Back to the Old Home...

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 53, 4 March 1901, Page 6

Back to the Old Home...

By MARY CECIL HAY,

CHAPTER I. LEFT ALONE. The Hall stood in an opening among the irees, much farther up the valley than the low old farm, where I, a very lonely lad in those old days, lived and worked under Uncle Joshua's iron rule, and only from the gate of the hill orchard could we see the wide gray house and the smooth emerald lawn before it. Even from there it always looked very far away, I thought —quite as if it belonged to a different world. Indeed, I liked to fancy that it did belong to a different world from mine, and that no sorrow and no unrest could enter it. And it sometimes did me good to stand there beside the gate and look at it, though I knew Uncle Joshua would hava called this a childish fancy. Yet I remember that it never made me idle over the tasks he gave me, or impatient over his hard and moody silence or reproofs, and as I said I think those few quiet minutes now and then—while I dreamed over the peace and joy and refinement of this | beautiful home—(of which, beyond Ha soft gray walls, I knew almost as little as I knew of the blue sky above me), and while I forgot the lonelin-ess and want of love and pleasure in my own horne —did me no harm.

I used to love the picture best by moonlight, but of course I could see it very seldom so. Oh! the great peace that lay upon it then, while I could fancy Miss Mary gliding noiselessly about the quiet rooms or standing by the mullioned windows, singing softly in the deep gladness of her heart! But was there a. time when I could not picture her? When the sunset light burned on the windows, I saw her sitting at the organ, the notes of which I had sometimes heard, dressed in white, and looking like the angels my mother used to tell me of. And when I could pause beside the orchard gate on winter evening's, and see the firelight shining from the windows out into the night (like the great, warm, generous heart of the old Hall) in a hundred different attitudes, I could picture Miss Mary then, flitting about the lighted rooms in dazzling robes like a fairy princess, reading in the fireside glow with her head bent above the most wonderful pictures of dancing in a scene of sweet, unreal enchantment.

But—ah! yes, it might have grown into an idle and unboyish habit, as Uncle Joshua said it was. Uncle Joshua had in charity given the orphan lad a home, and it was but natural that in return he should expect the lad's whole time in service — thus had I always answered the question of my life, trying to leave every wider; question undiscussed, in my reticent, dogged way. So, I tried very hard to leave this habit off. It was slow work though, and I never quite succeeded until that day when Miss Mary herself surprised me there —that first really happy day of all my ■boyhood. I was standing in my old attitude, looking along the valley to where the great gray house caught all the sunshine; and in a moody, tired way, I was comparing the life within it (framed in wealth and ease and luxury) with my daily existence here at the farm, where Uncle Joshua and I worked against a gloomy background of silence and labour, and where every day' was darkened for me by my' own consciousness of ignorance. I had been that morning chafing more .than ever against the life I led, and Tvondfcring if the lads I knew, who had mother and sisters, could ever feel as I did, when suddenly she came up across the meadow to that very gate where I leaned in my discontent, and my eyes were so fixed upon the house of which I loved to dream that I never heard or saw her till she was clqse ujjon me. Then But never since—not even in the evening,\ before that very day was dead—could i recall it all exactly as it must have happened—this first step of mine into a new life where that unacknowledged weight of ignorance and self-mistrust were to be taken from :tne.

She had coune across the meadows, she said, fancying that, by trespassing a little, sfte coiild strike into the park eventually by a new way. And I—my cheeks Blushing like a girl's while she spoke to me—opened the orchard gate, and asked her, with my hat in my hand, if I might go with her, because, along the nearest way of all, there were palings to climb. She smiled a little as she looked down upon the farmer lad; and I, too proud of winning that smile to care what could tvave called it forth, stood waiting for her permission to guide her—waiting very anxiously, as she could surely se«t For a moment she hesitated, looked around, as if she wished that she could find her way alone; then, with another glance into my face, sihe seemed suddenly and quite willingly to make up her mind.

