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_ "Wie kommt's, dass du so traurig bist,
Da alles froh erscheint?
Man sieht dir's an den Augen an,
Gewiss, du hast geweint."
Helen might have spent the afternoon in that situation, tormenting
herself with the doubts and fears that filled her mind, had it not
been for the fact that her presence was discovered by Elizabeth, the
servant, who came in to clean the room. The latter of course was
astonished to see her, but Helen was in no mood to vouchsafe
explanations.
"Just leave me alone," she said. "I do not feel very well. And don't
tell father I am here yet."
"Your father, Miss Helen!" exclaimed the woman; "didn't you get his
letter?"
"What letter?" And then poor Helen was made aware of another
trouble.
"Mr. Davis wrote Mrs. Roberts last night," answered the servant.
"He's gone away."
"Away!" cried the girl. "Where to?"
"To New York." Then the woman went on to explain that Mr. Davis had
been invited to take the place of a friend who was ill, and had left
Oakdale for a week. Helen understood that the letter must have
reached her aunt after her own departure.
"Dear me!" the girl exclaimed, "How unfortunate! I don't want to
stay here alone."
But afterwards it flashed over her that if she did she might be able
to have a week of quiet to regain her self-possession. "Mr. Harrison
couldn't expect to visit me if I were alone," she thought. "But
then, I suppose he could, too," she added hastily, "if I am engaged
to him! And I could never stand that!"
"Miss Helen," said the servant, who had been standing and watching
her anxiously, "you look very ill; is anything the matter?"
"Nothing," Helen answered, "only I want to rest. Leave me alone,
please, Elizabeth."
"Are you going to stay?" the other asked; "I must fix up your room."
"I'll have to stay," said Helen. "There's nothing else to do."
"Have you had lunch yet?"
"No, but I don't want any; just let me be, please."
Helen expected the woman to protest, but she did not. She turned
away, and the girl sank back upon the couch and covered her face
again.
"Everything has gone wrong!" she groaned to herself, "I know I shall
die of despair; I don't want to be here all alone with Mr. Harrison
coming here. Dear me, I wish I had never seen him!"
And Helen's nervous impatience grew upon her, until she could stand
it no more, and she sprang up and began pacing swiftly up and down
the room; she was still doing that when she heard a step in the hall
and saw the faithful servant in the doorway with a tray of luncheon.
Elizabeth asked no questions about matters that did not concern her,
but she regarded this as her province, and she would pay no
attention to Helen's protests. "You'll be ill if you don't eat," she
vowed; "you look paler than I ever saw you."
And so the girl sat down to attempt to please her, Elizabeth
standing by and talking to her in the meantime; but Helen was so
wrapped up in her own thoughts that she scarcely heard a word--until
the woman chanced to ask one question: "Did you hear about Mr.
Arthur?"
And Helen gazed up at her. "Hear about him?" she said, "hear what
about him?"
"He's very ill," said Elizabeth. Helen gave a start.
"Ill!" she gasped.
"Yes," said Elizabeth, "I thought you must know; Mr. Davis was over
to see him yesterday."
"What is the matter?"
"The doctor said he must have been fearfully run down, and he was
out in the storm and caught a cold; and he's been in a very bad way,
delirious and unconscious by turns for two or three days."
Helen was staring at the servant in a dumb fright. "Tell me,
Elizabeth," she cried, scarcely able to say the words, "he is not
dangerously ill?"
"The danger is over now," the other answered, "so the doctor said,
or else Mr. Davis would never have left; but he's in a bad way and
it may be some time before he's up again."
Perhaps it was the girl's overwrought condition that made her more
easily alarmed just then, for she was trembling all over as she
heard those words. She had forgotten Arthur almost entirely during
the past two days, and he came back to her at that moment as another
thorn in her conscience.
"Mr. Davis said he wrote you to go and see him," went on the
servant; "shall you, Miss Helen?"
"I--I don't know," said Helen faintly, "I'll see."
