Probation

It was more than three weeks later. The month of August had almost come to its close. The scene was again the bright and cheerful city of Manchester, on one of its typical days. August was going out, as she often does in Lancashire, with a sullen, streaming rain, which poured on, relentlessly and unceasingly. Helena Spenceley had been struggling all the morning with her pupils, who had turned refractory, and, unable because of the rain to go out, had vented their youthful spirits in a series of experiments upon Miss Spenceley’s endurance. They were not bad children; indeed they had in them ‘the makings’ of very good children, and were, as their governess had informed Sebastian, as good as their parents would allow them to be. They had been allowed to find out that everyone and everything in the establishment was to yield to their comfort and convenience. They knew their power, and used it.

The morning’s lessons were over. Usually, at twelve o’clock, Helena took her pupils for a walk, but to-day that was impossible, so they remained indoors, and she was understood to be amusing them. It was a dreary kind of amusement. She had been feeling weary and exhausted all the morning, and now, the close room, the shouting children rushing wildly about, almost overpowered her. She felt herself growing each moment more numb and stupid. At last the bell rang for Mrs. Galloway’s lunch, and the dinner of Helena and the children. Pell-mell they rushed in, and forgot for a time, in the pleasures of the table, their quarrels and disputes, relating chiefly to the possession of certain precious objects and fetishes, over which they wrangled with ever fresh acrimony and avidity.

The meal was over, and Helena returned to the schoolroom. The children were to remain downstairs for an hour with their mother. Helena took a chair to the window, and, resting her chin upon her hand, looked drearily out upon the streaming rain, the dripping trees, and the misty outlines of other houses in the park. Idle tears filled her eyes, and a lump rose in her throat. She choked both back, and smiled drily and drearily to herself.

‘What a fool I was,’ she thought, ‘to expect him again! It was a passing fancy. He is naturally polite—that means, a little deceitful—and he could not have said anything rough or rude if he had tried. But he will never come again. It is not likely. I was most foolish to be so glad to see him. I might have known it would bring me nothing but pain and sorrow. I wish we had not met again, and then, if I had not had the pleasure, I should not have had the pain either. I had almost given over thinking of him, and now I have nothing else to think of, and he has everything else. Why did he come and spend that one evening, and brighten everything, and take me into another world, and force me to like him? Why did he ask my advice—as if he wanted it? It was too bad, and I was a fool. But I always was that. He is not shallow—no, it is not that. It is simply that his life is a full one, and mine is an empty one, and that what to him is a chance meeting—a passing act of politeness, is to me a great event—a thing to think about. I wish I had a great deal to do—a work, a regular career. Soon, if these miserable, restless feelings do not leave me, I must bestir myself, and find something more absorbing than this teaching. I have been more dissatisfied ever since I knew that he had the prospect of making himself a name and an influence. And I will do something, too. There must be things to be done; there must be some way of curing this sentimental folly—some way of working it out, till nothing is left of it. I will find a way, or I will die.’

She started as the door opened, and Mrs. Galloway, the mother of her pupils, entered.

‘Are you sitting moping, Miss Spenceley? You should never mope,’ said she; ‘it is a very bad habit, and leads to all kinds of follies.’

‘Does it?’ said Helena.

‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Mrs. Galloway, who did not look as if she moped much herself.

She did not either speak or look unkindly; she was only devoid of tact and judgment. She held three books in her hands; and as she spoke she advanced to the window and looked out.

‘I am afraid it is not going to clear up,’ she began, looking first at the rain, and then at the books.

Helena also expressed the same opinion.

‘I am rather in a dilemma,’ continued Mrs. Galloway.

‘Can I be of any help to you?’

‘I was on my way to ask you to do something for me; but I had no idea how very wet it was, and I do not think it fit for you to go.’

‘Was it to go out?’ asked Helena, wondering whether it would not be pleasanter to brave the elements than to return to her task of teaching the little Galloways that day.

‘The fact is, Mr. Galloway forgot to take the books to Mudie’s this morning, and we had arranged to have some reading aloud to-night, and——’

‘I will go and change them for you with pleasure,’ said Helena, almost with animation; ‘only the children——’

‘It will do the children no harm to miss their lessons this afternoon; in the depressed state of the barometer, it is cruelty to make them study. But it is such a day——’

‘Oh, I don’t mind. It will do me no harm; I don’t take cold easily, and I can take an omnibus from Oxford Street, you know.’