"If you can spare the time," she said, with that smile which, for years from that day, was to be to me the most beautiful thing the world contained, "I would like you to come. We need not hurry, and you shall take me—not the very nearest way of all where there are paling to climb.' I don't know how it happened. It was by some kind and clever way of her own, and in her gentle sympathy, that she found out how the young farm lad, who walked so shyly beside her, was longing for something that should raake life more to him than a mechanical and spiritless round of toil—a soulless round. I never said so to her, Heaven knows, but I felt

Author of "A Shadow on the Threshold," " Victor and Vanquished," "The Sorrow of a Secret," "Missing," "A Dark Inheritance," Etc.

it so, many aiiu man,) a liiue—a t>ouiae=y Muuti. oniy- ci auuyei< earned, auu iUUigei! biltlSUtsU. And wiicn sue had learned of this want she was not vexed, but even led me on to talK, until the reticent, OiUia.shioned lad Had let her see tne longing vvnicn ne himself did not even com.preh.end~ And—l cannot tell what she said in that Arm bright hour oi my lue, ~ut irom that day she Laiight me herself, and her great kindness and her .-ympathy satisned the craving that 1 never before had understoou. And when she .knew oi those vague, unreal eabties the Bolituiy-Jiatureu lad loved to build, she never laugned nor rebuked him, but gave lain deeper thoughts for their foundation, and led mm on, by slow, nrm steps, to choose and hold the deepest and beat ol all. liow differently the days sped for me now! Though my hours of labour on the farm were not shortened, yet they were all different, brightened 'by the memory of her past lessons, lightened by the anticipation of the next, gilded by one certain lesson she had taught me from the first, wider and brighter and higher than all the others.

I never questioned with myself why she could take this trouble with, me, because I instinctively knew then (as I know now) that it was her nature to be kind and brave and helpful to all. I was constantly now supplied with books, chosen for me by Miss Mary herself (the squire's daughter was always called Miss Mary among us, I suppose, because there had been an elder sister who died), and in these 1 revelled to my heart's content. All the more eagerly—ah! and so much the more happily!—l studied them, because I knew Miss Mary .would talk of them with me afterward, and so soften both my thoughts and judgments with the bright thoughts and gentle judgments of her woman nature. Patiently and pleasantly always she brought her knowledge to the level of" "my understanding, and so somehow T never felt awkward or ignorant with her. For two whole years I had led this new and happy life, broken only, by Miss Mary's absences from the Hall, when one day she told me in the light way she always mentioned her own great kindness, that I had gone so far beyond my teacher that she should lose all the credit unless she got help, and therefore that she had won our curate's consent for me to read with him every night for an hour.

At first, grateful as T was to Miss Mary for this kind thought, my heart fell, because I thought it would be so different when I could not feel that the books I had read so hungrily had been chosen for me by Miss Mary herself; but I soon found that she was still helping- me, though she had so thoughtfully won me a step she could not give.' Long afterwards I knew that she had paid our curate generously for those lessons for me, but T did not guess of that then. I suppose I believed that to him, as to me, it would be pleasure enough to do anything at Miss Mary's bidding. It was just one year afterwards that a rumour reached us at the farm (no news or rumours reached Uncle Joshua and me until they were old elsewhere) that at Christmas time Miss Mary would be married to Major Western, a gentleman who was very often staying at the hall. The news at first came like a blow to me; then I discredited it, for Major Western, handsome as he was. never seemed to me to be near enough to Miss Mary for this thought to come io me. But afterwards I knew how blind I had been, for now I seemed to see a hundred proofs of Miss Mary's love for him; and though of course, I—a lad of fifteen—could not understand this love, never having witnessed it before, it had a strange effect upon me, especially, perhaps, as I never could like Major Western. Though he always spoke to me even as if he took an interest in me. when he and I were in Mary's presence together, I knew he did it only to win her favour: and I missed the sympathy which she herself had unconsciously taught me to distinguish. He had left the army, and was reported to be very rich; yet there was a report, too, that the squire did not. willingly give his consent to Miss Mary's marriage. But I only wondered, was there any one in the world to whom the squire could willingly give his only child? So time went on", ana now the sight of Major Western's appropriation oi Miss Mary, and her thoughtful love for him-r-the love always trustful, always unsuspicious—hurt me in a strange, acute way; while I let my old selfishness creep round me once again, and even went back to my moody dreaming, picturing her happiness among the guests at the Hall, while 1 felt as isolated in the lonely farm as if the sea had rolled between the houses. "Xet, on the very day before her marriage, Miss Mary rode down to the farm, without any of her guests or friends—without even Major Western —just to bid me good-by. It ought to have brightened my own heavy eyes to see how bright hers were; yet I knew I met her with such a worn and gloomy face that I quite well understood what she meant when she laid her gentle hand upon my shoulder and bade me leave off studying late at night. "I shall never care to study now, Miss Mary," I said, not even able to look up into her face, as I stood beside her horse. "Remember, John," she said, putting aside her own happy thoughts, as she walked with me to the house, "what pleasure, in the years to come, this study will prepare for you. And what a noble life yours may be, if you are still earnest in your efforts to make it so!" She stayed with me a long time that morning, in spite of all the guests and gaiety at the Hall, and I think even to this day I remember all she said, and can, in fancy, see her sitting there in the old deep window I seat, with the winter sunshine on her ■ hair, talking to me of our lessons together, of, the books we had read,

