The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories 6 – Marryat · Verses Across
Literature · Short Stories
The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories 6The Secret of Economy (part 1)
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Literature · Short Stories
The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories 6
The Secret of Economy (part 1)
MarryatEnglish
Apparently, there has been much to say and write lately upon domestic economy. From the time, indeed, that the question of the possibility of marriage upon three hundred a-year was mooted, the subject has never fairly been dropped.
Men, with incomes of less than three hundred a-year, do not seem to like the idea that they are bound in consequence to renounce all thoughts of matrimony, and inquiries respecting the matter from aggrieved bachelors are constantly cropping up in those corners of the weekly papers devoted to correspondence. They have even gone so far lately as to suggest, since it seems impossible in this century of riots and rinderpest to curtail one’s expenses, whether it may not be both lawful and feasible to curtail one’s family.
The question of, on how much, or on how little, a certain number of persons can exist, is certainly one which affects the mass, but which, to be answered with fairness, must be put individually. There are women and women. What one housekeeper can accomplish on three hundred a-year, another cannot effect on three thousand, for it is not incompatible with many luxuries to possess very little comfort; and comfort is, after all, the essence of domestic felicity.
Yet, it is not fair to lay the whole blame of the impossibility of marriage in these days upon a moderate income, on the extravagance of women, for the difficulty is just as often attributable to the disinclination of men to resign the luxuries to which they have been accustomed. For every really extravagantly disposed female mind there may be found two thriftily disposed ones; and had such minds but been endued with the proper knowledge to carry out their efforts to do well, existence might not be found so difficult a matter as it appears to be at present.
It is true that the “girl of the period” (not the Saturday Reviewer’s “girl” by any manner of means), is, generally, better dressed and more accustomed to luxury than her mother was before her. But it must be remembered that the expenses of a girl before marriage are regulated by the wishes of her parents, and because they like to see her sail about in the last Parisian fashion, it by no means follows that she will always expect to be dressed the same, or that she will not cheerfully resign some of the luxuries she has been accustomed to, to meet the means of the man who has taken it upon himself to support her.
Apropos of which I have far oftener been called upon to remonstrate with newly-married female friends on their folly in stripping the trousseaux, which had been prepared for them with such care, of all their pretty trimmings of lace and ribbon and embroidery, in order to adorn the little frocks and caps which are scarcely ever noticed but by the mother herself, than to blame them for out-running their husbands’ means in order to procure such vanities.
Various reasons may combine to make the parent, who can afford it, take pleasure in seeing her daughter well dressed. A true mother is naturally proud of a girl’s good looks; and anxious to show them off to the best advantage; or the feeling that her child may not long be with her may make her desirous to please her to the utmost whilst she remains. Of course, the indulgence may arise from lower and more mercenary motives, such as have been attributed for many a long year to the stereotyped “Belgravian mother”; but even in such a case it does not follow that the girl will never be able contentedly to accommodate herself to a lower range of comfort. It is not to be expected that, single-handed, she should put away from her the luxuries which her parents’ income can command; but it remains to be proved whether she will not willingly exchange them to become the mistress of a house of her own, even though it may be smaller than the one to which she has been accustomed. Naturally parents wish to see the children, for whom perhaps they have worked and slaved, comfortably settled in life; and it is folly for men with barely sufficient money to keep themselves to rave against fathers who refuse to sanction their daughters’ starving with them.
But the idea as to what constitutes starvation has risen with the times. A little while ago, it used to be the clergyman with a large family on eighty pounds a-year: a twelvemonth back it rose to the celebrated “three hundred;” and but a few weeks since I heard a lady gravely affirm that any one who contemplated marriage now-a-days with an income of less than two thousand, must be either a madman or a fool.
Knowing my incompetence for the task, I have no intention in this paper of trying to decide on how small a sum it is possible to maintain a family in this luxurious age. I only wish to say a few words upon what I consider to be the secret of the economy which has need to be exercised in these days in the largest household as well as in the smallest.
The order of her household is a true woman’s battle-field, and the better she can manage it, the more comforts she can command, and the more regularity she can enforce upon a small income and with few servants, the greater is the triumph of her victory. If means are unlimited the triumph is lost; and the woman who has a thousand a-year for her housekeeping, and is content to let her husband enjoy no more luxury upon it than his friend who spends five hundred, allowing the surplus to be wasted for want of a little thought or supervision, is not a true woman or a good one. For if prodigality is not a sin in itself, it arises from the indulgence of a combination of sins, amongst which selfishness holds chief rank.
