The Awakening of Helena Richie

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Produced by Beth Constantine, Charles Aldarondo, Juliet Sutherland
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[Illustration: He put his face close to hers, and stared into her
eyes. _Frontispiece--Awakening of Helena Richie_]

THE AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE

By MARGARET DELAND

Author of "Dr Lavendar's People," "Old Cheater Tales," etc.

TO

LORIN DELAND

MAY 12, 1906

CHAPTER I

Dr. Lavendar and Goliath had toiled up the hill to call on old Mr.
Benjamin Wright; when they jogged back in the late afternoon it was
with the peculiar complacency which follows the doing of a
disagreeable duty. Goliath had not liked climbing the hill, for a
heavy rain in the morning had turned the clay to stiff mud, and Dr.
Lavendar had not liked calling on Benjamin Wright.

"But, Daniel," said Dr. Lavendar, addressing a small old dog who took
up a great deal more room on the seat of the buggy than he was
entitled to, "Daniel, my boy, you don't consult your likings in
pastoral calls." Then he looked out of the mud-spattered window of the
buggy, at a house by the roadside--"The Stuffed Animal House," Old
Chester children called it, because its previous owner had been a
taxidermist of some little local renown. "That's another visit I ought
to make," he reflected, "but it can wait until next week. G'long,
Goliath!"

Goliath went along, and Mrs. Frederick Richie, who lived in the
Stuffed Animal House, looking listlessly from an upper window, saw the
hood of the buggy jogging by and smiled suddenly. "Thank Heaven!" she
said.

Benjamin Wright had not thanked Heaven when Dr. Lavendar drove away.
He had been as disagreeable as usual to his visitor, but being a very
lonely old man he enjoyed having a visitor to whom to be disagreeable.
He lived on his hilltop a mile out of Old Chester, with his "nigger"
Simmons, his canary-birds, and his temper. More than thirty years
before he had quarrelled with his only son Samuel, and the two men had
not spoken to each other since. Old Chester never knew what this
quarrel had been about; Dr. Lavendar, speculating upon it as he and
Goliath went squashing through the mud that April afternoon, wondered
which was to blame. "Pot and kettle, probably," he decided. "Samuel's
goodness is very irritating sometimes, and Benjamin's badness is--
well, it's not as distressing as it should be. But what a forlorn old
critter he is! And this Mrs. Richie is lonely too--a widow, with no
children, poor woman! I must call next week. Goliath wouldn't like to
turn round now and climb the hill again. Danny, I fear Goliath is very
selfish."

Goliath's selfishness carried them home and landed Dr. Lavendar at his
own fireside, rather tired and full of good intentions in regard to
calls. He confided these intentions to Dr. William King who looked in
after supper to inquire about his cold.

"Cold? I haven't any cold! You can't get a job here. Sit down and give
me some advice. Hand me a match first; this ragamuffin Danny has gone
to sleep with his head on my foot, and I can't budge."

The doctor produced the match; "I'll advise you not to go out in such
weather. Promise me you won't go out to-morrow."

"To-morrow? Right after breakfast, sir! To make calls on the people
I've neglected. Willy, how can I find a home for an orphan child? A
parson up in the mountains has asked me to see if I can place a little
seven-year-old boy. The child's sister who took care of him has just
died. Do you know anybody who might take him?"

"Well," said Willy King, "there's Mrs. Richie."

Dr. Lavendar looked at him over his spectacles. "Mrs. Frederick
Richie?--though I understand she calls herself Mrs. Helena Richie. I
don't like a young female to use her own name, William, even if she is
a widow! Still, she may be a nice woman I suppose. Do you think a
little boy would have a good home with her?"

"Well," the doctor demurred, "of course, we know very little about
her. She has only been here six months. But I should think she was
just the person to take him. She is mighty good-looking, isn't she?"

"Yes," Dr. Lavendar said, "she is. And other things being equal I
prefer a good-looking woman. But I don't know that her looks are a
guarantee that she can train up a child in the way he should go. Can't
you think of anybody else?"

"I don't see why you don't like Mrs. Richie?" "I never said I didn't
like her," protested Dr. Lavendar; "but she's a widow."

"Unless she murdered the late Richie, that's not against her."

"Widows don't always stay widows, Willy."

"I don't believe she's the marrying kind," William said. "I have a
sort of feeling that the deceased Richie was not the kind of husband
who receives the compliment of a successor--"

"Hold on; you're mixing things up! It's the bad husband and the good
wife that get compliments of that kind."

William laughed as he was expected to, but he stuck to his opinion
that Mrs. Richie had had enough of husbands. "And anyway, she's
devoted to her brother--though he doesn't come to see her very
often."

