Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878

"I felt at first," said Helen, "as if there were no longer anything for me to do in the world. It seemed a treason to poor grandpa that I saw how beautiful the crocuses were as they blossomed in the beds on the terrace here, and when the mayflowers came I did not dare to pick them except to put them on his grave. Then, you know, as not even papa knows, that with all my reverence for my grandfather I had still had a terrible sense of responsibility mingled with my love for him; and not even yet can I go out a few hours for a drive or a ride without my feeling every now and then, through all my pleasure with papa, a sudden pang of dread. After such times I run to his room: it is easy enough to believe then that he no longer has any need of me."

"You were all alone at first, Helen, until my mother came to you? Two weeks alone! It seems dreadful."

"Georgy Lenox was here, you know."

"Georgy Lenox here?" I echoed in surprise. "I never heard anything so strange. How did it happen?"

Helen looked at me in her turn in astonishment. "Why was it strange?" she asked, as if regarding the matter in a new light. "She was one of the family: she came to grandpapa's funeral. Cousin Charles Raymond himself invited all the Lenoxes, for Mr. Lenox's mother was a Raymond—was grandpa's own sister, I believe. Why was it strange?"

"Natural for her to come perhaps, but I should not have expected her to remain. You asked her, no doubt?"

"No-o-o," returned Helen doubtfully. "I don't know how it was. The house was filled with people for a week: then they went away and Georgy stayed. She said it was horrid for me to have no lady near me in my trouble. Cousin Charles was here all the time until your mother came, but his wife was ill in New York."

"And when my mother arrived Georgy left you?"

"No, indeed: she is still here. You see," said Helen with a little of her old imperious way when she took control of things, "Georgy was greatly disappointed at the terms of the will. She had been led to expect that she would be quite an heiress when grandpa died. I don't know who taught her to believe in so strange an idea, for, to tell the truth, grandpapa did not fancy Georgy. Poor girl! everything has gone wrong with her. She was to have been married to Mr. Holt, you know, but it is all quite broken off; and she was very unhappy about that. She hates being in Belfield, because she sees him all the time, and is reminded of what she is trying to forget. So I asked her to stay here for a little while. You are not angry to find her here, Floyd?"

I laughed with an indefinable feeling of embarrassment. "I shall be most happy to see Miss Lenox," I rejoined; "and if I were not, it would be great impertinence in me to question for a moment the doings of the lady of the house."

"I am not the lady of the house," said she, a little piqued. "Mrs. Randolph is that. I give no orders now: everybody goes to papa. He says I have governed too long, and that I must be a little girl again. It seems so strange sometimes to have nobody consult me: I do nothing all day long but enjoy myself."

"But I belong to the old régime," said I, "and to me you will always be the châtelaine. I remember how you used to give orders to Mills and Mrs. Black: I can still smell the aromatic odors of the store-room when we used to make the weekly survey together, and can hear you talking 'horse' solemnly with the coachman down at the stables. I am not at all sure if I shall like you so well as a gay young lady of pleasure, with all your thoughts on your dresses and your lovers."

"As if I should ever think about my dresses or my lovers!" she replied with deep disdain.

"What do you think about?"

"I think about papa," she rejoined, still indignantly: "I think about your mother and you. I have a great many nice things to think about without being taken up with those horrid subjects."

"'Horrid subjects'! Good gracious!" I exclaimed: "I intend some day to be somebody's lover: shall I be a 'horrid subject'?"

She laughed frankly, a delightful girlish laugh which showed her little pearly teeth. "It depends on how you behave," she said with a little nod. "Georgy Lenox has lovers: she tells me about them, and I think them horrid."

"Do they come to the house here?"

"Oh yes. One is a stout man with a red face. He wears a solitaire diamond in his necktie. Papa knows him: he was in Congress, and his name is Judge Talbot. Then there is a young man—not so young as you, but still young. He remembers you: he used to be in Belfield. He is Mr. Thorpe."

"Tony Thorpe here? What unlikely people I come across! Which is Miss Lenox's favorite admirer?"

"As if she would have favorites among such admirers! Georgy is the most beautiful girl in the world. Papa is not fond of her, but even he says she is a superb creature. Why does nobody like Georgy? Papa does not, and I am sure Mrs. Randolph does not, nor do you. Yet she is so beautiful, so winning, so clever!"

