Probation

Towards five o’clock on the following Tuesday afternoon, a hansom-cab drove rapidly up that Manchester thoroughfare known as Oxford Street, and the address given by the man who took it had been, ‘Fifty-seven Woodford Street.’

As they spun rapidly along, he looked out wondering on which side of Oxford Street Woodford Street might lie; how far from town, and if it would turn out to be a very poor little street indeed. He remembered Helena’s look of embarrassment, as she said the house was small and uncomfortable. They drove on; the cab passed the Owen’s College, passed the ‘Church of the Holy Name,’ passed some other buildings, and at last turned off to the right.

Sebastian shook his head. ‘Not the best side. Poor little Helena!’ Why did he always think of her as ‘little Helena,’ she who was taller than most women, and whose disdainful head, set upon her long white neck, had been wont to look over the heads of a good many even of the men of Thanshope? Three whole days had passed since he had met her in the Royal Institution—three whole days, and part of a fourth, because she had told him not to come on Sunday.

‘Why wouldn’t she let me come on Sunday?’ he had asked himself many times, and had assigned all kinds of imaginary reasons for the prohibition. The latest was, ‘Perhaps other people, or another person, may be allowed to come on Sunday. I shall make her tell me—if I can. I wonder if I can call one of those old flashing smiles to her face—one of those looks, which ran over it, and made it more beautiful still, if that could be?’

Lost in profound conjecture upon this subject, he forgot to look where they were going, until the cab had traversed several smallish streets, and at last pulled up suddenly before one of a row of moderately sized houses—houses of the kind which would be called ‘respectable.’ It was not a glaring new street: it was neatly kept, and as he jumped out of the hansom and looked up it and down it, he did not see a single barrel-organ—not even a perambulator.

Neither of these things did he behold; but he saw Helena Spenceley herself, just coming up to the gate, walking rather wearily, and looking tired as she pushed it open.

‘She has been walking, and I have been driving,’ he thought, with a strange sensation of guiltiness, as he dismissed the man and joined her.

‘You see, I have kept my word,’ he observed. ‘I have come soon, and I have not come on Sunday.’

‘I am glad to see you,’ said Helena, sedately.

They were airing themselves all this time on the top of the door steps, Mrs. Spenceley’s domestic, or domestics, not seeming to be in any violent hurry to open the front door; but as Sebastian was about to make some further observation, it was suddenly flung (as much as such a modestly proportioned door could be flung) wide open, by a young man whose appearance seemed to indicate that he belonged to some one of the numerous tribe of clerks.

When he saw them he recoiled a step or two, and Sebastian, to his great amusement, saw that he was honoured by the surprised young gentleman with a scowl of peculiar malevolence. Clearing his brow, after a moment, of this unbecoming expression, he addressed himself to Helena.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Spenceley. I hope I see you well.’

‘Very well, thank you. Will you allow me to pass?’

‘You see I am somewhat earlier to-day; in fact two hours earlier than usual. I was, if I must tell the truth, on my way to meet you,’ with great emphasis upon the personal pronoun, and a languishing but fascinating smile.

‘To meet me?’ repeated Helena, with equal emphasis. ‘Pray, on what errand, Mr. Jenkins?’

‘I thought, as the evening was so beautiful, you might possibly not be indisposed for a—a—little walk after tea of course; and if so, I——’

‘I am obliged, but I am engaged this evening, and I never take walks after tea,’ said Helena, with crushing coldness. ‘If you will kindly allow us to pass——’

Mr. Jenkins, plunging his hand into his breast, flattened himself against the wall, and resumed the Giaour-like scowl as Sebastian followed Helena. She opened the door of a back room and invited him in.

‘I am afraid you will find it rather hot,’ said she; ‘these little houses are so thin, you know. They let the heat in, and then it never seems to get out again, somehow. Take that chair,’ and she seated herself languidly upon another. ‘It is our only sitting-room,’ she added, drawing off her gloves, and speaking deliberately, as she looked fixedly at Sebastian, to see how he would take her announcement. ‘It is dining, and drawing-room, morning-room, boudoir, and library. At Castle Hill we had them separately, but here mamma lets the rest of her rooms to lodgers. Mr. Jenkins, who wanted me to go for a walk with him, was one of them.’

