Nineteen hundred? A forecast and a story

Miss Thomasine Grace Whitwell locked herself in her room, and read twice over the letter which she had received from the Rev. Peter Macdonald. The letter—a very short one, but one which went directly to its purpose—was a manly declaration of the love of its writer. “I have known you only a short time,” it said, “but I know you well enough to feel that the greatest joy I could have would be in the knowledge that you cared for me—a knowledge that would fill me with inspiration for my life and work. I am not of those who think that a clergyman can better fulfil his mission by debarring himself from the sweet domestic ties of home and wife and children. He can, certainly, unless his wife be a real helpmeet; but if she be, surely he will be the better fitted to help and sympathise with the dwellers in the multitudes of homes which Christianity has made possible for the people. I do not pretend that it is entirely because I have seen your ministry of mercy among your people that I ask you to come to my help; it is because I love you, and because it is only since I have known you that the alluring picture of a home of affection, with a gracious woman at its head, has formed itself in my mind. It is frequently there now, and always it is of yourself that I think in connection with it. Will you be good to me, and make the picture a reality, not because I am worthy, but because you are kind?”

It goes without saying that Tom was profoundly moved and impressed by this letter, and equally surprised by it also. “What can such a man as he see in me that he should care for me?” she asked herself, and the answer was not forthcoming. She admired and revered Mr. Macdonald exceedingly. It seemed to Tom that she had never been converted, or experienced any real religion until she knew him, and listened to his teachings; but it had never occurred to her that he could be like other men, or that human love could be essential to his happiness. Tom was a little disappointed as well as greatly astonished and flattered.

She knew what her answer must be; and she also knew, though it filled her with shame to acknowledge it to herself, that the true reason was because another knight had won her fealty. Why he was silent when she had expected him to speak she could not tell. She felt sure now, since months passed and brought neither Arthur Knight nor a word from him, that her lot would be that of so many other women of her time—a lot which contained great joy, if not the bliss of which almost every woman dreams, and the larger ministry of love which embraces many instead of one. And Tom deliberately chose it for herself now. There was only one possible person for her; and if he did not wish to share her life, no one else should.

We are not going to tell any tales of Tom. She was a sensible girl—too sensible, perhaps, to waste time and shed tears in useless regrets. And, moreover, as she often said to herself, “No woman can have everything.” She would not have liked to give up her share of philanthropic work which was occupying the best energies of so many of the women of the day; and she had only to do from compulsion what they did from choice. Hundreds of educated women deliberately chose to be patriots instead of parents; and they proved in their own experience that love is not everything. They wisely saw what—happily for England and the Church—was being increasingly realised, that fathers and mothers of children are culpably unfaithful to their trust and duty who are busily engaged in their endeavour to save other people’s children while their own are unsaved; and now men and women who had families, instead of being besieged with requests that they would leave their homes and preach in the Sunday-school, or help in the Band of Hope, were left to meet the responsibilities of their state, or, at the most, were asked to receive and instruct, with the members of their own family, a few other boys and girls who were not amenable to ordinary efforts. As for Tom, she knew that it was a pleasure to her to be in the thick of the grand work of the times, and this self-knowledge came to her aid.

Her letter to Mr. Macdonald left no doubt as to its sincerity. Tom showed it to her father before she sent it.

“Are you sure that this is what you mean, Tom? There is no woman in England who would not be proud of the honour which you are refusing to accept,” he said.

“I know that, father, quite well. Indeed, the honour lies upon me, and afflicts me night and morn—the burden of this honour unto which I was not born.”

“Do not be flippant, my dear; this certainly should be considered gravely.”

“Father, don’t you know that I am really grave enough even to satisfy you? I am not doing this thing hastily. Nothing would induce me to marry Mr. Macdonald—because I do not care for him, and never could. I respect him with all my heart, so, you see, there is no room left for love. Read this letter, please, and see if it will do.”

Mr. Whitwell drew his daughter to his side, and looked at her with the anxiety of tenderness. Sometimes he had thought that Tom was not quite her own merry self, and that there must be a reason for the change. He told her so; and that little sentence spoken by her father was the most powerful tonic she could have had. Tom became from that day as mischievous and merry as ever.

