"But I"m thinkin I"m late this mornin, mother," she said, on observing the advanced appearance of the day.
"Ou, ye"re time aneugh, dear," replied her mother; "I didna like to wauken ye sooner, as ye were up sae late last nicht, and sae sair fatigued wi" the washin."
"Tuts, mother," rejoined Helen, "that was naething. Ye should hae made me jump at the usual time. I declare, there they"re comin back!" she abruptly added, having caught a glimpse of some of the village maidens returning with their pitchers of milk; and with this she hurried out of the house, with her little tin can, and, tripping lightly over the road, she soon reached the avenue leading to Wellwood House.
Helen was, indeed, later than usual on this morning; and one consequence of this was, that she had to go alone--for all those who used to accompany her had already been to Wellwood, and had returned; another consequence, and one fraught with much that was deeply interwoven with the future destiny of the unsuspecting girl--that all the inmates of Wellwood House were astir, and amongst these young Wellwood himself, who was sauntering in the avenue that led to the house at the very moment Helen entered it. They met. Wellwood, who had never happened to see her before, was struck with her extraordinary beauty. He threw himself in her way. He addressed her in flattering language. He watched her return from the house, learned everything from the artless girl regarding her situation and circ.u.mstances; and, from that hour, she engrossed all his thoughts, and became the sole object to which he devoted the dangerous powers of fascination which nature had given him, and art had improved.
Nor did he exercise these powers in vain. Helen ultimately fell a victim to his wiles, and became the prey of the spoiler.
The story of the poor girl"s misfortune soon spread abroad. It became the talk of the village; and many a burning face, and many an agonising pang, it cost her as she pa.s.sed along, and heard the sneers, and taunts, and heartless jests to which that misfortune subjected her.
"The graceless cutty!" said one--and we must here remark that the merciless persecutions of this kind to which she was exposed proceeded almost entirely from those of her own s.e.x--"nae better could happen her wi" her dressin and her airs. No a madam in a" the land could be at mair pains snoodin her hair than she was."
"Atweel, that"s true," said a second; "and see what she has made o"t, the vain, silly thing!"
"Made o"t!" exclaimed another of these vulgar and heartless traducers; "my certie, she"ll mak weel o"t, I warrant ye. Young Wellwood "ll gie her silks and satins by the wab, and siller in gowpens. She"ll no want--tak my word for that. We maun toil late and early, c.u.mmers, for our scanty mouthfu, and our bits o" duds; while the like o" her eats and drinks o" the best, without ever fylin her fingers."
"This"ll bring doun her pride, I"m thinkin," said a fourth. "I aye thocht she wad hae a fa", and was ne"er owre fond o" oor Mary gaun wi"
her. Folk speak o" her beauty; but, for my part, I never could see ony beauty about her."
"Nor me either," chimed in a fifth; "I aye thocht her a puir, glaikit, silly-looking thing."
Much of such conversation as this the poor unfortunate girl frequently overheard; and much more of a similar kind was said which she did not hear. In short, there was not one, at least of her own s.e.x, who expressed the smallest sympathy for her unhappy condition, or felt for her misfortune--not one who attempted to soothe her sorrows, or to lighten the burden of the poor girl"s miseries--not one to treat her error with the lenity which their own liability to deviate from the straight path of moral rect.i.tude ought to have inspired:--no, the poor girl"s persecutors seemed to think that the abuse and defamation of her character shed an additional l.u.s.tre on their own, and that, by her fall, they themselves were exalted. Strangers were they to the G.o.d-like sentiments expressed by him who says--
"Teach me to feel another"s wo, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, Such mercy show to me."
When we said, however, that there was not one who felt for poor Helen"s unhappy situation, we ought to have made a single exception. There was _one_ who felt for her, and that most acutely. This one was her mother.
The widow sorrowed, indeed, over the fall of her child, and many a bitter tear unseen did it cost her--but she pitied and forgave.
"Dinna mourn that way, my puir la.s.sie," she would say, when she found Helen, as she often did, weeping in secret. "G.o.d "ll gie ye strength to bear up wi" your sorrows. He tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, Helen, and e"en will He saften the grief in which your young heart is steeped.
Though a" the warld should abuse ye, Helen, and desert ye, and scorn ye, your mother"s arms and your mother"s bosom will aye be open to receive ye; for weel do I ken, though everybody else should be blin" to"t, that, for a" that has happened, ye"re guileless, Helen, and far mair sinned against than sinning."
