And now, pierced by his pity, Franklin could rise to all she needed of him. The old faith sustained him, too. One didn"t love some one for all one"s life like that, to be left quite dispossessed. Many things were changed, but many still held firm; and though, deep in his heart, sick with its relinquishment, Helen"s words seemed to whisper, "Some things can"t be joys when they come too late," he could answer himself as he had answered her, putting away the irony and scepticism of disenchantment--"It"s wonderful the way joy can grow," and draw strength for himself and for his poor Althea from that act of affirmation.
"Why, of course I love you, Althea, dear," he said. "How can you ask me that? I"ve always loved you, haven"t I? You knew I did, didn"t you, or else you wouldn"t have sent? You knew I wasn"t bound if you were free. I understand it all." And smiling at her so that she should forget for ever that she had had a new fear, he added, "And see here, dear, you mustn"t delay a moment in letting Gerald know. Come, write him a note now, and I"ll have it sent to his club so that he shall hear right away."
CHAPTER XXIX.
Helen woke next morning after unbroken, heavy slumbers, with a mind as vague and empty as a young child"s. All night long she had been dreaming strange, dreary dreams of her youth. There had been no pain in them, or fear, only a sad la.s.situde, as of one who, beaten and weary, looks back from a far distance at pain and fear outlived. And lying in her bed, inert and placid, she felt as if she had been in a great battle, and that after the annihilation of anaesthetics she had waked to find herself with limbs gone and wounds bandaged, pa.s.sive and acquiescent, in a world from which all large issues had been eliminated for ever.
It was the emptiest kind of life on which her eyes opened so quietly this morning. She was not even to be life"s captive. The little note which had come to her last night from Franklin and now lay beside her bed had told her that. He had told her that Althea had taken him back, and he had only added, "Thank you, dear Helen, for all that you have given me and all that you were willing to give."
In the overpowering sense of sadness that had been the last of the day"s great emotions Helen had found no mitigation of relief for her own escape. That she had escaped made only an added bitterness. And even sadness seemed to be a memory this morning, and the relief that came, profound and almost sweet, was in the sense of having pa.s.sed away from feeling. She had felt too much; though, had life been in her with which to think or feel, she could have wept over Franklin.
Sometimes she closed her eyes, too much at peace for a smile; sometimes she looked quietly about her familiar little room, above Aunt Grizel"s, and showing from its windows only a view of the sky and of the chimney-pots opposite, a room oddly empty of a.s.sociations and links; no photographs, few books, few pictures; only the vase of flowers she liked always to have near her; her old Bible and prayer-book and hymnal, battered by years rather than by use, for religion held no part at all in Helen"s life; and two faded prints of seventeenth-century battleships, sailing in gallant squadrons on a silvery sea. These had hung in Helen"s schoolroom, and she had always been fond of them. The room was symbolic of her life, so insignificant in every outer contact, so centred, in her significant self, on its one deep preoccupation. But there was no preoccupation now. Gerald"s image pa.s.sed before her and meant nothing more than the other things she looked at, while her mind drifted like an aimless b.u.t.terfly from the flowers and the prints to the pretty old mirror--a gift of Gerald"s--and hovered over the graceful feminine objects scattered upon the chairs and tables. The thought of Gerald stirred nothing more than a mild wonder. What a strange thing, her whole life hanging on this man, coloured, moulded by him. What did such a feeling mean? and what had she really wanted of Gerald more than he had given? She wanted nothing now.
It was with an effort--a painful, dragging effort--that she roused herself to talk to Aunt Grizel, who appeared at the same time as her breakfast. Not that she needed to act placidity and acquiescence before Aunt Grizel; she felt them too deeply to need to act; the pain, perhaps, came from having nothing else with which to meet her.
Aunt Grizel was amazed, distressed, nearly indignant; she only was not indignant because of a pity that perplexed even while it soothed her.
She, too, had had a letter from Franklin that morning, and only that morning had heard of the broken engagement and of how Franklin faced it.
She did not offer to show Helen Franklin"s letter, which she held in her hand, emphasising her perplexity by doubling it over and slapping her palm with it. "She sent for him, then." It was on Althea that she longed to discharge her smothered anger.
Helen was ready for her; to have to be so ready was part of the pain.
"Well, in a sense perhaps, it was all she could do, wasn"t it? when she found that she couldn"t go on with Gerald, and really wanted Franklin at last."
"Rather late in the day to come to that conclusion when Mr. Kane was engaged to another woman."
"Well--he was engaged to another woman only because Althea wouldn"t have him."
"Oh!--Ah!" Aunt Grizel was non-committal on this point. "She lets him seem to jilt you."
"Perhaps she does." Helen"s placidity was profound.
"I know Mr. Kane, he wouldn"t have been willing to do that unless pressure had been brought to bear."
"Pressure was, I suppose; the pressure of his own feeling and of Althea"s unhappiness. He saw that his chance had come and he had to take it. He couldn"t go on and marry me, could he, Aunt Grizel? when he saw the chance had come for him to take," said Helen reasonably.
"Well," said Aunt Grizel, "the main point isn"t, of course, what the people who know of your engagement will think--we don"t mind that. What we want to decide on is what we think ourselves. I keep my own counsel, for I know you"d rather I did, and you keep yours. But what about this money? He writes to me that he wants me to take over from him quite a little fortune, so that when I die I can leave you about a thousand a year. He has thought it out; it isn"t too much and it isn"t too little.
