during this early youth, Laura showed no signs of getting +herself married. She did not apparently know when a young man was by; and +her bright vehement ways, her sharp turns of speech, went on just the +same; she neither quivered nor thrilled; and her chatter, when she did +chatter, spent itself almost with indifference on anyone who came near +her. She was generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companions +knew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self of +her, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs. +Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks which +contrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hard +to find the clue to them. + +Altogether she passed for a clever girl, even in a University town, where +cleverness is weighed. But her education, except in two points, was, in +truth, of the slightest. Any mechanical drudgery that her father could +set her, she did without a murmur; or, rather, she claimed it jealously, +with a silent passion. But, with an obstinacy equally silent, she set +herself against the drudgery that would have made her his intellectual +companion. + +His rows of technical books, the scholarly and laborious details of his +work, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt to +persuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned and +contemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter. +That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled up for +hours with a book or a piece of work in a corner of his room; that she +should bring him his pipe, and break in upon his work at the right moment +with her peremptory "Papa, come out!"--these things were delightful, nay, +necessary to him. But he had no dreams beyond; and he never thought of +her, her education or her character, as a whole. It was not his way. +Besides, girls took their chance. With a boy, of course, one plans and +looks ahead. But Laura would have 200_l_. a year from her mother whatever +happened, and something more at his own death. Why trouble oneself? + +No doubt indirectly he contributed very largely to her growing up. The +sight of his work and his methods; the occasional talks she overheard +between him and his scientific comrades; the tones of irony and denial in +the atmosphere about him; his antagonisms, his bitternesses, worked +strongly upon her still plastic nature. Moreover she felt to her heart's +core that he was unsuccessful; there were appointments he should have +had, but had failed to get, and it was the religious party, the "clerical +crew" of Convocation, that had stood in the way. From her childhood it +came natural to her to hate bigoted people who believed in ridiculous +things. It was they stood between her father and his deserts. There +loomed up, as it were, on her horizon, something dim and majestic, which +was called Science. Towards this her father pressed, she clinging to him; +while all about them was a black and hindering crowd, through which they +clove their way--contemptuously. + +In one direction, indeed, Fountain admitted her to his mind. Like Mill, +he found the rest and balm of life in poetry; and here he took Laura with +him. They read to each other, they spurred each other to learn by heart. +He kept nothing from her. Shelley was a passion of his own; it became +hers. She taught herself German, that she might read Heine and Goethe +with him; and one evening, when she was little more than sixteen, he +rushed her through the first part of "Faust," so that she lay awake the +whole night afterwards in such a passion of emotion, that it seemed, for +the moment, to change her whole existence. Sometimes it astonished him to +see what capacity she had, not only for the feeling, but for the sensuous +pleasure, of poetry. Lines--sounds--haunted her for days, the beauty of +them would make her start and tremble. + +She did her best, however, to hide this side of her nature even from him. +And it was not difficult. She remained childishly immature and backward +in many things. She was a personality; that was clear; one could hardly +say that she was or had a character. She was a bundle of loves and hates; +a force, not an organism; and her father was often as much puzzled by her +as anyone else. + +Music perhaps was the only study which ever conquered her indolence. Here +it happened that a famous musician, who settled in Cambridge for a time, +came across her gift and took notice of it. And to please him she worked +with industry, even with doggedness. Brahms, Chopin, Wagner--these great +romantics possessed her in music as Shelley or Rossetti did in poetry. +"You little demon, Laura! How do you come to play like that?" a girl +friend--her only intimate friend--said to her once in despair. "It's the +expression. Where do you get it? And I practise, and you don't; it's not +fair." + +"Expression!" said Laura, with annoyance, "what does that matter? That's +the amateur all over. Of course I play like that because I can't do it +any better. If I could _play the notes_"--she clenched her little hand, +with a curious, almost a fierce energy--"if I had any technique--or was +ever likely to have any, what should I want with expression? Any cat can +give you expression! There was one under my window last night--you should +just have heard it!" + +Molly Friedland, the girl friend, shrugged her shoulders. She was as +soft, as normal, as self-controlled, as Laura was wilful and irritable. +But there was a very real affection between them. + +Years passed. Insensibly Augustina's health began to fail; and with it +the new cheerfulness of her middle life. Then Fountain himself fell +suddenly and dangerously ill. All the peaceful habits and small pleasures +of their common existence broke down after a few days, as it were, into a +miserable confusion. Augustina stood bewildered. Then a convulsion of +soul she had expected as little as anyone else, swept upon her. A number +of obscure, inherited, half-dead instincts revived. She lived in terror; +she slept, weeping; and at the back of an old drawer she found a rosary +of her childhood to which her fingers clung night and day. + +Meanwhile Fountain resigned himself to death. During his last days his +dimmed senses did not perceive what was happening to his wife. But he +troubled himself about her a good deal. + +"Take care of her, Laura," he said once, "till she gets strong. Look +after her.--But you can't sacrifice your life.--It may be Christian," he +added, in a murmur, "but it isn't sense." + +Unconsciousness came on. Augustina seemed to lose her wits; and at last +only Laura, sitting pale and fierce beside her father, prevented her +stepmother from bringing a priest to his death-bed. "You would not +_dare_!" said the girl, in her low, quivering voice; and Augustina could +only wring her hands. + + * * * * * + +The day after her husband died Mrs. Fountain returned to her Catholic +duties. When she came back from confession, she slipped as noiselessly as +she could into the darkened house. A door opened upstairs, and Laura came +out of her father's room. + +"You have done it?" she said, as her stepmother, trembling with agitation +and weariness, came towards her. "You have gone back to them?" + +"Oh, Laura! I had to follow the call--my conscience--Laura! oh! your poor +father!" + +And with a burst of weeping the widow held out her hands. + +Laura did not move, and the hands dropped. + +"My father wants nothing," she said. + +The indescribable pride and passion of her accent cowed Augustina, and +she moved away, crying silently. The girl went back to the dead, and sat +beside him, in an anguish that had no more tears, till he was taken from +her. + +Mr. Helbeck wrote kindly to his sister in reply to a letter from her +informing him of her husband's death, and of her own reconciliation with +the Church. He asked whether he should come at once to help them through +the business of the funeral, and the winding up of their Cambridge life. +"Beg him, please, to stay away," said Laura, when the letter was shown +her. "There are plenty of people here." + +And indeed Cambridge, which had taken little notice of the Fountains +during Stephen's lifetime, was even fussily kind after his death to his +widow and child. It was at all times difficult to be kind to Laura in +distress, but there was much true pity felt for her, and a good deal of +curiosity as to her relations with her Catholic stepmother. Only from the +Friedlands, however, would she accept, or allow her stepmother to accept, +any real help. Dr. Friedland was a man of middle age, who had retired on +moderate wealth to devote himself to historical work by the help of the +Cambridge libraries. He had been much drawn to Stephen Fountain, and +Fountain to him. It was a recent and a brief friendship, but there had +been something in it on Dr. Friedland's side--something respectful and +cordial, something generous and understanding, for which Laura loved the +infirm and grey-haired scholar, and would always love him. She shed some +stormy tears after parting with the Friedlands, otherwise she left +Cambridge with joy. + +On the day before they left Cambridge Augustina received a parcel of +books from her brother. For the most part they were kept hidden from +Laura. But in the evening, when the girl was doing some packing in her +stepmother's room, she came across a little volume lying open on its +face. She lifted it, saw that it was called "Outlines of Catholic +Belief," and that one page was still wet with tears. An angry curiosity +made her look at what stood there: "A believer in one God who, without +wilful fault on his part, knows nothing of the Divine Mystery of the +Trinity, is held capable of salvation by many Catholic theologians. And +there is the 'invincible ignorance' of the heathen. What else is possible +to the Divine mercy let none of us presume to know. Our part in these +matters is obedience, not speculation." + +In faint pencil on the margin was written: "My Stephen _could_ not +believe. Mary--pray----" + +The book contained the Bannisdale book-plate, and the name "Alan +Helbeck." Laura threw it down. But her face trembled through its scorn, +and she finished what she was doing in a kind of blind passion. It was as +though she held her father's dying form in her arms, protecting him +against the same meddling and tyrannical force that had injured him while +he lived, and was still making mouths at him now that he was dead. + +She and Augustina went to the sea--to Folkestone, for Augustina's health. +Here Mrs. Fountain began to correspond regularly with her brother, and it +was soon clear that her heart was hungering for him, and for her old home +at Bannisdale. But she was still painfully dependent on Laura. Laura was +her maid and nurse; Laura managed all her business. At last one day she +made her prayer. Would Laura go with her--for a little while--to +Bannisdale? Alan wished it--Alan had invited them both. "He would be so +good to you, Laura--and I'm sure it would set me up." + +Laura gave a gulp. She dropped her little chin on her hands and thought. +Well--why not? It would be all hateful to her--Mr. Helbeck and his house +together. She knew very well, or guessed what his relation to her father +had been. But what if it made Augustina strong, if in time she could be +left with her brother altogether, to live with him?--In one or two of his +letters he had proposed as much. Why, that would bring Laura's +responsibility, her sole responsibility, at any rate, to an end. + +She thought of Molly Friedland--of their girlish plans--of travel, of +music. + +"All right," she said, springing up. "We will go, Augustina. I suppose, +for a little while, Mr. Helbeck and I can keep the peace. You must tell +him to let me alone." + +She paused, then said with sudden vehemence, like one who takes her +stand--"And tell him, please, Augustina--make it very plain--that I shall +never come in to prayers." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The sun was shining into Laura's room when she awoke. She lay still for a +little while, looking about her. + +Her room--which formed part of an eighteenth-century addition to the +Tudor house--was rudely panelled with stained deal, save on the fireplace +wall, where, on either side of the hearth, the plaster had been covered +with tapestry. The subject of the tapestry was Diana hunting. Diana, +white and tall, with her bow and quiver, came, queenly, through a green +forest. Two greyhounds ranged beside her, and in the dim distance of the +wood her maidens followed. On the right an old castle, with pillars like +a Greek temple, rose stately but a little crooked on the edge of a blue +sea; the sea much faded, with the wooden handle of a cupboard thrust +rudely through it. Two long-limbed ladies, with pulled patched faces, +stood on the castle steps. In front was a ship, with a waiting warrior +and a swelling sail; and under him, a blue wave worn very threadbare, +shamed indeed by that intruding handle, but still blue enough, still +windy enough for thoughts of love and flight. + +Laura, half asleep still, with her hands under her cheek, lay staring in +a vague pleasure at the castle and the forest. "Enchanted +casements"--"perilous seas"--"in fairy lands forlorn." The lines ran +sleepily, a little jumbled, in her memory. + +But gradually the morning and the freshness worked; and her spirits, +emerging from their half-dream, began to dance within her. When she +sprang up to throw the window wide, there below her was the sparkling +river, the daffodils waving their pale heads in the delicate Westmoreland +grass, the high white clouds still racing before the wind. How heavenly +to find oneself in this wild clean country!--after all the ugly squalors +of parade and lodging-house, after the dingy bow-windowed streets with +the March dust whirling through them. + +She leant across the broad window-sill, her chin on her hands, absorbed, +drinking it in. The eastern sun, coming slanting-ways, bathed her tumbled +masses of fair hair, her little white form, her bare feet raised tiptoe. + +Suddenly she drew back. She had seen the figure of a man crossing the +park on the further side of the river, and the maidenly instinct drove +her from the window; though the man in question was perhaps a quarter of +a mile away, and had he been looking for her, could not possibly have +made out more than a pale speck on the old wall. + +"Mr. Helbeck,"--she thought--"by the height of him. Where is he off to +before seven o'clock in the morning? I hate a man that can't keep +rational hours like other people! Fricka, come here!" + +For her little dog, who had sprung from the bed after its mistress, was +now stretching and blinking behind her. At Laura's voice it jumped up and +tried to lick her face. Laura caught it in her arms and sat down on the +bed, still hugging it. + +"No, Fricka, I don't like him--I don't, I don't, I _don't!_ But you and I +have just got to behave. If you annoy that big dog downstairs, he'll +break your neck,--he will, Fricka. As for me,"--she shrugged her small +shoulders,--"well, Mr. Helbeck can't break _my_ neck, so I'm dreadfully +afraid I shall annoy him--dreadfully, dreadfully afraid! But I'll try +not. You see, what we've got to do, is just to get Augustina well--stand +over her with a broomstick and pour the tonics down her throat. Then, +Fricka, we'll go our way and have some fun. Now look at us!----" + +She moved a little, so that the cracked glass on the dressing-table +reflected her head and shoulders, with the dog against her neck. + +"You know we're not at all bad-looking, Fricka--neither of us. I've seen +much worse. (Oh, Fricka! I've told you scores of times I can wash my +face--without you--thank you!) There's all sorts of nice things that +might happen if we just put ourselves in the way of them. Oh! I do want +some fun--I do!--at least sometimes!" + +But again the voice dropped suddenly; the big greenish eyes filled in a +moment with inconsistent tears, and Laura sat staring at the sunshine, +while the drops fell on her white nightgown. + +Meanwhile Fricka, being half throttled, made a violent effort and +escaped. Laura too sprang up, wiped away her tears as though she were +furious with them, and began to look about her for the means of dressing. +Everything in the room was of the poorest and scantiest--the cottage +washstand with its crockery, the bare dressing-table and dilapidated +glass. + +"A bath!--my kingdom for a bath! I don't mind starving, but one must +wash. Let's ring for that rough-haired girl, Fricka, and try and get +round her. Goodness!--no bells?" + +After long search, however, she discovered a tattered shred of tapestry +hanging in a corner, and pulled it vigorously. Many efforts, however, +were needed before there was a sound of feet in the passage outside. +Laura hastily donned a blue dressing-gown, and stood expectant. + +The door was opened unceremoniously and a girl thrust in her head. Laura +had made acquaintance with her the night before. She was the +housekeeper's underling and niece. + +"Mrs. Denton says I'm not to stop. She's noa time for answerin bells. And +you'll have some hot water when t' kettle boils." + +The door was just shutting again when Laura sprang at the speaker and +caught her by the arm. + +"My dear," she said, dragging the girl in, "that won't do at all. Now +look here"--she held up her little white hand, shaking the forefinger +with energy--"I don't--want--to give--any trouble, and Mrs. Denton may +keep her hot water. But I must have a bath--and a big can--and somebody +must show me where to go for water--and then--_then_, my dear--if you +make yourself agreeable, I'll--well, I'll teach you how to do your hair +on Sundays--in a way that will surprise you!" + +The girl stared at her in sudden astonishment, her dark stupid eyes +wavering. She had a round, peasant face, not without comeliness, and a +lustreless shock of black hair. Laura laughed. + +"I will," she said, nodding; "you'll see. And I'll give you notions for +your best frock. I'll be a regular elder sister to you--if you'll just do +a few things for me--and Mrs. Fountain. What's your name--Ellen?--that's +all right. Now, is there a bath in the house?" + +The girl unwillingly replied that there was one in the big room at the +end of the passage. + +"Show it me," said Laura, and marched her off there. The rough-headed one +led the way along the panelled passage and opened a door. + +Then it was Laura's turn to stare. + +Inside she saw a vast room with finely panelled walls and a decorated +ceiling. The sunlight poured in through an uncurtained window upon the +only two objects in the room,--a magnificent bed, carved and gilt, with +hangings of tarnished brocade,--and a round tin bath of a common, +old-fashioned make, propped up against the wall. The oak boards were +absolutely bare. The bed and the bath looked at each other. + +"What's become of all the furniture?" said Laura, gazing round her in +astonishment. + +"The gentleman from Edinburgh had it all, lasst month," said the girl, +still sullenly. "He's affther the bed now." + +"Oh!--Does he often come here?" + +The girl hesitated. + +"Well, he's had a lot o' things oot o' t' house, sen I came." + +"Has he?" said Laura. "Now, then--lend a hand." + +Between them they carried off the bath; and then Laura informed herself +where water was to be had, and when breakfast would be ready. + +"T' Squire's gone oot," said Ellen, still watching the newcomer from +under a pair of very black and beetling brows; "and Mrs. Denton said she +supposed yo'd be wantin a tray for Mrs. Fountain." + +"Does the Squire take no breakfast?" + +"Noa. He's away to Mass--ivery mornin, an' he gets his breakfast wi' +Father Bowles." + +The girl's look grew more hostile. + +"Oh, does he?" said Laura in a tone of meditation. "Well, then, look +here. Put another cup and another plate on Mrs. Fountain's tray, and I'll +have mine with her. Shall I come down to the kitchen for it?" + +"Noa," said the girl hastily. "Mrs. Denton doan't like foak i' t' +kitchen." + +At that moment a call in Mrs. Denton's angriest tones came pealing along +the passage outside. Laura laughed and pushed the girl out of the room. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Miss Fountain was ministering to her stepmother in the most +comfortable bedroom that the house afforded. The furniture, indeed, was a +medley. It seemed to have been gathered out of many other rooms. But at +any rate there was abundance of it; a carpet much worn, but still useful, +covered the floor; and Ellen had lit the fire without being summoned to +do it. Laura recognised that Mr. Helbeck must have given a certain number +of precise orders on the subject of his sister. + +Poor Mrs. Fountain, however, was not happy. She was sitting up in bed, +wrapped in an unbecoming flannel jacket--Augustina had no taste in +clothes--and looking with an odd repugnance at the very passable +breakfast that Laura placed before her. Laura did not quite know what to +make of her. In old days she had always regarded her stepmother as an +easy-going, rather self-indulgent creature, who liked pleasant food and +stuffed chairs, and could be best managed or propitiated through some +attention to her taste in sofa-cushions or in tea-cakes. + +No doubt, since Mrs. Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of her +fathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise the +usual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director had +been able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of her +health. And on the whole she had acquiesced readily enough. + +But Laura found her now changed and restless. + +"Oh! Laura, I can't eat all that!" + +"You must," said Laura firmly. "Really, Augustina, you _must_." + +"Alan's gone out," said Augustina, with a wistful inconsequence, +straining her eyes as though to look through the diamond panes of the +window opposite, at the park and the persons walking in it. + +"Yes. He seems to go to Whinthorpe every morning for Mass. Ellen says he +breakfasts with the priest." + +Augustina sighed and fidgeted. But when she was half-way through her +meal, Laura standing over her, she suddenly laid a shaking hand on +Laura's arm. + +"Laura!--Alan's a saint!--he always was--long ago--when I was so blind +and wicked. But now--oh! the things Mrs. Denton's been telling me!" + +"Has she?" said Laura coolly. "Well, make up your mind, Augustina"--she +shook her bright head--"that you can't be the same kind of saint that he +is--anyway." + +Mrs. Fountain withdrew her hand in quick offence. + +"I should be glad if you could talk of these things without flippancy, +Laura. When I think how incapable I have been all these years, of +understanding my dear brother----" + +"No--you see you were living with papa," said Laura slowly. + +She had left her stepmother's side, and was standing with her back to an +old cabinet, resting her elbows upon it. Her brows were drawn together, +and poor Mrs. Fountain, after a glance at her, looked still more +miserable. + +"Your poor papa!" she murmured with a gulp, and then, as though to +propitiate Laura, she drew her breakfast back to her, and again tried to +eat it. Small and slight as they both were, there was a very sharp +contrast between her and her stepdaughter. Laura's features were all +delicately clear, and nothing could have been more definite, more +brilliant than the colour of the eyes and hair, or the whiteness--which +was a beautiful and healthy whiteness--of her skin. Whereas everything +about Mrs. Fountain was indeterminate; the features with their slight +twist to the left; the complexion, once fair, and now reddened by years +and ill-health; the hair, of a yellowish grey; the head and shoulders +with their nervous infirmity. Only the eyes still possessed some purity +of colour. Through all their timidity or wavering, they were still blue +and sweet; perhaps they alone explained why a good many +persons--including her stepdaughter--were fond of Augustina. + +"What has Mrs. Denton been telling you about Mr. Helbeck?" Laura +inquired, speaking with some abruptness, after a pause. + +"You wouldn't have any sympathy, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, in some +agitation. "You see, you don't understand our Catholic principles. I wish +you did!--oh! I wish you did! But you don't. And so perhaps I'd better +not talk about it." + +"It might interest me to know the facts," said Laura, in a little hard +voice. "It seems to me that I'm likely to be Mr. Helbeck's guest for a +good while." + +"But you won't like it, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain--"and you'll +misunderstand Alan. Your poor dear father always misunderstood him." +(Laura made a restless movement.) "It is not because we think we can save +our souls by such things--of course not!--that's the way you Protestants +put it----" + +"I'm not a Protestant!" said Laura hotly. Mrs. Fountain took no notice. + +"But it's what the Church calls 'mortification,'" she said, hurrying on. +"It's keeping the body under--as St. Paul did. That's what makes +saints--and it does make saints--whatever people say. Your poor father +didn't agree, of course. But he didn't know!--oh! dear, dear Stephen!--he +didn't know. And Alan isn't cross, and it doesn't spoil his health--it +doesn't, really." + +"What does he do?" asked Laura, trying for the point. + +But poor Augustina, in her mixed flurry of feeling, could hardly explain. + +"You see, Laura, there's a strict way of keeping Lent, and--well--just +the common way--doing as little as you can. It used to be all much +stricter, of course." + +"In the Dark Ages?" suggested Laura. Augustina took no notice. + +"And what the books tell you now, is much stricter than what anybody +does.--I'm sure I don't know why. But Alan takes it strictly--he wants to +go back to quite the old ways. Oh! I wish I could explain it----" + +Mrs. Fountain stopped bewildered. She was sure she had heard once that in +the early Church people took no food at all till the evening--not even a +drink. But Alan was not going to do that? + +Laura had taken Fricka on her knee, and was straightening the ribbon +round the dog's neck. + +"Does he eat _anything_?" she asked carelessly, looking up. "If it's +_nothing_--that would be interesting." + +"Laura! if you only would try and understand!--Of course Alan doesn't +settle such a thing for himself--nobody does with us. That's only in the +English Church." + +Augustina straightened herself, with an unconscious arrogance. Laura +looked at her, smiling. + +"Who settles it, then?" + +"Why, his director, of course. He must have leave. But they have given +him leave. He has chosen a rule for himself"--Augustina gave a visible +gulp--"and he called Mrs. Denton to him before Lent, and told her about +it. Of course he'll hide it as much as he can. Catholics must never be +singular--never! But if we live in the house with him he can't hide it. +And all Lent, he only eats meat on Sundays, and other days--he wrote down +a list---- Well, it's like the saints--that's all!--I just cried over +it!" + +Mrs. Fountain shook with the emotion of saying such things to Laura, but +her blue eyes flamed. + +"What! fish and eggs?--that kind of thing?" said Laura. "As if there was +any hardship in that!" + +"Laura! how can you be so unkind?--I must just keep it all to myself.--I +won't tell you anything!" cried Augustina in exasperation. + +Laura walked away to the window, and stood looking out at the March buds +on the sycamores shining above the river. + +"Does he make the servants fast too?" she asked presently, turning her +head over her shoulder. + +"No, no," said her stepmother eagerly; "he's never hard on them--only to +himself. The Church doesn't expect anything more than 'abstinence,' you +understand--not real fasting--from people like them--people who work hard +with their hands. But--I really believe--they do very much as he does. +Mrs. Denton seems to keep the house on nothing. Oh! and, Laura--I really +can't be always having extra things!" + +Mrs. Fountain pushed her breakfast away from her. + +"Please remember--nobody settles anything for themselves--in your +Church," said Laura. "You know what that doctor--that Catholic +doctor--said to you at Folkestone." + +Mrs. Fountain sighed. + +"And as to Mrs. Denton, I see--that explains the manners. No +improvement--till Lent's over?" + +"Laura!" + +But her stepdaughter, who was at the window again looking out, paid no +heed, and presently Augustina said with timid softness: + +"Won't you have your breakfast, Laura? You know it's here--on my tray." + +Laura turned, and Augustina to her infinite relief saw not frowns, but a +face all radiance. + +"I've been watching the lambs in the field across the river. Such +ridiculous enchanting things!--such jumps--and affectations. And the +river's heavenly--and all the general _feel_ of it! I really don't know, +Augustina, how you ever came to leave this country when you'd once been +born in it." + +Mrs. Fountain pushed away her tray, shook her head sadly, and said +nothing. + +"What is it?--and who is it?" cried Laura, standing amazed before a +picture in the drawing-room at Bannisdale. + +In front of her, on the panelled wall, hung a dazzling portrait of a girl +in white, a creature light as a flower under wind; eyes upraised and +eager, as though to welcome a lover; fair hair bound turban-like with a +white veil; the pretty hands playing with a book. It shone from the brown +wall with a kind of natural sovereignty over all below it and around it, +so brilliant was the picture, so beautiful the woman. + +Augustina looked up drearily. She was sitting shrunk together in a large +chair, deep in some thoughts of her own. + +"That's our picture--the famous picture," she explained slowly. + +"Your Romney?" said Laura, vaguely recalling some earlier talk of her +stepmother's. + +Augustina nodded. She stared at the picture with a curious agitation, as +though she were seeing its long familiar glories for the first time. +Laura was much puzzled by her. + +"Well, but it's magnificent!" cried the girl. "One needn't know much to +know that. How can Mr. Helbeck call himself poor while he possesses such +a thing?" + +Augustina started. + +"It's worth thousands," she said hastily. "We know that. There was a man +from London came once, years ago. But papa turned him out--he would never +sell his things. And she was our great-grandmother." + +An idea flashed through Laura's mind. + +"You don't mean to say that Mr. Helbeck is going to sell her?" said Laura +impetuously. "It would be a shame!" + +"Alan can do what he likes with anything," said Augustina in a quick +resentment. "And he wants money badly for one of his orphanages--some of +it has to be rebuilt. Oh! those orphanages--how they must have weighed on +him--poor Alan!--poor dear Alan!--all these years!" + +Mrs. Fountain clasped her thin hands together, with a sigh. + +"Is it they that have eaten up the house bit by bit?--poor house!--poor +dear house!" repeated Laura. + +She was staring with an angry championship at the picture. Its sweet +confiding air--as of one cradled in love, happy for generations in the +homage of her kindred and the shelter of the old house--stood for all the +natural human things that creeds and bigots were always trampling under +foot. + +Mrs. Fountain, however, only shook her head. + +"I don't think Alan's settled anything yet. Only Mrs. Denton's +afraid.--There was somebody came to see it a few days ago----" + +"He certainly ought not to sell it," repeated Laura with emphasis. "He +has to think of the people that come after. What will they care for +orphanages? He only holds the picture in trust." + +"There will be no one to come after," said Augustina slowly. "For of +course he will never marry." + +"Is he too great a saint for that too?" cried Laura. "Then all I can say, +Augustina, is that--it--would--do him a great deal of good." + +She beat her little foot on the ground impatiently, pointing the words. + +"You don't know anything about him, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, with an +attempt at spirit. Then she added reproachfully: "And I'm sure he wants +to be kind to you." + +"He thinks me a little heretical toad, thank you!" said Laura, spinning +round on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "But +never mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't there +a great many more rooms to see?" + +Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course," she said, +"and Alan's study----" + +"Oh! we needn't go there," said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel." + +Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. It +was a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that had +once--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and the +treasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled. + +It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gathered +into the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of what +still remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, some +of one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remote +corners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of faded +stuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkey +carpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much as +possible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order and +of comfort. + +The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor new +furnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms on +which Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that first +one Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn; +dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across the +gloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragment +of fine furniture; but as a rule bareness, poverty, and void--nothing +could be more piteous, or, to Mrs. Fountain's memory, more surprising. +For some years before she left Bannisdale, her father had not known where +to turn for a pound of ready money. Yet when she fled from it, the house +and its treasures were still intact. + +The explanation of course was very simple. Alan Helbeck had been living +upon his house, as upon any other capital. Or rather he had been making +alms of it. The house stood gashed and bare that Catholic orphans might +be put to school--was that it? Laura hardly listened to Augustina's +plaintive babble as they crossed the hall. It was all about Alan, of +course--Alan's virtues, Alan's charities. As for the orphans, the girl +hated the thought of them. Grasping little wretches! She could see them +all in a sanctimonious row, their eyes cast up, and rosaries--like the +one Augustina was always trying to hide from her--in their ugly little +hands. + +They turned down a long stone passage leading to the chapel. As they +neared the chapel door there was a sound of voices from the hall at their +back. + +"It's Alan," said Augustina peering, "and Father Bowles!" + +She hurried back to meet them, skirts and cap-strings flying. Laura stood +still. + +But after a few words with his sister, Helbeck came up to his guest with +outstretched hand. + +"I hope we have not kept you waiting for dinner. May I introduce Father +Bowles to you?" + +Laura bowed with all the stiffness of which a young back is capable. She +saw an old grey-haired priest, with a round face and a pair of chubby +hands, which he constantly held crossed or clasped upon his breast. His +long irregular-mouth seemed to fold over at the corners above his very +small and childish chin. The mouth and the light blue eyes wore an +expression of rather mincing gentleness. His short figure, though bent a +little with years, was still vigorous, and his gait quick and bustling. + +He addressed Miss Fountain with a lisping and rather obsequious +politeness, asking a great many unnecessary questions about her journey +and her arrival. + +Laura answered coldly. But when he passed to Mrs. Fountain, Augustina was +all effusion. + +"When I think what has been granted to us since I was here last!" she +said to the priest as they moved on,--clasping her hands, and flushing. + +"The dear Bishop took such trouble about it," he said in a little +murmuring voice. "It was not easy--but the Church loves to content her +children." + +Involuntarily Laura glanced at Helbeck. + +"My sister refers to the permission which has been granted to us to +reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel," he said gravely. "It is a +privilege we never enjoyed till last year." + +Laura made no reply. + +"Shall I slip away?" she thought, looking round her. + +But at that moment Mr. Helbeck lifted the heavy latch of the chapel door; +and her young curiosity was too strong for her. She followed the others. + +Mr. Helbeck held the door open for her. + +"You will perhaps care to look at the frescoes," he said to her as she +hurried past him. She nodded, and walked quickly away to the left, by +herself. Then she turned and looked about her. + +It was the first time that she had entered a Catholic church, and every +detail was new to her. She watched the other three sign themselves with +holy water and drop low on one knee before the altar. So that was the +altar. She stared at it with a scornful repugnance; yet her pulse +quickened as though what she saw excited her. What was that erection +above it, with a veil of red silk drawn round it--and why was that lamp +burning in front of it? + +She recalled Mr. Helbeck's words--"permission to reserve the Blessed +Sacrament." Then, in a flash, a hundred vague memories, the deposit of a +hearsay knowledge, enlightened her. She knew and remembered much less +than any ordinary girl would have done. But still, in the main, she +guessed at what was passing. That of course was the Sacrament, before +which Mr. Helbeck and the others were kneeling!--for instinctively she +felt that it was to no empty shrine the adoration of those silent figures +was being offered. + +Fragments from Augustina's talk at Folkestone came back to her. Once she +had overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother and +a Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the +"Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there, +and that the faithful "visited" it--that these "visits" were indeed +specially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, as +they came home from their daily walk to the beach, Mrs. Fountain would +disappear from her, through the shadowy door of a Catholic church that +stood in the same street as their lodgings--how she would come home half +an hour afterwards, shaken with fresh ardours, fresh remorse. + +But how could such a thing be allowed, be possible, in a private +chapel--in a room that was really part of a private house? GOD--the +Christ of Calvary--in that gilt box, upon that altar! + +The young girl's arms fell by her side in a sudden rigidity. A wave of +the most passionate repulsion swept through her. What a gross, what an +intolerable superstition!--how was she to live with it, beside it? The +next instant it was as though her hand clasped her father's--clinging to +him proudly, against this alien world. Why should she feel lonely?