The uniform kindness of her mother, and the charitable and Christian-like spirit in which she treated her erring daughter, greatly consoled the unfortunate girl under her affliction, and was the means of saving her, for a time, at any rate, from utter despair--we have said for a time only, because it was ultimately unequal to support poor Helen"s spirit against the sneers of an unfeeling world. Returning home one evening from a place at a little distance, where she had been on an errand of her mother"s, Helen overheard, from amongst a group of women, some such conversation regarding her as we have already quoted; but more severe things still were said on this occasion than we have recorded, and, amongst these, the last and worst name which can be given to the erring of her s.e.x was applied to her. Helen heard the horrifying word; and no sooner had it reached her ear, than a sense of self-debas.e.m.e.nt, of shame, and despair, which she had never felt so acutely before, seized upon her, and nearly deprived her of her reason. The ground seemed to reel under her feet, and it was with the utmost difficulty she was able to make out her mother"s house. Her walk was unsteady, and she was pale as death when she entered.
"Mercy on me, Helen! what"s the matter?" exclaimed her mother, running, in the utmost alarm, to the bed, on which the latter had flung herself, in an agony of shame and horror, the moment she had entered the house.
"What"s the matter, Helen?" repeated the latter, in a soothing tone.
"Has onybody been using you ill?" she inquired; for she knew that her unfortunate daughter was often exposed to such insult and abuse as we have already noticed.
"O mother! mother! I can stand this nae langer," was the indirect, but sufficiently intelligible, reply of the weeping girl, who, with her face buried in the bedclothes, was now sobbing her heart out. "I can stand it nae langer. I canna live, mother--I canna live under this load o" shame and reproach. I ken I am a guilty and a sinfu creature; but, oh! will they no hae mercy on me, and leave me to the punishment o" my ain thochts and feelings? Is there nae compa.s.sion in them, nae pity, nae charity, that they will thus continue to persecute me wi" their merciless tongues? I hae offended my G.o.d; but, I"m sure, I hae never offended them in thocht, word, or deed; and why, then, will they drive me to distraction this way? I canna live under it, mother--I canna live under it!" again exclaimed the unfortunate girl.
"They can hae but little o" the milk o" human kindness in their bosoms, Helen, that wad add a pang to them ye are already endurin, my poor la.s.sie," said her mother, leaning over her with the utmost tenderness and affection. "They surely canna be mothers themsels that wad do a thing sae cruel and unfeelin. I"m sure it wad melt the heart o" a whunstane to look on that puir wae-begone face o" yours. But never mind them, Helen, dear--keep up your heart. Guid has come before noo oot o"
evil; and there"s nae sayin what may be in store for you yet."
To this attempt at consolation Helen made no reply; but that night--and it was a wild and a wet one--she left her mother"s house, stealing out while she slept; and, when morning came, she had not returned, and no one knew whither she had gone. Days, weeks, and months pa.s.sed away, and still Helen Gardenstone came not, nor was any trace of her discovered; but it came at length to be generally believed that the poor deluded and distracted girl had terminated her miseries by committing suicide--that she had buried her sorrows in the waters of the Molendinar--the name of the stream or river that ran through the village, and which had many deep pools both below and above it.
These were, indeed, actually searched for her body, but to no purpose; though this was accounted for by the circ.u.mstance of the river"s having been much swollen at the time of Helen"s disappearance, by several previous days" rain. The body, then, was conjectured to have been carried down to the sea.
The report of Helen"s sudden disappearance, together with rumours of the supposed catastrophe which it involved, soon reached young Wellwood; and, libertine as he was, the appalling intelligence plunged him into the deepest distress. When first informed of it, he grew deadly pale, and would fain have disbelieved the horrid tale, which made him virtually and morally, though not legally, poor Helen"s murderer. But, when he found he could no longer doubt the truth of the rumour, remorse and contrition seized him, and, for some days thereafter, he confined himself to his room on pretence of sudden indisposition, to conceal the distraction of his mind, which wholly unfitted him to mingle in society.
The vision of Helen, invested with all the personal beauty and mental innocence in which she had first met his sight, appeared before him during the feverish reveries of the day, and in the disturbed slumbers of the night. Anon, the scene would change, and the dead form of the victim of his lawless pa.s.sion would stand before him, bearing all the horrid marks of the peculiar death she had died--her face rigid and ghastly pale--her wet dishevelled hair hanging wildly around it; and her clothes drenched with the waters in which her miseries had been terminated. Such were the harrowing pictures which the disturbed imagination and guilty soul of young Wellwood summoned before his mental eye, to madden and distract him. In time, however, these dreadful visions began to abate, both in frequency and force, and he was gradually enabled to take his place again in society; but a settled melancholy was now visible on his countenance--for the fatal catastrophe of poor Helen"s death, though latterly less vividly present to him than at first, still pressed upon his spirits with a weight and constancy that produced a very marked change on his general demeanour.
