A Woman's Reason. William Dean Howells
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of suggestion and counsel, and putting on all a smiling air of volition, could never be fully known, except to the goodness that inspired it; but he was rewarded by the promptness with which Helen assented to everything.
"I shall be glad to have you do whatever you think is best, Captain Butler," she answered. "I have no feeling about the house—it's strange that I shouldn't have—and I don't care how soon it is sold, nor how it is sold."
The Captain instantly advanced a step further. "Perhaps you wouldn't care to come back to it at all, anymore? Perhaps you could put your hand on what you'd like to keep, and I could look after it for you, and—" He stopped at seeing Helen change countenance. "Well?"
"Did you think of selling the furniture too? " she asked.
"Why, yes," assented the Captain. "I said so just now. I'm afraid you'd find it a burden after the house was gone. You'd have to store it, you know. Still, if you don't wish it—"
"Oh, yes," said Helen, drawing a long breath, "it had better go!" She spoke with a gentle submissiveness that smote the Captain to the heart.
"You can keep everything you want, my dear— you can keep it all!" he returned vehemently.
"That would be silly," said Helen. "Besides, there are very few things I should want to keep. I couldn't keep papa's things: they're terrible. I should like you to take everything that belonged to him, Captain Butler—except his watch and his Bible —and give them to some poor people that could use them. Then I only want my own things; and perhaps his chair, and—" Helen stopped, and the Captain, not to look at her, cast a roving eye about the room.
"Those Copleys, of course, you would reserve," he remarked presently.
"No," said Helen, " I never saw the people. You can sell them. But I shall keep my mother's picture, because I think papa would like me to."
The sense of her father's presence expressed in these words touched the Captain again. He cleared his throat, but he was still hoarse in saying, "I think the Museum would buy the Copleys." Helen seemed too indifferent about their fate to make any reply.
The worst was now over. Captain Butler had accomplished all that he wished without being obliged to explain anything to Helen, or to alarm her fears in any way, and he was unreasonably heartened by the fact. He might, perhaps, have stated the whole truth to her ignorance of affairs without being much more intelligible than he had been with all these skillful evasions. If he had said, " Your father died with his business in the utmost confusion, and probably insolvent," she would scarcely have realized that life was not to go on just as before; and if he had said, "You are left a beggar," how could Helen Harkness have conceived of herself in the figure of one of the women who had dropped their tears into their tea-cups in the kitchen, as they cried over the old clothes she had given them. It had wrung the Captain's heart to hear her talk of poor people, and of giving; and yet, he rose from his chair, when he saw Helen still safe in her ignorance, with something like cheerfulness.
"You just make a memorandum of what you'd like reserved, Helen," he said, "and I'll attend to it for you. Put your own little traps together, and I'll send a carriage to take you down to the four o'clock train. Anything you think of afterwards of course will be kept for you."
He left her to this task. It was at least something to do, and Helen went about it with an energy which she was surprised to find in herself. At first the reproach with which the silent house seemed to use her indifference smote upon her, but it did not last long. Home had died out of it, as life had gone out of her father's dust; and neither house nor grave was anything to her. She passed from room to room, and opened closets and drawers, and looked at a hundred things. She ended in despair by choosing a very few. If she could not keep all, why should she want any? Whatever it seemed desecration to sell she put on her memorandum to be given away. She selected a large number of things for Margaret, and when she sat down at the old Bostonian half-past two o'clock dinner (to which her father had always kept), she told Margaret what she had done. Margaret took one or two little trinkets which Helen offered her in her hand, and declined the other gifts.
"Why, what do you mean, Margaret?" asked Helen. "Why don't you take them?"
"I shouldn't wish to, Miss Helen," said Margaret, pursing her mouth.
"Well, have your own way," returned Helen. "I suppose this is another of your mysteries."
"I should wish to do everything properly, Miss Helen."
"What do you mean by properly? Why do you Miss Helen me, all the time? What made you so stiff with Captain Butler? and he so kind!"
"Captain Butler is a very pleasant gentleman," said Margaret, in her neatest manner, "but I shouldn't wish him to think it was quite the same as going on here."
"You're very foolish. It would have been a nice place."
"I wished him to understand that I felt it a change."
"Well, well!" cried Helen impatiently. "You must do as you please, but you needn't have been so cross."
Helen's nerves were beginning to give way, and she went on childishly. "You act just as if we were going to be together always. Do you know that I'm going away now, and not coming back anymore!"
"Yes, Miss Helen."
"And do you think this is the way to treat me at the last moment? Why don't you take the things?" "I shouldn't wish to be under a compliment, Miss Helen."
"What do you mean by being under a compliment?"
"I shouldn't wish to be beholden."
"Oh, you shouldn't wish, you shouldn't wish!
This is too bad!" whimpered Helen. "What am I but under a compliment to you, as you call it? I didn't think you'd behave so at the last moment.
But I see. You're too proud for anything, and you never did care for me."
"Oh, Miss Helen!"
"Yes! And go to your cousin's,—the quicker the better—and have your own cross way. I'm sure? don't care, if you'll be the happier for it. I can tell you what you are, Margaret: you're a silly goose, and you make everyone hate you. The charm's broken between us,—quite; and I'm glad of it."
Margaret went out without saying anything, and Helen tried to go on with her dinner, but failed, and began her inventory again, and at last went to her room and dressed for her journey. She came down into the library just before starting, and rang for Margaret. When the cook appeared, the young girl suddenly threw her arms round her neck. "Goodbye," she sobbed out, "you good, old, wicked, foolish, stuck-up Margaret. I'm glad you didn't come to the Butlers', it would have killed me to see you there! Good-bye, good-bye! Remember your poor little Helen, Margaret, and come to see me! I can't bear to look into the kitchen! Say good-bye to it for me! Oh my poor old slighted happy home! Oh my home, my home, my home! Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!" She ran wildly through the well-known rooms, and bade them adieu with heart-breaking farewells; she stooped down and kissed the lounge, on which her father used to lie, and spread out her empty arms upon it, and laid her homeless head where his had rested. At the sound of the bell she sprang up, and opened the door herself, and fled down the steps, and into the carriage, shrinking into the furthest corner, and thickly hiding her face under her black veil.
She seemed to herself part of a vast train of events, without control, without volition, save the will to obey. She did what she was bid, and the great movement went on. Somewhere must be arrest, somewhere repose, but as yet she could not foresee it, and she could only yield herself to the forces carrying her forward. She was going to the Butlers' because Captain Butler had told her to come; she had assented to everything he proposed because he had seemed to wish it; but she felt that he was as powerless as she in the matter. If he had proposed everything of contrary effect, she must still have yielded the same.
Captain Butler joined her at the station half-an-hour after she had left home, and just in time to step aboard the train with her. He was hot and looked vexed. When he got his breath a little, "Do you know," said he, "that old fool hasn't made any bills?"