"You don't need to pity her for not gaining love," said I gravely. "My mother may not like her, because she knew her as a faulty child who did considerable mischief first and last; and Mr. Floyd dislikes her because—You know why he dislikes her, Helen. But many people love her: I think few women in the world have won so much devotion. I have just seen Jack Holt, who had to give her up, and I am far from believing that nobody likes her."

"But why did he give her up?" questioned Helen.

"Why did she give him up," I returned with heat, "except that he had lost his fortune, and instead of being able to endow her with all the good things of life, himself needed aid, sympathy, love and comfort?"

Helen stared at me: "But he told Georgy she was free."

"Suppose," said I passionately, "that a man had loved you from your earliest childhood, Helen—that instead of your being possessed of wealth and other facilities for making your life all you wished, you were poor and obscure, and this man had made every sacrifice to gratify every desire of your heart. Suppose you had read his soul like a printed page, and found every thought in it noble, lofty and pure; suppose you knew that his happiness depended on you—that without you he could not have one sacred personal hope,—when you found that he was poor instead of rich, would you throw him over as you put away a glove that is worn out, even though he told you you were free—that although you had shared his prosperity he shrank from letting you endure the pains of his adversity?"

Helen was looking at me with a curious look in her brilliant dark eyes, and still watched me when I paused.

"Would you have accepted such freedom?" I demanded, impatient that she did not respond.

"I would have died for him!" she exclaimed abruptly, but she said no more about Georgy or her lovers.

The sun had set, and the glory of the clouds was all reflected in the sea. The air grew chilly, and we went in and watched at the front door for Mr. Floyd and my mother to return from their drive. It seemed curiously like the old times, and once or twice I started at some sound, expecting to hear a querulous voice and see old Mr. Raymond with his fur wrappings crossing the hall leaning on Frederick, who carried his tiger-skin. Helen was too quick and sympathetic not to understand my startled look.

"He will never come any more," said she sadly. "He is sleeping up on the hill beside his wife and all his children. Had it not been for papa I should have felt that I must go there too, it seemed so strange and lonely for him."

Presently through the pale gloaming came my mother from her drive, and when I lifted her from the carriage and almost bore her up the steps in my arms, I felt a happiness and peace which seemed but the beginning of a blessed time. My mother had grown perhaps a little older in the last two years, but surely she had grown more beautiful. It was enough at first merely to look into her face: then when I followed her up to her room we told each other many, many things, but I invite none to follow me over that threshold.

"I took good care of your boy, Mary," said Mr. Floyd, coming up to us when we descended; and when I met my mother's look I felt again all the proud humility that a son can feel, beloved as I was beloved.

"He was not such a bad boy," pursued Mr. Floyd, ringing the bell and ordering tea, "and his faults, such as they were, belonged to his age.—Don't open your eyes, Helen, as if you expected to hear just what he did. I shall not betray him. All the world knows that when one is abroad one may commit enormities which there may be put inside your sleeve, while here they are as big as a meeting-house."

"I don't believe Floyd did anything wicked," remarked Helen with some spirit.

"We are at home now, Floyd," pursued he with an air of resignation, "and our little diversions are over. The eyes of two women are upon us. No more cakes and ale—nothing but rectitude, cold water, naps in the evening. I forgot, though, about our charming guest. While Miss Lenox is here ginger will be hot i' the mouth, and life will have a slight flavor of wickedness still."

"But where is Miss Lenox?" I asked.

"Miss Lenox is far too brilliant a young lady to stay constantly in a dull country-house," said Mr. Floyd. "The cottage people over at the Point raffolent, as our friends abroad say, upon the charming Miss Georgina. We have, after all, very little of her society. She goes on yachting-parties, to dinners, luncheons, picnics—everywhere, in fact, where the delicate lavender ribbons of slight mourning may be allowed. She has attended a déjeuner to-day, and we are every moment expecting that our gates of pearl will unclose and admit a celestial visitant."

"Now, papa," said Helen, "you shall not make fun of Georgy. Nobody does her justice."

