Helena

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

  CHAPTER XI

  Buntingford walked rapidly across the park, astonishing the oldlodge-keeper who happened to see him pass through, and knew that hislordship had a large Whitsuntide party at the house, who must at thatvery moment be sitting down to dinner.

  The Rectory lay at the further extremity of the village, which was longand straggling. The village street, still bathed in sun, was full ofgroups of holiday makers, idling and courting. To avoid them, Buntingfordstepped into one of his own plantations, in which there was a pathleading straight to the back of the Rectory.

  He walked like one half-stunned, with very little conscious thought. Asto the blow which had now fallen, he had lived under the possibility ofit for fourteen years. Only since the end of the war had he begun tofeel some security, and in consequence to realize a new ferment inhimself. Well--now at least he would _know_. And the hunger to knowwinged his feet.

  He found a gate leading into the garden of the Rectory open, and wentthrough it towards the front of the house. A figure in grey flannels,with a round collar, was pacing up and down the little grass-plot there,waiting for him.

  John Alcott came forward at sight of him. He took Buntingford's hand inboth his own, and looked into his face. "Is it true?" he said, gently.

  "Probably," said Buntingford, after a moment.

  "Will you come into my study? I think you ought to hear our story beforeyou see her."

  He led the way into the tiny house, and into his low-roofed study, packedwith books from floor to ceiling, the books of a lonely man who had foundin them his chief friends. He shut the door with care, suggesting thatthey should speak as quietly as possible, since the house was so small,and sound travelled so easily through it.

  "Where is she?" said Buntingford, abruptly, as he took the chair Alcottpushed towards him.

  "Just overhead. It is our only spare room."

  Buntingford nodded, and the two heads, the black and the grey, benttowards each other, while Alcott gave his murmured report.

  "You know we have no servant. My sister does everything, with my help,and a village woman once or twice a week. Lydia came down this morningabout seven o'clock and opened the front door. To her astonishment shefound a woman leaning against the front pillar of our little porch. Mysister spoke to her, and then saw she must be exhausted or ill. She toldher to come in, and managed to get her into the dining-room where thereis a sofa. She said a few incoherent things after lying down and thenfainted. My sister called me, and I went for our old doctor. He came backwith me, said it was collapse, and heart weakness--perhaps afterinfluenza--and that we must on no account move her except on to a bed inthe dining-room till he had watched her a little. She was quite unable togive any account of herself, and while we were watching her she seemed togo into a heavy sleep. She only recovered consciousness about fiveo'clock this evening. Meanwhile I had been obliged to go to a diocesanmeeting at Dansworth and I left my sister and Dr. Ramsay in charge ofher, suggesting that as there was evidently something unusual in the casenothing should be said to anybody outside the house till I came back andshe was able to talk to us. I hurried back, and found the doctor givinginjections of strychnine and brandy which seemed to be reviving her.While we were all standing round her, she said quite clearly--'I want tosee Philip Buntingford.' Dr. Ramsay knelt down beside her, and asked herto tell him, if she was strong enough, why she wanted to see you. She didnot open her eyes, but said again distinctly--'Because I am'--or was--Iam not quite sure which--'his wife.' And after a minute or two she saidtwice over, very faintly--'Send for him--send for him.' So then I wrotemy note to you and sent it off. Since then the doctor and my sister havesucceeded in carrying her upstairs--and the doctor gives leave for you tosee her. He is coming back again presently. During her sleep, she talkedincoherently once or twice about a lake and a boat--and once shesaid--'Oh, do stop that music!' and moved her head about as though ithurt her. Since then I have heard some gossip from the village about astrange lady who was seen in the park last night. Naturally one puts twoand two together--but we have said nothing yet to anyone. Nobody knowsthat she--if the woman seen in the park, and the woman upstairs are thesame--is here."

  He looked interrogatively at his companion. But Buntingford, who hadrisen, stood dumb.

  "May I go upstairs?" was all he said.

  The rector led the way up a small cottage staircase. His sister, agrey-haired woman of rather more than middle age, spectacled and prim,but with the eyes of the pure in heart, heard them on the stairs and cameout to meet them.