‘Really, since you don’t seem to mind, I think——’

‘I will get ready now,’ said Helena.

‘I can lend you a waterproof,’ suggested Mrs. Galloway, to whom it did not seem to occur that a cab would be the most effectual kind of waterproof.

‘I have one, thank you; I am ready now. I will put the books in this strap. Have you put a list with them?’

‘The list is quite ready. Then you will bring the books back here?’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, cheerfully, so pleased at the prospect of escaping the afternoon’s lessons that she would willingly have gone if, in addition to the rain, it had blown a hurricane.

Mrs. Galloway followed her to the hall door, uttering deprecating observations, and Helena, unfurling her umbrella, stepped out into the rain.

After a short walk through the damp, soaking avenues of the park, she at last emerged in Oxford Street, and stood waiting in the wet until an omnibus came by. It was nearly full, but Helena managed to squeeze herself in between two stout ‘Turkish merchants,’ and opposite a fat old woman with a bundle. Who does not know and love the classic atmosphere of a crowded omnibus on a wet, close day?

The omnibus took her to Market Street, from whence she took another walk into Cross Street, and turned into the narrow lane, sacred to Mr. Mudie’s library and fancy shops. Her enthusiasm was beginning to glow less brightly. She felt very wet, very draggled, and very tired—exceedingly tired. She went into the library, and found herself alone there; the young man who came forward to serve her looked almost compassionately at her, and remarked what very bad weather it was. Helena languidly agreed with him, and presented her list. He gave her two heavy massive volumes of travels, and she took them. They would not go into the little strap which had held the three volume novel, and Helena was in that mood in which a trifling inconvenience makes one feel that it would be best to put an end to one’s existence at once.

‘Suppose you were to take only one volume,’ suggested the young man.

‘No, I’ll have both,’ said Helena, stoically, manfully seizing them, and going on her way.

As she left the library some one almost knocked up against her, some one who was going, like herself, towards St. Ann’s Square.

‘Beg your pardon. Oh, Helena—Miss Spenceley! What, in the name of all that is damp, brings you here on such a day?’ asked Sebastian, stopping suddenly and looking at her.

To meet him thus, after her recent reflections, came upon Helena with almost a shock: but she mastered herself quickly, and said,

‘I have only been to the library.’

‘Only been to the library! Suppose you give me those books. I have tried to call at your house again,’ he added, ‘but I have been so awfully busy. You would see all about my acceptance and Mr. Lippincott’s resignation in the papers.’

‘Yes; I did not expect you to call again,’ said Helena, distantly.

‘Did you not? You speak as if you were offended. What have I done?’

By this time they were in the square, near the cab-stand, and it was high time to decide whether they were going in the same direction or not.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Sebastian.

‘To the omnibus office, till a Victoria Park omnibus comes, and then to Mrs. Galloway’s with the books. Where are you going?’

‘I am going to see the pictures again,’ said Sebastian. ‘Don’t you think you had better come and see them too?’

‘I! Oh, I am afraid I have not time,’ said Helena, taken aback by the proposal. ‘It is nearly four o’clock, and the books——’

‘Oh, never mind the books. I am sure you want to see the pictures; and you must explain to me what I have done to offend you, and we can’t do that under an umbrella in the street.’

He signed to an observant cabby, who drove up, and Sebastian politely handed Helena into the vehicle. She did not know why she got into the cab, unless it was because Sebastian looked as if he were quite determined that she should do so, and she did not feel able to resist.

‘Royal Institution,’ said he, and followed her. They drove rapidly away.

‘I ought not to have come; it is very absurd,’ said Helena, uncomfortably.

‘I am quite sure you ought,’ he said, decidedly.

He saw that Helena’s manner was changed. From her gravity and almost monosyllabic answers to his remarks he concluded that she was for some reason offended with him. He did not know that three weeks’ absence and silence had done more to favour his cause than three months’ assiduous courtship would have done.

‘Here we are! Now for the pictures!’ he observed, as they stopped before the Royal Institution.

Helena laughed nervously, and did not know why she laughed. They stopped to leave their umbrellas with the porter, and she found Sebastian unfastening her cloak.

‘Because we shall be here a good while,’ said he, gravely. ‘The pictures are not to be done all in a minute.’

