'The studio door is open, mamma,' said little Norah dancing in before her mother, through the lilac bushes. The words seemed to take a weight off Helen's heart.
'Then papa must have come in,' she said, and ran up the steps to the door, which was opened before she could knock by an anxious, half-frightened maid. 'Mr Drummond has come in?' she said, in her anxiety, hasting to pass Jane, who held fast by the door.
'No, ma'am, please, ma'am; but Rebecca and me see a man about not five minutes ago, and I can't find master's topcoat as was a-hanging in the hall—Rebecca says, ma'am, as she thought she see—'
'Papa has not been home after all,' Helen said to her little daughter; 'perhaps Mr Drummond wore his great-coat last night, Jane. Never mind just now; he will tell us when he comes in.'
'But I see the man, and George was out, as he always is when he's wanted. Me and Rebecca—' said Jane.
'Never mind just now,' said Helen languidly. She went into the drawing-room with the load heavier than ever on her heart. What could have kept him so long? What could be making him so miserable? Oh, how cruel, cruel it was not to know! She sat down with a heart like lead on that chair which poor Robert had kissed—not fifteen minutes since, and he was scarcely out of reach now.
'Oh, mamma,' cried Norah, moving about with a child's curiosity; 'here is a letter for you on the little red table. It is so funny, and blurred, and uneven. I can write better than that—look! isn't it from papa?'
Helen had not paid much attention to what the child said, but now she started up and stretched out her hand. The name on the outside was scarcely legible, it was blurred and uneven, as Norah said; and it was very clear to see, could only be a message of woe. But her worst fears, miserable as she felt, had not approached the very skirts of the misery that now awaited her. She tore the envelope open, with her heart beating loud in her ears, and her whole body tingling with agitation. And this was what she read:—
'MY HELEN, MY OWN HELEN,—I have nothing in the world to do now but to bid you good-bye. I have ruined you, and more than you. If I lived I should only be a disgrace and a burden, and your little money that you have will support you by yourself. Oh, my love, to think I should leave you like this! I who have loved you so. But I have never been good enough for you. When you are an angel in heaven, if you see me among the lost, oh, bestow a little pity upon me, my Helen! I shall never see you again, but as Dives saw Lazarus. Oh, my wife, my baby, my own, you will be mine no longer; but have a little pity upon me! Give me one look, Helen, out of heaven.
'I am not mad, dear. I am doing it knowing it will be for the best. God forgive me if I take it upon me to know better than Him. It is not presumption, and perhaps He may know what I mean, though even you don't know. Oh my own, my darlings, my only ones—good-bye, good-bye!'
There was no name signed, no stops to make the sense plain. It was written as wildly as it had been conceived; and Helen, in her terrible excitement, did not make out at first what it could mean. What could it mean? where was he going? The words about Dives and Lazarus threw no light upon it at first. He had gone away. She gave a cry, and dropped her hands upon her lap, with the letter in them, and looked round her—looked at her child, to make sure to herself that she was not dreaming. Gone away! But where, where, and why this parting? 'I don't understand it—he has gone and left us,' she said feebly, when Norah, in her curiosity, came rushing to her to know what it was. 'I don't know what it means. O God, help us!' she said, with an outburst of miserable tears. She was confused to the very centre of her being. Where had he gone?'
'May I read it, mamma?' little Norah asked, with her arms round her mother's neck.
But Helen had the feeling that it was not fit for the child. 'Run and ask who brought it,' she said, glad to be alone; and then read over again, with a mind slowly awakening to its reality, that outburst of love and despair. The letter shook in her hands, salt tears fell upon it as she read. 'If I lived:—I am doing it, knowing.' God, God, what was it he had gone to do? Just then she heard a noise in the studio, and starting to her feet rushed to the conservatory door, crying, 'Robert! Robert!' She was met by Jane and Norah, coming from it; the child was carrying her father's hat in her arms, with a strange look of wonder and dismay on her face.
