Helena of Adiabene

“ The evening had shaken itself free of the storm, and was pouring an incredible beauty on wood and river. The intoxication of it ran through Helena's veins. For she possessed in perfection that earth-sense, that passionate sense of kinship, kinship both of the senses and the spirit, with the eternal beauty of the natural world, which the gods implant in a blest minority of mortals. No one who has it can ever be wholly forlorn, while sense and feeling remain. ”

“ Mrs. Friend hurriedly caught hold of her.
"And you won't do anything hasty—about Lord Donald?"
"Oh, I can't promise anything. One must stand by one's friends. One simply must. But I'll take care Cousin Philip doesn't blame you."
"If I'm no use, you know—I can't stay."
"No use to Cousin Philip, you mean, in policing me?" said Helena, with a good-humoured laugh. "Well, we'll talk about it again to-morrow. Good-night—Lucy!"
The sly gaiety of the voice was most disarming.
"Good-night, Miss Pitstone."
"No, that won't do. It's absurd! I never ask people to call me Helena, unless I like them. ”

“ Pointing to this, Helena cried—
“See, my father! here are the features of your sainted wife! Think that she looks down from her place among the blessed, sees you, listens to your words, prays that your hard heart may be softened! Remember her last farewell to you on earth, her hope of meeting you—”
A cry of savage wrath checked her. Stretching one huge, bony hand, as if to close her lips, trembling with rage and pain, livid and convulsed in every feature of his face, Prince Alexis reversed the whip in his right hand, and weighed its thick, heavy butt for one crashing, fatal blow. ”

“ Claim all the freedom you like—but as you're not twenty-five, but nineteen—let a good fellow like Buntingford give you advice—and be thankful!"
"Prig!" said Helena, pelting him with a spray of wild cherry, which he caught and put in his button-hole. "If that isn't preaching, I should like to know what is!"
"Not at all. Unbiased opinion—civilly expressed. If you really were an emancipated young woman, Helena, you'd take it so! But now—" his tone changed—"let's come to business. What have you and Philip been quarrelling about?" ”

“ No man but idealised her, unfanciful as he might be, not so much for her beauty or gifts, or for all combined, as because when she gave herself it would be for the last as it was for the first time. As the reader knows, there was nothing ideal about Helena. Even her fastidiousness was natural in view of her upbringing. She was a most practical young flirt, with a very distinct intention of having her own way as long as she lived. The wealth and petting and adulation which had surrounded her from birth had made a thorough-going egoist of her, albeit a most charming one ”

“ But as a rule she was gentle and much-enduring, and Helena was very kind and clamoured constantly for her society. As the girls grew older they studied together, and the friendship, born of propinquity, was strengthened by mutual tastes and sympathy. Helena was probably the only person who ever understood the reticent, proud, apparently cold and impassive temperament of the girl who was an unhappy and incongruous mixture of Spanish and New England traits; and Magdaléna was Helena's most enthusiastic admirer and attentive audience. ”

“ She bent forward again, impulsively:
"Cousin Philip!—I'm enjoying this party enormously—it's awfully, awfully good of you—but I don't want you to do it any more—"
"Do what, Helena?"
"Please, I can get along without any more week-ends, or parties. You—you spoil me!"
"Well—we're going up to London, aren't we, soon? But I daresay you're right"—his tone grew suddenly grave. "While we dance, there is a terrible amount of suffering going on in the world." ”

“ HELEN, or Helena (Gr. Ἑλένη) ,in Greek mythology, daughter of Zeus by Leda (wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta) , sister of Castor, Pollux and Clytaemnestra, and wife of Menelaus. Other accounts make her the daughter of Zeus and Nemesis, or of Oceanus and Tethys. She was the most beautiful woman in Greece, and indirectly the cause of the Trojan war. When a child she was carried off from Sparta by Theseus to Attica, but was recovered and taken back by her brothers. When she grew up, the most famous of the princes of Greece sought her hand in marriage, and her father’s choice fell upon Menelaus. ”