Helena did not resist. It was all very strange—comical almost. She felt as if it had been a pre-arranged meeting, and yet, she solemnly assured herself, that was impossible.

They went up the stairs, bestowing a very scanty meed of attention on the much-talked-of pictures. Sebastian seemed in very high spirits, thought Helena, unconscious that her own cheeks were burning with their old brightness, that the actual sight of her and her eyes had turned her companion’s head; that he had thought more of her than of his work since they had parted; that her face, and her eyes, and an orange-coloured ribbon, had seemed to float before his eyes by day and by night, haunting him in all his business, and intruding themselves in the most solemn of committee meetings or political dinners. She was conscious that whenever she looked at him he seemed to be looking at her, and, she thought, often when she was not looking; that there was something in his eyes and his manner which made her tremble strangely, and that she suddenly felt quite certain that whatever might have been the case in the past, he did not care for Adrienne Blisset now.

On that wet afternoon there were not more than half a dozen persons in all the suite of rooms. They walked through one after another, and would probably have gone on for ever, had they not found that they had come to the last: they were stopped by a wall, and could go no farther.

‘Sit down,’ said Sebastian, suddenly, taking her hand and drawing her to the settee in the middle of the room, which was empty, save for themselves.

‘You know I am in the midst of electioneering?’ said he.

‘I supposed so, from what I read in the papers.’

‘That has been the only reason why I did not call. Twice I have tried to do so, but, with the best will in the world, I could not manage it. And poor Sutcliffe, my manager, is ill, so I have had double duty to do.’

‘I am sure you are busy,’ she repeated mechanically.

‘It is thought that I shall win,’ he added. ‘The Conservatives seem to have got desperate. No local candidate would present himself, so they had down a Q.C. from the Junior Carlton. I don’t fancy he has much chance, though he is a good fellow.’

‘Oh, he will have no chance. You will win. I shall be very glad.’

‘Will you really? You really meant what you said when you told me I had no right to refuse?’

‘I am not in the habit of saying what I don’t mean.’

‘That is true, but you were very brief in your remarks on that occasion. Do you think that I really can do good?’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, crushing down all the ungenerous remarks which occurred to her, and answering him frankly, according to her conviction, ‘I do. I think, with your experience of a different, broader life than most of our young manufacturers have led, and with the practical talents that you have too, you ought to rise to influence. You may do a great deal. I think you have a noble career before you, if you will follow it worthily. And—I—I shall always read with interest of your progress.’

‘You really think this, though you so bitterly opposed me upon some other questions?’ he asked earnestly.

‘Yes, I do. I have seen not the error of my ideas, for I still believe them to be true and just in principle, but I have seen that a man may be utterly against them, and may yet be capable of very great things. I believe this of you. I shall be sorry if I ever hear of your rising and lifting your voice against these ideas that I believe in; but I shall try to think that my cause is not so important as a great many others, and——’

‘But, will you give me a hearing now, while I tell you that my views have changed, too, as much as yours?’

‘Have they? How?’

‘I always did believe that the woman’s cause is man’s. I told you that, even when we most disagreed and least understood each other. During these two years in which I have lived alone, I have learned to feel that still more strongly. I have felt that no friend, no man, could give me the help and sympathy that I wanted; that no man, and no woman, pitted each against the other, could do any good, but that “the twain together well might change the world.” I shall never uplift my voice against those theories of yours, never.’

‘I am glad of that, very glad. It would have hurt me dreadfully; it would have seemed as if—it would have cut me up,’ said Helena.

‘How careful I shall have to be, as to what I say and do, now.’

‘Because of what I have said? You have a larger public than me to think of. You must do what is right—you must say all that you know of the truth.’

‘Helena, will you help me to try and discover what is right and true? I have been wondering for a fortnight whether you would, and sometimes I have dared to hope it. Have I been too bold?’

‘You mean——’ said Helena, with trembling lips and a face which had suddenly grown pale.

‘I mean that for a year, for more, I have loved you unconsciously, Helena; that since I met you three weeks ago, I have known it to my very heart-depths. Will you help me? Will you be my wife?’

‘You forget,’ said she, her face grown still paler, and its expression more pained; ‘you forget.’

‘Forget what?’ he asked, surprised and chilled by the tone, yet unable to think that the expression in her eyes was one of indifference.

