Chapter III: Helen Put Robin Into the Dead Child's Place

Helen's history was this--a clever, bright girl, wanting in principle, wanting in every religious thought, she grew up without even proper moral training. She was an only child. Her father kept a small tobacconist's shop; he was hard-working and honest; her mother, a very ignorant woman, was also honest. They were fairly well-to-do and they both idolised Helen. She made their lives miserable by her idle, wild, and disobedient ways. She would learn no trade, she would settle to no employment, she was self-willed, bad-tempered, she was even lightly spoken of. All this rendered the old couple unhappy, but her marriage at nineteen broke their hearts.

She was not good herself, by no means even morally good, but her husband was one of the worst of men. He treated her cruelly, brutally; at the end of a year he deserted her.

By this time her parents had died; she had no money, she had no one to help her, and she had a child.

But this, though it appeared so dark, was the brightest and best part of her life.

She had never loved her father and mother, she had never loved her husband, but she passionately loved her child. For the first time something good awoke in her heart; with the baby's eyes and the baby's touch came the first desire of her whole life after right. She was glad the child's father was gone; his father was all evil, but the child himself was all purity and sweetness. She was naturally the most idle of women, but for the child's sake she would be industrious. She was by no means honest: she had, since her birth, committed a thousand small thefts, but the child must have honest bread, for nothing evil should touch him. She learned button-holing, a very poor trade, and by it she managed to subsist and to support the child. She slaved from morning to night. She shared a miserable attic with another girl. Into this attic the sun poured in summer, and the rain dropped in winter, but Helen minded no hardships; she had her child, and this was the happiest and best period of her life.

She never had the child baptized; she gave him no name; he was just baby to her--her baby, her darling. He was a sweet little fellow, very bright and winning; he had a way of drawing looks from that wild woman's eyes, and sentences from her untutored heart, that must have made the angels smile with pleasure; but for some reason, known best to his Heavenly Father, he was not to be left with her. When he was a year old, the baby died.

This was Helen's story--just all that was good in her locked up in a child's grave. After his death she slaved and worked still, but the motive power was gone. Now she felt the hardships of her lot; her health gave way, and in time she found herself obliged to take refuge in the workhouse infirmary. No creature more ready for desperate actions, no more hardened soul had ever taken refuge there.

She was in this state, untouched and unmoved by any one, when Robin came to her, and behold! in one instant the heart that had been as it seemed for ever locked by one baby, was opened by another. Helen put Robin into the dead child's place, and she loved him as her own soul.

All this was done in an instant; just one touch of the little hands, one pressure of the little lips, and the deed was done.

From this hour she began to get better; she no longer lay all day long with her eyes closed; they were opened wide enough now to watch Robin. When he laughed, she smiled; when he cried, she frowned; she would have almost killed in her fury any one who attempted to touch a hair of his head. But she never called him to her, and not a soul guessed her feelings.

She got contented, however, and, as a probable consequence, better. Her disease began to yield to remedies. After a time she could leave her bed and walk about.

The workhouse children toddled under her feet, but she swept them all aside, and no one cared to ask her to take care of any of them. Even Robin, whom she devoured with her eyes, she never offered to touch.

One day, however, the universal favourite was dull and heavy, and the next day his bright face was missing.

Helen, white as a sheet, went up and asked the matron the reason of this.

"Oh! little Robin! he has the measles," she replied lightly. "We had to put him into a ward by himself, and very inconvenient it is. I'm just looking round now for some woman to go and nurse him, and I'm sure I don't know who to choose."

"Choose me," said Helen, trembling, but standing firm, and looking the matron full in the face.

"You! you poor creature! why, you were in your own bed a week ago."

"Yes'm, but I'm most well now, and uncommon 'andy. Send me, matron!"

I don't know why,--perhaps because she was very short of hands just then, perhaps because the work was light, but the matron did select Helen for Robin's nurse. The work, as she knew, was very little; the child was scarcely ill at all; but this step settled his fate. If Helen had loved him before, she loved him so passionately now that she could not do without him.

It came into her head to steal Robin from the workhouse, and bring him up as her own child.

When she left that dreary abode, he should also leave it; and she would toil and labour for him, and he should be to her in the place of her dead baby.