Soon after the period to which we have now brought our story, Wellwood proceeded to the place of his destination abroad, to occupy the official situation which his father"s influence had procured for him. Here he remained for two years, when some business connected with the duties of his appointment called him to London. One of the first persons on whom he called, on his arrival in the metropolis, was a gentleman of the name of Middleton--a young man of fortune, and of excessively dissipated habits, whom he had known at Oxford, and who had been the companion of all his debaucheries (and they were frequent and deep) during his residence at that seat of learning. In this last respect young Wellwood was now somewhat improved; but it was otherwise with his old friend, who still pursued, with unabated vigour and unsated appet.i.te, the wild career of dissipation in which Wellwood had so far accompanied him. The renewal of their acquaintance on this occasion terminated in the renewal of the scenes at Oxford; and, led on by his companion, Harry largely indulged in all the fashionable excesses of the capital. These excesses, however, even with all the outrageous mirth and jollity with which they were a.s.sociated, could not restore to him the peace of mind he had lost, nor even banish from his countenance that expression of melancholy to which it had now become habituated, and which did not escape his friend Middleton, who frequently urged him to tell him the cause of it; but for some time Wellwood evaded the inquiry. At length, however, the secret was wrung from him.
"I say, now, Harry," said Middleton to him one evening, as they sat together over a bottle of wine, "won"t you tell us how you came by that Puritanical face of yours. It"s not the one you used to wear at Oxford, I"ll be sworn, and where you have picked it up I can"t imagine; but it certainly does become you amazingly. That melancholy gives you quite a sentimental air. Couldn"t you help me to a touch of it? I think it would improve me vastly."
"Middleton," replied Wellwood, gravely, "I wish you may never have such cause as I have, both to look and to think seriously; and, in order that you may judge for yourself whether I have not good reason, I _will_ now inform you of the cause of that melancholy which has so frequently attracted your notice, and has so much excited your curiosity." Having said this, Wellwood proceeded to tell his friend of the dismal story of Helen Gardenstone; and, when he had concluded, "Worlds on worlds," he exclaimed, energetically, "would I give, Middleton, were I possessed of them, to restore that sweet unfortunate girl again to life; and these, ten times told, would I part with, to be relieved of the guilt of having wronged her."
To the melancholy tale of Helen"s death, and to the repentant exclamations with which it was wound up, Middleton replied with a loud laugh.
"And is this all?" he cried out. "Is this the cause of that most lachrymose countenance of yours, Harry? Shame, shame, man! I thought you were a fellow of more spirit, a man of more mettle, than to be affected by such a very trifling affair as that. Why, how the deuce could you help the silly wench drowning herself? You did not push her into the water. Tuts, man! fill up your gla.s.s, and think no more of it; and now, "pon my soul, Harry," he continued, "that I know the cause of your dismal phiz, and find it to be a matter of moonshine, I"ll cut you for ever, if you don"t, after this night, hold up your head, and look like a man. There, fill up," he said, pushing the bottle, from which he had just helped himself largely, towards his companion, who, without making any remark on what had just been addressed to him, seized it with avidity, and, as if in desperation, poured out and swallowed an entire tumbler of the liquor it contained.
We need not follow out the scene. The night terminated, as it usually did with those boon companions, in a deep debauch; but it was ultimately marked by an event for which the reader will be as little prepared as Wellwood was. On returning to his lodgings, accompanied by Middleton, who slept at the same hotel, at an early hour of the morning--and a bitterly cold and snowy one it was, for it was the depth of winter--the two friends, as they came shouting and bawling along, under the influence of the wine they had drunk, were attracted by seeing four or five persons gathered together on the street, and evidently surrounding some object of interest.
"I say, Harry, let"s see what this is?" said Middleton; "perhaps we may knock some sport out of it."
"Why, I don"t mind," replied the former; "but doubtless it"s some drunken or starving wretch, enjoying the cool night air."
"Why, what"s the matter here?" said Middleton, bustling into the middle of the a.s.semblage, followed by Wellwood.
"Vy, it"s a young voman and a child as is a-starving, and has never a home to go to," said one of the bystanders. And such, indeed, was the truth.
