A Life For a Love: A Novel

At the close of the first address, just when a vociferous clapping was at its height, Helps observed a tall very thin man elbowing his way through the crowd. This crowd of working men and boys would not as a rule be prepared to show either forbearance or politeness. But the stranger with a word whispered here, or a nod directed there, seemed to find "open sesame" wherever he turned. Soon he had piloted his way through this great crowd of human beings almost to the platform. Finally he arrested his progress near a pillar against which he leaned with his arms folded. He was more poorly dressed than most of the men present, but he had one peculiarity which rendered him distinguishable; he persistently kept his soft felt hat on, and well pushed forward over his eyes.

Helps noticed him, he could scarcely himself tell why. The man was poor, thin. Helps could not get a glimpse of his face, but there was something in his bearing which was at once familiar and bespoke the gentleman.

"Poor chap, he has seen better days," muttered Helps. "Somehow, he don't seem altogether strange, either."

Then he turned his attention once more to watch for the acquaintance whom Esther did not want him to miss.

The meeting came to an end and the men began to stream out. Helps kept his post. Suddenly he felt a light hand touch his arm; he turned; his daughter, her eyes gleaming with the wildest excitement, was standing by his side.

"Have you seen him, father?"

"Who, child – who? I'm precious hungry, and that's the truth, Esther."

"Never mind your hunger now – you have not let him escape – oh, don't tell me that."

"Essie, I think you have taken leave of your senses to-night. Who is it that I have not let escape?"

"A tall man in a frock coat, different from the others; he has a beard, and he wears his hat well pushed forward; his hands are white. You must have noticed him; he is certain to be here. You did not let him go?"

"I know now whom you mean," said Helps. "I saw the fellow. Yes, he is still in the room."

"You did not recognize him, father?"

"No, child. That is, I seem to know something about him. Whatever are you driving at, Esther?"

"Nothing – nothing – nothing. Go, follow the man with the frock coat. Don't let him see you. Find out where he lives, then bring me word. Go. Go. You'll miss him if you don't."

She disappeared, flying upstairs again, light as a feather.

Helps found himself impelled against his will to obey her.

"Here's a pretty state of things," he muttered. "Here am I, faint for want of food, set to follow a chap nobody knows nothing about through the slums."

It never occurred to Helps, however, not to obey the earnest dictates of his daughter.

He was to give chase. Accordingly he did so. He did so warily. Dodging sometimes into the road, sometimes behind a lamp post in case the tall man should see him. Soon he became interested in the work. The figure on in the front, which never by any chance looked back, but pursued its course undeviatingly, struck Helps once more with that strange sense of familiarity.

Where had he seen a back like that? Those steps, too, the very way the man walked gave him a queer sensation. He was as poor looking a chap as Helps had ever glanced at, and yet the steps were not unknown – the figure must have haunted the little clerk in some of his dreams.

The pursuer and pursued soon found themselves in quarters altogether new to Helps. More and more squalid grew the streets, more and more ruffianly grew the people. There never was a little man less likely to attract attention than this clerk with his humble unpretentious dress and mien. But in these streets he felt himself remarkable. A whole coat, unpatched trousers, were things to wonder at here. The men and the women, too, took to jostling him as he passed. One bold-faced girl tilted his hat well forward over his eyes, and ran away with a loud laugh.

Helps felt that even for Esther's sake he could not proceed any further. He was about to turn back when another glance at the figure before him brought such a rush of dazed wonderment, of uncanny familiarity, that all thought of his own possible danger deserted him, and he walked on, eager as Esther herself now in pursuit.

All this time they had been going in the direction of the docks. Suddenly they turned down a very badly lighted side street. There was a great brewery here, and the wall of the brewery formed for a long way one side of the street. It was so narrow as to be little better than a lane, and instead of being a crowded thoroughfare was now almost deserted. Here and there in the brewery wall were niches. Not one of these niches was empty. Each held its human being – man, woman, or child. It seemed to be with a purpose that the tall stranger came here. He slackened his pace, pushed his hat a little back, and began to perform certain small ministrations for the poor creatures who were to pass the night on the cold damp pavement.

A little girl was asleep in one of the niches; he wrapped her shawl more closely round her, tucking it in so as to protect her feet. Her hair hung in a tangled mass over her forehead. He pushed it back with a tender hand. Finally he pressed into the little thin palm two lollypops; they would give comfort to the child when she awoke.