Take the care of her household out of a woman’s hands and what remains for her to do? As a generality she would sit in idleness, for these are not the days when mothers nurse and look after their own children, and, thanks to the sewing machine, the toil of needlework is over, even in the poorest families.
She would probably take up a novel the first thing in the morning, thereby unfitting herself for any solid work for the remainder of the day; or she would waste her time on fancy-work, or unnecessary letter-writing, or on anything but what sensible people who know they will be called to account hereafter for the use they have made of the brains God has given them would do.
And, as a rule, I believe few women would like to be lightened of their trouble in this respect. The sex is uncommonly fond of a “little brief authority,” and even those who have every aid at their command, generally choose to dabble in their housekeeping affairs. And it is just this “dabbling” which does harm, which often increases the expenses instead of lessening them.
I am not a second Mrs. Warren; I have no ambition to try and teach my sex how to manage their husbands, houses and children on two hundred a-year, by wiping out the bread-pan every morning with a clean cloth; and making one stick of wood do the duty of two by placing it in the oven to dry the night before.
Mrs. Warren’s plan of economy is the general one; or rather, she follows the general idea of what economy consists of, namely, in exercising a constant supervision over servants, and straining every nerve to make the leg of mutton last a day longer than it does with other people. And I for my part believe that the women of England will never know the secret of true economy until they have dropped all such petty interference with the kitchen, and learned to guard their husbands’ interests with their heads instead of their eyes. There is no doubt that in order to be thrifty it is necessary in a great measure to limit one’s expenses, and it is a good plan habitually to ask oneself before completing a purchase “Can I do without it?”
In nine cases out of ten debts and difficulties are incurred unnecessarily, for articles which added neither to our respectability nor our comfort, and which, if seriously asked, we should have acknowledged we could have done just as well without. Take the generality of English families, cut off all the superfluities in which they indulge, all the things which are necessary neither to their existence nor their position as gentle-people, and, as a rule, it will be found that such absorb a third at least of their income.
It is not only men who have interested themselves in the questions which have lately sprung up respecting the general rise in prices, and the increasing difficulties which assail the householder. Women are constantly comparing notes with each other; wondering “where on earth” the money can go to, and lamenting the exorbitant weekly bills they are called upon to pay.
Some have tried to meet their increased expenses by diminishing their number of servants; others by curtailing the kitchen fare (the worst and most unprofitable species of domestic economy); a few have gone another way to work, and simply tried with how many superfluities they could dispense; and I think these few have succeeded the best.
It was much the fashion a short time back for women to write to the papers complaining of the worthlessness of their servants, and it was not until more than one impertinent letter reflecting on their mistresses had been published from the pens (or the supposed pens) of servants themselves, that the correspondence was perceived to be infra dig., and dropped. We all know that we are very much in the power of our servants, both as regards comfort and economy; and to regulate their actions, we must sway themselves.
As a class, they are much what they have ever been; their characters varying with the authority placed over them. If ignorant, they are bigoted; if educated, presumptuous; they regard their superiors as their natural enemies, and not one in fifty of them is to be entirely trusted. They no longer look upon the house they enter as their home; they think of it more as a boarding house which they can vacate at their convenience, and themselves as birds of passage, here to-day and gone to-morrow.
To deal with and to control such minds effectually, it needs to show them that ours is infinitely the superior. If we let them perceive that we have no means of keeping watch over them except we do it personally, we lower ourselves to their level, and fail to gain their respect.
Make your servants admire you; make them wonder at the clearness of your perception, the quickness of your calculations, and the retentiveness of your memory, and inwardly they will acknowledge themselves the inferior, and be afraid to disobey.
You will always hear servants speak with admiration of a mistress who has (to quote their own phraseology) “eyes in her back;” the fact being that it requires a mind not only educated in the popular sense of the word, but sharpened by friction with the world, to enable one to perceive without seeing; and that is a state to which the lumpish minds of the mass never attain, and which consequently commands their wonder and respect.
