The Awakening of Helena Richie Part 54

"Mary says supper's ready. There's milk toast, an'--"

Dr. Lavendar went as quickly as he could to the door; when he opened it he stood between the little boy and Helena. "Tell Mary not to wait for me; but ask her to give you your supper."

"An' Mary says that in Ireland they call clover 'shamrocks'; an'--"

Dr. Lavendar gently closed the door. When he went back to his seat on the other side of the table, she said faintly, "That was--?"

"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar.

"Oh," she whispered. "I knew I would have to give him up. I knew I had no right to him."

"No; you had no right to him."

"But I loved him so! Oh, I thought, maybe, I would be--like other people, if I had him."

After a while, with long pauses between the sentences, she began to tell him. ...

"I never thought about goodness; or badness either. Only about Lloyd, and happiness. I thought I had a right to happiness. But I was angry at all the complacent married people; they were so satisfied with themselves! And yet all the time I wished Frederick would die so that I could be married. Oh, the time was _so_ long!" She threw her arms up with a gesture of shuddering weariness; then clasped her hands between her knees, and staring at the floor, began to speak. Her words poured out, incoherent, contradictory, full of bewilderment and pain. "Yes; I wasn't very happy, except just at first. After a while I got so tired of Lloyd's selfishness. Oh--he was so selfis.h.!.+ I used to look at him sometimes, and almost hate him. He always took the most comfortable chair, and he cared so much about things to eat. And he got fat. And he didn't mind Frederick's living. I could see that. And I prayed that Frederick would die.--I suppose you think it was wicked to pray that?"

"Go on."

"It was only because I loved Lloyd so much. But he didn't die. And I began not to be happy. And then I thought Lloyd didn't want to talk to me about Alice. Alice is his daughter. It was three years ago I first noticed that. But I wasn't really sure until this summer. He didn't even like to show me her picture. That nearly killed me, Dr. Lavendar.

And once, just lately, he told me her 'greatest charm was her innocence.' Oh, it was cruel in him to say that! How could he be so cruel!" she looked at him for sympathy; but he was silent. "But underneath, somehow, I understood; and that made me angry,--to understand. It was this summer that I began to be angry. And then I got so jealous: not of Alice, exactly; but of what she stood for. It was a kind of fright, because I couldn't go back and begin again. Do you know what I mean?"

"I know."

"Oh, Dr. Lavendar, it is so horrible! When I began to understand, it seemed like something broken--broken--broken! It could never be mended."

"No."

...Sometimes, as she went on he asked a question, and sometimes made a comment. The comment was always the same: when she spoke of marrying Frederick to get away from her bleak life with her grandmother, she said, "Oh, it was a mistake, a mistake!"

And he said, "It was a sin."

And again: "I thought Lloyd would make me happy; I just went to be happy; that was my second mistake."

"It was your second sin."

"You think I am a sinner," she said; "oh, Dr. Lavendar, I am not as bad as you think! I always expected to marry Lloyd. I am not like a-- fallen woman."

"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar.

She shrank back with a gesture of dismay. "I always expected to marry him!"

"It would have been just the same if you had married him."

"I don't understand you," she said faintly.

"From the beginning," he said, "you have thought only of self. You would not have been redeemed from self by gaining what would have made you more satisfied with yourself."

She thought about this for a few minutes in a heavy silence. "You mean, getting married would not have changed things, really?"

"It would have made the life you were living less harmful to your fellow creatures, perhaps; but it would have made no difference between you two."

"I thought I would be happier," she said.

"Happier!" said Dr. Lavendar; "what sort of happiness could there be in a marriage where the man could never respect the woman, and the woman could never trust the man!"

"I hadn't thought of it that way," she said slowly. And then she began again. ... Once Dr. Lavendar interrupted her to light the lamp, for the study was dark except for the wink of red coals in the grate; and once he checked her, and went into the dining-room to bring her a gla.s.s of wine and some food. She protested, but he had his way, and she ate and drank before going on with her story. When she told him, brokenly, of Sam Wright, Dr. Lavendar got up and walked the length of the study. But he made no comment--none was needed. When she ended, there was a long pause. Suddenly she clasped her hands on the top of her head, and bowed her forehead almost to her knees. She seemed to speak as if to herself:

"Not worthy; not worthy."... Then aloud; _"I give him up,"_ she said. And stretched out empty arms.

She rose, and began to feel about for her cloak that had fallen across the arm of her chair. But she was half blind with weeping, and Dr.

Lavendar found it for her and gently put it over her shoulders.

"I will go away," she said, "but I may see him again, mayn't I? Just once more, to say good-by to him."

"Yes," he said.

"I'll send his little things down to you to-morrow, Dr. Lavendar.

Oh,--his dear little things!"

"Very well."

He lighted a lantern for her, but made no offer to see her home, or to send his Mary along as an escort. Yet when he let her go away into the rainy darkness, he stood in the doorway a long while, looking after her. Then he went back to the study, to pace up and down, up and down.

Twice he stopped and looked out of the window, and then at the clock.

But each time he put the impulse aside. He must not interfere.

It was almost midnight before he took his lamp and went up-stairs; at David's door he hesitated, and then went in. The little boy was lying curled up like a puppy, his face almost hidden in his pillow, but his cheek glowing red under the soft thatch of hair. Dr. Lavendar, shading his lamp with one hand, looked down at him a long time. On the wall behind him and half-way across the ceiling, the old man's shadow loomed wavering and gigantic, and the light, flickering up on his face, deepened the lines of age and of other people's troubles. By and by he stooped down, and gently laid his old palm upon the little head.

When he lifted himself up his face was full of peace.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

"William," said Dr. Lavendar, "you may tell me anything I ought to know about Mrs. Richie."

The doctor looked at him with a start, and a half-spoken question.

"Yes; she told me. But I want to ask you about the man. She didn't say much about him."

This was Sunday evening; David had gone to bed, and Danny had climbed up into Dr. Lavendar's chair, and been gently deposited on the hearth- rug. "No, Daniel; not to-night, sir. I've got to have my chair just this once." William had come in for his usual smoke, but he had been more than usually silent. When Dr. Lavendar gave his calm permission, the doctor's wretched perplexity of the past month could hardly find words. He said, first of all,

"David? Of course you will take him away. It will break her heart!"

"A broken heart is not such a bad thing, w.i.l.l.y. Our Heavenly Father does not despise it."