‘I see,’ said Sebastian, tranquilly. ‘I also saw that I did not rise in his esteem from the fact that I deprived him of his walk.’

‘Mr. Mallory!’ exclaimed Helena, indignantly, as she lost the languid look and suddenly sat upright, ‘do you insult me by supposing that I ever take my walks abroad with that horrid, presuming little man? But why should you not suppose so?’ she added with a little laugh.

‘I supposed nothing,’ said Sebastian. ‘I only saw that he looked very much disappointed, and I could quite sympathise with him.’

Here he ventured to look at Helena with some meaning in his glance, but was met by a direct gaze of what seemed to him cheerful, blank indifference—a gaze which chilled him; for Helena’s looks and glances had suddenly risen to a place of high importance in his mind. Their interview on Friday, especially the first few minutes of it, haunted him. He could not forget her agitation, nor how she had turned, first pale, and then red as a rose, on meeting him. He had wondered, and had determined to find out, what the agitation meant. He had thought it would be quite easy. The Helena whom he had known in former days had not been adroit in concealing her feelings, but before the present young lady he was obliged to own himself baffled. Her appearance, attitude, expression, were languid and weary; she looked worn, and not very happy, but her manner was composed, and a little hard in its ostentatious cheerfulness. He could not tell what was real and what assumed, and the desire to find out, to break down the reserve, to conquer in short—his besetting foible—grew very strong indeed.

‘Can you drink tea at five o’clock?’ pursued Helena. ‘We have ours at five. Teaching makes me thirsty, and mamma likes her tea at five. Remember, there is no dinner to follow after.’

‘If you invite me to tea, I am sure I shall be delighted to stay.’

‘Then you are invited. Now I must go and take off my things. I will try to find mamma. You will excuse our leaving you alone for a short time.’

‘Pray don’t mention it,’ said Sebastian, and Helena left the room. It was not a lofty room: the doorway was decidedly low, and he thought she would have to stoop to pass under it.

When he was left alone, he glanced round the room. It was rather small, and was over-filled with furniture. Books were scattered about, and in the most shady corner of the room there was a vase containing a carefully preserved nosegay, such as might be bought for a trifle at any greengrocer’s shop in the neighbourhood. Everything was exquisitely neat and orderly, and in little touches here and there he fancied he recognised Helena’s hand despite the plainness, and in some respects even poorness, of the furniture. On the mantelpiece he detected two little vases of Sevres—relics of former splendour, no doubt. There was no piano, he noticed that. Perhaps because it would have filled up the room too much, or perhaps because pianos were rather expensive things to buy or hire. Yet Helena used to sing, and had a very fresh, sweet voice. How well he remembered her on that evening when he had first seen her—in her beauty and splendour, in her costly dress and sparkling necklace and rings. She had sung, ‘Since first I saw your face.’

That seemed a very long time ago!

He hoped it would not be long before Helena came down again. He hoped Mrs. Spenceley would not sit with them all the evening, and he hoped they would not expect him to go away very early.

Presently the door was opened, and, not Helena but her mother came in. Sebastian was as much struck with the change in her as he had been shocked with that in Helena, but in a different way. Mrs. Spenceley looked better, happier, younger, and more contented, than she had done since her husband had made his fortune eighteen years ago. And she looked so because she was so. She did not mind the narrow means, the small house, the two girls, and the constant necessity for her presence in the kitchen. All that was as the breath of life to her, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Sebastian, with a sigh of relief, felt that here no condolences were needed, no delicate skirting of dangerous ground. He might look cheerful, and ask Mrs. Spenceley with confidence and success how she was. The nature of her answer was visibly written upon her face beforehand.

‘Well, Mr. Mallory, this is a pleasure! I could scarcely believe it when Helena said she had met you, and you were coming to see us. I said, “Eh, he’ll never come, not he!” But she said she thought you would; and she’s right, it seems.’