'Mamma, no one brought the letter,' she said in a subdued, horror-struck tone; 'and here is papa's hat—and the picture is lying dashed down on the floor with its face against the carpet. It is all spoiled, mamma,' sobbed little Norah—'papa's picture! and here is his hat. Oh, mamma, mamma!'
Norah was frightened at her mother's face. She had grown ghastly pale. 'Get me a cab,' she said to the maid, whose curiosity was profoundly excited. Then she sat down and took her child in her arms. 'Norah, my darling,' she said, making a pause between every two words, 'something dreadful has happened. I don't know what. I must go—and see. I must go—and find him—O my God, where am I to go?'
'And me, too,' said the child, clinging to her fast; 'me, too—let us go to the City, mamma!'
'Not you, Norah. It will soon be your bedtime. Oh, my pet, go and kneel down and pray—pray for poor papa.'
'I can pray just as well in the cab,' said Norah; 'God hears all the same. I am nearly twelve—I am almost grown up. You shall not, shall not go without me. I will never move nor say a word. I will run up and get your cloak and mine. We'll easily find him. He never would have the heart to go far away from you and me.'
'He never would have the heart,' Helen murmured the words over after her. Surely not. Surely, surely, he would not have the heart! His resolution would fail. How could he go and leave the two whom he loved best—the two whom alone he loved in this world. 'Run, then, dear, and get your cloak,' she said faintly. The child seemed a kind of anchor to her, holding her to something, to some grasp of solid earth. They drove off in a few minutes, Norah holding fast her mother's hand. They overtook, if they had but known it, and passed in the crowd, the despairing man they sought; and he with his dim eyes saw the cab driving past, and wondered even who was in it—some other sufferer, in the madness of excitement or despair. How was he to know it was his wife and child? They drove to the City, but found no one there. They went to his club, to one friend's house after another, to the picture-dealers, to the railway stations. There, two or three bystanders had seen such a man, and he had gone to Brighton, to Scotland, to Paris, they said. Coming home, they drove over the very bridge where he had been standing waiting for the dark. It was dark by that time, and Helen's eye caught the line of light on the water, with that intuitive wish so common to a painter's wife, that Robert had seen it. Ah, good Lord! he had seen and more than seen. The summer night was quite dark when they got home. Those gleams of starlight were lost in clouds, and all was gloom about the pretty house. Instead of the usual kindly gleam from the windows, nothing was visible as they drew up to the door but the light of a single candle which showed its solitary flame through the bare window of the dining-room. No blind was drawn, or curtain closed, and like the taper of a watcher shone this little miserable light. It chilled Helen in her profound discouragement and fatigue, and yet it gave her a forlorn hope that perhaps he had come. Norah had fallen fast asleep leaning against her. It was all she could do to wake the child as they approached the door; and Jane came out to open the gate with a scared face. 'No, ma'am, master's never been back,' she answered to Helen's eager question; but Dr Maurice, he's here.'
Mrs Drummond put Norah into the woman's arms, and rushed into the house. Dr Maurice met her with a face almost as white as her own, and took her hands compassionately. 'You have heard from him? What have you heard? where is he?' said poor Helen.
'Hush, hush!' he said, 'perhaps it is not so bad as it appears. I don't understand it. Rest a little, and I will show you what he has written to me.'
'I cannot rest,' she said; 'how can I rest when Robert——Let me see it. Let me see it. I am sure to understand what he means. He never had any secrets before. Oh, show it me—show it me!—am not I his wife?'
'Poor wife, poor wife!' said the compassionate doctor, and then he put her into an easy-chair and went and asked for some wine. 'I will show it you only when you have drank this,' he said; 'only when you have heard what I have to say. Drummond is very impulsive you know. He might not do really as he said. A hundred things would come in to stop him when he had time to think. His heart has been broken by this bank business; but when he felt that it was understood he was not to blame——'
'Give me your letter,' she said, holding out her hand to him. She was capable of no more.