  "She is quite ready, and I am in the next room, if you want me. Pleaseknock on the wall."

  Buntingford entered and shut the door. He stood at the foot of the bed.The woman lying on it opened her eyes, and they looked at each other longand silently. The face on the pillow had still the remains of beauty. Thepowerful mouth and chin, the nose, which was long and delicate, thedeep-set eyes, and broad brow under strong waves of hair, were all fusedin a fine oval; and the modelling of the features was intensely andpassionately expressive. That indeed was at once the distinction and, soto speak, the terror of the face,--its excessive, abnormal individualism,its surplus of expression. A woman to fret herself and others to decay--awoman, to burn up her own life, and that of her lover, her husband, herchild. Only physical weakness had at last set bounds to what had oncebeen a whirlwind force.

  "Anna!" said Buntingford gently.

  She made a feeble gesture which beckoned him to come nearer--to sitdown--and he came. All the time he was sharply, irrelevantly conscious ofthe little room, the bed with its white dimity furniture, the texts onthe distempered walls, the head of the Leonardo Christ over themantelpiece, the white muslin dressing-table, the strips of carpet on thebare boards, the cottage chairs:--the spotless cleanliness and thepoverty of it all. He saw as the artist, who cannot help but see, even atmoments of intense feeling.

  "You thought--I was dead?" The woman in the bed moved her haggard eyestowards him.

  "Yes, lately I thought it. I didn't, for a long time."

  "I put that notice in--so that--you might marry again," she said, slowly,and with difficulty.

  "I suspected that."

  "But you--didn't marry."

  "How could I?--when I had no real evidence?"

  She closed her eyes, as though any attempt to argue, or explain wasbeyond her, and he had to wait while she gathered strength again. Afterwhat seemed a long time, and in a rather stronger voice she said:

  "Did you ever find out--what I had done?"

  "I discovered that you had gone away with Rocca--into Italy. I followedyou by motor, and got news of you as having gone over the Splugen. My carhad a bad accident on the pass, and I was ten weeks in hospital at Chur.After that I lost all trace."

  "I heard of the accident," she said, her eyes all the while searching outthe changed details of a face which had once been familiar to her. "ButRocca wasn't with me then. I had only old Zelie--you remember?"

  "The old _bonne_--we had at Melun?"

  She made a sign of assent.--"I never lived with Rocca--till after thechild was born."

  "The child! What do you mean?"

  The words were a cry. He hung over her, shaken and amazed.

  "You never knew!"--There was a faint, ghastly note of triumph in hervoice. "I wouldn't tell you--after that night we quarrelled--I concealedit. But he is your son--sure enough."

  "My son!--and he is alive?" Buntingford bent closer, trying to see herface.

  She turned to look at him, nodding silently.

  "Where is he?"

  "In London. It was about him--I came down here. I--I--want to getrid of him."

  A look of horror crossed his face, as though in her faint yetviolent words he caught the echoes of an intolerable past. But hecontrolled himself.

  "Tell me more--I want to help you."

  "You--you won't get any joy of him!" she said, still staring at him."He's not like other children--he's afflicted. It was a bad doctor--whenI was confined--up in
the hills near Lucca. The child was injured.There's nothing wrong with him--but his brain."

  A flickering light in Buntingford's face sank.

  "And you want to get rid of him?"

  "He's so much trouble," she said peevishly. "I did the best I could forhim. Now I can't afford to look after him. I thought of everything Icould do--before--"

  "Before you thought of coming to me?"

  She assented. A long pause followed, during which Miss Alcott came in,administered stimulant, and whispered to Buntingford to let her rest alittle. He sat there beside her motionless, for half an hour or more,unconscious of the passage of time, his thoughts searching the past, andthen again grappling dully with the extraordinary, the incrediblestatement that he possessed a son--a living but, apparently, an idiotson. The light began to fail, and Miss Alcott slipped in noiselesslyagain to light a small lamp out of sight of the patient. "The doctor willsoon be here," she whispered to Buntingford.