--the +little heretic, left standing there alone in her distant corner. Let her +rather rejoice that she was her father's daughter! + +She drew herself up, and coolly looked about her. The worshippers had +risen; long as the time had seemed to Laura, they had only been two or +three minutes on their knees; and she could see that Augustina was +talking eagerly to her brother, pointing now to the walls, now to the +altar. + +It seemed as though Augustina were no less astonished than her +stepdaughter by the magnificence of the chapel. Was it all new,--the +frescoes, the altar with its marble and its gold, the white figure of the +Virgin, which gleamed above the small side-altar to the left? It had the +air of newness and of costliness, an air which struck the eye all the +more sharply because of the contrast between it and the penury, the +starvation, of the great house that held the chapel in its breast. + +But while Laura was still wondering at the general impression of rich +beauty, at the Lenten purple of the altar, at the candelabra, and the +perfume, certain figures and colours on the wall close to her seized her, +thrusting the rest aside. On either side of the altar, the walls to right +and left, from the entrance up to the sanctuary, were covered with what +appeared to be recent painting--painting, indeed, that was still in the +act. On either hand, long rows of life-sized saints, men and women, +turned their adoring faces towards the Christ looking down upon them from +a crucifix above the tabernacle. On the north wall, about half the row +was unfinished; faces, haloes, drapery, strongly outlined in red, still +waited for the completing hand of the artist. The rest glowed and burned +with colour--colour the most singular, the most daring. The carnations +and rose colours, the golds and purples, the blues and lilacs and +greens--in the whole concert of tone, in spite of its general simplicity +of surface, there was something at once ravishing and troubling, +something that spoke as it were from passion to passion. + +Laura's nature felt the thrill of it at once, just as she had felt the +thrill of the sunshine lighting up the tapestry of her room. + +"Why isn't it crude and hideous?" she asked herself, in a marvel. "But it +isn't. One never saw such blues--except in the sea--or such greens--and +rose! And the angels between!--and the flowers under their +feet!--Heavens! how lovely! Who did it?" + +"Do you admire the frescoes?" said a little voice behind her. + +She turned hastily, and saw Father Bowles smiling upon her, his plump +white hands clasped in front of him, as usual. It was an attitude which +seemed to make the simplest words sound intimate and possessive. Laura +shrank from, it in quick annoyance. + +"They are very strange, and--and startling," she said stiffly, moving as +far away from the grey-haired priest as possible. "Who painted them?" + +"Mr. Helbeck first designed them. But they were carried out for a time by +a youth of great genius." Father Bowles dwelt softly upon the word +"_ge_-nius," as though he loved it. "He was once a lad from these parts, +but has now become a Jesuit. So the work was stopped." + +"What a pity!" said Laura impetuously. "He ought to have been a painter." + +The priest smiled, and made her an odd little bow. Then, without saying +anything more about the artist, he chattered on about the frescoes and +the chapel, as though he had beside him the most sympathetic of +listeners. Nothing that he said was the least interesting or striking; +and Laura, in a passion of silent dislike, kept up a steady movement +towards the door all the time. + +In the passage outside Mrs. Fountain was lingering alone. And when Laura +appeared she caught hold of her stepdaughter and detained her while the +priest passed on. Laura looked at her in surprise, and Mrs. Fountain, in +much agitation, whispered in the girl's ear: + +"Oh, Laura--do remember, dear!--don't ask Alan about those +pictures--those frescoes--by young Williams. I can tell you some +time--and you might say something to hurt him--poor Alan!" + +Laura drew herself away. + +"Why should I say anything to hurt him? What's the mystery?" + +"I can't tell you now"--Mrs. Fountain looked anxiously towards the hall. +"People have been so hard on Alan--_so_ unkind about it! It's been a +regular persecution. And you wouldn't understand--wouldn't +sympathise----" + +"I really don't care to know about it, Augustina! And I'm so +hungry--famished! Look, there's Mr. Helbeck signing to us. Joy!--that's +dinner." + + * * * * * + +Laura expected the midday meal with some curiosity. But she saw no signs +of austerity. Mr. Helbeck pressed the roast chicken on Father Bowles, +took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, and +as to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybody +else. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo your +priest. + +The meal of course was served in the simplest way, and all the waiting +was done by Mr. Helbeck, who would allow nobody to help him in the task. + +The conversation dragged. Laura and her host talked a little about the +country and the weather. Father Bowles and Augustina tried to pick up the +dropped threads of thirteen years; and Mrs. Fountain was alternately +eager for Whinthorpe gossip, or reduced to an abrupt unhappy silence by +some memory of the past. + +Suddenly Father Bowles got up from his chair, ran across the room to the +window with his napkin in his hand, and pounced eagerly upon a fly that +was buzzing on the pane. Then he carefully opened the window, and flicked +the dead thing off the sill. + +"I beg your pardon," he said humbly to Mrs. Fountain as he returned to +his seat. "It was a nasty fly. I can't abide 'em. I always think of +Beelzebub, who was the prince of the flies." + +Laura's mouth twitched with laughter. She promised herself to make a +study of Father Bowles. + +And, indeed, he was a character in his own small way. He was a priest of +an old-fashioned type, with no pretensions to knowledge or to manners. +Wherever he went he was a meek and accommodating guest, for his +recollection went back to days when a priest coming to a private house to +say Mass would as likely as not have his meals in the pantry. And he was +naturally of a gentle and yielding temper--though rather sly. + +But he had several tricks as curious as they were persistent. Not even +the presence of his bishop could make him spare a bluebottle. And he had, +on the other hand, a peculiar passion for the smell of wax. He would blow +out a candle on the altar before the end of Mass that he might enjoy the +smell of it. He disliked Jesuits, and religious generally, if the truth +were known; excepting only the orphanage nuns, who knew his weaknesses +and were kind to them. He had no love for modern innovations, or modern +devotions; there was a hidden Gallican strain in him; and he firmly +believed that in the old days before Catholic emancipation, and before +the Oxford movement, the Church made more converts than she did now. + + * * * * * + +Towards the end of the lunch Laura inquired of Mr. Helbeck whether any +conveyance was to be got in the village. + +"I wish to go to Browhead Farm this afternoon," she said rather shortly. + +"Certainly," said Helbeck. "Certainly. I will see that something is found +for you." + +But his voice had no cordiality, and Laura at once thought him +ungracious. + +"Oh, pray don't give yourself any trouble," she said, flushing, "I can +walk to the village." + +Helbeck paused. + +"If you could wait till to-morrow," he said after a moment, "I could +promise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon." + +"Oh, do wait, Laura!" cried Augustina. "There is so much unpacking to +do." + +"Very well," said the girl unwillingly. + +As she turned away from him Helbeck's look followed her. She was in a +dress of black serge, which followed the delicate girlish frame with +perfect simplicity, and was relieved at the neck and wrists with the +plainest of white collars and cuffs. But there was something so brilliant +in the hair, so fawnlike in the carriage of the head, that she seemed to +Helbeck to be all elegance; had he been asked to describe her, he would +have said she was in _grande toilette_. Little as he spoke to her, he +found himself perpetually conscious of her. Her evident--childishly +evident--dislike of her new surroundings half amused, half embarrassed +him. He did not know what topic to start with her; soon, perhaps, he +might have a difficulty in keeping the peace! It was all very absurd. + +After luncheon they gathered in the hall for a while, Father Bowles +talking eagerly with Helbeck and Augustina about "orphans" and "new +buildings." Laura stood apart awhile--then went for her hat. + +When she reappeared, in walking dress--with Fricka at her heels--Helbeck +opened the heavy outer door for her. + +"May I have Bruno?" she said. + +Helbeck turned and whistled. + +"You are not afraid?" he said, smiling, and looking at Fricka. + +"Oh, dear no! I spent an hour this morning introducing them." + +At that moment Bruno came bounding up. He looked from his master to Laura +in her hat, and seemed to hesitate. Then, as she descended the steps, he +sprang after her. Laura began to run; the two dogs leapt about her; her +light voice, checking or caressing, came back to Helbeck on the spring +wind. He watched her and her companions so long as they were in +sight--the golden hair among the trees, the dancing steps of the girl, +the answering frolic of the dogs. + +Then he turned back to his sister, his grave mouth twitching. + +"How thankful she is to get rid of us!" + +He laughed out. The priest laughed, too, more softly. + +"It was the first time, I presume, that Miss Fountain had ever been +within a Catholic church?" he said to Augustina. + +Augustina flushed. + +"Of course it is the first time. Oh! Alan, you can't think how strange it +is to her." + +She looked rather piteously at her brother. + +"So I perceive," he said. "You told me something, but I had not +realised----" + +"You see, Alan--" cried Augustina, watching her brother's face,--"it was +with the greatest difficulty that her mother got Stephen to consent even +to her being baptized. He opposed it for a long time." + +Father Bowles murmured something under his breath. + +Helbeck paused for a moment, then said: + +"What was her mother like?" + +"Everyone at Cambridge used to say she was 'a sweet woman'--but--but +Stephen,--well, you know, Alan, Stephen always had his way! I always +wonder she managed to persuade him about the baptism." + +She coloured still more deeply as she spoke, and her nervous infirmity +became more pronounced. Alas! it was not only with the first wife that +Stephen had had his way! Her own marriage had begun to seem to her a mere +sinful connection. Poor soul--poor Augustina! + +Her brother must have divined something of what was passing in her mind, +for he looked down upon her with a peculiar gentleness. + +"People are perhaps more ready to talk of that responsibility than to +take it," he said kindly. "But, Augustina,--" his voice changed,--"how +pretty she is!--You hardly prepared me----" + +Father Bowles modestly cast down his eyes. These were not questions that +concerned him. But Helbeck went on, speaking with decision, and looking +at his sister: + +"I confess--her great attractiveness makes me a little anxious--about the +connection with the Masons. Have you ever seen any of them, Augustina?" + +No--Augustina had seen none of them. She believed Stephen had +particularly disliked the mother, the widow of his cousin, who now owned +the farm jointly with her son. + +"Well, no," said Helbeck dryly, "I don't suppose he and she would have +had much in common." + +"Isn't she a dreadful Protestant--Alan?" + +"Oh, she's just a specimen of the ordinary English Bible-worship run +mad," he said, carelessly. "She is a strange woman, very well known about +here. And there's a foolish parson living near them, up in the hills, who +makes her worse. But it's the son I'm thinking of." + +"Why, Alan--isn't he respectable?" + +"Not particularly. He's a splendid athletic fellow--doing his best to +make himself a blackguard, I'm afraid. I've come across him once or +twice, as it happens. He's not a desirable cousin for Miss Fountain--that +I can vouch for! And unluckily," he smiled, "Miss Fountain won't hear any +good of this house at Browhead Farm." + +Even Augustina drew herself up proudly. + +"My dear Alan, what does it matter what that sort of people think?" + +He shook his head. + +"It's a queer business. They were mixed up with young Williams." + +Augustina started. + +"Mrs. Mason was a great friend of his mother, who died. They hate me like +poison. However----" + +The priest interposed. + +"Mrs. Mason is a very violent, a most unseemly woman," he said, in his +mincing voice. "And the father--the old man--who is now dead, was +concerned in the rioting near the bridge----" + +"When Alan was struck? Mrs. Denton told me! How _abominable_!" + +Augustina raised her hands in mingled reprobation and distress. + +Helbeck looked annoyed. + +"That doesn't matter one brass farthing," he said, in some haste. "Father +Bowles was much worse treated than I on that occasion. But you see the +whole thing is unlucky--it makes it difficult to give Miss Fountain the +hints one would like to give her." + +He threw himself down beside his sister, talking to her in low tones. +Father Bowles took up the local paper. + +Presently Augustina broke out--with another wringing of the hands. + +"Don't put it on me, my dear Alan! I tell you--Laura has always done +exactly what she liked since she was a baby." + +Mr. Helbeck rose. His face and air already expressed a certain +haughtiness; and at his sister's words there was a very definite +tightening of the shoulders. + +"I do not intend to have Hubert Mason hanging about the house," he said +quietly, as he thrust his hands into his pockets. + +"Of course not!--but she wouldn't expect it," cried Augustina in dismay. +"It's the keeping her away from them, that's the difficulty. She thinks +so much of her cousins, Alan. They're her father's only relations. I know +she'll want to be with them half her time!" + +"For love of them--or dislike of us? Oh! I dare say it will be all +right," he added abruptly. "Father Bowles, shall I drive you half-way? +The pony will be round directly." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It was a Sunday morning--bright and windy. Miss Fountain was driving a +shabby pony through the park of Bannisdale--driving with a haste and glee +that sent the little cart spinning down the road. + +Six hours--she calculated--till she need see Bannisdale again. Her +cousins would ask her to dinner and to tea. Augustina and Mr. Helbeck +might have all their Sunday antics to themselves. There were several +priests coming to luncheon--and a function in the chapel that afternoon. +Laura flicked the pony sharply as she thought of it. Seven miles between +her and it? Joy! + +Nevertheless, she did not get rid of the old house and its suggestions +quite as easily as she wished. The park and the river had many windings. +Again and again the grey gabled mass thrust itself upon her attention, +recalling each time, against her will, the face of its owner. + +A high brow--hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks--pale +blue eyes--a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair--the +close whiskers black, too, against the skin--a general impression of +pallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force-- + +She burst out laughing. + +A pose!--nothing in the world but a pose. There was a wretched picture of +Charles I. in the dining-room--a daub "after" some famous thing, she +supposed--all eyes and hair, long face, and lace collar. Mr. Helbeck was +"made up" to that--she was sure of it. He had found out the likeness, and +improved upon it. Oh! if one could only present him with the collar and +blue ribbon complete! + +"--Cut his head off, and have done with him!" she said aloud, whipping up +the pony, and laughing at her own petulance. + +Who could live in such a house--such an atmosphere? + +As she drove along, her mind was all in a protesting whirl. On her return +from her walk with the dogs the day before, she had found a service going +on in the chapel, Father Bowles officiating, and some figures in black +gowns and white-winged coifs assisting. She had fled to her own room, but +when she came down again, the black-garbed "Sisters" were still there, +and she had been introduced to them. Ugh! what manners! Must one always, +if one was a Catholic, make that cloying, hypocritical impression? "Three +of them kissed me," she reminded herself, in a quiver of wrath. + +They were Sisters from the orphanage apparently, or one of the +orphanages, and there had been endless talk of new buildings and money, +while she, Laura, sat dumb in her corner looking at old photographs of +the house. Helbeck, indeed, had not talked much. While the black women +were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly +silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through +his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he +pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that +his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other +people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively +than more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl had +an impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, that +held herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, or +awkward--nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon one +sees that he is just looking out for his own way in everything. + +"And as for temper!----" + +After the Sisters departed, a young architect had appeared at supper. A +point of difference had arisen between him and Mr. Helbeck. He was to be +employed, it appeared, in the enlargement of this blessed orphanage. Mr. +Helbeck, no doubt, with a view to his pocket--to do him justice, there +seemed to be no other pocket concerned than his--was of opinion that +certain existing buildings could be made use of in the new scheme. The +architect--a nervous young fellow, with awkward manners, and the +ambitions of an artist--thought not, and held his own, insistently. The +discussion grew vehement. Suddenly Helbeck lost his temper. + +"Mr. Munsey! I must ask you to give more weight, if you please, to my +wishes in this matter! They may be right or wrong--but it would save +time, perhaps, if we assumed that they would prevail." + +The note of anger in the voice made every one look up. The Squire stood +erect a moment; crumpled in his hand a half-sheet of paper on which young +Munsey had been making some calculations, and flung it into the fire. +Augustina sat cowering. The young man himself turned white, bowed, and +said nothing. While Father Bowles, of course, like the old tabby that he +was, had at once begun to purr conciliation. + +"Would I have stood meek and mum if _I'd_ been the young man!" thought +Laura. "Would I! Oh! if I'd had the chance! And he should not have made +up so easily, either." + +For she remembered, also, how, after Father Bowles was gone, she had come +in from the garden to find Mr. Helbeck and the architect pacing the long +hall together, on what seemed to be the friendliest of terms. For nearly +an hour, while she and Augustina sat reading over the fire, the colloquy +went on. + +Helbeck's tones then were of the gentlest; the young man too spoke low +and eagerly, pressing his plans. And once when Laura looked up from her +book, she had seen Helbeck's arm resting for a moment on the young +fellow's shoulder. Oh! no doubt Mr. Helbeck could make himself agreeable +when he chose--and struggling architects must put up with the tempers of +their employers. + +All the more did Miss Fountain like to think that the Squire could compel +no court from her. + +She recalled that when Mr. Munsey had said good-night, and they three +were alone in the firelit hall, Helbeck had come to stand beside her. He +had looked down upon her with an air which was either kindness or +weariness; he had been willing--even, she thought, anxious to talk with +her. But she did not mean to be first trampled on, then patronised, like +the young man. So Mr. Helbeck had hardly begun--with that occasional +timidity which sat so oddly on his dark and strong physique--to speak to +her of the two Sisters of Charity who had been his guests in the +afternoon, when she abruptly discovered it was time to say good-night. +She winced a little as she remembered the sudden stiffening of his look, +the careless touch of his hand. + + * * * * * + +The day was keen and clear. A nipping wind blew beneath the bright sun, +and the opening buds had a parched and hindered look. But to Laura the +air was wine, and the country all delight. She was mounting the flank of +a hill towards a straggling village. Straight along the face of the hill +lay her road, past the villages and woods that clothed the hill slope, +till someone should show her the gate beyond which lay the rough ascent +to Browhead Farm. + +Above her, now, to her right, rose a craggy fell with great screes +plunging sheer down into the woods that sheltered the village; below, in +the valley-plain, stretched the purples and greens of the moss; the +rivers shone in the sun as they came speeding from the mountains to the +sea; and in the far distance the heights of Lakeland made one pageant +with the sun and the clouds--peak after peak thrown blue against the +white, cloud after cloud breaking to show the dappled hills below, in +such a glory of silver and of purple, such a freshness of atmosphere and +light, that mere looking soon became the most thrilling, the most +palpable of joys. Laura's spirits began to sing and soar, with the larks +and the blackcaps! + +Then, when the village was gone, came a high stretch of road, looking +down upon the moss and all its bounding fells, which ran out upon its +purple face like capes upon a sea. And these nearer fields--what were +these thick white specks upon the new-made furrows? Up rose the gulls for +answer; and the girl felt the sea-breath from their dazzling wings, and +turned behind her to look for that pale opening in the south-west through +which the rivers passed. + +And beyond the fields a wood--such a wood as made Laura's south-country +eyes stand wide with wonder! Out she jumped, tied the pony's rein to a +gate beside the road, and ran into the hazel brushwood with little cries +of pleasure. A Westmoreland wood in daffodil time--it was nothing more +and nothing less. But to this child with the young passion in her blood, +it was a dream, an ecstasy. The golden flowers, the slim stalks, rose +from a mist of greenish-blue, made by their speary leaf amid the +encircling browns and purples, the intricate stem and branch-work of the +still winter-bound hazels. Never were daffodils in such a wealth before! +They were flung on the fell-side through a score of acres, in sheets and +tapestries of gold,--such an audacious, unreckoned plenty as went +strangely with the frugal air and temper of the northern country, with +the bare walled fields, the ruggedness of the crags above, and the +melancholy of the treeless marsh below. And within this common +lavishness, all possible delicacy, all possible perfection of the +separate bloom and tuft--each foot of ground had its own glory. For below +the daffodils there was a carpet of dark violets, so dim and close that +it was their scent first bewrayed them; and as Laura lay gathering with +her face among the flowers, she could see behind their gold, and between +the hazel stems, the light-filled greys and azures of the mountain +distance. Each detail in the happy whole struck on the girl's eager sense +and made there a poem of northern spring--spring as the fell-country sees +it, pure, cold, expectant, with flashes of a blossoming beauty amid the +rocks and pastures, unmatched for daintiness and joy. + +Presently Laura found herself sitting--half crying!--on a mossy tuft, +looking along the wood to the distance. What was it in this exquisite +country that seized upon her so--that spoke to her in this intimate, this +appealing voice? + +Why, she was of it--she belonged to it--she felt it in her veins! Old +inherited things leapt within her--or it pleased her to think so. It was +as though she stretched out her arms to the mountains and fields, crying +to them, "I am not a stranger--draw me to you--my life sprang from +yours!" A host of burning and tender thoughts ran through her. Their +first effect was to remind her of the farm and of her cousins; and she +sprang up, and went back to the cart. + +On they rattled again, downhill through the wood, and up on the further +side--still always on the edge of the moss. She loved the villages, and +their medley of grey houses wedged among the rocks; she loved the stone +farms with their wide porches, and the white splashes on their grey +fronts; she loved the tufts of fern in the wall crannies, the limestone +ribs and bonework of the land breaking everywhere through the pastures, +the incomparable purples of the woods, and the first brave leafing of the +larches and the sycamores. Never had she so given her heart to any new +world; and through her delight flashed the sorest, tenderest thoughts of +her father. "Oh! papa--oh, papa!" she said to herself again and again in +a little moan. Every day perhaps he had walked this road as a child, and +she could still see herself as a child, in a very dim vision, trotting +beside him down the Browhead Road. She turned at last into the fell-gate +to which a passing boy directed her, with a long breath that was almost a +sob. + +She had given them no notice; but surely, surely they would be glad to +see her! + +_They_? She tried to split up the notion, to imagine the three people she +was going to see. Cousin Elizabeth--the mother? Ah! she knew her, for +they had never liked Cousin Elizabeth. She herself could dimly remember a +hard face; an obstinate voice raised in discussion with her father. Yet +it was Cousin Elizabeth who was the Fountain born, who had carried the +little family property as her dowry to her husband James Mason. For the +grandfather had been free to leave it as he chose, and on the death of +his eldest son--who had settled at the farm after his marriage, and taken +the heavy work of it off his father's shoulders--the old man had +passionately preferred to leave it to the strong, capable granddaughter, +who was already provided with a lover, who understood the land, moreover, +and could earn and "addle" as he did, rather than to his bookish milksop +of a second son, so richly provided for already, in his father's +contemptuous opinion, by the small government post at Newcastle. + +"Let us always thank God, Laura, that my grandfather was a brute to +yours!" Stephen Fountain would say to his girl on the rare occasions when +he could be induced to speak of his family at all. "But for that I might +be a hedger and ditcher to this day." + +Well, but Cousin Elizabeth's children? Laura herself had some vague +remembrance of them. As the pony climbed the steep lane she shut her eyes +and tried hard to recall them. The fair-haired boy--rather fat and +masterful--who had taken her to find the eggs of a truant hen in a hedge +behind the house--and had pushed her into a puddle on the way home +because she had broken one? Then the girl, the older girl Polly, who had +cleaned her shoes for her, and lent her a pinafore? No! Laura opened her +eyes again--it was no good straining to remember. Too many years had +rolled between that early visit and her present self--years during which +there had been no communication of any sort between Stephen Fountain and +his cousins. + +Why had Augustina been so trying and tiresome about the Masons? Instead +of flying to her cousins on the earliest possible opportunity, here was a +whole fortnight gone since her arrival, and it was not till this Sunday +morning that Laura had been able to achieve her visit. Augustina had been +constantly ailing or fretful; either unwilling to be left alone, or +possessed by absurd desires for useless trifles, only to be satisfied by +Laura's going to shop in Whinthorpe. And such melancholy looks whenever +the Masons were mentioned--coupled with so formal a silence on Mr. +Helbeck's part! What did it all mean? No doubt her relations were vulgar, +low-born folk!--but she did not ask Mr. Helbeck or her stepmother to +entertain them. At last there had been a passage of arms between her and +her stepmother. Perhaps Mr. Helbeck had overheard it, for immediately +afterwards he had emerged from his study into the hall, where she and +Augustina were sitting. + +"Miss Fountain--may I ask--do you wish to be sent into Whinthorpe on +Sunday morning?" + +She had fronted him at once. + +"No, thank you, Mr. Helbeck. I don't go to church--I never did with +papa." + +Had she been defiant? He surely had been stiff. + +"Then, perhaps you would like the pony--for your visit? He is quite at +your service for the day. Would that suit you?" + +"Perfectly." + + * * * * * + +So here she was--at last!--climbing up and up into the heart of the +fells. The cloud-pageant round the high mountains, the valley with its +flashing streams, its distant sands, and widening sea--she had risen as +it seemed above them all; they lay beneath her in a map-like unity. She +could have laughed and sung out of sheer physical joy in the dancing +air--in the play of the cloud gleams and shadows as they swept across +her, chased by the wind. All about her the little mountain sheep were +feeding in the craggy "intaks" or along the edges of the tiny tumbling +streams; and at intervals amid the reds and yellows of the still wintry +grass rose great wind-beaten hollies, sharp and black against the blue +distance, marching beside her, like scattered soldiers, up the height. + +Not a house to be seen, save on the far slopes of distant hills--not a +sound, but the chink of the stone-chat, or the fall of lonely water. + +Soon the road, after its long ascent, began to dip; a few trees appeared +in a hollow, then a gate and some grey walls. + +Laura jumped from the cart. Beyond the gate, the road turned downward a +little, and a great block of barns shut the farmhouse from view till she +was actually upon it. + +But there it was at last--the grey, roughly built house, that she still +vaguely remembered, with the whitewashed porch, the stables and cowsheds +opposite, the little garden to the side, the steep fell behind. + +She stood with her hand on the pony, looking at the house in some +perplexity. Not a soul apparently had heard her coming. Nothing moved in +the farmhouse or outside it. Was everybody at church? But it was nearly +one o'clock. + +The door under the deep porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for +a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle of her whip. + +No answer. She rapped again--louder and louder. At last in the intervals +of knocking, she became conscious of a sound within--something deep and +continuous, like the buzzing of a gigantic bee. + +She put her ear to the door, listening. Then all her face dissolved in +laughter. She raised her arm and brought the whip-handle down noisily on +the old blistered door, so that it shook again. + +"Hullo!" + +There was a sudden sound of chairs overturned, or dragged along a flagged +floor. Then staggering steps--and the door was opened. + +"I say--what's all this--what are you making such a damned noise for?" + +Inside stood a stalwart young man, still half asleep, and drawing his +hand irritably across his blinking eyes. + +"How do you do, Mr. Mason?" + +The young man drew himself together with a start. Suddenly he perceived +that the young girl standing in the shade of the porch was not his +sister, but a stranger. He looked at her with astonishment,--at the +elegance of her dress, and the neatness of her small gloved hand. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure! Did you want anything?" + +The visitor laughed. "Yes, I want a good deal! I came up to see my +cousins--you're my cousin--though of course you don't remember me. I +thought--perhaps--you'd ask me to dinner." + +The young man's yawns ceased. He stared with all his eyes, instinctively +putting his hair and collar straight. + +"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are, Miss," he said at last, +putting out his hand in perplexity to meet hers. "Will you walk in?" + +"Not before you know who I am!"--said Laura, still laughing--"I'm Laura +Fountain. Now do you know?" + +"What--Stephen Fountain's daughter--as married Miss Helbeck?" said the +young man in wonder. His face, which had been at first vague and heavy +with sleep, began to recover its natural expression. + +Laura surveyed him. He had a square, full chin and an upper lip slightly +underhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. He +carried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built, +rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that was +half clumsy, half insolent. + +"That's it," she said, in answer to his question--"I'm staying at +Bannisdale, and I came up to see you all.--Where's Cousin Elizabeth?" + +"Mother, do you mean?--Oh! she's at church." + +"Why aren't you there, too?" + +He opened his blue eyes, taken aback by the cool clearness of her voice. + +"Well, I can't abide the parson--if you want to know. Shall I put up your +pony?" + +"But perhaps you've not had your sleep out?" said Laura, politely +interrogative. + +He reddened, and came forward with a slow and rather shambling gait. + +"I don't know what else there is to do up here of a Sunday morning," he +said, with a boyish sulkiness, as he began to lead the pony towards the +stables opposite. "Besides, I was up half the night seeing to one of the +cows." + +"You don't seem to have many neighbours," said Laura, as she walked +beside him. + +"There's rooks and crows" (which he pronounced broadly--"craws")--"not +much else, I can tell you. Shall I take the pony out?" + +"Please. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for hours!" + +She looked at him merrily, and he returned the scrutiny. She wore the +same thin black dress in which Helbeck had admired her the day before, +and above it a cloth jacket and cap, trimmed with brown fur. Mason was +dazzled a moment by the milky whiteness of the cheek above the fur, by +the brightness of the eyes and hair; then was seized with fresh shyness, +and became extremely busy with the pony. + +"Mother'll be back in about an hour," he said gruffly. + +"Goodness! what'll you do with me till then?" + +They both laughed, he with an embarrassment that annoyed him. He was not +at all accustomed to find himself at a disadvantage with a good-looking +girl. + +"There's a good fire in the house, anyway," he said; "you'll want to warm +yourself, I should think, after driving up here." + +"Oh! I'm not cold--I say, what jolly horses!" + +For Mason had thrown open the large worm-eaten door of the stables, and +inside could be seen the heads and backs of two cart-horses, huge, +majestic creatures, who were peering over the doors of their stalls, as +though they had been listening to the conversation. + +Their owner glanced at them indifferently. + +"Aye, they're not bad. We bred 'em three years ago, and they've taken +more'n one prize already. I dare say old Daffady, now, as looks after +them, would be sorry to part with them." + +"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?" + +The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony, +and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching his +performance. + +"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives," he said at last +with some abruptness. + +"Don't you like it then?" + +"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!" + +His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her. + +"And your mother?" + +"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the +same accent of a sulky child that he had used once before. + +Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he was +beginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious that +she was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no means +indifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep him +shy. + +As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up the +chairs he had overturned in his sudden waking. + +"I say, mother would be mad if she knew you'd come into this scrow!" he +said with vexation, kicking aside some sporting papers that were littered +over the floors, and bringing forward a carved oak chair with a cushion +to place it before the fire for her acceptance. + +"Scrow? What's that?" said Laura, lifting her eyebrows. "Oh, please don't +tidy any more. I really think you make it worse. Besides, it's all right. +What a dear old kitchen!" + +She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slender +foot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat--it hid her +hair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupied +with what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings--to +the old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows. + +Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through +the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the +different objects in a golden light and shade--the brass warming-pan +hanging beside the tall eight-day clock--the table in front of the long +window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth--the carved door of a +cupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679--the miscellaneous store of +things packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools, +bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels, +cattle-medicines, and the like--the heavy oaken chairs--the settle beside +the fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room for +winter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peat +fire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feet +below, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, had +maintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred, +self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of the +farm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned from +October to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there must +be many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in together +from the world outside by wastes of snow. + +Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro--the +rising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side, +wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire. +Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmed +to the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something more +human--more poetic even--than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale. + +She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw Hubert +Mason looking at her. + +Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under the +shelter of her dress. + +"I was thinking of what it must be in winter," she said hurriedly. "I +know I should like it." + +"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then. +It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut your +throat. I say, where are you staying?" + +"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother was +still living, didn't you?" + +"Well, I didn't think aught about it," he said, falling into candour, +because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair and +full upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind. + +"I wrote to you--to Cousin Elizabeth--when my father died," she said +simply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him. + +"Aye--of course you did," he said in haste. "But mother's never yan to +talk aboot letters. And you haven't dropped us a line since, have you?" +he added, almost with timidity. + +"No. I thought I'd surprise you. We've been a fortnight at Bannisdale." + +His face flushed and darkened. + +"Then you've been a fortnight in a queer place!" he said with a sudden, +almost a violent change of tone. "I wonder you can bide so long under +that man's roof!" + +She stared. + +"Do you mean because he disliked my father?" + +"Oh, I don't know nowt about that!" He paused. His young face was +crimson, his eyes angry and sinister. "He's a _snake_--is Helbeck!" he +said slowly, striking his hands together as they hung over his knees. + +Laura recoiled--instinctively straightening herself. + +"Mr. Helbeck is quite kind to me," she said sharply. "I don't know why +you speak of him like that. I'm staying there till my stepmother gets +strong." + +He stared at her, still red and obstinate. + +"Helbeck an his house together stick in folk's gizzards aboot here," he +said. "Yo'll soon find that oot. And good reason too. Did you ever hear +of Teddy Williams?" + +"Williams?" she said, frowning. "Was that the man that painted the +chapel?" + +Mason laughed and slapped his knee. + +"Man, indeed? He was just a lad--down at Marsland School. I was there +myself, you understand, the year after him. He was an awful clever +lad--beat every one at books--an he could draw anything. You couldn't +mak' much oot of his drawins, I daur say--they were queer sorts o' +things. I never could make head or tail on 'em myself. But old Jackson, +our master, thowt a lot of 'em, and so did the passon down at Marsland. +An his father an mother--well, they thowt he was going to make all their +fortunes for 'em. There was a scholarship--or soomthin o' that sort--an +he was to get it an go to college, an make 'em all rich. They were just +common wheelwrights, you understand, down on t' Whinthorpe Road. But my +word, Mr. Helbeck spoilt their game for 'em!" + +He lifted another sod of turf from the basket and flung it on the fire. +The animus of his tone and manner struck Laura oddly. But she was at +least as curious to hear as he was anxious to tell. She drew her chair a +little nearer to him. + +"What did Mr. Helbeck do?" + +Mason laughed. + +"Well, he just made a Papist of Teddy--took him an done him--brown. He +got hold on him in the park one evening--Teddy was drawing a picture of +the bridge, you understand--'ticed him up to his place soomhow--an Teddy +was set to a job of paintin up at the chapel before you could say Jack +Robinson. An in six months they'd settled it between 'em. Teddy wouldn't +go to school no more. And one night he and his father had words; the owd +man gie'd him a thrashing, and Teddy just cut and run. Next thing they +heard he was at a Papist school, somewhere over Lancashire way, an he +sent word to his mother--she was dyin then, you understan'--and she's +dead since--that he'd gone to be a priest, an if they didn't like it, +they might just do the other thing!" + +"And the mother died?" said Laura. + +"Aye--double quick! My mother went down to nurse her. An they sent Teddy +back, just too late to see her. He come in two-three hours after they'd +screwed her down. An his father chivvyed him oot--they wouldn't have him +at the funeral. But folks were a deal madder with Mr. Helbeck, you +understan', nor with Teddy. Teddy's father and brothers are chapel +folk--Primitive Methodists they call 'em. They've got a big chapel in +Whinthorpe--an they raised the whole place on Mr. Helbeck, and one night, +coming out of Whinthorpe, he was set on by a lot of fellows, chapel +fellows, a bit fresh, you understan'. Father was there--he never denied +it--not he! Helbeck just got into the old mill by the bridge in time, but +they'd marked his face for him all the same." + +"Ah!" said Laura, staring into the fire. She had just remembered a dark +scar on Mr. Helbeck's forehead, under the strong ripples of black hair. +"Go on--do!" + +"Oh! afterwards there was a lot of men bound over--father among 'em. +There was a priest with Mr. Helbeck who got it hot too--that old chap +Bowles--I dare say you've seen him. Aye, he's a _snake_, is Helbeck!" the +young man repeated. Then he reddened still more deeply, and added with +vindictive emphasis--"and an interfering,--hypocritical,--canting sort of +party into t' bargain. He'd like to lord it over everybody aboot here, if +he was let. But he's as poor as a church rat--who minds him?" + +The language was extraordinary--so was the tone. Laura had been gazing at +the speaker in a growing amazement. + +"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!