Witness My Hand: a Fenshire story

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Chapter I. Helen

" Far from gay cities and the ways of men." — PorE's " Homer. " A DAUGHTER of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair." Whether Tennyson had any modern instance in his mind when he thus sang of her whose beauty was Troy's undoing and her own, I know not. Certainly, if he had, it was not my cousin, Helen Rivers ; yet the words fitted her curiously well, except that she was so far from being, in a literal sense, " a daughter of the gods " that I fear those who knew Uncle Rivers best gave him but a lowly place among the sons of men. But, putting questions of literal meaning and actual lineage aside, no expression could so well have pictured the lofty carriage of head and neck, the regal bearing, the noble, self-forgetful expression that made other women seem commonplace beside her. " Divinely tall " she was, if that means the perfection of stature that is sufficient for dignity and not too tall for grace ; and "divinely fair," if that means, as surely it should, a fairness that is the outward expression of a most fair soul, rather than mere loveliness of colour ing or form.

Even in those less significant accidents of colour ing and form, Helen Rivers' beauty left little to desire. Dark hair clustered wavily on a broad white forehead, and under fine straight brows were eyes of a clear changeful grey, shaded by the longest and blackest lashes I ever saw, with a curl in them that is seldom seen except in childhood. I think it was this that gave so much sweetness to her face — this and the sensitive lines of the mouth, that was too large for perfect beauty, I suppose ; and yet one felt as if the small dainty mouth that painters depict and poets sing could never have had the force and capability of expression that made Helen's so beautiful, and strong, and sweet. Cousins as we were, Helen was eighteen and I nearly thirty when we met. She had been educated abroad, and had spent even her holidays at the pension where she had received her education.

I think Uncle Rivers would gladly have let her remain there indefinitely, but at last the directress wrote, in quiring for instructions as to his further intentions with " regard to Miss Rivers, whose education was now complete ; " and my uncle woke up to the fact that his daughter was no longer a child, to be comfortably relegated to school, but a young woman, whom he was expected to provide with a home and introduce to society. Helen's mother had died while her daughter was quite a child and Uncle Rivers had led a roving bachelor life since then. His letters were always sent to his club, and forwarded to him from there ; and, Helen. 9 judging from the various and constantly-changing addresses on his few replies, they must have had to follow him far. All this was to be altered now. He had taken a house in town, and Lady Clare, a widowed sister of his wife's, was to live with them, and chaperon Helen.

Meanwhile, as the house had to be furnished, and Lady Clare had to break up her own small establishment, my mother invited Helen to spend a month with us, and I looked forward to her expected visit with some private misgivings that caused me no little inward disquiet. This unknown cousin, who would come less as a guest than as the child of the house, how would she accommodate her self to us and our quiet, old-fashioned ways ? Would she chafe at the solitude and seclusion of our lives ? Would she think me as prim and old-maidish as my brothers assured me I was ? I actually looked in the glass to see if that bore out the charge. On the whole, I thought that it did. Brown hair, not very luxuriant now, and sprinkled here and there with grey, a small, pale face, eyes with no more expression in them than one deserves to find in one's own — how can eyes express much, staring blankly at themselves in a glass ? — only that in mine was a little anxiety that made me smile ; all this, coupled with a complexion that had lost the freshness of youth, and a figure that had lost its roundness and was habited in a dress of Quaker-grey, was certainly suggestive of spinsterhood in rather an advanced form.

I looked a minute or two, if not with humility, at least without finding much satisfaction in the process, and then once more I smiled. After all, what did it matter? I was an old maid, and why should I not appear so ? Was it not my " livery of woe " as much as the widow's caps my mother wore — my mother who could mourn her dead openly ? Yes, I was an old maid, and always should be, waiting with patient faithfulness for him who, I humbly trusted, was waiting for me in heaven. He had thought me fair — did it matter what anyone else might think ? Nevertheless, when the hour appointed for my cousin's arrival really drew near, I felt myself changing colour with sheer excitement, and some thing I should have been ashamed to call nervous ness if I had not been more ashamed of denying the truth. Very nervous I was, but to no purpose.