As a matter of fact, she knew that she almost certainly would _not_
go to see Arthur after what had just passed; even to have him find
out about it was something of which she simply could not think. She
felt dread enough at having to tell her father of what had occurred
with Mr. Harrison, and to see Arthur, even though he did not know
about it, she knew was not in her power.
"Perhaps I ought not to have told you about it until after you had
had your lunch; you are not eating anything, Miss Helen."
"I don't want anything," said Helen, mournfully; "take it now,
please, Elizabeth, and please do not trouble me any more. I have a
great deal to worry me."
When the woman had left the room, Helen shut the door and then sat
down on a chair, staring blankly before her; there was a mirror just
across the room, and her own image caught her eye, startling her by
its pale and haggard look.
"Dear me, it's dreadful!" she cried aloud, springing up. "Why _did_
I let people trouble me in this way? I can't help Arthur, and I
couldn't have helped him in the beginning. It's every bit of it his
own fault, and I don't see why I should let it make me ill. And it's
the same with the other thing; I could have been happy without all
that wealth if I'd never seen it, and now I know I'll never be happy
again,--oh, I know it!"
And Helen began once more pacing up and down.
"I never was this way before in my life," she cried with increasing
vexation, "and I won't have it!"
She clenched her hands angrily, struggling within herself to shake
off what was tormenting her. But she might as well have tried to
shake off a mountain from her shoulders; hers had been none of the
stern experience that gives power and command to the character, and
of the kind of energy that she needed she had none, and not even a
thought of it. She tried only to forget her troubles in some of her
old pleasures, and when she found that she could not read, and that
the music she tried to play sounded hollow and meaningless, she
could only fling herself down upon the sofa with a moan. There,
realizing her own impotence, she sank into dull despair, unable any
longer to realize the difficulties which troubled her, and with only
one certainty in her mind--that she was more lost and helpless than
she had ever thought it possible for her to be.
Time is not a thing of much consequence under such circumstances,
and it was a couple of hours before Helen was aroused. She heard a
carriage stop at the door, and sprang up in alarm, with the thought
that it might be Mr. Harrison. But as she stood trembling in the
middle of the room she heard a voice inquiring for her, and
recognized it as that of her aunt; a moment later Mrs. Roberts
rushed into the room, and catching sight of Helen, flung her arms
eagerly about her.
"My dear girl," she cried, "Mr. Harrison has just told me about what
has happened!" And then as she read her niece's state of mind in her
countenance, she added, "I expected to find you rejoicing, Helen;
what is the matter?"
In point of fact the woman had known pretty well just how she would
find Helen, and having no idea of leaving her to her own tormenting
fancies, she had driven over the moment she had finished her lunch.
"I received your father's letter," she said, without waiting for
Helen to answer her, "so I came right over to take you back."
"To take me back!" echoed Helen.
"Yes, my dear; you don't suppose I mean to leave you here all alone
by yourself, do you? And especially at such a time as this, when Mr.
Harrison wants to see you?"
"But, Aunt Polly," protested Helen, "I don't want to see him!"
"Don't want to see him? Why, my dear girl, you have promised to be
his wife!"
Mrs. Roberts saw Helen shudder slightly, and so she went on quickly,
"He is going to stay at the hotel in the village; you won't find it
the same as being in the house with him. But I do assure you, child,
there never was a man more madly in love than he is."
"But, Auntie, dear, that Mr. Howard, too!" protested Helen,
trembling.
"He will not interfere with you, for he never makes any noise; and
you'll not know he's there. Of course, you won't play the piano, but
you can do anything else you choose. And Mr. Harrison will probably
take you driving every day." Then seeing how agitated Helen was, her
aunt put her arms around her again, and led her to the sofa. "Come,
Helen," she said," I don't blame you for being nervous. I know just
how you feel, my dear."
"Oh, Aunt Polly!" moaned the girl. "I am so wretched!"
"I know," laughed Aunt Polly; "it's the idea of having to marry him,
I suppose; I felt the very same way when I was in your place. But
you'll find that wears off very quickly; you'll get used to seeing
him. And besides, you know that you've _got_ to marry him, if you
want any of the other happiness!"
