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

I had looked at everything, had taken in every surprise of beautiful form and color: then my eyes were lifted again to the windows, and I was gazing at the meek saints with their shining raiment and radiant hair when I was suddenly recalled to a recollection of where I was and why I was there. A hand pushed aside the velvet curtain which hung across the doorway—a child's hand—and then a little girl entered, followed by a greyhound as tall as herself. I rose and stood waiting while she advanced, the same sunshine which transfigured the saints in the windows playing over her white dress in brilliant rainbow tints.

She was a very little girl, yet her large, serious dark eyes and her lithe way of carrying her slim height impressed me with a sort of awe which I might not have felt for a grown woman. When she neared me she stood perfectly still, regarding me silently with a deliberate glance. She was very pale, with a complexion like the inner leaves of a white rose, but her eyes lent fire to a face otherwise proud and cold. Her hair had evidently been cut short, and curled close to her head in loose brown curls. When she had fairly taken me in she held out her hand. "How do you do?" she asked in a clear, deliberate voice. "I am very glad to see you."

"Did you expect me?" I inquired shyly.

"Of course we did," she answered with some imperiousness, "or we should not have sent the carriage and servants to meet you."

Then we were both silent again, and went on mentally making up our minds concerning each other.

"Yes," she said presently, putting her hand into mine again, "you look just as I thought you did. I asked papa: he said you had brown hair and gray eyes, and that you were good-looking when you smiled. And am I like what you expected to see?"

I did not know, I told her. In fact, although I had heard much and thought some about Helen, she had hitherto possessed no personality for me except as Mr. Floyd's little girl. And now she impressed me differently from any person I had ever seen before, and if I had formed any previous conceptions, they all fled. She seemed, I will confess, a haughty, aristocratic little creature, with her slight form and somewhat imperious look, her deliberate, commanding voice and intense eyes: still, I liked her at once. Mr. Floyd had begged me to be kind to her, and it seemed easy for me to cherish and protect her: she appeared to need being taken care of with both strength and tenderness, for it was such a fragile little hand I held, and, with all its beauty, such a wan little face I looked upon.

"I hope you will like me, Helen," said I bluntly, "for your father wants you to enjoy my visit."

She smiled for the first time. "I like you very much already," she said in the same distinct, melancholy voice; and without more words she put up her little face to mine and kissed me softly on my lips. I was unused to caresses, and my cheeks burned; but I followed her, at her request, to the back lawn, where Mr. Raymond was waiting to see me.

"Grandfather is not strong," she explained, "and we save him all the steps we can. It is so sad to be old! Have you a grandfather?"

"No," I returned: "there is nobody in our family but mother and me."

"And I have got grandpa and papa too," said she thoughtfully. "Only papa is so busy: he is never here but a week at a time."

We had passed through the hall, crossed the rear piazza and descended the steps, and were advancing along the grassplat toward a summer-house which faced the sea. I could now for the first time gain an idea of the extent and grandeur of the place. The house towered above us solemnly with its towers, pillared arches, cornices and pediments, while, beyond, the glass roofs of numberless greenhouses lifted their domes to the warm afternoon sun. All around the lawn stood lofty trees, their foliage glorious with crimson, russet and gold, and their shadows crept stealthily toward us as if they were alive. And beyond house, lawns, gardens and tree-lined avenues was a pine wood which extended its solemn verdure all round the place, enclosing it almost to the edge of the bluff. All this on the right hand: on the left the mysterious sea, whose music filled the fair sunshiny world we two children were traversing hand in hand.

"There is grandpa," exclaimed Helen as we neared the summer-house; and I saw an old man sitting in an arm-chair in the sunshine, looking eagerly toward us as if in anxious expectation.

"You were gone a long time, Helen," he called out peevishly.

"Oh no, dear," she replied soothingly. "Here is Floyd, grandpa."