--but, +in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of the +gentleman I am staying with!" + +Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to control +himself. + +"I didn't mean no offence," he said at last, with a return of the sulky +voice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, and +not with the likes of us." + +Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing to +say! But I don't mind--I'll forgive you--like I did years ago, when you +pushed me into the puddle!" + +"I pushed you into a puddle? But--I never did owt o' t' sort!" cried +Mason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment. + +"Oh, yes, you did," she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and you +bullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy--and I loved Polly, +who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she at +church?" + +"Aye--I dare say," said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhile +with all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off her +cap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curls +upon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so as +to fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The white +fingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted arms +showed all the young curves of the girl's form. + +Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily +into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair. + +"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?" + +He shook his head. + +"Ah! well"--she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty. + +"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily. + +"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different +voice, "Is this your sitting-room"--she looked round it--"or--or your +kitchen?" + +The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his +feelings. + +Mason jumped up. + +"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust +thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire." + +And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door +ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look +round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its +woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured +carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place +struck her. + +"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen," she said decidedly. "What's +that?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon the +largest possible wool mat in the centre of a table. + +Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fill +out; all his sulky constraint dropped away. + +"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts," he said to her with +condescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for the +County lasst year--no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt--that's +nobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a better +there, by-and-by." + +The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumed +indifference to its inscription. + +"What--football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! I +don't care about football. But I _love_ cricket. Why--you've got a +piano--and a new one!" + +Mason's face cleared again--in quite another fashion. + +"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal of +by them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had done +fust-rate,--an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So I +took no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid the +first instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle--do yo +knaw 'im?--he's the organist at the parish church--he came with me to +choose it." + +"And is it you that play it," said Laura wondering, "or your sister?" + +He looked at her in silence for a moment--and she at him. His aspect +seemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face came +out; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner became +suddenly quiet and manly--though full of an almost tremulous eagerness. + +"You like it?" she asked him. + +"What--music? I should think so." + +"Oh! I forgot--you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?" + +He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leant +over the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused. + +"I say--did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellow +made it--Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further than +just a bit of it." + +He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords that +shook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He played +on--played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling--played with +a mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment that +amazed her--then grew crimson with the effort to remember--wavered--and +stopped. + +"Goodness!"--cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides! +How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it." + +She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling and +transformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found the +after melody, pursued it,--with pauses now and then, in which he would +strike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers--and finally, +after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter and +head-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time with +hands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments. + +"Oh! my goody--isn't that rousing? Play that again--just that +change--just once! Oh! Lord--isn't that good, that chord--and that bit +afterwards, what a bass!--I say, _isn't_ it a bass? Don't you like +it--don't you like it _awfully_?" + +Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, her +hands on her knees. He fell back into a chair. + +"I say"--he said slowly--"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known you +could play like that!" + +Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown. + +"I haven't played--ten notes--since papa died. He liked it so." + +She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at the +top of the piano. + +"But you will play--you'll play to me again"--he said +beseechingly.--"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't I +play if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now and +again, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him--I can +play any thing I hear--and I've made a song--old Castle's writing it +down--he says he'll teach me to do it some day. But of course I'm no good +for playing--I never shall be any good. Look at those fingers--they're +like bits of stick--beastly things!" + +He thrust them out indignantly for her inspection. Laura looked at them +with a professional air. + +"I don't call it a bad hand. I expect you've no patience." + +"Haven't I! I tell you I'd play all day, if it'ld do any good--but it +won't." + +"And how about the poor farm?" said Laura, with a lifted brow. + +"Oh! the farm--the farm--dang the farm!"--said Mason violently, slapping +his knee. + +Suddenly there was a sound of voices outside, a clattering on the stones +of the farmyard. + +Mason sprang up, all frowns. + +"That's mother. Here, let's shut the piano--quick! She can't abide it." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Mason went out to meet his mother, and Laura waited. She stood where she +had risen, beside the piano, looking nervously towards the door. Childish +remembrances and alarms seemed to be thronging back into her mind. + +There was a noise of voices in the outer room. Then a handle was roughly +turned, and Laura saw before her a short, stout woman, with grey hair, +and the most piercing black eyes. Intimidated by the eyes, and by the +sudden pause of the newcomer on the threshold, Miss Fountain could only +look at her interrogatively. + +"Is it Cousin Elizabeth?" she said, holding out a wavering hand. + +Mrs. Mason scarcely allowed her own to be touched. + +"We're not used to visitors i' church-time," she said abruptly, in a deep +funereal voice. "Mappen you'll sit down." + +And still holding the girl with her eyes, she walked across to an old +rocking-chair, let herself fall into it, and with a loud sigh loosened +her bonnet strings. + +Laura, in her amazement, had to strangle a violent inclination to laugh. +Then she flushed brightly, and sat down on the wooden stool in front of +the piano. Mrs. Mason, still staring at her, seemed to wait for her to +speak. But Laura would say nothing. + +"Soa--thoo art Stephen Fountain's dowter--art tha?" + +"Yes--and you have seen me before," was the girl's quiet reply. + +She said to herself that her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. So +black and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggy +hair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her own temper rising. + +"How long is't sen your feyther deed?" + +"Nine months. But you knew that, I think--because I wrote it you." + +Mrs. Mason's heavy lids blinked a moment, then she said with slowly +quickening emphasis, like one mounting to a crisis: + +"Wat art tha doin' wi' Bannisdale Hall? What call has thy feyther's +dowter to be visitin onder Alan Helbeck's roof?" + +Laura's open mouth showed first wonderment, then laughter. + +"Oh! I see," she said impatiently--"you don't seem to understand. But of +course you remember that my father married Miss Helbeck for his second +wife?" + +"Aye, an she cam oot fra amang them," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "she put away +from her the accursed thing!" + +The massive face was all aglow, transformed, with a kind of sombre fire. +Laura stared afresh. + +"She gave up being a Catholic, if that's what you mean," she said after a +moment's pause. "But she couldn't keep to it. When papa fell ill, and she +was unhappy, she went back. And then of course she made it up with her +brother." + +The triumph in Mrs. Mason's face yielded first to astonishment, then to +anger. + +"The poor weak doited thing," she said at last in a tone of indescribable +contempt, "the poor silly fule! But naebody need ha' luked for onything +betther from a Helbeck.--And I daur say"--she lifted her voice +fiercely--"I daur say she took yo' wi' her, an it's along o' thattens as +yo're coom to spy on us oop here?" + +Laura sprang up. + +"Me!" she said indignantly. "You think I'm a Catholic and a spy? How kind +of you! But of course you don't know anything about my father, nor how he +brought me up. As for my poor little stepmother, I came here with her to +get her well, and I shall stay with her till she is well. I really don't +know why you talk to me like this. I suppose you have cause to dislike +Mr. Helbeck, but it is very odd that you should visit it on me, papa's +daughter, when I come to see you!" + +The girl's voice trembled, but she threw back her slender neck with a +gesture that became her. The door, which had been closed, stealthily +opened. Hubert Mason's face appeared in the doorway. It was gazing +eagerly--admiringly--at Miss Fountain. + +Mrs. Mason did not see him. Nor was she daunted by Laura's anger. + +"It's aw yan," she said stubbornly. "Thoo ha' made a covenant wi' the +Amorite an the Amalekite. They ha' called tha, an thoo art eatin o' their +sacrifices!" + +There was an uneasy laugh from the door, and Laura, turning her +astonished eyes in that direction, perceived Hubert standing in the +doorway, and behind him another head thrust eagerly forward--the head of +a young woman in a much betrimmed Sunday hat. + +"I say, mother, let her be, wil tha?" said a hearty voice; and, pushing +Hubert aside, the owner of the hat entered the room. She went up to +Laura, and gave her a loud kiss. + +"I'm Polly--Polly Mason. An I know who you are weel enough. Doan't you +pay ony attention to mother. That's her way. Hubert an I take it very +kind of you to come and see us." + +"Mother's rats on Amorites!" said Hubert, grinning. + +"Rats?--Amorites?"--said Laura, looking piteously at Polly, whose hand +she held. + +Polly laughed, a bouncing, good-humoured laugh. She herself was a +bouncing, good-humoured person, the apparent antithesis of her mother +with her lively eyes, her frizzled hair, her high cheek-bones touched +with a bright pink. + +"Yo'll have to get oop early to understan' them two," she declared. +"Mother's allus talkin out o' t' Bible, an Hubert picks up a lot o' low +words out o' Whinthrupp streets--an there 'tis. But now look here--yo'll +stay an tak' a bit o' dinner with us?" + +"I don't want to be in your way," said Laura formally. Really, she had +some difficulty to control the quiver of her lips, though it would have +been difficult to say whether laughter or tears came nearest. + +At this Polly broke out in voluble protestations, investigating her +cousin's dress all the time, fingering her little watch-chain, and even +taking up a corner of the pretty cloth jacket that she might examine the +quality of it. Laura, however, looked at Mrs. Mason. + +"If Cousin Elizabeth wishes me to stay," she said proudly. + +Polly burst into another loud laugh. + +"Yo see, it goes agen mother to be shakin hands wi' yan that's livin wi' +Papists--and Misther Helbeck by the bargain. So wheniver mother talks +aboot Amorites or Jesubites, or any o' thattens, she nobbut means +Papist--Romanists as our minister coes 'em. He's every bit as bad as her. +He would as lief shake hands wi' Mr. Helbeck as wi' the owd 'un!" + +"I'll uphowd ye--Mr. Bayley hasn't preached a sermon this ten year wi'oot +chivvyin Papists!" said Hubert from the door. "An yo'll not find yan o' +them in his parish if yo were to hunt it wi' a lantern for a week o' +Sundays. When I was a lad I thowt Romanists were a soart o' varmin. I +awmost looked to see 'em nailed to t' barndoor, same as stöats!" + +"But how strange!" cried Laura--"when there are so few Catholics about +here. And no one _hates_ Catholics now. One may just--despise them." + +She looked from mother to son in bewilderment. Not only Hubert's speech, +but his whole manner had broadened and coarsened since his mother's +arrival. + +"Well, if there isn't mony, they make a deal o' talk," said +Polly--"onyways sence Mr. Helbeck came to t' hall.--Mother, I'll take +Miss Fountain oopstairs, to get her hat off." + +During all the banter of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in a +disdainful silence, turning her strange eyes--the eyes of a fanatic, in a +singularly shrewd and capable face--now on Laura, now on her children. +Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then an +impulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an impulse of +liking, an impulse of kinship; and as she quickly crossed the room to +Mrs. Mason's side, she said in a pretty pleading voice: + +"But you see, Cousin Elizabeth, I'm not a Catholic--and papa wasn't a +Catholic. And I couldn't help Mrs. Fountain going back to her old +religion--you shouldn't visit it on me!" + +Mrs. Mason looked up. + +"Why art tha not at church on t' Lord's day?" + +The question came stern and quick. + +Laura wavered, then drew herself up. + +"Because I'm not your sort either. I don't believe in your church, or +your ministers. Father didn't, and I'm like him." + +Her voice had grown thick, and she was quite pale. The old woman stared +at her. + +"Then yo're nobbut yan o' the heathen!" she said with slow precision. + +"I dare say!" cried Laura, half laughing, half crying. "That's my affair. +But I declare I think I hate Catholics as much as you--there, Cousin +Elizabeth! I don't hate my stepmother, of course. I promised father to +take care of her. But that's another matter." + +"Dost tha hate Alan Helbeck?" said Mrs. Mason suddenly, her black eyes +opening in a flash. + +The girl hesitated, caught her breath--then was seized with the +strangest, most abject desire to propitiate this grim woman with the +passionate look. + +"Yes!" she said wildly. "No, no!--that's silly. I haven't had time to +hate him. But I don't like him, anyway. I'm nearly sure I _shall_ hate +him!" + +There was no mistaking the truth in her tone. + +Mrs. Mason slowly rose. Her chest heaved with one long breath, then +subsided; her brow tightened. She turned to her son. + +"Art tha goin to let Daffady do all thy work for tha?" she said sharply. +"Has t' roan calf bin looked to?" + +"Aye--I'm going," said Hubert evasively, and sheepishly straightening +himself he made for the front door, throwing back more than one look as +he departed at his new cousin. + +"And you really want me to stay?" repeated Laura insistently, addressing +Mrs. Mason. + +"Yo're welcome," was the stiff reply. "Nobbut yo'd been mair welcome if +yo hadna brokken t' Sabbath to coom here. Mappen yo'll goa wi' Polly, an +tak' your bonnet off." + +Laura hesitated a moment longer, bit her lip, and went. + + * * * * * + +Polly Mason was a great talker. In the few minutes she spent with Laura +upstairs, before she hurried down again to help her mother with the +Sunday dinner, she asked her new cousin innumerable questions, showing an +intense curiosity as to Bannisdale and the Helbecks, a burning desire to +know whether Laura had any money of her own, or was still dependent upon +her stepmother, and a joyous appropriative pride in Miss Fountain's +gentility and good looks. + +The frankness of Polly's flatteries, and the exuberance of her whole +personality, ended by producing a certain stiffness in Laura. Every now +and then, in the intervals of Polly's questions, when she ceased to be +inquisitive and became confidential, Laura would wonder to herself. She +would half shut her eyes, trying to recall the mental image of her +cousins and of the farm, with which she had started that morning from +Bannisdale; or she would think of her father, his modes of life and +speech--was he really connected, and how, with this place and its +inmates? She had expected something simple and patriarchal. She had found +a family of peasants, living in a struggling, penurious way--a grim +mother speaking broad dialect, a son with no pretensions to refinement or +education, except perhaps through his music--and a daughter---- + +Laura turned an attentive eye on Polly, on her high and red cheek-bones, +the extravagant fringe that vulgarised all her honest face, the Sunday +dress of stone-coloured alpaca, profusely trimmed with magenta ribbons. + +"I will--I _will_ like her!" she said to herself--"I am a horrid, +snobbish, fastidious little wretch." + +But her spirits had sunk. When Polly left her she leant for a moment upon +the sill of the open window, and looked out. Across the dirty, uneven +yard, where the manure lay in heaps outside the byre doors, she saw the +rude farm buildings huddled against each other in a mean, unsightly +group. Down below, from the house porch apparently, a cracked bell began +to ring, and from some doors opposite three labourers, the "hired men," +who lived and boarded on the farm, came out. The first two were elderly +men, gnarled and bent like tough trees that have fought the winter; the +third was a youth. They were tidily dressed in Sunday clothes, for their +work was done, and they were ready for the afternoon's holiday. + +They walked across to the farmhouse in silence, one behind the other. Not +even the young fellow raised his eyes to the window and the girl framed +within it. Behind them came a gust of piercing easterly wind. A cloud had +covered the sun. The squalid farmyard, the bare fell-side beyond it, the +distant levels of the marsh, had taken to themselves a cold forbidding +air. Laura again imagined it in December--a waste of snow, with the farm +making an ugly spot upon the white, and the little black-bearded sheep +she could see feeding on the fell, crowding under the rocks for shelter. +But this time she shivered. All the spell was broken. To live up here +with this madwoman, this strange youth--and Polly! Yet it seemed to her +that something drew her to Cousin Elizabeth--if she were not so mad. How +strange to find this abhorrence of Mr. Helbeck among these people--so +different, so remote! She remembered her own words--"I am sure I _shall_ +hate him!"--not without a stab of conscience. What had she been +doing--perhaps--but adding her own injustice to theirs? + +She stood lost in a young puzzle and heat of feeling--half angry, half +repentant. + +But only for a second. Then certain phrases of Augustina's rang through +her mind--she saw herself standing in the corner of the chapel while the +others prayed. Every pulse tightened--her whole nature leapt again in +defiance. She seemed to be holding something at bay--a tyrannous power +that threatened humiliation and hypocrisy, that seemed at the same time +to be prying into secret things--things it should never, never know--and +never rule! Yes, she did understand Cousin Elizabeth--she _did_! + + * * * * * + +The dinner went sadly. The viands were heavy: so were the faces of the +labourers, and the air of the low-raftered kitchen, heated as it was by a +huge fire, and pervaded by the smell from the farmyard. Laura felt it all +very strange, the presence of the farm servants at the same table with +the Masons and herself--the long silences that no one made an effort to +break--the relations between Hubert and his mother. + +As for the labourers, Mason addressed them now and then in a bullying +voice, and they spoke to him as little as they could. It seemed to Laura +that there was an alliance between them and the mother against a lazy and +incompetent master; and that the lad's vanity was perpetually alive to +it. Again and again he would pull himself together, attempt the +gentleman, and devote himself to his young lady guest. But in the midst +of their conversation he would hear something at the other end of the +table, and suddenly there would come a burst of fierce unintelligible +speech between him and the mistress of the house, while the labourers sat +silent and sly, and Polly's loud laugh would break in, trying to make +peace. + +Laura's cool grey eyes followed the youth with a constant critical +wonder. In any other circumstances she would not have thought him worth +an instant's attention. She had all the supercilious impatience of the +pretty girl accustomed to choose her company. But this odd fact of +kinship held and harassed her. She wanted to understand these Masons--her +father's folk. + +"Now he is really talking quite nicely," she said to herself on one +occasion, when Hubert had found in the gifts and accomplishments of his +friend Castle, the organist, a subject that untied his tongue and made +him almost agreeable. Suddenly a question caught his ear. + +"Daffady, did tha turn the coo?" said his mother in a loud voice. Even in +the homeliest question it had the same penetrating, passionate quality +that belonged to her gaze--to her whole personality indeed. + +Hubert dropped his phrase--and his knife and fork--and stared angrily at +Daffady, the old cowman and carter. + +Daffady threw his master a furtive look, then munched through a mouthful +of bread and cheese without replying. + +He was a grey and taciturn person, with a provocative look of patience. + +"What tha bin doin wi' th' coo?" said Hubert sharply. "I left her mysel +nobbut half an hour sen." + +Daffady turned his head again in Hubert's direction for a moment, then +deliberately addressed the mistress. + +"Aye, aye, missus"--he spoke in a high small voice--"A turned her reet +enoof, an a gied her soom fresh straa for her yed. She doin varra +middlin." + +"If she'd been turned yesterday in a proper fashion, she'd ha' bin on her +feet by now," said Mrs. Mason, with a glance at her son. + +"Nowt o' t' soart, mother," cried Hubert. He leant forward, flushed with +wrath, or beer--his potations had begun to fill Laura with dismay--and +spoke with a hectoring violence. "I tell tha when t' farrier cam oop last +night, he said she'd been managed first-rate! If yo and Daffady had yor +way wi' yor fallals an yor nonsense, yo'd never leave a poor sick creetur +alone for five minutes; I towd Daffady to let her be, an I'll let him +knaa who's mëaster here!" + +He glared at the carter, quite regardless of Laura's presence. Polly +coughed loudly, and tried to make a diversion by getting up to clear away +the plates. The three combatants took no notice. + +Daffady slowly ran his tongue round his lips; then he said, again looking +at the mistress: + +"If a hadna turned her I dew believe she'd ha' gien oos t' slip--she was +terr'ble swollen as 'twos." + +"I tell tha to let her be!" thundered Hubert. "If she deas, that's ma +consarn; I'll ha' noa meddlin wi' my orders--dost tha hear?" + +"Aye, it wor thirrty poond thraan awa lasst month, an it'll be thirrty +poond this," said his mother slowly; "thoo art fine at shoutin. Bit thy +fadther had need ha' addlet his brass--to gie thee summat to thraw oot o' +winder." + +Hubert rose from the table with an oath, stood for an instant looking +down at Laura,--glowering, and pulling fiercely at his moustache,--then, +noisily opening the front door, he strode across the yard to the byres. + +There was an instant's silence. Then Mrs. Mason rose with her hands +clasped before her, her eyes half closed. + +"For what we ha' received, the Lord mak' us truly thankful," she said in +a loud, nasal voice. "Amen." + + * * * * * + +After dinner, Laura put on an apron of Polly's, and helped her cousin to +clear away. Mrs. Mason had gruffly bade her sit still, but when the girl +persisted, she herself--flushed with dinner and combat--took her seat on +the settle, opposite to old Daffady, and deliberately made holiday, +watching Stephen's daughter all the time from the black eyes that roved +and shone so strangely under the shaggy brows and the white hair. + +The old cowman sat hunched over the fire, smoking his pipe for a time in +beatific silence. + +But presently Laura, as she went to and fro, caught snatches of +conversation. + +"Did tha go ta Laysgill last Sunday?" said Mrs. Mason abruptly. + +Daffady removed his pipe. + +"Aye, a went, an a preeched. It wor a varra stirrin meetin. Sum o' yor +paid preests sud ha' bin theer. A gien it 'em strang. A tried ta hit 'em +all--baith gert an lile." + +There was a pause, then he added placidly: + +"A likely suden't suit them varra weel. Theer was a mon beside me, as +pooed me down afoor a'd hofe doon." + +"Tha sudna taak o' 'paid preests,' Daffady," said Mrs. Mason severely. +"Tha doosna understand nowt o' thattens." + +Daffady glanced slyly at his mistress--at the "Church-pride" implied in +the attitude of her capacious form, in the shining of the Sunday alpaca +and black silk apron. + +"Mebbe not," he said mildly, "mebbe not." And he resumed his pipe. + +On another occasion, as Laura went flitting across the kitchen, drawing +to herself the looks of both its inmates, she heard what seemed to be a +fragment of talk about a funeral. + +"Aye, poor Jenny!" said Mrs. Mason. "They didna mak' mich account on her +whan t' breath wor yanst oot on her." + +"Nay,"--Daffady shook his head for sympathy,--"it wor a varra poor +set-oot, wor Jenny's buryin. Nowt but tay, an sic-like." + +Mrs. Mason raised two gaunt hands and let them drop again on her knee. + +"I shud ha' thowt they'd ha' bin ashamed," she said. "Jenny's brass ull +do 'em noa gude. She wor a fule to leave it to 'un." + +Daffady withdrew his pipe again. His lantern-jawed face, furrowed with +slow thought, hung over the blaze. + +"Aye," he said, "aye. Wal, I've buried three childer--an I'm nobbut a +labrin mon--but a thank the Lord I ha buried them aw--wi' ham." + +The last words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of the +kitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved in +either face. She sped back into the dairy, and Polly looked up in +astonishment. + +"What ails tha?" she said. + +"Oh, nothing!" said Laura, dashing the merry tears from her eyes. She +proceeded to roll up her sleeves, and plunge her hands and arms into the +bowl of warm water that Polly had set before her. Meanwhile, Polly, very +big and square, much reddened also by the fuss of household work, stood +just behind her cousin's shoulder, looking down, half in envy, half in +admiration, at the slimness of the white wrists and pretty fingers. + +A little later the two girls, all traces of their housework removed, came +back into the kitchen. Daffady and Mrs. Mason had disappeared. + +"Where is Cousin Elizabeth?" said Laura rather sharply, as she looked +round her. + +Polly explained that her mother was probably shut up in her bedroom +reading her Bible. That was her custom on a Sunday afternoon. + +"Why, I haven't spoken to her at all!" cried Laura. Her cheek had +flushed. + +Polly showed embarrassment. + +"Next time yo coom, mother'll tak' mair noatice. She was takkin stock o' +you t' whole time, I'll uphowd yo." + +"That isn't what I wanted," said Laura. + +She walked to the window and leaned her head against the frame. Polly +watched her with compunction, seeing quite plainly the sudden drop of the +lip. All she could do was to propose to show her cousin the house. + +Laura languidly consented. + +So they wandered again through the dark stone-slabbed dairy, with its +milk pans on the one side and its bacon-curing troughs on the other; and +into the little stuffy bedrooms upstairs, each with its small oak +four-poster and patchwork counterpane. They looked at the home-made quilt +of goosedown--Polly's handiwork--that lay on Hubert's bed; at the +clusters of faded photographs and coloured prints that hung on the old +uneven walls; at the vast meal-ark in Polly's room that held the family +store of meal and oatcake for the year. + +"When we wor little 'uns, fadther used to give me an Hubert a silver +saxpence the day he browt home t' fresh melder fro' t' mill," said Polly; +"theer was parlish little nobbut paritch and oatcake to eat when we wor +small. An now I'll uphold yo there isn't a farm servant but wants his +white bread yanst a day whativver happens." + +The house was neat and clean, but there were few comforts in it, and no +luxuries. It showed, too, a number of small dilapidations that a very +little money and care would soon have set to rights. Polly pointed to +them sadly. There was no money, and Hubert didn't trouble himself. +"Fadther was allus workin. He'd be up at half-past four this time o' +year, an he didna go to bed soa early noather. But Hubert'ull do nowt he +can help. Yo can hardly get him to tak' t' peäts i' ter Whinthorpe when +t' peät-cote's brastin wi' 'em. An as fer doin a job o' cartin fer t' +neebors, t' horses may be eatin their heads off, Hubert woan't stir +hissel'. 'Let 'em lead their aan muck for theirsels'--that's what he'll +say. Iver sen fadther deed it's bin janglin atwixt mother an Hubert. It +makes her mad to see iverything goin downhill. An he's that masterful he +woan't be towd. Yo saw how he went on wi' Daffady at dinner. But if it +weren't for Daffady an us, there'd be no stock left." + +And poor Polly, sitting on the edge of the meal-ark and dangling her +large feet, went into a number of plaintive details, that were mostly +unintelligible, sometimes repulsive, in Laura's ears. + +It seemed that Hubert was always threatening to leave the farm. "Give me +a bit of money, and you'll soon be quit of me. I'll go to Froswick, and +make my fortune"--that was what he'd say to his mother. But who was going +to give him money to throw about? And he couldn't sell the farm while +Mrs. Mason lived, by the father's will. + +As to her mother, Polly admitted that she was "gey ill to live wi'." +There was no one like her for "addlin a bit here and addlin a bit there." +She was the best maker and seller of butter in the country-side; but she +had been queer about religion ever since an illness that attacked her as +a young woman. + +And now it was Mr. Bayley, the minister, who excited her, and made her +worse. Polly, for her part, hated him. "My worrd, he do taak!" said she. +And every Sunday he preached against Catholics, and the Pope, and such +like. And as there were no Catholics anywhere near, but Mr. Helbeck at +Bannisdale, and a certain number at Whinthorpe, people didn't know what +to make of him. And they laughed at him, and left off going--except +occasionally for curiosity, because he preached in a black gown, which, +so Polly heard tell, was very uncommon nowadays. But mother would listen +to him by the hour. And it was all along of Teddy Williams. It was that +had set her mad. + +Here, however, Polly broke off to ask an eager question. What had Mr. +Helbeck said when Laura told him of her wish to go and see her cousins? + +"I'll warrant he wasn't best pleased! Feyther couldn't abide him--because +of Teddy. He didn't thraw no stones that neet i' Whinthrupp Lane--feyther +was a strict man and read his Bible reg'lar--but he stood wi' t' lads an +looked on--he didn't say owt to stop 'em. Mr. Helbeck called to him--he +had a priest with him--'Mr. Mason!' he ses, 'this is an old man--speak to +those fellows!' But feyther wouldn't. 'Let 'em trounce tha!' he +ses--'aye, an him too! It'ull do tha noa harm.'--Well, an what did he +say, Mr. Helbeck?--I'd like to know." + +"Say? Nothing--except that it was a long way, and I might have the pony +carriage." + +Laura's tone was rather dry. She was sitting on the edge of Polly's bed, +with her arm round one of its oaken posts. Her cheek was laid against the +post, and her eyes had been wandering about a good deal while Polly +talked. Till the mention of Helbeck. Then her attention came back. And +during Polly's account of the incident in Whinthorpe Lane, she began to +frown. What bigotry, after all! As to the story of young Williams--it was +very perplexing--she would get the truth of it out of Augustina. But it +was extraordinary that it should be so well known in this upland +farm--that it should make a kind of link--a link of hatred--between Mr. +Helbeck and the Masons. After her movement of wild sympathy with Mrs. +Mason, she realised now, as Polly's chatter slipped on, that she +understood her cousins almost as little as she did Helbeck. + +Nay, more. The picture of Helbeck stoned and abused by these rough, +uneducated folk had begun to rouse in her a curious sympathy. Unwillingly +her mind invested him with a new dignity. + +So that when Polly told a rambling story of how Mr. Bayley, after the +street fight, had met Mr. Helbeck at a workhouse meeting and had placed +his hands behind his back when Mr. Helbeck offered his own, Laura tossed +her head. + +"What a ridiculous man!" she said disdainfully; "what can it matter to +Mr. Helbeck whether Mr. Bayley shakes hands with him or not?" + +Polly looked at her in some astonishment, and dropped the subject. The +elder woman, conscious of plainness and inferiority, was humbly anxious +to please her new cousin. The girl's delicate and characteristic +physique, her clear eyes and decided ways, and a certain look she had in +conversation--half absent, half critical--which was inherited from her +father,--all of them combined to intimidate the homely Polly, and she +felt perhaps less at ease with her visitor as she saw more of her. + +Presently they stood before some old photographs on Polly's mantelpiece; +Polly looked timidly at her cousin. + +"Doan't yo think as Hubert's verra handsome?" she said. + +And taking up one of the portraits, she brushed it with her sleeve and +handed it to Laura. + +Laura held it up for scrutiny. + +"No--o," she said coolly, "not really handsome." + +Polly looked disappointed. + +"There's not a mony gells aboot here as doan't coe Hubert handsome," she +said with emphasis. + +"It's Hubert's business to call the girls handsome," said Laura, +laughing, and handing back the picture. + +Polly grinned--then suddenly looked grave. + +"I wish he'd leave t' gells alone!" she said with an accent of some +energy, "he'll mappen get into trooble yan o' these days!" + +"They don't keep him in his place, I suppose," said Laura, flushing, she +hardly knew why. She got up and walked across the room to the window. +What did she want to know about Hubert and "t' gells"? She hated vulgar +and lazy young men!