And Mrs. Roberts stopped and gazed about her. "Think, for instance,
my dear," she went on, "of having to be content with this dingy
little room, after having seen that magnificent place of his! Do you
know, Helen, dear, that I really envy you; and it seems quite
ridiculous to come over here and find you moping around. One would
think you were a hermit and did not care anything about life."
"I do care about it," said the other, "and I love beautiful things
and all; but, Aunt Polly, I can't help thinking it's dreadful to
have to marry."
"Come and learn to like Mr. Harrison," said the other, cheerfully.
"Helen, you are really too weak to ruin your peace of mind in this
way; for you could see if you chose that all your troubles are of
your own making, and that if you were really determined to be happy,
you could do it. Why don't you, dear?"
"I don't know," protested the girl, faintly; "perhaps I am weak, but
I can't help it."
"Of course not," laughed the other, "if you spend your afternoons
shut up in a half-dark room like this. When you come with me you
won't be able to do that way; and I tell you you'll find there's
nothing like having social duties and an appearance to maintain in
the world to keep one cheerful. If you didn't have me at your elbow
I really believe you'd go all to pieces."
"I fear I should," said the girl; but she could not help laughing as
she allowed herself to be led upstairs, and to have the dust bathed
from her face and the wrinkles smoothed from her brow. In the
meantime her diplomatic aunt was unobtrusively dropping as many
hints as she could think of to stir Helen to a sense of the fact
that she had suddenly become a person of consequence; and whether it
was these hints or merely the reaction natural to Helen, it is
certain that she was much calmer when she went down to the carriage,
and much more disposed to resign herself to meeting Mr. Harrison
again. And Mrs. Roberts was correspondingly glad that she had been
foreseeing enough to come and carry her away; she had great
confidence in her ability to keep Helen from foolish worrying, and
to interest her in the great future that was before her.
"And then it's just as well that she should be at my house where she
can find the comfort that she loves," she reflected. "I can see that
she learns to love it more every day."
The great thing, of course, was to keep her ambition as much awake
as possible, and so during the drive home Mrs. Roberts' conversation
was of the excitement which the announcement of Helen's engagement
would create in the social world, and of the brilliant triumph which
the rest of her life would be, and of the vast preparations which
she was to make for it. The trousseau soon came in for mention then;
and what woman could have been indifferent to a trousseau, even for
a marriage which she dreaded? After that the conversation was no
longer a task, for Helen's animation never failed to build itself up
when it was once awake; she was so pleased and eager that the drive
was over before she knew it, and before she had had time for even
one unpleasant thought about meeting Mr. Harrison.
It proved not to be a difficult task after all, for Mr. Harrison was
quiet and dignified, and even a little reserved, as Helen thought,
so that it occurred to her that perhaps he was offended at the
vehemence with which she had repelled him. She did not know, but it
seemed to her that perhaps it might have been his right to embrace
her after she had promised to marry him; the thought made her
shudder, yet she felt sure that if she had asked her aunt she would
have learned that she was very much in the wrong indeed. Helen's
conscience was very restless just at that time, and it was pleasant
to be able to lull it by being a little more gracious and kind to
her ardent lover. The latter of course responded joyfully, so that
the remainder of the afternoon passed quite pleasantly.
When Mr. Roberts arrived and had been acquainted with the tidings,
he of course sought the first opportunity to see the girl, and to
congratulate her upon her wonderful fortune. Helen had always found
in her uncle a grave, business-like person, who treated her with
indifference, and therefore inspired her with awe; it was not a
little stirring to her vanity to find that she was now a person of
sufficient consequence to reverse the relation. This fact did yet a
little more to make her realize the vastness of her sudden conquest,
and so throughout dinner she was almost as exulting in her own heart
as she had been at the same time on the previous day.
Her animation mounted throughout the evening, for Mr. Harrison and
her aunt talked of the future--of endless trips abroad, and of
palatial houses and royal entertainments at home--until the girl was
completely dazed. Afterwards, when she and Mr. Harrison were left
alone, Helen fascinated her companion as completely as ever, and was
radiant herself, and rejoicing. As if to cap the climax, Mr.