He had looked, when I first saw him from a distance, like a very old man, but when I was shaking hands with him I was surprised to discover that his face had little appearance of age. Even his thin dark hair was but sprinkled with gray at the curly ends on the temples: his eyebrows were a black silky thread, his eyes dark and full of a peculiar glitter. His features were finely formed and feminine in their delicacy, but the expression of his face was marred by the restlessness of his eyes, and made almost pathetic by the dejected, melancholy lines about his thin scarlet lips.

He shook hands with me gracefully, and made inquiries about my journey, then sank back into his chair listlessly, and allowed Helen to pull the tiger-skin which formed his lap-robe over his knees. There was a peculiar feebleness about his whole attitude as he sat—something almost abased in the sinking of his chin upon his breast. It was hard for me to realize that he was the owner of all this magnificence, and, dressed although he was with faultless elegance, and although luxurious appurtenances filled the summer-house, waiting for his momentary convenience, I was certain that his great wealth brought him no pleasure, and that, except for his little grandchild, he was comfortless in the world. He was full of complaints toward her. He was sure, he said, that now when I had come she would have no thought of him; that taking care of an old man was a dreary and thankless task; that only the young could be beloved by the young. And her way of listening and answering made me suspect that she was but too used to such querulousness. I was perhaps too young to understand mainsprings of action, yet nevertheless I seemed to know at once that her calm, mature manner and precocious imperiousness were the result of his weakness and wavering, of his selfish and morbid doubts.

"You are older than I thought," Mr. Raymond said to me, regarding me for the first time with languid curiosity. "I expected to see a velvet-coated little fellow of Helen's size. What is your age, my boy?"

I told him I should be fifteen the next spring, counting, as most young people do, by the milestone ahead of me, instead of the one I had passed.

"Oh, that is quite an age," said he with an air of relief. "Do not expect to make a playmate of Mr. Floyd Randolph, Helen: he is quite too old to care for a mere child like yourself."

"He is not nearly as old as papa." returned Helen quickly, "and papa will play with me all day long."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Raymond, sinking back among his cushions and tiger-skins, "all the world can play but me. I must be content to sit outside the joy and the sunshine. I have lived too long. Only the young, bright people of the world are welcome even to my own little grandchild."

Helen threw her arm about his neck and stroked his cheek with her slim hand. "You know, grandpa," she said simply, "that I do not care for play, and I love our quiet times together; but you forget what Dr. Sharpe says—that I must run about out of doors and be as merry as I can, or else—"

He stopped her with a quick, shuddering gesture. "Oh no," said he, "I do not forget. Do not make me out worse than I am to Floyd, Helen." He rang a hand-bell on the table by his side, and began feebly to adjust the wrappings about his shoulders.—"I will go in, Frederick," he murmured to the servant, who advanced at once as if he had been waiting close by—"I will go in and sit by the fire.—Helen, you must show Floyd the place.—There are greenhouses, and the stables are worth seeing too," he added to me apologetically. "I hear that Robinson has some rare fowls, and Helen has dogs of all kinds, and a few deer. It will do her good to go about, you know." He broke off suddenly, a spasm crossing his face, and without more words he turned abruptly to his valet, took his arm and walked feebly toward the house.

We stood together looking after him—I a little shy and perplexed in my new position, Helen thoughtful and melancholy.

"Poor grandpa!" she said presently with a sigh: "he has only me, you know, Floyd. He has nothing else in the whole wide world, and it worries him to think that he cannot be with me always, that he cannot—"

She broke off, and the small face twitched as if she were about to cry, but she controlled herself.

The splendid house, with its gleaming windows and stately pillars, the wide grounds, the air of quiet magnificence which reigned over the whole place, had so much impressed me that I could not resist uttering an exclamation at her words. She spoke of Mr. Raymond as having nothing in the wide world but herself, yet he was rich enough to be master of what appeared to me the pomp of kings; and I told her so.

She regarded me curiously. "Is grandpa rich?" she asked. "He says sometimes that the greenhouses cost so much money that they will send him to the poorhouse. I do not think grandpa can be rich. But if he were rich," she cried out indignantly, "that makes no difference: he has nothing but me—nothing to care about. There was poor grandmamma: she died—oh so long ago!—and my uncles died when they were little boys not so old as I. And mamma—she stayed the longest: then she died. No, grandpa has nothing left but me."

