Part 74 (1/2)

Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy; but then he thought of Burley, and then of his own means of supporting Helen, and was embarra.s.sed, and began questioning her as to the possibility of reconciliation with Miss Starke. And Helen said gravely, ”Impossible,--do not ask it, and do not go near her.”

Then Leonard thought she had been humbled and insulted, and remembered that she was a gentleman's child, and felt for her wounded pride, he was so proud himself. Yet still he was embarra.s.sed.

”Shall I keep the purse again, Leonard?” said Helen, coaxingly.

”Alas!” replied Leonard, ”the purse is empty.”

”That is very naughty in the purse,” said Helen, ”since you put so much into it.”

”Did not you say that you made, at least, a guinea a week?”

”Yes; but Burley takes the money; and then, poor fellow! as I owe all to him, I have not the heart to prevent him spending it as he likes.”

”Please, I wish you could settle the month's rent,” said the landlady, suddenly showing herself. She said it civilly, but with firmness.

Leonard coloured. ”It shall be paid to-day.”

Then he pressed his hat on his head, and putting Helen gently aside, went forth.

”Speak to me in future, kind Mrs. Smedley,” said Helen, with the air of a housewife. ”He is always in study, and must not be disturbed.”

The landlady--a good woman, though she liked her rent--smiled benignly.

She was fond of Helen, whom she had known of old.

”I am so glad you are come back; and perhaps now the young man will not keep such late hours. I meant to give him warning, but--”

”But he will be a great man one of these days, and you must bear with him now.” And Helen kissed Mrs. Smedley, and sent her away half inclined to cry.

Then Helen busied herself in the rooms. She found her father's box, which had been duly forwarded. She re-examined its contents, and wept as she touched each humble and pious relic. But her father's memory itself thus seemed to give this home a sanction which the former had not; and she rose quietly and began mechanically to put things in order, sighing as she saw all so neglected, till she came to the rosetree, and that alone showed heed and care. ”Dear Leonard!” she murmured, and the smile resettled on her lips.

CHAPTER IX.

Nothing, perhaps, could have severed Leonard from Burley but Helen's return to his care. It was impossible for him, even had there been another room in the house vacant (which there was not), to install this noisy, riotous son of the Muse by Bacchus, talking at random and smelling of spirits, in the same dwelling with an innocent, delicate, timid, female child. And Leonard could not leave her alone all the twenty-four hours. She restored a home to him and imposed its duties.

He therefore told Mr. Burley that in future he should write and study in his own room, and hinted, with many a blush, and as delicately as he could, that it seemed to him that whatever he obtained from his pen ought to be halved with Burley, to whose interest he owed the employment, and from whose books or whose knowledge he took what helped to maintain it; but that the other half, if his, he could no longer afford to spend upon feasts or libations. He had another life to provide for.

Burley pooh-poohed the notion of taking half his coadjutor's earning with much grandeur, but spoke very fretfully of Leonard's sober appropriation of the other half; and though a good-natured, warm-hearted man, felt extremely indignant at the sudden interposition of poor Helen.

However, Leonard was firm; and then Burley grew sullen, and so they parted. But the rent was still to be paid. How? Leonard for the first time thought of the p.a.w.nbroker. He had clothes to spare, and Riccabocca's watch. No; that last he shrank from applying to such base uses.

He went home at noon, and met Helen at the street-door. She too had been out, and her soft cheek was rosy red with unwonted exercise and the sense of joy. She had still preserved the few gold pieces which Leonard had taken back to her on his first visit to Miss Starke's. She had now gone out and bought wool and implements for work; and meanwhile she had paid the rent.

Leonard did not object to the work, but he blushed deeply when he knew about the rent, and was very angry. He paid back to her that night what she had advanced; and Helen wept silently at his pride, and wept more when she saw the next day a woful hiatus in his wardrobe.

But Leonard now worked at home, and worked resolutely; and Helen sat by his side, working too; so that next day, and the next, slipped peacefully away, and in the evening of the second he asked her to walk out in the fields. She sprang up joyously at the invitation, when bang went the door, and in reeled John Burley,--drunk,--and so drunk!

CHAPTER X.