The first glance dispelled all my fears for ever. This was not the dashing young lady I had half expected, bringing Paris fashions and French airs and graces into Fenshire, and ready to scorn us for our homeliness and simplicity — it was a maiden frank and gracious as a child, at once too sincere for affectation and too noble for scorn, and, as I saw with a little amusement, shy as myself in my shyest moods. But, if she was shy, she was not awkward. There, I suppose, her French training stood her in good stead, and, as she exchanged greetings with us, only the flickering colour in her cheeks and a certain wistful ness in lip and eye betrayed her nervousness and diffidence. It seemed to me as if I took her to my heart at once. I am not impulsive — ordinarily I am slow to make friends or friendships — but as Helen lifted her eyes to mine, I knew that I had found a friend whom I might " grapple to my soul with hooks Helen. 11 of steel."

She stood very quiet by our fireside, that first night, a tall, and still rather unformed girl, with brown pension dress and little white collar, and hair simply put away in a brown silk net, that looked curiously out of place on the dark head that held itself so royally, and that was certainly the most unbecoming head-dress she could have worn. Not less unbecoming was the plain brown dress, and it seemed to me that night as if my young cousin had little beauty beyond what glowed, or flashed, or beamed from the grey eyes so exquisitely fringed. Her dark complexion and dark hair, and pronounced yet rather irregular features, needed a little setting-ofs, and in the severe costume in which she appeared before us none of us even guessed at the beauty that would one day be revealed. I do not think we loved her any the less.

I think, even now, that her beauty is the last thing we notice when she is present, or remember when she is absent, and I believe it is the same with all her friends. God bless my Helen ! Those who love her — and they are many — love her for something beyond the reach of time or change. She talked chiefly to my mother that night, taking as if by instinct that chair next to hers in the wide, old-fashioned chimney-place that seemed to belong of right to the " sick or sorry " amongst us. Sick the bright, healthy-looking lassie certainly was not ; and for sorrow she had, I trust, only the shyness of a school-girl in a strange house and a land that was to her almost as strange. But I liked the young stranger for the intuition that led her to the very spot where I had sought comfort all my life, where Ralph was still wont to resort in difficulty or trouble, and where even the two noisy lads, now trying to subdue their voices in deference to Cousin Helen's presence, were glad enough to carry their boyish griefs when any ill befell them.

I think that would have opened my heart to her, even if I had not already looked into her eyes and seen the promise of a friend. But my heart opens perhaps more readily than my lips, and I contented myself with looking up from my work in silent ap proval till the dusk fell. Then, laying my work down, I amused myself with watching the very different faces the firelight revealed, secure that in my shadowy corner there was no fear of my watch being suspected. It was one of the chilly evenings in early spring, and in the wide, deep-set old fireplace glowed a bright fire that cast its red light on my mother and Helen and threw a gleam now and then on the figures at the centre table. My mother — a gracious, matronly figure, in soft falling robe of black cashmere and spotless widow's cap — had laid her knitting in her lap, and was talking to Helen in a low voice — the genial, pleasant voice that found its way so straight to the heart ; and Helen, looking up with smiling eyes, was evidently fast losing her shyness, and answering with a mixture of naivete and girlish gaiety that struck me as very charming.

Once or twice a light laugh rang out from the warm fire-lit nook, that brought a smile to my lips in sheer sympathy, and made the two younger boys start and look up from the game of chess to which they had at last settled — if they could be said Helen. 13 to settle to anything, two restless young things as my boy-brothers were. Even Ralph, sedate lawyer Ralph, who had the care of us all on his young shoulders, and was busied with a pile of formidable looking papers over which his short-sighted eyes were poring in the waning light, could not refuse a smile. Well, it was natural enough that Ralph should be grave beyond the wont of other men ; but it was Walter and Herbert that made the sunshine of the house, and very dear the two yellow-haired laddies were to us all. They were so much alike that strangers were continually mistaking one for the other.

We knew that Walter's eyes had a bluer shade and his hair a crisper curl than Bertie's ; that Bertie's nose had not that unlucky upward twist that was believed to be the one crumpled rose-leaf in Walter's joyous life. But other people could scarcely be expected to be alive to such fine distinctions as these. What a contrast they were, with their curly locks and eyes of summer blue, to the dark, grave brother who stood in their father's place, and seemed as remote from their careless youth as any father could have done. They did not sit long at their quiet game now. As the darkness gathered, impetuous Walter rose. " We can't see any longer, Bertie ; let us go to the Hall. I saw John this afternoon, and he said he had some birds' eggs for us. He was out shoot ing in the fen this morning, and found them quite by chance."