--though they might have a musical gift that, so to +speak, did not belong to them. + +Nevertheless she turned round again to ask, with some imperiousness,-- + +"Where is your brother?--what is he doing all this time?" + +"Sittin alongside the coo, I dare say--lest Daffady should be gettin the +credit of her," said Polly, laughing. "The poor creetur fell three days +sen--summat like a stroke, t' farrier said,--an Hubert's bin that jealous +o' Daffady iver sen. He's actually poo'ed hissel' oot o' bed mornins to +luke after her!--Lord bless us--I mun goa an feed t' calves!" + +And hastily throwing an apron over her Sunday gown, Polly clattered down +the stairs in a whirlwind. + + * * * * * + +Laura followed her more leisurely, passed through the empty kitchen and +opened the front door. + +As she stood under the porch looking out, she put up a small hand to hide +a yawn. When she set out that morning she had meant to spend the whole +day at the farm. Now it was not yet tea-time, and she was more than ready +to go. In truth her heart was hot, and rather bitter. Cousin Elizabeth, +certainly, had treated her with a strange coolness. And as for +Hubert--after that burst of friendship, beside the piano! She drew +herself together sharply--she would go at once and ask him for her pony +cart. + +Lifting her skirt daintily, she picked her way across the dirty yard, and +fumbled at a door opposite--the door whence she had seen old Daffady come +out at dinner-time. + +"Who's there?" shouted a threatening voice from within. + +Laura succeeded in lifting the clumsy latch. Hubert Mason, from inside, +saw a small golden head appear in the doorway. + +"Would you kindly help me get the pony cart?" said the light, +half-sarcastic voice of Miss Fountain. "I must be going, and Polly's +feeding the calves." + +Her eyes at first distinguished nothing but a row of dim animal forms, in +crowded stalls under a low roof. Then she saw a cow lying on the ground, +and Hubert Mason beside her, amid the wreaths of smoke that he was +puffing from a clay pipe. The place was dark, close, and fetid. She +withdrew her head hastily. There was a muttering and movement inside, and +Mason came to the door, thrusting his pipe into his pocket. + +"What do you want to go for, just yet?" he said abruptly. + +"I ought to get home." + +"No; you don't care for us, nor our ways. That's it; an I don't wonder." + +She made polite protestations, but he would not listen to them. He strode +on beside her in a stormy silence, till the impulse to prick him +overmastered her. + +"Do you generally sit with the cows?" she asked him sweetly. She shot her +grey eyes towards him, all mockery and cool examination. He was not +accustomed to such looks from the young women whom he chose to notice. + +"I was not going to stay and be treated like that before strangers!" he +said, with a sulky fierceness. "Mother thinks she and Daffady can just +have their own way with me, as they'd used to do when I was nobbut a lad. +But I'll let her know--aye, and the men too!" + +"But if you hate farming, why don't you let Daffady do the work?" + +Her sly voice stung him afresh. + +"Because I'll be mëaster!" he said, bringing his hand violently down on +the shaft of the pony cart. "If I'm to stay on in this beastly hole I'll +make every one knaw their place. Let mother give me some money, an I'll +soon take myself off, an leave her an Daffady to draw their own water +their own way. But if I'm here I'm _mëaster_!" He struck the cart again. + +"Is it true you don't work nearly as hard as your father?" + +He looked at her amazed. If Susie Flinders down at the mill had spoken to +him like that, he would have known how to shut her mouth for her. + +"An I daur say it is," he said hotly. "I'm not goin to lead the dog's +life my father did--all for the sake of diddlin another sixpence or two +oot o' the neighbours. Let mother give me my money oot o' the farm. I'd +go to Froswick fast enough. That's the place to get on. I've got +friends--I'd work up in no time." + +Laura glanced at him. She said nothing. + +"You doan't think I would?" he asked her angrily, pausing in his handling +of the harness to throw back the challenge of her manner. His wrath +seemed to have made him handsomer, better-braced, more alive. Physically +she admired him for the first time, as he stood confronting her. + +But she only lifted her eyebrows a little. + +"I thought one had to have a particular kind of brains for business--and +begin early, too?" + +"I could learn," he said gruffly, after which they were both silent till +the harnessing was done. + +Then he looked up. + +"I'd like to drive you to the bridge--if you're agreeable?" + +"Oh, don't trouble yourself, pray!" she said in polite haste. + +His brows knit again. + +"I know how 'tis--you won't come here again." + +Her little face changed. + +"I'd like to," she said, her voice wavering, "because papa used to stay +here." + +He stared at her. + +"I do remember Cousin Stephen," he said at last, "though I towd you I +didn't. I can see him standing at the door there--wi' a big hat--an a +beard--like straw--an a check coat wi' great bulgin pockets." + +He stopped in amazement, seeing the sudden beauty of her eyes and cheeks. + +"That's it," she said, leaning towards him. "Oh, that's it!" She closed +her eyes a moment, her small lips trembling. Then she opened them with a +long breath. + +"Yes, you may drive me to the bridge if you like." + + * * * * * + +And on the drive she was another being. She talked to him about music, so +softly and kindly that the young man's head swam with pleasure. All her +own musical enthusiasms and experiences--the music in the college +chapels, the music at the Greek plays, the few London concerts and operas +she had heard, her teachers and her hero-worships--she drew upon it all +in her round light voice, he joining in from time to time with a rough +passion and yearning that seemed to transfigure him. In half an hour, as +it were, they were friends; their relations changed wholly. He looked at +her with all his eyes; hung upon her with all his ears. And she--she +forgot that he was vulgar and a clown; such breathless pleasure, such a +humble absorption in superior wisdom, would have blunted the sternest +standard. + +As for him, the minutes flew. When at last the bridge over the Bannisdale +River came in sight, he began to check the pony. + +"Let's drive on a bit," he said entreatingly. + +"No, no--I must get back to Mrs. Fountain." And she took the reins from +his hands. + +"I say, when will you come again?" + +"Oh, I don't know." She had put on once more the stand-off town-bred +manner that puzzled his countryman's sense. + +"I say, mother shan't talk that stuff to you next time. I'll tell her--" +he said imploringly.--"Halloa! let me out, will you?" + +And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumped +out of the cart. + +"There's Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I'm off. +Good-bye!" + +He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away. + +She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeck +was holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not Father +Bowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from her +cousin. + +Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck's ceremonious +greeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beaten +herself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she have +beaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraid +of? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of her +peasant relations? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"Is that Mrs. Fountain's stepdaughter?" said Helbeck's companion, as +Laura and her cart disappeared round a corner of the winding road on +which the two men were walking. + +Helbeck made a sign of assent. + +"You may very possibly have known her father?" He named the Cambridge +college of which Stephen Fountain had been a Fellow. + +The Jesuit, who was a convert, and had been a distinguished Cambridge +man, considered for a moment. + +"Oh! yes--I remember the man! A strange being, who was only heard of, if +I recollect right, in times of war. If there was any dispute +going--especially on a religious point--Stephen Fountain would rush into +it with broad-sheets. Oh, yes, I remember him perfectly--a great untidy, +fair-haired, truculent fellow, to whom anybody that took any thought for +his soul was either fool or knave. How much of him does the daughter +inherit?" + +Helbeck returned the other's smile. "A large slice, I think. She comes +here in the curious position of having never lived in a Christian +household before, and she seems already to have great difficulty in +putting up with us." + +Father Leadham laughed, then looked reflective. + +"How often have I known that the best of all possible beginnings! Is she +attached to her stepmother?" + +"Yes. But Mrs. Fountain has no influence over her." + +"It is a striking colouring--that white skin and reddish hair. And it is +a face of some power, too." + +"Power?" Helbeck demurred. "I think she is clever," he said dryly. "And, +of course, coming from a university town, she has heard of things that +other girls know nothing of. But she has had no training, moral or +intellectual." + +"And no Christian education?" + +Helbeck shrugged his shoulders. + +"She was only baptized with difficulty. When she was eleven or twelve she +was allowed to go to church two or three times, I understand, on the +helot principle--was soon disgusted--her father of course supplying a +running comment at home--and she has stood absolutely outside religion of +all kinds since." + +"Poor child!" said the priest with heartiness. The paternal note in the +words was more than official. He was a widower, and had lost his wife and +infant daughter two years before his entrance into the Church of Rome. + +Helbeck smiled. "I assure you Miss Fountain spends none of her pity upon +herself." + +"I dare say more than you think. The position of the unbeliever in a +house like yours is always a painful one. You see she is alone. There +must be a sense of exile--of something touching and profound going on +beside her, from which she is excluded. She comes into a house with a +chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, where everybody is +keeping a strict Lent. She has not a single thought in common with you +all. No; I am very sorry for Miss Fountain." + +Helbeck was silent a moment. His dark face showed a shade of disturbance. + +"She has some relations near here," he said at last, "but unfortunately I +can't do much to promote her seeing them. You remember Williams's story?" + +"Of course. You had some local row, didn't you? Ah! I remember." + +And the two men walked on, discussing a case which had been and was still +of great interest to them as Catholics. The hero, moreover--the Jesuit +novice himself--was well known to them both. + +"So Miss Fountain's relations belong to that peasant class?" said the +Jesuit, musing. "How curious that she should find herself in such a +double relation to you and Bannisdale!" + +"Consider me a little, if you please," said Helbeck, with his slight, +rare smile. "While that young lady is under my roof--you see how +attractive she is--I cannot get rid, you will admit, of a certain +responsibility. Augustina has neither the will nor the authority of a +mother, and there is literally no one else. Now there happens to be a +young man in this Mason family----" + +"Ah!" said the priest; "the young gentleman who jumped out at the bridge, +with such a very light pair of heels?" + +Helbeck nodded. "The old people were peasants and fanatics. They thought +ill of me in the Williams affair, and the mother, who is still alive, +would gladly hang and quarter me to-morrow if she could. But that is +another point. The old people had their own dignity, their own manners +and virtues--or, rather, the manners and virtues of their class. The old +man was coarse and boorish, but he was hard-working and honourable, and a +Christian after his own sort. But the old man is dead, and the son, who +now works the farm jointly with his mother, is of no class and no +character. He has just education enough to despise his father and his +father's hard work. He talks the dialect with his inferiors, or his +kindred, and drops it with you and me. The old traditions have no hold +upon him, and he is just a vulgar and rather vicious hybrid, who drinks +more than is good for him and has a natural affinity for any sort of low +love-affair. I came across him at our last hunt ball. I never go to such +things, but last year I went." + +"Good!" ejaculated the Jesuit, turning a friendly face upon the speaker. + +Helbeck paused. The word, still more the emphasis with which it was +thrown out, challenged him. He was about to defend himself against an +implied charge, but thought better of it, and resumed: + +"And unfortunately, considering the way in which all the clan felt +towards me already, I found this youth in the supper-room, misbehaving +himself with a girl of his own sort, and very drunk. I fetched a steward, +and he was told to go. After which, you may imagine that it is scarcely +agreeable to me to see my guest--a very young lady, very pretty, very +distinguished--driving about the country in cousinly relations with this +creature!" + +The last words were spoken with considerable vivacity. The aristocrat and +the ascetic, the man of high family and the man of scrupulous and +fastidious character, were alike expressed in them. + +The Jesuit pondered a little. + +"No; you will have to keep watch. Why not distract her? You must have +plenty of other neighbours to show her." + +Helbeck shook his head. + +"I live like a hermit. My sister is in the first year of her widowhood +and very delicate." + +"I see." The Jesuit hesitated, then said, smiling, in the tone of one who +makes a venture: "The Bishop and I allowed ourselves to discuss these +cloistered ways of yours the other day. We thought you would forgive us +as a pair of old friends." + +"I know," was the somewhat quick interruption, "the Bishop is of +Manning's temper in these things. He believes in acting on and with the +Protestant world--in our claiming prominence as citizens. It was to +please him that I joined one or two committees last year--that I went to +the hunt ball----" + +Then, suddenly, in a very characteristic way, Helbeck checked his own +flow of speech, and resumed more quietly: "Well, all that----" + +"Leaves you of the same opinion still?" said the Jesuit, smiling. + +"Precisely. I don't belong to my neighbours, nor they to me. We don't +speak the same language, and I can't bring myself to speak theirs. The +old conditions are gone, I know. But my feeling remains pretty much, what +that of my forefathers was. I recognise that it is not common +nowadays--but I have the old maxim in my blood: 'Extra ecclesiam nulla +salus.'" + +"There is none which has done us more deadly harm in England," cried the +Jesuit. "We forget that England is a baptized nation, and is therefore in +the supernatural state." + +"I remind myself of it very often," said Helbeck, with a kind of proud +submission; "and I judge no man. But my powers, my time, are all limited. +I prefer to devote them to the 'household of faith.'" + +The two men walked on in silence for a time. Presently Father Leadham's +face showed amusement, and he said: + +"Certainly we modern converts have a better time of it than our +predecessors! The Bishop tells me the most incredible things about the +old feeling towards them in this Vicariate. And wherever I go I seem to +hear the tale of the old priest who thanked God that he had never +received anyone into the Church. Everybody has met someone who knew that +old fellow! He may be a myth--but there is clearly history at the back of +him!" + +"I understand him perfectly," said Helbeck, smiling; and he added +immediately, with a curious intensity, "I, too, have never influenced, +never tried to influence, anyone in my life." + +The priest looked at him, wondering. + +"Not Williams?" + +"Williams! But Williams was born for the faith. Directly he saw what I +wanted to do in the chapel, he prayed to come and help me. It was his +summer holiday--he neglected no duty; it was wonderful to see his +happiness in the work--as I thought, an artistic happiness only. He used +to ask me questions about the different saints; once or twice he borrowed +a book--it was necessary to get the emblems correct. But I never said a +single controversial word to him. I never debated religious subjects with +him at all, till the night when he took refuge with me after his father +had thrashed him so cruelly that he could not stand. Grace taught him, +not I." + +"Grace taught him, but through you," said the priest with quiet emphasis. +"Perhaps I know more about that than you do." + +Helbeck flushed. + +"I think you are mistaken. At any rate, I should prefer that you were +mistaken." + +The priest raised his eyebrows. + +"A man who holds 'no salvation outside the Church,'" he said slowly, "and +rejoices in the thought that he has never influenced anybody?" + +"I should hope little from the work achieved by such an instrument. Some +men have enough to do with their own souls," was the low but vehement +answer. + +The priest threw a wondering glance at his companion, at the signs of +feeling--profound and morbid feeling--on the harsh face beside him. + +"Perhaps you have never cared enough for anyone outside to wish +passionately to bring them within," he said. "But if that ever happens to +you, you will be ready--I think you will be ready--to use any tool, even +yourself." + +The priest's voice changed a little. Helbeck, somewhat startled, recalled +the facts of Father Leadham's personal history, and thought he +understood. The subject was instantly dropped, and the two men walked on +to the house, discussing a great canonisation service at St. Peter's and +the Pope's personal part in it. + + * * * * * + +The old Hall, as Helbeck and Father Leadham approached it, looked down +upon a scene of animation to which in these latter days it was but little +accustomed. The green spaces and gravelled walks in front of it were +sprinkled with groups of children in a blue-and-white uniform. Three or +four Sisters of Mercy in their winged white caps moved about among them, +and some of the children hung clustered like bees about the Sisters' +skirts, while others ran here and there, gleefully picking the scattered +daffodils that starred the grass. + +The invaders came from the Orphanage of St. Ursula, a house founded by +Mr. Helbeck's exertions, which lay half-way between Bannisdale and +Whinthorpe. They had not long arrived, and were now waiting for Rosary +and Benediction in the chapel before they were admitted to the tea which +Mrs. Denton and Augustina had already spread for them in the big hall. + +At sight of the children Helbeck's face lit up and his step quickened. +They on their side ran to him from all parts; and he had hardly time to +greet the Sisters in charge of them, before the eager creatures were +pulling him into the walled garden behind the Hall, one small girl +hanging on his hand, another perched upon his shoulder. Father Leadham +went into the house to prepare for the service. + +The garden was old and dark, like the Tudor house that stood between it +and the sun. Rows of fantastic shapes carved in living yew and box stood +ranged along the straight walks. A bowling-green enclosed in high beech +hedges was placed in the exact centre of the whole formal place, while +the walks and alleys from three sides, west, north, and south, converged +upon it, according to a plan unaltered since it was first laid down in +the days of James II. At this time of the year there were no flowers in +the stiff flower-beds; for Mr. Helbeck had long ceased to spend any but +the most necessary monies upon his garden. Only upon the high stone walls +that begirt this strange and melancholy pleasure-ground, and in the +"wilderness" that lay on the eastern side, between the garden and the +fell, were nature and the spring allowed to show themselves. Their joint +magic had covered the old walls with fruit blossom and spread the +"wilderness" with daffodils. Otherwise all was dark, tortured, fantastic, +a monument of old-world caprice that the heart could not love, though +piety might not destroy it. + +The children, however, brought life and brightness. They chased each +other up and down the paths, and in and out of the bowling-green. Helbeck +set them to games, and played with them himself. Only for the orphans now +did he ever thus recall his youth. + +Two Sisters, one comparatively young, the other a woman of fifty, stood +in an opening of the bowling-green, looking at the games. + +The younger one said to her companion, who was the Superior of the +orphanage, "I do like to see Mr. Helbeck with the children! It seems to +change him altogether." + +She spoke with eager sympathy, while her eyes, the visionary eyes of the +typical religious, sunk in a face that was at once sweet and peevish, +followed the children and their host. + +The other--shrewd-faced and large--had a movement of impatience. + +"I should like to see Mr. Helbeck with some children of his own. For five +years now I have prayed our Blessed Mother to give him a good wife. +That's what he wants. Ah! Mrs. Fountain----" + +And as Augustina advanced with her little languid air, accompanied by her +stepdaughter, the Sisters gathered round her, chattering and cooing, +showing her a hundred attentions, enveloping her in a homage that was +partly addressed to the sister of their benefactor, and partly--as she +well understood--to the sheep that had been lost and was found. To the +stepdaughter they showed a courteous reserve. One or two of them had +already made acquaintance with her, and had not found her amiable. + +And, indeed, Laura held herself aloof, as before. But she shot a glance +of curiosity at the elderly woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. +The girl had caught the remark as she and her stepmother turned the +corner of the dense beechen hedge that, with openings to each point of +the compass, enclosed the bowling-green. + +Presently Helbeck, stopping to take breath in a game of which he had been +the life, caught sight of the slim figure against the red-brown of the +hedge. The next moment he perceived that Miss Fountain was watching him +with an expression of astonishment. + +His first instinct was to let her be. Her manner towards him since her +arrival, with hardly a break, had been such as to chill the most sociable +temper. And Helbeck's temper was far from sociable. + +But something in her attitude--perhaps its solitariness--made him +uncomfortable. He went up to her, dragging with him a crowd of small +children, who tugged at his coat and hands. + +"Miss Fountain, will you take pity on us? My breath is gone." + +He saw her hesitate. Then her sudden smile broke out. + +"What'll you have?" she said, catching hold of the nearest child. "Mother +Bunch?" + +And off she flew, running, twisting, turning with the merriest of them, +her loosened hair gleaming in the sun, her small feet twinkling. Now it +was Helbeck's turn to stand and watch. What a curious grace and purpose +there was in all her movements! Even in her play Miss Fountain was a +personality. + +At last a little girl who was running with her began to drag and turn +pale. Laura stopped to look at her. + +"I can't run any more," said the child piteously. "I had a bone took out +of my leg last year." + +She was a sickly-looking creature, rickety and consumptive, a waif from a +Liverpool slum. Laura picked her up and carried her to a seat in a yew +arbour away from the games. Then the child studied her with shy-looking +eyes, and suddenly slipped an arm like a bit of stick round the pretty +lady's neck. + +"Tell me a story, please, teacher," she said imploringly. + +Laura was taken aback, for she had forgotten the tales of her own +childhood, and had never possessed any younger brothers or sisters, or +paid much attention to children in general. But with some difficulty she +stumbled through Cinderella. + +"Oh, yes, I know that; but it's lovely," said the child, at the end, with +a sigh of content. "Now I'll tell you one." + +And in a high nasal voice, like one repeating a lesson in class, she +began upon something which Laura soon discovered to be the life of a +saint. She followed the phrases of it with a growing repugnance, till at +last the speaker said, with the unction of one sure of her audience: + +"And once the good Father went to a hospital to visit some sick people. +And as he was hearing a poor sailor's confession, he found out that it +was his own brother, whom he had not seen for a long, long time. Now the +sailor was very ill, and going to die, and he had been a bad man, and +done a great many wicked things. But the good Father did not let the poor +man know who he was. He went home and told his Superior that he had found +his brother. And the Superior forbade him to go and see his brother +again, because, he said, God would take care of him. And the Father was +very sad, and the devil tempted him sorely. But he prayed to God, and God +helped him to be obedient. + +"And a great many years afterwards a poor woman came to see the good +Father. And she told him she had seen our Blessed Lady in a vision. And +our Blessed Lady had sent her to tell the Father that because he had been +so obedient, and had not been to see his brother again, our Lady had +prayed our Lord for his brother. And his brother had made a good death, +and was saved, all because the good Father had obeyed what his Superior +told him." + +Laura sprang up. The child, who had expected a kiss and a pious phrase, +looked up, startled. + +"Wasn't that a pretty story?" she said timidly. + +"No; I don't like it at all," said Miss Fountain decidedly. "I wonder +they tell you such tales!" + +The child stared at her for a moment. Then a sudden veil fell across the +clearness of her eyes, which had the preternatural size and brilliance of +disease. Her expression changed. It became the slyness of the watching +animal, that feels the enemy. She said not another word. + +Laura felt a pang of shame, even though she was still vibrating with the +repulsion the child's story had excited in her. + +"Look!" she said, raising the little one in her arms; "the others are all +going into the house. Shall we go too?" + +But the child struggled resolutely. + +"Let me down. I can walk." Laura set her down, and the child walked as +fast as her lame leg would let her to join the others. Once or twice she +looked round furtively at her companion; but she would not take the hand +Laura offered her, and she seemed to have wholly lost her tongue. + +"Little bigot!" thought Laura, half angry, half amused; "do they catch it +from their cradle?" + +Presently they found themselves in the tail of a crowd of children and +Sisters who were ascending the stairs of a doorway opening on the garden. +The doorway led, as Laura knew, to the corridor of the chapel. She let +herself be carried along, irresolute, and presently she found herself +within the curtained doorway, mechanically helping the Sisters and +Augustina to put the children in their places. + +One or two of the older children noticed that the young lady with Mrs. +Fountain did not sign herself with holy water, and did not genuflect in +passing the altar, and they looked at her with a stealthy surprise. A +gentle-looking young Sister came up to her as she was lifting a very +small child to a seat. + +"Thank you," murmured the Sister, "It is very good of you." But the +voice, though so soft, was cold, and Laura at once felt herself the +intruder, and withdrew to the back of the crowd. + +Yet again, as at her first visit to the chapel, so now, she was too +curious, for all her soreness, to go. She must see what they would be at. + + * * * * * + +"Rosary" passed, and she hardly understood a word. The voice of the +Jesuit intoning suggested nothing intelligible to her, and it was some +time before she could even make out what the children were saying in +their loud-voiced responses. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us +sinners, now and at the hour of our death"--was that it? And occasionally +an "Our Father" thrown in--all of it gabbled as fast as possible, as +though the one object of both priest and people were to get through and +make an end. Over and over again, without an inflection, or a +change--with just the one monotonous repetition and the equally +monotonous variation. What a barbarous and foolish business! + +Very soon she gave up listening. Her eyes wandered to the frescoes, to +the bare altar with its purple covering, to the tall candles sparkling +before the tabernacle; and the coloured and scented gloom, pierced with +the distant lights, gave her a vague pleasure. + +Presently there was a pause. The children settled themselves in their +seats with a little clatter. Father Leadham retired, while the Sisters +knelt, each bowed profoundly on herself, eyes closed under her coif, +hands clasped in front of her. + +What were they waiting for? Ah! there was the priest again, but in a +changed dress--a white cope of some splendour. The organ, played by one +of the Sisters, broke out upon the silence, and the voices of the rest +rose suddenly, small and sweet, in a Latin hymn. The priest went to the +tabernacle, and set it open. There was a swinging of incense, and the +waves of fragrant smoke flowed out upon the chapel, dimming the altar and +the figure before it. Laura caught sight for a moment of the young Sister +who had spoken to her. She was kneeling and singing, with sweet, shut +eyes; it was clear that she was possessed by a fervour of feeling. Miss +Fountain thought to herself, with wonder, "She cannot be much older than +I am!" + +After the hymn it was the children's turn. What were they singing so +lustily to so dancing a tune? Laura bent over to look at the book of a +Sister in front of her. + +"Virgo prudentissima, Virgo veneranda, Virgo praedicanda----" + +With difficulty she found the place in another book that lay upon a chair +beside her. Then for a few minutes she lost herself in a first amazement +over that string of epithets and adjectives with which the Catholic +Church throughout the world celebrates day by day and Sunday after Sunday +the glories of Mary. The gay music, the harsh and eager voices of the +children, flowed on, the waves of incense spread throughout the chapel. +When she raised her eyes they fell upon Helbeck's dark head in the far +distance, above his server's cotta. A quick change crossed her face, +transforming it to a passionate contempt. + + * * * * * + +But of her no one thought--save once. The beautiful "moment" of the +ceremony had come. Father Leadham had raised the monstrance, containing +the Host, to give the Benediction. Every Sister, every child, except a +few small and tired ones, was bowed in humblest adoration. + +Mr. Helbeck, too, was kneeling in the little choir. But his attention +wandered. With the exception of his walk with Father Leadham, he had been +in church since early morning, and even for him response was temporarily +exhausted. His look strayed over the chapel. + +It was suddenly arrested. Above the kneeling congregation a distant face +showed plainly in the April dusk amid the dimness of incense and +painting--a girl's face, delicately white and set--a face of revolt. + +"Why is she here?" was his first thought. It came with a rush of +annoyance, even resentment. But immediately other thoughts met it: "She +is lonely; she is here under my roof; she has lost her father; poor +child!" + +The last mental phrase was not so much his own as an echo from Father +Leadham. In Helbeck's mind it was spoken very much as the priest had +spoken it--with that strange tenderness, at once so intimate and so +impersonal, which belongs to the spiritual relations of Catholicism. The +girl's soul--lonely, hostile, uncared for--appealed to the charity of the +believer. At the same time there was something in her defiance, her crude +disapproval of his house and his faith, that stimulated and challenged +the man. Conscious for the first time of a new conflict of feeling within +himself, he looked steadily towards her across the darkness. + +It was as though he had sought and found a way to lift himself above her +young pride, her ignorant enmity. For a moment there was a curious +exaltation and tyranny in his thought. He dropped his head and prayed for +her, the words falling slow and deliberate within his consciousness. And +she could not resent it or stop it. It was an aggression before which she +was helpless; it struck down the protest of her pale look. + + * * * * * + +At supper, when the Sisters and their charges had departed, Father Bowles +appeared, and never before had Helbeck been so lamentably aware of the +absurdities and inferiorities of his parish priest. + +The Jesuit, too, was sharply conscious of them, and even Augustina felt +that something was amiss. Was it that they were all--except Father +Bowles--affected by the presence of the young lady on Helbeck's right--by +the cool detachment of her manner, the self-possession that appealed to +no one and claimed none of the prerogatives of sex and charm, while every +now and then it made itself felt in tacit and resolute opposition to her +environment? + +"He might leave those things alone!" thought the Jesuit angrily, as he +heard Father Bowles giving Mrs. Fountain a gently complacent account of a +geological lecture lately delivered in Whinthorpe. + +"What I always say, you know, my dear lady, is this: you must show me the +evidence! After all, you geologists have done much--you have dug here and +there, it is true. But dig all over the world--dig everywhere--lay it all +bare. Then you may ask me to listen to you!" + +The little round-faced priest looked round the table for support. Laura +bit her lip and bent over her plate. Father Leadham turned hastily to +Helbeck, and began to discuss with him a recent monograph on the Roman +Wall, showing a plentiful and scholarly knowledge of the subject. And +presently he drew in the girl opposite, addressing her with a +man-of-the-world ease and urbanity which disarmed her. It appeared that +he had just come back from mission-work in British Guiana, that he had +been in India, and was in all respects a travelled and accomplished +person. But the girl did not yield herself, though she listened quite +civilly and attentively while he talked. + +But again through the Jesuit's easy or polished phrases there broke the +purring inanity of Father Bowles. + +"Lourdes, my dear lady? Lourdes? How can there be the smallest doubt of +the miracles of Lourdes? Why! they keep two doctors on the spot to verify +everything!" + +The Jesuit's sense of humour was uncomfortably touched. He glanced at +Miss Fountain, but could only see that she was gazing steadily out of +window. + +As for himself, convert and ex-Fellow of a well-known college, he gave a +strong inward assent to the judgment of some of his own leaders, that the +older Catholic priests of this country are as a rule lamentably unfit for +their work. "Our chance in England is broadening every year," he said to +himself. "How are we to seize it with such tools? But all round we want +_men_. Oh! for a few more of those who were 'out in forty-five'!" + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room after dinner Laura, as usual, entrenched herself in +one of the deep oriel windows, behind a heavy table: Augustina showed an +anxious curiosity as to the expedition of the morning--as to the Masons +and their farm. But Laura would say very little about them. + +When the gentlemen came in, Helbeck sent a searching look round the +drawing-room. He had the air of one who enters with a purpose. + +The beautiful old room lay in a half-light. A lamp at either end could do +but little against the shadows that seemed to radiate from the panelled +walls and from the deep red hangings of the windows. But the wood fire on +the hearth sent out a soft glow, which fastened on the few points of +brilliance in the darkness--on the ivory of the fretted ceiling, on the +dazzling dress of the Romney, on the gold of Miss Fountain's hair. + +Laura looked up with some surprise as Helbeck approached her; then, +seeing that he apparently wished to talk, she made a place for him among +the old "Books of Beauty" with which she had been bestrewing the seat +that ran round the window. + +"I trust the pony behaved himself this morning?" he said, as he sat down. + +Laura answered politely. + +"And you found your way without difficulty?" + +"Oh, yes! Your directions were exact." + +Inwardly she said to herself, "Does he want to cross-examine me about the +Masons?" Then, suddenly, she noticed the scar under his hair--a jagged +mark, testifying to a wound of some severity--and it made her +uncomfortable. Nay, it seemed in some curious way to put her in the +wrong, to shake her self-reliance. + +But Helbeck had not come with the intention of talking about the Masons. +His avoidance of their name was indeed a pointed one. He drew out her +admiration of the daffodils and of the view from Browhead Lane. + +"After Easter we must show you something of the high mountains. Augustina +tells me you admire the country. The head of Windermere will delight +you." + +His manner of offering her these civilities was somewhat stiff and +conventional--the manner of one who had been brought up among country +gentry of the old school, apart from London and the _beau monde_. But it +struck Laura that, for the first time, he was speaking to her as a man of +his breeding might be expected to speak to a lady visiting his house. +There was consideration, and an apparent desire to please. It was as +though she had grown all at once into something more in his eyes than +Mrs. Fountain's little stepdaughter, who was, no doubt, useful as a nurse +and a companion, but radically unwelcome and insignificant none the less. + +Inevitably the girl's vanity was smoothed. She began to answer more +naturally; her smile became more frequent. And gradually an unwonted ease +and enjoyment stole over Helbeck also. He talked with so much animation +at last as to draw the attention of another person in the room. Father +Leadham, who had been leaning with some languor against the high, carved +mantel, while Father Bowles and Augustina babbled beneath him, began to +take increasing notice of Miss Fountain, and of her relation to the +Bannisdale household. For a girl who had "no training, moral or +intellectual," she was showing herself, he thought, possessed of more +attraction than might have been expected, for the strict master of the +house. + +Presently Helbeck came to a pause in what he was saying. He had been +describing the country of Wordsworth, and had been dwelling on Grasmere +and Eydal Mount, in the tone, indeed, of one who had no vital concern +whatever with the Lake poets or their poetry, but still with an evident +desire to interest his companion. And following closely on this first +effort to make friends with her something further suggested itself. + +He hesitated, looked at Laura, and at last said, in a lower voice than he +had been using, "I believe your father, Miss Fountain, was a great lover +of Wordsworth. Augustina has told me so. You and he were accustomed, were +you not, to read much together? Your loss must be very great. You will +not wonder, perhaps, that for me there are painful thoughts connected +with your father. But I have not been insensible--I have not been without +feeling--for my sister--and for you." + +He spoke with embarrassment, and a kind of appeal. Laura had been +startled by his first words, and while he spoke she sat very pale and +upright, staring at him. The hand on her lap shook. + +When he ceased she did not answer. She turned her head, and he saw her +pretty throat tremble. Then she hastily raised her handkerchief; a +struggle passed over the face; she wiped away her tears, and threw back +her head, with a sobbing breath and a little shake of the bright hair, +like one who reproves herself. But she said nothing; and it was evident +that she could say nothing without breaking down. + +Deeply touched, Helbeck unconsciously drew a little nearer to her. +Changing the subject at once, he began to talk to her of the children and +the little festival of the afternoon. An hour before he would have +instinctively avoided doing anything of the kind. Now, at last, he +ventured to be himself, or something near it. Laura regained her +composure, and bent her attention upon him, with a slightly frowning +brow. Her mind was divided between the most contradictory impulses and +attractions. How had it come about, she asked herself, after a while, +that _she_ was listening like this to his schemes for his children and +his new orphanage?