‘She certainly is. I am very glad to see you looking so well, Mrs. Spenceley.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, lightly, flinging a purple satin cap-string over her shoulder. ‘I’ve nothing to complain of, thank God! I’ve got on much better than I’d any reason to expect, and I’m thankful for it. It’s hard work sometimes, but I’ve a broad back.’

Which she certainly had.

‘That is very fortunate,’ he said, with becoming solemnity.

‘Yes; I’ve four gentlemen. You’d wonder where we find room to put them all, but the house is more capacious’ (Sebastian conjectured that she meant spacious) ‘than it looks, and we’ve room for them all. Very nice gentlemen they are too; all in business in Manchester, you know. They’re quiet and well-behaved, and they pay up regularly; and,’ she added, dropping her voice, ‘none of your stand-off gents. They are all disposed to be most friendly, all except Mr. Harrison, and he’s engaged to his cousin, who lives in Northumberland. He hears from her regularly twice a week.’

‘Yes,’ said Sebastian, with an air of the deepest interest—the air of one thirsting for more information.

‘But all the others, Mr. Finlay, and Mr. Smithson, and Mr. Jenkins—are most friendly, and quite gentlemen, every one of them. Indeed, Mr. Jenkins,’ she dropped her voice again, ‘is very much interested in Helena.’

‘Is he?’ said Sebastian, still with unfeigned interest.

‘Yes, he is. He’s getting on, too. And a perfect gentleman—on Sundays’—Sebastian leaned eagerly forward—‘on Sundays they often go out into the country for the day, or sometimes even for the week-end; but Mr. Jenkins, never,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, emphatically: ‘Mr. Jenkins dines with us.’

‘Poor Helena!’ thought Sebastian, while he said, ‘Oh, indeed!’

‘Helena said I oughtn’t to have entered into such an arrangement; but I think she’s mistaken, and I think she’ll come to see her mistake in time.’

‘Miss Spenceley does not feel so much interest in Mr. Jenkins, perhaps, as he feels in her!’

‘That I can’t say; but if she does, she conceals it, which is but natural after all.’

‘Quite natural in such a case,’ assented Sebastian.

‘Here’s the tea-things,’ continued Mrs. Spenceley, cheerfully, producing a bunch of keys, and going to a cupboard, whence she drew forth, to speak metaphorically, flagons wherewith to stay her guest, and apples for his comfort—in the dry language of reality, a jar of apple-jelly, and a glass dish containing conserves of a deeper, more sanguinary hue.

While Mrs. Spenceley was half-buried in the depths of the cupboard, Helena came into the room again. She had changed her dress, and attired herself in another relic of splendour, a black silk dress, rich and handsome, if somewhat old-fashioned; and she had tied an orange-coloured ribbon round her neck, and put on a little lace frill, and Sebastian felt that she looked lovely, and began to hate those three gentlemen who were disposed to be so very friendly, with a deadly hatred. Her eyes fell upon the figure of her mother, half in and half out of the cupboard. It was a very funny sight, and when she turned to Sebastian there was a broad smile of amusement upon her face. It looked as if it was the first that had been there for a very long time, and Sebastian felt it only right to smile as genially in return.

Mrs. Spenceley, emerging from the cupboard, summoned them to the table; Sebastian felt as if it were a dream, as he handed Helena her chair, and took his place opposite her. No surroundings, however poor, could take away from the queenly beauty of her face and figure. She was indeed more queenly than she ever had been before, he thought, as he watched her across that simple board. The meal was soon over, and then Mrs. Spenceley, rising, said,

‘Mr. Mallory, you must excuse me if I leave you. I must first go and see about Their teas, and then I’ve promised to go and sit with Mrs. Woodford, next door but one. She’s a great friend of mine. Her husband’s father built most of the houses in this street, and was a rich man, but he never could keep anything, never! and now she pays a rent for the very house her father-in-law built. This world’s full of ups and downs.’

‘It is indeed. Then I shall not see you again this evening?’

