A Life For a Love Part 36

"I have to put things in order for my grandson," he would say.

n.o.body ever saw him smile just then, but a light used to come into his sunken dark eyes when the child's name was mentioned.

Valentine and the boy spent most of their time in the old house in Park-Lane. She was very gentle with her father, but the relations they had once borne to each other were completely altered. He now rather shrank from her society. She had to seek him, not he her. He was manifestly ill at ease when in her presence. It was almost impossible to get him to come to see her in her own house. When he did so he was attacked by a curious nervousness. He could seldom sit still; he often started and looked behind him. Once or twice he perceptibly changed color, and on all occasions he gave a sigh of relief when he said good-bye.

The child visited his grandfather oftener than the mother did. With the child Mortimer Paget was absolutely at home and happy.

The third summer after Wyndham's death pa.s.sed away. Valentine spent most of the time at Jewsbury-on-the-Wold. Mr. Paget went abroad, as he always did, during August and September. In October he was once more in town. Valentine came back to London, and their small world settled down for its usual winter routine.

On all sides there were talks of this special winter proving a hard one, the cold commenced early and lasted long. In all the poorer quarters of the great city there were signs of distress. Want is a haggard dame. Once known her face is dreaded. As the days grew short, the darkness deepened, and the fogs became frequent, she was often seen stalking about the streets. Poorly clad children, shivering women, despairing defiant-looking men all trembled and fled before her. The cold was intense, work became slack, and then, to increase all other evils, the great cruel monster, Strike, put down his iron heel. Want is his invariable handmaid. Between them they did much havoc.

It was on a certain short November day of this special winter that Mortimer Paget arrived early at his office. He drove there in his comfortable brougham, and stepped out into the winter cold and fog, wrapped up in his rich furs. As he did so a woman with two small children came hastily up, cast a furtive glance to right and left, saw no policeman near, and begged in a high piteous whining voice for alms.

Mr. Paget had never been known to give alms indiscriminately. He was not an uncharitable man, but he hated beggars. He took not the least notice of the woman, although she pushed one of the hungry children forward who raised two piteous blue eyes to the hard man's face.

"Even a couple of pence!" she implored. "The father's on strike, and they've had nothing to eat since yesterday morning."

"I don't give indiscriminate charity," said Mr. Paget. "If your case is genuine, you had better apply at the nearest office of the Charity Organization."

He was pushing open the outer office door when something arrested his attention.

A man came hurriedly up from a side street, touched the woman on the shoulder, lifted one of the hungry children into his arms, and the whole party hurried away. The man was painfully thin, very shabbily dressed, in a long frock coat, which was b.u.t.toned tight. He had a beard and moustache, and a soft slouch hat was pushed well forward over his eyes.

The woman's face lit up when she saw him. Both the children smiled, and the whole group moved rapidly away.

The effect of this shabby man's presence on those three helpless and starving creatures was as if the sun had come out. Mr. Paget staggered to his office, walked through the outer rooms as if he were dazed, sought his sanctum, and sat down shaking in every limb.

Since his strange illness of three years ago, Helps had been more like a servant and nurse to him than an ordinary clerk. It was his custom to attend his master on his first arrival, to see to his creature comforts, to watch his moods.

Helps came in as usual this morning. Mr. Paget had removed his hat, and was gazing in a dull vacant way straight before him.

"You are not yourself this morning, sir," said the clerk.

He pushed a footstool under the old man's feet, removed the fur-lined overcoat and took it away. Then standing in front of him he again said:--

"Sir, you are not yourself to-day."

"The old thing, Helps," said Mr. Paget. He shook himself free of some kind of trance with an effort. "The doctors said I should be quite well again, as well as ever. They are mistaken, I shall never be quite well.

I saw him in the street just now, Helps."

"Indeed, sir?"

It was Helps' _role_ as much as possible to humor his patient.

"Yes, I saw him just now--he takes many guises; he was in a new one to-day--a starved clerk out of employment. That was his guise to-day. I should not have recognized him but for his hand. Perhaps you remember Wyndham's hand, Helps? Very slender, long and tapered--the hand of a musician. He took a ragged child in his arms, and his hand--there was nothing weak about it--clasped another child who was also starved and hungry. Undoubtedly it was Wyndham--Wyndham in a new guise--he will never leave me alone."