"There's another point," objected Dr. Lavendar; "what kind of a man is
this Mr. Pryor? Danny growled at him once, which prejudiced me against
him."

"I don't take to him much myself," William King confessed; "though I
must say he seems a decent man enough. He doesn't cultivate
acquaintances in Old Chester, but that only shows bad taste."

"She says he is not very well," Dr. Lavendar explained; "she says he
likes to keep quiet when he comes down here."

"I don't see anything wrong with him."

"Hasn't taken any of your pills? Maybe he doesn't believe in doctors.
I don't myself."

"Thank you," said William King.

"There's too much fuss anyway over our precious carcasses! And you
fellows encourage it," Dr. Lavendar grumbled. Then he said he wished
he knew more about Mrs. Richie. "I ask you for information and all you
say is that she's good-looking, and her brother doesn't take your
pills."

William laughed.

"She doesn't come to church very regularly, and she never stops
afterwards to talk," Dr. Lavendar ruminated.

"Well, she lives 'way up there on the hill road--"

"Yes, she does live pretty far out of town," Dr. Lavendar admitted,
"but that's not a reason for not being neighborly after church."

"She's shy," said William King, "that's all. Shyness isn't anything
very wrong. And she's mighty pleasant when she does talk to you. I
tell you Dr. Lavendar, pleasantness goes a good way in this world. I'd
say it was better than goodness--only they are the same thing."

"No, they're not," said Dr. Lavendar.

"I grant she doesn't belong to the sewing society," William said
grinning. "Martha says that some of the ladies say she doesn't show
proper grief for her husband. She actually smiles sometimes! They say
that if the Lord were to remove _their_ beloved husbands, they would
never smile again."

"William," said Dr. Lavendar chuckling, "I begin to like your widow."

"She's not my widow, thank you! But she's a nice woman, and she must
be pretty lonely up there all by herself."

"Wish I had gone in to see her this afternoon," the old man said
thoughtfully. "As you say she may be a suitable person to take this
little boy. I wonder if she's going to stay in Old Chester?"

"Sam Wright says she has spoken to him of buying the house. That looks
as if she meant to settle down. Did you know that Sam's Sam is casting
sheep's eyes at her?"

"Why, she's old enough to be his mother!" said Dr. Lavendar.

"Oh, no. Sam's Sam is twenty-three, and one of my patients says that
Mrs. Richie will never see forty-five again. Which leads me to
conclude that she's about thirty."

"Of course she doesn't encourage him?" Dr. Lavendar said anxiously.

"She lets him come to see her, and she took him out once in that
wicker-work vehicle she has--looks like a clothes-basket on wheels.
And she provides the clothes to put into it. I'm told they're
beautiful; but that no truly pious female would be willing to decorate
poor flesh and blood with such finery. I'm told--"

"William! Is this the way I've brought you up? To pander to my
besetting sin? Hold your tongue!" Dr. Lavendar rose chuckling, and
stood in front of the fireplace, gathering the tails of his flowered
cashmere dressing-gown under his arms. "But Willy I hope Sam isn't
really smitten? You never can tell what that boy will do."

"Yes, he's a hair-trigger," the doctor agreed, "a hair-trigger! And
his father understands him about as well as--as Danny there
understands Hebrew! I think it's a case of Samuel and his father over
again. Dr. Lavendar, do you suppose anybody will ever know what those
two quarrelled about?"

"Probably not."

"I suppose," William King ruminated, "that you'd call Sam a genius?"

"No, I wouldn't; he has no patience. You can't have genius without
patience. Sam hasn't a particle."

"Well," the doctor explained, "he hasn't the slightest sense of
responsibility; and I notice that when people have no sense of
responsibility, you call them either criminals or geniuses."

"I don't," said Dr. Lavendar dryly, "I call 'em poor critters, either
way. But Willy, about this little boy; the great point is who needs
him? I expect he'll be here on Saturday."

"What! This week? But you haven't found anybody to take him."

"Oh, he'll stay with me for a while, Mary'll look after him. And I'll
play marbles with him. Got any white alleys? Gimme six, and I'll give
you an agate."

"But Dr. Lavendar, that will be a nuisance to you," William King
protested. "Let me take him. Or, at least--I'll ask Martha; she's
house-cleaning now, and she says she's very tired; so I'm not sure--"
William ended weakly.

"No, no; I want him myself," said the old minister.

"Well," Dr. King said with evident relief, "shall I speak to Mrs.
Richie about him? I'm going up there to-morrow; she's got a sick cook,
and she asked me to call. What's his name?"