--she, and not his natural audience, the two priests +and Augustina. + +She actually heard him describe the efforts made by himself and one or +two other Catholics in the county to provide shelter and education for +the county's Catholic orphans. He dwelt on the death and disappearance of +some of his earlier colleagues, on the urgent need for a new building in +the neighbourhood of the county town, and for the enlargement of the +"home" he himself had put up some ten years before, on the Whinthorpe +Road. + +"But, unfortunately, large plans want large means," he added, with a +smile, "and I fear it will come to it--has Augustina said anything to you +about it?--I fear there is nothing for it, but that our beauteous lady +there must provide them." + +He nodded towards the picture that gleamed from the opposite wall. Then +he added gravely, and with a perfect simplicity: + +"It is my last possession of any value." + +Several times during the fortnight that she had known him, Laura had +heard him speak with a similar simplicity about his personal and +pecuniary affairs. That anyone so stately should treat himself and his +own worldly concerns with so much _naïveté_ had been a source of frequent +surprise to her. To what, then, did his dignity, his reserve apply? + +Nevertheless, because, childishly, she had already taken a side, as it +were, about the picture, his manner, with its apparent indifference, +annoyed her. She drew back. + +"Yes, Augustina told me. But isn't it cruel? isn't it unkind? A picture +like that is alive. It has been here so long--one could hardly feel it +belonged only to oneself. It is part of the house, isn't it?--part of the +family? Won't other people--people who come after--reproach you?" + +Helbeck lifted his shoulders, his dark face half amused, half sad. + +"She died a hundred years ago, pretty creature! She has had her turn; so +have we--in the pleasure of looking at her." + +"But she belongs to you," said the girl insistently. "She is your own +kith and kin." + +He hesitated, then said, with a new emphasis that answered her own: + +"Perhaps there are two sorts of kindred----" + +The girl's cheek flushed. + +"And the one you mean may always push out the other? I know, because one +of your children told me a story to-day--such a frightful story!--of a +saint who would not go to see his dying brother, for obedience' sake. She +asked me if I liked it. How could I say I liked it! I told her it was +horrible! I wondered how people could tell her such tales." + +Her bearing was again all hostility--a young defiance. She was delighted +to confess herself. Her crime, untold, had been pressing upon her +conscience, hurting her natural frankness. + +Helbeck's face changed. He looked at her attentively, the fine dark eye, +under the commanding brow, straight and sparkling. + +"You said that to the child?" + +"Yes." + +Her breast fluttered. She trembled, he saw, with an excitement she could +hardly repress. + +He, too, felt a novel excitement--the excitement of a strong will +provoked. It was clear to him that she meant to provoke him--that her +young personality threw itself wantonly across his own. He spoke with a +harsh directness. + +"You did wrong, I think--quite wrong. Excuse the word, but you have +brought me to close quarters. You sowed the seeds of doubt, of revolt, in +a child's mind." + +"Perhaps," said Laura quickly. "What then?" + +She wore her half-wild, half-mocking look. Everything soft and touching +had disappeared. The eyes shone under the golden mass of hair; the small +mouth was close and scornful. Helbeck looked at her in amazement, his own +pulse hurrying. + +"What then?" he echoed, with a sternness that astonished himself. "Ask +your own feeling. What has a child--a little child under orders--to do +with doubt, or revolt? For her--for all of us--doubt is misery." + +Laura rose. She forced down her agitation--made herself speak plainly. + +"Papa taught me--it was life--and I believe him." + +The old clock in the farther corner of the room struck a quarter to +ten--the hour of prayers. The two priests on the farther side of the room +stood up, and Augustina sheathed her knitting-needles. + +Laura turned towards Helbeck and coldly held out her little hand. He +touched it, and she crossed the room. "Good-night, Augustina." + +She kissed her stepmother, and bowed to the two priests. Father Leadham +ceremoniously opened the door for her. Then he and Helbeck, Father Bowles +and Augustina followed across the dark hall on their way to the chapel. +Laura took her candle, and her light figure could be seen ascending the +Jacobean staircase, a slim and charming vision against the shadows of the +old house. + +Father Leadham followed it with eyes and thoughts. Then he glanced +towards Helbeck. An idea--and one that was singularly unwelcome--was +forcing its way into the priest's mind. + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER I + +From that night onwards the relations between Helbeck and his sister's +stepdaughter took another tone. He no longer went his own way, with no +more than a vague consciousness that a curious and difficult girl was in +the house; he watched her with increasing interest; he began to taste, as +it were, the thorny charm that was her peculiar possession. + +Not that he was allowed to see much of the charm. After the conversation +of Passion Sunday her manner to him was no less cold and distant than +before. Their final collision, on the subject of the child, had, he +supposed, undone the effects of his conciliatory words about her father. +It must be so, no doubt, since her hostile observation of him and of his +friends seemed to be in no whit softened. + +That he should be so often conscious of her at this particular time +annoyed and troubled him. It was the most sacred moment of the Catholic +year. Father Leadham, his old Stonyhurst friend, had come to spend +Passion Week and Holy Week at Bannisdale, as a special favour to one whom +the Church justly numbered among the most faithful of her sons; while the +Society of Jesus had many links of mutual service and affection, both +with the Helbeck family in the past and with the present owner of the +Hall. Helbeck, indeed, was of real importance to Catholicism in this +particular district of England. It had once abounded in Catholic +families, but now hardly one of them remained, and upon Helbeck, with his +small resources and dwindling estate, devolved a number of labours which +should have been portioned out among a large circle. Only enthusiasm such +as his could have sufficed for the task. But, for the Church's sake, he +had now remained unmarried some fifteen years. He lived like an ascetic +in the great house, with a couple of women servants; he spent all his +income--except a fraction--on the good works of a wide district; when +larger sums were necessary he was ready, nay, eager, to sell the land +necessary to provide them; and whenever he journeyed to other parts of +England, or to the Continent, it was generally assumed that he had gone, +not as other men go, for pleasure and recreation, but simply that he +might pursue some Catholic end, either of money or administration, among +the rich and powerful of the faith elsewhere. Meanwhile, it was believed +that he had bequeathed the house and park of Bannisdale to a distant +cousin, also a strict Catholic, with the warning that not much else would +remain to his heir from the ancient and splendid inheritance of the +family. + +It was not wonderful, then, that the Jesuits should be glad to do such a +man a service; and no service could have been greater in Helbeck's eyes +than a visit from a priest of their order during these weeks of emotion +and of penance. Every day Mass was said in the little chapel; every +evening a small flock gathered to Litany or Benediction. Ordinary life +went on as it could in the intervals of prayer and meditation. The house +swarmed with priests--with old and infirm priests, many of them from a +Jesuit house of retreat on the western coast, not far away, who found in +a visit to Bannisdale one of the chief pleasures of their suffering or +monotonous lives; while the Superiors of Helbeck's own orphanages were +always ready to help the Bannisdale chapel, on days of special sanctity, +by sending a party of Sisters and children to provide the singing. + +Meanwhile all else was forgotten. As to food, Helbeck and Father +Leadham--according to the letters describing her experiences which Laura +wrote during these weeks to a Cambridge girl friend--lived upon "a cup of +coffee and a banana" per day, and she had endless difficulty in +restraining her charge, Augustina, from doing likewise. For Augustina, +indeed--Stephen Fountain's little black-robed widow--her husband was +daily receding further and further into a dim and dreadful distance, +where she feared and yet wept to think of him. She passed her time in the +intoxication of her recovered faith, excited by the people around her, by +the services in the chapel, and by her very terrors over her own unholy +union, lapse, and restoration. The sound of intoning, the scent, of +incense, seemed to pervade the house; and at the centre of all brooded +that mysterious Presence upon the altar, which drew the passion of +Catholic hearts to itself in ever deeper measure as the great days of +Holy Week and Easter approached. + +Through all this drama of an inventive and exacting faith, Laura Fountain +passed like a being from another world, an alien and a mocking spirit. +She said nothing, but her eyes were satires. The effect of her presence +in the house was felt probably by all its inmates, and by many of its +visitors. She did not again express herself--except rarely to +Augustina--with the vehemence she had shown to the little lame orphan; +she was quite ready to chat and laugh upon occasion with Father Leadham, +who had a pleasant wit, and now and then deliberately sought her society; +and, owing to the feebleness of Augustina, she, quite unconsciously, +established certain household ways which spoke the woman, and were new to +Bannisdale. She filled the drawing-room with daffodils; she made the +tea-table by the hall fire a cheerful place for any who might visit it; +she flitted about the house in the prettiest and neatest of spring +dresses; her hair, her face, her white hands and neck shone amid the +shadows of the panelling like jewels in a casket. Everyone was conscious +of her--uneasily conscious. She yielded herself to no one, was touched by +no one. She stood apart, and through her cold, light ways spoke the world +and the spirit that deny--the world at which the Catholic shudders. + +At the same time, like everybody else in the house--even the sulky +housekeeper--she grew pale and thin from Lenten fare. Mr. Helbeck had of +course given orders to Mrs. Denton that his sister and Miss Fountain were +to be well provided. But Mrs. Denton was grudging or forgetful; and it +amused Laura to see that Augustina was made to eat, while she herself +fared with the rest. The viands of whatever sort were generally scanty +and ill-cooked; and neither the Squire nor Father Leadham cared anything +about the pleasures of the table, in Lent or out of it. Mr. Helbeck +hardly noticed what was set before him. Once or twice indeed he woke up +to the fact that there was not enough for the ladies and would say an +angry word to Mrs. Denton. But on the whole Laura was able to follow her +whim and to try for herself what this Catholic austerity might be like. + +"My dear," she wrote to her friend, "one thing you learn from a Catholic +Lent is that food matters 'nowt at aw,' as they would say in these parts. +You can do just as well without it as with it. Why you should think +yourself a saint for not eating it puzzles me. Otherwise--_vive la faim_! +And as we are none of us likely to starve ourselves half so much as the +poor people of the world, the soldiers, and sailors, and explorers, are +always doing, to please themselves or their country, I don't suppose that +anybody will come to harm. + +"You are to understand, nevertheless, that our austerities are rather +unusual. And when anyone comes in from the outside they are concealed as +much as possible.... The old Helbecks, as far as I can hear, must have +been very different people from their modern descendant. They were quite +good Catholics, understand. What the Church prescribed they did--but not +a fraction beyond. They were like the jolly lazy sort of schoolboy, who +_just_ does his lesson, but would think himself a fool if he did a word +more. Whereas the man who lives here now can never do enough! + +"And in general these old Catholic houses--from Augustina's tales--must +have been full of fun and feasting. Well, I can vouch for it, there is no +fun in Bannisdale now! It is Mr. Helbeck's personality, I suppose. It +makes its own atmosphere. He _can_ laugh--I have seen it myself!--but it +is an event." + + * * * * * + +As Lent went on, the mingling of curiosity and cool criticism with which +Miss Fountain regarded her surroundings became perhaps more apparent. +Father Leadham, in particular, detected the young lady's fasting +experiments. He spoke of them to Helbeck as showing a lack of delicacy +and good taste. But the Squire, it seemed, was rather inclined to regard +them as the whims of a spoilt and wilful child. + +This difference of shade in the judgment of the two men may rank as one +of the first signs of all that was to come. + +Certainly Helbeck had never before felt himself so uncomfortable in his +own house as he had done since the arrival of this girl of twenty-one. +Nevertheless, as the weeks went on, the half-amused, half-contemptuous +embarrassment, which had been the first natural effect of her presence +upon the mind of a man so little used to women and their ways, had passed +imperceptibly into something else. His reserved and formal manner +remained the same. But Miss Fountain's goings and comings had ceased to +be indifferent to him. A silent relation--still unknown to her--had +arisen between them. + +When he first noticed the fact in himself, it produced a strong, +temporary reaction. He reproached himself for a light and unworthy +temper. Had his solitary life so weakened him that any new face and +personality about him could distract and disturb him, even amid the great +thoughts of these solemn days? His heart, his life were in his faith. For +more than twenty years, by prayer and meditation, by all the ingenious +means that the Catholic Church provides, he had developed the +sensibilities of faith; and for the Catholic these sensibilities are +centred upon and sustained by the Passion. Now, hour by hour, his Lord +was moving to the Cross. He stood perpetually beside the sacred form in +the streets of Jerusalem, in Gethsemane, on the steps of the Praetorium. +A varied and dramatic ceremonial was always at hand to stimulate the +imagination, the penitence, and the devotion of the believer. That +anything whatever should break in upon the sacred absorption of these +days would have seemed to him beforehand a calamity to be shrunk +from--nay, a sin to be repented. He had put aside all business that could +be put aside with one object, and one only--to make "a good Easter." + +And yet, no sooner did he come back from service in the chapel, or from +talk of Church matters with Catholic friends, than he found himself +suddenly full of expectation. Was Miss Fountain in the hall, in the +garden? or was she gone to those people at Browhead? If she was not in +the house--above all, if she was with the Masons--he would find it hard +to absorb himself again in the thoughts that had held him before. If she +was there, if he found her sitting reading or working by the hall fire, +with the dogs at her feet, he seldom indeed went to speak to her. He +would go into his library, and force himself to do his business, while +Father Leadham talked to her and Augustina. But the library opened on the +hall, and he could still hear that voice in the distance. Often, when she +caressed the dogs, her tones had the note in them which had startled him +on her very first evening under his roof. It was the emergence of +something hidden and passionate; and it awoke in himself a strange and +troubling echo--the passing surge of an old memory long since thrust down +and buried. How fast his youth was going from him! It was fifteen years +since a woman's voice, a woman's presence, had mattered anything at all +to him. + +So it came about that, in some way or other, he knew, broadly, all that +Miss Fountain did, little as he saw of her. It appeared that she had +discovered a pony carriage for hire in the little village near the +bridge, and once or twice during this fortnight, he learned from +Augustina that she had spent the afternoon at Browhead Farm, while the +Bannisdale household had been absorbed in some function of the season. + +Augustina disliked the news as much as he did, and would throw up her +hands in annoyance. + +"What _can_ she be doing there? They seem the roughest kind of people. +But she says the son plays so wonderfully. I believe she plays duets with +him. She goes out with the cart full of music." + +"Music!" said Helbeck, in frank amazement. "That lout!" + +"Well, she says so," said Augustina crossly, as though it were a personal +affront. "And what do you think, Alan? She talks of going to a dance up +there after Easter--next Thursday, I think." + +"At the farm?" Helbeck's tone was incredulous. + +"No; at the mill--or somewhere. She says the schoolmaster is giving it, +or something of that sort. Of course it's most unsuitable. But what am I +to do, Alan? They _are_ her relations!" + +"At the same time they are not her class," said Helbeck decidedly. "She +has been brought up in a different way, and she cannot behave as though +she belonged to them. And a dance, with that young man to look after her! +You ought to stop it." + +Augustina said dismally that she would try, but her head shook with more +feebleness than usual as she went back to her knitting. + + * * * * * + +Next day Helbeck made a point of finding his sister alone. But she only +threw him a deprecatory look. + +"I tried, Alan--indeed I did. She says that she wants some +amusement--that it will do her good--and that of course her father would +have let her go to a dance with his relations. And when I say anything to +her about not being quite like them, she fires up. She says she would be +ashamed to be thought any better than they, and that Hubert has a great +deal more good in him than some people think." + +"Hubert!" exclaimed Mr. Helbeck, raising his shoulders in disgust. After +a little silence he turned round as he was leaving the room, and said +abruptly: "Is she to stay the night at the farm?" + +"No! oh, no! She wants to come home. She says she won't be late; she +promises not to be late." + +"And that young fellow will drive her home, of course?" + +"Well, she couldn't drive home alone, Alan, at that time of night. It +wouldn't be proper." + +Mr. Helbeck smiled rather sourly. "One may doubt where the propriety +comes in. Well, she seems determined. We must just arrange it. There is +the tower door. Kindly tell her, Augustina, that I will let her have the +key of it. And kindly tell her also--as from yourself, of course--that +she will be treating us all with courtesy if she does come home at a +reasonable hour. We have been a very quiet, prim household all these +years, and Mrs. Denton, for all her virtues, has a tongue." + +"So she has," said Augustina, sighing. "And she doesn't like Laura--not +at all." + +Helbeck raised his head quickly. "She does nothing to make Miss Fountain +uncomfortable, I trust?" + +"Oh--no," said Augustina undecidedly. "Besides, it doesn't matter. Laura +has got Ellen under her thumb." + +Helbeck's grave countenance showed a gleam of amusement. + +"How does Mrs. Denton take that?" + +"Oh! she has to bear it. Haven't you seen, Alan, how the girl has +brightened up? Laura has shown her how to do her hair; she helped her to +make a new frock for Easter; the girl would do anything in the world for +her. It's like Bruno. Do you notice, Alan--I really thought you would be +angry--that the dog will hardly go with you when Laura's there?" + +"Oh! Miss Fountain is a very attractive young lady--to those she likes," +said Helbeck dryly. + +And on that he went away. + +On Good Friday afternoon Laura, in a renewed passion of revolt against +all that was going on in the house, went to her room and wrote to her +friend. Litanies were being said in the chapel. The distant, melancholy +sounds mounted to her now and then. Otherwise the house was wrapped in a +mourning silence; and outside, trailing clouds hung round the old walls, +making a penitential barrier all about it. + +"After this week," wrote Laura to her friend, "I shall always feel kindly +towards 'sin'--and the 'world'! How they have been scouted and scourged! +And what, I ask you, would any of us do without them? The 'world,' +indeed! I seem to hear it go rumbling on, the poor, patient, toiling +thing, while these people are praying. It works, and makes it possible +for them to pray--while they abuse and revile it. + +"And as to 'sin,' and the gloom in which we all live because of it--what +on earth does it really mean to any decently taught and brought-up +creature? You are greedy, or selfish, or idle, or ill-behaved. Very well, +then--nature, or your next-door neighbor, knocks you down for it, and +serve you right. Next time you won't do it again, or not so badly, and by +degrees you don't even like to think of doing it--you would be 'ashamed,' +as people say. It's the process that everybody has to go through, I +suppose--being sent into the world the sort of beings we are, and without +any leave of ours, altogether. But why make such a wailing and woe and +hullabaloo about it! Oh--such a waste of time! Why doesn't Mr. Helbeck go +and learn geology? I vow he hasn't an idea what the rocks of his own +valley are made of! + +"Of course there are the _very_ great villains--I don't like to think +about them. And the people who are born wrong and sick. But by-and-by we +shall have weeded them out, or improved the breed. And why not spend your +energies on doing that, instead of singing litanies, and taking +ridiculous pains not to eat the things you like? + +"...I shall soon be in disgrace with Augustina and Mr. Helbeck, about the +Masons--worse disgrace, that is to say. For now that I have found a pony +of my own, I go up there two or three times a week. And really--in spite +of all those first experiences I told you of--I like it! Cousin Elizabeth +has begun to talk to me; and when I come home, I read the Bible to see +what it was all about. And I don't let her say too bad things about Mr. +Helbeck--it wouldn't be quite gentlemanly on my part. And I know most of +the Williams story now, both from her and Augustina. + +"Imagine, my dear!--a son not allowed to come and see his mother before +she died, though she cried for him night and day. He was at a Jesuit +school in Wales. They shilly-shallied, and wrote endless letters--and at +last they sent him off--the day she died. He arrived three hours too +late, and his father shut the door in his face. 'Noa yo' shan't see her,' +said the grim old fellow--'an if there's a God above, yo' shan't see her +in heaven nayder!' Augustina of course calls it 'holy obedience.' + +"The painting in the chapel is really extraordinary. Mr. Helbeck seems to +have taught the young man, to begin with. He himself used to paint long +ago--not very well, I should think, to judge from the bits of his work +still left in the chapel. But at any rate the youth learnt the rudiments +from him, and then of course went far beyond his teacher. He was almost +two years here, working in the house--tabooed by his family all the time. +Then there seems to have been a year in London, when he gave Mr. Helbeck +some trouble. I don't know--Augustina is vague. How it was that he joined +the Jesuits I can't make out. No doubt Mr. Helbeck induced them to take +him. But _why_--I ask you--with such a gift? They say he will be here in +the summer, and one will have to set one's teeth and shake hands with +him. + +"Oh, that droning in the chapel--there it is again! I will open the +window and let the howl of the rain in to get rid of it. And yet I can't +always keep myself away from it. It is all so new--so horribly intimate. +Every now and then the music or a prayer or something sends a stab right +down to my heart of hearts.--A voice of suffering, of torture--oh! so +ghastly, so _real_. Then I come and read papa's note-books for an hour to +forget it. I wish he had ever taught me anything--strictly! But _of +course_ it was my fault. + +"... As to this dance, why shouldn't I go?--just tell me! It is being +given by the new schoolmaster, and two or three young farmers, in the big +room at the old mill. The schoolmaster is the most tiresomely virtuous +young man, and the whole thing is so respectable, it makes me yawn to +think of it. Polly implores me to go, and I like Polly. (Very soon she'll +let me halve her fringe!) I gave Hubert a preliminary snub, and now he +doesn't dare implore me to go. But that is all the more engaging. I +_don't_ flirt with him!--heavens!--unless you call bear-taming +flirtation. But one can't see his music running to waste in such a bog of +tantrums and tempers. I must try my hand. And as he is my cousin I can +put up with him." + + * * * * * + +After High Mass on Easter Sunday Helbeck walked home from Whinthorpe +alone, as his companion Father Leadham had an engagement in the town. + +Through the greater part of Holy Week the skies had been as grey and +penitential as the season. The fells and the river flats had been +scourged at night with torrents of rain and wind, and in the pale +mornings any passing promise of sun had been drowned again before the day +was high. The roofs and eaves, the small panes of the old house, trickled +and shone with rain; and at night the wind tore through the gorge of the +river with great boomings and onslaughts from the west. But with Easter +eve there had come appeasement--a quiet dying of the long storm. And as +Helbeck made his way along the river on Easter morning, mountain and +flood, grass and tree, were in a glory of recovered sun. The distant +fells were drawn upon the sky in the heavenliest brushings of blue and +purple; the river thundered over its falls and weirs in a foamy +splendour; and the deer were feeding with a new zest amid the +fast-greening grass. + +He stopped a moment to rest upon his stick and look about him. Something +in his own movement reminded him of another solitary walk some five weeks +before. And at the same instant he perceived a small figure sitting on a +stone seat in front of him. It was Miss Fountain. She had a book on her +knee, and the two dogs were beside her. Her white dress and hat seemed to +make the centre of a whole landscape. The river bent inward in a great +sweep at her feet, the crag rose behind her, and the great prospect +beyond the river of dale and wood, of scar and cloud, seemed spread there +for her eyes alone. A strange fancy seized on Helbeck. This was his +world--his world by inheritance and by love. Five weeks before he had +walked about it as a solitary. And now this figure sat enthroned, as it +were, at the heart of it. He roughly shook the fancy off and walked on. + +Miss Fountain greeted him with her usual detachment. He stood a minute or +two irresolute, then threw himself on the slope in front of her. + +"Bruno will hardly look at his master now," he said to her pleasantly, +pointing to the dog's attitude as it lay with its nose upon the hem of +her dress. + +Laura closed her book in some annoyance. He usually returned by the other +side of the river, and she was not grateful to him for his breach of +habit. Why had he been meddling in her affairs? She perfectly understood +why Augustina had been making herself so difficult about the dance, and +about the Masons in general. Let him keep his proprieties to himself. +She, Laura, had nothing to do with them. She was hardly his guest--still +less his ward. She had come to Bannisdale against her will, simply and +solely as Augustina's nurse. In return, let Mr. Helbeck leave her alone +to enjoy her plebeian relations as she pleased. + +Nevertheless, of course she must be civil; and civil she intermittently +tried to be. She answered his remark about Bruno by a caress to the dog +that brought him to lay his muzzle against her knee. + +"Do you mind? Some people do mind. I can easily drive him away." + +"Oh, no! I reckon on recovering him--some day," he said, with a frank +smile. + +Laura flushed. + +"Very soon, I should think. Have you noticed, Mr. Helbeck, how much +better Augustina is already? I believe that by the end of the summer, at +least, she will be able to do without me. And she tells me that the +Superior at the orphanage has a girl to recommend her as a companion when +I go." + +"Rather officious of the Reverend Mother, I think," said Helbeck sharply. +He paused a moment, then added with some emphasis, "Don't imagine, Miss +Fountain, that anybody else can do for my sister what you do." + +"Ah! but--well--one must live one's life--mustn't one, Fricka?"--Fricka +was by this time jealously pawing her dress. "I want to work at my +music--hard--this winter." + +"And I fear that Bannisdale is not a very gay place for a young lady +visitor?" + +He smiled. And so did she; though his tone, with its shade of proud +humility, embarrassed her. + +"It is as beautiful as a dream!" she said, with sudden energy, throwing +up her little hand. And he turned to look, as she was looking, at the +river and the woods. + +"You feel the beauty of it so much?" he asked her, wondering. His own +strong feeling for his native place was all a matter of old habit and +association. The flash of wild pleasure in her face astounded him. There +was in it that fiery, tameless something that was the girl's +distinguishing mark, her very soul and self. Was it beginning to speak +from her blood to his? + +She nodded, then laughed. + +"But, of course, it isn't my business to live here. I have a great +friend--a Cambridge girl--and we have arranged it all. We are to live +together, and travel a great deal, and work at music." + +"That is what young ladies do nowadays, I understand." + +"And why not?" + +He lifted his shoulders, as though to decline the answer, and was +silent--so silent that she was forced at last to take the field. + +"Don't you approve of 'new women,' Mr. Helbeck? Oh! I wish I was a new +woman," she threw out defiantly. "But I'm not good enough--I don't know +anything." + +"I wasn't thinking of them," he said simply. "I was thinking of the life +that women used to live here, in this place, in the past--of my mother +and my grandmother." + +She could not help a stir of interest. What might the Catholic women of +Bannisdale have been like? She looked along the path that led downward to +the house, and seemed to see their figures upon it--not short and sickly +like Augustina, but with the morning in their eyes and on their white +brows, like the Romney lady. Helbeck's thoughts meanwhile were peopled by +the more solid forms of memory. + +"You remember the picture?" he said at last, breaking the silence. "The +husband of that lady was a boor and a gambler. He soon broke her heart. +But her children consoled her to some extent, especially the daughters, +several of whom became nuns. The poor wife came from a large Lancashire +family, but she hardly saw her relations after her marriage; she was +ashamed of her husband's failings and of their growing poverty. She +became very shy and solitary, and very devout. These rock-seats along the +river were placed by her. It is said that she used in summer to spend +long hours on that very seat where you are sitting, doing needlework, or +reading the Little Office of the Virgin, at the hours when her daughters +in their French convent would be saying their office in chapel. She died +before her husband, a very meek, broken creature. I have a little book of +her meditations, that she wrote out by the wish of her confessor. + +"Then my grandmother--ah! well, that is too long a story. She was a +Frenchwoman--we have some of her books in my study. She never got on with +England and English people--and at last, after her husband's death, she +never went outside the house and park. My father owed much of his shyness +and oddity to her bringing up. When she felt herself dying she went over +to her family to die at Nantes. She is buried there; and my father was +sent to the Jesuit school at Nantes for a long time. Then my mother--But +I mustn't bore you with these family tales." + +He turned to look at his listener. Laura was by this time half +embarrassed, half touched. + +"I should like to hear about your mother," she said rather stiffly. + +"You may talk to me if you like, but don't, pray, presume upon it!"--that +was what her manner said. + +Helbeck smiled a little, unseen, under his black moustache. + +"My mother was a great lover of books--the only Helbeck, I think, that +ever read anything. She was a friend and correspondent of Cardinal +Wiseman's--and she tried to make a family history out of the papers here. +But in her later years she was twisted and crippled by rheumatic +gout--her poor fingers could not turn the pages. I used to help her +sometimes; but we none of us shared her tastes. She was a very happy +person, however." + +Happy! Why? Laura felt a fresh prick of irritation as he paused. Was she +never to escape--not even here, in the April sun, beside the river bank! +For, of course, what all this meant was that the really virtuous and +admirable woman does not roam the world in search of art and friendship; +she makes herself happy at home with religion and rheumatic gout. + +But Helbeck resumed. And instantly it struck her that he had dropped a +sentence, and was taking up the thread further on. + +"But there was no priest in the house then, for the Society could not +spare us one; and very few services in the chapel. Through all her young +days nothing could be poorer or raggeder than English Catholicism. There +was no church at Whinthorpe. Sunday after Sunday my father used to read +the prayers in the chapel, which was half a lumber-room. I often think no +Dissent could have been barer; but we heard Mass when we could, and that +was enough for us. One of the priests from Stonyhurst came when she died. +This is her little missal." + +He raised it from the grass--a small volume bound in faded morocco--but +he did not offer to show it to Miss Fountain, and she felt no inclination +to ask for it. + +"Why did they live so much alone?" she asked him, with a little frown. "I +suppose there were always neighbours?" + +He shook his head. + +"A difference that has law and education besides religion behind it, goes +deep. Times are changed, but it goes deep still." + +There was a pause. Then she looked at him with a whimsical lifting of her +brows. + +"Bannisdale was not amusing?" she said. + +He laughed good-humouredly. "Not for a woman, certainly. For a man, yes. +There was plenty of rough sport and card-playing, and a good deal of +drinking. The men were full of character, often full of ability. But +there was no outlet--and a wretched education. My great-grandfather might +have been saved by a commission in the army. But the law forbade it him. +So they lived to themselves and by themselves; they didn't choose to live +with their Protestant neighbours--who had made them outlaws and +inferiors! And, of course, they sank in manners and refinement. You may +see the results in all the minor Catholic families to this day--that is, +the old families. The few great houses that remained faithful escaped +many of the drawbacks of the position. The smaller ones suffered, and +succumbed. But they had their compensations!" + +As he spoke he rose from the grass, and the dogs, springing up, barked +joyously about him. + +"Augustina will be waiting dinner for us, I think." + +Laura, who had meant to stay behind, saw that she was expected to walk +home with him. She rose unwillingly, and moved on beside him. + +"Their compensations?" That meant the Mass and all the rest of this +tyrannous clinging religion. What did it honestly mean to Mr. Helbeck--to +anybody? She remembered her father's rough laugh. "There are twelve +hundred men, my dear, belonging to the Athenaeum Club. I give you the +bishops. After them, what do you suppose religion has to say to the rest +of the twelve hundred? How many of them ever give a thought to it?" + +She raised her eyes, furtively, to Helbeck's face. In spite of its +melancholy lines, she had lately begun to see that its fundamental +expression was a contented one. That, no doubt, came from the +"compensations." But to-day there was more. She was positively startled +by his look of happiness as he strode silently along beside her. It was +all the more striking because of the plain traces left upon him by Lenten +fatigue and "mortification." + +It was Easter day, and she supposed he had come from Communion. + +A little shiver passed through her, caused by the recollection of words +she had heard, acts of which she had been a witness, in the chapel during +the foregoing week--words and acts of emotion, of abandonment--love +crying to love. A momentary thirst seized her--an instant's sense of +privation, of longing, gone almost as soon as it had come. + +Helbeck turned to her. + +"So this dance you are going to is on Thursday?" he said pleasantly. + +She came to herself in a moment. + +"Yes, on Thursday, at eight. I shall go early. I have engaged a fly to +take me to the farm--thank you!