The “excellent housekeeper” who trots round her kitchen every morning as a rule, opening each dresser-drawer, and uncovering the soup-tureen and vegetable-dishes, to see that no “perquisites” are concealed therein, may occasionally light on a piece of unhallowed fat, but she loses a hundredfold what she gains. While she imagines she has made a great discovery, her servants are laughing in their sleeves at her simplicity; for they have a hundred opportunities of concealing to her one of finding, and are doubtless as cunning as herself. And for such a mistress--for one who is for ever prying and trying to find out something--the lower classes have the greatest contempt; they will neither obey nor save for her; they will even go the length of wasting in order to annoy.
But, by this, I have not the least notion of maintaining that the members of that community, of whom I said, but a page before, that not one in fifty is to be trusted, are to be left to do the housekeeping by themselves.
A lady of my acquaintance, married to an extremely obstinate man, was asked how she managed to influence him as she did. “Because I never let him know I do it,” was the reply. “I always have my own way, but I make him think my way is his.”
Something of the same sort of management is necessary with servants. Have your own way, but make them imagine that your way is theirs. They are truly but “children of a larger growth.”
But, in order to do this, you must prove yourself cleverer than they are.
Let no one grumble at the stir which has been made lately regarding the improved education of women, nor that public schools and colleges are being organised for their benefit. If the knowledge thus acquired is never needed for the female doctors, and lawyers, and members of Parliament, which, as fixed institutions, England may never see, it will be only too welcome in domestic life; for the usual style of conducting a woman’s education is sadly detrimental to her interests in housekeeping.
What is the use of their being able to play and sing and imperfectly splutter German and Italian, when they are puzzled by the simplest bookkeeping? Hardly a woman of modern times thoroughly understands arithmetic, either mental or otherwise; and many have forgotten, or never properly acquired, even the commonest rules of addition, subtraction, and division. How is it to be expected then that they are fit to be trusted with money, or having it in their hands to lay it out to the best advantage.
But to return to “head-economy,” as it should be exercised with regard to servants.
We will suppose that a mistress, desirous of keeping within her allowance without curtailing the real comfort of her husband and children, has asked herself that simple question--“Can we do without it?” on more than one occasion, and found it answer, in so far that, though several superfluities, such as dessert after dinner, and preserves and cakes for tea have disappeared, all the solid necessaries remain, and the weekly bills are no longer higher than they ought to be. How should she act in order to keep down her expenditure to a settled sum; to be sure that as much, but no more than is needful, is used in the kitchen, the dining-room, and the nursery; and yet to prevent her servants resenting her interference, or exclaiming at her meanness?
It is really very easy, far easier than the other plan, if women would only believe it to be so. It needs no store-room full of hoarded goods, with the key of which the servants are more familiar than yourself; no stated times for measuring out half-pounds of sugar and dispensing tea by ounces; no running down to the lower regions a dozen times a day to give out what may have been forgotten; or to satisfy oneself whether they really do cut joint at the kitchen supper, or revel in fresh butter when they should be eating salt.
But it does require the knowledge necessary to keep the housekeeping books properly. A thorough acquaintance with the prices of articles, and the different quantities which a household should consume; and above all, to have what is commonly called “one’s wits about one.”
If every tradesman with whom you deal has a running account with you; if nothing in his book is paid for but what you have written down yourself; if your cook has orders to receive no meat without a check; has proper scales for weighing the joints as they come in, and makes a note of any deficiency (the checks being afterwards compared with the butcher’s book); it is impossible that the tradespeople can cheat you, and if your money is wasted, you must waste it yourself.
It is an old-fashioned plan to pay one’s bills at the end of each week; but it is a very good one. Little things which should be noticed may slip the memory at a longer period. Besides, it is a useful reminder; it shows how the money is going, and if the tradesmen find you are careful, it makes them so.
Following this plan, a quarter of an hour every morning sees the housekeeping affairs settled for the day, leaving the mistress at leisure to pursue her own avocations, and the cook to do her business in the kitchen. It is simply a glance at the larder, and then to write down all that will be required until that time on the morrow; the dinner and breakfast orders on a slate, and the other articles in the books appropriated to them. After a little while it will be found that the labour is purely mechanical; in a quiet family the consumption is so regular that the weekly bills will scarcely vary, and the mistress’s eye will detect the least increase, and find out for what it has been incurred.