‘Well, no. We shall most likely have a little supper together, and so I shall leave Helena and you to have a little chat. But I shall hope to see you again soon, Mr. Mallory, if you don’t mind coming all this way out of town.’

He hastened to assure her that he thought it a very nice drive, and not at all far; and Mrs. Spenceley, disturbed by the sound of a ring at the bell, said,

‘There’s Mr. Finlay! I must go. Good evening, Mr. Mallory.’

She was gone, and they were alone. Helena had taken her work-basket to a little table near the window, and had begun to embroider a little strip of muslin. Sebastian thought the sofa, which was just on the other side of the little table, offered a suitable place for the purposes of confidential conversation, and he went and sat down upon it.

‘Is there no one in Thanshope about whom you wish to inquire, Miss Spenceley?’ he began.

‘I—oh, how rude of me! I have never asked after Mrs. Mallory. How is she?’

‘She is very well, thank you.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Helena, calmly; and Sebastian felt rather uncomfortable, for Mrs. Mallory had not displayed any interest in the Spenceley family since their downfall.

‘Do you see much of the Thanshope people?’ continued Helena, in the same calmly indifferent tone; not a resentful tone, but a politely conventional one, which was much more disagreeable to Sebastian than a resentful one would have been. It implied that Thanshope and all that therein lived had become a name, a memory, a thing of the past to her. ‘Do you visit much?’ she added; ‘go to many parties?’

‘N—no. I am very busy. I am busy all day, and I don’t care much for the Thanshope people. All my near friends, those in whom I took an interest, I have lost.’

‘How very distressing! How has that come to pass?’

‘Hugo von Birkenau has gone to Germany. He is studying music, and intends to make a profession of it. He has begun to give lessons already.’

‘Hugo give lessons!’ cried Helena, looking up surprised.

‘Yes, I will tell you all about it another time. I see you don’t half believe it. But it is true. We have not quarrelled, I am glad to say; but he has gone. He has begun life for himself, and henceforth our paths are divided. There was another. You did not know him. I could scarcely call him one of my friends, but I miss him. He is one interest less. There was Mr. Blisset; he is dead. There was you—at least I hope so.’

‘I don’t think we ever were really friends. I did not like your opinions.’

‘But not enemies?’

‘Well, perhaps not exactly; at least, not at last,’ said Helena with a sudden change in her voice. ‘But,’ she repeated, ‘I did not like your opinions. You shut me—I mean, you denied to women the right to participate in those larger questions which I hold they ought to be interested in as well as men, for the sake both of men and of themselves; and I never would give in to that as long as I live.’

She did not speak vehemently, but with a decision and calmness unlike her old agitation of manner.

‘I wonder how I shall ever make you understand my real views on that subject,’ he said despairingly.

‘You said you had no views on the question. Perhaps, if you had ever tried to find out whether I had any understanding, you might have succeeded in discovering a tiny scrap somewhere very low down. But never mind, it is of no consequence now. I can never help forward the questions I take an interest in, as I once hoped to do; so you need not be afraid of my going astray. I have lost the power.’

‘Miss Spenceley——’

‘I think you have forgotten one of your friends,’ suggested Helena, with a change in her voice, which she could not quite conceal.

‘Have I? Which?’ he asked very meekly.

‘Miss Adrienne Blisset.’

‘Ah, yes! I actually had forgotten her. I never see her now, either.’

‘Does she no longer live in Thanshope?’ asked Helena, bending over her work.

‘She still has Stonegate, but she is scarcely ever there. I think she has taken a dislike to the place. And when she is there, I do not see her. As you say, she is lost to me too, for we once were friends.’

Sebastian’s voice did not change. It was quite steady and composed. Helena still seemed interested in her work, as she said,

‘I should think that must be the greatest loss of all to you.’

‘In some respects it is. At first it was a great loss. Now I feel it less. For two years I have been learning to live alone. Smile scornfully to yourself if you like! You may not believe me, but it is true all the same.’

‘Oh, I can believe that you found it hard to lose Miss Blisset’s society. She was no ordinary young lady. If she had once been your friend, it must have been difficult to resign her. And people spoke of something more than friendship. I heard, often, that you and she were engaged.’

