Helen Ford

This was speedily done, and the two descended the stairs, and went forth into the busy streets hand in hand. Helen diligently cared for the safety of her father, who, plunged into his usual abstraction, would more than once have been run over by some passing vehicle but for her guardianship.

CHAPTER III.

A HALF RECOGNITION

The character of Robert Ford may be divined without much difficulty from the glimpses which have already been given. He was an amiable man, but strikingly deficient in those practical traits which usually mark our countrymen and command success even under the most unpromising circumstances. He was not a man to succeed in business, nor suited for the rough jostling with the world which business men must expect. He ought rather to have been a quiet scholar, and dreamed away long days in his library,—“the world forgetting, by the world forgot.” Such would have been his choice if his circumstances had been easy. Under the pressure of necessity he had turned aside from the ordinary paths of money-making to devote himself to a chimerical plan by which he hoped to attain wealth and distinction.

No man of a well balanced mind would have labored with such sanguine expectations of success on a project so uncertain as the invention of a flying machine. But Mr. Ford had not a well balanced mind. He was much given to theorizing, and, like many amiable but obstinate persons, it was as difficult to dislodge from his mind a purpose which had once gained entrance there as to convert him by some miraculous transformation into a sharp man of the world. Had he lived in the middle ages it is very probable that his tastes and the habits of his mind would have led him to devote himself to alchemy, or some other recondite science, which would have consumed his time and money without any adequate return.

We will now suppose three months to have elapsed since the events recorded in our first chapter; three months in which the flowers of June had been exchanged for the fruits of September, and the mellow beauty of autumn had succeeded the glory of early summer.

During this time Helen has become an established favorite with all the inmates except M’lle Fanchette, who yet, finding the tide of general opinion against her, is content with privately stigmatizing the child as an “upstart,” and a “forward hussy,” though in truth it would be difficult to imagine anything more modest or retiring than her conduct. She and her father still occupy the little room in the fourth story back. Nothing has come of Mr. Ford’s invention yet, though he has filled the room with strange, out-of-the-way appliances, wheels, and bits of machinery, on which he labors day after day in the construction of his proposed flying machine. His repeated failures have little effect in damping his spirits. He has the true spirit of a discoverer, and is as sanguine as ever of ultimate success. He has learned the difficult lesson of patience.

“With such an end in view,” he sometimes exclaims with enthusiasm, half to himself, half to Helen, “what matter a few months or years! Rome was not built in a day, nor is it to be expected that a discovery which is to affect the whole world in its consequences, should be the result of a few hours’ or days’ labor.”

Helen, whose veneration for her father is unbounded, listens with the fullest confidence, to his repeated assurances. It pains her to find that others are more skeptical. Even Mother Morton who, though some find her rough, is invariably kind to Helen, looks upon the father as a visionary, since she has discovered the nature of his labors. She one day intimated this to Helen. It was some time before the latter could understand that a doubt was entertained as to her father’s success, and when the conviction came slowly, it brought such an expression of pain to her face, that the landlady resolved never in future to venture upon an allusion which should grieve the child, whom she could not but love the better for her filial trust and confidence.

Meanwhile the rent of the apartment which they occupy, and the cost of living, simple as is their fare, have sensibly diminished their scanty supply of money. This Helen, who is the steward and treasurer, cannot help seeing, and she succeeds in obtaining work from the slop-shops. Her father does not at first discover this. One day, however, he said abruptly, as if the idea had for the first time occurred to him, “Helen, you always seem to be sewing, lately.”

The child cast down her eyes in some embarrassment.

“You cannot be sewing so much for yourself,” continued her father. “Why, what is this?” taking a boy’s vest from her reluctant fingers. “Surely, this is not yours.”

“No, papa,” answered Helen, laughing; “you don’t think I have turned Bloomer, do you?”

“Then what does it mean?” questioned her father, in real perplexity.