"David Allison. You might sound her William, but don't be definite.
Don't give her any chance to say yes or no. I want to know her a
little better before I make up my mind. When the boy comes I'll happen
along in my buggy with him, and then we'll see. And meantime Willy,
keep your eye on Sam's Sam. He mustn't get too much interested up
there. A little falling in love with an older woman doesn't hurt most
boys; in fact, it's part of their growing up and likely as not it does
'em good. But Sam's Sam isn't like most boys."

"That's so," said William King, "he may not be a genius and he
certainly isn't a criminal, but he has about as much stability as a
sky-rocket."

CHAPTER II

"You can't think of anybody who might like to take this little David
Allison, can you, my dear?" William King asked his wife at breakfast
the next morning.

"I certainly cannot," Martha said decidedly. "I think it's a very
dangerous thing to take unknown children into your family. I suppose
you think I ought to offer to do it? But in the first place, I'm very
tired, and in the second place, I don't like boys. If it was a girl it
might be different."

"No doubt we could find a girl," William began, but she interrupted
him.

"Girls are a great expense. And then, as I said--unknown children!--
they might turn into anything. They might have evil tendencies; they
probably have. If the parents die early, it's a sign of weakness of
some sort. I've no doubt this boy's father drank. I don't want to seem
unkind, but I must say flatly and frankly that considering how hard it
is for us to make both ends meet--as you keep up a sort of free
practice--I don't think it's prudent to suggest any new
responsibilities and expenses."

"Oh, I wasn't making suggestions," William King said. "I guess we're
not the people to bring up a child. I'd spoil him, I've no doubt."

"I'm sure you would!" Martha said, greatly relieved. "It would be the
worst possible thing for him. But Willy, there's that Mrs. Richie?"

"You think his evil tendencies wouldn't hurt her?" the doctor said
dryly.

"I think she's a rich woman, so why shouldn't she do a thing like
that? I'll go and see her if you want me to--though she never makes
you feel welcome; and tell her about the boy?"

"You needn't bother; Dr. Lavendar will see her himself."

"I don't understand that woman," Mrs. King said. "She keeps herself to
herself too much. It almost looks as if she didn't think we were good
enough to associate with her!"

William made no reply.

"Willy, does she use perfumery?"

"How in the world should I know!"

"Well, there's a sort of fragrance about her. It isn't like cologne,
it's like--well, orris-root."

William made no comment.

"It's a kind of sachet, I guess; I'd like to know what it is. Willy,
Sam Wright's Sam went out walking with her yesterday. I met them on
the River Road. I believe the boy is in love with her!"

"He's got eyes," William agreed.

"_Tck!_" said Martha, "the idea of calling her good-looking! And
I don't think it speaks well for a woman of her age--she's forty if
she's a day--to let a boy trail round after her like that. And to fix
herself up with sachet-powders and things. And her Sarah told the
Draytons' Jean that she had her breakfast in bed every morning! I'd
like to know how my housekeeping would go on if _I_ had breakfast
in bed, though dear knows I'm very tired and it would be pleasant
enough. But there's one thing about me: I may not be perfect, but I
don't do lazy things just because they are pleasant."

The doctor made no defence of Mrs. Richie. Instead he asked for
another cup of coffee and when told that it would not be good for him,
got up, then paused patiently, his hand on the door-knob, to hear his
Martha out.

"William, what do you suppose is the last thing Sam Wright's Sam has
done?"

The doctor confessed his ignorance.

"Well, his father sent him to Mercer on Monday to buy supplies for the
bank. He gave him seventy-five dollars. Back comes my young gentleman
with--what do you suppose? A lot of pictures of actors and actresses!
And no supplies."

"What! you don't mean he spent the money on the pictures?"

"Every bit of it! His mother came in and told me about it last night.
She said his father was frantic. She was dreadfully upset herself. As
for Sam, he kept saying that the 'prints,' as he called them, were
very valuable. Though I'm sure I can't see why; they were only of
actor people, and they had all died sixty or seventy years ago."

"Actors!" the doctor said. "Poor Samuel! he hates the theatre. I do
believe he'd rather have pictures of the devil."

"Oh, but wait. You haven't heard the rest of it. It appears that when
the boy looked at 'em yesterday morning he found they weren't as
valuable as he thought--I don't understand that part of it," Martha
acknowledged--"so what does he do but march downstairs, and put 'em
all in the kitchen stove! What do you think of that?"

"I think," said William King, "that he has always gone off at half-
cock ever since he was born. But Martha, the serious thing is his
spending money that didn't belong to him."