"Don't they?" returned Mr. Floyd dryly. "Fiat justitia, then! Ruat cælum! One would follow the other in this case, I fear.—She generally, Floyd, brings home one or two in her train. You remember Antonio Thorpe? That young man is so often here that I am beginning to regard him as one of the regular drawbacks to existence, like draughts, indigestion, bills and other annoyances outrageously opposed to all our ideas of comfort, yet inevitable and to be borne with as good grace as may be."

"What on earth is Tony doing at the Point?"

"He dresses well," returned Mr. Floyd reflectively: "his hands are soft, his nails clean. I don't think he follows any occupation which demands manual labor. I can generally tell a man's business by his hands or his coat; but on Tony's irreproachable broadcloth not one shiny seam discloses what particular grist-mill he turns."

"Of course he has no grist-mill," said Helen. "I thought he was a man of fortune."

"I was the guardian of his youth," observed Mr. Floyd, "and when he was twenty-one I paid over to him intact the sum of money left to him by his father. It had originally been less than fifteen hundred dollars, but by lying untouched for nine years at compound interest it had nearly doubled. That was several years ago, and with the utmost frugality on his part I can't see how he could have worn such decent coats on the interest of that money all this time."

"But you put him into business half a dozen times," interposed my mother: "I suppose he made money."

"No, he never made any money. The only way Tony will make money honestly is by marrying a rich girl. Not that I assume him to be dishonest or a sharper, for I do think him a gentleman, after the fashion of Sir Fopling. He probably is considerably in debt, but floats himself from all danger of sinking by speculation or the like. Five times I set him at work to make his living: five times he was returned on my hands. His character possesses all the drawbacks of great genius, without any of its resources: he is proud, discontented, misunderstood, with a talent for failure."

"Is he a suitor of Miss Lenox's?" I asked. "He was never in the habit of admiring her."

"You can make up your mind," said Mr. Floyd with a shrug, thus dismissing the subject.—"Helen, my child, looking at this young man impartially and judicially, what do you think of him?" and he put his hand on my shoulder.

We were at tea, which was always an informal meal at The Headlands. Helen sat among the tea-cups, my mother had a little table by her sofa, and Mr. Floyd and I walked about carrying cream and sugar and cakes. I was on my way for a fresh cup when this question was put, and I went up to Helen and sat down beside her.

"Impartially and judicially," said I, "what do you think of me?"

Mr. Floyd took his seat on the other side of her, put his face close to hers and began to whisper all sorts of nonsense in her ear about me. "Tell him," said he, "to begin with, that he is a prig."

"But I don't know what a prig is."

"A prig is a handsome fellow born to create disturbance among the ladies."

She looked around at me and laughed. "Isn't he a goose?" she asked in a pretended whisper. "Where was it in Europe that he lost his brains? He has brought none of them home."

"It may have been at Damascus," said Mr. Floyd. "Did I tell you that after I fell through the trapdoor in Damascus and broke my ribs, they put a railing about the place and asked a piastre for a look at the spot where the American gentleman almost came to an untimely end?"

But Helen did not laugh: she put her arm about his neck and brought his cheek to her lip, and kept it there, giving it mute caresses now and then, while she smoothed his hair about his temples with her little hand.

"I'll take some more tea, if you please," remarked Mr. Floyd after a while in a meek voice.—"I'm obliged to endure a good deal of this sort of thing, my boy: it's not so unpleasant as it may look, but nevertheless it requires some stimulant to keep up an emotion of agreeable surprise. By the bye, what do you think of my little girl, now that she is quite grown up?"

"Don't dare to tell," said Helen. "I'm dreadfully vain all at once, for papa flatters me so that the rugged courtesy of the outside world would seem hard to me. Still, papa's compliments count for very little. When Georgy comes in presently just listen to what he says to her."

And precisely at this juncture there was a little commotion in the hall, and Miss Lenox did come in with Tony Thorpe. She had spoken to my mother, kissed Helen and answered Mr. Floyd's badinage before she saw me, yet when her eyes did turn toward me she showed no surprise.

"Have you come at last?" she inquired coolly, holding out her hand. "I am glad to see you again, Mr. Randolph."