Helps kept behind, well in the shadow; he was absolutely trembling now with suppressed excitement. He had seen by the glitter of the flaring gas the white hand of the man as he pushed back the child's elf-locks. The two went on again a few steps. The man in front stopped suddenly – they were passing another niche. It had its occupant. A girl was stretched prone on the ground – a girl whose only covering was rags. As they approached, she groaned. In an instant the stranger was bending over her.

"You are very ill, I fear. Can I help you?"

"Eh? What's that?" exclaimed the girl.

She raised her head, stretching out something which was more like a claw than a hand.

"What's that noise?" she repeated.

The noise had been made by Helps. It was an amazed terrified outcry when he heard the voice of the man who was bending over the girl. The man himself had observed nothing.

"You are very ill," he repeated. "You ought to be in a hospital."

"No, no, none of that," she said, clutching hold of his hand. "I ha' lain down to die. Let me die. I wor starving – the pain wor awful. Now I'm easy. Don't touch me – don't lift me; I'm easy – I'm a-goin' to die."

The stranger knelt a little lower.

"I won't hurt you," he said. "I will sit here by your side. Don't be frightened. I am going to raise your head – a little – a very little. Now it rests on my knee. That is better."

"Eh, you're a good man; yes, that's nice."

Her breath came in great pants. Presently she began to wander.

"Is that you, mother? Mother, I've been such a bad gel – bad every way. The Almighty's punishing me. I'm dying, and He's a sending me to hell."

"No," said the quiet voice of the man. "No; you are the one He wants. He is seeking you."

"Eh?" she said. Once more her clouded brain cleared. "Eh, how my breath does go. I'm a-going to hell!"

"No. He has sent me to find you; you are not going there."

"How do you know?"

She turned herself an inch or two in her astonishment and stared up at him.

Something in his face seemed to fill her with astonishment.

"Take off your hat," she said. "Are you Jesus Christ?"

It was at this juncture that Helps turned and fled.

He ran as he never ran before in the whole course of his life. Nobody saw him go, and nobody obstructed him in his headlong flight. Presently he got back to the Mission Hall. The place was closed and dark. He was turning away when a woman came out of the deep shelter of the doorway and touched his arm.

"Essie, is that you? My God, Essie, I've seen a ghost!"

"No, father, no – a living man."

"This is awful, child. I'm shaking all over. I'd sooner be in my grave than go through such a thing again."

"Lean on me, father. We'll walk a bit, and soon find a cab-stand. We'll have a cab home. It's about time you had your supper. Don't talk a bit. Get back your poor breath."

As they were driving home a few minutes later, in a hansom, she turned suddenly.

"And you've got Mr. Wyndham's address?"

"Good heavens, Essie, don't say his name like that! I suppose it's a sign of the end that I should have seen a spirit."

"Nonsense, father, you saw no spirit. That's Mr. Gerald Wyndham in the flesh, as much as you and I are in the flesh. You saw no spirit, but a living man. I recognized him this morning, but I wasn't going to take my own word for it, so I got you to look him up. They call him Brother Jerome down here. Nobody knows anything at all about him, how he lives, nor nothing; only that he goes in and out amongst the people, and is always comforting this one or cheering that, and quieting down rows, and soothing people, and – and – doing more in a day than the Sisters or I could do in a week. I've heard of him for a month past, but I only saw him to-day. He's a mystery, and people wonder about him, and no one can tell how he lives, nor where he sleeps. I know, though. He sleeps out of doors, and he starves. He shan't starve any longer."

CHAPTER XXXIX

"Esther," said Helps, late that night, after Cherry, in a very sulky humor, had gone to bed, "Esther, this is a very terrible, a very awful thing for me!"

"How so, father!"

She was kneeling by his side. Now she put her arm round his neck, and looked into his face. Her beating, throbbing, exulting heart told her that her discovery of that day was new life to her.

"I am glad," she continued, after a solemn pause; "yes. I don't mind owning I am very glad that a good man like Mr. Wyndham still lives."

"Child, you don't know what you are talking about. It is awful – awful – his coming back. Even if he is alive he ought to have stayed away. His coming back like this is terrible. It means, it means – "

"What, father?"

"Child, it must never be known: he must be warned; he must go away at once. Suppose anybody else saw him?"

