Helena. Mrs. Humphry Ward

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СКАЧАТЬ girl's merry laugh broke out:

      "Oh, I know Mary Chance—twenty pokers up her backbone! I should have thought—"

      Then she stopped, looking intently at Mrs. Friend, her brows drawn together over her brilliant eyes.

      "What would you have thought?" Mrs. Friend enquired, as the silence continued.

      "Well—that if she was going to recommend somebody to Cousin Philip—to look after me, she would never have been content with anything short of a Prussian grenadier in petticoats. She thinks me a demon. She won't let her daughters go about with me. I can't imagine how she ever fixed upon anyone so—"

      "So what?" said Mrs. Friend, after a moment, nervously. Lost in the big white arm-chair, her small hand propping her small face and head, she looked even frailer than she had looked in the library.

      "Well, nobody would ever take you for my jailer, would they?" said

       Helena, surveying her.

      Mrs. Friend laughed—a ghost of a laugh, which yet seemed to have some fun in it, far away.

      "Does this seem to you like prison?"

      "This house? Oh, no. Of course I shall do just as I like in it. I have only come because—well, my poor Mummy made a great point of it when she was ill, and I couldn't be a brute to her, so I promised. But I wonder whether I ought to have promised. It is a great tyranny, you know—the tyranny of sick people. I wonder whether one ought to give in to her?"

      The girl looked up coolly. Mrs. Friend felt as though she had been struck.

      "But your mother!" she said involuntarily.

      "Oh, I know, that's what most people would say. But the question is, what's reasonable. Well, I wasn't reasonable, and here I am. But I make my conditions. We are not to be more than four months in the year in this old hole"—she looked round her in not unkindly amusement at the bare old-fashioned room; "we are to have four or five months in London, at least; and when travelling abroad gets decent again, we are to go abroad—Rome, perhaps, next winter. And I am jolly well to ask my friends here, or in town—male and female—and Cousin Philip promised to be nice to them. He said, of course, 'Within limits.' But that we shall see. I'm not a pauper, you know. My trustees pay Lord Buntingford whatever I cost him, and I shall have a good deal to spend. I shall have a horse—and perhaps a little motor. The chauffeur here is a fractious idiot. He has done that Rolls-Royce car of Cousin Philip's balmy, and cut up quite rough when I spoke to him about it."

      "Done it what?" said Mrs. Friend faintly.

      "Balmy. Don't you know that expression?" Helena, on the floor with her hands under her knees, watched her companion's looks with a grin. "It's our language now, you know—English—the language of us young people. The old ones have got to learn it, as we speak it! Well, what do you think of Cousin Philip?"

      Mrs. Friend roused herself.

      "I've only seen him for half an hour. But he was very kind."

      "And isn't he good-looking?" said the girl before her, with enthusiasm.

       "I just adore that combination of black hair and blue eyes—don't you?

       But he isn't by any means as innocent as he looks."

      "I never said—"

      "No. I know you didn't," said Helena serenely; "but you might have—and he isn't innocent a bit. He's as complex as you make 'em. Most women are in love with him, except me!" The brown eyes stared meditatively out of window. "I suppose I could be if I tried. But he doesn't attract me. He's too old."

      "Old?" repeated Mrs. Friend, with astonishment.

      "Well, I don't mean he's decrepit! But he's forty-four if he's a day—more than double my age. Did you notice that he's a little lame?"

      "No!"

      "He is. It's very slight—an accident, I believe—somewhere abroad. But they wouldn't have him for the Army, and he was awfully cut up. He used to come and sit with Mummy every day and pour out his woes. I suppose she was the only person to whom he ever talked about his private affairs—he knew she was safe. Of course you know he is a widower?"

      Mrs. Friend knew nothing. But she was vaguely surprised.

      "Oh, well, a good many people know that—though Mummy always said she never came across anybody who had ever seen his wife. He married her when he was quite a boy—abroad somewhere—when there seemed no chance of his ever being Lord Buntingford—he had two elder brothers who died—and she was an art student on her own. An old uncle of Mummy's once told me that when Cousin Philip came back from abroad—she died abroad—after her death, he seemed altogether changed somehow. But he never, never speaks of her"—the girl swayed her slim body backwards and forwards for emphasis—"and I wouldn't advise you or anybody else to try. Most people think he's just a bachelor. I never talk about it to people—Mummy said I wasn't to—and as he was very nice to Mummy—well, I don't. But I thought you'd better know. And now I think we'd better dress."

      But instead of moving, she looked down affectionately at her uniform and her neat brown leggings.

      "What a bore! I suppose I've no right to them any more."

      "What is your uniform?"

      "Women Ambulance Drivers. Don't you know the hostel in Ruby Square? I bargained with Cousin Philip after Mummy's death I should stay out my time, till I was demobbed. Awfully jolly time I had—on the whole—though the girls were a mixed lot. Well—let's get a move on." She sprang up. "Your room's next door."

      Mrs. Friend was departing when Helena enquired:

      "By the way—have you ever heard of Cynthia Welwyn?"

      Mrs. Friend turned at the door, and shook her head.

      "Oh, well, I can tot her up very quickly—just to give you an idea—as she's coming to dinner. She's fair and forty—just about Buntingford's age—quite good-looking—quite clever—lives by herself, reads a great deal—runs the parish—you know the kind of thing. They swarm! I think she would like to marry Cousin Philip, if he would let her."

      Mrs. Friend hurriedly shut the door at her back, which had been slightly ajar. Helena laughed—the merry but very soft laugh Mrs. Friend had first heard in the hall—a laugh which seemed somehow out of keeping with the rest of its owner's personality.

      "Don't be alarmed. I doubt whether that would be news to anybody in this house! But Buntingford's quite her match. Well, ta-ta. Shall I come and help you dress?"

      "The idea!" cried Mrs. Friend. "Shall I help you?" She looked round the room and at Helena vigorously tackling the boxes. "I thought you had a maid?"

      "Not at all. I couldn't be bored with one."

      "Do let me help you!"

      "Then you'd be my maid, and I should bully you and detest you. You must go and dress."

      And Mrs. Friend found herself gently pushed out of the room. She went to her own in some bewilderment. After having been immured for some three years СКАЧАТЬ