“ It will be something for a man to remember for the rest of his life that I've 'hurt' him."
"I am afraid you're a spoilt beauty already, Helena."
"I've got the world at my feet. That's a lovely sensation. You can't think—it's a wonderful sensation."
"I can imagine it." Magdaléna spoke without bitterness. Helena realised all her old ambitions but one, but she was too happy for envy.
"Describe Mr. Trennahan all over again." ”

“ Please—how many men were you making fools of—including your humble servant—before you went down to Beechmark? You have no conscience, Helena! You are the 'Belle Dame sans merci.'"
"All that is most unjust—and ridiculous!" said Helena mildly.
Peter went off into a peal of laughter. Helena persisted.
"What do you call flirting, Peter?"
"Turning a man's head—making him believe that you're gone on him—when, in fact, you don't care a rap!"
"Peter!—then of course you know I never flirted with you!" said Helena, with vigour. Peter hesitated, and Helena at once pursued her advantage. ”

“ If he had lost a wife he had gained a daughter, and she was the strongest, staunchest creature in the world. For her sake he must begin again. Having had so much shadow in her young life, she must now have sunshine. Thus Helena became her father's idol, the one thing on earth to him, and he was more to her than a father usually is to a daughter, because she had seen him in his weakness and mothered him back to strength. ”

“ From ēlē again sprang the name most of all noted among Greeks, the fatal name of Ἑλένε, Helene, the feminine of Helenos (the light or bright) , though Æschylus, playing on the word, made it ἑλένας (the ship-destroying) .
“Wherefore else this fatal name,
That Helen and destruction are the same.” A woman may be a proverb for any amount of evil or misfortune, but as long as she is also a proverb for beauty, her name will be copied, and Helena never died away in Greece, and latterly was copied by Roman ladies when they first became capable of a little variety. ”

“ According to one, after the death of Menelaus, she was driven into exile by Nicostratus and Megapenthes, and retired to Rhodes, where the queen of that island, Polyxo, whose husband Tlepolemus had been killed in the Trojan war, caused her to be seized while bathing, tied to a tree, and strangled. The Rhodians commemorated the murder by a temple raised to Helena Dendritis, or Helen tied to a tree. The Spartans honored her as a goddess, and built a temple to her at Therapne, which had the power of conferring beauty upon all ugly women who entered it. ”

“ Helena sat sideways, with a map spread out on her bench under the bushy little laburnum tree, tracing the course of their wanderings. It was very still. There was just a murmur of bees going in and out the brilliant little porches of nasturtium flowers. The nasturtium leaf-coins stood cool and grey; in their delicate shade, underneath in the green twilight, a few flowers shone their submerged gold and scarlet. There was a faint scent of mignonette. Helena, like a white butterfly in the shade, her two white arms for antennae stretching firmly to the bench, leaned over her map. ”

“ By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen,
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke,
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
Lysander.
Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Enter Helena.
Hermia.
God speed fair Helena! whither away?
Helena.
Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars ”

“ She had known him hitherto as "Mummy's friend," always to be counted upon when any practical difficulty arose, and ready on occasion to put in a sharp word in defence of an invalid's peace, when a girl's unruliness threatened it. Remembering one or two such collisions, Helena felt her cheeks burn, as she hung over the hall, in the darkness. ”

“ Helena sat down to wait for Peter, who would be sure to find her wherever she hid herself. This spot was dear to her, as those places where life has consciously grown to a nobler stature are dear to men and women. It was here that within twenty-four hours of her last words with Philip Buntingford, she had sat wrestling with something which threatened vital forces in her that her will consciously, desperately, set itself to maintain. ”

“ The dressing-maid smiled at my awkwardness and trepidation. Helena never looked more resplendent. I felt helplessly bound to the chariot-wheels of her destiny.
The waiting-girl left the room, and falling at the feet of the unimpassioned beauty, I stammered forth my passion.
“Helena! do you know that I love you?”
She was contemplating her chin in the mirror, and replied without looking at me:
[pg 148] “Of course you do. Everybody does.”
“But, Helena! I cannot live without loving you.” ”

