Contraband Part 33

CHAPTER XXIX.

DAYBREAK.

It is only your cubs bred last season, not yet many months emanc.i.p.ated from the tender authority of the vixen, that hang to their homes, and run circling round the covert when disturbed by the diligence of their natural enemy, the hound. An old fox is a wild fox; and no sooner does he recognise the mellow note of the huntsman's cheer, the crack of the first whip's ponderous thong, than he is on foot and away, lively as a lark, with a defiant whisk of his brush, that means seven or eight miles as the crow flies, the exercise of all his speed during the chase, and all his craft to beat you at the finish. If you would have that brush on your chimney-piece, that sharp little nose on your kennel door, you must be pretty quick after him, for he wastes not a moment in hesitation, facing the open resolutely for his haven, crossing the fields like an arrow, wriggling through the fences like an eel.

Sir Henry Hallaton had been too often hunted not to take alarm at the first intelligence of real danger, therefore it was that he put the Channel between himself and his creditors without delay, knowing well from experience that a man never makes such good terms as when out of his enemy's reach; and so, trusting in the chapter of accidents which had often befriended him, smoked his cigar tranquilly in a pleasant little French town, while his family, his servants, his tradesmen, everybody connected with him, were paying, in distress, discomfort, and anxiety, the penalties this self-indulgent gentleman had incurred for his own gratification.

There could scarcely have been a greater contrast than the position of father and daughter when the crash first came.

Sir Henry lived in cheerful apartments, dined at a tolerable _table-d'hote_, sipped a _pet.i.t vin de Bordeaux_ that always agreed with him, smoked good cigars, and frequented a social circle, not very distinguished, nor indeed very respectable, but in which, with his fatal facility of getting into mischief, he found himself always amused.

When his letters were written and posted, he felt without a care in the world for the rest of the day, and positively looked younger and fresher in his exile than at any time during the last five years, though there was an execution in the house at Blackgrove, and he had not a shilling to his name.

Helen, on the contrary, found herself beset with every kind of annoyance and difficulty, from the black looks of a princ.i.p.al creditor to the loud reproaches of a discharged scullery-maid. Her father indeed wrote her full and explicit directions what to do in the present crisis; but even to a girl of her force of character, many of the details she had to carry out were painful and embarra.s.sing in the extreme. On her shoulders fell the burden of settling with the servants, the land-steward, the very gamekeepers and watchers on the estate. She advertised the stock and farming implements; she sent the horses and carriages to Tattersalls'; she negotiated the rescue of her sisters' pianoforte out of the general smash. It had been arranged that those young ladies should pay a visit to their aunt, and Helen packed up their things, and started them, nothing loath, by the railway, and furnished them with money for their journey. Her purse was nearly empty when she returned from the station, and, sitting down to rest after her labours, in the dreary waste of a dismantled home, she realised, for the first time, the loneliness and misery of her position.

She had borne up bravely while there was necessity for action, while her a.s.sumed cheerfulness and composure implied a tacit protest against the abuse poured on her father; but in the solitude of the big drawing-room, with the carpets up, and the furniture "put away," she fairly broke down, leaning her head against the chimney-piece, and crying like a child.

She never saw the Midcombe fly toiling up the avenue; she never heard it grinding round to the door; she was thinking rather bitterly that her young life's happiness had been sacrificed through no fault of hers; that she had been misunderstood; ill-treated; that even her father, whom she loved so dearly, had placed her in a position of humiliation and distress; that everybody was against her, and she had not a friend in the world, when a light step, the rustle of a dress, and a well-known voice, caused her to start and look up. The next moment, with a little faint cry, that showed how stout-hearted Helen had been tried, she was in the embrace of Mrs. Lascelles, with her head on that lady's shoulder, who did not refrain from shedding a few tears for company.

"My dear, you mustn't stay here another instant," exclaimed the latter.

"Where are your things? Where is your maid? I've kept the fly, and you're to come back with me by the five o'clock train. Your father says so. I've got his letter here. No. Where have I put it? Don't explain, dear; I know everything. He told me all about it from the first, and I should have been down sooner but for those abominable excursion trains.

