Part 18 (1/2)
”Yours sincerely,
”HELEN HALLATON.”
Frank clenched his fists and shut his teeth tight, for it _hurt_ him.
Hurt him very severely, though he scorned to wince or cry out, only smiling in anything but mirth, while he said aloud to the gas-lamps:
”I didn't think she was such a bad one! Miss Ross is worth a dozen of her. O Helen, how _could_ you!”
Perhaps in all his life he never loved her better than now, while he swore nothing should induce him to see nor speak to her again.
CHAPTER XVII.
DISTRACTIONS.
Mrs. Lascelles, like many of her s.e.x, entertained a high opinion of her own medical skill in all ailments of mind or body. If your finger ached she would produce an absurd little box, the size of a Geneva watch, from which, with an infinitesimal gold spoon, like a bodkin, she proceeded to give you a strong dose, consisting of two white atoms not so large as pins' heads, dissolved in a gla.s.s of pure water, which they neither flavoured nor coloured, nor otherwise affected in the least. Repeating this elfin discipline two or three times with the utmost gravity, she would have been exceedingly mortified, and almost offended, if you had not declared yourself better forthwith. And it is but fair to say that I never heard of any one being worse for the prescriptions she dispensed with such confidence and liberality.
But if the pain was in your heart this general pract.i.tioner buckled on her armour with yet greater alacrity, and confronted the enemy on a far more vigorous system of tactics. She refrained indeed, wisely enough, from prematurely a.s.saulting his stronghold, but attacked his outworks one by one with unflinching determination, so that the citadel, deprived on all sides of its supports, wavered, collapsed, and surrendered at discretion.
One of the most powerful engines with which she battered, so to speak, the obstinate fortresses garrisoned by such tried veterans as Memory, Pique, and Disappointment, was a ”little gaiety,” by which Mrs.
Lascelles understood a round of London amus.e.m.e.nts and continual change of scene. ”Sympathy, my dear,” she would say, with a comical little sigh and shake of her dainty head, ”sympathy from those who have felt sorrow, and going about--to good places, of course--with dancing, you know, and plenty of partners, will cure anything. _Anything!_ I a.s.sure you, for I've tried it; except, perhaps, a broken neck!”
In pursuance, then, of this extremely plausible theory, it was not long after the events described in the last chapter, that Miss Hallaton found herself sitting next Mrs. Lascelles in a box at the Opera, hoping, no doubt, for that distraction from sorrow which I fear is seldom found in music, mirth, or gaiety; but which is rarely sought in vain by the pillow of suffering, in the house of mourning, under any roof or in any situation where we can lend a willing hand at the great cable of brotherly love and unselfish effort, which alone hauls the s.h.i.+p's company into port at last.
It seems to me that sights and sounds of beauty serve but to add a cruel poison to the sting; whereas honest, unremitting toil, provides us a certain opiate; and active charity towards others draws gradually the venom from our wound.
Helen had suffered acutely. The girl's pride was humbled to the dust, and even that infliction was not the worst. Her G.o.ds had deceived her, and her idols proved to be but clay. Frank Vanguard's conduct was more than fickle, more than heartless; it seemed actually brutal and unmanly!
Since her reply to the letter in which he asked her to become his wife, he had never been near her, had held no communication with her family nor herself, but had avoided them all with a persistence insulting as it was unaccountable.
Whatever reasons he might have, she felt his conduct was utterly inexcusable, and Helen endured that bitterest of all punishments, the conviction not only that her love was without return, but that she had bestowed it on an unworthy object; had misconceived the very nature, mistaken the very ident.i.ty of him whom she once felt proud to know so thoroughly, whom she imagined no one thus knew but herself.
”I thought him so different!” In that simple sentence--said by how many, and how bitterly!--lurked all the sorrow, all the humiliation, all the despair. The man she loved had never really existed. She must teach herself to forget this dream, this delusion, as if it had never been.
With woman's fort.i.tude of endurance, woman's decency of courage, Helen fought her battle, hid her wounds, and swallowed her tears, but the struggle told on her severely. Sir Henry, cursing late hours and hot rooms, talked of taking his daughter back to the country. Even Jin's heart smote her when she marked the pale face, the drooping gestures, the sad, weary looks; while Mrs. Lascelles, insisting on her own treatment of a malady she was persuaded she alone could cure, took every opportunity of administering amus.e.m.e.nt in large doses, and esteemed no part of her regimen more efficacious than these long hours of heat, glare, noise, imprisonment, and musical stupefaction, spent at the Italian Opera.
So Helen, watching the business of the stage with eyes from which the tears would _not_ keep back, while those thrilling strains rose and fell in the outcry of remorseful pa.s.sion, or the wail of hopeless, yet undying love, wondered vaguely why there should be all this sorrow upon earth, springing, apparently, from the purest and most elevated instincts of the human heart. She forgot that a time would come hereafter, perhaps on this side the grave, when the misery that was eating into her own young life must seem no less unreasonable, no less unreal, than that of the harmonious lady yonder, in pearls and white satin, who would take her place at supper in an hour, with spirits and appet.i.te unimpaired by the breaking heart that, flying mellifluously to her lips in this intricate _cavatina_, brought down on her a rainbow shower of bouquets, followed by a thunderstorm of applause. ”That _is_ singing!” said Miss Ross, from the back of the box, drawing a long breath of intense enjoyment, the enjoyment of the artist who appreciates as well as admires. ”Rose, why didn't I bring a bouquet? I'd throw my head at her if it would take off!”
Mrs. Lascelles laughed, and made a sign signifying ”Hus.h.!.+” while Miss Ross whispered over Helen's shoulder--”Isn't it _too_ delightful, dear?
In my opinion music's the only thing worth living for!”
Helen, who esteemed nothing much worth living for at that moment, responded with modified enthusiasm, and turned languidly to the stage.
Just then the box-door opened; and she knew, though he was behind her, and had not spoken a syllable, that it admitted Frank Vanguard!
He couldn't keep away! Of course he would not have allowed that any part of this crowded house held for him the slightest attraction.
Fidgetting in the stalls, and getting Helen's well-remembered profile within range of his opera-gla.s.ses, it was only natural he should tell himself she could never be more to him than a humiliating memory, a cause of grat.i.tude for his narrow escape. It was also natural that he should take his good manners severely to task for negligence, in not having called lately on Mrs. Lascelles, and should scout the notion of being kept out of her box by anybody in the world, man or woman! So, looking paler than usual, and, for once in his life, almost pompous in his embarra.s.sment, he tapped at the door, and found himself stumbling over a delicate little satin-shod foot, belonging to Miss Ross, of whose presence, to do him justice, till he made this ungainly entrance, he had not the slightest suspicion!
”It's a good omen!” thought that quaint and speculative young person, while _her_ heart too was beating faster than common. ”I shall trip you up at last, sir; and what a fall I'll give you!” But she reflected also that they would probably go down together; and there was something not unpleasant in the apprehension.