Home › The Awakening of Helena Richie › The Awakening of Helena Richie: David

The Awakening of Helena Richie: David

These two persons put their heads together and decide that, since Mrs. Richie leads such a solitary life and is abundantly able, she is the one to take the homeless David. The conspirators proceed with extreme caution. The child is brought to Doctor Lavendar's house and Mrs. Richie is given the opportunity to see him.

He is a quaint, winsome, appealing little fellow--a decided personality, and one of the most delightful and consistent child portraits in modern fiction. His greatest attraction lies in the fact that one can never be sure what he will say next. Once, when Doctor Lavendar is telling him a story, he keeps his eyes fixed so intently on the man's face that the old gentleman is much flattered. "Well, well, you are a great boy for stories, aren't you?" remarks the delighted minister. "You've talked seven minutes," said David, thoughtfully, "and you haven't moved your upper jaw once."

As can be imagined, the child makes instant conquest of Mrs. Richie, who insists on fitting him out with tiny garments and brings him in triumph to the "Stuffed Animal House."

Day by day the tie that binds her to David strengthens until we see this affection the dominant motive of her life. It even overshadows her love for Prior, although it is some time before she is conscious that it does so. In the mean while, quite by chance, the security of her miniature world is shaken to its foundations. There lives in Old Chester a youth much Mrs. Richie's junior, Sam Wright, who has drifted into the habit of calling on her and who falls in love with her. It is the blind worship of one who has never known passion, and in an attempt to break up the boy's infatuation his doting grandfather comes to Mrs. Richie and half in irritation accuses her of not being a good woman. The shot is a random one, but the instant the charge is made the speaker realizes he has hit upon the truth. Helena's anger at his gibes and sarcasm is like the whirlwind.

But the Lord was not in the wind.

It is Sam Wright's suicide that first brings home to her the gravity of defying social responsibility. What she has hitherto regarded as a scorn for convention she now sees to be a crime against humanity. All her being is rocked with self-reproach.

But the Lord was not in the earthquake.

It is not until Doctor King forces her to confess her guilt and tells her she must give up David that we reach the climax of the drama. Then all the wild mother instinct of the woman leaps into being. She is a lioness fighting for her young. She will give up Prior; in fact, she does give him up. But she will not part with David. She begs, bribes, prays; but Willy King's conscience will not permit him to listen to her entreaties. She must send the child back to Doctor Lavendar, or he must acquaint the good minister with the entire story. In an effort to forestall this action Mrs. Richie herself goes to the rectory, and before she leaves it she looks into the face of her own soul and pronounces her doom. "The whirlwind of anger had died out; the shock of responsibility had subsided; the hiss of those flames of shame had ceased. She was in the center of all the tumults, where lies the quiet mind of God." When Doctor Lavendar asks her if she thinks herself worthy to keep the child she humbly whispers, "No."

And after the fire, the still Small Voice.

At last the woman's conscience is aroused, her repentance is sincere, and we have the true "awakening of Helena Richie."

How wisely Doctor Lavendar meets this crisis in the shattered life, allowing her to taste to the full the dregs of remorse and suffering, and yet how mercifully and gently he leads her upward toward hope and a desire for restitution, constitutes the remainder of the story. The kind old man suggests that she make her future home in a distant city where her past will not follow her and where she may start anew, and he asks that on the morning of her departure she come to him for a package which he wishes her to take with her on her journey. The reader shares her shock of joyous surprise when David emerges from the corner of the stage-coach, crying, "I'm the package!" "Doctor Lavendar took both her hands. . . . 'Helena,' he said, 'your Master came into the world as a little child. Receive Him in your heart by faith, with thanksgiving.'" So ends the novel.

To tear the skeleton of the plot from its exquisite setting is almost a sacrilege. It is like dragging the perfume from a flower. One must read the book to gain a true sense of its exceptional beauty and fineness. It has been successfully dramatized and the title role ably and artistically portrayed by Margaret Anglin; there is also an "Anglin Edition" of the story, attractively illustrated by pictures taken from the play.