A Life For a Love Part 11

"Yes, my child, yes. Now run away both of you. I am really much occupied."

Valentine and her husband disappeared. Mr. Paget shut and locked the door behind them--he drew the velvet curtains to insure perfect privacy. Then he sank down in his easy-chair to indulge in anxious meditation.

He thought some of those hard thoughts, some of those abstruse, worrying, almost despairing thoughts, which add years to a man's life.

As he thought the mask dropped from his handsome face; he looked old and wicked.

After about a quarter-of-an-hour of these meditations, he moved slightly and touched an electric bell in the wall. His signal was answered in about a minute by a tap at the room door. He slipped the bolts again, and admitted his confidential clerk, Helps.

"Sit down, Helps. Yes, bolt the door, quite right. Now, sit down.

Helps, I am worried."

"I'm sorry to observe it, sir," said Helps. "Worries is nat'ral, but not agreeable. They come to the good and they come to the bad alike; worries is like the sun--they s.h.i.+nes upon all."

"A particularly agreeable kind of glare they make," responded Mr.

Paget, testily. "Your similes are remarkable for their apt.i.tude, Helps.

Now, have the goodness to confine yourself to briefly replying to my questions. Has there been any news from India since last week?"

"Nothing fresh, sir."

"No sign of stir; no awakening of interest--of--of--suspicion?"

"Not yet, sir. It isn't to be expected, is it?"

"I suppose not. Sometimes I get impatient, Helps."

"You needn't now, sir. Your train is, so to speak, laid. Any moment you can apply the match. Any moment, Mr. Paget. Sometimes, if you'll excuse me for speaking of that same, I have a heart in my bosom that pities the victim. You shouldn't have done it from among the clergy. Mr.

Paget, and him an only son, too."

"Hush, it's done. There is no help now. Helps, you are the only soul in the world who knows everything. Helps, there may be two victims."

Helps had a sallow face. It grew sickly now.

"I don't like it," he muttered. "I never did approve of meddling with the clergy--he was meant for the Church, and them is the Lord's anointed."

"Don't talk so much," thundered Mr. Paget. "I tell you there are two victims--and one of them is my child. She is falling in love with her husband. It is true--it is awful. It must be prevented. Helps, you and I have got to prevent it."

Helps sat perfectly still. His eyes were lowered; they were following the patterns of the carpet. He moved his lips softly.

"It must be prevented," said Mr. Paget. "Why do you sit like that? Will you help me, or will you not?"

Helps raised his greeny-blue eyes with great deliberation.

"I don't know that I will help you, Mr. Paget," he replied; and then he lowered them again.

"You won't help me? You don't know what you are saying, Helps. Did you understand my words? I told you that my daughter was falling in love with that scamp Wyndham."

"He ain't a scamp," replied the clerk. "He's in the conspiracy, poor lad, he's the victim of the conspiracy, but he's no scamp. Now I never liked it. I may as well own to you, Mr. Paget, that I never liked your meddling with the clergy. I said, from the first, as no good would come of it. It's my opinion, sir--" here Helps rose, and raising one thin hand shook it feebly at his employer, "it's my opinion as the Lord is agen you--agen us both for that matter. We can't do nothing if He is, you know. I had a dream last night--I didn't like the dream, it was a hominous dream. I didn't like your scheme, Mr. Paget, and I don't think I'll help you more'n I have done."

"Oh, you don't? You are a wicked old scoundrel. You think you can have things all your own way. You are a thief. You know the kind of accommodation thieves get when their follies get found out. Of course, it's inexpensive, but it's scarcely agreeable."

Helps smiled slightly.

"No one could lock me up but you, and you wouldn't dare," he replied.

These words seemed somehow or other to have a very calming effect on Mr. Paget. He did not speak for a full moment, then he said quietly--

"We won't go into painful scenes of the past, Helps. Yes; we have both committed folly, and must stand or fall together. We have both got only daughters--it is our life's work to s.h.i.+eld them from dishonor, to guard them from pain. Suppose, Helps, suppose your Esther was in the position of my child? Suppose she was learning to love her husband, and you knew what that husband had before him, how would you feel, Helps?

Put yourself in my place, and tell me how you'd feel."

"It 'ud all turn on one point," said Helps. "Whether I loved the girl or myself most. Ef I saw that the girl was going deep in love with her husband--deep, mind you--mortal deep--so I was nothing at all to her beside him, why then, maybe, I'd save the young man for her sake, and go under myself. I might do that, it 'ud depend on how much I loved."

"Nonsense; you would bring dishonor and ruin on her. How could she ever hold up her head again?"

"Maybe he'd comfort her through it. There's no saying. Love, deep love, mind you, does wonders."

Mr. Paget began to pace up and down the room.

"You are the greatest old fool I ever came across," he said. "Now, mind you, your sentiments with regard to your low-born daughter are nothing at all to me. _n.o.blesse oblige_ doesn't come into the case with you as it does with my child. Dishonor shall never touch her; it would kill her. She must be guarded against it. Listen, Helps. We have talked folly and sentiment enough. Now to business. That young man must not rise in my daughter's esteem. There is such a thing--listen, Helps, come close--such a thing as blackening a man's character. You think it over--you're a crafty old dog. Go home and look at Esther, and think it over. G.o.d bless me, I'd not an idea how late it was. Here's a five pound note for your pretty girl, Helps. Now go home and think it over."

CHAPTER XVI.

Helps b.u.t.toned on his great coat, said a few words to one of the clerks, and stepped out into the foggy night. He hailed a pa.s.sing omnibus, and in the course of half-an-hour found himself fumbling with his latch-key in the door of a neat little house, which, however, was at the same moment thrown wide open from within, and a tall girl with a pale face, clear grey eyes, and a quant.i.ty of dark hair coiled about her head stood before him.

"It's father, Cherry," she said to a little cousin who popped round the corner. "Put the sausages on, and dish up the potatoes. Now don't be awkward. I'm glad you're in good time, father--here, give us a kiss. Do I look nice in this dress? I made it all myself. Here, come up to the gas, and have a good look at it. How does it fit? Neat, eh?"

The dress was a dark green velveteen, made without attempt at ornament, but fitting the slim and lissom figure like a glove.

"It's neat, but plain, surely," replied Helps, looking puzzled, proud, and at the same time dissatisfied. "A bit more color now,--more flouncing--Why, what's the matter, Essie? How you do frown, my girl."

"Come in out of the cold, father. Oh, no, not the kitchen, I've ordered supper to be laid in the dining-room. Well, perhaps the room it does smoke, but that will soon clear off. Now, father, I want to ask you an important question. Do I look like a lady in this dress?"

She held herself very erect, the pure outline of her grand figure was shown to the best advantage, her ma.s.sive head had a queenly pose, and the delicate purity of her complexion heightened the effect. Her accent was wrong, her words betrayed her--could she have become dumb, she might have pa.s.sed for a princess.

"Do I look like a lady?" she repeated.

Little Helps stepped back a pace or two--he was puzzled and annoyed.

"You look all right, Essie," he said. "A lady? Oh, well--but you ain't a lady, my girl. Look here, Esther, this room is mortal cold--I'd a sight rather have my supper cosy in the kitchen."

"You can't then, father. You must take up with the genteel ways. After supper we're going into the drawing-room, and I'll play to you on the pianner, pa; I have been practising all day. Perhaps, too, we'll have company--there's no saying."

"Company?" repeated Helps. "Who--what?"

"Oh, I'm not going to say, maybe he won't come. I met him in the park--I was skating with the Johnsons, and I fell, and he picked me up.