Foul Play Part 63

Accordingly he rigged himself out with a long coat, and a beard, and spectacles, and hid his sea-slouch as well as he could, and changed his lodgings. Finding he succeeded so well, he thought he might as well have the pleasure of looking at Nancy Rouse, if he could not talk to her. So he actually had the hardihood to take the parlor next door; and by this means he heard her move about in her room, and caught a sight of her at work on her little green; and he was shrewd enough to observe she did not sing and whistle as she used to do. The dog chuckled at that. His bank-notes worried him night and day. He was afraid to put them in a bank; afraid to take them about with him into his haunts; afraid to leave them at home; and out of this his perplexity arose some incidents worth relating in their proper order.

Arthur Wardlaw returned to business; but he was a changed man. All zest in the thing was gone. His fraud set him above the world; and that was now enough for him, in whom ambition was dead, and, indeed, nothing left alive in him but deep regrets.

He drew in the horns of speculation, and went on in the old safe routine; and to the restless activity that had jeopardized the firm succeeded a strange torpidity. He wore black for Helen, and sorrowed without hope. He felt he had offended Heaven, and had met his punishment in Helen's death.

Wardlaw senior retired to Elmtrees, and seldom saw his son. When they did meet, the old man sometimes whispered hope, but the whisper was faint and unheeded.

One day Wardlaw senior came up express, to communicate to Arthur a letter from General Rolleston, written at Valparaiso. In this letter, General Rolleston deplored his unsuccessful search; but said he was going westward, upon the report of a Dutch whaler, who had seen an island reflected in the sky, while sailing between Juan Fernandez and Norfolk Isle.

Arthur only shook his head with a ghastly smile. "She is in heaven," said he, "and I shall never see her again, not here or hereafter."

Wardlaw senior was shocked at this speech; but he made no reply. He pitied his son too much to criticise the expressions into which his bitter grief betrayed him. He was old, and had seen the triumphs of time over all things human, sorrow included. These, however, as yet, had done nothing for Arthur Wardlaw. At the end of six months, his grief was as somber and as deadly as the first week.

But one day, as this pale figure in deep mourning sat at his table, going listlessly and mechanically through the business of sc.r.a.ping money together for others to enjoy, whose hearts, unlike his, might not be in the grave, his father burst in upon him, with a telegram in his hand, and waved it over his head in triumph.

"She is found! she is found!" he roared. "Read that!" and thrust the telegram into his hands.

Those hands trembled, and the languid voice rose into shrieks of astonishment and delight, as Arthur read the words, "We have got her, alive and well. Shall be at Charing Cross Hotel, 8 P. M."

CHAPTER LIV.

WHILE the boat was going to the _Springbok,_ General Rolleston whispered to Captain Moreland; and what he said may be almost guessed from what occurred on board the steamer soon afterward. Helen was carried trembling into the cabin, and the order was given to heave the anchor and get under way. A groan of disappointment ran through the s.h.i.+p; Captain Moreland expressed the general's regret to the men, and divided two hundred pounds upon the capstan; and the groan ended in a cheer.

As for Helen's condition, that was at first mistaken for ill health. She buried herself for two whole days in her cabin; and from that place faint moans were heard now and then. The sailors called her the sick lady.

Heaven knows what she went through in that forty-eight hours.

She came upon deck at last in a strange state of mind and body; restless, strung up, absorbed. The rare vigor she had acquired on the island came out now with a vengeance. She walked the deck with briskness, and a pertinacity that awakened admiration in the crew at first, but by and by superst.i.tious awe. For, while the untiring feet went briskly to and fro over leagues and leagues of plank every day, the great hazel eyes were turned inward, and the mind, absorbed with one idea, skimmed the men and things about her listlessly.

She had a mission to fulfill, and her whole nature was stringing itself up to do the work.

She walked so many miles a day, partly from excitement, partly with a deliberate resolve to cherish her health and strength; "I may want them both," said she, "to clear Robert Penfold." Thought and high purpose shone through her so, that after a while n.o.body dared trouble her much with commonplaces. To her father, she was always sweet and filial, but sadly cold compared with what she had always been hitherto. He was taking her body to England, but her heart stayed behind upon that island. He saw this, and said it.

"Forgive me," said she, coldly; and that was all her reply.

Sometimes she had violent pa.s.sions of weeping; and then he would endeavor to console her; but in vain. They ran their course, and were succeeded by the bodily activity and concentration of purpose they had interrupted for a little while.

At last, after a rapid voyage, they drew near the English coast; and then General Rolleston, who had hitherto spared her feelings, and been most indulgent and considerate, felt it was high time to come to an understanding with her as to the course they should both pursue.

"Now, Helen," said he, "about the Wardlaws!"