Harrison broached the subject of a trip to New York, to see if she
could find anything at the various picture dealers to suit her music
room, and also of a visit to Fairview to meet an architect and
discuss her plan there.
The girl went up to her room just as completely full of exultation
as she had been upon the night before, yet more comfortable in the
conviction that there would be no repetition of that night's worry.
Yet even as the thought occurred to her, it made her tremble; and as
if some fiend had arranged it especially for her torment, as she
passed down the hall a nurse came silently out of one of the rooms,
and through the half open doorway Helen fancied that she heard a low
moan. She shuddered and darted into her own room and locked the
door; yet that did not exclude the image of the sufferer, or keep it
from suggesting a train of thought that plunged the girl into
misery. It made her think of Arthur, and of the haggard look that
had been upon his face when he left her; and all Helen's angry
assertions that it was not her fault could not keep her from
tormenting herself after that. Always the fact was before her that
however sick he might be, even dying, she could never bear to see
him again, and so Arthur became the embodiment of her awakening
conscience.
The result was that the girl slept very little that night, spending
half of it in fact alternately sitting in a chair and pacing the
room in agitation, striving in vain to find some gleam of light to
guide her out of the mazes in which she was lost. The gray dawn
found her tossing feverishly about upon her pillow, yearning for the
time when she had been happy, and upbraiding herself for having been
drawn into her present trouble.
When she arose later on, she was more pale and wearied than she had
been upon the morning before; then she had at least possessed a
resolution, while this time she was only helpless and despairing.
Thus her aunt found her when she came in to greet her, and the
dismay of the worthy matron may be imagined.
However, being an indefatigable little body, she set bravely to work
again; first of all, by rebuking the girl for her weakness she
managed to rouse her to effort once more, and then by urging the
necessity of seeing people and of hiding her weakness, she managed
to obtain at last a semblance of cheerfulness. In the meantime Mrs.
Roberts was helping her to dress and to remove all traces of her
unhappiness, so that when Helen descended to breakfast she had
received her first lesson in one of the chief tasks of the social
regime:
"Full many in the silent night
Have wept their grief away;
And in the morn you fancy
Their hearts were ever gay."
And Helen played her part so well that Mrs. Roberts was much
encouraged, and beamed upon her across the table. As a, matter of
fact, because her natural happiness was not all crushed, and because
playing a part was not easy to the girl, she was very soon
interested in the various plans that were being discussed. When Mr.
Harrison called later on and proposed a drive, she accepted with
genuine pleasure.
To be sure, she found it a trifle less thrilling than on the day
before, for the novelty was gone; but that fact did not cause her
much worry. In all her anticipations of the pleasure before her, it
had occurred to her as little as it occurs to others in her
situation to investigate the laws of the senses through which the
pleasure is to be obtained. There is a whole moral philosophy to be
extracted from the little word "ennui" by those who know; but Helen
was not of the knowing. She believed that when she was tired of the
horses she could delight herself with her beautiful house, and that
when she was tired of the house she could have a new one. All her
life she had been deriving ecstasy from beautiful things, from
dresses, and flowers, and books, and music, and pictures; and of
course it was only necessary to have an infinite quantity of such
things in order to be infinitely happy. The way to have the infinite
quantity was to marry Mr. Harrison, or at any rate that was Helen's
view, and she was becoming more and more irritated because it did
not work well in practice, and more and more convinced that her aunt
must be right in blaming her weakness.
In the meantime, being in the open air and among all the things that
she loved, she was bound to rejoice once more; and rejoice she did,
not even allowing herself to be hindered by Mr. Harrison's too
obvious failures to comprehend her best remarks. Helen argued that
she was not engaged to the man because of his cleverness, and that
when she had come to the infinite happiness towards which she was
traveling so fast, she would have inspiration enough for two. She
had enough for the present to keep them both happy throughout the
drive, and when she returned she found that some of the neighbors
had driven over to see her, and to increase her excitement by their
congratulations. The Machiavellian Aunt Polly had told the news to
several friends on the day before, knowing full well that it would
spread during the night, and that Helen would have her first taste
of triumph the next day.
