The journey home that night, as Mr. Whiffle had suggested, was travelled in the company of the divinity student, who, as soon as he had succeeded in vanquishing to some degree his awkward bashfulness, entertained the young ladies with descriptions of sundry adventures which he had at various times experienced in the company of congenial spirits, always denominated as “fellows.” Maud listened with a well-affected interest, partly because she was in reality amused by the character being displayed before her, partly because Maud always paid deference to the convenances, and would not even have appeared rude to a chimney-sweep. Helen sat with her veil lowered, in absolute silence. She was unwilling to betray the disgust which she felt, but at the same time quite incapable of affecting an interest which she did not feel.
“I say, Miss Norman,” exclaimed Augustus, at one point in the conversation, or rather monologue, “it seems an awful time since we used to know each other so well, don’t it?”
“It does indeed seem a long time since I left Bloomford,” replied Helen.
The quiet, ladylike tone of her voice, having nothing in the least childish about it, somewhat repressed the young man’s conversational ardour. He gnawed the top of his cane for a moment, then renewed the attack.
“I say, Miss Norman, you remember the old parrot and the cat we used to laugh at?”
“Very well,” replied Helen. “The parrot still lives. I have brought her back to London with me.”
“I say, now! Think of that! It ‘ud puzzle a fellow’s brains now to calculate that old beast’s age; wouldn’t it, Miss Norman?”
“The bird must be very old.”
“I say, Miss Norman,” pursued the undaunted Augustus, after a little more gnawing of his cane, “do you remember that rummy little fellow that lived at the Rectory with you once — a rummy-looking cove, that bolted one morning, you know?”
“I remember him, quite well.”
“I say, did you ever hear any more of him, Miss Norman? He used to have lessons from the governor, I remember.”
“He was never heard of, I think,” replied Helen.
“What a rummy go! Drowned, I always said.”
Helen made no reply, and Augustus, after in vain endeavouring to renew the conversation, again turned to Maud, whose attention he continued to engage to the end of the journey. At the station he assisted his companions into a cab, and lingered about the door with some wild notion that he might be invited to accompany them home. Being deceived in his hope he walked away somewhat disconsolate; but rapidly recovering his spirits, as he reflected on the brilliant conversational powers he had exhibited, he forthwith made for the lodgings of a certain “fellow,” in whose company he spent the greater part of his time, and proceeded to detail in confidence the circumstances of his tête-à-tête which he professed to have held that afternoon with the charming daughter of “an awfully rich old cuss, the termination of which had been the acceptance of an offer of his heart and hand. On the strength of this, the pleasant “fellow” in question, who did not believe a word of the story, made bold to borrow a sovereign, which Augustus was ashamed to refuse, but the sure and certain loss of which he bitterly regretted.
“Well, Helen,” said Mr. Gresham, as the three sat together the same evening, “how did you find Bloomford?”
“Very much changed I thought, Mr. Gresham,” replied the girl.
“Or was the change in yourself, do you think?” pursued the artist.
“Possibly a little, but certainly not altogether.”
“How was it changed?”
“Bloomford itself was as beautiful as ever,” replied Helen, with some appearance of reluctance, “but the Rectory I scarcely recognised as my old home.”
“Ha! Has Mr. Whiffle been making alterations?” asked Mr. Gresham, who perfectly understood Helen’s meaning, but had a perverse delight in drawing her into more definite expressions.
“Oh, no; at least none that I noticed. I — I can scarcely say how it was changed. I think it is hardly as quiet and homelike as it used to be. There — there are many children about.”
“You went into the church, of course?”
“No,” replied Helen, sinking her head.
“Not! Now that was a pity. According to all accounts, Mr. Whiffle has made some charming alterations. I believe it is almost as pretty as a theatre,” he added, carefully watching Helen from beneath his heavy eyebrows.
“I feared it,” she replied, in a low voice, adding almost immediately, “I feel rather tired after the journey. Will you permit me to leave you to-night?”
“Certainly, Helen. You must not overtire yourself. Goodnight.”
Helen rose in her wonted graceful manner, shook hands with her guardian, kissed Maud, and left the room with a firm step, yet so light that it could not be heard.