Helen gave a slight shudder. But she said, after a slight hesitation, "Let me know your wishes."

"Oh, mine are not to be too ungrateful to the father, and not to deceive the son."

"I will not be ungrateful to the father, nor deceive the son," said Helen, firmly.

The general kissed her on the brow, and called her his brave girl. "But,"

said he, "on the other hand, it must not be published that you have been for eight months on an island alone with a convict. Anything sooner than that. You know the malice of your own s.e.x; if one woman gets hold of that, you will be an outcast from society."

Helen blushed and trembled. "n.o.body need be told that but Arthur; and I am sure he loves me well enough not to injure me with the world."

"But he would be justified in declining your hand, after such a revelation."

"Quite. And I hope he will decline it when he knows I love another, however hopelessly."

"You are going to tell Arthur Wardlaw all that?"

"I am."

"Then all I can say is, you are not like other women."

"I have been brought up by a man."

"If I was Arthur Wardlaw, it would be the last word you should ever speak to me."

"If you were Arthur Wardlaw, I should be on that dear island now."

"Well, suppose his love should be greater than his spirit, and--"

"If he does not go back when he hears of my hopeless love, I don't see how I can. I shall marry him; and try with all my soul to love him. I'll open every door in London to Robert Penfold; except one; my husband's.

And that door, while I live, he shall never enter. Oh, my heart; my heart!" She burst out sobbing desperately. And her father laid her head upon his bosom, and sighed deeply, and asked himself how all this would end.

Before they landed, her fort.i.tude seemed to return; and of her own accord she begged her father to telegraph to the Wardlaws.

"Would you not like a day to compose yourself, and prepare for this trying interview?" said he.

"I should. But it is mere weakness. And I must cure myself of my weakness, or I shall never clear Robert Penfold. And then, papa, I think of you. If old Mr. Wardlaw heard you had been a day in town, you might suffer in his good opinion. We shall be in London at seven. Ask them at eight. That will be one hour's respite. G.o.d help me, and strengthen poor Arthur to bear the blow I bring him!"

Long before eight o'clock that day, Arthur Wardlaw had pa.s.sed from a state of somber misery and remorse to one of joy, exultation and unmixed happiness. He no longer regretted his crime, nor the loss of the _Proserpine._ Helen was alive and well, and attributed not her danger, but only her preservation, to the Wardlaws.

Wardlaw senior kept his carriage in town, and precisely at eight o'clock they drove up to the door of the hotel.

They followed the servant with bounding hearts, and rushed into the room where the general and Helen stood ready to receive them. Old Wardlaw went to the general with both hands out, and so the general met him, and between these two it was almost an embrace. Arthur ran to Helen with cries of joy and admiration, and kissed her hands again and again, and shed such genuine tears of joy over them that she trembled all over and was obliged to sit down. He kneeled at her feet, and still imprisoned one hand, and mumbled it, while she turned her head away and held her other hand before her face to hide its real expression, which was a mixture of pity and repugnance. But, as her face was hidden, and her eloquent body quivered, and her hand was not withdrawn, it seemed a sweet picture of feminine affection to those who had not the key.

At last she was relieved from a most embarra.s.sing situation by old Wardlaw; he cried out on this monopoly, and Helen instantly darted out of her chair, and went to him, and put up her cheek to him, which he kissed; and then she thanked him warmly for his courage in not despairing of her life, and his goodness in sending out a s.h.i.+p for her.

Now, the fact is, she could not feel grateful; but she knew she ought to be grateful, and she was ashamed to show no feeling at all in return for so much; so she was eloquent, and the old gentleman was naturally very much pleased at first; but he caught an expression of pain on Arthur's face, and then he stopped her. "My dear," said he, "you ought to thank Arthur, not me; it is his love for you which was the cause of my zeal. If you owe me anything, pay it to him, for he deserves it best. He nearly died for you, my sweet girl. No, no, you mustn't hang your head for that, neither. What a fool I am to revive old sorrows! Here we are, the happiest four in England." Then he whispered to her, "Be kind to poor Arthur, that is all I ask. His very life depends on you."

Helen obeyed this order, and went slowly back to Arthur; she sat, cold as ice, on the sofa beside him, and he made love to her. She scarcely heard what he said; she was asking herself how she could end this intolerable interview, and escape her father's looks, who knew the real state of her heart.

At last she rose, and went and whispered to him: "My courage has failed me. Have pity on me, and get me away. It is the old man; he kills me."

General Rolleston took the hint, and acted with more tact than one would have given him credit for. He got up and rang the bell for tea. Then he said to Helen, "You don't drink tea now, and I see you are excited more than is good for you. You had better go to bed."

"Yes, papa," said Helen.