'He would soon find that out,' said the doctor. 'Who could possibly blame him? My dear Mrs Drummond, you must take this into account. You must not give him up at once. I have set on foot all sorts of inquiries——'
'The letter, the letter!' she said hoarsely, holding out her hand.
He was obliged to yield to her at last, but not without the consciousness which comforted him that she had heard a great deal of what he had to say. She had not listened voluntarily; but still she had not been able to keep herself from hearing. This was not much comfort to poor Helen, but it was to him. He had made her swallow the wine too; he had done his best for her; and now he could but stand by mournfully while she read her sentence, the words which might be death.
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'Maurice, I want you to go to my wife. Before you get this, or at least before you have got to her, I shall be dead. It's a curious thing to say, but it's true. There has been a great crash at the bank, and I am ruined and all I care for. If I lived I could do no good, only harm; but they will be sorry for her if I die. I have written to her, poor darling, to tell her; but I want you to go and stand by her. She'll want some one; and kiss the child for me. If they find me, bury me anywhere. I hope they will never find me, though, for Helen's sake. And poor Haldane. Tell him I knew nothing of it; nothing, nothing! I would have died sooner than let them risk his money. God help us, and God forgive me! Maurice, you are a good fellow; be kind to my poor wife.’
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There was a postscript which nobody read or paid any attention to: that is to say, they read it and it died from their minds for the moment as if it meant nothing. It was this, written obliquely like an after-thought—
'The bank was ruined from the first; there was never a chance for us. I found this out only to-day. Burton and Golden have done it all.'
These were the words that Helen read, with Dr Maurice standing mournfully behind watching her every movement. She kept staring at the letter for a long time, and then fell back with a hysterical sob, but without any relief of tears. Dr Maurice stood by her as his friend had asked him. He soothed her, adding every possible reason he could think of (none of which he himself believed in the smallest degree) to show that 'poor Drummond' might change his mind. This was written in the first impulse of despair, but when he came to think——Helen did not listen; but she heard what Dr Maurice said vaguely, and she heard his account of what he had done; he had given information at once to the police; he had engaged people everywhere to search and watch. News would be heard of him to-morrow certainly, if not to-night. Helen rose while he was speaking. She collected herself and restrained herself, exerting all the strength she possessed. 'Will you come with me?' she said.
'Where? where? Mrs Drummond, I entreat you to believe I have done everything——'
'Oh, I am sure of it!' she said faintly; 'but I must go. I cannot—cannot rest. I must go somewhere—anywhere—where he may have gone——'
'But, Mrs Drummond——'
'You are going to say I have been everywhere. So we have, Norah and I—she fell asleep at last, poor child—she does not need me—I must go——'
'It is getting late,' he said; 'it is just ten; if news were to come you would not like to be out of the way. Stay here and rest, and I will go to-morrow; you will want all your strength.'
'I want it all now,' she said, with a strange smile. 'Who thinks of to-morrow? it may never, never come. It may——You are very kind—but I cannot rest.'
