Tales of Trail and Town

“But”—stammered Helen.

“But—you are going to say that you don’t love him and have never thought of him as a husband,” interrupted the duchess; “I read it in your face,—and it’s a very proper thing to say.”

“It is so unexpected,” urged Helen.

“Everything is unexpected from a man in these matters,” said the duchess. “We women are the only ones that are prepared.”

“But,” persisted Helen, “if I don’t want to marry at all?”

“I should say, then, that it is a sign that you ought; if you were eager, my dear, I should certainly dissuade you.” She paused, and then drawing Helen closer to her, said, with a certain masculine tenderness, “As long as I live, dear, you know that you have a home here. But I am an old woman living on the smallest of settlements. Death is as inevitable to me as marriage should be to you.”

Nevertheless, they did not renew the conversation, and later received the greetings of their host at Moreland Hall with a simplicity and frankness that were, however, perfectly natural and unaffected in both women. Sir James,—a tall, well-preserved man of middle age, with the unmistakable bearing of long years of recognized and unchallenged position,—however, exhibited on this occasion that slight consciousness of weakness and susceptibility to ridicule which is apt to indicate the invasion of the tender passion in the heart of the average Briton. His duty as host towards the elder woman of superior rank, however, covered his embarrassment, and for a moment left Helen quite undisturbed to gaze again upon the treasures of the long drawing-room of Moreland Hall with which she was already familiar. There were the half-dozen old masters, whose respectability had been as recognized through centuries as their owner’s ancestors; there were the ancestors themselves,—wigged, ruffled, and white-handed, by Vandyke, Lely, Romney, and Gainsborough; there were the uniform, expressionless ancestresses in stiff brocade or short-waisted, clinging draperies, but all possessing that brilliant coloring which the gray skies outside lacked, and which seemed to have departed from the dresses of their descendants. The American girl had sometimes speculated upon what might have been the appearance of the lime-tree walk, dotted with these gayly plumaged folk, and wondered if the tyranny of environment had at last subdued their brilliant colors. And a new feeling touched her. Like most of her countrywomen, she was strongly affected by the furniture of life; the thought that all that she saw there MIGHT BE HERS; that she might yet stand in succession to these strange courtiers and stranger shepherdesses, and, like them, look down from the canvas upon the intruding foreigner, thrilled her for a moment with a half-proud, half-passive sense of yielding to what seemed to be her fate. A narrow-eyed, stiff-haired Dutch maid of honor before whom she was standing gazed at her with staring vacancy. Suddenly she started. Before the portrait upon a fanciful easel stood a small elaborately framed sketch in oils. It was evidently some recently imported treasure. She had not seen it before. As she moved quickly forward, she recognized at a glance that it was Ostrander’s sketch from the Paris grenier.

The wall, the room, the park beyond, even the gray sky, seemed to fade away before her. She was standing once more at her attic window looking across the roofs and chimney stacks upward to the blue sky of Paris. Through a gap in the roofs she could see the chestnut-trees trilling in the little square; she could hear the swallows twittering in the leaden troughs of the gutter before her; the call of the chocolate vender or the cry of a gamin floated up to her from the street below, or the latest song of the cafe chantant was whistled by the blue-bloused workman on the scaffolding hard by. The breath of Paris, of youth, of blended work and play, of ambition, of joyous freedom, again filled her and mingled with the scent of the mignonette that used to stand on the old window-ledge.

“I am glad you like it. I have only just put it up.”

It was the voice of Sir James—a voice that had regained a little of its naturalness—a calm, even lazy English voice—confident from the experience of years of respectful listeners. Yet it somehow jarred upon her nerves with its complacency and its utter incongruousness to her feelings. Nevertheless, the impulse to know more about the sketch was the stronger.

“Do you mean you have just bought it?” asked Helen. “It’s not English?”

“No,” said Sir James, gratified with his companion’s interest. “I bought it in Paris just after the Commune.”

