Helen Ford

“I didn’t speak to you, ma’am,” said the exasperated old lady. “It’s my belief that you’re all in league together, and I’ve a great mind to have you given in charge of the police.”

“Indeed!” said the cousin, ironically.

“Come away,” said Martha, in a low voice. “Don’t let us have a scene here.”

As quickly as possible they escaped from the irate old lady. She stood panting for breath, and glaring at them over the rims of her glasses, which had been accidentally misplaced. This encounter, ludicrous as it was, served to bring Helen back from the ideal world to the real, and without any further adventures she reached home.

It was already time to prepare their frugal meal. She found her father as busily occupied as ever. She was glad of this, for it showed that her presence had not been missed.

The next day Martha Grey was at work harder than ever. She felt that she must make up by extra exertion for the unwonted relaxation of the day before.

“What are you thinking of, Martha?” asked Helen, playfully, as she stole in unperceived, and placed her hands over the eyes of the seamstress. “Come, tell me before I take my hands away.”

“I was thinking,” said Martha, “that I should like to hear once more the song that was sung at the theatre yesterday.”

“You enjoyed it, then?”

“Very much.”

“Shall I sing it to you?” asked Helen, quietly.

“You, Helen?” asked Martha, lifting up her eyes in astonishment. “Can you sing? I never heard you.”

“I do not sing very often,” said Helen, sadly. “My mother taught me, and whenever I sing it brings up thoughts of her.”

“I should like very much to hear you sing, Helen,” said Martha; “but do not do it if it will make you sad.”

“Never mind, Martha. I will sing, if it will give you pleasure.”

Helen commenced the song, and sang it to the end in a voice of remarkable richness and power. She was gifted with a voice of extraordinary flexibility and compass, whose natural power had evidently been improved by cultivation. Martha, who, though no singer herself, was very fond of listening to music, and could judge when it had merit, listened with unaffected astonishment and delight. She felt that she had never heard a voice of equal sweetness and power.

“You have a beautiful voice,” she said, when Helen had finished the song. “You sang it much better than it was sung at the theatre yesterday. Some day you may become a great singer.”

“Do you really think so?” asked Helen, her eyes sparkling with delight. “I am very glad.”

Martha looked up in some surprise, not understanding why it was that Helen felt so much pleased. But a new thought had come to the child.

“Is there anything else you would like to hear?” she asked.

“I should like to hear ‘Home, Sweet Home.’”

It was a song which Helen had often sung, and to which she could do full justice. It was not difficult to account for the feeling which led Martha Grey to make choice of this song. She was one of a large family, who had never known sorrow or separation till the death of her parents, following each other in quick succession, turned them all adrift upon the world.

As the song proceeded, Martha called up in fancy the humble farm-house among the New Hampshire hills, with its comfortable barn and well-tilled acres around it. She recalled the broad, low kitchen, with its large fireplace and blazing back-log, around which the family was wont to gather in the cheerful winter evenings. She recalled her little sister Ruth, who was about the age of Helen when their home was broken up, but whom she had not seen since, Ruth having been placed in the family of an uncle. She recalled her happy school-days, her school companions, and, above all, her father and mother, who had never been otherwise than kind to her, and then looked about the small and desolate room which she now called home. She could not help contrasting her present lonely position with what it had been when she was at home in the midst of her family, and as the last strain died away upon Helen’s lips, she burst into tears.

Helen looked up in surprise at this unwonted display of emotion on the part of one, usually so quiet and composed as Martha Grey.

“Don’t mind me, Helen,” said Martha, through her tears. “It came over me, and I couldn’t help it. Some time, perhaps, I will tell you why it is that that song always makes me shed tears.”

CHAPTER VIII.

SUNDAY AND TRINITY CHURCH

It was Sunday morning. To thousands of frames, wearied by exhausting labors, it brought the benediction of rest. To thousands of throbbing brains it brought grateful relaxation. The great business thoroughfares wear a Sunday look. The shops are closed, and no longer hold out, through showily-arranged windows, invitations to enter. The bells in a hundred steeples ring out in many voices the summons to worship.

Helen tapped gently at Martha’s door.