Ring the bell. Send for all the servants there are left, and tell them to get your boxes ready immediately! You're to pay me a nice long visit, my precious! And, oh! Helen, I've got so much to tell you!"

The girl was already smiling through her tears. Even in the midst of ruin it seemed no small consolation to have such a friend as this; and there was a hearty brightness about Mrs. Lascelles, not to be damped by the despondency of the most hopeless companion.

"How good of you to come!" she said. "How like you, and how unlike anybody else! I've had a deal of trouble here, but it's all over at last. I've managed everything for him the best way I could, and now I must go to poor papa, and take care of him in that miserable little French town."

"Poor papa, indeed!" echoed the other. "I've no patience with him! But, however, it's no use talking about that to _you_. Only, my dear, don't distress yourself unnecessarily about poor papa. He'll do very well, and there's no occasion for you to go abroad at all. We shall have him back in a week. Friends have turned up in the most unaccountable manner. How shall I ever tell you all about it? In the first place, Helen dear, I'm going to be married!"

"_You!_" exclaimed Helen, in accents of undisguised astonishment; adding after a moment's pause, as good manners required, "I'm sure I wish you joy!"

"Thank ye, dear," was the off-hand answer; "and who d'ye think is the adversary, the what-d'ye-call-it--the happy man?"

Two little separate spasms of jealousy shot through Helen simultaneously. It couldn't be Frank Vanguard, surely! And if it could, what did that matter to her? Perhaps it was Sir Henry. Helen had long learned to consider papa as her own property, and I am not sure but that this pang was sharper than the other.

"Anybody I know?" she asked, trembling in her secret heart for the reply.

"You know him quite well," answered Mrs. Lascelles, laughing. "Indeed he's a great admirer of yours, and at one time--no, I won't tell stories, I never was jealous of you and Mr. Goldthred, although you're much younger and prettier than me."

Helen certainly gave a sigh of relief, while Mrs. Lascelles glanced, not without satisfaction, at her own radiant face and figure in the gla.s.s.

"I'm sure I don't know how it all came about," she said, still laughing.

"But, however, there it is! It's a great fact, and upon my word I'm very glad of it. Now you know he's got plenty of money, Helen (though I didn't marry him for that, I've enough of my own), and, like the good fellow he is, he has promised to help your father through his difficulties. There's no sort of reason why you shouldn't all live here as formerly, but in the mean time it won't hurt those girls to go to their aunt for a bit (I hope she will keep them in order), and you are to come to No. 40 with me."

This was, indeed, good news. Helen could hardly believe her ears, and the young lady who now tripped lightly about the house, getting her things together, and busying herself to afford her visitor the indispensable cup of tea, was extremely unlike the forlorn damsel who had been paying off servants and poring over accounts the whole of that dreary, disheartening day.

But more comfort was yet in store for Helen, as if Fate, having punished her enough, had now relented in her favour. The tea was drunk, the fly was packed, and the ladies were driven to Midcombe Station, in the interchange of no more interesting communications than were compatible with the bustle of departure and the jingling of their vehicle; but no sooner were they established in a first-cla.s.s carriage, with the door locked, than Mrs. Lascelles, turning to her companion, asked, as though she were carrying on the thread of some previous conversation:

"And who do you think, Helen--who _do_ you think I found in the station meaning to come down to you at Blackgrove? He was actually taking his ticket. But I wouldn't hear of it, of course, and ordered him at once to do nothing of the kind."

"Mr. Goldthred, I suppose," guessed Helen.

"Not a bad shot!" answered the other. "Yes, he wanted to come, too; and begged and prayed very hard yesterday. Of course I forbid him. I'm not particular, but still, my dear, _les convenances_! No, Goldthred knew he mustn't last night. It was Frank Vanguard I found fussing about on the platform this morning."

Hurt, wounded as she had been, in spite of all her pride, all her injuries, the tears rose in Helen's eyes, while she thought of her false lover hurrying down to take his share of her distress. Perhaps he was _not_ false after all. Perhaps time would exonerate him, demonstrating, in some romantic and mysterious manner, that the unaccountable neglect she had so resented was not really his fault. She had been making excuses for him to her own heart ever since they parted. She was longing to forgive him fully and freely now.