Mr. Gresham was silent for a moment after her departure, apparently engaged in reading a periodical. Maud continued to work at a pencil-drawing which had held her attention from the foregoing conversation.
“Pallas seems a trifle out of sorts to-night,” said the former at length, throwing down his paper and speaking in the tone he usually adopted with his daughter, a half serious, half trifling tone very well adopted to the sceptical character of his remarks.
“Why do you call her Pallas?” asked Maud, quickly.
“Is she not in eye, in gait, in mien a young Pallas Athene? Let me tell you, Maud, if you practised before your glass a couple of hours a day you could never acquire the graceful dignity which Helen has from nature.”
“It is very unlikely that I should ever make the attempt,” replied Maud saucily. “But if I lack dignity I suppose I have something to make up for it. If Helen is Pallas Athene, what am I?”
“Neither Here nor Aphrodite, child, but just plain Maud Gresham; a girl not too pretty to be useful, not too witty to be talked to by a plain man of the world, and far from possessing too much reverence for the good-natured father who spoils her, like a fool as he is. You are not much like your mother, Maud.”
“So you often say, papa.”
“She was an angel, which you — I hope — are far from being; and the only mistake she ever made was in visiting earth to marry a man who had always been sceptical with regard to the existence of supernatural beings! You, I am glad to say, Maud, are decidedly of the earth earthy.”
“You are not flattering, papa.”
“I never am, my dear. But to return to our muttons. Why is Pallas out of sorts?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Possibly I can, but I wish for your opinion.”
“I will give it you then, papa. She went to Bloomford with a mind full of images of her past life, images which a reflection from the happiness of childhood made to glow with an unnatural splendour. I think the appearance of the country disappointed her a little, after the scenes she has been accustomed to, but still more the people she saw there. She expected, I fancy, to behold her ideal of a country clergyman, an exalted combination of Chaucer’s and Goldsmith’s good parsons. Instead of that she found a — but you know Mr. Whiffle, papa.”
“Never mind, Maud. What did she find?” asked her father, regarding her with a malicious slyness.
“I say, you know Mr. Whiffle, papa, or, at all events, once knew him.”
“And I say never mind, Miss Gresham. What did she find?”
“Well, if you will have me say it, a ridiculous old busy-body, possessed of about as much common-sense and good-feeling as the hassock he kneels upon, and as much entitled to the epithet of reverend as — as I am.”
“You progress in the art of epigram, Maud,” said her father, looking rather pleased. “Did old Whiffle discuss the Rubric at large?”
“He favoured us with not a few remarks thereon.”
“And Pallas appeared disgusted?”
“Supremely so.”
“Pained, too, no doubt, poor child. However, I hoped it would happen so. A few more visits to a few more such parsons and she would be almost cured of her mania, I fancy.”
“You speak too disrespectfully of Helen, papa. Her convictions are independent of such influences as those.”
“You think so? Why, you are becoming an idealist all at once, Maudie.”
“I have much more of the idealist in my temperament than you dream of, papa,” returned the young lady, rising with a smile. “Pray don’t think I am so sunk in the mud of scepticism as you are.”
“Ho, ho! What are your ideals, Maudie?” cried Mr. Gresham, with jocose mockery.
“A calm domestic life, in which the passion of love interferes as little as that of hate; and at the end of it a sudden, unanticipated and painless death.”
Mr. Gresham looked up at his daughter with something of natural surprise, not being quite sure whether she were in earnest or not. She seemed to be so.
“I tell you what it is, Miss Gresham,” he returned, as he rose from his chair, “I shall begin to fear presently that I have been nurturing a species of female Mephistopheles. Do you entertain any opinions on the subject of patricide?”
“The subject has not yet come within my thoughts,” returned the girl, with a slight shrug.
“Indeed! When you begin your speculations thereon perhaps you will be so good as to favour me with notice of the fact. The prospect of being kept rather too long out of her inheritance might excite curious designs in the mind of such a very idealistic young lady.”
“Oh, don’t fear, papa,” called out Maud, as they parted at the door. “When the time comes, your death shall be as painless as that I hope for myself.”