“From the artist?” continued Helen, in a slightly constrained voice.

“No,” said Sir James, “although I knew the poor chap well enough. You can easily see that he was once a painter of great promise. I rather think it was stolen from him while he was in hospital by those incendiary wretches. I recognized it, however, and bought for a few francs from them what I would have paid HIM a thousand for.”

“In hospital?” repeated Helen dazedly.

“Yes,” said Sir James. “The fact is it was the ending of the usual Bohemian artist’s life. Though in this case the man was a real artist,—and I believe, by the way, was a countryman of yours.”

“In hospital?” again repeated Helen. “Then he was poor?”

“Reckless, I should rather say; he threw himself into the fighting before Paris and was badly wounded. But it was all the result of the usual love affair—the girl, they say, ran off with the usual richer man. At all events, it ruined him for painting; he never did anything worth having afterwards.”

“And now?” said Helen in the same unmoved voice.

Sir James shrugged his shoulders. “He disappeared. Probably he’ll turn up some day on the London pavement—with chalks. That sketch, by the way, was one that had always attracted me to his studio—though he never would part with it. I rather fancy, don’t you know, that the girl had something to do with it. It’s a wonderfully realistic sketch, don’t you see; and I shouldn’t wonder if it was the girl herself who lived behind one of those queer little windows in the roof there.”

“She did live there,” said Helen in a low voice.

Sir James uttered a vague laugh. Helen looked around her. The duchess had quietly and unostentatiously passed into the library, and in full view, though out of hearing, was examining, with her glass to her eye, some books upon the shelves.

“I mean,” said Helen, in a perfectly clear voice, “that the young girl did NOT run away from the painter, and that he had neither the right nor the cause to believe her faithless or attribute his misfortunes to her.” She hesitated, not from any sense of her indiscretion, but to recover from a momentary doubt if the girl were really her own self—but only for a moment.

“Then you knew the painter, as I did?” he said in astonishment.

“Not as YOU did,” responded Helen. She drew nearer the picture, and, pointing a slim finger to the canvas, said:—

“Do you see that small window with the mignonette?”

“Perfectly.”

“That was MY room. His was opposite. He told me so when I first saw the sketch. I am the girl you speak of, for he knew no other, and I believe him to have been a truthful, honorable man.”

“But what were you doing there? Surely you are joking?” said Sir James, with a forced smile.

“I was a poor pupil at the Conservatoire, and lived where I could afford to live.”

“Alone?”

“Alone.”

“And the man was”—

“Major Ostrander was my friend. I even think I have a better right to call him that than you had.”

Sir James coughed slightly and grasped the lapel of his coat. “Of course; I dare say; I had no idea of this, don’t you know, when I spoke.” He looked around him as if to evade a scene. “Ah! suppose we ask the duchess to look at the sketch; I don’t think she’s seen it.” He began to move in the direction of the library.

“She had better wait,” said Helen quietly.

“For what?”

“Until”—hesitated Helen smilingly.

“Until? I am afraid I don’t understand,” said Sir James stiffly, coloring with a slight suspicion.

“Until you have APOLOGIZED.”

“Of course,” said Sir James, with a half-hysteric laugh. “I do. You understand I only repeated a story that was told me, and had no idea of connecting YOU with it. I beg your pardon, I’m sure. I er—er—in fact,” he added suddenly, the embarrassed smile fading from his face as he looked at her fixedly, “I remember now it must have been the concierge of the house, or the opposite one, who told me. He said it was a Russian who carried off that young girl. Of course it was some made-up story.”

“I left Paris with the duchess,” said Helen quietly, “before the war.”

“Of course. And she knows all about your friendship with this man.”

“I don’t think she does. I haven’t told her. Why should I?” returned Helen, raising her clear eyes to his.

“Really, I don’t know,” stammered Sir James. “But here she is. Of course if you prefer it, I won’t say anything of this to her.”