  The light of the lamp roused the woman. She made a sign to Miss Alcott tolift her a little.

  "Not much," said the Rector's sister in Buntingford's ear. "It's theheart that's wrong."

  Together they raised her just a little. Miss Alcott put a fan intoBuntingford's hands, and opened the windows wider.

  "I'm all right," said the stranger irritably. "Let me alone. I've got alot to say." She turned her eyes on Buntingford. "Do you want toknow--about Rocca?"

  "Yes."

  "He died seven years ago. He was always good to me--awfully good to meand to the boy. We lived in a horrible out-of-the-way place--up in themountains near Naples. I didn't want you to know about the boy. I wantedrevenge. Rocca changed his name to Melegrani. I called myself FrancescaMelegrani. I used to exhibit both at Naples and Rome. Nobody ever foundout who we were."

  "What made you put that notice in the _Times_?"

  She smiled faintly, and the smile recalled to him an old expression ofhers, half-cynical, half-defiant.

  "I had a pious fit once--when Rocca was very ill. I confessed to an oldpriest--in the Abruzzi. He told me to go back to you--and ask yourforgiveness. I was living in sin, he said--and would go to hell. A dearold fool! But he had some influence with me. He made me feel someremorse--about you--only I wouldn't give up the boy. So when Rocca gotwell and was going to Lyons, I made him post the notice from there--tothe _Times_. I hoped you'd believe it." Then, unexpectedly, she slightlyraised her head, the better to see the man beside her.

  "Do you mean to marry that girl I saw on the lake?"

  "If you mean the girl that I was rowing, she is the daughter of a cousinof mine. I am her guardian."

  "She's handsome." Her unfriendly eyes showed her incredulity.

  He drew himself stiffly together.

  "Don't please waste your strength on foolish ideas. I am not going tomarry her, nor anybody."

  "You couldn't--till you divorce me--or till I die," she said feebly, herlids dropping again--"but I'm quite ready to see any lawyers--so that youcan get free."

  "Don't think about that now, but tell me again--what you want me to do."

  "I want--to go to--America. I've got friends there. I want you to pay mypassage--because I'm a pauper--and to take over the boy."

  "I'll do all that. You shall have a nurse--when you are strongenough--who will take you across. Now I must go. Can you just tell mefirst where the boy is?"

  Almost inaudibly she gave an address in Kentish Town. He saw that shecould bear no more, and he rose.

  "Try and sleep," he said in a voice that wavered. "I'll see you againto-morrow. You're all right here."

  She made no reply, and seemed again either asleep or unconscious.

  As he stood by the bed, looking down upon her, scenes and persons he hadforgotten for years rushed back into the inner light of memory:--thatfirst day in Lebas's atelier when he had seen her in her Holland overall,her black hair loose on her neck, the provocative brilliance of her darkeyes; their close comradeship in the contests, the quarrels, theambitions of the atelier; her patronage of him as her junior in art,though her senior in age; her increasing influence over him, and theexcitement of intimacy with a creature so unrestrained, so gifted, soconsumed with jealousies, whether as an artist or a woman; his proposalof marriage to her in one of the straight roads that cut the forest ofCompiegne; the ceremony at the Mairie, with only a few of their fellowstudents for witnesses; the little apartment on the Rive Gauche, with itsbits of old furniture, and unframed sketches pinned up on the walls;Anna's alternations of temper, now fascinating, now sulky, and thatsteady emergence in her of coarse or vulgar traits, like rocks in anebbing sea; their early quarrels, and her old mother who hated him; theirpoverty because of her extravagance; his growing reluctance to take herto England, or to present her to persons of his own class and breeding inParis, and her frantic jealousy and resentment when she discovered it;their scenes of an alternate violence and reconciliation and finally herdisappearance, in the company, as he had always supposed, of SigismondoRocca, an Italian studying in Paris, whose pursuit of her had beennotorious for some time.

  The door opened gently, and Miss Alcott's grey head appeared.

  "The doctor!" she said, just audibly.

