Helen Vardons Confession | Page 3

wife of an elderly man than the daughter of
a convict. At any rate, it would be only fair to give her the choice."
"It would be entirely unfair," my father retorted. "In effect, it would be
asking her to make the sacrifice, and she might be fool enough to
consent. And please bear in mind, Otway, that I am not a convict yet,
and possibly may never be one. There are certain conceivable
alternatives, you know."

"Oh," said Mr. Otway, "if you have resources that you have not
mentioned, that is quite another matter. I understood that you had none.
And as to sacrifice, there is no need to harp on that string so
persistently. Your daughter might be happy enough as my wife."
"What infernal nonsense you are talking!" my father exclaimed,
impatiently. "Do you suppose that Helen is a fool?"
"No, I certainly do not," Mr. Otway replied.
"Very well, then: what do you mean by her being happy as your wife?
Here am I, standing over a mine--"
"Of your own laying," interrupted Mr. Otway.
"Quite so; of my own laying. And here you come with a lighted match
and say to my daughter, in effect: 'My dear young lady, I am your
devoted lover. Be my wife--consent this very instant or I fire this mine
and blow you and your father to smithereens.' And then, you think, she
would settle down with you and live happy ever after. By the Lord,
Otway, you must be a devilish poor judge of character."
"I am quite willing to take the risk," said Mr. Otway.
"So you may be," my father retorted angrily, "but I'm not. I would
rather see the poor girl in her grave than know that she was chained for
life to a cold-blooded, blackmailing scoundrel--"
"Softly, Vardon!" Mr. Otway interrupted. "There is no need for that
sort of language. And perhaps we had better shut the door."
Here, as I drew back hastily into the book-room, quick footsteps
crossed the study floor and I heard the door close. The interruption
brought me back to some sense of my position; though, to be sure, what
I had overheard concerned me as much as it concerned anyone. Quickly
slipping the book back on the shelf, I ran on tip-toe past the study door
and up the stairs; and even then I was none too soon; for, as I halted on
the threshold of my room, the study door opened again and the two

men strode across the hail.
"You are taking a ridiculously wrong-headed view of the whole affair,"
I heard Mr. Otway declare.
"Possibly," my father replied, stiffly. "And if I do, I am prepared to
take the consequences."
"Only the consequences won't fall on you alone," said Mr. Otway.
"Good afternoon," was the dry and final response. Then the hall door
slammed, and I heard my father walk slowly back to the study.
Chapter II
Atra Cura
As the study door closed, I sank into my easy chair with a sudden
feeling of faintness and bodily exhaustion. The momentary shock of
horror and amazement had passed, giving place to a numb and chilly
dread that made me feel sick and weak. Scraps of the astounding
conversation that I had heard came back to me, incoherently and yet
with hideous distinctness, like the whisperings of some malignant spirit.
Disjointed words and phrases repeated themselves again and again,
almost meaninglessly, but still with a vague undertone of menace.
And then, by degrees, as I sat gazing at the blurred pages of the book
that still lay open on the reading-stand, my thoughts grew less chaotic;
the words of that dreadful dialogue arranged themselves anew, and I
began with more distinctness to gather their meaning.
Seven years penal servitude!
That was the dreadful refrain of this song of doom that was being
chanted in my ear by the Spirit of Misfortune. And ruin--black, hideous
ruin-- for my father and me was the burden of that refrain; no mere loss,
no paltry plunge into endurable poverty, but a descent into the
bottomless pit of social degradation, from which there could be no hope

of resurrection.
Nor was this the worst. For, gradually, as my thoughts began to arrange
themselves into a coherent sequence, I realised that it was not the
implied poverty and social disgrace that gave to that sentence its
dreadful import. Poverty might be overcome, and disgrace could be
endured; but when I thought of my father dragged away from me to be
cast into gaol; when, in my mind's eye, I saw him clothed in the
horrible livery of shame, wearing out his life within the prison walls
and behind the fast-bolted prison doors; the thought and the imagined
sight were unendurable. It was death--for him at least;