“Where do you attend church?” she inquired.

“I was just going to call for you, Helen,” said the seamstress, “to ask if you and your father wouldn’t like to attend Trinity Church with me.”

Helen hesitated a little.

“That is the great church at the lower end of Broadway, isn’t it?” she inquired.

“Yes.”

“I thought it might be a fashionable church. Father and I have been to one or two of the great churches, where the sexton didn’t seem to care about giving us seats, but finally put us away back where we found it difficult to hear the service.”

“I have had the same experience more than once,” said Martha; “but we shall have no such trouble at Trinity. Though one of the finest churches in the city, it is free to all, and the poor are as welcome as the rich.”

“Then I shall be glad to go, and so will papa. Wait a moment, and I will tell him.”

They were soon in the street, mingling with the well-dressed crowds, wending their way to their respective houses of worship.

“Sunday was always pleasant to me,” said Martha, “even as a child. I remember the plain old meeting-house, where we all sat in square, high-backed pews, listening to the good old minister who is gone now to his rest and his reward. There have been great changes since then,” and she sighed sadly.

A short walk brought them to the church portals. They were early, and obtained excellent seats. The organist was already playing. Helen’s face lit with pleasure, for she had never before heard so fine an instrument or so skilful a player. Exquisitely fitted by nature for receiving musical impressions, she felt her soul uplifted by the grandeur of the music, and her heart penetrated by its sweetness. Now there was a thunderous clang, as if the organist were seeking to evoke from the instrument a fitting tribute to the majesty and power of the Creator. It seemed as if hosts of angels were clashing their cymbals, and singing God’s high praise. Now a delicate rill of silver-voiced melody trickled forth, clear and sweet, interpreting the unfathomable love wherewith God loves his children, even the lowliest.

Helen listened as one entranced, and when the last strain died away, and the organ was still, she turned towards Martha, and whispered, for she could not keep silence, “It lifts me up. It almost seems as if I were in heaven.”

Unconsciously Helen expressed the same feeling which Milton has embodied in fitting lines,—

“But let my due feet never failTo walk the studious cloisters pale,And love the high embowered roofWith antique pillars massy proof,And storied windows richly dightCasting a dim religious light;There let the pealing organ blowTo the full-voiced choir belowIn service high and anthem clear,As may with sweetness through mine earDissolve me into ecstasiesAnd bring all heaven before mine eyes.”

It is a mistake to suppose that the plainest and cheapest churches are good enough for the poor. Europe is far more democratic in matters of religion than America. In the great continental cathedrals I have more than once felt inexpressibly touched to behold at my side some child of poverty and misfortune bending a reverent gaze upon some imaged saint. I have pictured to myself his probable home in some filthy court or dingy alley, with the light of heaven shut out, dark, forbidding and noisome, and rejoiced to think that it was his privilege to pass from such a scene into the splendors that fitly adorn the house of God. It is something to shed a ray of sunlight upon the life of a poor man—to gratify his taste, mortified by the gloomy surroundings of his daily life, to nourish the little flower of sentiment struggling out of the rubbish that has well-nigh choked out his æsthetic nature, and help him to feel that life has a beautiful side, from which he is not utterly shut out.

So Helen and the poor seamstress, confined through the week in poor and unattractive chambers, felt a quiet satisfaction in the grand architectural proportions and solemn beauty of the great church in which they felt themselves welcome guests. They derived new strength for the plain and humble duties of every day in the thought that one day in seven they could escape into a loftier atmosphere, and feel God’s presence nearer.

Occasionally, as the service proceeded, Helen stole a glance at her father, who sat beside her. His face wore a look of calm enjoyment and intelligent appreciation.

As he sat with his clasped hands resting on his knees, and his eyes fixed upon the preacher, the vanished years returned, and beside him there sat once more the fair young bride, whose pure and saintly image lived a hallowed remembrance in the heart of father and daughter alike.

When the service closed, he did not change his position, till Helen, touching him gently, said, “It is time to go, papa.”

“We will come again next Sunday, Helen,” he said.

“Yes, papa.”

