CHAPTER I.
"Long-shadowed death," some poet says. How well I know and feel it! thegloom before him deepening as he comes, and the world of darknessstretching many years behind.
I once dared to believe that no earthly blow could ever subdue, or evenbend my resolute will. I now found my mistake, and cared not even tothink about it.
On the morning after my mother's death I wandered about, and could nottell where to go. The passionate clinging which would not allow me,during that blank and sleepless night, to quit what remained of herpresence, and the jealous despair which felt it a wrong that any oneelse should approach, had now settled down to a languid heaviness, andall that I cared for was to be let alone. All the places where we hadbeen together I visited now, without knowing why, perhaps it was to seeif she were there. Then vaguely disappointed, I thought there must besome mistake, and wearily went the dreary round again.
I cannot clearly call to mind, but think it must have been that day,when I was in the corner of the room, looking at the place whence theyhad taken dear mother. Ann Maples and Mrs. Huxtable came in, followed bythe farmer, who had left his shoes at the door. They did not see me, soI suppose it must have been in the evening. They were come to removethe sofa. I have not the heart to follow their brogue.
"Yes to be sure," said Mrs. Huxtable, looking at it with a short sigh.It was odd that it should strike me then, but all she did was short.
"Get it out of her sight, poor dear," said Ann Maples.
"To see her sit and look at it!" exclaimed the farmer's wife.
"With her eyes so dry and stupid like!" returned the other. "Poorchild, she must have cried herself out. I have known her sit by thehour, and stare at the bed where her father was killed, but it was adifferent sort of look to this."
"Ah well, she has lost a good mother," said Dame Huxtable. "God grantmy poor little chicks may never be left like her."
"What's your children to talk of along with Miss Clara?" asked my nurse.
Mrs. Huxtable was about to answer sharply, but checked herself, and onlysaid:
"All children is much of a muchness to their mothers."
"Don't tell me," cried Ann Maples, who had never had any.
The farmer came between them, walking on tip-toe.
"For good, now, don't ye fall out at such a time as this here. What'sour affairs to speak of now?"
"What's any folks," asked Mrs. Huxtable, "that has the breath of life?"
"And goes forth in the morning, and is cast into the oven, ma'am,"continued her antagonist.
"Ah, bless thee, yes!" the farmer replied, "I'll take my gospel oath ofit. It's not much good I am at parsoning, and maybe I likes a drop ofdrink when the weather is fitty; but that young chestnut filly that'sjust come home from breaking, I'd sell her to a gipsey, and trust himfor the money, if so be 'twould make the young lady turn her face to theLord. Can't ye speak to her now about it, either of you women? Doo'enow, doo'e."
"How could I possible?" his wife exclaimed; "why, farmer, you must bemazed. A high young lady like that, and the tears still hot in hereyes!"
"The very reason, wife, the very time and reason. But likely Mrs. Mapleswould be the proper person."
"Thank you, sir," my nurse replied, "Mrs. Maples knows good manners alittle. Thank you, sir; Mrs. Maples wasn't born in Devonshire."
"I ask your pardon, ma'am," said the farmer, much abashed, "I humbly askyour pardon; I wasn't taught no better. I can only go by what I haveseen, and what seems to come inside of me. And I know, in our way ofbusiness, when a calf is weaned from the mother, the poor beastess hatha call for some one else to feed it. Maybe it's no harm to let her havethe refusal." Therewith he opened my mother's Bible, and placed itreverently on the window-seat. "Waife, do'e mind the time as poor AuntBetsy died, over there to Rowley Mires?"
"For sure I do, but what have her got to do with it? Us mustn't talk ofher, I reckon, any more than of the chillers, though us be so unlucky asto be born in Devonshire. Fie, fie, thee ought to know better than totalk of poor Aunt Betsy along of a lady, and before our betters." Hereshe curtsied to Ann Maples, with a flash of light in her eyes, andrubbing them hard with her apron.
"Well, well," replied the farmer, sadly, "mayhap so I did. And who be Ito gainsay? Mayhap so I did;" he dropped his voice, but added, aftersome reflection, "It be hard to tell the rights of it; but sure her werea woman."
"Who said her were a man, thee zany?" Mrs. Huxtable was disappointedthat the case would not be argued. The farmer discreetly changed thesubject.
"Now, if it was me," he continued, "I wouldn't think of taking this heresettle-bed away from the poor thing."