--and my cousins will see me home. I am +obliged to you for the key. It will save my giving any trouble." + +"If you did we should not grudge it," he said quietly. + +She was silent for a few more steps, then she said: + +"I quite understand, Mr. Helbeck, that you do not approve of my going. +But I must judge for myself. The Masons are my own people. I am sorry +they should have---- Well--I don't understand--but it seems you have +reason to think badly of them." + +"Not of _them_," he said with emphasis. + +"Of my cousin Hubert, then?" + +He made no answer. She coloured angrily, then broke out, her words +tumbling childishly over one another: + +"There are a great many things said of Hubert that I don't believe he +deserves! He has a great many good tastes--his music is wonderful. At any +rate, he is my cousin; they are papa's only relations in the world. He +would have been kind to Hubert; and he would have despised me if I turned +my back on them because I was staying in a grand house with grand +people!" + +"Grand people!" said Helbeck, raising his eyebrows. "But I am sorry I led +you to say these things, Miss Fountain. Excuse me--may I open this gate +for you?" + +She reached her own room as quickly as possible, and dropped upon the +chair beside her dressing-table in a whirl of angry feeling. A small and +heated face looked out upon her from the glass. But after the first +instinctive moment she took no notice of it. With the mind's eye she +still saw the figure she had just parted from, the noble poise of the +head, thrown back on the broad shoulders, the black and greys of the +hair, the clear penetrating glance--all the slight signs of age and +austerity that had begun to filch away the Squire's youth. It was at +least ten minutes before she could free herself enough from the unwelcome +memories of her walk to find a vindictive pleasure in running hastily to +look at her one white dress--all she had to wear at the Browhead dance. + + * * * * * + +On Thursday afternoon Helbeck was fishing in the park. The sea-trout were +coming up, the day was soft, and he had done well. But just as the +evening rise was beginning he put up his rod and went home. Father +Leadham had taken his departure. Augustina, Miss Fountain, and he were +again alone in the house. + +He went into his study, and left the door open, while he busied himself +with some writing. + +Presently Augustina put her head in. She looked dishevelled, and rather +pinker than usual, as always happened when there was the smallest +disturbance of her routine. + +"Laura has just gone up to dress, Alan. Is it fine?" + +"There is no rain," he said, without turning his head. "Don't shut the +door, please. This fire is oppressive." + +She went away, and he wrote on a little while--then listened. He heard +hurrying feet and movements overhead, and presently a door opened +hastily, and a voice exclaimed, "Just two or three, you know, Ellen--from +that corner under the kitchen-window! Run, there's a good girl!" + +And there was a clattering noise as Ellen ran down the front stairs, and +then flew along the corridor to the garden-door. + +In a minute she was back again, and as she passed his room Helbeck saw +that she was carrying a bunch of white narcissus. + +Then more sounds of laughter and chatter overhead. At last Augustina +hurried down and looked in upon him again, flurried and smiling. + +"Alan, you really must see her. She looks so pretty." + +"I am afraid I'm busy," he said, still writing. And she retired +disappointed, careful, however, to follow his wishes about the door. + +"Augustina, hold Bruno!" cried a light voice suddenly. "If he jumps on me +I'm done for!" + +A swish of soft skirts and she was there--in the hall. Helbeck could see +her quite plainly as she stood by the oak table in her white dress. There +was just room at the throat of it for a pearl necklace, and at the wrists +for some thin gold bracelets. The narcissus were in her hair, which she +had coiled and looped in a wonderful way, so that Helbeck's eyes were +dazzled by its colour and abundance, and by the whiteness of the slender +neck below it. She meanwhile was quite unconscious of his neighbourhood, +and he saw that she was all in a happy flutter, hastily putting on her +gloves, and chattering alternately to Augustina and to the transformed +Ellen, who stood in speechless admiration behind her, holding a cloak. + +"There, Ellen, that'll do. You're a darling--and the flowers are perfect. +Run now, and tell Mrs. Denton that I didn't keep you more than twenty +minutes. Oh, yes, Augustina, I'm quite warm. I can't choke, dear, even to +please you. There now--here goes! If you do lock me out, there's a corner +under the bridge, quite snug. My dress will mind--I shan't. Good-night. +My compliments to Mr. Helbeck." + +Then a hasty kiss to Augustina and she was gone. + +Helbeck went out into the hall. Augustina was standing on the steps, +watching the departing fly. At the sight of her brother she turned back +to him, her poor little face aglow. + +"She did look so nice, Alan! I wish she had gone to a proper dance, and +not to these odd farmers and people. Why, they'll all go in their high +dresses, and think her stuck-up." + +"I assure you I never saw anything so smart as Miss Mason at the hunt +ball," said Helbeck. "Did you give her the key, Augustina? But I shall +probably sit up. There are some Easter accounts that must be done." + + * * * * * + +The old clock in the hall struck one. Helbeck was sitting in his familiar +chair before the log fire, which he had just replenished. In one hand was +a life of St. Philip Neri, the other played absently with Bruno's ears. +In truth he was not reading but listening. + +Suddenly there was a sound. He turned his head, and saw that the door +leading from the hall to the tower staircase, and thence to the kitchen +regions, had been opened. + +"Who's there?" he said in astonishment. + +Mrs. Denton appeared. + +"You, Denton! What are you up for at this time?" + +"I came to see if the yoong lady had coom back," she said in a low voice, +and with her most forbidding manner. "It's late, and I heard nowt." + +"Late? Not at all! Go to bed, Denton, at once; Miss Fountain will be here +directly." + +"I'm not sleepy; I can wait for her," said the housekeeper, advancing a +step or two into the hall. "You mun be tired, sir, and should take your +rest." + +"I'm not the least tired, thank you. Good-night. Let me recommend you to +go to bed as quickly as possible." + +Mrs. Denton lingered for a moment, as though in hesitation, then went +with a sulky unwillingness that was very evident to her master. + +Helbeck laid down his book on his knee with a little laugh. + +"She would have liked to get in a scolding, but we won't give her the +chance." + +The reverie that followed was not a very pleasant one. He seemed to see +Miss Fountain in the large rustic room, with a bevy of young men about +her--young fellows in Sunday coats, with shiny hair and limbs bursting +out of their ill-fitting clothes. There would be loud talking and +laughter, rough jokes that would make her wince, compliments that would +disgust her--they not knowing how to take her, nor she them. She would be +wholly out of her place--a butt for impertinence--perhaps worse. And +there would be a certain sense of dragging a lady from her sphere--of +making free with the old house and the old family. + +He thought of it with disgust. He was an aristocrat to his fingers' ends. + +But how could it have been helped? And when he remembered her as she +stood there in the hall, so young and pretty, so eager for her pleasure, +he said to himself with sudden heartiness: + +"Nonsense! I hope the child has enjoyed herself." It was the first time +that, even in his least formal thoughts, he had applied such a word to +her. + +Silence again. The wind breathed gently round the house. He could hear +the river rushing. + +Once he thought there was a sound of wheels and he went to the outer +door, but there was nothing. Overhead the stars shone, and along the +track of the river lay a white mist. + +As he was turning back to the hall, however, he heard voices from the +mist--a loud man's voice, then a little cry as of some one in fright or +anger, then a song. The rollicking tune of it shouted into the night, +into the stately stillness that surrounded the old house, had the +abruptest, unseemliest effect. + +Helbeck ran down the steps. A dog-cart with lights approached the gateway +in the low stone enclosure before the house. It shot through so fast and +so awkwardly as to graze the inner post. There was another little cry. +Then, with various lurches and lunges, the cart drove round the gravel, +and brought up somewhere near the steps. + +Hubert Mason jumped down. + +"Who's that? Mr. Helbeck? O Lord! glad to see yer, I'm sure! There's that +little silly--she's been making such a' fuss all the way--thought I was +going to upset her into the river, I do believe. She would try and get at +the reins, though I told her it was the worst thing to do, whatever--to +be interfering with the driver. Lord! I thought she'd have used the whip +to me!" + +And Mason stood beside the shafts, with his arms on the side, laughing +loudly and looking at Laura. + +"Stand out of the way, sir!" said Helbeck sternly, "and let me help Miss +Fountain." + +"Oh! I say!--Come now, I'm not going to stand you coming it over me twice +in the same sort--not I," cried the young man with a violent change of +tone. "_You_ get out of the way, d--mn you! I brought Miss Fountain home, +and she's my cousin--so there!--not yours." + +"Hubert, go away at once!" said Laura's shaking but imperious voice. "I +prefer that Mr. Helbeck should help me." + +She had risen and was clinging to the rail of the dog-cart, while her +face drooped so that Helbeck could not see it. + +Mason stepped back with another oath, caught his foot in the reins, which +he had carelessly left hanging, and fell on his knees on the gravel. + +"No matter," said Helbeck, seeing that Laura paused in terror. "Give me +your hand, Miss Fountain." + +She slipped on the step in the darkness, and Helbeck caught her and set +her on her feet. + +"Go in, please. I will look after him." + +She ran up the steps, then turned to look. + +Mason, still swearing and muttering, had some difficulty in getting up. +Helbeck stood by till he had risen and disentangled the reins. + +"If you don't drive carefully down the park in the fog you'll come to +harm," he said, shortly, as Mason mounted to his seat. + +"That's none of your business," said Mason sulkily. "I brought my cousin +all right--I suppose I can take myself. Now, come up, will you!" + +He struck the pony savagely on the back with the reins. The tired animal +started forward; the cart swayed again from side to side. Helbeck held +his breath as it passed the gate-posts; but it shaved through, and soon +nothing but the gallop of retreating hoofs could be heard through the +night. + +He mounted the steps, and shut and barred the outer door. When he entered +the hall, Laura was sitting by the oak table, one hand supporting and +hiding her face, the other hanging listlessly beside her. + +She struggled to her feet as he came in. The hood of her blue cloak had +fallen backwards, and her hair was in confusion round her face and neck. +Her cheeks were very white, and there were tears in her eyes. She had +never seemed to him so small, so childish, or so lovely. + +He took no notice of her agitation or of her efforts to speak. He went to +a tray of wine and biscuits that had been left by his orders on a +side-table, and poured out some wine. + +"No, I don't want it," she said, waving it away. "I don't know what to +say----" + +"You would do best to take it," he said, interrupting her. + +His quiet insistence overcame her, and she drank it. It gave her back her +voice and a little colour. She bit her lip, and looked after Helbeck as +he walked away to the farther end of the hall to light a candle for her. + +"Mr. Helbeck," she began as he came near. Then she gathered force. "You +must--you ought to let me apologise." + +"For what? I am afraid you had a disagreeable and dangerous drive home. +Would you like me to wake one of the servants--Ellen, perhaps--and tell +her to come to you?" + +"Oh! you won't let me say what I ought to say," she exclaimed in despair. +"That my cousin should have behaved like this--should have insulted +you----" + +"No! no!" he said with some peremptoriness. "Your cousin insulted you by +daring to drive with you in such a state. That is all that matters to +me--or should, I think, matter to you. Will you have your candle, and +shall I call anyone?" + +She shook her head and moved towards the staircase, he accompanying her. +When he saw how feebly she walked, he was on the point of asking her to +take his arm and let him help her to her room; but he refrained. + +At the foot of the stairs she paused. Her "good-night" died in her throat +as she offered her hand. Her dejection, her girlish shame, made her +inexpressibly attractive to him; it was the first time he had ever seen +her with all her arms thrown down. But he said nothing. He bade her +good-night with a cheerful courtesy, and, returning to the hall fire, he +stood beside it till he heard the distant shutting of her door. + +Then he sank back into his chair and sat motionless, with knitted brows, +for nearly an hour, staring into the caverns of the fire. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Laura awoke very early the following morning, but though the sun was +bright outside, it brought no gaiety to her. The night before she had +hurried her undressing, that she might bury herself in her pillow as +quickly as possible, and force sleep to come to her. It was her natural +instinct in the face of pain or humiliation. To escape from it by any +summary method was always her first thought. "I will, I must go to +sleep!" she had said to herself, in a miserable fury with herself and +fate; and by the help of an intense exhaustion sleep came. + +But in the morning she could do herself no more violence. Memory took its +course, and a very disquieting course it was. She sat up in bed, with her +hands round her knees, thinking not only of all the wretched and untoward +incidents connected with the ball, but of the whole three weeks that had +gone before it. What had she been doing, how had she been behaving, that +this odious youth should have dared to treat her in such a way? + +Fricka jumped up beside her, and Laura held the dog's nose against her +cheek for comfort, while she confessed herself. Oh! what a fool she had +been. Why, pray, had she been paying all these visits to the farm, and +spending all these hours in this young fellow's company? Her quick +intelligence unravelled all the doubtful skein. Yearning towards her +kindred?--yes, there had been something of that. Recoil from the +Bannisdale ways, an angry eagerness to scout them and fly them?--yes, +that there had always been in plenty. But she dived deeper into her +self-disgust, and brought up the real bottom truth, disagreeable and +hateful as it was: mere excitement about a young man, as a young +man--mere love of power over a great hulking fellow whom other people +found unmanageable! Aye, there it was, in spite of all the glosses she +had put upon it in her letters to Molly Friedland. All through, she had +known perfectly well that Hubert Mason was not her equal; that on a +number of subjects he had vulgar habits and vulgar ideas; that he often +expressed his admiration for her in a way she ought to have resented. +There were whole sides of him, indeed, that she shrank from +exploring--that she wanted, nay, was determined, to know nothing about. + +On the other hand, her young daring, for want of any better prey, had +taken pleasure from the beginning in bringing him under her yoke. With +her second visit to the farm she saw that she could make him her +slave--that she had only to show him a little flattery, a little +encouragement, and he would be as submissive and obedient to her as he +was truculent and ill-tempered towards the rest of the world. And her +vanity had actually plumed itself on so poor a prey! One excuse--yes, +there was the one excuse! With her he had shown the side that she alone +of his kindred could appreciate. But for the fear of Cousin Elizabeth she +could have kept him hanging over the piano hour after hour while she +played, in a passion of delight. Here was common ground. Nay, in native +power he was her superior, though she, with her better musical training, +could help and correct him in a thousand ways. She had the woman's +passion for influence; and he seemed like wax in her hands. Why not help +him to education and refinement, to the cultivation of the best that was +in him? She would persuade Cousin Elizabeth--alter and amend his life for +him--and Mr. Helbeck should see that there were better ways of dealing +with people than by looking down upon them and despising them. + +And now the very thought of these vain and silly dreams set her face +aflame. Power over him? Let her only remember the humiliations, through +which she had been dragged! All the dance came back upon her--the strange +people, the strange young men, the strange, raftered room, with the noise +of the mill-stream and the weir vibrating through it, and mingling with +the chatter of the fiddles. But she had been determined to enjoy it, to +give herself no airs, to forget with all her might that she was anyway +different from these dale-folk, whose blood was hers. And with the older +people all had been easy. With the elderly women especially, in their +dark gowns and large Sunday collars, she had felt herself at home; again +and again she had put herself under their wing, while in their silent way +they turned their shrewd motherly eyes upon her, and took stock of her +and every detail of her dress. And the old men, with their patriarchal +manners and their broad speech--it had been all sweet and pleasant to +her. "Noo, Miss, they tell ma as yo'.are Stephen Fountain's dowter. An I +mut meak bold ter cum an speak to thee, for a knew 'un when he was a lile +lad." Or "Yo'll gee ma your hand, Miss Fountain, for we're pleased and +proud to git, yo' here. Yer fadther an mea gaed to skule togedther. My +worrd, but he was parlish cliver! An I daursay as you teak afther him." +Kind folk! with all the signs of their hard and simple life about them. + +But the young men--how she had hated them!--whether they were shy, or +whether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, and +laughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they wore +their best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced the +polka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of _their_ +class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to put +a pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her white +dress; a third had confided to her that his young lady was "that luvin" +to him in public, he had been fair obliged to bid her "keep hersel to +hersel afore foak." The only partner with whom it had given her the +smallest pleasure to dance had been the schoolmaster and principal host +of the evening, a tall, sickly young man, who wore spectacles and talked +through his nose. But he talked of things she understood, and he danced +tolerably. Alas! there had come the rub. Hubert Mason had stood sentinel +beside her during the early part of the evening. He had assumed the +proudest and most exclusive airs with regard to her, and his chief aim +seemed to be to impress upon her the prestige he enjoyed among his +fellows as a football player and an athlete. In the end his patronage and +his boasting had become insupportable to a girl of any spirit. And his +dancing! It seemed to her that he held her before him like a shield, and +then charged the room with her. She had found herself the centre of all +eyes, her pretty dress torn, her hair about her ears. So that she had +shaken him off--with too much impatience, no doubt, and too little +consideration for the touchiness of his temper. And then, what +stormy looks, what mutterings, what disappearances into the +refreshment-room--and, finally, what, fierce jealousy of the +schoolmaster! Laura awoke at last to the disagreeable fact that she had +to drive home with him--and he had already made her ridiculous. Even +Polly--the bedizened Polly--looked grave, and there had been angry +conferences between her and her brother. + +Then came the departure, Laura by this time full of terrors, but not +knowing what to do, nor how else she was to get home. And, oh! that +grinning band of youths round the door--Mason's triumphant leap into the +cart and boisterous farewell to his friends--and that first perilous +moment, when the pony had almost backed into the mill stream, and was +only set right again by half a dozen stalwart arms, amid the laughter of +the street! + +As for the wild drive through the dark, she shivered again, half with +anger, half with terror, as she thought of it. How had they ever got +home? She could not tell. He was drunk, of course. He seemed to her to +have driven into everything and over everything, abusing the schoolmaster +and Mr. Helbeck and his mother all the time, and turning upon her when +she answered him, or showed any terror of what might happen to them, now +with fury, and now with attempts at love-making which it had taken all +her power over him to quell. + +Their rush up the park had been like the ride of the wild horseman. Every +moment she had expected to be in the river. And with the approach of the +house he had grown wilder and more unmanageable than before. "Dang it! +let's wake up the old Papist!" he had said to her when she had tried to +stop his singing. "What harm'll it do?" + +As for the shame of their arrival, the very thought of Mr. Helbeck +standing silent on the steps as they approached, of Hubert's behaviour, +of her host's manner to her in the hall, made her shut her eyes and hide +her red face against Fricka for sympathy. How was she ever to meet Mr. +Helbeck again, to hold her own against him any more! + + * * * * * + +An hour later Laura, very carefully dressed, and holding herself very +erect, entered Augustina's room. + +"Oh, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain, as the door opened. She was very +flushed, and she stared from her bed at her stepdaughter in an agitated +silence. + +Laura stopped short. + +"Well, what is it, Augustina? What have you heard?" + +"Laura! how _can_ you do such things!" + +And Augustina, who already had her breakfast beside her, raised her +handkerchief to her eyes and began to cry. Laura threw up her head and +walked away to a far window, where she turned and confronted Mrs. +Fountain. + +"Well, he has been quick in telling you," she said, in a low but fierce +voice. + +"He? What do you mean? My brother? As if he had said a word! I don't +believe he ever would. But Mrs. Denton heard it all." + +"Mrs. Denton?" said Laura. "_Mrs. Denton?_ What on earth had she to do +with it?" + +"She heard you drive up. You know her room looks on the front." + +"And she listened? sly old creature!" said Laura, recovering herself. +"Well, it can't be helped. If she heard, she heard, and whatever I may +feel, I'm not going to apologise to Mrs. Denton." + +"But, Laura--Laura--was he----" + +Augustina could not finish the odious question. + +"I suppose he was," said Laura bitterly. "It seems to be the natural +thing for young men of that sort." + +"Laura, do come here." + +Laura came unwillingly, and Augustina took her hands and looked up at +her. + +"And, Laura, he was abominably rude to Alan!" + +"Yes, he was, and I'm very sorry," said the girl slowly. "But it can't be +helped, and it's no good making yourself miserable, Augustina." + +"Miserable? I? It's you, Laura, who look miserable. I never saw you look +so white and dragged. You must never, never see him again." + +The girl's obstinacy awoke in a moment. + +"I don't know that I shall promise that, Augustina." + +"Oh, Laura! as if you could wish to," said Augustina, in tears. + +"I can't give up my father's people," said the girl stiffly. "But he +shall never annoy Mr. Helbeck again, I promise you that, Augustina." + +"Oh! you did look so nice, Laura, and your dress was so pretty!" + +Laura laughed, rather grimly. + +"There's not much of it left this morning," she said. "However, as one of +the gentlemen who kindly helped to ruin it said last night, 'Lor, bless +yer, it'll wesh!'" + + * * * * * + +After breakfast Laura found herself in the drawing-room, looking through +an open window at the spring green in a very strained and irritable mood. + +"I would not begin if I could not go on," she said to herself with +disdain. But her lip trembled. + +So Mr. Helbeck had taken offence, after all. Hardly a word at breakfast, +except such as the briefest, barest civility required. And he was going +away, it appeared, for three days, perhaps a week, on business. If he had +given her the slightest opening, she had meant to master her pride +sufficiently to renew her apologies and ask his advice, subject, of +course, to her own final judgment as to what kindred and kindness might +require of her. But he had given her no opening, and the subject was not, +apparently, to be renewed between them. + +She might have asked him, too, to curb Mrs. Denton's tongue. But no, it +was not to be. Very well. The girl drew her small frame together and +prepared, as no one thought for or befriended her, to think for and +befriend herself. + +She passed the next few days in some depression. Mr. Helbeck was absent. +Augustina was very ailing and querulous, and Laura was made to feel that +it was her fault. Not a word of regret or apology came from Browhead +Farm. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Denton had apparently made her niece understand that there +was to be no more dallying with Miss Fountain. Whenever she and Laura +met, Ellen lowered her head and ran. Laura found that the girl was not +allowed to wait upon her personally any more. Meanwhile the housekeeper +herself passed Miss Fountain with a manner and a silence which were in +themselves an insult. + +And two days after Helbeck's departure, Laura was crossing the hall +towards tea-time, when she saw Mrs. Denton admitting one of the Sisters +from the orphanage. It was the Reverend Mother herself, the portly +shrewd-faced woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. Laura passed +her, and the nun saluted her coldly. "Dear me!--you shall have Augustina +to yourself, my good friend," thought Miss Fountain. "Don't be afraid." +And she turned into the garden. + +An hour later she came back. As she opened the door in the old wall she +saw the Sister on the steps, talking with Mrs. Denton. At sight of her +they parted. The nun drew her long black cloak about her, ran down the +steps, and hurried away. + +And indoors, Laura could not imagine what had happened to her stepmother. +Augustina was clearly excited, yet she would say nothing. Her +restlessness was incessant, and at intervals there were furtive tears. +Once or twice she looked at Laura with the most tragic eyes, but as soon +as Laura approached her she would hastily bury herself in her newspaper, +or begin counting the stitches of her knitting. + +At last, after luncheon, Mrs. Fountain suddenly threw down her work with +a sigh that shook her small person from top to toe. + +"I wish I knew what was wrong with you," said Laura, coming up behind +her, and dropping a pair of soft hands on her shoulders. "Shall I get you +your new tonic?" + +"No!" said Augustina pettishly; then, with a rush of words that she could +not repress: + +"Laura, you must--you positively must give up that young man." + +Laura came round and seated herself on the fender stool in front of her +stepmother. + +"Oh! so that's it. Has anybody else been gossiping?" + +"I do wish you wouldn't--you wouldn't take things so coolly!" cried +Augustina. "I tell you, the least trifle is enough to do a young girl of +your age harm. Your father would have been so annoyed." + +"I don't think so," said Laura quietly. "But who is it now? The Reverend +Mother?" + +Augustina hesitated. She had been recommended to keep things to herself. +But she had no will to set against Laura's, and she was, in fact, +bursting with suppressed remonstrance. + +"It doesn't matter, my dear. One never knows where a story of that kind +will go to. That's just what girls don't remember." + +"Who told a story, and what? I didn't see the Reverend Mother at the +dance." + +"Laura! But you never thought, my dear--you never knew--that there was a +cousin of Father Bowles' there--the man who keeps that little Catholic +shop in Market Street. That's what comes, you see, of going to parties +with people beneath you." + +"Oh! a cousin of Father Bowles was there?" said Laura slowly. "Well, did +he make a pretty tale?" + +"Laura! you are the most provoking--You don't the least understand what +people think. How could you go with him when everybody remonstrated?" + +"Nobody remonstrated," said the girl sharply. + +"His sister begged you not to go." + +"His sister did nothing of the kind. She was staying the night in the +village, and there was literally nothing for me to do but come home with +Hubert or to throw myself on some stranger." + +"And such stories as one hears about this dreadful young man!" cried +Augustina. + +"I dare say. There are always stories." + +"I couldn't even tell you what they are about!" said Augustina. "Your +father would _certainly_ have forbidden it altogether." + +There was a silence. Laura held her head as high as ever. She was, in +fact, in a fever of contradiction and resentment, and the interference of +people like Mrs. Denton and the Sisters was fast bringing about Mason's +forgiveness. Naturally, she was likely to hear the worst of him in that +house. What Helbeck, or what dependent on a Helbeck, would give him the +benefit of any doubt? + +Augustina knitted with all her might for a few minutes, and then looked +up. + +"Don't you think," she said, with a timid change of tone--"don't you +think, dear, you might go to Cambridge for a few weeks? I am sure the +Friedlands would take you in. You would come in for all the parties, +and--and you needn't trouble about me. Sister Angela's niece could come +and stay here for a few weeks. The Reverend Mother told me so." + +Laura rose. + +"Sister Angela suggested that? Thank you, I won't have my plans settled +for me by Sister Angela. If you and Mr. Helbeck want to turn me out, why, +of course I shall go." + +Augustina held out her hands in terror at the girl's attitude and voice. + +"Laura, don't say such things! As if you weren't an angel to me! As if I +could bear the thought of anybody else!" + +A quiver ran through Laura's features. "Well, then, don't bear it," she +said, kneeling down again beside her stepmother. "You look quite ill and +excited, Augustina. I think we'll keep the Reverend Mother out in future. +Won't you lie down and let me cover you up?" + +So it ended for the time--with physical weakness on Augustina's part, and +caresses on Laura's. + +But when she was alone, Miss Fountain sat down and tried to think things +out. + +"What are the Sisters meddling for? Do they find me in their way? I'm +flattered! I wish I was. Well!--is drunkenness the worst thing in the +world?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond a +certain point it is like madness--you must keep out of its way, for your +own sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse. +So there are!--meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of your +soul. As for the other tales, I don't believe them. But if I did, I am +not going to marry him!" + +She felt herself very wise. In truth, as Stephen Fountain had realised +with some anxiety before his death, among Laura's many ignorances, none +was so complete or so dangerous as her ignorance of all the ugly ground +facts that are strewn round us, for the stumbling of mankind. She was as +determined not to know them, as he was invincibly shy of telling them. + +For the rest, her reflections represented, no doubt, many dicta that in +the course of her young life she had heard from her father. To Stephen +Fountain the whole Christian doctrine of sin was "the enemy"; and the +mystical hatred of certain actions and habits, as such, was the fount of +half the world's unreason. + +The following day it was Father Bowles' turn. He came over in what seemed +to be his softest and most catlike mood, rubbing his hands over his chest +in a constant glee at his own jokes. He was amiability itself to Laura. +But he, too, had his twenty minutes alone with Augustina; and afterwards +Mrs. Fountain ventured once more to speak to Laura of change and +amusement. Miss Fountain smiled, and replied as before--that, in the +first place she had no invitations, and in the next, she had no dresses. +But again, as before, if Mr. Helbeck should express a wish that her visit +to Bannisdale should come to an end, that would be another matter. + + * * * * * + +Next morning Laura was taking a walk in the park when a letter was +brought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum. + +She took it to a sheltered nook by the riverside and read it. It was from +Hubert Mason, in his best commercial hand, and it ran as follows: + + +"Dear Miss Fountain,--You would not allow me, I know, to call you Cousin +Laura any more, so I don't attempt it. And of course I don't deserve +it--nor that you should ever shake hands with me again. I can't get over +thinking of what I've done. Mother and Polly will tell you that I have +hardly slept at nights--for of course you won't believe me. How I can +have been such a blackguard I don't understand. I must have taken too +much. All I know is it didn't seem much, and but for the agitation of my +mind, I don't believe anything would ever have gone wrong. But I couldn't +bear to see you dancing with that man and despising me. And there it +is--I can never get over it, and you will never forgive me. I feel I +can't stay here any more, and mother has consented at last to let me have +some money on the farm. If I could just see you before I go, to say +good-bye, and ask your pardon, there would be a better chance for me. I +can't come to Mr. Helbeck's house, of course, and I don't suppose you +would come here. I shall be coming home from Kirby Whardale fair +to-morrow night, and shall be crossing the little bridge in the +park--upper end--some time between eight and nine. But I know you won't +be there. I can't expect it, and I feel it pretty badly, I can tell you. +I did hope I might have become something better through knowing you. +Whatever you may think of me I am always + +"Your respectful and humble cousin, + +"HUBERT MASON." + + +"Well--upon my word!" said Laura. She threw the letter on to the grass +beside her, and sat, with her hands round her knees, staring at the +river, in a sparkle of anger and amazement. + +What audacity!--to expect her to steal out at night--in the dusk, +anyway--to meet him--_him_! She fed her wrath on the imagination of all +the details that would belong to such an escapade. It would be after +supper, of course, in the fast lengthening twilight. Helbeck and his +sister would be in the drawing-room--for Mr. Helbeck was expected home on +the following day--and she might perfectly well leave them, as she often +did, to talk their little Catholic gossip by themselves, and then slip +out by the chapel passage and door, through the old garden, to the gate +in the wall above the river bank, and so to the road that led along the +Greet through the upper end of the park. Nothing, of course, could be +easier--nothing. + +Merely to think of it, for a girl of Laura's temperament, was already bit +by bit to incline to it. She began to turn it over, to taste the +adventure of it--to talk very fast to Fricka, under her breath, with +little gusts of laughter. And no doubt there was something mollifying in +the boy's humble expressions. As for his sleepless nights--how salutary! +how very salutary! Only the nail must be driven in deeper--must be turned +in the wound. + +It would need a vast amount of severity, perhaps, to undo the effects of +her mere obedience to his call--supposing she made up her mind to obey +it. Well! she would be quite equal to severity. She would speak very +plain things to him--very plain things indeed. It was her first serious +adventure with any of these big, foolish, troublesome creatures of the +male sex, and she rose to it much as Helbeck might have risen to the +playing of a salmon in the Greet. Yes! he should say good-bye to her, let +priests and nuns talk what scandal they pleased. Yes! he should go on his +way forgiven and admonished--if he wished it--for kindred's sake. + +Her cheek burned, her heart beat fast. He and she were of one blood--both +of them ill-regarded by aristocrats and holy Romans. As for him, he was +going to ruin at home; and there was in him this strange, artistic gift +to be thought for and rescued. He had all the faults of the young cub. +Was he to be wholly disowned for that? Was she to cast him off for ever +at the mere bidding of the Helbecks and their friends? + +He would never, of course, be allowed to enter the Bannisdale +drawing-room, and she had no intention at present of going to Browhead +Farm. Well, then, under the skies and the clouds! A gracious pardon, an +appropriate lecture--and a short farewell. + + * * * * * + +All that day and the next Laura gave herself to her whim. She was +perfectly conscious, meanwhile, that it was a reckless and a wilful thing +that she was planning. She liked it none the less for that. In fact, the +scheme was the final crystallisation of all that bitterness of mood that +had poisoned and tormented her ever since her first coming to Bannisdale. +And it gave her for the moment the morbid pleasure that all angry people +get from letting loose the angry word or act. + +Meanwhile she became more and more conscious of a certain network of +blame and discussion that seemed to be closing about her and her actions. +It showed itself by a number of small signs. When she went into +Whinthorpe to shop for Augustina she fancied that the assistants in the +shop, and even the portly draper himself, looked at her with a sly +curiosity. The girl's sore pride grew more unmanageable hour by hour. If +there was some ill-natured gossip about her, going the round in the town +and the neighbourhood, had she--till now--given the least shadow of +excuse for it? Not the least shade of a shadow! + + * * * * * + +Mr. Helbeck, his sister, and Laura were in the drawing-room after supper. +Laura had been observing Mrs. Fountain closely. + +"She is longing to have her talk with him," thought the girl; "and she +shall have it--as much as she likes." + +The shutters were not yet closed, and the room, with its crackling logs, +was filled with a gentle mingled light. The sun, indeed, was gone, but +the west still glowed, and the tall larches in the front enclosure stood +black against a golden dome of sky. Laura rose and left the room. As she +opened the door she caught Augustina's quick look of relief and the drop +of the knitting-needles. + +Fricka was safely prisoned upstairs. Laura slipped on a hat and a dark +cloak that were hanging in the hall, and ran down the passage leading to +the chapel. The heavy seventeenth-century door at the end of it took her +some trouble to open without noise, but it was done at last, and she was +in the old garden. + +Her little figure in its cloak, among the dark yews, was hardly to be +seen in the dusk. The garden was silence itself, and the gate in the wall +was open. Once on the road beside the river she could hardly restrain +herself from running, so keen was the air, so free and wide the evening +solitude. All things were at peace; nothing moved but a few birds and the +tiniest intermittent breeze. Overhead, great thunderclouds kept the +sunset; beneath, the blues of the evening were all interwoven with rose; +so, too, were the wood and sky reflections in the gently moving water. In +some of the pools the trout were still lazily rising; pigeons and homing +rooks were slowly passing through the clear space that lay between the +tree-tops and the just emerging stars; and once Laura stopped, holding +her breath, thinking that she saw through the dusk the blue flash of a +kingfisher making for a nest she knew. Even in this dimmed light the +trees had the May magnificence--all but the oaks, which still dreamed of +a best to come. Here and there a few tufts of primroses, on the bosom of +the crag above the river, lonely and self-sufficing, like all loveliest +things, starred the dimness of the rock. + +Laura's feet danced beneath her; the evening beauty and her passionate +response flowed as it were into each other, made one beating pulse; +never, in spite of qualms and angers, had she been more physically happy, +more alive. She passed the seat where she and Helbeck had lingered on +Easter Sunday; then she struck into a path high above the river, under +spreading oaks; and presently a little bridge came in sight, with some +steps in the crag leading down to it. + +At the near end of the bridge, thrown out into the river a little way for +the convenience of fishermen, was a small wooden platform, with a +railing, which held a seat. The seat was well hidden under the trees and +bank, and Laura settled herself there. + +She had hardly waited five minutes, absorbed in the sheer pleasure of the +rippling river and the soft air, when she heard steps approaching the +bank. Looking up, she saw Mason's figure against the sky. He paused at +the top of the rocky staircase, to scan the bridge and its approaches. +Not seeing her, he threw up his hand, with some exclamation that she +could not hear. + +She smiled and rose. + +As her small form became visible between the paleness of the wooden +platform and a luminous patch in the river, she heard a cry, then a +hurrying down the rock steps. + +He stopped about a yard from her. She did not offer her hand, and after +an instant's pause, during which his eyes tried to search her face in the +darkness, he took off his hat and drew his hand across his brow with a +deep breath. + +"I never thought you'd come," he said huskily. + +"Well, certainly you had no business to ask me! And I can only stay a +very few minutes. Suppose you sit down there." + +She pointed to one of the rock steps, while she settled herself again on +the seat, some little distance away from him. + +Then there was an awkward silence, which Laura took no trouble to break. +Mason broke it at last in desperation. + +"You know that I'm an awful hand at saying anything, Miss--Miss Fountain. +I can't--so it's no good. But I've got my lesson. I've had a pretty rough +time of it, I can tell you, since last week." + +"You behaved about as badly as you could--didn't you?" said Laura's soft +yet cutting voice out of the dark. + +Mason fidgeted. + +"I can't make it no better," he said at last. "There's no saying I can, +for I can't. And if I did give you excuses, you'd not believe 'em. There +was a devil got hold of me that evening--that's the truth on't. And it +was only a glass or two I took. Well, there!