"Your father too: he has only you. I wonder you do not live with your father, Helen."

She shook her head. "Oh, you don't know," she returned. "I couldn't leave grandpa. Oh, Floyd, if you knew how it hurts me to tell papa that I must stay here! He does not understand. He will say, 'I want my little girl: you can't guess how badly I want my little girl.'" She finished with a great sob which shook her from head to foot. I pitied her very much, and I could easily comprehend that she was too delicate still to be allowed to have any sort of trouble. So I asked her to go down to the shore with me, and while we went I told her all the funny things I could remember until I made her laugh. She was quick and sympathetic; and her spirit was so strong, yet so repressed, that the moment she was really glad it seemed to have the exuberance of a bird's joy at freedom after imprisonment.

I have reason, beyond that of mere admiration for its admirable picturesqueness, to remember and note down the form of the shore at The Headlands. The house stood on the highest part of the promontory, and there was a gradual descent to the end of the bluff, which terminated in a line of black rocks, some of which were firmly embedded in the soil, while others lay piled above each other as they had been tossed by some horrible convulsion of the sea. In one place there was a perpendicular precipice of eighty feet, washed by the waves at its base; but the beach was easily accessible from every other point, although in some places the descent needed sure feet and agile limbs. But I had always been the best climber in Belfield, and I ran up and down the rocks now with the ease of a monkey, until Helen begged me not to terrify her by any new exploits. Under the frowning citadel of rocks the beach was particularly fine, well pebbled below watermark and above a strip of shining sand. The tide was coming in with a strong dull roar, and every wave broke on the shore with curling cataracts of foam and a voice like thunder. It was hard for me to realize that above us on the headland the mild October sunshine was gilding and reddening the trees, for here we were in shadow, and the cry of storm and the din of tempest were in our ears. Yet beyond the bar opaline tints were playing along the sunlit sea, and the luminous, shifting-hued swell of crested waves merged into the iridescent sky. There was a secret and a mystery about the scene to me. I could not understand its influence upon me, and felt under a spell as I gazed at the distant white sails and listened to the roar of the waves as if I could never hear it enough.

After Helen had shown me all the strange, beautiful places of the beach, I helped her up the precipitous bank, where steps had been carefully cut in the rock or laid upon the crumbling sods. She took me to the stables, and I saw the horses, her pony and the blooded colt in training for her: her dogs had followed us about, leaping and fawning upon her and smelling suspiciously at me. Mr. Raymond disliked animals, and it was to the stables or the gardener's cottage that the child came to pet her hounds, her sheep-dog and her snowy Pomeranian: not even Beppo, the Italian greyhound, was domesticated at the house. Some shy deer peered out at us from their paddock, and a doe, less timid than the rest, approached us and gave me a good look out of her meek, beautiful eyes. Gold and silver pheasants lurked in the shrubberies, and peacocks spread their tails and paraded before us on the greensward. Everything seemed to be Helen's, and not a flower that bloomed or a bird that flew but she gave it an ample tenderness.

We did not talk much, but stood together hand in hand, I gazing with ardent delight and curiosity at all these beautiful expressions of life which filled the place.

"Do you like it?" she inquired anxiously from time to time, and when I answered her gravely that I liked it, she would smile a contented little smile. She asked me if I rode, and carefully selected the horse she considered suitable for me, and gave the groom orders about exercising him regularly. The man took her instructions with a respectful air: she was evidently mistress of the place, and the centurion in the Gospel had not his servants better under his command than had she. It was a quaint sight to see the child knitting her brows over some complaint of Robinson's against McGill the gardener: she settled it promptly with but half a dozen words. She had energy enough and to spare for her duties, but she had nothing of that eager bubbling up of light thoughts and bright hopes which other children know and use in endless chatter and playful gambollings, like puppies and kittens and other happy young things. There was always shrewd purpose behind her few words, and she seemed always on her guard, always ready to act promptly and with decision.

"Why don't you send those men to Mr. Raymond?" I burst out finally. "You ought not to be bothered. What do you know about such things?"