At the close of each month the debit and credit accounts should be balanced, and then, if the allowance is at any time exceeded, it will generally be proved that it has gone on the superfluities before mentioned, and not on the actual expense of maintaining the household. When people talk of the difficulties of “living”, the thoughts of their listeners invariably fly to the cost of bread and meat, and they unite in abusing the tradespeople, who send their children to fashionable schools on the profits which they extort from us. But there are various ways in which men and women can save, besides dispensing with unnecessary eatables.
What woman, for instance, in these days, buying a dress, does not pay twice as much for its being made and trimmed ready for her use as she did for the original material? And who that has feet and fingers, and a sewing machine, could not sit down and make it in a few hours for herself?
But she will tell you, most likely, that she cannot cut out properly, that she has not the slightest taste for trimming, and that she was not brought up to dressmaking like a dressmaker. Ah, my dear sisters! are not these the days when we should all learn? Men may go through life with the knowledge but of one thing--for if they are acquainted with the duties of their profession, they succeed--but women need to know everything, from putting on a poultice to playing the piano; and from being able to hold a conversation with the Lord Chancellor, to clear-starching their husbands’ neckties.
I don’t say we must do it, but I maintain that we should know how.
Men are really needed but in one place, and that is, public life; but we are wanted everywhere. In public and in private, upstairs and downstairs, in the nursery and the drawing-room,--nothing can go on properly without us; and if it does, if our husbands and our servants and our children don’t need us, we cannot be doing our duty.
Above all, we have the training of the mistresses of future households, and the mothers of a coming generation--the bringing up, in fact, of the “girls of the next period.”
If we cannot amend the faults we see in ourselves (an assertion which should be paradoxical to anyone gifted with the least energy), if we think it is too late to sit down in our middle age, and learn to rub the rust off our brains, and to work our heads with our fingers, we can rear them in a different fashion.
If we are wasteful and extravagant and useless--deserving of all the hard things which have been said of us lately, let us at least take heed that our daughters are not the same.
“MOTHER.”
It was close upon Easter. The long, dark days of Lent, with their melancholy ceremonials, were nearly over, and, as if in recognition of the event, the sun was shining brightly in the heavens. The hawthorn bushes had broken into bloom, and the wild birds were bursting their little throats in gratitude. The boys were almost as wild and joyous as the birds, as they rushed about the playground, knocking each other over in the exuberance of their glee, and forgetting to be angry in the remembrance that the next day would be Holy Thursday, when they should all go home to their fathers and mothers to spend the Easter holidays. I alone of the merry throng sat apart under the quick-set hedge, joining in neither game nor gaiety, as I wondered, with the dull, unreasoning perception of childhood, why I had been the one selected, out of all that crowd of boys, to have no part in their anticipation or their joy. Even poor, lame Jemmy, who had no remembrance of his father or his mother, and who had been, in a way, adopted by our schoolmaster, and lived all the year round, from January to December, in the same dull house and rooms, looked more cheerful than I did. He was incapacitated by his infirmity from taking part in any one of the noisy games that were going on around us, yet he smiled pleasantly as he came limping up towards me on his crutches, and told me that Mrs. Murray (who bestowed on him all the mother’s care he would ever know) had promised, if he were good, to give him a donkey ride during Easter week, and some seeds to plant in his strip of garden.
“What’s the matter with you, Charlie?” he asked presently; “aren’t you glad to be going home?”
“Oh! I don’t care,” I answered, listlessly.
“Don’t care about seeing your father and mother again?”
“I haven’t got a mother,” I rejoined, quickly.
“Is your mother dead, like mine? Oh, I am sorry! But your father loves you for them both, perhaps.”
“No, he doesn’t! He doesn’t care a bit about me. He never asks to see me when I do go home; and he frightens me. I wish I might stay all the holidays with Mrs. Murray, like you do.”
“That is bad,” quoth the lame child. “Well, maybe they’ll forget to send for you, Charlie, and then we’ll have fine times together, you and I.”
I had not the same hope, however. I knew that if by any oversight my father forgot to send the servant for me, that my schoolmaster would take the initiative and despatch me home himself.
How I dreaded it. The gloomy, half-closed house, the garden paths, green with damp and thick with weeds, the servants acting entirely upon their own authority, and the master querulous, impatient, and unjust, either shut up in his own room brooding over the past and present, or freely distributing oaths, complaints, and sometimes even blows, amongst the unfortunate inmates of his household. As for myself, I seldom came within the range of his arm without being terrified away, and it had been a great relief to me when I returned home for the previous Christmas holidays to find that he was absent, and the term of my penance passed peacefully, if nothing else. But now he was at home again, so my master informed me, my father had never dreamt of writing to me, and I looked forward to the coming visit with dread. A strange, unnatural state of things for a child of eight years old, who had never known a mother’s love nor care, had never even heard her name mentioned by any one with whom he was connected.