" I'll be ready in a minute," cried Bertie, looking very animated and bright, for birds' eggs were to him what sunflowers are supposed to be to æsthetic young men or old china to a modern lady of taste. " Come along, then. The chessmen ? Oh, bother! You're just an old maid spoiled, Ralph!" protested Walter, returning, however, and putting the chessmen into the box at a gesture from Ralph. " I'll see to the chessmen, Bertie, while you change your coat. That shooting-jacket isn't just the thing for ladies." " It is good enough for my mother ; I shan't change it for Lady Erlston," said lazy Bertie. " Besides, I don't suppose we shall even see her. She never seems to be about now Grace is away." " Well, but Grace came home yesterday, and Miss Seymour is staying at the Hall." Bertie made a rueful grimace.

" Then you may go by yourself. I can't stand Grace's lackadaisical ways and Louisa Seymour's airs and graces." "Don't you like girls?" asked Helen, as Bertie sat down again, with an injured and disgusted air. " No," said Herbert sturdily, although the colour deepened on his cheek. It is easier to us Hirsts to tell unpleasant truths than to make smooth speeches. Of us four only the youngest has a courteous tongue, and sorely shocked Walter looked now. He went up to Helen with elaborate courtesy. " I hope you won't mind him ; he doesn't really mean it," he began. But the candles just brought in showed Helen's face amused, not offended. She, too, it seemed, was frank of speech, for all her shyness. Helen. 15 " I don't mind him in the least. He will not think so when he is older," she said with a smile, and began quietly taking up the dropped stitches of my mother's knitting, not even seeing Bertie's astonishment and mortification or Walter's ill-concealed relish of the joke.

For Bertie, who wore tail-coats on Sun days, had his letters addressed " Herbert Hirst, Esq.," and was noted for his magnificent scorn of the weaker sex, to be so put down by a school-girl was too much for his own temper or for Walter's powers of self-control. Bertie directed a withering glance at the unconscious offender, and stalked majestically from the room ; and Walter, observing that there was no hope of his returning after such "an extinguisher," betook himself to Erlston Hall alone. Then Ralph carried away his papers to his office below, and my mother brought her work to the table, till a few minutes afterwards the old Scotch bailiff who managed the little land we possessed put his head in at the door and inquired in his cautious voice — " Could I speak till ye, mem ? I'll no be keeping ye lang."

For all that, I knew that my mother would probably be closeted with Saunders all the rest of the evening, and my unlucky self be left to entertain Helen alone ; and school-girls — above all, French school-girls — were an unknown race to me. I wondered what interests my cousin had, what common ground of sympathy might exist for us, what topic I had better introduce. " Were you sorry to leave Paris ?" I said, for want of anything better or more original. " I was sorry to leave the girls, and even some of the governesses ; but I was glad to come home, on account of poor papa. It must Lave been so lonely for him all these years." " I suppose so." I could not find anything more gracious to say, for privately I had a strong opinion that Uncle Rivers had small need for his daughter's pity and smaller desire for her return.

I thought of him as I had seen him on his rare visits to my mother — a de'bonnaire, dashing, not un handsome man, too free-and-easy to suit my old maidish notions, and only too evidently ennuye in our quiet home. In two days he pined for London, as I could see, watching him chafing restlessly by my mother's chair, and wondering how that man could be her brother and how he would exist the week out. To say the truth, he never made the experiment. " Urgent business " was sure to summon Uncle Rivers back to London by the end of the fourth day, and I am sure both my mother and myself were conscious of a decided sensation of relief, and were very much ashamed of seeling it. But thoughts like these were not for his daughter's ear. I hastened to change the subject ; but, even when we had wandered far enough away from it, it seemed to keep up a low undercurrent of remem brance and disturbance in my mind.

