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Updated: May 7, 2025
Rupert would not relieve the situation and the visitor smoked on, watching Miriam through his tobacco smoke, until a knock came at the door. "I beg your pardon, M'm " "It's Mother Samson," said Rupert. "Shall I look after her?" "No. I will go." The door closed quietly behind Mrs. Caniper. Uncle Alfred lowered his pipe.
At that Helen laughed with a security which was pathetic and annoying to the woman in the bed. "Life " Mildred Caniper began, and stopped. She had not yet reached the stage, she reflected, when she must utter platitudes about the common lot. She looked at Helen with unusual candour. "I have never spoken to you of these things," she said. "Oh, I shouldn't like you to!"
"Shall I come with you? Let me! I can get ready " Mildred Caniper straightened herself and turned, and Helen recognized the blue light in her eye. "Your presence, Helen," she said distinctly, "will not reduce the number of the frontiers." Her manner blamed Helen for her own lack of self-control; but to this her stepchildren were accustomed, and Helen felt no anger.
She reflected with humiliation that it was absurd to obtrude herself thus on a scene shadowed by tragedy, yet when she saw a glint of real amusement on Mildred Caniper's face, a new thought came to her. Perhaps reserve was not so great a virtue as she had believed. She must not forget; nor must she forget that Miriam considered her a prig, that Mildred Caniper found her too helpful.
Could it be Helen Caniper in this room with the low ceiling and farmhouse smells, this bridal chamber of the Halketts? Helen Caniper seemed to have disappeared. She woke when she had been asleep for a little while, and at first she could not remember where she was; then the window darted out of the darkness and the furniture took on shapes.
It was not she who heard the opening of the bedroom door, but she felt herself being gently pushed from George's breast, and she had a strange feeling that some one was shovelling away the earth which she had found so merciful. "No," she said. "Don't. I like it." "Helen!" she heard George say, and she turned to see Mildred Caniper on the threshold.
Uncle Alfred in a trap and Rupert on foot arrived at the same moment on Saturday, and while Rupert asked quick questions about Mildred Caniper, the other listened in alarm. He was astonished to feel Helen's light touch leading him to the corner where the hats were hanging, to hear her low voice in his ear. "Pretend that's why you've come!" He whispered back, "Where is she?" "In bed." "Miriam?"
She forgot her stepmother sitting so stiffly on the sofa and for a little while she forgot that the future which held her and Zebedee in its embrace held a solitary Mildred Caniper less warmly. In the scented night, Helen allowed herself to taste joy without misgiving.
Caniper, can she hear?" "No, she is in the front of the house." "And Jim won't mind?" "Oh, no, Jim won't." "Nor you?" "You can get the big old chair from the schoolroom and bring it here. That shall be yours." He sat there for an hour, and while he smoked she was idle.
In the dusk of a spring evening, Helen Caniper walked on the long road from the town.
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