“What was your mother like?” continued Jemmy, after a few minutes’ pause, during which we two unfortunates had been ruminating upon our lot. “Had she light-coloured hair, like Mrs. Murray, or dark, like the cook?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, sadly. “I never saw her, that I remember.”
“Haven’t you got a likeness of her at home?” he demanded with surprise. “Wait till I show you mine.”
He fumbled about in his waistcoat, and produced a much faded daguerreotype of an ordinary-looking young woman in old-fashioned habiliments.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” he exclaimed, with weak enthusiasm as he pressed the miniature to his lips.
“Oh, how I wish she hadn’t died! I know I should have loved her so much!”
I made no reply. Poor Jemmy’s imagination did not run so fast as mine. If my mother had lived to side with my father, where should I have been between them? I turned my face away, and sighed.
It was strange that I had no idea of what my mother had been like. I have never even formed one, neither had I any relation to whose memory I might have appealed on the subject. My father lived a solitary, aimless life in the old neglected house I have alluded to, seldom leaving his own apartments, except at meal times, and certainly never asking any friend to enter them to bear him company. The servants had their parents, or lovers, or brothers, to visit them by stealth in the kitchen, but the master sat by himself, gloomy and preoccupied, and irritable almost to frenzy when provoked. No wonder I wished that I could have spent the Easter holidays with Mrs. Murray. But a great surprise was in store for me. The boys had hardly concluded the game of football they had been carrying on during my colloquy with Jemmy, when Mrs. Murray came smiling down the playground in search of me.
“I’ve a piece of news for you, Master Vere,” she exclaimed. “Some one is waiting to see you in the parlour.”
“Not papa!” I said, quickly.
“No; not your papa,” replied Mrs. Murray, laying her hand compassionately on my shoulder, “but a new friend--a lady whom you will like very much indeed.”
“A lady!” I repeated, in utter bewilderment, whilst my schoolmates crowded round Mrs. Murray, with the question, “Is she come to take Vere home?”
“Perhaps! most probably,” was her answer, whilst exclamations of, “Oh, I say, that’s a jolly shame. It isn’t fair. School doesn’t break up till to-morrow. We sha’n’t get off to-day, try as hard as we may,” greeted her supposition from every side, and I, trembling like a culprit, affirmed that I would much rather not be introduced to the pleasures of home one hour earlier than was needful.
“Come into the parlour, dear, and see the lady,” Mrs. Murray replied, “and we will decide what to do afterwards.”
So my face and hair were hurriedly washed and arranged, and I sheepishly followed my master’s wife to the formal little apartment dedicated to the reception of visitors, where we found the lady she had alluded to.
Shall I ever forget her face as she rose to greet me, and drew me into her arms! Such a fair, sweet, fresh face as it was, but with an amount of sorrowful thought pictured in the serious eyes.
“And so this is Charlie Vere,” she said, as she gazed into my features. “I should have known you anywhere, my darling, from your likeness to your father! And now do you guess who I am?”
“No!” I answered, shyly; for Mrs. Murray had slipped away and left me all alone with the stranger.
“I am your mother, dear; your new mother who means to love you very dearly, and I have come to take you home!”
Mother and Home! How sweet the dear familiar words sounded in my ears; familiar, alas! to everyone but me. The hawthorn blossoms in the playground seemed to smell sweeter than they had done before, as she pronounced them, and the birds’ chorus rang out harmoniously.
“Will papa be there?” I asked, nervously.
“Papa! of course! What would home be without your father?”
I had found it much pleasanter without him than with him hitherto, but some instinct made me hold my tongue.
“Don’t you love papa, dear?” the lady went on softly. “Don’t you think that he loves you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, picking my fingers.
“Poor child! Perhaps you have thought not, but that will all be altered now. But you have not yet told me if you will like to have me for a mother!”
“I think I shall like you very much!”
“That’s right, so we will go home together and try to make each other happy. You want a mother to look after you, dear child, and I want a little boy to love. We will not part again, Charlie, now I have found you, not for the present, at all events. You have been too long away from home as it is. That is why I came to-day. I could not wait till to-morrow, even: I was so impatient to see you and to take you home.”