The pity of it ! Helen's tongue, once loosed, ran on with little help from mine, and as I listened to her girlish stories of school-life, and her innocent dreams of the home preparing for her, and in which Helen. 17 she and her father were to be all in all to each other, I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. As we sat over the fire, we two alone, my heart yearned to my motherless cousin as if with a presentiment of the time when she would need all the love and comfort I could give her. Comfort she did not seem to need now, for the slight forlornness of first coming had passed away, and Helen's face was bright and blithe, as became a maiden in her teens ; but for love, I knew instinc tively that hers was a nature that always needed that. The thought of the loneliness she would understand only too soon — what sort of home would Uncle Rivers' house be for a young girl, or what sort of companionship would she find in him ? — drew me to her even more than the caressing touch of the hand she stole into mine or the confiding look with which she said — "May I, Cousin Alice?

I never saw a cousin before. I never saw any of my relations till to night." Poor little lonely lassie, left all alone in her foreign school ! But perhaps she did not see any neglect in this, and it was not for me to point it out. Still, I was more surprised than I cared to show. " We are your only relatives on your father's side," I said ; " but I thought your mother had many brothers and sisters." " Yes," said Helen ; " but I believe papa does not like them. He is not friendly with any of them, except Lady Clare, you know." I knew that I had heard Uncle Rivers swear at each and every member of his late wife's family B individually and collectively ; but his anathemas were too liberally bestowed for me to attach much weight to them, and I had not supposed them to point to more than a passing coolness.

Helen, it seemed, was even more friendless than I had thought. " Nine o'clock ! " I exclaimed, as the hall clock sounded distinctly in the stillness. " I knew by the look of old Saunders' face that the mother was in for a long confab to-night. She has to listen to all the misdeeds of every man and boy on the place, over and above any business there may really be. I doubt if we shall see her before Walter comes back, and that will not be soon. He is never in a hurry to leave Erlston Hall." "Where is that?" said Helen. "And who are the Erlstons ? Does papa know them ? " "Certainly. No one could know us and not know them, I think." " Are they such great friends ? " " Very great indeed. Do you not know that they were to have been more than friends if — if God had so willed ? " She looked up with a shy interest I could not feel obtrusive, but that showed it was a new tale to her — this, that was indeed the story of my life, and which it seemed my uncle never had cared to tell.

" Do you mind telling me about it ? " Helen said, looking at me rather wistfully, as if she feared to touch on a painful theme. I could not have spoken of the five-years-old grief to many people, even then, but something in xny young cousin's sympathy opened my lips. And, Helen. 19 besides, how could she understand our relations with the Erlstons unless she knew? " I thought you would have known," I could not help saying. " But at least you know that you lost a cousin, and I a brother, five years ago?" " In the wreck of the Artemis ? I remember that very well. I read all about it in the papers papa sent to me. But I did not know Cousin James, and I was only a child. I believe I thought more of being the cousin of a hero than of anything else. I cut the account out of the papers, and for weeks I used to dream of him just as it said — he and the other brave man handing the women into the boats, and then stepping quietly back to the sinking vessel.

Oh, Cousin Alice ! they were real heroes, were they not ? " Ay, they were ; and I would not have had them otherwise for all my sorrow. " If James had lived, Helen, Grace Erlston would have been his wife. If Robert Erlston, ' that other brave man,' had lived, I " No, I could not find words for it, after all ; but my young cousin understood without them. " You would have been his, Cousin Alice," she said softly, pressing my hand with a gentle, com passionate touch, and looking at me with a sort of pitiful wonder ; but whether that a sorrow like mine had not crushed and killed me, or that still, after all these years, I could not speak of it without tears, I could not tell. " Don't talk of it if you would rather not. I ought not to have asked you. Will you tell me, instead, about Grace Erlston ?

Did she mind as fnuch ? " p I could hardly help smiling at the child-like eyes, wide with innocent wonder. " Yes, she has never been the same since," I said shortly. It was almost as impossible to speak of Grace's trouble as of my own. "Has she any brothers or sisters?" asked Helen. " No sisters, and only one brother — the John Erlston Walter has gone to see to-night. He is very kind to the boys, and to us all — as much our brother as if he really was one. He was in the army, but his father had a paralytic stroke two years ago, and then John had to come home ; and though Sir John has quite recovered now, he has been at the Hall ever since. I think Lady Erlston would break her heart if he went away now." I do not think that Helen Rivers, aged eighteen, had much faith in broken hearts. "It must be rather an idle existence, I should think," she said, with decided disapproval in her tone.