"I know all about them," she returned gravely. "I never let anybody trouble poor grandpapa."

"My mother would not let anything trouble me if she could help it, yet I am a boy and almost fifteen years old."

She looked at me wistfully and smiled her peculiar indefinable smile, then put her hand in mine, and we went toward the house together. Just as night fell dinner-time came. I had gone to my room to dress at five o'clock, but finding that all my windows looked out upon the water, I had forgotten everything else in watching the sea, which took hue after hue as the sun sank, growing black and turbid as it settled into a bank of gray cloud, then, when the last beams reddened every rift, lighting up into a brief splendor of crimson and gold, absorbing all the glory of the firmament. I felt rather homesick and dreary. I knew that in the dusky streets of Belfield the boys were walking up and down beneath the russet elms, wondering about me while they talked. I knew that my mother was sitting in the bay-window with the light of the sunset in her face, and that she was longing to have me with her again. When, finally, I roused myself to dress, and went along the dim halls and down the great staircase lined with niches where calm-faced statues stood regarding me with a fixed and solemn air, I was quite dull and dreary, and needed all the cheerful influences of the warmed and lighted rooms to brighten me up.

At dinner Mr. Raymond seemed more what I had expected him to be than I had found him at first sight. He was dressed with scrupulous propriety, and wore a ceremonious and precise air which better accorded with his position as master of the house. He talked well, and asked me many questions about our life in Belfield, made inquiries about George Lenox, and was interested when I told him about Georgina. And about Georgina I found myself presently talking with a freedom which amazed myself, for my habits were reserved, and of all that I felt and thought about Georgy I had never yet said anything except to my mother. But in this beautiful house, which seemed so fitting a place for my lovely princess, and which was of late the object of her dreams, I felt moved to be her ambassador and to plead her cause as well as I might. I spoke not only of her beauty and her cleverness, but of the drawbacks to her success in life. I anticipated criticism, and disarmed it. "Oh, Helen!" I burst out at length, "you would love her so dearly—I am sure you would!"

Helen's eyes were shining, and her color came and went. "Oh, grandpa," said she softly, "why may I not ask her to come here? Floyd will like it, and I—"

She could not finish, she was so glad and excited, and she ran around the table and laid her cheek against Mr. Raymond's shoulder in mute entreaty.

"Oh, do whatever you please," rejoined the old gentleman impatiently: "you know very well that you must have your own way in everything."

The glad little face fell at once, and she went back to her chair slowly and climbed into it. It was a high-backed, crimson velvet chair, with a footstool for the child's feet to rest upon. She looked very slight and young as she sat there, her baby face thrown into clear outline and startling pallor by the ruby-colored cushions. She filled the place well, however, helping to the soup and fish, and even the meats after Mills had carved them at the sideboard. I noticed too, with some surprise, that the decanter of sherry stood at her elbow, and was not passed, but that she herself poured out Mr. Raymond's glass of wine, and once replenished it. He sent it to her to be filled for the third time, but she shook her head.

"No, no, grandpa," she said with a queer little smile: "you have had two already."

He looked angry, and affirmed that she had given him but one glass, appealing to Mills, who corroborated the words of his young mistress. Helen said no more, but gave the decanter to the butler, who took it away, and I heard him lock the door of the wine-closet and saw him drop the key in his pocket. Then, presently, when coffee came on, Helen and I went into the library, and left Mr. Raymond alone, with his easy-chair turned toward the fire. I knew that something in the house was wrong, and experienced a vague humiliation out of sympathy for Helen, but what my fears were I did not name to myself.

"Promise me," said she, clasping my hand suddenly—"promise me to say nothing to papa. Remember that grandpa is very old, and that he has nothing in the world but me."

I gave the promise eagerly, more to avoid the subject than because I understood as to what I was to be silent and why the subject should be interdicted.

"You see," said she, her clear eyes meeting mine with their peculiarly wistful, melancholy gaze, "this is why I cannot go away. Papa thinks I do not love him: he does not know that it would not be safe for me to leave grandpa all alone. If papa did know—"

"You ought to tell your papa everything," I said gravely.