"I should think it was serious! If he'd been some poor little clerk in
the bank, instead of Mr. Samuel Wright's only son, he would have found
it was serious! Willy, what do you make of him?"

"He is queer," William said; "queer as Dick's hatband; but that's all.
Sam wouldn't do a mean thing, or a dirty thing, any more than a girl
would."

"And now he thinks he's in love with this Richie woman," Martha went
on--but William made his escape. He had to go and hitch up, he said.

Before he took Jinny out of her stall he went into the harness-room
and hunted about on a shelf until, behind a rusty currycomb and two
empty oil-bottles, he found a small mirror. It was misty and flecked
with clear spots where the quicksilver had dropped away, but when he
propped it against the cobwebbed window he could see himself fairly
well. Staring into its dim depths he retied his necktie; then he
backed the buggy out of the carriage-house. But after he had put his
mare between the shafts he hesitated.... The buggy was very shabby; it
sagged badly on the right side and there was a rent in the faded
cushion. The doctor looked at his watch.... Then, hurriedly, led Jinny
back to her stall, got a bucket of water and a sponge, and washed off
the dashboard and wheels. After that he fumbled along a dusty beam to
find a bottle of oil with which he touched up the harness. But when
all was done he shook his head. The buggy was hopeless. Nevertheless,
when he climbed in and slapped Jinny's flank with the newly oiled rein
he was careful to sit in the middle of the seat to make the springs
truer, and he avoided the mud-puddles on the road up to the Stuffed
Animal House. There were a good many puddles, for it had rained the
day before. To-day the clouds had gathered up behind the hills into
white domes, but the sky was that faint April blue that dims easily
into warm mists. There was the smell of earth, the fainter scent of
unopened buds, and from the garden borders of the Stuffed Animal House
came the pungent odor of box.

Helena Richie, standing by a bed of crown-imperials, bareheaded, a
trowel in her gloved hand, her smooth cheek flushed with the unwonted
exertion of planting seeds, caught the exquisite breath of the box,
and sighed; then, listlessly, she turned to walk back towards the
house. Before she reached it the gate clicked and Dr. King came up the
path. She saw him and looked hurriedly about, as if seeking a way of
escape, but it was too late.

"Gardening?" he called to her.

"Yes," she said, and her smile like reluctant sunshine did not betray
to the doctor that he was not welcome.

"Don't work too hard," he cautioned her. It seemed to William King,
looking at her with wondering admiration, that she was too delicate a
creature to handle a trowel. There was a certain soft indolence in the
way she moved that was a delight to his eye. It occurred to him that
he would ask his Martha why she didn't wear gardening-gloves. Mrs.
Richie wore them, and as she pulled one off he saw how soft and white
her hand was....

"How's the patient?" he asked.

"Poor Maggie? Oh, she's pretty uncomfortable I'm afraid."

They had gone together to the front porch, and as she stood on the
lower step looking up at him, the sunshine suddenly filled her eyes
with limpid brown light. "Maggie is in her room in the ell--the first
door on the left. Shall I show you the way?"

"I know the way," he said.

Mrs. Richie sat down on the porch step to wait for him. She had
nothing else to do. She never had anything to do. She had tried to be
interested in the garden, and bought a trowel and some seeds and
wandered out into the borders; but a manufactured interest has no
staying quality--especially if it involves any hard work. She was glad
when William King came back and sat down beside her; sickness was not
an agreeable topic, but it was a topic.

"Maggie will be all right in two or three days, but don't let her go
into the kitchen before Monday. A bad throat pulls you down. And she's
had a good deal of pain."

"Oh, poor Maggie!" she said wincing.

"A sore throat is nothing so very dreadful," William assured her with
open amusement.

She drew a breath of relief. "Oh, I'm glad! I can't bear to think of
pain." Then she looked at him anxiously. "Don't you think she can cook
before Monday? I'm so tired of scrappy dinners.

"I'm afraid not," William King said. "I'm very sorry." But that his
sorrow was not for Maggie was evident.

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Richie; and then her eyes crinkled with gayety
at his concern. "I don't really mind, Dr. King."

"I shouldn't blame you if you did. Nobody likes scrappy dinners. I
wish you would come down and have dinner with us?"

"Oh, thank you, no," she said. And the sudden shy retreat into her
habitual reserve was followed by a silence that suggested departure to
the doctor. As he got up he remembered Dr. Lavendar and the little
boy, but he was at a loss how to introduce the subject. In his
perplexity he frowned, and Mrs. Richie said quickly:

"Of course she sha'n't do any work. I'm not so bad-tempered as you
think; I only meant that I don't like discomfort."

"_You_ bad-tempered?" he said. "No, indeed! You're just the opposite.
That's why I suggested you when I heard about this boy."