"Father," said Esther.

She rose and stood over the shrinking old man.

"You have got to tell me the meaning of those queer words of yours. I guessed there was a mystery about Mr. Wyndham; now I am certain. If I don't know it before I leave the room to-night, I'll make mischief. There!"

"Essie – Essie – I thought you had turned into a good girl."

"I'll turn bad again. Listen. I love that man. Not as a girl loves her lover – not as a wife cares for her husband. He is married, and I should not be ashamed to tell his wife how I love him. I glory in my love; he saved me. Father, I wasn't coming home at all that night. He saved me; you can understand how I feel for him. My life wouldn't be a great deal to give up for him. There has been mischief done to him, that I am sure. Now tell me the truth; then I'll know how to act. Oh, father, you're the dearest and the kindest. Tell me the truth and you won't repent it."

"No, Essie, child, I don't suppose I shall repent. Sit there. You know too much, you may as well know all. Mr. Wyndham's life was insured."

"Yes?"

"Heavily, mark you, heavily."

"Yes." She covered her face with her hands. "Let me think. Say, father" – she flung her hands into her lap – "was this done on purpose?"

"Ay, child, ay; and a better man never lived. Ay, it was done on purpose."

"He was meant not to come back?"

"That's it, Essie, my dear. That's it."

"I see; yes, I see. Was the insurance money paid?"

"Every farthing of it, child. A large sum paid in full."

"If he appeared again it would have to be refunded?"

"If it could be, child."

"If it couldn't?"

"Then the story, the black story of why it was wanted, would have to come out; and – and – Esther, is the door locked? Come close, Essie. Your old father and my master would end our days in penal servitude."

"Now I see," said Esther.

She did not scream nor utter any loud exclamation, but began to pace softly up and down the room. Mentally she was a strong girl; her calm in this emergency proved her mettle.

After a few moments Helps began to speak; his words were wild and broken.

"Over and over I thought I'd rather," he said. "Over, and over, and over – when I saw what it meant for him, poor young gentleman. But I can't, Essie, I can't. When it comes to the pinch I can't do it. We thought he was dead, my master and I, and my master he went off his head. And over he said, yes, over and over – 'Helps, a clean cell and a clean heart would be heaven to this.' But, bless you, Essie, he couldn't stand it either at the pinch. We thought Mr. Wyndham lying under the sea. Oh, poor young gentleman, he had no right to come back."

"No right? He has a wife and a child."

"A widow and orphan, you mean. No, Esther, he should have stayed away. He made a vow, and he should have stuck to it."

"He has not broken his vow, father. Oh, father, what a wicked thing you have done; you and that master to whom you have given your life. Now let me think."

"You won't send me to prison, Esther?"

"No, no. Sit down. I must think things out. Even now I don't know clearly about Mr. Wyndham; you have only treated me to half-confidences. Stay, though, I don't wish to hear more. You mustn't go to prison. Mr. Wyndham mustn't starve. I have it. Mr. Wyndham shall come here."

"Esther!"

Poor old Helps uttered a shriek, which caused Cherry to turn uneasily on her pillow.

"Keep yourself quiet, father. I'm a determined woman, and this thing shall be. Mr. Wyndham shall eat of our bread, and we will shelter him; and I – I, Esther Helps – will undertake to guard his secret and yours. No one living shall guess who he is."

"You forget – oh, this is an awful thing to do. You forget – there's Cherry."

"I'll blind Cherry. If I can't, she must go. I shall bring Mr. Wyndham home to-morrow night!"

"Esther, this will kill me."

"No, it won't. On the contrary, you'll be a better and a happier man. You wouldn't have him starve, when through him you have your liberty? I'm ashamed of you."

She lit her candle and walked away.

Old Helps never went to bed that night.

CHAPTER XL

Esther did not go out next morning. Cherry was surprised at this. Helps went off at his usual hour. Cherry noticed that he ate little or no breakfast; but Esther did not stir. She sat quietly by the breakfast table. She ate well and deliberately. Her eyes were bright, her whole face was full of light and expression.

"Ain't you going down as usual to these dirty slums?" quoth Cherry. "I'm sick of them. You and your clothes both coming in so draggled like at night. I'm sick of the slums. But perhaps you mean to give them up."

