I was indebted to her father, when I was a boy, for acts of kindness which I can never forget. He was twice married. The death of his first wife left him with one child--once my playfellow; now the lady whose visit has excited your curiosity. His second wife was a Belgian. She persuaded him to sell his business in London, and to invest the money in a partnership with a brother of hers, established as a sugar-refiner at Antwerp. The little daughter accompanied her father to Belgium. Are you attending to me, Helena?"
I was waiting for the interesting part of the story, and was wondering when he would get to it.
"As time went on," he resumed, "the new partner found that the value of the business at Antwerp had been greatly overrated. After a long struggle with adverse circumstances, he decided on withdrawing from the partnership before the whole of his capital was lost in a failing commercial speculation. The end of it was that he retired, with his daughter, to a small town in East Flanders; the wreck of his property having left him with an income of no more than two hundred pounds a year."
I showed my father that I was attending to him now, by inquiring what had become of the Belgian wife. Those nervous quiverings, which Eunice has mentioned in her diary, began to appear in his face.
"It is too shameful a story," he said, "to be told to a young girl. The marriage was dissolved by law; and the wife was the person to blame. I am sure, Helena, you don't wish to hear any more of this part of the story."
I did wish. But I saw that he expected me to say No--so I said it.
"The father and daughter," he went on, "never so much as thought of returning to their own country. They were too poor to live comfortably in England. In Belgium their income was sufficient for their wants. On the father's death, the daughter remained in the town. She had friends there, and friends nowhere else; and she might have lived abroad to the end of her days, but for a calamity to which we are all liable. A long and serious illness completely prostrated her. Skilled medical attendance, costing large sums of money for the doctors' traveling expenses, was imperatively required. Experienced nurses, summoned from a distant hospital, were in attendance night and day. Luxuries, far beyond the reach of her little income, were absolutely required to support her wasted strength at the time of her tedious recovery. In one word, her resources were sadly diminished, when the poor creature had paid her debts, and had regained her hold on life. At that time, she unhappily met with the man who has ruined her."
It was getting interesting at last. "Ruined her?" I repeated. "Do you mean that he robbed her?"
"That, Helena, is exactly what I mean--and many and many a helpless woman has been robbed in the same way. The man of whom I am now speaking was a lawyer in large practice. He bore an excellent character, and was highly respected for his exemplary life. My cousin (not at all a discreet person, I am bound to admit) was induced to consult him on her pecuniary affairs. He expressed the most generous sympathy--offered to employ her little capital in his business--and pledged himself to pay her double the interest for her money, which she had been in the habit of receiving from the sound investment chosen by her father."
"And of course he got the money, and never paid the interest?" Eager to hear the end, I interrupted the story in those inconsiderate words. My father's answer quietly reproved me.
"He paid the interest regularly as long as he lived."
"And what happened when he died?"
"He died a bankrupt; the secret profligacy of his life was at last exposed. Nothing, actually nothing, was left for his creditors. The unfortunate creature, whose ugly name has amused you, must get help somewhere, or must go to the workhouse."
If I had been in a state of mind to attend to trifles, this would have explained the reason why the cook had heard Miss Jillgall crying. But the prospect before me--the unendurable prospect of having a strange woman in the house--had showed itself too plainly to be mistaken. I could think of nothing else. With infinite difficulty I assumed a momentary appearance of composure, and suggested that Miss Jillgall's foreign friends might have done something to help her.
My father defended her foreign friends. "My dear, they were poor people, and did all they could afford to do. But for their kindness, my cousin might not have been able to return to England."
"And to cast herself on your mercy," I added, "in the character of a helpless woman."
"No, Helena! Not to cast herself on my mercy--but to find my house open to her, as her father's house was open to me in the bygone time. I am her only surviving relative; and, while I live, she shall not be a helpless woman."
I began to wish that I had not spoken out so plainly. My father's sweet temper--I do so sincerely wish I had inherited it!--made the kindest allowances for me.
"I understand the momentary bitterness of feeling that has escaped you," he said; "I may almost say that I expected it. My only hesitation in this matter has been caused by my sense of what I owe to my children. It was putting your endurance, and your sister's endurance, to a trial to expect you to receive a stranger (and that stranger not a young girl like yourselves) as one of the household, living with you in the closest intimacy of family life. The consideration which has decided me does justice, I hope, to you and Eunice, as well as to myself. I think that some allowance is due from my daughters to the father who has always made loving allowance for them. Am I wrong in believing that my good children have not forgotten this, and have only waited for the occasion to feel the pleasure of rewarding me?"
It was beautifully put. There was but one thing to be done--I kissed him. And there was but one thing to be said. I asked at what time we might expect to receive Miss Jillgall.
"She is staying, Helena, at a small hotel in the town. I have already sent to say that we are waiting to see her. Perhaps you will look at the spare bedroom?"
"It shall be got ready, father, directly."
I ran into the house; I rushed upstairs into the room that is Eunice's and mine; I locked the door, and then I gave way to my rage, before it stifled me. I stamped on the floor, I clinched my fists, I cast myself on the bed, I reviled that hateful woman by every hard word that I could throw at her. Oh, the luxury of it! the luxury of it!
Cold water and my hairbrush soon made me fit to be seen again.
As for the spare room, it looked a great deal too comfortable for an incubus from foreign parts. The one improvement that I could have made, if a friend of mine had been expected, was suggested by the window-curtains. I was looking at a torn place in one of them, and determined to leave it unrepaired, when I felt an arm slipped round my waist from behind. A voice, so close that it tickled my neck, said: "Dear girl, what friends we shall be!" I turned round, and confronted Miss Jillgall.