"What boy?"

"Why, a little fellow of seven--David his name is--that Dr. Lavendar
is trying to find a home for. And I thought perhaps you--"

"--would take him?" cried Mrs. Richie in astonishment, and then she
laughed. "_I!_"

"Why, it occurred to me that perhaps you might be lonely, and--"

Helena Richie stopped laughing; she pulled off her other glove and
looked down at her white hands. "Well, yes, I'm lonely. But--I don't
like children, Dr. King."

"You don't?" he said blankly, and in his surprise he sat down again.
"Oh, I'm sure that's only because you don't know them. If you had ever
known a child--"

"I have," Mrs. Richie said, "one." Her voice was bleak; the gayety had
dropped out of it; for an instant she looked old. William King
understood.

"It died?"

She nodded. She began to pull her gloves on again, smoothing down each
finger carefully and not looking at him.

"A little girl?"

"Boy." She turned her face away, but he saw her chin tremble. There
was a moment's silence; then the doctor said with curious harshness.

"Well, anyhow, you know what it means to have owned your own."

"Better not have known!"

"I can't feel that. But perhaps I don't understand."

"You don't understand." Her head, with its two soft braids wound
around it like a wreath, was bent so that he could not see her face.
"Dr. King, his father--hurt him. Yes; hurt a little baby, eight
months and twelve days old. He died seven weeks later."

William drew in his breath; he found no words.

"That was twelve years ago, but I can't seem to--to get over it," she
said with a sort of gasp.

"But how--" Dr. King began.

"Oh, he was not himself. He was--happy, I believe you call it
'happy'?"

"How did you bear it!"

"I didn't bear it I suppose. I never have borne it!"

"Did he repent before he died?" William King said passionately.

"Before he--?" Her voice suddenly shook; she made elaborate pretence
of calmness, fastening her gloves and looking at them critically; then
she said: "Yes, Dr. King; he repented. He repented!"

"If there ever was excuse for divorce, you had it!"

"You don't think there ever is?" she asked absently.

"No," William said. "I suppose you'll think I'm very old-fashioned,
but I don't, unless--" he stopped short; he could not have put his
qualifying thought into words to any woman, especially not to this
woman, so like a girl in spite of her thirty-odd years. "You see," he
said, awkwardly, "it's such an unusual thing. It never happened in Old
Chester; why, I don't believe I ever saw a--a divorced person in my
life!"

"Well," she said, "anyhow, I didn't get a divorce."

"Mrs. Richie!" he said, blushing to his temples, "you didn't think I
thought of such a thing?"

But it was plain that she regretted her confidence; she rose with the
evident purpose of changing the subject. "I must go and put in some
more seeds. Why doesn't Dr. Lavendar keep this little boy? After all,
he's lonely himself."

"Well, he's an old man you know, and--"

"Dr. King," she broke in, "I don't mind having the child here for a
week while Dr. Lavendar is looking for somebody to take him. Not
longer. It wouldn't do. Really it wouldn't. But for a week, perhaps,
or maybe two!"

"That would be a great help," William King said. "Then Dr. Lavendar
can have plenty of time to find a home for him. I would have been glad
to take him myself, but just at present it happens that it is not--I
should say, Mrs. King is very tired, and--"

"It is perfectly convenient for me," Mrs. Richie said, "if you'll only
cure Maggie! You must cure Maggie, so that she can make cookies for
him."

"I'll cure Maggie," the doctor assured her smiling, and went away much
pleased with himself. But when he got into his shabby old buggy he
sighed.

"Poor soul!" he said. "Poor soul!"

CHAPTER III

William King reported the result of his call to Dr. Lavendar, and
when he told the tragic story of the dead baby the old man blinked and
shook his head.

"Do you wonder she doesn't call herself Mrs. _Frederick_ Richie?"
William demanded. "I don't!"

"No; that's natural, that's natural," Dr. Lavendar admitted.

"I suppose it was a dreadful thing to say," said William, "but I just
burst out and said that if ever there was an excuse for divorce, she
had it!"

"What did she say?"

"Oh, of course, that she hadn't been divorced. I was ashamed of myself
the next minute for speaking of such a thing."

"Poor child," said Dr. Lavendar, "living up there alone, and with such
memories! I guess you're right; I guess she'd like to have little
David, if only for company. But I think I'll keep him for a week or
two myself, and let her get sort of acquainted with him under my eye.
That will give me a chance to get acquainted with her. But to think I
haven't known about that baby until now! It must be my fault that she
was not drawn to tell me. But I'm afraid I wasn't drawn to her just at
first."

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