Chapter 16: Emergencies

In September Helen Denby and Dorothy Elizabeth went to London. With their going, a measure of peace came to Frank Gleason. Not having their constant presence to remind him of his friend’s domestic complications, he could the more easily adopt his sister’s complacent attitude of cheery confidence that it would all come out right in time—that it must come out right. Furthermore, with Helen not under his own roof, he was not so guiltily conscious of “aiding and abetting” a friend’s runaway wife.

Soon after Helen’s departure for London, a letter from Burke Denby in far-away South America told of the Denbys’ rejoicing at the happy outcome of the Arctic trip, and expressed the hope that the doctor was well, and that they might meet him as soon as possible after their return from South America in December.

The letter was friendly and cordial, but not long. It told little of their work, and nothing of themselves. And, in spite of its verbal cordiality, the doctor felt, at its conclusion, that he had, as it were, been attending a formal reception when he had hoped for a cozy chat by the fire.

In December, at Burke’s bidding, he ran up to Dalton for a brief visit, but it proved to be as stiff and unsatisfying as the letter had been. Burke never mentioned his wife; but he wore so unmistakable an “Of-course-I-understand-you-are-angry-with-me” air, that the doctor (much to his subsequent vexation when he realized it) went out of his way to be heartily cordial, as if in refutation of the disapproval idea—which was not the impression the doctor really wished to convey at all. He was, in fact, very angry with Burke. He wanted nothing so much as to give him a piece of his mind. Yet, so potent was Burke’s dignified aloofness that he found himself chattering of Inca antiquities and Babylonian tablets instead of delivering his planned dissertation on the futility of quarrels in general and of Burke’s and Helen’s in particular.

With John Denby he had little better success, so far as results were concerned; though he did succeed in asking a few questions.

“You have never heard from—Mrs. Denby?” he began abruptly, the minute he found himself alone with Burke’s father.

“Never.”

“But you—you would like to!”

The old man’s face became suddenly mask-like—a phenomenon with which John Denby’s business associates were very familiar, but which Dr. Frank Gleason had never happened to witness before.

“If you will pardon me, doctor,” began John Denby in a colorless voice, “I would rather not discuss the lady. There isn’t anything new that I can say, and I am beginning to feel—as does my son—that I would rather not hear her name mentioned.”

This ended it, of course. There was nothing the doctor could say or do. Bound by his promise to Helen Denby, he could not tell the facts; and silenced by his host’s words and manner, he could not discuss potentialities. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to drop the subject. And he dropped it. He went home the next day. Resolutely then he busied himself with his own affairs. Determinedly he set himself to forget the affairs of the Denbys. This was the more easily accomplished because of the long silences and absences of the Denby men themselves, and because Helen Denby still remained abroad with Angie Reynolds.

In London Helen Denby was living in a new world. Quick to realize the advantages that were now hers, she determined to make the most of them—especially for Betty. Always everything now centered around Betty.

In Mrs. Reynolds Helen had found a warm friend and sympathetic ally, one who, she knew, would keep quite to herself the story Helen had told her. Even Mr. Reynolds was not let into the inner secret of Helen’s presence with them. To him she was a companion governess, a friend of the Thayers’, to whom his wife had taken a great fancy—a most charming little woman, indeed, whom he himself liked very much.

Freed from the fear of meeting Burke Denby or any of his friends, Helen, for the first time since her flight from Dalton, felt that she was really safe, and that she could, with an undivided mind, devote her entire attention to her self-imposed task.

From London to Berlin, and from Berlin to Genoa, she went happily, as Mr. Reynolds’s business called him. To Helen it made little difference where she was, so long as she could force every picture, statue, mountain, concert, book, or individual to pay toll to her insatiable hunger “to know”—that she might tell Betty.

Mrs. Reynolds, almost as eager and interested as Helen herself, conducted their daily lives with an eye always alert as to what would be best for Helen and Betty. Teachers for Gladys and Betty—were teachers for Helen, too; and carefully Mrs. Reynolds made it a point that her own social friends should also be Helen’s—which Helen accepted with unruffled cheerfulness. Helen, indeed, had now almost reached the goal long ago set for her by Mrs. Thayer: it was very nearly a matter of supreme indifference to her whether she met people or not, so far as the idea of meeting them was concerned. There came a day, however, when, for a moment, Helen almost yielded to her old run-and-hide temptation.

They were back in London, and it was near the close of Helen’s third year abroad.

“I met Mr. Donald Estey this morning,” said Mrs. Reynolds at the luncheon table that noon. “I asked him to dine with us to-morrow night. He is here for the winter.”

“So? Good! I shall be glad to see Estey,” commented her husband.

Once Helen would have given a cry, dropped her fork with a clatter, or otherwise made her startled perturbation conspicuous to all. That only an almost imperceptible movement and a slight change of color resulted now showed something of what Helen Denby had learned during the last few years.