--I'd have cut my hand off +sooner." + +His tone of miserable humility began to affect her rather strangely. It +was not so easy to drive in the nail. + +"You needn't be so repentant," she said, with a little shrinking laugh. +"One has to forget--everything--in good time. You've given Whinthorpe +people something to talk about at my expense--for which I am not at all +obliged to you. You nearly killed me, which doesn't matter. And you +behaved disgracefully to Mr. Helbeck. But it's done--and now you've got +to make up--somehow." + +"Has he made you pay for it--since?" said Mason eagerly. + +"He? Mr. Helbeck?" She laughed. Then she added, with all the severity +she could muster, "He treated me in a most kind and gentlemanly +way--if you want to know. The great pity is that you--and Cousin +Elizabeth--understand nothing at all about him." + +He groaned. She could hear his feet restlessly moving. + +"Well--and now you are going to Froswick," she resumed. "What are you +going to do there?" + +"There's an uncle of mine in one of the shipbuilding yards there. He's +got leave to take me into the fitting department. If I suit he'll get me +into the office. It's what I've wanted this two years." + +"Well, now you've got it," she said impatiently, "don't be dismal. You +have your chance." + +"Yes, and I don't care a haporth about it," he said, with sudden energy, +throwing his head up and bringing his fist down on his knee. + +She felt her power, and liked it. But she hurried to answer: + +"Oh! yes you do! If you're a man, you _must_. You'll learn a lot of new +things--you'll keep straight, because you'll have plenty to do. Why, it +will 'hatch you over again, and hatch, you different,' as somebody said. +You'll see." + +He looked at her, trying hard to catch her expression in the dusk. + +"And if I do come back different, perhaps--perhaps--soom day you'll not +be ashamed to be seen wi' me? Look here, Miss Laura. From the first time +I set eyes on you--from that day you came up--that Sunday--I haven't been +able to settle to a thing. I felt, right enough, I wasn't fit to speak to +you. And yet I'm your--well, your kith and kin, doan't you see? There +can't be no such tremendous gap atween us as all that. If I can just +manage myself a bit, and find the work that suits me, and get away from +these fellows here, and this beastly farm----" + +"Ah!--have you been quarrelling with Daffady all day?" + +She looked for him to fly out. But he only stared, and then turned away. + +"O Lord! what's the good of talking?" he said, with an accent that +startled her. + +She rose from her seat. + +"Are you sorry I came to talk to you? You didn't deserve it--did you?" + +Her voice was the pearliest, most musical, and yet most distant of +things. He rose, too--held by it. + +"And now you must just go and make a man of yourself. That's what you +have to do--you see? I wish papa was alive. He'd tell you how--I can't. +But if you forget your music, it'll be a sin--and if you send me your +song to write out for you, I'll do it. And tell Polly I'll come and see +her again some day. Now good-night! They'll be locking up if I don't +hurry home." + +But he stood on the step, barring the way. + +"I say, give me something to take with me," he said hoarsely. "What's +that in your hat?" + +"In my hat?" she said, laughing--(but if there had been light he would +have seen that her lips had paled). "Why, a bunch of buttercups. I bought +them at Whinthorpe yesterday." + +"Give me one," he said. + +"Give you a sham buttercup? What nonsense!" + +"It's better than nothing," he said doggedly, and he held out his hand. + +She hesitated; then she took off her hat and quietly loosened one of the +flowers. Her golden hair shone in the dimness. Mason never took his eyes +off her little head. He was keeping a grip on himself that was taxing a +whole new set of powers--straining the lad's unripe nature in wholly new +ways. + +She put the flower in his hand. + +"There; now we're friends again, aren't we? Let me pass, please--and +good-night!" + +He moved to one side, blindly fighting with the impulse to throw his +powerful arms round her and keep her there, or carry her across the +bridge--at his pleasure. + +But her light fearlessness mastered him. He let her go; he watched her +figure on the steps, against the moonlight between the oaks overhead. + +"Good-night!" she dropped again, already far away--far above him. + +The young man felt a sob in his throat. + +"My God! I shan't ever see her again," he said to himself in a sudden +terror. "She is going to that house--to that man!" + +For the first time a wild jealousy of Helbeck awoke in him. He rushed +across the bridge, dropped on a stone half-way up the further bank, then +strained his eyes across the river. + +... Yes, there she passed, a swift moving whiteness, among the great +trees that stood like watchmen along the high edge of the water. Below +him flowed the stream, a gulf of darkness, rent here and there by sheets +and jags of silver. And she, that pale wraith--across it--far away--was +flitting from his ken. + +All the fountains of the youth's nature surged up in one great outcry and +confusion. He thought of his boyish loves and sensualities--of the girls +who had provoked them--of some of the ugly facts connected with them. A +great astonishment, a great sickening, came upon him. He felt the burden +of the flesh, the struggle of the spirit. And through it all, the maddest +and most covetous yearning!--welling up through schemes and hopes, that +like the moonlit ripples on the Greet, dissolved as fast as they took +shape. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Laura went quickly home. A new tenderness, a new remorse +towards the "cub" was in the girl's mind. Ought she to have gone? Had she +been kind? Oh! she would be his friend and good angel--without any +nonsense, of course. + +She hurried through the trees and along the dimly gleaming path. Suddenly +she perceived in the distance the sparkle of a lantern. + +How vexatious! Was there no escape for her? She looked in some trouble at +the climbing woods above, at the steep bank below. + +Ah! well, her hat was large, and hid her face. And her dress was all +covered by her cloak. She hastened on. + +It was a man--an old man--carrying a bundle and a lantern. He seemed to +waver and stop as she approached him, and at the actual moment of her +passing him, to her amazement, he suddenly threw himself against one of +the trees on the mountain side of the path, and his lantern showed her +his face for an instant--a white face, stricken with--fear, was it? or +what? + +Fright gained upon herself. She ran on, and as she ran it seemed to her +that she heard something fall with a clang, and, afterwards, a cry. She +looked back. The old man was still there, erect, but his light was gone. + +Well, no doubt he had dropped his lantern. Let him light it again. It was +no concern, of hers. + +Here was the door in the wall. It opened to her touch. She glided +in--across the garden--found the chapel door ajar, and in a few more +seconds was safe in her own room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Laura was standing before her looking-glass straightening the curls that +her rapid walk had disarranged, when her attention was caught by certain +unusual sounds in the house. There was a hurrying of distant feet--calls, +as though from the kitchen region--and lastly, the deep voice of Mr. +Helbeck. Miss Fountain paused, brush in hand, wondering what had +happened. + +A noise of fluttering skirts, and a cry for "Laura!"--Miss Fountain +opened her door, and saw Augustina, who never ran, hurrying as fast as +her feebleness would let her, towards her stepdaughter. + +"Laura!--where is my sal volatile? You gave me some yesterday, you +remember, for my headache. There's somebody ill, downstairs." + +She paused for breath. + +"Here it is," said Laura, finding the bottle, and bringing it. "What's +wrong?" + +"Oh, my dear, such an adventure! There's an old man fainted in the +kitchen. He came to the back door to ask for a light for his lantern. +Mrs. Denton says he was shaking all over when she first saw him, and as +white as her apron. He told her he'd seen the ghost! 'I've often heard +tell o' the Bannisdale Lady,' he said, 'an now I've seen her!' She asked +him to sit down a minute to rest himself, and he fainted straight away. +He's that old Scarsbrook, you know, whose wife does our washing. They +live in that cottage by the weir, the other end of the park. I must go! +Mrs. Denton's giving him some brandy--and Alan's gone down. Isn't it an +extraordinary thing?" + +"Very," said Laura, accompanying her stepmother along the passage. "What +did he see?" + +She paused, laying a restraining hand on Augustina's arm--cudgelling her +brains the while. Yes! she could remember now a few contemptuous remarks +of Mr. Helbeck to Father Leadham on the subject of a ghost story that had +sprung up during the Squire's memory in connection with the park and the +house--a quite modern story, according to Helbeck, turning on the common +motive of a gypsy woman and her curse, started some forty years before +this date, with a local success not a little offensive, apparently, to +the owner of Bannisdale. + +"What did he see?" repeated the girl. "Don't hurry, Augustina; you know +the doctor told you not. Shall I take the sal volatile?" + +"Oh, no!--they want me." In any matter of doctoring small or great, +Augustina had the happiest sense of her own importance. "I don't know +what he saw exactly. It was a lady, he says--he knew it was, by the hat +and the walk. She was all in black--with 'a Dolly Varden hat'--fancy the +old fellow!--that hid her face--and a little white hand, that shot out +sparks as he came up to her! Did you ever hear such, a tale? Now, Laura, +I'm all right. Let me go. Come when you like." + +Augustina hurried off; Laura was left standing pensive in the passage. + +"H'm, that's unlucky," she said to herself. + +Then she looked down at her right hand. An old-fashioned diamond ring +with a large centre stone, which had been her mother's, shone on the +third finger. With an involuntary smile, she drew off the ring, and went +back to her room. + +"What's to be done now?" she thought, as she put the ring in a drawer. +"Shall I go down and explain--say I was out for a stroll?"--She shook her +head.--"Won't do now--I should have had more presence of mind a minute +ago. Augustina would suspect a hundred things. It's really dramatic. +Shall I go down? He didn't see my face--no, that I'll answer for! Here's +for it!" + +She pulled out the golden mass of her hair till it made a denser frame +than usual round her brow, looked at her white dress--shook her head +dubiously--laughed at her own flushed face in the glass, and calmly went +downstairs. + +She found an anxious group in the great bare servants' hall. The old man, +supported by pillows, was stretched on a wooden settle, with Helbeck, +Augustina, and Mrs. Denton standing by. The first things she saw were the +old peasant's closed eyes and pallid face--then Helbeck's grave and +puzzled countenance above him. The Squire turned at Miss Fountain's step. +Did she imagine it--or was there a peculiar sharpness in his swift +glance? + +Mrs. Denton had just been administering a second dose of brandy, and was +apparently in the midst of her own report to her master of Scarsbrook's +story. + +"'I wor just aboot to pass her,' he said, 'when I nawticed 'at her feet +made noa noise. She keäm glidin--an glidin--an my hair stood reet oop--it +lifted t'whole top o' my yed. An she gaed passt me like a puff o' +wind--as cauld as ice--an I wor mair deed nor alive. An I luked afther +her, an she vanisht i' th' varra middle o' t' path. An my leet went +oot--an I durstn't ha gane on, if it wor iver so--so I juist crawled back +tet hoose----'" + +"The door in the wall!" thought Laura. "He didn't know it was there." + +She had remained in the background while Mrs. Denton was speaking, but +now she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, and +flounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As she +passed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had become +something more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer, +and himself thrust his hands into his pockets and moved away. + +"Have you sent for anyone?" said Laura to Mrs. Fountain. + +"Yes. Wilson's gone in the pony cart for the wife. And if he doesn't come +round by the time she gets here--some one will have to go for the doctor, +Alan?" + +She looked round vaguely. + +"Of course. Wilson must go on," said Helbeck from the distance. "Or I'll +go myself." + +"But he is coming round," said Laura, pointing. + +"If yo'll nobbut move oot o' t' way, Miss, we'll be able to get at 'im," +said Mrs. Denton sharply. Laura hastily obeyed her. The housekeeper +brought more brandy; then signs of returning force grew stronger, and by +the time the wife appeared the old fellow was feebly beginning to move +and look about him. + +Amid the torrent of lamentations, questions, and hypotheses that the wife +poured forth, Laura withdrew into the background. But she could not +prevail on herself to go. Daring or excitement held her there, till the +old man should be quite himself again. + +He struggled to his feet at last, and said, with a long sigh that was +still half a shudder, "Aye--noo I'll goa home--Lisbeth." + +He was a piteous spectacle as he stood there, still trembling through all +his stunted frame, his wrinkled face drawn and bloodless, his grey hair +in a tragic confusion. Suddenly, as he looked at his wife, he said with a +clear solemnity, "Lisbeth--I ha' got my death warrant!" + +"Don't say any such thing, Scarsbrook," said Helbeck, coming forward to +support him. "You know I don't believe in this ghost business--and never +did. You saw some stranger in the park--and she passed you too quickly +for you to see where she went to. You may be sure that'll turn out to be +the truth. You remember--it's a public path--anybody might be there. Just +try and take that view of it--and don't fret, for your wife's sake. We'll +make inquiries, and I'll come and see you to-morrow. And as for death +warrants, we're all in God's care, you know--don't forget that." + +He smiled with a kindly concern and pity on the old man. But Scarsbrook +shook his head. + +"It wur t' Bannisdale Lady," he repeated; "I've often heerd on +her--often--and noo I've seen her." + +"Well, to-morrow you'll be quite proud of it," said Helbeck cheerfully. +"Come, and let me put you into the cart. I think, if we make a +comfortable seat for you, you'll be fit to drive home now." + +Supported by the Squire's strong arm on one side, and his wife on the +other, Scarsbrook managed to hobble down the long passage leading to the +door in the inner courtyard, where the pony cart was standing. It was +evident that his perceptions were still wholly dazed. He had not +recognised or spoken to anyone in the room but the Squire--not even to +his old crony Mrs. Denton. + +Laura drew a long breath. + +"Augustina, do go to bed," she said, going up to her stepmother--"or +you'll be ill next." + +Augustina allowed herself to be led upstairs. But it was long before she +would let her stepdaughter leave her. She was full of supernatural +terrors and excitements, and must talk about all the former appearances +of the ghost--the stories that used to be told in her childhood--the new +or startling details in the old man's version, and so forth. "What could +he have meant by the light on the hand?" she said wondering. "I never +heard of that before. And she used always to be in grey; and now he says +that she had a black dress from top to toe." + +"Their wardrobes are so limited--poor damp, sloppy things!" said Laura +flippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose this +nonsense will be all over the country-side to-morrow, Augustina?" + +"What do you _really_ think he saw, Laura?" cried Mrs. Fountain, wavering +between doubt and belief. + +"Goodness!--don't ask me." Miss Fountain shrugged her small shoulders. "I +don't keep a family ghost." + + * * * * * + +When at last Augustina had been settled in bed, and persuaded to take +some of her sleeping medicine, Laura was bidding her good-night, when +Mrs. Fountain said, "Oh! I forgot, Laura--there was a letter brought in +for you from the post-office, by Wilson this afternoon--he gave it to +Mrs. Denton, and she forgot it till after dinner----" + +"Of course--because it was mine," said Laura vindictively. "Where is it?" + +"On the drawing-room chimney-piece." + +"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck." + +"Oh! no--it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study." + +Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consulting +her watch. + +For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall in +with Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself had +anyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were in +tumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, her +brain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which she +had observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of that +conversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while she +was by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before? +Well!--if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send her +away--by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, was +in all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to lead +her life as she pleased. + +Nevertheless--as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle in +her hand--Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping. +During the months following her father's death, these agonies of crying +had come upon her night after night--unseen by any human being. She felt +now the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't have +this excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "No +nerves would stand it." + +A light under the library door. Well and good. How--she wondered--did he +occupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice she +had heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock. + +Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door, +and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp still +burned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr. +Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture of +astonishment. + +Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. +Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here." + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing. + +"Augustina told me there was a letter for me this evening." + +"Of course. It is here on the mantelpiece. I ought to have remembered +it." + +He took up the letter and held it towards her. Then suddenly he paused, +and sharply withdrawing it, he placed it on a table beside him, and laid +his hand upon it. She saw a flash of quick resolution in his face, and +her own pulses gave a throb. + +"Miss Fountain, will you excuse my detaining you for a moment? I have +been thinking much about this old man's story, and the possible +explanation of it. It struck me in a very singular way. As you know, I +have never paid much attention to the ghost story here--we have never +before had a testimony so direct. Is it possible--that you might throw +some light upon it? You left us, you remember, after dinner. Did you by +chance go into the garden?--the evening was tempting, I think. If so, +your memory might possibly recall to you some--slight thing." + +"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "I did go into the garden." + +His eye gleamed. He came a step nearer. + +"Did you see or hear anything--to explain what happened?" + +She did not answer for a moment. She made a vague movement, as though to +recover her letter--looked curiously into a glass case that stood beside +her, containing a few Stuart relics and autographs. Then, with absolute +self-possession, she turned and confronted him, one hand resting on the +glass case. + +"Yes; I can explain it all. I was the ghost!" + +There was a moment's silence. A smile--a smile that she winced under, +showed itself on Helbeck's lip. + +"I imagined as much," he said quietly. + +She stood there, torn by different impulses. Then a passion of annoyance +with herself, and anger with him, descended on her. + +"Now perhaps you would like to know why I concealed it?" she said, with +all the dignity she could command. "Simply, because I had gone out to +meet and say good-bye to a person--who is my relation--whom I cannot meet +in this house, and against whom there is here an unreasonable--" She +hesitated; then resumed, leaning obstinately on the words--"Yes! take it +all in all, it _is_ an unreasonable prejudice." + +"You mean Mr. Hubert Mason?" + +She nodded. + +"You think it an unreasonable prejudice after what happened the other +night?" + +She wavered. + +"I don't want to defend what happened the other night," she said, while +her voice shook. + +Helbeck observed her carefully. There was a great decision in his manner, +and at the same time a fine courtesy. + +"You knew, then, that he was to be in the park? Forgive my questions. +They are not mere curiosity." + +"Perhaps not," she said indifferently. "But I think I have told you all +that needs to be told. May I have my letter?" + +She stepped forward. + +"One moment. I wonder, Miss Fountain,"--he chose his words slowly--"if I +could make you understand my position. It is this. My sister brings a +young lady, her stepdaughter, to stay under my roof. That young lady +happens to be connected with a family in this neighbourhood, which is +already well known to me. For some of its members I have nothing but +respect--about one I happen to have a strong opinion. I have reasons, for +my opinion. I imagine that very few people of any way of thinking would +hold me either unreasonable or prejudiced in the matter. Naturally, it +gives me some concern that a young lady towards whom I feel a certain +responsibility should be much seen with this young man. He is not her +equal socially, and--pardon me--she knows nothing at all about the type +to which he belongs. Indirectly I try to warn her. I speak to my sister +as gently as I can. But from the first she rejects all I have to say--she +gives me credit for no good intention--and she will have none of my +advice. At last a disagreeable incident happens--and unfortunately the +knowledge of it is not confined to ourselves----" + +Laura threw him a flashing look. + +"No!--there are people who have taken care of that!" she said. + +Helbeck took no notice. + +"It is known not only to ourselves," he repeated steadily. "It starts +gossip. My sister is troubled. She asks you to put an end to this state +of things, and she consults me, feeling that indeed we are all in some +way concerned." + +"Oh, say at once that I have brought scandal on you all!" cried Laura. +"That of course is what Sister Angela and Father Bowles have been saying +to Augustina. They are pleased to show the greatest anxiety about me--so +much so, that they most kindly wish to relieve me of the charge of +Augustina.--So I understand! But I fear I am neither docile nor +grateful!--that I never shall be grateful----" + +Helbeck interrupted. + +"Let us come to that presently. I should like to finish my story. While +my sister and I are consulting, trying to think of all that can be done +to stop a foolish talk and undo an unlucky incident, this same young +lady"--his voice took a cold clearness--"steals out by night to keep an +appointment with this man, who has already done her so great a +disservice. Now I should like to ask her, if all this is kind--is +reasonable--is generous towards the persons with whom she is at present +living--if such conduct is not"--he paused--"unwise towards +herself--unjust towards others." + +His words came out with a strong and vibrating emphasis. Laura confronted +him with crimson cheeks. + +"I think that will do, Mr. Helbeck!" she cried. "You have had your +say.--Now just let me say this,--these people were my relations--I have +no other kith and kin in the world." + +He made a quick step forward as though in distress. But she put up her +hand. + +"I want very much to say this, please. I knew perfectly well when I came +here that you couldn't like the Masons--for many reasons." Her voice +broke again. "You never liked Augustina's marriage--you weren't likely to +want to see anything of papa's people. I didn't ask you to see them. All +my standards and theirs are different from yours. But I prefer +theirs--not yours! I have nothing to do with yours. I was brought +up--well, to _hate_ yours--if one must tell the truth." + +She paused, half suffocated, her chest heaving. Helbeck's glance +enveloped her--took in the contrast between her violent words and the +shrinking delicacy of her small form. A great melting stole over the +man's dark face. But he spoke dryly enough. + +"I imagine the standards of Protestants and Catholics are pretty much +alike in matters of this kind. But don't let us waste time any more over +what has already happened. I should like, I confess, to plead with you as +to the future." + +He looked at her kindly, even entreatingly. All through this scene she +had been unwittingly, angrily conscious of his personal dignity and +charm--a dignity that seemed to emerge in moments of heightened action or +feeling, and to slip out of sight again under the absent hermit-manner of +his ordinary life. She was smarting under his words--ready to concentrate +a double passion of resentment upon them, as soon as she should be alone +and free to recall them. And yet---- + +"As to the future," she said coldly. "That is simple enough as far as one +person is concerned. Hubert Mason is going to Froswick immediately, into +business." + +"I am glad to hear it--it will be very much for his good." + +He stopped a moment, searching for the word of persuasion and +conciliation. + +"Miss Fountain!--if you imagine that certain incidents which happened +here long before you came into this neighbourhood had anything to do with +what I have been saying now, let me assure you--most earnestly--that it +is not so! I recognise fully that with regard to a certain case--of which +you may have heard--the Masons and their friends honestly believed that +wrong and injustice had been done. They attempted personal violence. I +can hardly be expected to think it argument! But I bear them no malice. I +say this because you may have heard of something that happened three or +four years ago--a row in the streets, when Father Bowles and I were set +upon. It has never weighed with me in the slightest, and I could have +shaken hands with old Mason--who was in the crowd, and refused to stop +the stone throwing--the day after. As for Mrs. Mason"--he looked up with +a smile--"if she could possibly have persuaded herself to come with her +daughter and see you here, my welcome would not have been wanting. But, +you know, she would as soon visit Gehenna! Nobody could be more conscious +than I, Miss Fountain, that this is a dreary house for a young lady to +live in--and----" + +The colour mounted into his face, but he did not shrink from what he +meant to say. + +"And you have made us all feel that you regard the practices and +observances by which we try to fill and inspire our lives, as mere +hateful folly and superstition!" He checked himself. "Is that too +strong?" he added, with a sudden eagerness. "If so, I apologise for and +withdraw it!" + +Laura, for a moment, was speechless. Then she gathered her forces, and +said, with a voice she in vain tried to compose: + +"I think you exaggerate, Mr. Helbeck; at any rate, I hope you do. But the +fact is, I--I ought not to have tried to bear it. Considering all that +had happened at home--it was more than I had strength for! And +perhaps--no good will come of going on with it--and it had better cease. +Mr. Helbeck!--if your Superior can really find a good nurse and companion +at once, will you kindly communicate with her? I will go to Cambridge +immediately, as soon as I can arrange with my friends. Augustina, no +doubt, will come and stay with me somewhere at the sea, later on in the +year." + +Helbeck had been listening to her--to the sharp determination of her +voice--in total silence. He was leaning against the high mantelpiece, and +his face was hidden from her. As she ceased to speak, he turned, and his +mere aspect beat down the girl's anger in a moment. He shook his head +sadly. + +"Dr. MacBride stopped me on the bridge yesterday, as he was coming away +from the house." + +Laura drew back. Her eyes fastened upon him. + +"He thinks her in a serious state. We are not to alarm her, or interfere +with her daily habits. There is valvular disease--as I think you +know--and it has advanced. Neither he nor anyone can forecast." + +The girl's head fell. She recognised that the contest was over. She could +not go; she could not leave Augustina; and the inference was clear. There +had not been a word of menace, but she understood. Mr. Helbeck's will +must prevail. She had brought this humiliating half-hour on herself--and +she would have to bear the consequences of it. She moved towards Helbeck. + +"Well then, I must stay," she said huskily, "and I must try to--to +remember where I am in future. I ought to be able to hide everything I +feel--of course! But that unfortunately is what I never learnt. +And--there are some ways of life--that--that are too far apart. +However!"--she raised her hand to her brow, frowned, and thought a +little--"I can't make any promise about my cousins, Mr. Helbeck. _I_ know +perfectly well--whatever may be said--that I have done nothing whatever +to be ashamed of. I have wanted to--to help my cousin. He is worth +helping--in spite of everything--and I _will_ help him, if I can! But if +I am to remain your guest, I see that I must consult your wishes----" + +Helbeck tried again to stop her with a gesture, but she hurried on. + +"As far as this house and neighbourhood are concerned, no one shall have +any reason--to talk." + +Then she threw her head back with a sudden flush. + +"Of course, if people are born to say and think ill-natured things!--like +Mrs. Denton----" + +Helbeck exclaimed. + +"I will see to that," he said. "You shall have no reason to complain, +there." + +Laura shrugged her shoulders. + +"Will you kindly give me my letter?" + +As he handed it to her, she made him a little bow, walked to the door +before he could open it for her, and was gone. + +Helbeck turned back, with a smothered exclamation. He put the lamps out, +and went slowly to his study. + + * * * * * + +As the master of Bannisdale closed the door of his library behind him, +the familiar room produced upon him a sharp and singular impression. The +most sacred and the most critical hours of his life had been passed +within its walls. As he entered it now, it seemed to repulse him, to be +no longer his. + +The room was not large. It was the old library of the house, and the +Helbecks in their palmiest days had never been a literary race. There was +a little seventeenth century theology; and a few English classics. There +were the French books of Helbeck's grandmother--"Madame," as she was +always known at Bannisdale; and amongst them the worn brown volumes of +St. François de Sales, with the yellowish paper slips that Madame had put +in to mark her favourite passages, somewhere in the days of the First +Empire. Near by were some stray military volumes, treatises on tactics +and fortification, that had belonged to a dashing young officer in the +Dillon Regiment, close to some "Epîtres Amoureux," a translation of +"Daphnis and Chloe," and the like--all now sunk together into the same +dusty neglect. + +On the wall above Helbeck's writing-table were ranged the books that had +been his mother's, together with those that he himself habitually used. +Here every volume was an old friend, a familiar tool. Alan Helbeck was +neither a student nor a man of letters; but he had certain passionate +prejudices, instincts, emotions, of which some books were the source and +sustenance. + +For the rest--during some years he had been a member of the Third Order +of St. Francis, and in its other features the room was almost the room of +a religious. A priedieu stood against the inner wall, and a crucifix hung +above it. A little further on was a small altar of St. Joseph with its +pictures, its statuette, and its candles; and a poor lithograph of Pio +Nono looked down from the mantelpiece. The floor was almost bare, save +for a few pieces of old matting here and there. The worn Turkey carpet +that had formerly covered it had been removed to make the drawing-room +comfortable for Augustina; so had most of the chairs. Those left were of +the straightest and hardest. + +In that dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most +intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a +strange sense of wrench--of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went +to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his +watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay upon it. + +The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection of +passages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of his +mother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst. + +On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copied +from one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritual +exercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it. + +"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, my +only good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heart +from every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thy +holy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to please +Thee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Thee +to come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance all +those effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce in +me._" + +He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Then +slowly he turned back to an earlier page-- + +"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must not +be under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first and +chiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul._" + +A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began to +pace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind, +and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle was +harder. The waves of rising passion broke through him. + +"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy to +have forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--to +have felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce with +me--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--she +knows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--I +knew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--from +the first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion for +her father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of me +and of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling for +Augustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two or +three points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps, +that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How she +loathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would sooner +die than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment to +command her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to the +utmost. Ah!" + +He stood still, and with an effort of iron resolution put from him the +fancies that were thronging on the brain. If it were possible for him to +conquer her, conceivable that he might win her--such a dream was +forbidden to him, Alan Helbeck, a thousandfold! Such a marriage would be +the destruction of innumerable schemes for the good of the Church, for +the perfecting of his own life. It would be the betrayal of great trusts, +the abandonment of great opportunities. "My life would centre in her. She +would come first--the Church second. Her nature would work on mine--not +mine on hers. Could I ever speak to her even of what I believe?--the very +alphabet of it is unknown to her. I shrink from proselytism. God forgive +me!--it is her wild pagan self that I love--that I desire----" + +The blast of human longing, human pain, was hard to meet--hard to subdue. +But the Catholic fought--and conquered. + +"I am not my own--I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man could +betray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord--to +his Church. The Church frowns on such a love--such marriages. She does +not forbid them--but they pain her heart. I have accepted her judgment +till now, without difficulty, without conflict. Now to obey is hard. But +I can obey--we are not asked impossibilities." + +He walked to the crucifix, and threw himself down before it. A midnight +stillness brooded over the house. + + * * * * * + +But far away, in an upper room, Laura Fountain had cried herself to +sleep--only to wake again and again, with the tears flooding her cheeks. +Was it merely a disagreeable and exciting scene she had gone through? +What was this new invasion of her life?