‘You forget whom you are asking to be your wife. You——’

‘I am asking Helena Spenceley to be my wife. Who has a word to say against her?’ he asked, his face darkening.

‘You must remember that I am not alone,’ said Helena. ‘There is the past: my father, my brother; oh, it is not to be thought of—for you.’

‘Is that a roundabout way of telling me that you do not love me, and will not marry me?’ he asked, taking her hand, and looking at her until she looked at him. ‘I would rather you said it straight out—I am waiting.’

‘But I cannot say that,’ murmured Helena; ‘I do love you.’

‘Then let the other things take care of themselves,’ said he pleadingly, for something in her face forbade him to draw her to him, or do anything more than plead.

‘No,’ said she. ‘It is not fit that a man like you, in your position, should marry a girl with the—connections—that I have.’

‘You mean this seriously?’

‘I am quite decided about it.’

‘Then good-bye,’ said Sebastian, abruptly rising; ‘I will bear it as best I can.’

He was going, but suddenly turned to her again and stooped over her.

‘Helena,’ he said, and his voice was so changed that she looked up affrighted—‘is it that your pride is stronger than your love? Because, if so, yours is not real love.’

‘My pride!’ she ejaculated.

‘Yes, your pride, which is afraid lest it should be said that I stooped to you? That is the secret of this objection. You would ruin our two lives for the sake of gratifying your pride.’

‘Sebastian!’

‘Helena?’

‘It is not that....’

‘What else is it?’

She was silent, in pain and uncertainty, till he said:

‘My pride is not so great as my love. You have conquered me, Helena. I would go through fire and water to win you. Once more, will you tell me again to go?’

His voice had sunk to a whisper. He was leaning over the settee, and she, with a sudden shiver at the idea his words conjured up, looked up to him. He stooped, by an involuntary, instinctive impulse, and kissed her.

‘Must I go, or may I stay? Answer me, my darling.’

‘Do not go!’ said Helena, almost inaudibly, and Sebastian stayed; but he could not conceal from himself that he had yet much to win, much service to do, before he could call Helena his own.

She loved him; she said so; she felt it, but she was proud: he had been right when he said so. Despite her love, she was half ashamed, half angry at finding herself conquered, and the glance was a shy and wavering one which he met. It was a strange fact, that though he wished very much that Helena would ask him to go home with her, though he had a couple of hours to spare, yet he dared not venture to hint at the invitation. All he could venture upon was to say to her.

‘You will allow me to take you to Mrs. Galloway’s, as it is late?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Helena, rising.

And they went downstairs. Sebastian gave Helena her umbrella, carried her cloak, opened the door for her, in a strange silence. She had just accepted him, and yet he had never felt so completely held at arm’s length before. Helena’s own shyness and timidity effected what the most cunningly laid stratagem could not have accomplished—they raised her lover’s fervent admiration into absolute worship. He called a cab, and in it they drove towards the Victoria Park. When they were nearly there, Sebastian, unable to endure the silence any longer, said.

‘Helena, when may I come to see you? Will you not even look at me?’ he added, almost vehemently. ‘You cannot know how hardly you are treating me.’

‘Hardly!’ she repeated. ‘I—it is so strange. It is a most wonderful feeling.’

‘But pleasant, I hope?’ suggested Sebastian, earnestly.

‘Oh, very!’

‘Then may I come soon to see you? To ask Mrs. Spenceley’s consent——’

‘Oh! there is Mrs. Mallory. I am sure she will object,’ said Helena, suddenly, and with animation.

‘Leave her to me!’ said he, almost impatiently. ‘See, Helena, we are almost at the park, and you have not given me one look, one word, to tell me that you are really mine. I have not deserved to be so treated.’

‘Forgive me!’ said she, suddenly, in a voice of tenderness. ‘I was so unhappy this afternoon before I saw you, and now I am too happy for words. I am afraid of my happiness. Come soon to see me, and I will try to behave better.’

She looked at him at last with an April face, beneath whose showers lay a broad and fathomless heaven of love. Sebastian was satisfied.

‘And may I write?’ he asked.

‘Yes, do!’ returned Helena, and the cab stopped at Mrs. Galloway’s door. Helena and the books got out, and Sebastian Mallory drove away again, to the station—and a meeting.