and then —ah! —how earnestly and with such trust in me—of what she felt my life would be. I thank God that 1 dare recall every one of her dear words. "}liss Mary," I said, when we had gone out to the gate again, and I was looking wistfully over to the woods that hid the Hall, while, before she mounted, she held my hand in hers, "if in the years to come my life can bring a blessing into any^ other lives —as you said —it will be only because you yourself have brought a blessing into it. For everything you have been to me I— I would thank you if I could."' "You have." she said, looking1 at me kindly before she dropped my hand. Then T tried to bear it nil a little better, as 1 should—l whose life could have no further union With hers. "1 will leave your books at the Hall this evening. Miss Mary," I said, stooping to assist her to mount. "I will never forget all they have taught me —with, with your long', long patient help." "Keep the books. John, please: keep them all," she said, smiling down upon me from her saddle. "While lam away, I shall be glad to feel that you have them to remind you of your old studies—and of me." I did not tell her how little I should ever need anything to remind me of her; it was not one of those thoughts that will form themselves into words: and, oh! how ashamed I was afterward whenever I recalled this! my answer to her last good-bye was broken by a tearless, passionate sob. So, though I tried so hard to watch her to the last as she rode down the narrow lane", I could not see her, for the mist before my stupid eyes.

Yet it was something to hear her horse stepping so slowly along the frosty ground, for I fancied I could hear that she was thinking of the desolate lad she had left behind, and whose heart she had taken.

For many and many a day after that my books were dull and toneless, and my work so wearisome that even Uncle Joshua was roused to wonder, and bid me "walk more, and go to bed at earlier hours."

CHAPTEE n. WRECKED. Year after year passed without bringing the squire's daughter back to her old home. Perhaps the squire sometimes met her in London; but even this I doubted, when I saw how the brave old face grew anxious and troubled, and the tall form bent and listless, through those three solitary years. How could I ever doubt, seeing that each month brought a change in him, those painful rumours which sometimes reached us of the life that Major Western led abroad, and of the constant demands made upon ihe squire by his daughter's husband. We all saw how they told upon him in his solitude at the Hall, and how, after evry absence he came back more bowevery absence he came back more bowtient, less like the cheery, gentle squire whose home life had been so happy in the old clays.

He never now strolled down to the farm for a few minutes' chat with Uncle Joshua, or to laugh with him over the old joke of my uncle's fabulous savings, as he used. He never stopped me when he met me, to speak a few kinds words to the lad to whom his daughter had been so kind.

Life' seemed all changed for the kindly, brave old man, and though we did not know of it at the time, the steady, gradual drain upon the estate, and the disgrace he felt it for himself, as well as for his daughter, to be allied to a professional gambler, were a weight he could neither shake off nor bear. And so, by the end of those three short years, he laid it down in utter weariness, and with it the active, simple, blameless life.

It was only .then, when her father lay dead, that Major Western brought his wife back to her old home once again. But they stayed only until the funeral was over, and I do not think that in any way Major Western cared to consult either the feelingj or wishes of any of the late squire's friends or tenants, though we were nil there, paying our last respect to one we had always loved as well as honoured-

Ye.t on the sad day she set out on that swift journey back Mrs Western came to the old farm to bid me good' by, and in her own arms brought her little baby girl. How sadly I contrasted then with the bright face of my young teacher three years before this pale, pathetic face of the young mother, who seemed to have lost even all memory of the radiant smile I used to think the brightest thing on earth, except that its shadow dawned upon her grave, sad face just once— just for the moment while her baby lay contentedly in my careful, awkward arm.

