CHAPTER XXII
Harley L'Estrange is seated beside Helen at the lattice-window in the cottage at Norwood. The bloom of reviving health is on the child's face, and she is listening with a smile, for Harley is speaking of Leonard with praise, and of Leonard's future with hope. "And thus," he continued, "secure from his former trials, happy in his occupation, and pursuing the career he has chosen, we must be content, my dear child, to leave him."
"Leave him!" exclaimed Helen, and the rose on her cheek faded.
Harley was not displeased to see her emotion. He would have been disappointed in her heart if it had been less susceptible to affection.
"It is hard on you, Helen," said he, "to be separated from one who has been to you as a brother. Do not hate me for doing so. But I consider myself your guardian, and your home as yet must be mine. We are going from this land of cloud and mist, going as into the world of summer. Well, that does not content you. You weep, my child; you mourn your own friend, but do not forget your father's. I am alone, and often sad, Helen; will you not comfort me? You press my hand, but you must learn to smile on me also. You are born to be the comforter. Comforters are not egotists; they are always cheerful when they console."
The voice of Harley was so sweet and his words went so home to the child's heart, that she looked up and smiled in his face as he kissed her ingenuous brow. But then she thought of Leonard, and felt so solitary, so bereft, that tears burst forth again. Before these were dried, Leonard himself entered, and, obeying an irresistible impulse, she sprang to his arms, and leaning her head on his shoulder, sobbed out,
"I am going from you, brother; do not grieve, do not miss me."
Harley was much moved: he folded his arms, and contemplated them both silently,—and his own eyes were moist. "This heart," thought he, "will be worth the winning!"
He drew aside Leonard, and whispered, "Soothe, but encourage and support her. I leave you together; come to me in the garden later."
It was nearly an hour before Leonard joined Harley.
"She was not weeping when you left her?" asked L'Estrange.
"No; she has more fortitude than we might suppose. Heaven knows how that fortitude has supported mine. I have promised to write to her often."
Harley took two strides across the lawn, and then, coming back to Leonard, said, "Keep your promise, and write often for the first year. I would then ask you to let the correspondence drop gradually."
"Drop! Ah, my Lord!"
"Look you, my young friend, I wish to lead this fair mind wholly from the sorrows of the past. I wish Helen to enter, not abruptly, but step by step, into a new life. You love each other now, as do two children,—as brother and sister. But later, if encouraged, would the love be the same? And is it not better for both of you that youth should open upon the world with youth's natural affections free and unforestalled?"
"True! And she is so above me," said Leonard, mournfully.
"No one is above him who succeeds in your ambition, Leonard. It is not that, believe me."
Leonard shook his head.
"Perhaps," said Harley, with a smile, "I rather feel that you are above me. For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become jealous of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to be henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet how can she like me as she ought, if her heart is to be full of you?"
The boy bowed his head; and Harley hastened to change the subject, and speak of letters and of glory. His words were eloquent and his voice kindling; for he had been an enthusiast for fame in his boyhood, and in Leonard's his own seemed to him to revive. But the poet's heart gave back no echo,—suddenly it seemed void and desolate. Yet when Leonard walked back by the moonlight, he muttered to himself, "Strange, strange, so mere a child! this cannot be love! Still, what else to love is there left to me?"
And so he paused upon the bridge where he had so often stood with Helen, and on which he had found the protector that had given to her a home, to himself a career. And life seemed very long, and fame but a dreary phantom. Courage still, Leonard! These are the sorrows of the heart that teach thee more than all the precepts of sage and critic.
Another day, and Helen had left the shores of England, with her fanciful and dreaming guardian. Years will pass before our tale re-opens. Life in all the forms we have seen it travels on. And the squire farms and hunts; and the parson preaches and chides and soothes; and Riccabocca reads his Machiavelli, and sighs and smiles as he moralizes on Men and States; and Violante's dark eyes grow deeper and more spiritual in their lustre, and her beauty takes thought from solitary dreams. And Mr. Richard Avenel has his house in London, and the Honourable Mrs. Avenel her opera-box; and hard and dire is their struggle into fashion, and hotly does the new man, scorning the aristocracy, pant to become aristocrat. And Audley Egerton goes from the office to the parliament, and drudges, and debates, and helps to govern the empire in which the sun never sets. Poor sun, how tired he must be—but not more tired than the Government! And Randal Leslie has an excellent place in the bureau of a minister, and is looking to the time when he shall resign it to come into parliament, and on that large arena turn knowledge into power. And meanwhile he is much where he was with Audley Egerton; but he has established intimacy with the squire, and visited Hazeldean twice, and examined the house and the map of the property, and very nearly fallen a second time into the ha-ha, and the squire believes that Randal Leslie alone can keep Frank out of mischief, and has spoken rough words to his Harry about Frank's continued extravagance. And Frank does continue to pursue pleasure, and is very miserable, and horribly in debt. And Madame di Negra has gone from London to Paris, and taken a tour into Switzerland, and come back to London again, and has grown very intimate with Randal Leslie; and Randal has introduced Frank to her; and Frank thinks her the loveliest woman in the world, and grossly slandered by certain evil tongues. And the brother of Madame di Negra is expected in England at last; and what with his repute for beauty and for wealth, people anticipate a sensation. And Leonard, and Harley, and Helen? Patience,—they will all re-appear.