I greeted her as calmly, and said, "How are you, Thorpe?" to her companion, with another shake of the hand. And then everybody sat down, and there was fresh tea brought. I noticed that Thorpe was quite assiduous in his attentions to Helen over the cups and saucers, and seemed as much at home in the house as a tame spaniel. Meanwhile, Miss Lenox had sat down by my mother and begun telling her the events of the day. The déjeuner had been given on a yacht in the bay, and had begun in mistake and ended in disaster: the wrong people had come, while the right ones had been kept away, like the invited guests in the Gospel. The sun had been too warm, the breeze too cool, the men who talked to her garrulous and stupid, and the women abominably over-dressed.

"Dear Helen," cried Georgy with effusion, "I have wished myself at home with you all day.—Dear Mrs. Randolph, tell me what you have been doing with yourselves;" and she wasted a slight caress on my mother.

"Our doings were nothing remarkable in themselves," said my mother gently, with a little smile—one of those smiles which women keep for use among themselves, and rarely give to men.

"Papa and Mrs. Randolph and I sat under a tree until dinner-time," said Helen. "We have been very idle, but had a delightful time nevertheless."

"Praying all the time that Miss Lenox was enjoying herself at the déjeuner," drawled Mr. Floyd.

Georgy had risen and was crossing the room, and now, passing Mr. Floyd, paused and looked down into his face as he surveyed her with a slightly satirical air.

"I am glad of anybody's prayers," she returned, quite unruffled, "but I am afraid, Mr. Floyd, yours are merely a pretty figure of speech."

Mr. Floyd suddenly sprang to his feet and walked up and down the room with a restless way he had. "I have it! I have it!" he exclaimed with a triumphant air. "It is a picture of a Wili of whom you remind me, Miss Lenox. I saw it in R–'s studio at Rome.—Don't you remember it, Floyd?"

I knew it very well, and was aware, besides, that R– had got the face from Dart's sketch-book.

"What is a Wili?" inquired Georgy, looking at me. "You know I used to go to you for all my bits of knowledge when I was a little girl, Mr. Randolph."

I rose and crossed the room to her side. "A Wili," said I, "is a betrothed maiden who dies before her wedding-day. Your knowledge of your sex may tell you why it is that she is never at peace in her grave, but is impelled by some unconquerable love of life to rise every night and dance till morning."

"With whom does she dance? Her unfortunate lover?"

"Oh, where Wilis live you see them dancing together in the woods and fields by moonlight and starlight, their white arms wreathed about each other and their long hair floating. When a Wili meets a youth abroad in the night-time she beseeches him to dance with her; and the voice of the Wili is so sweet, her eyes so terribly beautiful, her clasp so horribly close, that whether he will or not he must join the fatal dance and keep pace with her eager, frenzied movements. When morning comes the Wili has gone back to her grave."

"And where is the young man?" asked Georgy.

"They find him dead on the grass," put in Thorpe, who was standing behind Helen's chair. "It is death to dance with a Wili."

"Both of you seem very experienced young men," remarked Miss Lenox calmly. "Did either of you ever meet with a Wili?"

"I have frequently met them on flowering meads," I returned, laughing, "but when they invite me to dance I tell them I am unable to dance with even the prettiest of live women, I am such a miserable cripple."

"It's rather a pretty story," mused Georgy, "but I don't quite see what it means.—Do you, Helen?"

"It seems to be a sort of warning to young men to keep in o' nights," returned Helen with a droll little air.

"Dead women never trouble me," said Thorpe, "but I have had no end of charming dances with live ones.—Do you waltz, Miss Floyd?"

"Oh yes. Miss Lenox and I waltz together whenever we can get any one to play for us."

"That must be a tame amusement," rejoined Thorpe with an ineffable air of conceit.

"Thanks for the neat compliment," said Georgy, "but neither Miss Floyd nor myself suffer from the tameness."

"Oh, allow me to explain—"

"We are not so dull but that we can understand even the most stupid bungle at a compliment of any awkward man," yawned Georgy. "Some time, by and by, when I am very rich, and so old that I don't care what happens nor how I offend my admirers, I intend to give to the world a woman's opinion upon the fascinations of men."