They walked back slowly and thoughtfully to their humble homes, speaking little, but each more happy and peaceful for the hour passed in the great church whose lofty spire seemed ever pointing upwards to that God in whose service it was reared.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAWYER’S PROGRESS

The day after his meeting with Helen and her father, the worthy attorney, Mr. Sharp, took his way leisurely to the boarding-house of Mrs. Morton. Although the object of his visit was clearly defined to his own mind, he scarcely knew in what manner he might best attain it. But Mr. Sharp was not a man to be abashed or daunted by small difficulties. Trusting, therefore, to what chance and the inspiration of the moment might suggest, he mounted the steps and rang the bell.

“Mrs. Morton, I presume,” he remarked, with great affability, as that lady opened the door in person.

“You are quite right, sir.”

“I believe,” he remarked with suavity, “that I am correct in the supposition that you take boarders.”

“I wonder what he’s aiming at,” thought Mother Morton, glancing with something of suspicion at the white hat set jauntily on one side of his head. “I hope he won’t apply for board. I am always suspicious of those who are so smooth-tongued.”

“Yes, sir,” she said aloud, “I do take boarders, but I am full now.”

“Indeed!” said Mr. Sharp, with a benignant smile, “I am delighted to hear of your prosperity. I was not, however, thinking of making an application for board in my own behalf, though I should undoubtedly esteem it a high privilege to be an inmate of a boarding-house which I am confident is so admirably conducted. Will you have the goodness to tell me whether you have a boarder or lodger named Dupont?”

It is scarcely necessary to explain that this inquiry was employed by Mr. Sharp as a plausible method of accounting for his calling, and to pave the way for something else. He had no particular choice in the name, but thought Dupont would be as uncommon as any.

“Yes,” was the unexpected reply of Mrs. Morton, “we have a lodger of that name. I believe he is in. Will you step in and see him, sir?”

Unprepared for this answer, Mr. Sharp was for the moment undecided how to act. Being sufficiently quick-witted, however, he soon devised a way to extricate himself from his embarrassment.

“Poor man!” said he with a gentle sigh; “he’s much to be pitied.”

“Pitied!” echoed the landlady, opening wide her eyes in astonishment. “Why?”

“To a sensitive mind,” continued Mr. Sharp, in a tone of mild pathos, “bodily deformity must be a great drawback to one’s comfort and happiness.”

“Deformity!” repeated the landlady in increased surprise.

“Yes, Mr. Dupont is a humpback, is he not?”

“A humpback!” returned Mrs. Morton, in a tone of some asperity. “You are quite mistaken, sir; I have no humpback among my boarders.”

“Then it cannot be the man I mean,” said the lawyer, rejoiced to have got out of the scrape so cleverly. “I beg ten thousand pardons for having put you to so much trouble.”

“No trouble, sir,” was the civil reply.

Mrs. Morton held the door, wondering why the visitor still remained, now that his errand was accomplished. The lawyer’s purpose, however, still remained to be effected. He was even now cudgelling his brains to devise a method of reaching it.

“A moment more,” he said, with suavity. “I think, as I passed last evening, that I saw a little girl enter with an elderly gentleman.”

“Helen Ford?”

“Oh, yes. She boards with you, does she not?”

“Helen and her father have a room up stairs. They board themselves. I only lodge them.”

“Pardon my curiosity, but I have an object in view. What is her father’s occupation?”

“He is busy about some invention, and has been ever since he came here. A flying machine, I believe.”

“Ah, yes,” said the lawyer, to whom this was all new. “It is as I supposed. Can I see them? I picked up a small purse,” he added, by way of explanation, “just after they passed me in the street, and I thought it not unlikely that the young lady might have dropped it.”

“Certainly,” said the landlady, somewhat more favorably disposed to Mr. Sharp, in consequence of this evidence of his integrity. “Their room is on the fourth floor, at the head of the stairs. Perhaps I had better go up and show you.”

“Oh, by no means, madam, by no means,” said the lawyer, politely. “I know the value of your time, and would on no account subject you to so much unnecessary trouble. I shall easily find it from your directions.”

Helen was looking out of the window, and her father was busied as usual, when a low tap was heard at the door.