During the next few weeks Helen lived an extremely retired life. Mr. Gresham had assigned to her use an elegant little parlour, and from this she sometimes did not stir from morning to night, having the slight meals she partook of brought to her there.
In music, as indeed in everything she had undertaken, Helen showed precocious talent, and, on the few occasions when she was induced to play before strangers, manifested a taste and skill which filled her hearers with admiration. Mr. Gresham had procured her an excellent teacher, and those hours which were not devoted to solitary reflection were now usually spent in practice at her own piano. In music she found almost her only relief from the pressure of those distressing thoughts which had again assailed her with renewed force after her visit to Bloomford. For several months she had scarcely read at all. Her dainty little library, consisting of beautiful bound editions of the poets, novelists and historians, such a library as her father considered best adapted to the needs of a young lady, and which he had selected with the utmost care, now stood ranged in a couple of handsome bookcases on one side of her parlour; but the glass doors had remained unopened since her return to England. Her Bible, which had but lately been her constant companion, now lay upon the table, unopened from day to day. Those agonising doubts and obstinate questionings which so seldom assail a girl’s mind, thanks to the atmosphere of enervating pietism in which females usually grow to maturity, if, indeed, they can ever be said to reach that stage, those torturing thoughts which every intellectual youth has sooner or later to combat with, now held Helen at their mercy. Now, more than ever, did she bitterly mourn her father’s death, which had deprived her of the one person to whom she could lay bare her mind in perfect confidence. As she had no longer her father’s living voice to advise her, she took refuge in reflection upon his life, striving to wrest from her memory of his acts and words, an explanation of the creed by which he had lived. As yet she could arrive at few satisfactory results. Her practical knowledge of life was too limited to afford her the necessary means of observation and comparison, and little by little, under the guidance of bitter suffering, she was led into that path which could alone afford an exit from the gloomy regions into which she had strayed.
One morning Maud had been engaged for an hour, reading in the library, and was just rising to leave the room, when she was in turn visited unexpectedly by Helen, who walked softly into the room.
“You here, Maud!” exclaimed Helen. “I thought this was your usual drawing hour?”
“So it is,” replied Maud; “but I seem to have no taste for it this morning. And you — I thought this was your usual music hour?”
“So it is,” returned the other, smiling; “but Mr. Walsh is unable to give me my lesson this morning. You won’t let me drive you from the room?”
“You came very opportunely to warn me that the morning is drawing on. I have an appointment with the housekeeper at eleven — more’s the pity. I had quite forgotten the time over an interesting book.”
As she spoke she closed the book that lay open before her, and left it there upon the table.
Whether she had drawn Helen’s attention to it purposely or not may remain a question; but as soon as she had left the room the latter at once took up the work to examine it.
It was the English translation of Strauss’ “Leben Jesu,” the popular edition. With a throb of the pulses, as if in anticipation of what the book contained — though as yet she had no knowledge of it — she assumed the seat Maud had just left, and began to read.
She did not appear at luncheon; but this was such an ordinary occurrence that it attracted no attention; but when the dinner hour had arrived, and she was still absent, Maud sought her, first in her own sitting-room, and then, failing of success, in the library.
Helen had lit the reading-lamp, and was still bending over the pages of Strauss.
She started as Maud entered the room, and rose from her seat.
“Are you resolved to become an absolute chameleon, my dear child?” cried Miss Gresham. “But,” she added immediately, “I see that air has not been your only sustenance all day. Do you like my book?”
“Is it yours?” asked Helen, who had closed the book at the other’s entrance, and now stood with her eyes cast down, for a moment uncertain how to act.
“Yes; papa gave it to me when it was first published, three years ago, and when, as you can imagine, I had but little taste for it. Do you like it?”
Helen paused for a moment, without replying.
“I cannot say yet,” she returned, in a low voice. “I — I cannot say till I have finished it.”
“Shall you have the resolution?”
“I think so,” replied Helen, looking up into her friend’s face with a seriousness of expression, now unmixed with doubt or shame.
“I read it a year ago,” said the other. “Perhaps you would like to take it away with you?”
“If you would kindly lend it to me, I should.”
