"I am only waiting for my face to heal now, of course. But, I say, Edgar, it will take a long time for that to get all right. Why, part of my cheek was completely blown away. It will be months, at least, before I dare show myself. I think I shall go to some German baths, and, you know, I don"t know how long I may have to stay there. In the meantime----"
"In the meantime, what?"
"Your sister--Helen--must know that she is free."
"But supposing she doesn"t want to be free? Supposing----"
"Supposing she has a fancy for being tied to a death"s-head? No, Edgar, she must be released at once. I want you to write a letter from me to her, if you will. The sooner it is over the better for both of us."
I suppose Edgar felt that my att.i.tude was not one of pure resignation, for he made no further effort to dissuade me, but went instantly in search of pens and paper. He was so very submissive, however, in taking this step, which I knew to be distasteful to him, that I was quite sure, before the letter was half written, that he was "up to"
something. So, when it was finished, I was mean enough to insist on his leaving it with me, together with the directed envelope; and after reading it carefully through myself as soon as I was alone, I made the housekeeper fold it and seal it up in my presence, and directed her to get it posted at once.
The letter said:
MY DEAREST HELEN--You have no doubt long ago heard the reason of my silence, and forgiven me for it, I am sure. I am sorry to tell you that my head [I felt an odd shyness of saying "my face"] has been injured so seriously that it will be a long time before I can return to town; I am going straight to Germany as soon as I am able to leave here, and cannot yet tell when I shall be in England again. Under these circ.u.mstances, although I know that you would overlook my new imperfections with the same sweetness with which you have forgiven my older defects, I feel that I cannot impose again upon your generosity. I therefore set you free, begging you to do me one last kindness by not returning to me the little souvenirs that you have from time to time been good enough to accept from me.
And please don"t send me back my letters, if you have ever received them with any pleasure. Burn them if you like. I will send back yours if you wish; but, as no woman will ever look with love upon my face again, your womanly dignity will suffer but little if you let me still keep them. There are only eight of them. And there is a glove, of course, and a packet of dried flowers, of course, and the little silver match-box. All these I shall insist upon keeping, whether you like it or not. They could not compromise anybody; the little glove could pa.s.s for a child"s. You will trust me with them all, will you not? You see this isn"t the usual broken-off match with its prelude of disastrous squabbles and wrangles. Some jealous demon who saw I did not deserve my good fortune has broken my hopes of happiness abruptly, and released you from a chain which I am afraid my ill-temper had already begun to make irksome to you.
Forgive me now, and bear as kindly a recollection of me as you can. G.o.d bless you, Helen. I shall always treasure the remembrance of your little fairy face, and remember gratefully your sweet forbearance with me.--Yours most sincerely and affectionately,
HENRY LYTTLETON MAUDE.
I hoped the child would not think this letter too cold and formal. My heart yearned towards her now with a longing more tender than before; I felt oppressed by the necessity of foregoing the shallow little love which, as the handsomest man about town, I had begun to consider far beneath my deserts.
Two days later I received an answer from Helen. I waited until I was alone to read it, for I still guarded my face carefully from all eyes but the doctor"s. The touch of the letter, the sight of the sprawling, slap-dash handwriting which it delighted Helen to a.s.sume, in common with the other young ladies of her generation, moved me; for I could not but feel that this was the last "_billet_" by any possibility to be called "_doux_" which I should ever receive. I opened it with an apprehension that I should find the contents less moving than the envelope. I was mistaken.
MY DEAREST HARRY--I am afraid you have a very poor opinion of me if you think I care for nothing but personal attractions.
You have always been most kind and generous to me, and you need not think because I am not intellectual myself I do not care for a man who is intellectual and all those things. I am coming down to see you myself and then if you wish to give me up you can do so--but I hope you will not throw me over so hastily. I am so sorry for your accident and that it has made you so ill, but I do not mind what else it has done.--Believe me, dearest Harry, with best love, hoping you will soon be quite recovered, yours ever lovingly,
HELEN.
Childish as the letter was it touched me deeply. Edgar must be right after all; I had misjudged a simple but loyal nature that only wanted an emergency to bring its n.o.bler qualities to the surface. I told him about the letter, and added that it made giving her up harder to bear.
"Why should you give her up?" said he eagerly. "You see she herself will not hear of it."
"Because she does not understand the case. I am disfigured past recognition; she would shrink with horror from the sight of me. It would be a shock even to you, a strong unromantic man, to see what I have become."
"You are too sensitive, old fellow. However shocking the change in you may be, you cannot fail to exaggerate its effect on others."
"We shall see."
A few days later, when the horror of my new appearance was indeed a little mitigated by the falling off of the withered outer skin which had covered the right side of my face, I tried the effect of my striking physiognomy on Edgar.
Whether he had expected some such surprise, or whether he was endowed with a splendid insensibility to ugliness, he stood the shock with the most stolid placidity.
"Well?" said I defiantly, looking at him from out my ill-matched eyes in a pa.s.sion of aggressive rage.
"Well?" said he, as complacently as if I had been a turnip.
"I hope you admire this style of beauty," I hurled out savagely.