‘Did you? I, too, have heard something of the same kind; but there was no truth in the report. We were never engaged.’

‘Ah! people will talk, you see!’

‘Naturally, but I don’t think they talk so much anywhere as in Thanshope.’

‘Perhaps they haven’t so much cause.’

‘That is rather too bad.’

‘You mean that people are not often so rude to you. I can quite fancy so.’

‘You will agree with me that I have lost all my friends.’

‘You do not seem broken-hearted,’ said Helena. ‘You look well and cheerful.’ She raised her eyes, and surveyed his face, straightly and composedly. Sebastian wished the look had not been so entirely self-possessed.

‘I lead too busy a life to be broken-hearted,’ he replied. ‘Pray don’t suppose that I spend my time in thinking how lonely I am.’

‘I never supposed anything of the kind.’

‘It is simply that I once had friends, and circumstances removed them, and I have not been able to fill up their places. I have worked hard—really hard, and I think I have learnt some good lessons in these sad years.’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, looking up, with the old eager interest in her eyes, the old brightness upon her face. ‘You must indeed have learned some lessons. My greatest trouble in leaving Thanshope was that I lost sight of all my friends that I had made during the distress. I have had no interest like that since then. You have. And you have had other interests too. I saw that they had asked you to be the Radical candidate, when Mr. Lippincott resigned. There is a prospect before you! Have you given your answer yet?’

‘My answer is due to-morrow. And upon my honour, I don’t know what it is going to be. What would you advise?’

‘Mr. Mallory!’

‘Yes?’

‘Why will you persist in saying such things? Do you think it is amusing?’

‘According to you, I must have the most wonderful faculty of amusement that any man possessed. Please, do I think what amusing?’

‘Do you think it amusing to ask questions of that kind?—to solemnly ask advice when you don’t want it? To consult a woman, and a young woman, upon an important step in life? We don’t understand these things—at least you say so, and I choose to take you at your word, so far as you are concerned. I do not choose to be treated as you once treated me, when I was in earnest, and then be appealed to for an opinion. I have no opinion on the question.’

‘I wish I had never opened my lips upon that question. You have never forgiven me, and you never will,’ said he, in a deep tone of mortification. ‘I too was in earnest when I asked you to-night what you advised. I have been vacillating, and considering and wondering what was best, like——’

‘Like a woman.’

‘Like a lonely man who has no counsellor to whom to apply.’

‘How pathetic!’

‘Will you really not give me one word of advice? Would you accept or not?’

‘You do not want my advice. You—it is absurd! You have lots of men to advise you. What can you want my advice for?’

She spoke impatiently. Stung by her tone, words, and manner, he leaned suddenly forward, saying,

‘I do want your advice, Helena. I acted like a consequential fool towards you at one time. When your troubles overtook you, I was made thoroughly ashamed of myself. You behaved like a heroine. Tell me, should I accept or refuse? Give me your opinion, and, by heaven, I will abide by it! I can trust you.’

‘Then accept! With your abilities and your responsibilities, you have no right to refuse.’

‘I shall accept,’ was all he said, and there was silence for a time.

Helena went on working, with how great, how immense an effort, he could not know. He sat and meditated on what he had done, on the fact that he had submitted his conscience to the guidance of a girl’s voice, and that since that voice had spoken, every hesitation, every doubt had vanished. Not a difficulty remained.

‘You will be almost certainly elected,’ said Helena, after a pause. ‘Then your life will be busier than ever. How will you manage?’

‘That is a problem which is even now troubling me. I must have some help. I do not know where to turn for it. I am overwhelmed with business, really.’

‘Are you? I wonder at you wasting your precious hours here,’ said Helena, and the moment after she had said it her face became crimson.

‘You think the time wasted, and you wonder that I should waste it here?’ said Sebastian, and looked at her steadily.