“ Helena fell back on the bilberry stalk, to gain time.
—"Because—" resumed Peter—"it's quite clear the Beechmark situation is all bust up. Philip's got an idiot-boy to look after—with Cynthia Welwyn in constant attendance. I don't see any room for you there, Helena!"
"Neither do I," said Helena, quietly. "You needn't tell me that."
"Well, then, what are you going to do?"
"You forget, Peter, that I possess the dearest and nicest little chaperon. I can roam the world where I please—without making any scandals."
"You'll always make scandals—"
"Scandals, Peter!" protested Helena. ”

“ Analytikos. Your Majesty, are we to read no longer to-day?
Helena. I have something to say to the King.
[Analytikos goes toward the library. Menelaus anxiously stops him.]
Menelaus. No. Stay here. You are a wise man and well understand the wisdom of the Queen.
Analytikos [bowing to Helena] . Helena is wise as she is beautiful.
Menelaus. She is attempting to prove to me in a thousand words that she's a silent woman.
Analytikos. Women are seldom silent. [Helen resents this.] Their beauty is forever speaking for them.
Helena. The years have, indeed, taught you wisdom.
[Tsumu enters.]
Tsumu. ”

“ Believe me, dear Philip, the moment for love won't last long in Helena's life. I have seen it come and go so rapidly, in the case of some of the most charming women. For after all, the world is now so much richer for women; and many women don't know their own minds in time, or get lost among the new landmarks. And of course all women can't marry; and thank God, there are a thousand new chances of happiness for those who don't. But there are some—and Helena, I am certain, will be one—who will be miserable, and probably wicked, unless they fall in love, and are happy. ”

“ Helena on her knees now owned her love, and with shame and terror implored the pardon of her noble mistress; and with words expressive of the sense she had of the inequality between their fortunes, she protested Bertram did not know she loved him, comparing her humble unaspiring love to a poor Indian, who adores the sun, that looks upon his worshipper, but knows of him no more. The countess asked Helena if she had not lately an intent to go to Paris? Helena owned the design she had formed in her mind, when she heard Lafeu speak of the king's illness. ”

“ Helena, my dear Helena, I have an immense faith in your strength and your courage. You are mine, mine, mine—remember that! I do—I have to—all the time. That is what sets me at ease in my dark hours and gives sleep, as the Arabs say, to my eyelids. For the rest, we must resign ourselves and continue to wait for the direction of fate. The fact that I was not arrested in the character of Ishmael immediately on my arrival in Cairo makes me think Hafiz may be right—that, D.V. one way or another, God knows how, everything is working out for the best. ”

“ Helena Pitstone meanwhile walked away by herself to a distant part of the room and turned over photographs, with what seemed to Mrs. Friend a stormy hand. And as she did so, everyone in the room was aware of her, of the brilliance and power of the girl's beauty, and of the energy that like an aura seemed to envelop her personality. Lady Cynthia made several attempts to capture her, but in vain. Helena would only answer in monosyllables, and if approached, retreated further into the dim room, ostensibly in search of a book on a distant shelf, really in flight. ”

“ Helena was the type of woman for whom such men as meet her have the strongest passion of their lives, if for no other reason than because she induces an exaggeration of their best faculties and a consequent exaltation of self-appreciation, as distinguished from mere masculine self-sufficiency. Never is the briefly favoured one so much of a man apart from a type, looking down upon that type with pitying scorn. ”

“ Helena was true to me. Don’t be hard on a poor fellow who is half distracted. What a man finds he can do on one day, he finds he can’t do on another. Try to understand that a change does sometimes come over one’s feelings.”
“Bless my soul, Mr. Philip, that’s just what I have been understanding all the time! I know your mind as well as you know it yourself. You can’t forget my sweet Euneece.”
“I tell you I tried to forget her! On my word of honour as a gentleman, I tried to forget her, in justice to Helena. Is it my fault that I failed? Eunice was in my mind, as you said just now. ”