But, unlike her companion, Miss Hallaton kept her feelings a long way below the surface, so it was a very calm, proud face she turned to Mrs.

Lascelles, while in a perfectly unmoved tone she observed:

"Captain Vanguard is a great friend of papa's, and I am sure he would be very sorry to hear of our misfortunes."

"He _looked_ it!" answered the other meaningly. "Poor fellow, he was as white as a sheet, and his face seemed almost haggard for so young a man!

It can't be entirely smoking and late hours, for that plague of mine smokes and sits up like other people, yet he's got plenty of colour, and his eyes are as clear as yours or mine. I must say I like a man to look _fresh_. There's something wrong about Frank. He's sadly altered of late, and I can't quite make him out."

Miss Hallaton was looking steadfastly through the window, while she replied:

"I haven't remarked it. To be sure I've not seen him lately. He used to have very good spirits as far as I recollect."

"He's not been the same man since Jin disappeared," said Mrs. Lascelles, with malice prepense, no doubt, but possibly "cruel only to be kind."

"Yet I'm by no means clear he had anything to do with that most mysterious business. He never could have shammed ignorance so naturally when we all consulted together, though I must say he seemed the least anxious of the party. I used sometimes to fancy he liked her, and sometimes I fancied it was somebody else. I think so still. What do _you_ say, Helen?"

But Helen changed the subject, skilfully diverting her companion's thoughts to her approaching marriage, a topic of so engrossing a nature, that it lasted all the way to London, and was not half exhausted when interrupted by the _fiancee's_ characteristic exclamation, as their train glided smoothly alongside the platform:

"What a goose he is! I knew he'd come to meet us! How pleased he'll be to see I've brought you. Helen, he's a dear fellow. He's as good as gold!"

He was as good as gold. Subject to the touchstone of happiness, Goldthred's character came out like a picture lit by gas. The tints were brighter, the lines more firmly marked, there appeared more depth, more meaning, more force and character in his whole composition, and Mrs.

Lascelles, who had begun by pitying as much as she loved him, found the pity changed to respect, and the love grown stronger than ever. She was proud of him now, while he, exulting in the distinction, strove all the more to continue worthy of her good opinion.

Surely on earth there is no incentive to virtue so powerful as the entire affection of that one being who represents our ideal of some purer and higher sphere. The idol is mere clay, no doubt, but the divine spark exists at least in the worshipper; and it may be that the stubborn human heart, now in a dream of joy, now in an agony of suffering, is thus trained and taught to look up from the limited and imperfect creature, to the boundless attributes of the Creator.

After her late excitement and distress, Helen had much need of rest, both for body and mind. At No. 40 she found herself in a secure and peaceful haven, where even during the flood-tide of a London season, she might have

"Listened to the roar Of the breakers on the bar outside that never reach the sh.o.r.e,"

but where in the hot dull autumn, when everybody was out of town, she could remain perfectly tranquil and undisturbed, with Mrs. Lascelles to humour her like a child, and Goldthred always ready to antic.i.p.ate her lightest wish.

It did not take many days, before the firmness had returned to her step, the light to her eyes, and she was once more the "belle Helen," as Mrs.

Lascelles loved to call her, with a vague notion the t.i.tle was extremely cla.s.sical and correct.

But it was quite contrary to the principles of the elder lady that any one who possessed health and beauty should be "mewed up," as she was pleased to express herself, while the weather tempted everybody out of doors. Sitting at luncheon, with Miss Hallaton on one side, and the faithful Goldthred on the other, she exclaimed, with the glee of an idle child who has found a new plaything, looking very bright and handsome the while:

"Happy thought! Let us drive down to-morrow to Oatlands! Weep at the dogs' graves, peep at the grotto, sit by the river, dine, and come back by moonlight. Who says _done_? It's almost the next thing to a water-party."

"Done!" exclaimed both her companions at the same moment, one with careless acquiescence, the other with intense admiration.

"Carried!" said the hostess, clapping her hands. "We three in the open carriage--_must_ have a fourth. Who is it to be?"