Helena did, at this point, show a return of her former sensibility. The flush remained high in her cheeks. Her eyes fell, and her hands trembled as she resumed her work. Sebastian was much too good a tactician to lessen the value of the sign he had wrung from her, by coming to her assistance with any casual remark. He remained perfectly silent, till Helena, apparently finding the situation disturbing, started up, exclaiming impatiently.

‘How hot it is! Oh, how hot! My needle gets sticky, and I can’t work with a sticky needle.... When you are elected—and you are sure to be elected—you will, as you say, be very busy; but what an interesting kind of business! I shall often think——’

She stopped suddenly.

‘Never mind my life,’ said he, beginning to see where the power on his side, and the weakness on hers, really lay. ‘Tell me something about your own.’

‘About mine—my life!’ said Helena, with a laugh. ‘That would indeed be an exciting history—too much for your nerves altogether, I fear.’

‘Tell me, or I shall not know how to think of you. It is so annoying not to know the tenor of the life led by some person in whom one takes an interest. What is the name of the parents of your pupils?’

‘Their name is Galloway.’

‘What sort of people are they?’

‘They are rich people.’

‘That is nothing to the point.’

‘They are people with fads, and yet they are very kind to me. I teach their children—as much as they will allow me, that is. They believe in letting the children grow up happy, and never punishing them, which means——’ Helena smiled.

‘Which means that every one else, and you particularly, are to grow up unhappy, and live in a state of eternal punishment,’ said Sebastian, resentfully; ‘disgusting people!’

‘They are not disgusting, and they have a right to bring up their children as they think best.’

Sebastian found that Helena would not complain. She evidently accepted the inevitable resolutely. She had become very reasonable and sensible. He wished she had been less so.

‘Mrs. Spenceley looks well and cheerful,’ said he at last. ‘That must be a comfort to you.’

‘Poor mamma! Yes, it is,’ said Helena, with sudden tenderness. ‘What a great deal she has had to go through, and how brave, and cheerful, and uncomplaining she is. She makes me feel ashamed of myself, and yet I cannot see things in the light in which she sees them.’

‘Mr. Jenkins, for instance, on Sundays.’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Helena, and then, after a pause, ‘No; mamma and I differ very much on the subject of Mr. Jenkins.’

‘You see, I know why I may not come on Sunday,’ said he, rising.

‘Do you? I thought you would not enjoy Mr. Jenkins’s society, but now, if you like, you may come on Sunday, and have the pleasure of meeting him. We are glad to see our friends, if they care to visit us.’

‘Our friends!’ It was the turn of the eminently reasonable Mr. Mallory to feel most unreasonably annoyed at being classed, along with Mr. Jenkins, as ‘our friends.’ Helena had succeeded in turning the tables very completely upon him. It was useless to try not to feel mortified and snubbed. He felt both; and Helena stood, the picture of unconscious innocence, waiting for him to finish his good-bye.

‘You have changed, Miss Spenceley,’ said he. ‘You have developed the power of being very——’

‘Rude and unkind?’ suggested Helena. ‘Perhaps adversity has soured my temper. It has that effect upon many natures, and I never was one who could endure thwarting as you may remember.’

‘May I be allowed to come again?’ he asked, almost humbly.

‘We shall be happy to see you, whenever your other engagements allow you to call,’ said Helena, quite coolly and distantly. The answer chilled him and stung him, and yet he asked himself, what more would he have had her say?

‘You say you are so very busy,’ she continued remorselessly, ‘and if you accept this invitation to stand, and if Mr. Lippincott resigns, which I suppose he really intends to do now, and the election comes on, your time will indeed be fully occupied.’

‘But I am not forbidden to come when I have time?’

‘Forbidden! Oh no! As I said, we are always glad to see our friends.’

‘Good-bye,’ said he. ‘Remember you are answerable for the step I am going to take.’

‘You say so, but I wonder how it would have been if we had never met,’ said Helena, carelessly. They shook hands, and Sebastian was gone, with the words still echoing after him: ‘I wonder how it would have been, if we had never met!’

‘How indeed?’ he muttered to himself. ‘And how is it to be now that we have met? I don’t know how it will end, but you shall look at me differently from that, Helena, or——’