"Oh, no," said Esther, waking from a reverie into which she had fallen, "but I'm not going this morning. I've something else to attend to."

"Then perhaps, Esther," said Cherry, with her round eyes sparkling, "you'd maybe think to remember your promise of getting that pink gauze dress out of your trunk; you know you promised it to me, and I've a mind to make it up with yellow bows. I'm sure to want it for something about Christmas."

"You shall have it," said Esther, in a sharp, short voice.

The abstracted look returned to her face. She gazed out of the window.

"Law, Essie, ain't you changed, and for the worse, I take it!" remarked Cherry. "I liked you a sight better when you were flighty and frivolous. Do you remember the night you went to the theatre with that Captain something or other? My word, wasn't uncle in a taking. 'Twas I found your tickets, and put uncle up to getting a seat near you. Weren't you struck all of a heap when you found him there? I never heard how you took it."

"Hush," said Esther, rising to her feet, her face growing very white. "I was mad, then, but I was saved. That's enough about it. Cherry, you know the box-room?"

"Yes," said Cherry. "It's stuffed pretty well, too. Mostly with your trunks, what you say belonged to your mother."

"So they did. Well, they must go downstairs."

"Wherever to? There isn't a corner for them in this scrap of a house."

"Corners must be found. Some of the trunks can go in our bedroom – some into father's; some into the passage, some into the drawing-room if necessary. You needn't stare, it has got to be done."

Esther stamped her foot and looked so imperious that Cherry shrank away.

"I suppose you're a bit mad again," she muttered, and she began to collect the breakfast things on a tray.

"Stop, Cherry, we may as well talk this out. I'll go upstairs now and help you with the boxes. Then we'll clean out the attic; if I had time I'd paper it, but there ain't. Then I'm going out to buy a bedstead and bedding, and a table and washhand stand. The attic is to be made into a bedroom for – "

Here she paused.

"Well," said Cherry, "for whom, in the name of goodness?"

Esther gulped something down in her throat.

"There's a good man in the East of London, a very good man; he has no money, and he's starving, and he has to sleep out of doors; and – and – I can't stand it, Cherry – and I spoke to father, and we have agreed that he shall have the attic and his food. That's it, his name is Brother Jerome; he's a sort of an angel for goodness."

"Slums again," said Cherry; "I'll have nothing to do with it."

She took up her tray and marched into the kitchen. Esther waited a minute or two, then she went to her room, put on a coarse check apron, and mounted the narrow attic stairs. She commenced pulling the trunks about; she could not lift them alone, but she intended to push them to the head of the stairs and then shove them down.

Presently a thumping step was heard, and Cherry's round face appeared.

"Disgusting job, I call it," she said; "but if I must help you, I suppose I must. I was going to learn 'Lord Tom Noddy' this morning. I thought I might wear the pink gauze with yellow bows, and recite it at Uncle Dan's Christmas party. Cousin Tom says I'm real dramatic when I'm excited, and that's a beautiful piece, so rhythmic and flowing. But then we all have to bend to you, Esther, and if I must help you I suppose I must."

"I think you had better, dear, and some day perhaps you won't be sorry. He's a good man, Brother Jerome is, he won't be no trouble. I'll clean his room for him myself once it's put in order, and he's sure to go out early in the morning. He'll breakfast upstairs, and I'll take him his breakfast, and his supper shall be ready for him here at night. We must see if that chimney will draw, Cherry, for of course he'll want his bit of fire."

After this the two girls worked with a will; they cleaned and polished the tiny window, they scrubbed the floor and brushed down the walls, and polished the little grate. Then Esther went out and made her purchases. The greater part of a five pound note was expended, and by the afternoon Gerald Wyndham's room was ready for him.

"Brother Jerome will come home with me to-night. Cherry," said Esther. "I may be late – I'm sure to be late – you needn't sit up."

"But I'd like to see him. Slums or no slums, he has given me a pair of stiff arms, and I want to find out if he's worth them."

"Oh, he's nothing to look at. Just a tall, thin, starved-looking man. He'll be shy, maybe, of coming, and you'd much better go to bed. You'll leave some supper ready in his room."

"What shall I leave?"

"Oh, a jug of beer and some cheese, and the cold meat and some bread and butter. That's all, he's accustomed to roughing it."