She was in the cab again before he could say another word. But fortunately at that moment one of his messengers came in hot haste to say that they thought they had found some trace of 'the gentleman.' He had come off to bring the news, and probably by this time the others were on their way bringing him home. This intelligence furnished Maurice with a weapon against Helen. She allowed herself to be led into the house again, not believing it, feeling in her heart that her husband would never be brought back, yet unable to resist the reasonable conclusion that she must stay to receive him. The short summer darkness passed over her thus; the awful dawn came and looked her in the face. One of the maids sat up, or rather dozed in her chair in the kitchen, keeping a fire alight in case anything might be wanted. And Helen sat and listened to every sound; sat at the window gazing out, hearing carriage wheels and footsteps miles off, as it seemed to her, and now and then almost deceived into hope by the sound of some one returning from a dance or late party. How strange it seemed to her that life should be going on in its ordinary routine, and people enjoying themselves, while she sat thus frozen into desperation, listening for him who would never come again! Her mind was wandering after him through every kind of dreadful scene; and yet it was so difficult, so impossible to associate him with anything terrible. He, always so reasonable, so tender of others, so free from selfish folly. The waking of the new day stole upon the watcher before she was aware; those sounds which are so awful in their power, which show how long it is since last night, how life has gone on, casting aside old burdens, taking on new ones. It was just about ten o'clock, when the morning was at its busiest outside, and Helen, refusing to acknowledge the needs of the new day, still sat at the window watching, with eyes that were dry and hot and bloodshot, with the room all in mournful disorder round her, when Dr Maurice's brougham drew up to the door. He sprang out of it, carrying a coat on his arm; a rough fellow in a blue Jersey and sailor's hat followed him. Maurice came in with that look so different from the look of anxiety, that fatal air, subdued and still and certain, which comes only from knowledge. Whatever might have happened he was in doubt no more.
Helen's long vigil had worn her into that extremity of emotion which can no longer avail itself of ordinary signs. She had not even risen to meet the news. She held out her hand feebly, and gave him a piteous look of inquiry, which her dry lips refused to sound. She looked as if it were possible that she had grown into an idiot as she sat there. He came forward to her, and took her hand in his.
'Dear Mrs Drummond,' he said, 'you will need all your courage; you must not give way; you must think of your child.'
'I know,' she said; her hand dropped out of his as if by its mere weight. She bowed her head as if to let this great salt bitter wave go over her—bowed it down till it sank upon her lap hidden in her clasped hands. There was nothing to be said further, not a word was necessary. She knew.
And yet there was a story to tell. It was told to her very gently, and she had to listen to it, with her face hidden in her hands. She shuddered now and then as she listened. Sometimes a long convulsive sob escaped her, and shook her whole frame; but she was far beyond the ordinary relief of weeping. It was poor Robert's coat which Dr Maurice had brought with him, making all further doubt impossible. The gentleman had thrown it off when he took that boat at Chelsea. It was too warm, he said; 'and sure enough it was mortal warm,' the man added who had come to verify the mournful story. The gentleman had taken a skiff for a row. It was a clear, beautiful night, and he had been warned to keep out of the way of steamers and barges. If any harm came to him, the boatman said, it was not for want of knowing how to manage a boat. The little skiff had drifted in bottom up, and had been found that morning a mile down stream. That was all. Jane, who was the housemaid, went away crying, and drew down all the blinds except that of the room in which her mistress was. 'Surely missis will have the thought to do that,' she said. But poor Helen had not the thought.
And thus it all came to an end—their love, their prosperity, and that mitigated human happiness which they had enjoyed together—happiness not too perfect, and yet how sweet! Norah still slept through the bright morning, neglected by her usual attendant, and tired out by her unusual exertions on the previous night. 'She ought to know,' the maids said to each other, with that eagerness to make evil tidings known which is so strangely common; but the old nurse, who loved the child, would not have her disturbed. It was only when Helen rejected all their entreaties to lie down and rest that Martin consented to rouse the little girl. She came down, with her bright hair all about her shoulders, wrapped in a little white dressing-gown, flying with noiseless bare feet down the staircase, and, without a word of warning, threw herself upon her mother. It was not to console her mother, but to seek her own natural refuge in this uncomprehended calamity. 'Oh, mamma!' said Norah; 'oh, mamma, mamma!' She could find no other words of consolation. Torrents of youthful tears gushed from the child's eyes. She wept for both, while Helen sat tearless. And the blinds were not down nor the shutters closed in that room, as the servants recollected with horror, and the great golden light of morn shone in.
Thus they were left undisturbed in the full day, in the sweet sunshine; scarcely knowing, in the first stupor of misery, how it was that darkness had gathered in the midst of all their world of light.