"Bravo! I hope I may live a hundred or so years in order to hear it," said Mr. Floyd. "However, Miss Georgy, it would be safe enough for you to tell us now that you hold men contemptible, only practising your coquetries upon them for your own amusement, quite indifferent whether your shafts hit or go astray. We could bear the ordeal, for we should know very well that circumstances must vindicate us. We are, after all, superior to even the highest simian types, and our poor fascinations shine by comparison with those of even the most intelligent baboon; so we should be certain that, in spite of your opinion of us, you would go on making yourself beautiful for our approbation to the end of your life, because you have, in fact, no other object worth spending your energies upon."

"I confess," said Georgy, with a peculiar glance at Mr. Floyd, "some men are worth any effort."

Thorpe, after many vain attempts to engage Helen in conversation, took his leave, and when I went to the door with him he begged me to stroll down the grounds to the gate. He had a three-mile walk before him for his pains in coming home in the carriage with Miss Lenox, but he vowed that the pleasure he always found at The Headlands recompensed him for any labor. He burst into enthusiastic talk about the old times at Belfield: he remembered the charm of my mother's house, he said, and the good times we boys had enjoyed together. How was Holt now-a-days? and where was Dart? Was it true that Jack himself had thrown Miss Lenox over, or was the fault on her side? "She is much admired," he went on. "How do you think her looking? She has many lovers and two or three suitors. There is Judge Talbot, with his mind set on winning her."

"What category of her admirers do you come in?"

"I am neither lover nor suitor," he rejoined lightly. "Miss Lenox and I are on excellent terms of camaraderie—no more. Were I to admire any woman from my heart, it would be the one I have just left. Is she not the rarest, sweetest, dearest Lady Disdain in the world?"

"I cannot guess to whom you refer," said I, "for I am at a loss how to excuse the familiarity of your speech in reference to any lady in the house except Miss Lenox."

"Now, Randolph," exclaimed Thorpe, putting his hand on my shoulder, "you shall not bluff me off so. I would cut my tongue out before I used it too freely in praising a young lady like Miss Floyd. I knew her as a child: her father is my best friend, my benefactor. Remember, if I spoke too freely, that my Southern blood gives me more trouble than the chilly currents in your Northern veins."

He spoke so eagerly, and with such perfect temper, that I was ashamed of my momentary outburst. I shook hands with him cordially at the gate, and walked back slowly, looking at the heavy bank of fog lying in the east over which the moon was peering, and thinking of my mother, of Helen, perhaps a little of Georgy, although my heart was swelling with anger toward her still: so I told myself again and again. Yet how beautiful she was, with a new and bewildering tenderness in her manner! What had softened her? Was it suffering?

When I returned to the parlor she had gone up stairs, tired with her excursion, I heard, and longing for a night's rest. I sat down by my mother, and we talked until midnight, while Helen sang ballads to her father in the next room in a rare contralto voice which had gained strength and richness since I heard it last.

When, finally, Mr. Floyd—who always put off going to bed as a final necessity—allowed me to go up stairs, I found inside my dressing-case a folded paper on which these lines were written: "The prettiest hour of the day at The Headlands is at seven o'clock in the morning, down among the rocks."

I should have felt no doubt whose hand had put the notelet there even if it had failed to breathe the perfume of violets, which no one who knew Georgy Lenox could hesitate to recognize.

CHAPTER XVI

It was full two o'clock before I began to think of sleeping, but nevertheless I was on the rocks next morning at seven; and my punctuality was rewarded by the sight of Miss Lenox walking on the shore in a white dress. I clambered down and joined her before she seemed aware of my presence: then she turned and laughed softly in my face. "What an early riser you are!" she exclaimed. "You have brought excellent habits home from the lazy Old World."

"But it would be such a pity to miss 'the prettiest hour of the day'!" I retorted quickly.

"Were you surprised to meet me last night?" she asked.

"Perhaps so. I had at least not expected it. I was in Belfield on Wednesday, and supposed that you were there."

"You could easily have found out my whereabouts if you had called upon mamma. I should not have expected you to be in Belfield without going near our house."

"Mrs. Lenox has too often snubbed me in my boyhood for me to count upon her grace now," I returned. "But I hope your mother is very well."

But it was very droll to me that I had embarked upon something like an adventure for the sake of talking about old Mrs. Lenox. Still, Miss Georgy was well worth coming out to see with the flush of healthy sleep still upon cheek and lip and the morning light in her eyes.

"Mamma is well," said she soberly. "Poor papa too: though he is worked to death, he is still quite well."