He is altogether a remarkable man; his tact never fails him. Of course it"s nothing compared with what he wanted to do for you; but at the same time it"s so much that, to put it brutally, you get for nothing the safety I wanted you to marry him to get."
Helen"s delicate and weary head now turned on its pillow to look at Aunt Grizel. They looked at each other for some time in silence, and in the silence they took counsel together. After the interchange Helen could say, smiling a little, "We mustn"t put it brutally; that is the one thing we must never do. Not only for his sake," she wanted Aunt Grizel to see it clearly, "but for mine."
"How shall we put it, then? It"s hardly a possible thing to accept, yet, if he hadn"t believed you would let him make you safe, would he have gone back to Miss Jakes? One sees his point."
"We mustn"t put it brutally, because it isn"t true," said Helen, ignoring this last inference. "I couldn"t let you take it for me unless I cared very much for him; and I care so much that I can"t take it."
Aunt Grizel was silent for another moment. "I see: it"s because it"s all you can do for him now."
"All that he can do for me, now," Helen just corrected her.
"Wasn"t it all he ever could do, and more? He makes you safe--of course it"s not what I wanted for you, but it"s part of it--he makes you safe and he removes himself."
Aunt Grizel saw the truth so clearly that Helen could allow her to seem brutal. "It"s only because we could both do a good deal for each other that doing this is possible," she said.
She then roused herself to pour out her coffee and b.u.t.ter her toast, and Miss Buchanan sat in silence beside her, tapping Franklin Winslow Kane"s letter on her palm from time to time. And at last she brought out her final decision. "When I write to him and tell him that I accept, I shall tell him too, that I"m sorry."
"Sorry? For what?" Helen did not quite follow her.
"That it"s all he can do now," said Aunt Grizel; "that he is removing himself."
It was her tribute to Franklin, and Helen, even for the sake of all the delicate appearances, couldn"t protest against such a tribute. She was glad that Franklin was to know, from Aunt Grizel, that he, himself, was regretted. So that she said, "Yes; I"m glad you can tell him that."
It was at this moment of complete understanding that the maid came in and said that Mr. Digby was downstairs and wanted to see Miss Helen. He would wait as long as she liked. There was then a little pause, and Aunt Grizel saw a greater weariness pa.s.s over her niece"s face.
"Very well," she spoke for her to the maid. "Tell Mr. Digby that some one will be with him directly," and, as the door closed: "You"re not fit to see him this morning, Helen," she said; "not fit to pour balms into his wounds. Let me do it for you."
Helen lay gazing before her, and she was still silent. She did not know what she wanted; but she did know that she did not want to see Gerald.
The thought of seeing him was intolerable. "Will you pour balms?" she said. "I"m afraid you are not too sorry for Gerald."
"Well, to tell you the truth, I"m not," said Aunt Grizel, smiling a little grimly. "He takes things too easily, and I confess that it does rather please me to see him, for once in his life, "get left." He needed to "get left.""
"Well, you won"t tell him that, if I let you go to him instead of me?
You will be nice to him?"
"Oh, I"ll be nice enough. I"ll condole with him."
"Tell him," said Helen, as Aunt Grizel moved resolutely to the door, "that I can"t see anybody; not for a long time. I shall go away, I think."
CHAPTER x.x.x.
Miss Grizel had known Gerald all his life, and yet she was not intimate with him, and during the years that Helen had lived with her she had come to feel a certain irritation against him. Her robust and caustic nature had known no touch of jealousy for the place he held in Helen"s life. It was dispa.s.sionately that she observed, and resented on Helen"s account, the exacting closeness of a friendship with a man who, she considered, was not worth so much time and attention. She suspected nothing of the hidden realities of Helen"s feeling, yet she did suspect, acutely, that, had it not been for Gerald, Helen might have had more time for other things. It was Gerald who monopolised and took for granted. He came, and Helen was always ready. Miss Grizel had not liked Gerald to be so a.s.sured. She was pleased, now, in going downstairs, that Gerald Digby should find, for once, and at a moment of real need, that Helen could not see him.
He was standing before the fire, his eyes on the door, and as she looked at him Miss Grizel experienced a certain softening of mood. She decided that she had, to some extent, misjudged Gerald; he had, then, capacity for caring deeply. Miss Jakes"s defection had knocked him about badly.
There was kindness in her voice as she said: "Good morning," and gave him her hand.
But Gerald was not thinking of her or of her kindness. "Where is Helen?"
he asked, shaking and then automatically retaining her hand.
"You can"t see Helen to-day," said Miss Grizel, a little nettled by the open indifference. "She is not at all well. This whole affair, as you may imagine, has been singularly painful for her to go through. She asks me to tell you that she can see n.o.body for a long time. We are going away; we are going to the Riviera," said Miss Grizel, making the resolve on the spot.
Gerald held her hand and looked at her with a feverish unseeing gaze. "I must see Helen," he said.
"My dear Gerald," Miss Grizel disengaged her hand and went to a chair, "this really isn"t an occasion for musts. Helen has had a shock as well as you, and you certainly shan"t see her."