Helen gave him her first glance of genuine emotion; it happened, however, to be scorn.

“How odd!” she said, as the duchess leisurely approached them, her glass still in her eye. “Sir James, quite unconsciously, has just been showing me a sketch of my dear old mansarde in Paris. Look! That little window was my room. And, only think of it, Sir James bought it of an old friend of mine, who painted it from the opposite attic, where he lived. And quite unconsciously, too.”

“How very singular!” said the duchess; “indeed, quite romantic!”

“Very!” said Sir James.

“Very!” said Helen.

The tone of their voices was so different that the duchess looked from one to the other.

“But that isn’t all,” said Helen with a smile, “Sir James actually fancied”—

“Will you excuse me for a moment?” said Sir James, interrupting, and turning hastily to the duchess with a forced smile and a somewhat heightened color. “I had forgotten that I had promised Lady Harriet to drive you over to Deep Hill after luncheon to meet that South American who has taken such a fancy to your place, and I must send to the stables.”

As Sir James disappeared, the duchess turned to Helen. “I see what has happened, dear; don’t mind me, for I frankly confess I shall now eat my luncheon less guiltily than I feared. But tell me, HOW did you refuse him?”

“I didn’t refuse him,” said Helen. “I only prevented his asking me.”

“How?”

Then Helen told her all,—everything except her first meeting with Ostrander at the restaurant. A true woman respects the pride of those she loves more even than her own, and while Helen felt that although that incident might somewhat condone her subsequent romantic passion in the duchess’s eyes, she could not tell it.

The duchess listened in silence.

“Then you two incompetents have never seen each other since?” she asked.

“No.”

“But you hope to?”

“I cannot speak for HIM,” said Helen.

“And you have never written to him, and don’t know whether he is alive or dead?”

“No.”

“Then I have been nursing in my bosom for three years at one and the same time a brave, independent, matter-of-fact young person and the most idiotic, sentimental heroine that ever figured in a romantic opera or a country ballad.” Helen did not reply. “Well, my dear,” said the duchess after a pause, “I see that you are condemned to pass your days with me in some cheap hotel on the continent.” Helen looked up wonderingly. “Yes,” she continued, “I suppose I must now make up my mind to sell my place to this gilded South American, who has taken a fancy to it. But I am not going to spoil my day by seeing him NOW. No; we will excuse ourselves from going to Deep Hill to-day, and we will go back home quietly after luncheon. It will be a mercy to Sir James.”

“But,” said Helen earnestly, “I can go back to my old life, and earn my own living.”

“Not if I can help it,” said the duchess grimly. “Your independence has made you a charming companion to me, I admit; but I shall see that it does not again spoil your chances of marrying. Here comes Sir James. Really, my dear, I don’t know which one of you looks the more relieved.”

On their way back through the park Helen again urged the duchess to give up the idea of selling Hamley Court, and to consent to her taking up her old freedom and independence once more. “I shall never, never forget your loving kindness and protection,” continued the young girl, tenderly. “You will let me come to you always when you want me; but you will let me also shape my life anew, and work for my living.” The duchess turned her grave, half humorous face towards her. “That means you have determined to seek HIM. Well! Perhaps if you give up your other absurd idea of independence, I may assist you. And now I really believe, dear, that there is that dreadful South American,” pointing to a figure that was crossing the lawn at Hamley Court, “hovering round like a vulture. Well, I can’t see him to-day if he calls, but YOU may. By the way, they say he is not bad-looking, was a famous general in the South American War, and is rolling in money, and comes here on a secret mission from his government. But I forget—the rest of our life is to be devoted to seeking ANOTHER. And I begin to think I am not a good matchmaker.”