Soon after Major Western had taken his wife back to his old life in Paris my Uncle Joshua died, and I felt my« self lonelier than ever at the old farm, though it grew and improved rapidly now, for my uncle had left me the, accumulated saving's of his whole lifetime, and I found that the squire's jest had had truth beneath it too. After that first and last visit of Major Western and his wife, the old Hall was closed for quite three months. Then one day my eyes fell on an advertisement, inserted by Mr Needham, the family lawyer, offering the Hall for sale, and of course we know by whose orders this had been done. Not long afterwards it seemed somehow to be understood among us —though I never knew who was first answerable for the news—that it was to be let. the sale having been satisfactorily effected, but the purchaser having no intention of living there. Some" said this purchaser was Mr Needham himself; others than an eccentric young merchant had bought the house to retire. to whpn he had made sufficient fortune to enjoy it, and had worked sufficiently to need rest. But no one asserted anything as quite certain, and so the rumours reached me only in a vague, surmising way. So the years went on, until ten had passed since the day Miss Mary had bidden me good-bye at the farm on the clear winter morning before her marri"<*e. Never through all that Sme had I entertained a thought of marriage, and somehow my sohtary nature and solitary habits increased so greatly by my solitary life, seemed to save me from those jests and reoorts of marriage so usual, I think, among young people in a quiet country life. Ah! but I never was a young man; never until— I knew why no thought of marriage had come to me as it comes to most men. Years ago, unconsciously perhaps, I had enshrined an ideal in my heart, so perfect, so *1-seeing-™ in its dreamy unreality that my

heart, cried for no lesser. Yet even so. thanks always to her teaching, my j life was not. an isolated nor quite a useless one. The Hall was occupied now by a widow lady, with her sou and daughter. Mr .b'ortesque renting- it from the absent proprietor. Young Mr Fortesque was at Eton, but of course at home a good deal. He was a handsome, rather sociable young- fellow, whom we soon gvew to like. His : sister had still her foreign governess, but she looked almost grown up eveu then, a peculiarity which always struck me even more than her very , stylish appearance, and rather haugh- I ty and ungracious manners. But j sometimes I pulled myself up sharply in my judgment of her, remembering that 1 might.be unfair, becau.se it was so all impossible to me patiently to see any other young lady take the; place Miss Mary used to fill. Still, .the tenants were, I believe, j prettyWeli contented vow with "the j family" at the Hall. And though they were not the olil squire and Miss Mary, and though it was spitefully whisper- j ed that the late Mr Foresque had been | a Glasgow tradesman young Mr. Fortpsque had such a pleasant way with i him, and seemed so anxious to belong to the place, as a country gentleman j should, that at. last we grew to speak of him quite naturally as the "young squire." So ten years went by, as I said, and for seven of that we had neither seen nor heard of Major and Mrs Western, when one day Mr Needham sent me a French newspaper with one paragraph marked round with red ink. It was rather hard work for me to translate this French, because it seemed different from the French I had mastered in Miss Mary's books, but gradually the meaning lay clear and plain before me—the cruel meaning of it all. I read the paragraph again, slowly through from beginning to end, yet all the while I followed the words my eyes seemed only to see the young mother who seven years before had smiled with such a sweet, pathetic smile when her baby's arms went softly round my neck at the farm ° The French paragraph told but little as I afterwards knew, of the Ion"- course of selfish indulgence, of reckless extravagance, of systemat,c "•ambling and professional fraud. But it told at length—and with cruel elaboration in every detail-how the j career of dissipation had been cut short by the hand of the self-mur-dCThat night I had a vivid and most painful dream. In this dream I knew myself to be in a strange country, without knowing what country it was, and though the scene around me was «o unfamiliar I knew exactly how and where to go, and went on alone,, unquestioning and unquestioned, until I found myself before a closed door. Then it seemed as if T paused seeking courage to pass beyond, and I can feel even now as I write, so many long years afterwards, the sort of self-pity With which I saw my fingers trembling upon the handle of the door. The room 1 entered in this dream of mine was barely furnished and half darkened; but to me, standing within the door unseen, it was as one solitary occupant which made the whole picture so sad and pathetic. White and worn and feeble, like a shadow of hei old self, Miss Mary sat there m the utter solitude of deep thought the eves that used to be so beautiful hoi-1 low and weary now, as they were fixed upon the empty grate. Presently while still I watched her in silence, with my hand pressed upon my heart, I saw her rise as if in sudden determination, and opening a desk upon the table, begin to write. Conscious in some way of my own invisibility to her, I came up to her side and read as she wrote, for I seemed to know this was a letter to myself. Ah, what sad and pleading words they were! And yet I could not understand what was the something which she sought of me. I read every word again as Miss Mary leaned her head upon her hand and rested; but, no, the vague, pitiful words, so humble, so pleading, bore no distinct meaning to me except that one prayer came from her heart on this sad day, and that she felt that I could satisfy it.