"If I were you, Mr. Paget," said Helps after a pause. "I'd open the letters that are waiting for replies. You know what the doctor said, that when the fancy came you mustn't dwell on it. You must be sure and certain not to let it take a hold on you, sir. Now you know, just as well as I do, that you didn't see poor Mr. Wyndham--may Heaven preserve his soul! Is it likely now, sir, that a spirit like Mr. Wyndham's, happy above the sky with the angels, would come down on earth to trouble and haunt you? Is it likely now, sir? If I were you I'd cast the fancy from me!"

Mr. Paget raised his hand to sweep back the white hair from his hollow, lined face.

"You believe in heaven then, Helps?"

"I do for some folks, sir. I believe in it for Mr. Gerald Wyndham."

"Fudge; you thought too well of the fellow. Do you believe in heaven for suicides?"

"Sir--no, sir--his death came by accident."

"It did not; he couldn't go through with the sacrifice, so he ended his life, and he haunts me, curse him!"

"Mr. Paget, I hope G.o.d will forgive you."

"He won't, so you needn't waste your hopes. A man has cast his blood upon my soul. Nothing can wash the blood away. Helps, I'm the most miserable being on earth. I walk through h.e.l.l fire every day."

"Have your quieting mixture, sir; you know the doctor said you must not excite yourself. There, now you are better. Shall I help you to open your letters, sir?"

"Yes, Helps, do; you're a good soul, Helps. Don't leave me this morning; he'll come in at the door if you do."

There came a tap at the outer office. Some one wanted to speak to the chief. A great name was announced.

In a moment Mr. Paget, from being the limp, abject wretch whom Helps had daily to comfort and sustain, became erect and rigid. From head to foot he clothed himself as in a mask. Erect as in his younger days he walked into the outer room, and for two hours discussed a matter which involved the loss or gain of thousands.

When his visitor left him he did so with the inward remark:--

"Certainly Paget's intellect and nerve may be considered colossal."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

Esther Helps still took charge of her father's house in Acacia Villas.

She was still Esther Helps. Perhaps a more beautiful Esther than of old; a little steadier, too, a little graver--altogether a better girl.

For some unaccountable reason, after that night at the theatre when Wyndham had sat by her side and taken her back from destruction to her father's arms, she had almost ceased to flirt. She said nothing now about marrying a gentleman some day, and as the men who were not gentlemen found she would have nothing to do with them, it began to be an almost understood thing among her friends that Esther, lovely as she was, would not marry. This resolve on her part, for it amounted to an unspoken resolve, was followed by other changes. She turned her attention to her hitherto sadly neglected mind. She read poetry with Cherry, and history and literature generally by herself. Then she tried to improve her mode of speech, and studied works on etiquette, and for a short time became frightfully stilted and artificial. This phase, however, did hot last long. The girl had really a warm and affectionate heart, and that heart all of a sudden had been set on fire. The flame never went out. It was a holy flame, and it raised and purified her whole nature.

She loved Wyndham as she might have loved Christ had He been on earth.

Wyndham seemed to her to be the embodiment of all n.o.bility. He had saved her, none knew better than she did from how much. It was the least she could do to make her whole life worthy of her savior. She guessed by instinct that he liked refinement, and gentle speech, and womanly ways. So it became her aim in life to seek after those things, and as far as possible to acquire them.

Then the news of his death reached her. Only Cherry knew how night after night Esther cried herself to sleep. Only Cherry guessed why Esther's cheeks were so sunken and her eyes so heavy. Her violent grief, however, soon found consolation. Gerald had always been only a star to be gazed at from a distance; he was still that. When she thought of heaven she pictured seeing him there first of all. She thought that when the time came for her to go there he might stand somewhere near the gates and smile to see how she, too, had conquered, and was worthy.

Now she turned her attention to works of charity, to a life of religion. It was all done for the sake of an idol, but the result had turned this flippant, worldly, vain creature into a sweet woman, strong in the singleness of her aim.

Esther cared nothing at all about dress now. She would have joined a Deaconess' Inst.i.tution but she did not care to leave her father. She did a great deal of work, however, amongst the poor, and at the beginning of this severe winter she joined a band of working sisters in East London as an a.s.sociate. She usually went away to her work immediately after breakfast, returning often not until late at night, but as she wore the uniform of the a.s.sociation, beautiful as she was she could venture into the lowest quarters, and almost come home at any hour without rendering herself liable to insult.

One night as Cherry was preparing supper she was surprised to hear Esther's step in the pa.s.sage two or three hours before her usual time of returning. Cherry was still the same strange mixture of poet and cook that she had ever been. With the "Lays of Ancient Rome" in one hand and her frying-pan held aloft in the other, she rushed out to know what was the matter.