“Only this, papa, that being quite tired of sitting idle, and having done all my own sewing, I thought I might as well fill up the time, and earn some money at the same time by working for other people. Is that satisfactory?” she concluded, playfully.

“Surely this was not necessary,” said Mr. Ford, with pain. “Are we then so poor?”

“Do not be troubled, papa,” said Helen, cheerfully. “We could get along very well without it; but I wanted something to do, and it gives me some pocket-money for myself. You must know that I am getting extravagant.”

“Is that all?” said her father, in a tone of relief, the shadow passing from his face. “I am glad of it. I could not bear to think of my little Helen being compelled to work. Some day,” passing his hands fondly over her luxuriant curls; “some day she shall have plenty of money.”

This thought incited him to fresh activity, and with new zeal he turned to the odd jumble of machinery in the corner.

The evening meal was studiously simple and frugal, though Helen could not resist the temptation of now and then purchasing some little delicacy for her father. He was so abstracted that he gave little heed to what was set before him, and never noticed that Helen always abstained from tasting any luxury thus procured, confining herself strictly to the usual frugal fare.

After tea it was the custom for father and daughter to walk out, sometimes in one direction sometimes in another. Often they would walk up Broadway, and Helen, at least, found amusement in watching the shifting scenes which present themselves to the beholder in that crowded thoroughfare. Life in all its varieties, from pampered wealth to squalid poverty, too often the fruit of a mis-spent life jostled each other upon the sidewalk, or in the street. The splendid equipage dashes past the humble handcart; the dashing buggy jostles against the loaded dray. Broadway is no exclusive thoroughfare. In the shadow of the magnificent hotel leans the foreign beggar, just landed on our shores, and there is no one to bid him “move on.” The shop windows, too, are a free “World’s Fair Exhibition,” constantly changing, never exhausted. Helen and her father had just returned from a leisurely walk, taken at the close of a day of labor and confinement, and paused to rest for a moment on the west side of the Park.

While they were standing there, a handsome carriage drove past. Within were two gentlemen. One was already well advanced in years, as his gray hairs and wrinkled face made apparent. He wore an expression of indefinable sorrow and weariness, as if life had long ago ceased to have charms for him. His companion might be somewhat under forty. He was tall and spare, with a dark, forbidding face, which repelled rather than attracted the beholder.

As the carriage neared the Park, the elder of the two looked out to rest his gaze, wearied with the sight of brick and stone, upon the verdure of this inclosure. This, be it remembered, was twenty years since, before the Park had so completely lost its fresh country look. He chanced to see Mr. Ford and Helen. He started suddenly in visible agitation.

“Look, Lewis!” he exclaimed, clutching the arm of his companion, and pointing to Mr. Ford.

The younger man started almost imperceptibly, and his face paled, but he almost instantly recovered himself.

“Yes,” he said, carelessly; “the Park is looking well.”

“Not that, not that,” said the old man, hurriedly. “That man with the little girl. He is,—he must be Robert, my long-lost son. Stop the carriage. I must get out.”

“My dear uncle,” expostulated the younger man, who had been addressed as Lewis, “you are laboring under a strange hallucination. This man does not in the least resemble my cousin. Besides, you remember that we have undoubted proof of his death in Chicago two years since.”

“You may be right,” said the old man, as he sank back into his seat with a sigh, “but the resemblance was wonderful.”

“But, uncle, let me suggest that more than fifteen years have passed away since my cousin left home, and even if he were living, he must have changed so much that we could not expect to recognize him.”

“Perhaps you are right, Lewis; and yet, when I looked at that man, I was startled by a look that brought before me my dead wife,—my precious Helen. I fear I have dealt harshly with her boy.”

He relapsed into a silence which his companion did not care to disturb. He watched guardedly the expression of the old man, and a close observer might have detected a shade of anxiety, as if there were something connected with his uncle’s present mood which alarmed him. After a short scrutiny he himself fell into thought, and as we are privileged to read what is concealed from all else, we will give the substance of his reflections.