And so it continued, and exactly as on the night before, the
feverish excitement swept Helen on until the bedtime hour arrived.
Then she went up into her room alone, to wrestle with the same
dreadful specter as before.
The story of that day was the story of all that followed; Helen was
destined to find that she might sweep herself away upon the wings of
her ambition as often as she chose, and revel all she pleased in the
thought of Mr. Harrison's wealth; but when the excitement was over,
and she came to be all alone, she could think only of the one
dreadful fact of the necessity of marrying him. She was paying a
Faustus price for her happiness; and in the night time the price
stared at her, and turned all her happiness to misery.
A state of mind such as this was so alien to Helen that it would
have been strange indeed if she had sunk into it without protest and
rebellion; as day after day passed, and the misery continued, her
dissatisfaction with everything about her built itself into a
climax; more and more plainly she was coming to see the widening of
the gulf between the phantom she was pursuing and the place, where
she stood. Finally there came one day, nearly a week after her
engagement, when Helen was so exhausted and so wretched that she had
made up her mind to remain in her room, and had withstood all her
aunt's attempts to dissuade her. She had passed the morning in bed,
between equally vain attempts to become interested in a book and to
make up for the sleep she had missed during the night, and was just
about giving up both in despair when the maid entered to say that
Elizabeth wished to see her. Helen gave a start, for she knew that
something must be wrong; when the woman entered she asked
breathlessly what it was.
"It's about Mr. Arthur," was the hurried reply, and Helen turned
paler than ever, and clutched the bedclothing in her trembling
hands.
"What is it?" she cried.
"Why you know, Miss Helen," said Elizabeth, "your father wrote me to
go and see him whenever I could, and I've just come from there this
morning."
"And how is he?"
"He looked dreadful, but he had gotten up to-day, and he was sitting
by the window when I came in. He was hardly a shadow of himself."
Helen was trembling. "You have not been to see him?" asked the
woman.
"No," said Helen, faintly, "I--" and then she stopped.
"Why not?" Elizabeth inquired anxiously.
"He did not ask for me, did he?" asked the girl, scarcely able to
utter the words.
"No," said the woman, "but you know, everybody told me you were
engaged to a rich man--"
And Helen started forwrard with a cry. "Elizabeth!" she gasped,
"you--you didn't---!"
"Yes," said the other, "I told him." And then seeing the girl's look
of terror, she stopped short. Helen stared at her for fully half a
minute without uttering a word; and then the woman went on, slowly,
"It was very dreadful, Miss Helen; he went almost crazy, and I was
so frightened that I didn't know what I should do. Please tell me
what is the matter."
Helen was still gazing dumbly at the woman, seeming not to have
heard the last question. "I--I can't tell you," she said, when it
was repeated again; "you ought not to have told him, Elizabeth."
"Miss Helen," cried the woman, anxiously, "you _must_ do something!
For I am sure that I know what is the matter; he loves you, and you
must know it, too. And it will certainly kill him; weak as he was,
he rushed out of the house, and I could not find him anywhere. Miss
Helen, you _must_ go and see him!"
The girl sat with the same look of helpless fright upon her face,
and with her hands clenched tightly between her knees; the other
went on talking hurriedly, but Helen scarcely heard anything after
that; her mind was too full of its own thoughts. It was several
minutes more before she even noticed that the woman was still
insisting that she must go to see Artheur. "Please leave me now!"
she cried wildly; "please leave me! I cannot explain anything,--I
want to be alone!" And when the door was shut she became once more
dumb and motionless, staring blankly ahead of her, a helpless victim
of her own wretched thoughts.
"That is the end of it," she groaned to herself; "oh, that is the
end of it!"
Winkt dir nicht hold die hehre Burg? _
Read next: PART I: CHAPTER VIII
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