--this new presence to the inward +eye of a form and look that at once drew her and repulsed her. A hundred +alien forces were threatening and pressing upon her--and out from the +very heart of them came this strange drawing--this magnetism--this +troubling misery. + +To be prisoned in Bannisdale--under Mr. Helbeck's roof--for months and +months longer--this thought was maddening to her. + +But when she imagined herself free to go--and far away once more from +this old and melancholy house--among congenial friends and scenes--she +was no happier than before. A little moan of anger and pain came, that +she stifled against her pillow, calling passionately on the sleep that +would, that must, chase all these phantoms of fatigue or excitement--and +give her back her old free self. + + + + +BOOK III + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"We shall get there in capital time--that's nice!" said Polly Mason, +putting down the little railway guide she had just purchased at Marsland +Station, with a general rustle of satisfaction. + +Polly indeed shone with good temper and new clothes. Her fringe--even +halved--was prodigious. Her cheap lemon-coloured gloves were cracking on +her large hands; and round her beflowered hat she had tied clouds on +clouds of white tulle, which to some extent softened the tans and +crimsons of her complexion. Her dress was of a stiff white cotton stuff, +that fell into the most startling folds and angles; and at every movement +of it, the starch rattled. + +On the opposite seat of the railway carriage was Laura Fountain--an open +book upon her knee that she was not reading. She made no answer, however, +to Polly's remark; the impression left by her attitude was that she took +no interest in it. Miss Fountain herself hardly seemed to have profited +much by that Westmoreland air whereof the qualities were to do so much +for Augustina. It was now June, the end of June, and Laura was certainly +paler, less blooming, than she had been in March. She seemed more +conscious; she was certainly less radiant. Whether her prettiness had +gained by the slight change, might be debated. Polly's eyes, indeed, as +they sped along, paid her cousin one long covetous tribute. The +difficulty that she always had in putting on her own clothes, and +softening her own physical points, made her the more conscious of Laura's +delicate ease, of all the yielding and graceful lines into which the +little black and white muslin frock fell so readily, of all that natural +kinship between Laura and her hats, Laura and her gloves, which poor +Polly fully perceived, knowing well and sadly that she herself could +never attain to it. + +Nevertheless--pretty, Miss Fountain might be; elegant she certainly was; +but Polly did not find her the best of companions for a festal day. They +were going to Froswick--the big town on the coast--to meet Hubert and +another young man, one Mr. Seaton, foreman in a large engineering +concern, whose name Polly had not been able to mention without bridling, +for some time past. + +It was more than a fortnight since the sister, driven by Hubert's +incessant letters, had proposed to Laura that they two should spend a +summer day at Froswick and see the great steel works on which the fame of +that place depended, escorted and entertained by the two young men. Laura +at first had turned a deaf ear. Then all at once--a very flare of +eagerness and acceptance!--a sudden choosing of day and train. And now +that they were actually on their way, with everything arranged, and a +glorious June sun above their heads, Laura was so silent, so reluctant, +so irritable--you might have thought---- + +Well!--Polly really did not know what to think. She was not quite happy +herself. From time to time, as her look dwelt on Laura, she was conscious +of certain guilty reserves and concealments in her own breast. She wished +Hubert had more sense--she hoped to goodness it would all go off nicely! +But of course it would. Polly was an optimist and took all things simply. +Her anxieties for Laura did not long resist the mere pleasure of the +journey and the trip, the flatteries of expectation. What a very +respectable and, on the whole, good-looking young man was Mr. Seaton! +Polly had met him first at the Browhead dance; so that what was a mere +black and ugly spot in Laura's memory shone rosy-red in her cousin's. + +Meanwhile Laura, mainly to avoid Polly's conversation, was looking hard +out of window. They were running along the southern shore of a great +estuary. Behind the loitering train rose the hills they had just left, +the hills that sheltered the stream and the woods of Bannisdale. That +rich, dark patch beneath the further brow was the wood in which the house +stood. To the north, across the bay, ran the line of high mountains, a +dim paradise of sunny slopes and steeps, under the keenest and brightest +of skies--blue ramparts from which the gently opening valleys flowed +downwards, one beside the other, to the estuary and the sea. + +Not that the great plunging sea itself was much to be seen as yet. +Immediately beyond the railway line stretched leagues of firm reddish +sand, pierced by the innumerable channels of the Greet. The sun lay hot +and dazzling on the wide flat surfaces, on the flocks of gulls, on the +pools of clear water. The window was open, and through the June heat +swept a sharp, salt breath. Laura, however, felt none of the physical +exhilaration that as a rule overflowed in her so readily. Was it because +the Bannisdale Woods were still visible? What made the significance of +that dark patch to the girl's restless eye? She came back to it again and +again. It was like a flag, round which a hundred warring thoughts had +come to gather. + +Why? + +Were not she and Mr. Helbeck on the best of terms? Was not Augustina +quite pleased--quite content? "I always knew, my dear Laura, that you and +Alan would get on, in time. Why, anyone could get on with Alan--he's so +kind!" When these things were said, Laura generally laughed. She did not +remind Mrs. Fountain that she, at one time of her existence, had not +found it particularly easy and simple to "get on with Alan"; but the girl +did once allow herself the retort--"It's not so easy to quarrel, is it, +when you don't see a person from week's end to week's end?" "Week's end +to week's end?" Mrs. Fountain repeated vaguely. "Yes--Alan is away a +great deal--people trust him so much--he has so much business." + +Laura was of opinion that his first business might very well have been to +see a little more of his widowed sister! She and Augustina spent days and +days alone, while Mr. Helbeck pursued the affairs of the Church. One +precious attempt indeed had been made to break the dulness of Bannisdale. +Miss Fountain's cheeks burned when she thought of it. There had been an +afternoon party! though Augustina's widowhood was barely a year old! Mrs. +Fountain had been sent about the country delivering notes and cards. And +the result:--oh, such a party!--such an interminable afternoon! Where had +the people come from?--who were they? If Polly, full of curiosity, asked +for some details, Laura would toss her head and reply that she knew +nothing at all about it; that Mrs. Denton had provided bad tea and worse +cakes, and the guests had "filled their chairs," and there was nothing +else to say. Mr. Helbeck's shyness and efforts; the glances of appeal he +threw every now and then towards his sister; his evident depression when +the thing was done--these things were not told to Polly. There was a +place for them in the girl's sore mind; but they did not come to speech. +Anyway she believed--nay, was quite sure--that Bannisdale would not be so +tried a second time. For whose benefit was it done?--whose! + +One evening---- + +As the train crossed the bridge of the estuary, from one stretch of hot +sand to another, Laura, staring at the view, saw really nothing but an +image of the mind, felt nothing except what came through the magic of +memory. + +The hall of Bannisdale, with the lingering daylight of the north still +coming in at ten o'clock through the uncurtained oriel windows--herself +at the piano, Augustina on the settle--a scent of night and flowers +spreading through the dim place from the open windows of the drawing-room +beyond. One candle is beside her--and there are strange glints of +moonlight here and there on the panelling. A tall figure enters from the +chapel passage. Augustina makes room on the settle--the Squire leans back +and listens. And the girl at the piano plays; the stillness and the night +seem to lay releasing hands upon her; bonds that have been stifling and +cramping the soul break down; she plays with all her self, as she might +have talked or wept to a friend--to her father.... And at last, in a +pause, the Squire puts a new candle beside her, and his deep shy voice +commends her, asks her to go on playing. Afterwards, there is a pleasant +and gentle talk for half an hour--Augustina can hardly be made to go to +bed--and when at last she rises, the girl's small hand slips into the +man's, is lost there, feels a new lingering touch, from which both +withdraw in almost equal haste. And the night, for the girl, is broken +with restlessness, with wild efforts to draw the old fetters tight again, +to clamp and prison something that flutters--that struggles. + +Then next morning, there is an empty chair at the breakfast table. "The +Squire left early on business." Without any warning--any courteous +message? One evening at home, after a long absence, and then--off again! +A good Catholic, it seems, lives in the train, and makes himself the +catspaw of all who wish to use him for their own ends! + +... As to that old peasant, Scarsbrook, what could be more arbitrary, +more absurd, than Mr. Helbeck's behaviour? The matter turns out to be +serious. Fright blanches the old fellow's beard and hair; he takes to his +bed, and the doctor talks of severe "nervous shock"--very serious, often +deadly, at the patient's age. Why not confess everything at once, set +things straight, free the poor shaken mind from its oppression? Who's +afraid?--what harm is there in an after-dinner stroll? + +But there!--truth apparently is what no one wants, what no one will +have--least of all, Mr. Helbeck. She sees a meeting in the park, under +the oaks--the same tall man and the girl--the girl bound impetuously for +confession, and the soothing of old Scarsbrook's terrors once for +all--the man standing in the way, as tough and prickly as one of his own +hawthorns. Courtesy, of course! there is no one can make courtesy so +galling; and then such a shooting out of will and personality, so sudden, +so volcanic a heat of remonstrance! And a woman is such a poor ill-strung +creature, even the boldest of them! She yields when she should have +pressed forward--goes home to rage, when she should have stayed to +wrestle. + +Afterwards, another absence--the old house silent as the grave--and +Augustina so fretful, so wearisome! But she is better, much better. How +unscrupulous are doctors, and those other persons who make them say +exactly what suits the moment! + +The dulness seems to grow with the June heat. Soon it becomes +intolerable. Nobody comes, nobody speaks; no mind offers itself to yours +for confidence and sympathy. Well, but change and excitement of some sort +one _must_ have!--who is to blame, if you get it where you can? + +A day in Froswick with Hubert Mason? Yes--why not? Polly proposes it--has +proposed it once or twice before to no purpose. For two months now the +young man has been in training. Polly writes to him often; Laura +sometimes wonders whether the cross-examinations through which Polly puts +her may not partly be for Hubert's benefit. She herself has written twice +to him in answer to some half-dozen letters, has corrected his song for +him--has played altogether a very moral and sisterly part. Is the youth +really in love? Perhaps. Will it do him any harm? + +Augustina of course dislikes the prospect of the Froswick day. But, +really, Augustina must put up with it! The Reverend Mother will come for +the afternoon, and keep her company. Such civility of late on the part of +all the Catholic friends of Bannisdale towards Miss Fountain!--a civility +always on the watch, week by week, day by day--that never yields itself +for an instant, has never a human impulse, an unguarded tone. Father +Leadham is there one day--he makes a point of talking with Miss Fountain. +He leads the conversation to Cambridge, to her father--his keen glance +upon her all the time, the hidden life of the convert and the mystic +leaping every now and then to the surface, and driven down again by a +will that makes itself felt--even by so cool a listener--as a living +tyrannous thing, developed out of all proportion to, nay at the cruel +expense of, the rest of the personality. Yet it is no will of the man's +own--it is the will of his order, of his faith. And why these repeated +stray references to Bannisdale--to its owner--to the owner's goings and +comings? They are hardly questions, but they might easily have done the +work of questions had the person addressed been willing. Laura laughs to +think of it. + +Ah! well--but discretion to-day, discretion to-morrow, discretion always, +is not the most amusing of diets. How dumb, how tame, has she become! +There is no one to fight with, nothing whereon to let loose the +sharp-edged words and sayings that lie so close behind the girl's shut +lips. How amazing that one should positively miss those fuller activities +in the chapel that depend on the Squire's presence! Father Bowles says +Mass there twice a week; the light still burns before the altar; several +times a day Augustina disappears within the heavy doors. But when Mr. +Helbeck is at home, the place becomes, as it were, the strong heart of +the house. It beats through the whole organism; so that no one can ignore +or forget it. + +What is it that makes the difference when he returns? Unwillingly, the +mind shapes its reply. A sense of unity and law comes back into the +house--a hidden dignity and poetry. The Squire's black head carries with +it stern reminders, reminders that challenge or provoke; but "he nothing +common does nor mean," and smaller mortals, as the weeks go by, begin to +feel their hot angers and criticisms driven back upon themselves, to +realise the strange persistency and force of the religious life. + +Inhuman force! But force of any kind tends to draw, to conquer. More than +once Laura sees herself at night, almost on the steps of the chapel, in +the dark shadows of the passage--following Augustina. But she has never +yet mounted the steps--never passed the door. Once or twice she has +angrily snatched herself from listening to the distant voice. + +... Mr. Helbeck makes very little comment on the Froswick plan. One swift +involuntary look at breakfast, as who might say--"Our compact?" But there +was no compact. And go she will. + +And at last all opposition clears away. It must be Mr. Helbeck who has +silenced Augustina--for even she complains no more. Trains are looked +out; arrangements are made to fetch Polly from a half-way village; a fly +is ordered to meet the 9.10 train at night. Why does one feel a culprit +all through? Absurdity! Is one to be mewed up all one's life, to throw +over all fun and frolic at Mr. Helbeck's bidding--Mr. Helbeck, who now +scarcely sets foot in Bannisdale, who seems to have turned his back upon +his own house, since that precise moment when his sister and her +stepdaughter came to inhabit it? Never till this year was he restless in +this way--so says Mrs. Denton, whose temper grows shorter and shorter. + +Oh--as to fun and frolic! The girl yawns as she looks out of window. What +a long hot day it is going to be--and how foolish are all expeditions, +all formal pleasures! 9.10 at Marsland--about seven, she supposes, at +Froswick? Already her thoughts are busy, hungrily busy with the evening, +and the return. + + * * * * * + +The train sped along. They passed a little watering-place under the steep +wooded hills--a furnace of sun on this hot June day, in winter a soft and +sheltered refuge from the north. Further on rose the ruins of a great +Cistercian abbey, great ribs and arches of red sandstone, that still, in +ruin, made the soul and beauty of a quiet valley; then a few busy towns +with mills and factories, the fringe of that industrial district which +lies on the southern and western border of the Lake Country; more wide +valleys sweeping back into blue mountains; a wealth of June leaf and +blossoming tree; and at last docks and buildings, warehouses and "works," +a network of spreading railway lines, and all the other signs of an +important and growing town. The train stopped amid a crowd, and Polly +hurried to the door. + +"Why, Hubert!--Mr. Seaton!--Here we are!" + +She beckoned wildly, and not a few passers-by turned to look at the +nodding clouds of tulle. + +"We shall find them, Polly--don't shout," said Laura behind her, in some +disgust. + +Shout and beckon, however, Polly did and would, till the two young men +were finally secured. + +"Why, Hubert, you never towd me what a big place 'twas," said Polly +joyously. "Lor, Mr. Seaton, doant fash yoursel. This is Miss Fountain--my +cousin. You'll remember her, I knaw." + +Mr. Seaton began a polite and stilted speech while possessing himself of +Polly's shawl and bag. He was a very superior young man of the clerk or +foreman type, somewhat ill put together at the waist, with a flat back to +his head, and a cadaverous countenance. Laura gave him a rapid look. But +her chief curiosity was for Hubert. And at her first glance she saw the +signs of that strong and silent process perpetually going on amongst us +that tames the countryman to the life and habits of the town. It was only +a couple of months since the young athlete from the fells had been +brought within its sway, and already the marks of it were evident in +dress, speech, and manner. The dialect was almost gone; the black Sunday +coat was of the most fashionable cut that Froswick could provide; and as +they walked along, Laura detected more than once in the downcast eyes of +her companion, a stealthy anxiety as to the knees of his new grey +trousers. So far the change was not an embellishment. The first loss of +freedom and rough strength is never that. But it roused the girl's +notice, and a sort of secret sympathy. She too had felt the curb of an +alien life!--she could almost have held out her hand to him as to a +comrade in captivity. + +Outside the station, to Laura's surprise--considering the object of the +expedition--Hubert made a sign to his sister, and they two dropped behind +a little. + +"What's the matter with her?" said Hubert abruptly, as soon as he judged +that they were out of hearing of the couple in front. + +"Who do you mean? Laura? Why, she's well enoof!" + +"Then she don't look it. She's fretting. What's wrong with her?" + +As Hubert looked down upon his sister, Polly was startled by the +impatient annoyance of look and manner. And how red-rimmed and weary were +the lad's eyes! You might have thought he had not slept for a week. +Polly's mind ran through a series of conjectures; and she broke out with +Westmoreland plainness-- + +"Hubert, I do wish tha wouldn't be sich a fool! I've towd tha so times +and times." + +"Aye, and you may tell me so till kingdom come--I shan't mind you," he +said doggedly. "There's something between her and the Squire, I know +there is. I know it by the look of her." + +Polly laughed. + +"How you jump! I tell tha she never says a word aboot him." + +Hubert looked moodily at Laura's little figure in front. + +"All the more reason!" he said between his teeth. "She'd talk about him +when she first came. But I'll find out--never fear." + +"For goodness' sake, Hubert, let her be!" said Polly, entreating. "Sich +wild stuff as thoo's been writin me! Yan might ha thowt yo'd be fer +cuttin yor throat, if yo' didn't get her doon here.--What art tha thinkin +of, lad? She'll never marry tha! She doan't belong to us--and there's noa +undoin it." + +Hubert made no reply, but unconsciously his muscular frame took a +passionate rigidity; his face became set and obstinate. + +"Well, you keep watch," he said. "You'll see--I'll make it worth your +while." + +Polly looked up--half laughing. She understood his reference to herself +and her new sweetheart. Hubert would play her game if she would play his. +Well--she had no objection whatever to help him to the sight of Laura +when she could. Polly's moral sense was not over-delicate, and as to the +upshot and issues of things, her imagination moved but slowly. She did +not like to let herself think of what might have been Hubert's relations +to women--to one or two wild girls about Whinthorpe for instance. But +Laura--Laura who was so much their social better, whose manners and +self-possession awed them both, what smallest harm could ever come to her +from any act or word of Hubert's? For this rustic Westmoreland girl, +Laura Fountain stood on a pedestal robed and sceptred like a little +queen. Hubert was a fool to fret himself--a fool to go courting some one +too high for him. What else was there to say or think about it? + +At the next street corner Laura made a resolute stop. Polly should not +any longer be defrauded of her Mr. Seaton. Besides she, Laura, wished to +talk to Hubert. Mr. Beaton's long words, and way of mouthing his highly +correct phrases, had already seemed to take the savour out of the +morning. + +When the exchange was made--Mr. Seaton alas! showing less eagerness than +might have been expected--Laura quietly examined her companion. It seemed +to her that he was taller than ever; surely she was not much higher than +his elbow! Hubert, conscious that he was being scrutinised, turned red, +looked away, coughed, and apparently could find nothing to say. + +"Well--how are you getting on?" said the light voice, sending its +vibration through all the man's strong frame. + +"I suppose I'm getting on all right," he said, switching at the railings +beside the road with his stick. + +"What sort of work do you do?" + +He gave her a stumbling account, from which she gathered that he was for +the time being the factotum of an office, sent on everybody's errands, +and made responsible for everybody's shortcomings. + +She threw him a glance of pity. This young Hercules, with his open-air +traditions, and his athlete's triumphs behind him, turned into the butt +and underling of half a dozen clerks in a stuffy office! + +"I don't mind," he said hastily. "All the others paid for their places; I +didn't pay for mine. I'll be even with them all some day. It was the +chance I wanted, and my uncle gives me a lift now and then. It was to +please him they gave me the berth; he's worth thousands and thousands a +year to them!" + +And he launched into a boasting account of the importance and abilities +of his uncle, Daniel Mason, who was now managing director of the great +shipbuilding yard into which Hubert had been taken, as a favour to his +kinsman. + +"He began at the bottom, same as me--only he was younger than me," said +Hubert, "so he had the pull. But you'll see, I'll work up. I've learnt a +lot since I've been here. The classes at the Institute--well, they're +fine!" + +Laura showed an astonished glance. New sides of the lad seemed to be +revealing themselves. + +She inquired after his music. But he declared he was too busy to think of +it. By-and-by in the winter he would have lessons. There was a violin +class at the Institute--perhaps he'd join that. Then abruptly, staring +down upon her with his wide blue eyes-- + +"And how have you been getting on with the Squire?" + +He thought she started, but couldn't be quite sure. + +"Getting on with the Squire? Why, capitally! Whenever he's there to get +on with." + +"What--he's been away?" he said eagerly. + +She raised her shoulders. + +"He's always away----" + +"Why, I thought they'd have made a Papist of you by now," he said. + +His laugh was rough, but his eyes held her with a curious insistence. + +"Think something more reasonable, please, next time! Now, where are we +going to lunch?" + +"We've got it all ready. But we must see the yard first.... Miss +Fountain--Laura--I've got that flower you gave me." + +His voice was suddenly hoarse. + +She glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows. + +"Very foolish of you, I'm sure.... Now do tell me, how did you get off so +early?" + +He sulkily explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own +yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in +order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on +night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his +days. But she paid small attention. She was occupied in looking at the +new buildings and streets, the brand new squares and statues of Froswick. + +"How can people build and live in such ugly places?" she said at last, +standing still that she might stare about her--"when there are such +lovely things in the world; Cambridge, for instance--or--Bannisdale." + +The last word slipped out, dreamily, unaware. + +The lad's face flushed furiously. + +"I don't know what there is to see in Bannisdale," he said hotly. "It's a +damp, dark, beastly hole of a place." + +"I prefer Bannisdale to this, thank you," said Laura, making a little +face at the very ample bronze gentleman in a frock coat who was standing +in the centre of a great new-built empty square, haranguing a phantom +crowd. "Oh! how ugly it is to succeed--to have money!" + +Mason looked at her with a half-puzzled frown--a frown that of late had +begun to tease his handsome forehead habitually. + +"What's the harm of having a bit of brass?" he said angrily. "And what's +the beauty o' livin in an old ramshackle place, without a sixpence in +your pocket, and a pride fit to bring you to the workhouse!" + +Laura's little mouth showed amusement, an amusement that stung. She +lifted a little fan that hung at her girdle. + +"Is there any shade in Froswick?" she said, looking round her. + +Mason was silenced, and as Polly and Mr. Seaton joined them, he recovered +his temper with a mighty effort and once more set himself to do the +honours--the slighted honours--of his new home. + +... But oh! the heat of the ship-building yard. Laura was already tired +and faint, and could hardly drag her feet up and down the sides of the +great skeleton ships that lay building in the docks, or through the +interminable "fitting" sheds with their piles of mahogany and teak, their +whirring lathes and saws, their heaps of shavings, their resinous wood +smell. And yet the managing director appeared in person for twenty +minutes, a thin, small, hawk-eyed man, not at all unwilling to give a +brief patronage to the young lady who might be said to link the houses of +Mason and Helbeck in a flattering equality. + +"He wad never ha doon it for _us_!" Polly whispered in her awe to Miss +Fountain. "It's you he's affther!" + +Laura, however, was not grateful. She took her industrial lesson ill, +with much haste and inattention, so that once when the director and his +nephew fell behind, the great man, whose speech to his kinsman in private +was often little less broad than Mrs. Mason's own--said scornfully: + +"An I doan't think much o' your fine cousin, mon! she's nobbut a flighty +miss." + +The young man said nothing. He was still slavishly ill at ease with his +uncle, on whose benevolence all his future depended. + +"Is there something more to see?" said Laura languidly. + +"Only the steel works," said Mr. Seaton, with a patronising smile. "You +young ladies, I presume, would hardly wish to go away without seeing our +chief establishment. Froswick Steel and Hematite Works employ three +thousand workmen." + +"Do they?--and does it matter?" said Laura, playing with the salt. + +She wore a little plaintive, tired air, which suited her soft paleness, +and made her extraordinarily engaging in the eyes of both the young men. +Mason watched her perpetually, anticipating her slightest movement, +waiting on her least want. And Mr. Seaton, usually so certain of his own +emotions and so wholly in command of them, began to feel himself +confused. It was with a distinct slackening of ardour that he looked from +Miss Fountain to Polly--his Polly, as he had almost come to think of her, +honest managing Polly, who would have a bit of "brass," and was in all +respects a tidy and suitable wife for such a man as he. But why had she +wrapped all that silly white stuff round her head? And her hands!--Mr. +Seaton slyly withdrew his eyes from Polly's reddened members to fix them +on the thin white wrist that Laura was holding poised in air, and the +pretty fingers twirling the salt spoon. + +Polly meantime sat up very straight, and was no longer talkative. Lunch +had not improved her complexion, as the mirror hanging opposite showed +her. Every now and then she too threw little restless glances across at +Laura. + +"Why, we needn't go to the works at all if we don't like," said Polly. +"Can't we get a fly, Hubert, and take a jaunt soomwhere?" + +Hubert bent forward with alacrity. Of course they could. If they went +four miles up the river or so, they would come to real nice country and a +farmhouse where they could have tea. + +"Well, I'm game," said Mr. Seaton, magnanimously slapping his pocket. +"Anything to please these ladies." + +"I don't know about that seven o'clock train," said Mason doubtfully. + +"Well, if we can't get that, there's a later one." + +"No, that's the last." + +"You may trust me," said Seaton pompously. "I know my way about a railway +guide. There's one a little after eight." + +Hubert shook his head. He thought Seaton was mistaken. But Laura settled +the matter. + +"Thank you--we'll not miss our train," she said, rising to put her hat +straight before the glass--"so it's the works, please. What is +it--furnaces and red-hot things?" + +In another minute or two they were in the street again. Mr. Seaton +settled the bill with a magnificent "Damn the expense" air, which annoyed +Mason--who was of course a partner in all the charges of the day--and +made Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk with +Miss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemer +process and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which the +little nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which he +found himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs of +Laura and Hubert hurrying along in front, amazed him. + +"Isn't she nice looking?" said poor Polly, as she too stared helplessly +at the distant pair. + +Her shawl weighed upon her arm, Mr. Seaton had forgotten to ask for it. +But there was a little sudden balm in the irritable vexation of his +reply: + +"Some people may be of that opinion, Miss Mason. I own I prefer a greater +degree of balance in the fair sex." + +"Oh! does he mean me?" thought Polly. + +And her spirits revived a little. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, as Laura and Hubert walked along to the desolate road that led +to the great steel works, Hubert knew a kind of jealous and tormented +bliss. She was there, fluttering beside him, her delicate face often +turned to him, her feet keeping step with his. And at the same time what +strong intangible barriers between them! She had put away her mocking +tone--was clearly determined to be kind and cousinly. Yet every word only +set the tides of love and misery swelling more strongly in the lad's +breast. "She doan't belong to us, an there's noa undoin it." Polly's +phrase haunted his ear. Yet he dared ask her no more questions about +Helbeck; small and frail as she was, she could wrap herself in an +unapproachable dignity; nobody had ever yet solved the mystery of Laura's +inmost feeling against her will; and Hubert knew despairingly that his +clumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of rage +that there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something to +know, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not for +his knowing. Ah! that man--that ugly starched hypocrite--after all had he +got hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain--this +pang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle--to that +canting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, he would crush +the life out of her in six months! + +There was a rush and whirl in the lad's senses. A cry of animal +jealousy--of violence--rose in his being. + + * * * * * + +"How wonderful!--how enchanting!" cried Laura, her glance sparkling, her +whole frame quivering with pleasure. + +They had just entered the great main shed of the steel works. The +foreman, who had been induced by the young men to take them through, was +in the act of placing Laura in the shelter of a brick screen, so as to +protect her from a glowing shower of sparks that would otherwise have +swept over her; and the girl had thrown a few startled looks around her. + +A vast shed, much of it in darkness, and crowded with dim forms of iron +and brick--at one end, and one side, openings, where the June day came +through. Within--a grandiose mingling of fire and shadow--a vast glare of +white or bluish flame from a huge furnace roaring against the inner wall +of the shed--sparks, like star showers, whirling through dark +spaces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire passing and +repassing, so that the heat of them scorched the girl's shrinking +cheek--and everywhere, dark against flame, the human movement answering +to the elemental leap and rush of the fire, black forms of men in a +constant activity, masters and ministers at once of this crackling terror +round about them. + +"Aye!" said their guide, answering the girl's questions as well as he +could in the roar--"that's the great furnace where they boil the steel. +Now you watch--when the flame--look! it's white now--turns blue--that +means the process is done--the steel's cooked. Then they'll bring the vat +beneath--turn the furnace over--you'll see the steel pour out." + +"Is that a railway?" + +She pointed to a raised platform in front of the furnace. A truck bearing +a high metal tub was running along it. + +"Yes--it's from there they feed the furnace--in a minute you'll see the +tub tip over." + +There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a great +jet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth had +swallowed down its prey. + +"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go so +close?" + +She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes. + +The foreman laughed. + +"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see the +furnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort and +the barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Stand +back!" + +He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter. + +Laura looked round her. + +"Where are the other two?" she asked. + +"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seaton +knows the man in charge of the testing workshop." + +Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her. +The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers of +sparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed the +stream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the fire +cup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; the +swarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--men +and trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillars +supporting it, all black against the glare---- + +Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But while +she hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. He +was conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in the +little clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in the +glow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wide +black hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The lad +took the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire. + +"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away with +a long breath. + +And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace, +pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travelling +slowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descended +and lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncovering +the four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they moved +across the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another was +lowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became the +prey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath, +to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Then +out again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in it +already half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to be +caught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at last +the quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent, +still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on, +and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort of +platform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, and +brought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerable +fellows, waiting for the market and its buyers. + +"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerly +to her guide--"just for a minute!" + +He smiled at her, unable to say no. + +And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The great +furnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing its +last change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured its +contents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderly +woman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for some +workmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace and +hiding from the sparks. + +Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to be +lowered--and the hell-broth is cooked once again, and will come streaming +forth. + +The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in the +intolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. An +electric bell rings. + +Then---- + +What was that? + +God!--what was that? + +A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewilderment +across her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward. + +"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason. + +But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyes +staring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the little +railway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarm +with running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full of +their cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive. + +Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come to +bring the tea rushed up to her. + +"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend the +heart. + +And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wild +broken words, which neither of them heard or knew. + + +END OF VOL. I + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. +by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. I. *** + +This file should be named 8hbn110.txt or 8hbn110.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8hbn111.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8hbn110a.txt + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Berger, +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/8hbn110.zip b/old/8hbn110.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..38fe3fa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8hbn110.zip |