“Here is a new danger to be guarded against, just at the most critical time, too. Shall I never attain the object of my wishes? Shall I never be paid for the years in which I have danced attendance upon my uncle? I must succeed by whatever means. He cannot last much longer.”

The evident weakness of his uncle seemed to justify his prediction. He looked like one whose feet are drawing very near the brink of that mysterious river which it is appointed to all of us at some time to cross.

CHAPTER IV.

A GLANCE BACKWARDS

It was growing late. Night had drawn its sombre veil over the great city, and the streets, a little while before filled with busy passers-by, now echoed but seldom to the steps of an occasional wayfarer. The shops were closed, the long day assigned to trade being over. To plodding feet and busy brains, to frames weary with exhausting labor, to minds harassed by anxious cares, night came in friendly guise, bringing the rest and temporary oblivion of sleep.

From a small building in a by-street, or rather lane, which nevertheless was not far removed from the main thoroughfare, there gleamed a solitary candle, emitting a fitful glare, which served, so far as it went, to give a very unfavorable idea of the immediate vicinity. Within, a young man, painfully thin, was seated at a low table, engrossing a legal document. The face was not an agreeable one. The prevailing expression was one of discontent and weak repining. He was one who could complain of circumstances without having the energy to control them; born to be a subordinate of loftier and more daring intellects.

He wrote with rapidity and, at the same time, with scrupulous elegance. He was evidently a professional copyist.

After bending over his writing for a time, during which he was rapidly approaching the completion of his task, he at length threw aside the pen, exclaiming, with an air of relief, “At last it is finished! Thank Heaven! that is,” he added, after a slight pause, “if there be such a place, which I am sometimes inclined to doubt. Finished; but what after all is a single day’s work? To-night I may sleep in peace, but to-morrow the work must begin once more. It is like a tread-mill, continually going round, but making no real progress. I wish,” he resumed, after a slight pause, “there were some way of becoming suddenly rich, without this wear and tear of hand and brain. I don’t know that I am so much surprised at the stories of those who, in utter disgust of labor, have sold themselves to the arch fiend. Why should I have been born with such a keen enjoyment of luxuries, and without the means of obtaining them? Why should I be doomed–”

When discontent had thus opened the way for its favorable reception, temptation came.

There was a knock at the door.

Thinking it might be some strolling vagabond who, in his intoxication, was wandering he knew not whither, he did not at first respond, but waited till it should be repeated.

It was repeated, this time with a considerable degree of force.

The young man approached the door, but feeling apprehensive that it might prove to be some unwelcome visitor, he paused before drawing the bolt, and called out, in a voice marked by a tremulous quaver, for he possessed but little physical courage, “Who are you that come here at such an unseasonable hour? Unless I know your name, I shall not let you in.”

“Don’t be alarmed, Jacob,” was the reply. “It is only I, Lewis Rand. Open at once, for I come on business which must be quickly despatched.”

The explanation was evidently satisfactory, for the scrivener in eager haste opened the door, and admitted his visitor. It was the younger of the two men upon whom the chance meeting with Helen and her father seemed to have produced an impression so powerful. Jacob, though well acquainted with him, was evidently surprised at his presence at an hour so unseasonable, for he exclaimed, in a tone of mingled surprise and deference, “You here, Mr. Rand, and at this time of night! It must be something important which has called you at an hour when most men are quietly sleeping in their beds.”

“Yet you are up, Jacob, and at work, as I conjecture,” said the visitor, pointing to the table on which the completed sheets were still lying.

“True,” said the copyist, for this recalled to him the grounds of his discontent; “but I must work while others sleep, or accept a worse alternative. Sometimes I am tempted to give up the struggle. You have never known what a hard taskmaster poverty is.”

“Perhaps not,” returned the other; “but I can testify that the apprehension of poverty is not less formidable. However, I can perhaps lend you a helping hand, since the business on which I come, if successfully carried out, of which with your co-operation I have strong hopes, will prove so important to me that I shall be able to put a better face upon your affairs.”