How she dwelt and lingered on the word and repeated it, as though it gave her as much happiness to listen to as it did me.
“Will you be there?” I asked, presently.
“Of course, I shall--always! What would be the use of a mother, Charlie, if she didn’t live in the house close to you, always ready to heal your troubles and supply your wants to the utmost of her power?”
“Oh! let us go at once!” I exclaimed, slipping my hand into hers. All dread of my father seemed to have deserted me. The new mother was a guardian angel, under whose protection I felt no fear. She was delighted with my readiness.
“So we will, Charlie! We need not even wait for your box to be packed. Mrs. Murray can send on everything to-morrow. And papa will be anxious until he sees us home again!”
My father anxious about me! That was a new thing to be wondered at. I was too much of a baby still to perceive that his anxiety would be for her--not for me! I had not yet been able to grasp the idea that she was his wife. I only regarded her as my new mother.
As we passed out of the house, I asked leave to say good-bye to my friend Jemmy.
“His mother is dead, like mine,” I said, in explanation. “He will be so pleased to hear that I have got a new one.”
“Poor boy!” she sighed; “we will ask him to spend the summer holidays with you, Charlie. A great happiness like ours should make us anxious to make others happier.”
And when Jemmy came forward on his crutches, and smiled his congratulations on the wonderful piece of news I had to give him, she stooped down and kissed his forehead. Then we passed out of the playground together, I clinging to her hand, and proud already to hear the flattering comments passed upon her appearance by the other boys, and to remember that from that time forward she was to be called my mother.
Lilyfields, as my father’s house was designated, was not more than ten or twelve miles from the school; but we had to make a little railway journey to reach it, and I thought I had never travelled so pleasantly before. My new mother laughed so often and chatted so continuously to me, that I caught the infection of her mirthful loquacity, and, long before we got home, had revealed so much of my past life and feelings, that more than once I brought a shadow over her sunny face, and closed her smiling lips with a sigh. But as we left the train and commenced to walk towards Lilyfields, my old fears showed symptoms of returning, and my sudden silence, with the tightening clasp of my hand, did not pass unobserved by my companion.
“What is the matter, Charlie? Of what are you afraid?”
“Won’t papa be angry with me for coming back before the holidays begin?” I whispered.
Her clear laugh rang over the peaceful meadows we were traversing.
“If he is angry with any one, he must be so with me, as I fetched you home, Charlie.”
“And you are not afraid of him?”
“Afraid!” The sweet serious eyes she turned upon me as she ejaculated the word were just about to deprecate so monstrous an idea, when they caught sight of an approaching figure, and danced with a thousand little joys instead.
“There he is!” she exclaimed excitedly. She ran up to him, dragging me with her.
He took her in his arms (there was not another living soul within sight of us) and embraced her fervently, whilst I stood by, open-mouthed with astonishment.
“My angel,” he murmured, as she lay there, with her face pressed close to his; “life has been insupportable without you.”
“Ah, Harold! it does me good to hear you say so; and I am so glad to get back to you again. See! here is Charlie waiting for his father to welcome him home.”
She lifted me up in her arms--big boy as I was--and held me towards him for a kiss. How strange it was to feel my father kiss me; but he did so, though I think his eyes never left her face the while. Then he took her hand, and held it close against his heart, and they walked through the silent, balmy-breathed fields together. As I entered the house I could hardly help exclaiming aloud at the marvellous changes that had taken place there. Not an article of furniture had been changed, not a picture moved from its place, yet everything looked bright as the glorious spring. The rooms had been thoroughly cleaned, and lace curtains, snowy table-cloths, and vases of flowers, with here and there a bright bit of colour in the shape of a rug, or a piece of china, had transformed the house--not into a paradise--but into a home. Even my father was changed like his surroundings. He looked ten years younger, as with nicely kept hair, and a becoming velveteen lounging coat, he sunk down into an easy-chair, and deprecated, whilst he viewed with delight, the alacrity with which my new mother insisted upon removing his boots and fetching his slippers. It was such a novelty to both of us to be attended to in any way, that I was as much surprised as he to find that the next thing she did was to take me upstairs, and tidy me for tea herself, showering kisses and love words upon me all the while. Oh! the happy meal that followed. How unlike any we had taken in that house before! I, sitting up at table, with my plate well provided; my father in his arm-chair, looking up with loving eyes at each fresh proof of her solicitude for him, and my new mother seated at the tea-tray, full of smiles and innocent jests, watching us both with the utmost affection; but apparently too excited to eat much herself. Once my father noticed her want of appetite and reproached her with it.