"My word, you call that roughing. Then the slums can't be so bad. I always thought there was an uncommon fuss made about them. Now I'll get to 'Lord Tom Noddy,' and learn off a good bit before tea time; you might hear me recite if you had a mind, Essie."

CHAPTER XLI

"Oh, yes, she's the sweetest missus in the world!"

That was the universal opinion of the servants who worked for Valentine Wyndham. They never wanted to leave her, they never grumbled about her, nor thought her gentle orders hard. The nurse, the cook, the housemaid, stayed on, the idea of change did not occur to them.

Valentine and her little son came back to the house in town at the end of October. Lilias came with them, and Adrian Carr often ran up to town and paid a visit to the two.

One day he came with a piece of news. He had got the offer of an incumbency not very far from Park-Lane. A fashionable church wanted a good preacher. Carr had long ago developed unusual powers as a pulpit orator, and the post, with a good emolument, was offered to him. He came to consult Lilias and Valentine in the matter.

"Of course you must go," said Lilias. "My father will miss you – we shall all – but that isn't the point. This is a good thing for you – a great thing – you must certainly go."

"And I can often see you," responded Carr, eagerly. "Mrs. Wyndham will let me come here, I hope, and you will often be here."

"I wish you would spend the winter with me, Lilias," said Valentine. She had interpreted aright the expression in Carr's eyes, and soon afterwards she left the room.

She went up to her own room, shut and locked the door, and then stood gazing into the fire with her hands tightly locked together. She inherited one gift from her father. She, too, could wear a mask. Now it dropped from her, and her young face looked lined and old.

"It isn't the grief of losing him," she murmured under her breath. "It's the pain – the haunting fear – that things are wrong. Have I known my father all these years not to note the change in him? He shrinks from me – he dreads me. Why? His conscience is guilty. Oh, Gerald, if I had only let you look into my heart, perhaps you would not have gone away. Oh, if only I had been in time to go on board the Esperance you would have been living now. Yes, Gerald, the terror never leaves me day and night; you are dead, but God did not mean you to die. My own Gerald – my heart would have been broken, or I should have lost my reason, if I had not confided my fears to Mr. Carr. Some people perhaps think I have forgotten – some again that I have ceased to love my husband. How little they know! Of course I am bright outwardly. But my heart is old and broken. I have had a very sad life – I am a very unhappy woman. Only for little Gerry I couldn't live. He is sweet, but I wish he were more like his father. Ah, there is nurse's knock at the door. Coming, nurse. Is baby with you?"

Mrs. Wyndham unlocked her door, and a little round, dimpled, brown-tinted child scampered in. He was followed by his nurse, a grave, nice-looking woman of about thirty. She was a widow, and had a son of her own.

"Has baby come to say good-night, Annette? Come here, sweet. Come into mother's arms."

She sat down on a low chair by the fire, and the little man climbed on her knee.

"I don't 'ike oo. I 'ove oo," he said.

"He's always saying that, ma'am," remarked the nurse. "He likes his toys – he loves his mother."

"Course I 'ove my mother."

He laid his brown curly head on her breast.

"Nurse, is anything the matter? You don't look well."

"That's it, madam. I'm not ill in body, but I'm sore fretted in mind. Now, baby, darling, don't you pull your dear ma to bits! The fact is, ma'am, and sore I am to say it, I'm afraid I must leave this precious child."

"Nurse!"

Valentine's arms dropped away from baby; baby raised his own curly head, and fixed his brown eyes on the woman, his rosy lips pouted.

"Sore I am to say it, ma'am," repeated Annette, "but there's no help. I've put off the evil day all I could, ma'am; but my mother's old, and my own boy has been ill, and she says I must go home and see after them both. Of course, madam, I'll suit your convenience as to the time of my going, and I hope you'll get some one else as will love the dear child. Come to bed, master baby, dear; your mother wants to go down to dinner."

A few days after this, as Helps was taking his comfortable breakfast, cooked to perfection by Cherry's willing hands, he raised his eyes suddenly, looked across at his daughter Esther, and made a remark.

"I'm told poor young madam is in no end of a taking."

"What young madam, father?"

"Mrs. Wyndham. The nurse is going and the child has got whooping cough. He's bad, too, poor little 'un, and frets about the nurse like anything. My master's in a way, too; he's wrapped up in that little lad. It was he told me; he said perhaps you'd know of a nurse as would suit. Esther."