It did not soem strange to me in my dream that while I could so easily read every word she wrote, I could not grasp the real meaning- of her letter. When it. was finished the heavy eyes of the writer followed it slowly, line by line, word by word, while her tears fell honvViy upon itt Then there was a long- pause, while she held the letter in her hands, closely and tightly, and there grew a restless, feverish pain upon the young, wan face. Then the silence was broken by a sob. Ah, such a passionate, breathless sob! Miss Mary rose, put the letter into the empty grate, and set light to it, turning away with her eyes covered while it burned to ashes. So wonderfully real this dream was to nic even next morning that it seemed all one with the resolution I had made to g<j at once to Paris. Miss Mary wished for me, and needed me. That was quite clear to me, and I did not pause to question with myself whether this consciousness ought to move me, based only on a dream. I felt no anxiety about leaving the farm, for I had a clever bailiff now. I did not dread the journey, though I had never before been beyond the neighbouring counties. All was lost in my engrossing anxiety to reach Paris. I did so next morningl. Then driving rapidly and sparing no labour of inquiry I reached within an hour the house where Major Western lay dead. But his wife was not there. She had not lived with him (so the woman who kept the house where he had-died, and where at first they had lived together, told me in answer to my quint, earnest questioning) since she had, by a trial in which he was concerned, discovered how his wealth was gained. Mrs Western had never known, unfortunately, so the woman said, until her own property was all. squandered.

Since then she had lodged elsewhere with her little daughter, and had earned, it was said, by givingl lessons, a livelihood for herself and her child. But lately—so the woman had gathered from casual remarks of Major Western's servant —Mrs Western had been too ill to leave her rooms. She used to live here with her husband, when in Paris—so the woman went, on, detaining1 me against my will—and she was pretty then, and bright, and generous; but that was a Ion? time ago, and she had begun to change and pine almost directly. Her doctor had been in about Major Western'? funeral, but. she herself w*s far too ill to come, even if phe would have forgiven the past and done so.

It was a pitiful utorv of a husband's sin and a wife's fruitless Borrow, and

1 wa» very glad when it was over and 1. was on'my way again. I had only been able to discover the street in which Mrs Western lived, and so 1 took each house as I reached it, determining not to miss one chance, as time was so precious to me. \nd at last 1 found the right house, and was taken softly to the door of the quiet, shadowed room unseen, where she lay. For a minute I stood just within, almost as I had stood in my dream, but the wholescene was different, and I seeineo to forget my dream just then. I only saw the sad, sad scene before me. The young mother lay breathing faintly and "rapidly, her head raised upon 'the small pillows which a little o-jrl had propped as high as she could, and was supporting against her own tiny form, as she knelt behind her mother on the bed, watching her face wistfully the while, and softly stroking one thin white hand.^ Ah! such an anxious, troubled look it was for the face of so young a child! And there was almost a woman's grav;e and tender care in the soothing, quiet action—such patient strength, too, in the unmoved, steady posture. But when T looked into the mother's eyes that mist came once again before my own which had blotted out that face once before, when it had been my teacher's. She tried hard to sp"eak to me, but the weakness was too great in that dying hour, and I —how could 1 help her in this terrible suffering of my own? And so the precious minutes passed. But I had lifted the child from her cramped position, and I myself supported the . weak form which I had last seen so young and beautiful and full of life. But the Little one, though released, crept to her mother's side, and with a tenderness quaintly protecting, and without a word, slipped one arm round her mother. Above the little face, so like her own, Mrs Western's yearning eyes sought mine, and at that moment I sounded the very depths of her speechless anxiety for her child. The question she would not write to me, the question she could not speak, I read now in that slow, sad gaze —so pitiful, so humble! I put my arms about the tiny, slender figure of her child, and drew her to me—drew it even from the mother's side—while a new look dawned upon the beautiful, dying face, a look even painful in its speechless gratitude.

Falling upon my knees beside the bed, and laying one hand upon the child's head and other upon the mother's hand, I promised I would love and cherish the little one always— always.

Ah! the mother knew how solemnly this vow of mine came from my grateful, sorrowful heart. She could hear its truth and earnestness there on the borderland where all 5s true. She could see now all that she had been to me so lone\ and all that I, in humble gratitude, would be to her little one.

She saw!—ah! who, who can tell how much she snw in that clear IiVM so near the end? "Rut a wonderful smile lit ur> fhe dvinrr eves, and made them beautiful and trlnd.

(To be Continued Daily.)