  Buntingford followed her downstairs, and found himself presently inAlcott's study, alone with a country doctor well known to him, a man whohad pulled out his own teeth in childhood, had attended his father andgrandfather before him, and carried in his loyal breast the secrets andthe woes of a whole countryside.

  They grasped hands in silence.

  "You know who she is?" said Buntingford quietly.

  "I understand that she tells Mr. Alcott that she was Mrs. Philip Bliss,that she left you fifteen years ago, and that you believed her dead?"

  He saw Buntingford shrink.

  "At times I did--yes, at times I did--but we won't go into that. Is sheill--really ill?"

  Ramsay spoke deliberately, after a minute's thought:

  "Yes, she is probably very ill. The heart is certainly in a dangerousstate. I thought she would have slipped away this morning, when theycalled me in--the collapse was so serious. She is not a strong woman, andshe had a bad attack of influenza last week. Then she was out all lastnight, wandering about, evidently in a state of great excitement. It wasas bad a fainting fit as I have ever seen."

  "It would be impossible to move her?"

  "For a day or two certainly. She keeps worrying about a boy--apparentlyher own boy?"

  "I will see to that."

  Ramsay hesitated a moment and then said--"What are we to call her? Itwill not be possible, I imagine, to keep her presence here altogether asecret. She called herself, in talking to Miss Alcott, Madame Melegrani."

  "Why not? As to explaining her, I hardly know what to say."

  Buntingford put his hand across his eyes; the look of weariness, ofperplexity, intensified ten-fold.

  "An acquaintance of yours in Italy, come to ask you for help?"suggested Ramsay.

  Buntingford withdrew his hand.

  "No!" he said with decision. "Better tell the truth! She was my wife. Sheleft me, as she has told the Alcotts, and took steps eleven years ago tomake me believe her dead. And up to seven years ago, she passed as thewife of a man whom I knew by the name of Sigismondo Rocca. When theannouncement of her death appeared, I set enquiries on foot at once, withno result. Latterly, I have thought it must be true; but I have neverbeen quite certain. She has reappeared now, it seems, partly because shehas no resources, and partly in order to restore to me my son."

  "Your son!" said Ramsay, startled.

  "She tells me that a boy was born after she left me, and that I am thefather. All that I must verify. No need to say anything whatever aboutthat yet. Her main purpose, no doubt, was to ask for pecuniaryassistance, in order to go to America. In return she will furnish mylawyers with all the evidence necessary for my divorce from her."

  Ramsay slowly shook his head.

  "I doubt whether she will ever get to America. She has worn hersel
f out."

  There was a silence. Then Buntingford added:

  "If these kind people would keep her, it would be the best solution.I would make everything easy for them. To-morrow I go up to Town--tothe address she has given me. And--I should be glad if you wouldcome with me?"

  The doctor looked surprised.

  "Of course--if you want me--"

  "The boy--his mother says--is abnormal--deficient. An injury at birth. Ifyou will accompany me I shall know better what to do."

  A grasp of the hand, a look of sympathy answered; and they parted.Buntingford emerged from the little Rectory to find Alcott again waitingfor him in the garden. The sun had set some time and the moon was peeringover the hills to the east. The mounting silver rim suddenly recalled toBuntingford the fairy-like scene of the night before?--the searchlight onthe lake, the lights, the music, and the exquisite figure of Helenadancing through it all. Into what Vale of the Shadow of Death had hepassed since then?--

  Alcott and he turned into the plantation walk together. Various practicalarrangements were discussed between them. Alcott and his sister wouldkeep the sick woman in their house as long as might be necessary, andBuntingford once more expressed his gratitude.

  Then, under the darkness of the trees, and in reaction from theexperience he had just passed through, an unhappy man's hithertoimpenetrable reserve, to some extent, broke down. And the companionwalking beside him showed himself a true minister of Christ---humble,tactful, delicate, yet with the courage of his message. What struck himmost, perhaps, was the revelation of what must have been Buntingford'sutter loneliness through long years; the spiritual isolation in which aman of singularly responsive and confiding temper had passed perhaps aquarter of his life, except for one blameless friendship with a woman nowdead. His utmost efforts had not been able to discover the wife who haddeserted him, or to throw any light upon her subsequent history. The law,therefore, offered him no redress. He could not free himself; and hecould not marry again. Yet marriage and fatherhood were his naturaldestiny, thwarted by the fatal mistake of his early youth. Nothingremained but to draw a steady veil over the past, and to make what hecould of the other elements in life.