"I don"t go quite so far as that, but it"s really much better than I expected."
"You are easily pleased."
He went on quietly. "The chief impression your countenance gives one now is not, as you flatter yourself, of consummate ugliness, but--forgive me--of consummate villainy."
"What!"
"You are preserved for ever from the danger of being anything but strictly virtuous and straightforward in your dealings, for no one would trust the possessor of that countenance with either a secret or a sovereign."
This blunt frankness acted better than any softer measures could have done; it made me laugh. Looking again at myself in a gla.s.s, for I was now up and dressed, I noticed, what had escaped me before in my paralysed contemplation of the change in my own features, that the drawing up of the right-hand corners of my mouth and eye, together with the removal of every vestige of hair from that side of the face, had given me the grotesquely repulsive leer of a satyr. To crown my disadvantages, the left side of my face, seen in profile, still retained its natural appearance to mock my new hideousness.
"But I think I see a way out of all difficulties," Edgar went on, more seriously. "You will advance objections, I know, but you must permit your objections to be overruled. Accident can be combated by artifice, and to artifice you must resort until nature does her work and relieves you from the new necessity."
We fought out the question, and at last I very unwillingly gave way, and submitted to the adoption of a false eyebrow, a false moustache, and a beautiful tuft of curly false hair much superior to my own, to hide the bald patch left by the accident.
Rather elated by this distinct improvement, a.s.sumed for the reception of Helen"s promised visit, and encouraged by a.s.surances that my own hair would soon grow again and enable me to discard its subst.i.tutes, I was ready to believe that the discoloration and disfigurement still visible were comparatively unimportant, and that the repellent expression, which no artifice much abated, might indeed affect strangers, but would not, in the sight of my friends, obscure their long-established impression of my amiability and sweetness.
Sir Wilfrid and Lady Speke had by this time gone up to town, leaving the place, with many kind wishes for my early and complete recovery, entirely at the disposal of myself and my unwearied nurse Edgar. So a day was fixed for the arrival of Helen and her mother. On that eventful afternoon Edgar settled me in a small sitting-room on the same floor with the room I had been occupying, before starting for the station. The blinds were drawn, and I sat with my back to this carefully-softened light. I wished, now that the ordeal was getting so near, that I had not let myself be dissuaded from my intention of sneaking quietly away without showing my disfigured face to any one.
What was the use of my seeing the child again? I did indeed long foolishly for a few last words with her since she had shown unexpected depth of feeling towards me in my misfortune; but it could not end, as Edgar still obstinately hoped, in a renewal of our engagement, which I persisted in regarding as definitely broken. The meeting was only for a farewell. I was ashamed of the artifices I had used to conceal the traces of my accident, and I was feeling half inclined to tear off my false ornaments and present myself in my true hideousness, when the arrival of my visitors luckily stopped me. The room where I sat was at the back of the house, so that I had no warning of the return of the carriage until I heard Edgar"s voice. I sprang up with one last look of agony at my reflection in the gla.s.s, which seemed to me at that moment a ghastly caricature of my old self, and then sat nervously down again, feeling like a doomed wretch with the executioner outside his cell.
The door opened, and Edgar bounded up to me, dragging Helen, who seemed shy and nervous, forward on his arm.
"Here he is, Nellie. Getting well fast, you see. Where is mother? I must fetch her up."
I saw in a moment through the dear clumsy fellow"s manoeuvres. He prided himself on his strategy, fancying he had only to leave us together for us to have a touching reconciliation. But I knew better.
I saw her turn pale and cling to her brother"s arm, and I said hastily--
"No, no. Lady Castleford is not far behind, you may be sure. I am glad to see you, Lady Helen; it is very kind of you to come. It is easier----"
"Helen has come to persuade you to get well in England among your friends instead of going abroad to be ill among strangers," said Edgar, cutting me short. "He"s getting on well, isn"t he, Helen?
Come, he"s well enough to have his hand shaken now."
He drew her forward, to my inexpressible pain, for I saw the reluctance in her face. Before I could attempt a protest, a rea.s.suring word, she had held out her hand, which I timidly took. Then she lifted her eyes to my face for the first time. For the first and last time I saw the expression of the most vivid, most acute emotion on the fairy face. The muscles were contracted, the pupils of the eyes were dilated with intense horror.
"I am very glad----" she began.
Then, before she could finish her sentence, even while I still held her little hand in mine, she fell like a crushed flower unconscious in her brother"s arms.
Poor fellow! How contrite, how miserably, abjectly humble and despairing he was when he appeared later in my room, to which I had fled, like a wounded beast to its den, when little Helen"s unwilling blow gave me my social death-warrant. I was able to laugh then, and to tell him truly that my only regret was for the pain the injudicious meeting had caused poor Helen.
"It was you who dictated her letter to me," I said.
Edgar did not attempt to deny it.
"She ought to be ashamed of herself," said he, reddening with indignation.
"No, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. I for my vanity in thinking there was any charm in my dull personality to compensate for the loss of the only merit I could have in a girl"s eyes; you for your generous idiotcy in carrying that mistake farther still. Are they gone?"
"Yes. My mother wanted to see you, but----"