"I wish I could," she cried in a trembling voice. "But I can't. He would not let me stay here, and I could not go away. You must never tell papa, Floyd—never!"

I said I would not tell with the air of one who never discloses a secret; and she believed in me, and we were soon bright and happy again, and wrote a letter to Georgy Lenox inviting her to The Headlands on a visit.

With all his faults and weaknesses, I soon found there were good and lovable traits in Mr. Raymond. He had been in early life a successful merchant, and the habit of controlling widespread interests had given him a broad and sympathetic insight into men and their ideas. He possessed a graceful and comprehensive culture, and had embodied his conceptions of the fitness of things in the arrangement of his home, making it beautiful in all ways. He was an old man now, yet had not lost the thirst for knowledge, and could talk, when inspiration was upon him, generously and eloquently. He had been a part of the busy great world; he understood society and social ways: all these talents and acquirements made him a pleasant old gentleman when at his best, but it needed only a touch of suspicion or jealousy to put him at his worst. It was easy enough to see that Helen did not exaggerate when she told me he had nothing to care for but herself; and his care for her was so mixed with morbid fears that he was not first in her heart, so embittered by a distrust of her love for her father, that she could gain small comfort from all his overweening devotion and pride.

The child and I were constantly together in those October days. I do not think it would have been so but for the fact that Mr. Floyd wrote daily concise and peremptory orders that Helen was to be out of doors from morning till night, and that Dr. Sharpe, a brisk, keen-eyed old gentleman, came every morning at breakfast-time to feel the little girl's pulse, order her meals and command Mr. Raymond to let her have all the play she could get before the cold weather came.

"You see," Helen would explain to me as we tramped the meadows and the uplands gorgeous with every mellow hue of autumn's glorious time—"you see, Floyd, I was going to die in September when papa came. Oh, I felt so tired I wanted just to go to sleep. But papa came, took me in his arms and held me there. Whenever I woke up, there he was, his strong arms holding me tight. He wouldn't let me go, you know, so I couldn't die. I couldn't have lived for grandpa: I knew that he would die too, and that perhaps it would all be best."

"But now you are getting strong," I said: "your cheeks are quite rosy now."

"Oh yes," she answered. "I like to live now. I love you so dearly, Floyd, and I have such good times."

I loved her dearly too, after a boy's fashion. It was easy for me to talk to her, and I told her many things that lay near my heart and far from my tongue—much about my mother and my worship of her—about our home and its surroundings—about my father and my brother Frank, and my grief when they died. I had never expected to tell any one these memories, but I told them all to Helen.

One day we came in a little later than usual. We had carried our luncheon down to the beach, and had eaten it there: we had never been quite so happy together before, for everything had conspired to make our enjoyment perfect. We had made up stories about the people on board the ships that went up and down in the offing; strange and beautiful things had looked at us from out the sea; a fisherman had offered us some oysters as he coasted about the bar in his boat, and I had bought some and opened them for Helen with my knife, every blade of which I broke in the effort. Altogether, we had had a blissful experience.

But as, upon returning, we neared the house, Mills met us on the terrace with a grave face. "You'd better go to your grandfather, Miss Floyd," said he—"you had, indeed, or it will be all over with him. You must not blame me, miss—it was none of my fault—but some gentlemen came here for lunch, and he's been a-drinking and a-drinking ever since they went away, and will not let either decanter go out of his hand."

Helen's little face had been warm with color, but it froze into pallor while I looked at her. We entered the door, and she took off her things slowly and gave them to Mills, smoothing her hair mechanically with her little trembling hands.

"What shall I do?" I whispered, quaking as much as she. "Let me help you somehow, Helen."

"You can't," she returned quietly: "nobody can help me."

She bade Mills go about his work: then went into the dining-room and shut the door.

The man had tears in his eyes as he turned to me as soon as we were alone. "I declare, Mr. Randolph," said he, "it's enough to break anybody's heart to see that child a-bowed down at her age with the care of an old man who can't be kept from drunkenness unless her eye is on him every minute."