  Alcott gathered clearly from the story that there had been no other womanor women in the case, since his rupture with his wife. Was it that hismarriage, with all its repulsive episodes, had disgusted a fastidiousnature with the coarser aspects of the sex relation? The best was deniedhim, and from the worse he himself turned away; though haunted all thetime by the natural hunger of the normal man.

  As they walked on, Alcott gradually shaped some image for himself ofwhat had happened during the years of the marriage, piecing ittogether from Buntingford's agitated talk. But he was not prepared fora sudden statement made just as they were reaching the spot whereAlcott would naturally turn back towards the Rectory. It came with aburst, after a silence.

  "For God's sake, Alcott, don't suppose from what I have been telling youthat all the fault was on my wife's side, that I was a mere injuredinnocent. Very soon after we married, I discovered that I had ceased tolove her, that there was hardly anything in common between us. And therewas a woman in Paris--a married woman, of my own world--cultivated, andgood, and refined--who was sorry for me, who made a kind of spiritualhome for me. We very nearly stepped over the edge--we should havedone--but for her religion. She was an ardent Catholic and her religionsaved her. She left Paris suddenly, begging me as the last thing shewould ever ask me, to be reconciled to Anna, and to forget her. For somedays I intended to shoot myself. But, at last, as the only thing I coulddo for her, I did as she bade me. Anna and I, after a while, cametogether again, and I hoped for a child. Then, by hideous ill luck, Anna,about three months after our reconciliation, discovered a fragment of aletter--believed the very worst--made a horrible scene with me, and wentoff, as she has just told me,--not actually with Rocca as I believed, butto join him in Italy. From that day I lost all trace of her. Herconcealment of the boy's birth was her vengeance upon me. She knew howpassionately I had always wanted a son. But instead she punished him--thepoor, poor babe!"

  There was an anguish in the stifled voice which made sympathyimpertinent. Alcott asked some practical questions, and Buntingfordrepeated his wife's report of the boy's condition, and her account of aninjury at birth, caused by the unskilful hands of an ignorant doctor.

  "But I shall see him to-morrow. Ramsay and I go together. Perhaps, afterall, something can be done. I shall also make the first arrangements forthe divorce."

  Alcott was silent a moment--hesitating in the dark.

  "You will make those arrangements immediately?"

  "Of course."

  "If she dies? She may die."

  "I would do nothing brutal--but--She came to make a bargain with me."

  "Yes--but if she dies--might you not have been glad to say, 'I forgive'?"

  The shy, clumsy man was shaken as he spoke, with the passion of his ownfaith. The darkness concealed it, as it concealed its effect onBuntingford. Buntingford made no direct reply, and presently they parted,Alcott engaging to send a messenger over to Beechmark early, with areport of the patient's condition, before Buntingford and Dr. Ramsaystarted for London. Buntingford walked on. And presently in the dimmoonlight ahead he perceived Geoffrey French.

  The young man approached him timidly, almost expecting to be denounced asan intruder. Instead, Buntingford put an arm through his, and leaned uponhim, at first in a pathetic silence that Geoffrey did not dare to break.Then gradually the story was told again, as much of it as was necessary,as much as Philip could bear. Geoffrey made very little comment, tillthrough the trees they began to see the lights of Beechmark.

  Then Geoffrey said in an unsteady voice:

  "Philip!--there is one person you must tell--perhaps first of all. Youmust tell Helena--yourself."

  Buntingford stopped as though under a blow.

  "Of course, I shall tell Helena--but why?--"

  His voice spoke bewilderment and pain.

  "Tell her _yourself_--that's all," said Geoffrey, resolutely--"and, ifyou can, before she hears it from anybody else."