" I don't think Lady Erlston can be a very wise woman." " Is Miss Rivers a wise girl to judge her un seen ? " I asked, half-amused and half-provoked. " You will have to see the Erlstons at home to under stand all that John is to them. You will like Lady Erlston when you do see her ; and, indeed, I hope you will like them all. I don't know what we should do without them." " Have you not many other friends, then ? " " Not so near to us. There are a few people in the town, but they are rather acquaintances than friends. And there are the Seymours at Morton Park, but that is two miles from here, though it is Helen. 21 only half a mile from Erlston. They have an only daughter, but she is more with the Erlstons than with us. She is not a favourite of mine, though I could hardly say why, and she is at high feud with Herbert.

You see, he would not go to the Hall to-night when he heard she was staying there." "Where is he now?" asked Helen. "Why doesn't he sit with us ? " The truth might not have been flattering, so I evaded the question. " He is fond of wandering about the garden at night. I daresay he is there now." " Star-gazing ? " laughed Helen. " Yes, but astronomically, not sentimentally. He is a very practical person, almost as much so as Ralph, and has not a grain of sentiment or poetry about him." Just then the door opened, and my brothers came in together, having, I suppose, met in the garden as Walter returned from Erlston. " You are going to have visitors in the morning," announced Walter. "John is going to bring Miss Seymour over to pay her respects to mamma — Anglice to look at Miss Helen Rivers."

Helen laughed and coloured a little, and Herbert looked supreme contempt. " I should have thought that John might find something better to do than to dance about paying morning calls with a dressed-up doll like that." " The prettiest girl I ever saw," put in Walter critically ; "and John would be a bat if he didn't find it out." " Yes, she is at the Hall often enough, and shows off enough too," agreed Herbert, as he nodded a good night to us, and disappeared with a cynical smile. Walter's bow over his cousin's hand was all the lower, I am sure, for his brother's lack of ceremony. Then my mother came back, smiling a little at old Saundcrs' garrulity, and apologising to Helen for having left her so long ; and Ralph came in from his den, and we sat chatting over the fire till my mother discovered it was nearly eleven o'clock, and that Helen must be tired after her journey.

She was to share my room, and her delight at all its simple appointments was quite amusing. They were fresh and dainty, as anything of my mother's arranging must needs be, but Helen seemed to regard them as triumphs of decorative art. She soon found Robert Erlston's photograph, and stood looking at it curiously. It had all the exact ness of outline and deficiency of expression common to photographs ; and although I would not have parted with it for all else the world could give, I knew that to those with whom memory could not supply its shortcomings it must only represent a tall young man in naval uniform, with very little to dis tinguish him from other tall young men similarly attired. I did not wonder that she drew back with a look of disappointment. " It does not do him justice," I hastened to say.

" Unless you had seen him, you could not understand what he was like from that." " He looks kind and strong — it is a firm, good face, I think," said Helen ; so perhaps the photograph had not belied him so much as I thought " Is his brother like that ? " Helen. 23 " You will know to-morrow. There is a family likeness, I suppose, but nothing more than that. John is taller, and not so fair, and his mouth is sarcastic, and that Robert's never was. No, they are not alike. John is always joking and teasing, and Robert was quiet and grave. It is Grace who is like him, not John." " Do you not like Mr. Erlston, then?" " Yes ; he is, I often think, even more to me than Ralph or the boys. For, you see, they are only my brothers, and John is his." " I wonder if I shall like him," said Helen. " I am glad he is coming to-morrow.

He is coming with that pretty Miss Seymour, is he not ? I shall like to see them together. I wonder if he thinks her as pretty as Walter does." I could not help smiling at her interest in these unknown friends of mine. She went on talking about them, speculating on all she had heard, and unconsciously betraying the little romance she had woven for them, till I bade her a peremptory good night, and went to my mother's room for the con fidential chat that always ended our days when any unusual event had broken their even and uneventful course. Helen's arrival was quite an event of magnitude, and I could not rest till I had compared notes with the mother who was sister and friend as much as parent to her grown-up daughter. " Well ? " she said, looking up frjm her reading with a smile ; for she knew as well as I did what I had come for.