Helen was in no mood for an interview with the stranger, whom, like the duchess, she was inclined to regard as a portent of fate and sacrifice. She knew her friend’s straitened circumstances, which might make such a sacrifice necessary to insure a competency for her old age, and, as Helen feared also, a provision for herself. She knew the strange tenderness of this masculine woman, which had survived a husband’s infidelities and a son’s forgetfulness, to be given to her, and her heart sank at the prospect of separation, even while her pride demanded that she should return to her old life again. Then she wondered if the duchess was right; did she still cherish the hope of meeting Ostrander again? The tears she had kept back all that day asserted themselves as she flung open the library door and ran across the garden into the myrtle walk. “In hospital!” The words had been ringing in her ears though Sir James’s complacent speech, through the oddly constrained luncheon, through the half-tender, half-masculine reasoning of her companion. He HAD loved her—he had suffered and perhaps thought her false. Suddenly she stopped. At the further end of the walk the ominous stranger whom she wished to avoid was standing looking towards the house.

How provoking! She glanced again; he was leaning against a tree and was obviously as preoccupied as she was herself. He was actually sketching the ivy-covered gable of the library. What presumption! And he was sketching with his left hand. A sudden thrill of superstition came over her. She moved eagerly forward for a better view of him. No! he had two arms!

But his quick eye had already caught sight of her, and before she could retreat she could see that he had thrown away his sketch-book and was hastening eagerly toward her. Amazed and confounded she would have flown, but her limbs suddenly refused their office, and as he at last came near her with the cry of “Helen!” upon his lips, she felt herself staggering, and was caught in his arms.

“Thank God,” he said. “Then she HAS let you come to me!”

She disengaged herself slowly and dazedly from him and stood looking at him with wondering eyes. He was bronzed and worn; there was the second arm: but still it was HE. And with the love, which she now knew he had felt, looking from his honest eyes!

“SHE has let me come!” she repeated vacantly. “Whom do you mean?”

“The duchess.”

“The duchess?”

“Yes.” He stopped suddenly, gazing at her blank face, while his own grew ashy white. “Helen! For God’s sake tell me! You have not accepted him?”

“I have accepted no one,” she stammered, with a faint color rising to her cheeks. “I do not understand you.”

A look of relief came over him. “But,” he said amazedly, “has not the duchess told you how I happen to be here? How, when you disappeared from Paris long ago—with my ambition crushed, and nothing left to me but my old trade of the fighter—I joined a secret expedition to help the Chilian revolutionists? How I, who might have starved as a painter, gained distinction as a partisan general, and was rewarded with an envoyship in Europe? How I came to Paris to seek you? How I found that even the picture—your picture, Helen—had been sold. How, in tracing it here, I met the duchess at Deep Hill, and learning you were with her, in a moment of impulse told her my whole story. How she told me that though she was your best friend, you had never spoken of me, and how she begged me not to spoil your chance of a good match by revealing myself, and so awakening a past—which she believed you had forgotten. How she implored me at least to let her make a fair test of your affections and your memory, and until then to keep away from you—and to spare you, Helen; and for your sake, I consented. Surely she has told this, NOW!”

“Not a word,” said Helen blankly.

“Then you mean to say that if I had not haunted the park to-day, in the hope of seeing you, believing that as you would not recognize me with this artificial arm, I should not break my promise to her,—you would not have known I was even living.”

“No!—yes!—stay!” A smile broke over her pale face and left it rosy. “I see it all now. Oh, Philip, don’t you understand? She wanted only to try us!”

There was a silence in the lonely wood, broken only by the trills of a frightened bird whose retreat was invaded.

“Not now! Please! Wait! Come with me!”

The next moment she had seized Philip’s left hand, and, dragging him with her, was flying down the walk towards the house. But as they neared the garden door it suddenly opened on the duchess, with her glasses to her eyes, smiling.

The General Don Felipe Ostrander did not buy Hamley Court, but he and his wife were always welcome guests there. And Sir James, as became an English gentleman,—amazed though he was at Philip’s singular return, and more singular incognito,—afterwards gallantly presented Philip’s wife with Philip’s first picture.