A miserable being--not, however, in her attire, which, though bespeaking poverty, was yet clean, whole, and even decent--was seen sitting on the steps of a stair, seemingly in the last stage of exhaustion, with a child, a boy of about two years of age, closely wrapped up in her cloak, and strained to her bosom, to protect it from the piercing cold of the night.
"My good woman," said Middleton, stooping down close to her--for even he was affected by the piteous sight--"where are you from?"
"I"m frae Scotland, sir," was the reply, in a voice of singular sweetness, but evidently enfeebled by suffering.
Wellwood caught in an instant the dialect of his native land; and he did not hear it without emotion--neither were the soft musical tones of the voice lost upon him. They resembled, strongly resembled, those of one whom he dared not even think of; and these circ.u.mstances combined, instantly excited in him a deep interest in the unhappy being before him. He now also approached her, and, taking her kindly by the hand, was about to address her in soothing language, looking at the same time closely to her face, when, without saying what he intended, or indeed saying anything, he slowly raised himself again from the stooping posture to which he had had recourse, his face as pale as death, and trembling violently in every limb. In the next instant, he staggered as if he would have fallen. Middleton ran to support him, and, thinking he had been seized with some sudden illness, slowly led him to the distance of a few paces from the persons a.s.sembled round the dest.i.tute female.
"What"s the matter? what"s the matter, Harry?" said the former, on their getting out of hearing of any one. "My troth, but you do look ill, Wellwood!"
"_That_," replied the latter, in a sepulchral voice, and with a look that increased the alarm of his companion--"_that_," he said, pointing to the spot where the unhappy woman sat, and without noticing Middleton"s inquiry, "is no being of flesh and blood. It is a vexed spirit, Middleton, come to haunt me for the injuries I did it when in the body--come to destroy my peace, and to realise the horrid dreams of my guilt. It is--it is, Middleton"--and he gasped for breath as he spoke--"the spirit of Helen Gardenstone."
"Nay, that I"ll be sworn it isn"t," replied his friend, who now thought he had gone deranged. "It"s a _bona fide_ human being, I warrant you, Harry, and I"ll bring you proof of that directly." Saying this, he ran to the object of his friend"s terror, and inquired her name. She gave it. Middleton was confounded--he hastened back to Wellwood, and, as he approached him, "By Heaven, Harry!" he said, "you are so far right--the woman"s name is really Helen Gardenstone."
Regardless of the situation in which he was, and equally so of those who might witness the strong expression of feeling which he meditated, Wellwood instantly dropped on his knees, and, in one brief sentence of mingled piety and joy, thanked G.o.d that he was not altogether the guilty wretch that he had conceived himself to be; for he now felt a.s.sured that, whatever might have been the train of circ.u.mstances that had led to this singular occurrence, the person whom he had thus found a houseless and dest.i.tute wanderer on the streets of the metropolis was, indeed, no other than Helen Gardenstone.
On recovering a little from the tumultuous feelings which had at first overwhelmed him, Wellwood"s next thought was how to succour the unfortunate girl and _his_ child, as he had no doubt it was. The first idea which occurred to him on this point was to have Helen instantly conveyed to his hotel--and on this idea he subsequently acted; but, thinking the present neither a fit time nor place to discover himself to her, or to give her an opportunity of recognising him, he deputed the task to his friend Middleton, who readily undertook it, whilst he himself kept aloof. On reaching the inn, Wellwood retired to his own apartment, while Middleton saw to the comforts of his unfortunate charge. These provided for, he rejoined his friend, whom he found wrapped in profound meditation, with his elbow resting on a table.
"Well, Harry," he said, on entering the apartment, "this is a devilish queer affair, an"t it? But, in the name of all that"s perplexing, what do you propose doing now?"
"I"ll tell you all about that in the morning, Middleton," replied Wellwood, gravely, "after I shall have slept on it. In the meantime, I thank you for your attention to the poor girl."
"Faith, to tell you a truth, Harry," rejoined Middleton, "I would have done as much, and a great deal more, too, on her own account, let alone yours; for she"s certainly as pretty a girl as ever I clapped eye upon.
A gentle, beautiful creature "tis, Harry. But what the deuce are you to do with her, again say I."
"Why, I have not quite made up my mind on that subject," said Wellwood; "but I"ll think of it, and we"ll see what the morning brings forth."
Saying this, he retired to his own sleeping-apartment, where he spent half the night in thinking what should be his next proceeding with regard to Helen; and the result of his cogitations on this subject was a resolution of a very extraordinary kind.