“I am too happy to eat, Harold!” was her reply.
“Too happy,” he repeated in a low voice, “really too happy! No regrets, my Mary, no fears! Your future does not terrify you. You would not undo the past if it were in your power!”
“Not one moment of it, Harold! If I ever think of it, with even a semblance of regret, it is that it did not begin ten years sooner.”
“God bless you!” was all he answered.
If I had not been such a child I should have echoed the words; for before many days were over my head, the whole of my joyous young life was an unuttered blessing upon her. The darkness of fear and despondency--the most unnatural feelings a young child can entertain--had all passed away. I no longer dreaded my father’s presence; on the contrary, it was my greatest treat to bear him company as he worked in the garden, or whistled over his carpentering, or accompanied my mother in strolls about the country.
He never shut himself up in his room now, unless she was shut in too; and although his new-born love was for her, and not for me, the glory of it was reflected in his treatment of me.
So I was very happy, and so was he, and so most people would have thought my mother to be. But though she never appeared before my father without a bright face, she was not always so careful in my presence, thinking me, perhaps, too young to observe the changes in her countenance; and sometimes when she and I were alone together, I marked the same look steal over her which I had observed on the occasion of our first meeting--an undercurrent of thoughtful sadness--the look of one who had suffered, who still suffered, from a pain which she kept to herself.
Once I surprised her in tears--a violent storm of tears, which she was powerless for some time to control; and I eagerly inquired the reason of them.
“Mamma, mamma, what is it, mamma? Have you hurt your foot? Did Prince bite you? Have you got a pain anywhere?”
My childish mind could not comprehend that her tears should flow for any other than a physical reason. Did not papa and I love her dearly? and she was afraid of no one, and she never went to school. What possible cause could she have for tears?
My mother composed herself as soon as she was able, and laid her burning face against my cheek.
“Will my little boy love me always?” she asked--“always--always--whatever happens?”
“Always, dear mamma. Papa and I would die if we hadn’t you. Oh, you don’t know what it was like before you came here!”
“Then mamma will never again be so silly as to cry,” said my mother, as she busied herself over some occupation to divert her thoughts.
But although this was the only time she betrayed herself so openly before me, I often detected the trace of weeping on her face, which she would try to disguise by excessive mirth.
So the years went on, until one bright summer’s day a little sister was born in our house. I hailed the advent of this infant with the greatest possible delight. It was such a new wonderful experience to have a playmate so dependant on me, and yet so entirely my own. I positively worshipped my little sister, although her birth was the signal for my being sent back to school, but this time only as a weekly boarder.
Hitherto my mother had taught me herself, and very sorry I was to give up those delightful lessons, which were rendered so easy by the trouble she took to explain them to me; but her time was too much taken up with her baby to allow her to devote sufficient to me. Besides, I was now eleven years old, growing a great lad, and able to take every advantage of the education afforded me at Mr. Murray’s school.
My old friend, Lame Jemmy, who had spent many a pleasant week at Lilyfields meanwhile, was still there to welcome me back and make me feel less of a stranger; and my father took away the last sting of the new arrangement by buying me a sturdy pony on which to ride backwards and forwards every week to see my mother and him.
But the greatest pang which I experienced was parting, even for a few days, with baby Violet. I cried over her so much, indeed, that I made my mother cry too, as she asked God to bless the boy who had been a true son to her. I was very glad to think she loved me so much, for I loved her dearly in return; but as I galloped back to Lilyfields every Saturday afternoon, my thoughts were all for the dimpled baby sister whom I would carry about in my arms, or roll with amongst the newly-mown grass, rather than with those who had proved themselves to be real parents to me,--she from the commencement of her knowledge of me, and he from the date of his knowing her. It was my mother alone I had to bless for it all. But I had grown accustomed to happiness by this time, and took it as my due.