"Why not, farmer?" asked Mrs. Huxtable, sharply. "Give me a reason forleaving it, and I'll give you ten for taking it."
"I can't give no reasons. But maybe it comforts her a little."
"Comfort indeed!" said his wife; "breaks her heart with, crying, morelikely. Come, lend a hand, old heavy-strap; what can a great dromedarylike thee know about young wenches?"
At any rate he knew more than she did. The moment they touched it Iburst forth from my corner, and flung myself upon it, rolling as if Iwould bury myself in the ecstasy of anguish. What they did I cannottell; they might say what they liked, I had not cried till then.
The next day I was sitting stupified and heavy, trying once more to meetthe necessity of thinking about my mother's funeral; but again andagain, the weakness of sorrow fell away from the subject. The people ofthe house kept from me. Mrs. Huxtable had done her best, but they knewI would rather be alone.
The door was opened quietly, and some one entered in a stealthy manner.Regarding it as an intrusion, I would not look that way.
"Miss Clara dear," began the farmer, standing behind me, and whispering,"I humbly ask your pardon, Miss, for calling you that same. But we havehad a wonderful fine season, sure enough."
I made him no answer, being angry at his ill-timed common-place.
"If you please, Miss, such a many lambs was never known afore, andturnips fine last winter, and corn, and hay, and every kind of stock, afetching of such prices. The farmers about here has made their fortunemainly."
"I am glad to hear that you are so prosperous, Mr. Huxtable," Ianswered, very coldly.
"Yes fie, good times, Miss, wonderful good times, we don't know what todo with our money a'rnost."
"Buy education and good taste," I said, "instead of thrusting yourhappiness upon such as I."
How little I knew him! Shall I ever forgive myself that speech?
"Ah, I wish I could," he answered, sadly, "I wish with all my heart Icould. But we must be born to the like of that, I am afeared, MissVaughan."
Poor fellow! he knew nothing of irony, as we do, who are born to goodtaste, otherwise I might have suspected him of it then.
He suddenly wished me "good evening," although it was middle-day, andthen he made off for the door, but came back again with a desperateresolve, and spoke, for him, very quickly, looking all the time at hisfeet.
"There, I can't make head or tail of it, Miss Clara, but wife said I wasto do it so. Take the danged money, that's a dear, and for good nowdon't be offended, for I cas'n help it."
He opened his great hand, which was actually shaking, and hurriedlyplaced on the sofa a small packet tied in the leaf of a copy book; thensuddenly put in mind of something, he made a dive, and snatching it up,flung it upon a Windsor chair. It fell with a chink, the string slippedoff, and out rolled at least forty sovereigns and guineas, and a numberof crown-pieces.
Peremptorily I called him back, for he was running out of the door.
"Mr. Huxtable, what is the meaning of this?"
"Meaning, Miss! Lord bless you, Miss Clara, there bain't no meaning ofit; only it corned into my head last night, as I was laying awake,humbly asking your pardon, Miss, for that same, that if so be you shoulddesire, that the dear good lady herself might like, if I may make sobold, mea
ning that it isn't fitly like, that she should lay nowhereelse, but alongside of her own husband, till death do them part, Mr.Henry Valentine Vaughan, Esquire, Vaughan Park, in the county ofGloucestershire. There I be as bad as Beany Dawe."
He repeated his rhyme, with some relief, hoping to change the subject.I caught him by both hands, and burst into tears.
"Don't ye now," he said, with a thickness in his voice, "don't ye now,my dearie, leastways unless it does you good."
"It does me good, indeed," I sobbed, "to find still in the world so kinda heart as yours."
Though I longed to look him in the face, I knew that I must not do so.Oh why are men so ashamed of manly tears? Perceiving that I could notspeak, he began to talk for both of us, making a hundred blunderingapologies, trying to hide his knowledge of my poverty, and to prove thathe was only paying a debt which extended over many years of tenancy. Hewas not at all an imaginative man, but delicacy supplied him withinvention. So deep a sense pervades all classes in this Englishcountry, that want of money is an indictment, which none but the culpritmay sign. Poor or rich, I should not be worth despising, if I had shownthe paltry pride of declining such a loan.
The tears came anew to my eyes when I found that what had been broughtso freely was the savings of years of honest toil, a truth which theowners had tried to conceal by polishing the old coin. But not beingskilled, dear souls, in plate-cleaning, they had left some rotten-stoneadhering to the George and Dragons.