_ BOOK SIXTH CHAPTER XXIV
She drew him into the garden with such true childlike joy. Now behold them seated in the arbour,--a perfect bower of sweets and blossoms; the wilderness of roof-tops and spires stretching below, broad and far; London seen dim and silent, as in a dream.
She took his hat from his brows gently, and looked him in the face with tearful penetrating eyes.
She did not say, "You are changed." She said, "Why, why did I leave you?" and then turned away.
"Never mind me, Helen. I am man, and rudely born; speak of yourself. This lady is kind to you, then?"
"Does she not let me see you? Oh, very kind,--and look here."
Helen pointed to fruits and cakes set out on the table. "A feast, brother."
And she began to press her hospitality with pretty winning ways, more playful than was usual to her, and talking very fast, and with forced, but silvery, laughter.
By degrees she stole him from his gloom and reserve; and though he could not reveal to her the cause of his bitterest sorrow, he owned that he had suffered much. He would not have owned that to another living being. And then, quickly turning from this brief confession, with assurances that the worst was over, he sought to amuse her by speaking of his new acquaintance with the perch-fisher. But when he spoke of this man with a kind of reluctant admiration, mixed with compassionate yet gloomy interest, and drew a grotesque, though subdued, sketch of the wild scene in which he had been spectator, Helen grew alarmed and grave.
"Oh, brother, do not go there again,--do not see more of this bad man."
"Bad!--no! Hopeless and unhappy, he has stooped to stimulants and oblivion--but you cannot understand these things, my pretty preacher."
"Yes, I do, Leonard. What is the difference between being good and bad? The good do not yield to temptations, and the bad do."
The definition was so simple and so wise that Leonard was more struck with it than he might have been by the most elaborate sermon by Parson Dale.
"I have often murmured to myself since I lost you, 'Helen was my good angel; '--say on. For my heart is dark to myself, and while you speak light seems to dawn on it."
This praise so confused Helen that she was long before she could obey the command annexed to it. But, by little and little, words came to both more frankly. And then he told her the sad tale of Chatterton, and waited, anxious to hear her comments.
"Well," he said, seeing that she remained silent, "how can I hope, when this mighty genius laboured and despaired? What did he want, save birth and fortune and friends and human justice?"
"Did he pray to God?" asked Helen, drying her tears. Again Leonard was startled. In reading the life of Chatterton he had not much noted the scepticism, assumed or real, of the ill-fated aspirer to earthly immortality. At Helen's question, that scepticism struck him forcibly. "Why do you ask that, Helen?"
"Because, when we pray often, we grow so very, very patient," answered the child. "Perhaps, had he been patient a few months more, all would have been won by him, as it will be by you, brother, for you pray, and you will be patient."
Leonard bowed his head in deep thought, and this time the thought was not gloomy. Then out from that awful life there glowed another passage, which before he had not heeded duly, but regarded rather as one of the darkest mysteries in the fate of Chatterton.
At the very time the despairing poet had locked himself up in his garret, to dismiss his soul from its earthly ordeal, his genius had just found its way into the light of renown. Good and learned and powerful men were preparing to serve and save him. Another year--nay, perchance another month--and he might have stood acknowledged sublime in the foremost ranks of his age.
"Oh, Helen!" cried Leonard, raising his brows, from which the cloud had passed, "why, indeed, did you leave me?"
Helen started in her turn as he repeated this regret, and in her turn grew thoughtful. At length she asked him if he had written for the box which had belonged to her father and been left at the inn.
And Leonard, though a little chafed at what he thought a childish interruption to themes of graver interest, owned, with self-reproach, that he had forgotten to do so. Should he not write now to order the box to be sent to her at Miss Starke's?
"No; let it be sent to you. Take care of it. I should like to know that something of mine is with you; and perhaps I may not stay here long."
"Not stay here? That you must, my dear Helen,--at least as long as Miss Starke will keep you, and is kind. By and by" (added Leonard, with something of his former sanguine tone) "I may yet make my way, and we shall have our cottage to ourselves. But--oh, Helen!--I forgot--you wounded me; you left your money with me. I only found it in my drawers the other day. Fie! I have brought it back."
"It was not mine,--it is yours. We were to share together,--you paid all; and how can I want it here, too?" But Leonard was obstinate; and as Helen mournfully received back all that of fortune her father had bequeathed to her, a tall female figure stood at the entrance of the arbour, and said, in a voice that scattered all sentiment to the winds, "Young man, it is time to go." _