My parents were very proud of their little daughter, who grew into a lovely child, but she did not seem to afford them as much pleasure as pride. Sometimes I detected my mother looking at her as we romped together, with more pain in the expression of her face than anything else. Once she caught her suddenly to her bosom, and kissed her golden curls with passion, exclaiming,--
“Oh, my heart, if I were to go, what would become of you?--what would become of you?”
I was still too young to grasp the full meaning of her words, but I knew my mother meant that if she died, no one would take such good care of Violet as she had done. So I marched up to her confidently, with the assurance that I would take that responsibility upon my own shoulders.
“Don’t be afraid, mamma! As soon as I am a man, I mean to get a house all to myself, and the best rooms in it shall be for Violet.”
She looked at me with her sweet, earnest, searching gaze for a moment, and then folded me in one embrace with her own child.
“Father’s boy!” she murmured, caressingly over me--“father’s brave, loving boy! No, Charlie, I will not be afraid! If it be God’s will that I should go, I will trust Violet to father and to you.”
Meanwhile my father was a very contented man. He had undergone much the same change as myself, and forgotten, in the sunshine that now surrounded him, all the miserable years he had spent in that once desolate mansion.
I do not suppose a happier nor more peaceful family existed than we were. No jars nor bickering ever disturbed the quiet of the household; everything seemed to go as smoothly as though it had been oiled. We were like the crew of some ship, safely moored within a sunny harbour, never giving a thought to what tempests might be raging outside the bar.
Every Saturday when I rode home on my pony, I found my father either working out of doors if it were summer, or indoors if it were winter, but always with the same satisfied easy smile upon his countenance, as though he had no trouble in the world, as indeed he had not; for my mother warded off the most trifling annoyance from him as though he were a sick child, that must not be upset; whilst she threaded her quiet way through the kitchen and bedrooms, with little Violet clinging to her gown, regulating the household machinery by her own supervision, that no accident might occur to ruffle her husband’s temper.
I believed her in those days--I believe her still to be the noblest woman ever planned. One thing alone puzzled me--or rather, I should say, seemed strange to me, for I did not allow it to go the length of puzzlement--and that was why we had so few visitors at Lilyfields. True, my father had made himself so unsociable in the old days that strangers might well have been shy of intruding themselves upon him now; but my mother was so sweet and gentle, I felt it must be their loss rather than hers, that so few people knew her. When, as a lad of fifteen, I mentioned this circumstance to her, she put it aside as a matter of course.
“When I made up my mind, Charlie, to try as far as in me lay, to render the remainder of your father’s life happy, I was perfectly aware that I should have to depend for companionship upon him alone. We have each other, and we have you and Violet. We want no other society but yours.”
Still, I thought the clergyman and his wife might sometimes have come to see us, as they did the rest of their parishioners, and I should have liked an occasional game of play with the sons of Squire Roberts up at the Hall. But, with the exception of the doctor, who sometimes came in for a chat with my father, no one but ourselves ever took a meal at Lilyfields.
As I grew still older, and others remarked on the circumstance in my hearing, I came to the conclusion that my father must have offended his own friends by marrying my mother, whose connections might be inferior to his own. This idea was confirmed in my mind by observing that she occasionally received letters she was anxious to conceal, which, knowing the frankness of her disposition, and her great love for him, appeared very strange to me. One day, indeed, my suspicions became certainties. It so happened that my mother had appeared very fidgety and unlike herself at the breakfast-table, and more than once had spoken to Violet and me in a voice hardly to be recognised as her own. We felt instinctively that something was the matter, and were silent, but my father, who was not well, seemed irritated by the unusual annoyance. He wished to remain quietly at home that morning, but my mother found a dozen reasons why he should ride to the neighbouring town and take me with him. He combatted her wish for some time, till, finding that her arguments were revolving themselves into entreaty, his affection conquered his irresolution, and we set off together. It was not a genial day for a ride, and the trifling commissions my mother had given us to execute were not of sufficient consequence to turn the duty into a pleasure. I was rather pleased than otherwise, therefore, when we had left Lilyfields some miles behind us, to find that my pony had cast a shoe, and to be able, according to my father’s direction, to turn back and walk it gently home again, whilst he went forward to do my mother’s bidding.
When I reached Lilyfields I left the animal in the stables, and, walking up to the house, gained the hall before anyone was sensible of my approach. What was my surprise to hear a loud altercation going on within the parlour. My first impulse was to open the door; but as my mother turned and saw me standing on the threshold, she came forward and pushed me back into the hall.