Supposing it was Martha, who, in fact, with the exception of the landlady, was her only visitor, she cried, “Come in,” and then creeping softly to the door, jumped out playfully upon the one who entered. Her dismay may readily be conceived when, instead of the quiet seamstress, she found that she had narrowly escaped jumping into the arms of a tall man with a white hat.

“I am very sorry,—I did not know,—I thought it was Martha,” she faltered, in great confusion, her cheeks dyed with blushes.

“Don’t apologize, I beg of you,” said the stranger, courteously. “It is I, on the contrary, who should apologize for intruding upon you, and,” he added, glancing to the corner of the room, “upon your respected parent. I am not mistaken,” he added, inquiringly, “in supposing him to be your father?”

“No, sir,” said Helen, who, without understanding why, felt a little ill at ease from the elaborate politeness of her visitor.

“But I have not yet disclosed the motive of my visit. I chanced to be walking behind you and your father yesterday in the afternoon. You walked out at that time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought I could not be mistaken. There are some countenances, my dear young lady, that we are not likely to forget.”

Helen, unused as she was to flattery, did not understand that this was meant for a compliment. Therefore it quite failed of its effect. Perhaps this was quite as well, since, if understood, it would have confused rather than pleased her. She was too deficient in vanity to have felt flattered by a compliment from a stranger. Yet no one was more desirous of winning the approval of those whose friendship she valued. Helen was, in short, a truthful, unsophisticated child, perfectly transparent and straightforward, and imagined that others were equally so. So she only waited patiently for Mr. Sharp to announce the object of his call.

“Afterwards I discovered this purse on the sidewalk,” continued the lawyer, displaying his own purse. “As you and your father had just passed, I conjectured that one or the other of you must have dropped it. I have, accordingly, called this morning to ascertain if I am correct in my supposition, and if so, to return the purse.”

“No,” said Helen, shaking her head. “It cannot be ours.”

“Then I must seek farther for the owner. I beg you will pardon me for this intrusion.”

Helen said, rather awkwardly, that it was of no consequence.

“May I inquire,” said Mr. Sharp, as if the idea suddenly struck him, “whether your father is not an inventor? I think I was told so by the very respectable lady down stairs.”

“Yes,” said Helen, more at her ease. “Papa has been busy a great while about his invention. It requires a great deal of time and patience.”

“Indeed! Would it be taking too great a liberty to inquire the nature of the proposed invention?”

“It is a flying machine,” said Helen. “Some people laugh at it,” she added, a little hurriedly. “It seems strange to them because they have never thought much about it.”

“Let them laugh,” said Mr. Sharp, with warmth. “Let them laugh, my dear young lady,” he repeated in a tone of profound sympathy. “It is the way of the world. There has never been any great discovery or invention, from the earliest ages to the present time, that has not encountered ridicule. Wait till success crowns your father’s exertions, and then you will see how all will be changed.”

“So papa thinks,” said Helen, quite grateful to the lawyer for his words of encouragement; “and it is that which makes him labor so patiently.”

“Undoubtedly. Would it be too great a liberty to ask permission to examine your father’s invention. It is a subject in which I feel a very deep interest. Indeed, I may say that I am something of an inventor myself.”

Poor confiding Helen! How could she imagine that these words of sympathy covered an unblushing falsehood?

“Papa will be very glad to show it to you,” she said. Then to her father: “Papa, this gentleman would like to examine your model.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Ford, courteously.

This was a subject on which, despite his taciturnity, he could talk fluently. Mr. Sharp listened with an appearance of profound attention, occasionally asking a question, and remarking modestly that he had once entered upon a similar train of investigation, but that the imperative claims of business had brought it to an abrupt termination.

“I have not by any means,” he concluded, “lost my interest in scientific matters; and it would afford me great pleasure if you will permit me occasionally to look in upon you and note your progress. I dare not hope that I could offer any suggestions likely to be of service to one so far my superior in scientific attainments, but should it be in my power to aid you in any way, you can count on me with confidence.”