“Take it, by all means. But, in the meantime, are you aware that the dinner bell has rung?”
“I did not hear it.”
“So I supposed. Come, I can only allow you three minutes.”
“I should be glad if I might be excused to-night, Maud,” said Helen. “I really have no appetite. Would you ask Mr. Gresham to excuse me?”
“Certainly, if you wish it. But I am not going to allow you to macerate yourself. I shall send you something up.
“Thanks, Maud; you are very kind.”
So Helen ran quickly upstairs, carrying Strauss with her, and sat down to her reading-desk with a true, though solemn, gladness of heart to which she had long been a stranger, which, perhaps, in its present form, she had never before experienced.
And long after the rest of the house was in darkness and quietness, when the noise had died away in the street below, and the striking of the bells in the neighbouring steeples was almost the only sound to be heard, Helen still sat at her reading-desk, bending over the pages of him whose eyes saw with surpassing clearness through the mists of time and prejudice, whose spirit comes forth, like a ray of sunshine in winter, to greet those toiling painfully upwards to the temple of Truth.
Mr. Gresham’s library was rich in German authors, a language of which Helen had as yet no knowledge. Overmastered by the eagerness of curiosity, which the reading of Strauss had awakened in her, she now procured a German grammar, and began, with painful earnestness, the study of the language.
Through many a long summer day she toiled at the grammar and dictionary, manifesting a strength of endurance which the frailty of her frame scarcely seemed capable of supporting.
But, after all, her progress was too slow to keep pace with her eagerness.
One morning, about the middle of July, just when Mr. Gresham was beginning to make arrangements for a tour on the Continent, she came downstairs prepared with a report which she had long meditated.
Mr. Gresham was seated in an arm-chair as she entered. Maud had not yet made her appearance.
After the usual greeting, Helen took a chair by her guardian a side, and requested his attention for a moment.
“I have for some time wished to ask a favour of you,” she began. “Will you let me go to Germany?”
“Why that is just what we are all thinking of doing, Helen,” replied the artist. “We shall certainly include the Rhine in our tour.”
“You misunderstand me. I mean that I should like to go to Germany to study there for a year or two. I have a great anxiety to learn German thoroughly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have found you a teacher.”
“A teacher would scarcely answer my purpose,” pursued Helen. “He could not give me such a thorough knowledge as I require.”
“But whatever has got into your head, Helen? Are you going to run away from us and look out for a place as a governess?”
“You are too kind to me for that. I fear I can hardly explain to you why I feel this desire.”
At this moment Maud entered.
“What do you think, Maudie,” said Mr. Gresham. “Here is Pallas threatening to desert us, and favour with her omens some synod of tobacco-wreathed professors in the land of the Teutons.”
“I must beg you to speak somewhat less figuratively, papa, if I am to understand your meaning,” replied the young lady, whose fresh complexion contrasted markedly with Helen’s habitual paleness.
“In language suited to your intellect, then, Miss Gresham, she asks me to let her go to Germany for a short time, to study the language.”
“And then?” asked Maud.
“Yes. And then, Helen?” repeated Mr. Gresham.
“I cannot look so far forward,” replied Helen. “At my age, every day brings changes which one would have thought years could not effect.”
She adhered firmly to her purpose, and her guardian, as usual, gave way to her wish.
It remained to decide upon the town she should go to reside in, and here her choice was influenced by her eager interest in Strauss.
She had discovered that at Tübingen Strauss had taught, and to Tübingen accordingly she decided to go, doubting not that her master’s influence would there be most pronounced.
This determination of Helen’s involved a few necessary changes in her guardian’s plans; but ultimately all set out together, and together enjoyed a Continental tour of nearly two months’ duration. In the course of this Mr. Gresham procured some good introductions to the professorial circle in Tübingen from one or two artist-friends, with the result that when he and Maud returned home, they left Helen behind them in the old university-town, comfortably established in the house of the widow of a recently-deceased professor.
Helen took leave of them in excellent spirits, looking forward to a long period of study with the utmost enthusiasm; and as for Mr. Gresham, he was in reality by no means sorry to be freed for a while from the task of caring for a young lady whose disposition appeared so little congenial to his own.