Mr. Ford felt flattered, as was but natural, by this evidence of interest in his pursuits, and cordially invited Mr. Sharp to call whenever he found it convenient.

“Well, Sharp,” said that gentleman, apostrophizing himself, as he made his way down stairs, “you’ve done well, old fellow, though at one time I trembled for you. You’ve flattered your way into the good graces of that chimerical old fool, and now you are in a fair way to accomplish something more, if needful.”

The next day found him closeted with Lewis Rand, from whom he received instructions as to his future course.

CHAPTER X.

NEW PROJECTS

Helen had been long and anxiously considering in what manner she could employ herself so as to earn a sufficient amount to defray the expenses of living. Every day the little stock of money remaining in her purse became less. They lived very frugally, but there was the rent, and two persons cannot live on air. So the little hoard diminished, and five dollars were now all that remained to Helen. Five dollars! it might keep them ten days, but certainly would not last longer, economize as they might. From her father Helen could hope for no present assistance. He was always at work, but his labor, however well it might be compensated in the future, brought in no money now. And for money there would soon be pressing occasion. Helen grew very uneasy at the thought that they might be turned penniless into the street. Hitherto they had never been without money. The five dollars that remained was the last instalment of a small property left her father by his mother.

One morning Helen sat at the table, leaning her head upon her hand, plunged in anxious thought. At first she could think of no possible resource. But when everything looks dark, and all paths seem closed to us, suddenly from out the thick darkness there sometimes streams a ray of hope to cheer and sustain the sinking heart.

So it was in the present case.

In her humility, Helen had never dreamed that she possessed extraordinary musical powers, and it was only through the warm commendation of Martha Grey that this fact became known to her. Why should she not employ these in her father’s service? At the theatre a singer, but little older than herself, and as Martha declared inferior in talent, had won the popular applause. Why should not she gain employment in a similar capacity? Full of these thoughts, she entered Martha’s room.

The seamstress sat at the open window. The cool breeze that found its way in, lent a faint flush to her pale cheeks. In the cage over her head a canary bird sang—Martha’s solitary extravagance. As she sat alone from morning till night engaged in her monotonous task, the bird supplied the place of human company, and beguiled a portion of the weary time.

Helen came in and seated herself on a cricket at Martha’s feet.

Martha’s face brightened, for she had already learned to love the child.

“I am glad to see you, Helen,” she said. “How is your father, to-day?”

“Papa is much as usual.”

“Hard at work as ever, I suppose.”

“Yes; he allows himself no time to rest. I really think he ought. But, Martha, I am going to ask your advice about something very important to me,” said the child, gravely.

“Thank you for your confidence, Helen. Whatever is of importance to you will be of interest to me.”

“You remember telling me the other day that you liked my singing, and that I might some day become a great singer. You know I told you at the time how glad I was to hear you say so.”

“Yes, Helen; I remember it.”

“I did not tell you then why I felt glad; but I will now.”

Helen paused a moment, and then in a frank tone, which showed how little she was affected by the conventional shame some feel in disclosing their poverty, continued: “My father and I are very poor. We have been so for some time, but I got a little money by sewing, and that helped along. Now, you know, business is dull, and I can get no more work to do. The little money we have left will not last a fortnight, though I am very economical. So you see, Martha, it is quite necessary that I should find some way of earning more money at once.”

“Does your father know how near you are to destitution?” inquired the seamstress.

“No,” was the child’s reply; “and I hope he will not find out. I cannot bear to trouble him with that, when he has so much to think of. It can’t be very long before he finishes his model, and then we shall have plenty of money. If I can only earn enough to keep us along till that time I shall be very glad.”

“Poor child!” thought Martha, compassionately; “it will be long enough before your father’s invention fills your purse.”

She was about to offer to procure Helen some work from the establishment where she was employed, but when she looked at the bright face of the young girl, and thought to what hours and days of weariness it would consign her, how it would steal one by one the roses from her cheeks, and the freshness from her heart, leaving her with little to enjoy in the present and less to hope for in the future, she had not the heart to offer her the destiny which she had been compelled to accept for herself; nor could she bear to dim the child’s trustful confidence in her father’s success by the expression of a single doubt.