If Mr. Macdonald received her letter with great disappointment no one ever knew it. He read it as final; and, after replying to it in a kindly letter, which Tom kept as one of her treasures, he dismissed the thought of marriage from his mind, and threw himself unreservedly into his work.

As Arthur Knight was doing also.

Mary Wythburn had shared with several other persons the belief that Tom cared for her cousin, John Dallington, with a regard that was more than cousinly, and she had imparted this belief to Mr. Knight in all good faith.

“But he is engaged,” he had objected.

“Yes,” said Mary; “but it is doubtful if he and Margaret Miller are ever married, for the opposition of his mother is very strong, and Margaret’s life is full of other and larger interests. Mr. Dallington will be faithful to her if she will let him be; but if she should really break off the engagement I should expect to see him and Tom married speedily.”

It was like Mary Wythburn. No one made fewer mistakes in the one great work among the poor to which she gave her life, and few could have blundered more in regard to other matters.

John had more and more trouble with his mother, for hatred had made her mad. Is not all hatred a species of insanity? Certainly the hatred that is fed by jealousy and nourished by envy is well calculated to produce it. Mrs. Hunter made no attempt to hide the disgusting truth. “I hate her! I hate her!” she said a dozen times every day. John had terrible misgivings. At present she was not often violent; but her son was afraid to trust her. And he did for her all that a good son could do; he neglected his love for her sake; he spent all the time with her that he could spare from his farm; he read to her, sang to her, played games with her; and there were times when he hoped that she would at last become clothed with kindliness, and in her right mind.

But one night an event occurred which robbed him of that hope.

He was sleeping soundly, as a tired man who had passed a long day in the open air ought to do, when he was suddenly awaked by shouts of “Fire!” He sprang from his bed, and threw up the window.

“Where is it?” he cried.

“It is in the village—in the street—will you lend me a horse that I may fetch the firemen and engine from Scourby?”

“Certainly. I will be with you in a minute.”

He hurried down, and found one or two of the men already on the spot; and in a few moments two horses were carrying men as rapidly as possible in the direction of Scourby.

“Whose house can it be, I wonder? But, perhaps, it is no house at all,” he thought, as he returned to his room and dressed hastily. It was a bad fire evidently, for the flames were lighting up his place, although the farm was some distance from the village. He felt that he must go and see for himself. He went to the door of his mother’s room. It was locked, and although he listened he could hear no sound, so he concluded she was sleeping. He asked the housekeeper to be at hand in case Mrs. Hunter should want anything; and, promising to return early, he started at a rapid pace for Darentdale.

“What place is it?” he asked the man whom he left; and the man hesitated before replying: “It is Mr. Harris’s old house.”

When John reached it he saw at a glance that the old place was doomed—there was so much dry wood in it; the floors and wainscots, and in some of the rooms even the ceilings were all of wood, and it was blazing most fiercely. “How did it happen?” cried John.

“Is there any one inside, sir?” asked a dozen persons at once. “We can find no one. It is too late for rescue if there is.”

Before John could reply his arm was grasped by a woman whose head and face were wrapped in a shawl; and he was horrified to recognise his mother.

“I hate her! I have burnt her to death in her bed! I hate her!” she said, first in a whisper and then in a shriek. John seized her, and he shouted to the people, “There is no one in the house; Miss Miller and her servant are in Yorkshire. Is it too late to save anything? There are some valuables there!”

“We must wait till the engines come,” was the answer. “The house seems to have been set on fire in several places, and paraffin or spirit of some kind must have been used.”

Mrs. Hunter broke into a fiendish laugh. “Yes, I did it,” she said; “and I have burnt her to death. She was there; I heard her breathe. I have burnt her to death in her bed. I hate her! I hate her!”

It was a terrible scene; John dragged his mother away, and one of his men helped him to get her home, raving mad.

He heard the engines rattling to the spot. He would like to have remained, to protect Margaret’s interests, if necessary, but he could not. He was sick with horror and dread, but he knew that he alone would be able to manage the mad woman without violence.

“She will never be sane again,” he said to himself that night. And his foreboding was correct. She never was. Medical opinion pronounced her hopelessly insane, and he was obliged, for her own self-preservation, to allow her to be put under restraint at once, without the delay that would have been extremely dangerous.

Margaret was telegraphed for before the fire was out, and she hurried back to find her home in ruins.

Everything was gone but the walls. They stood firmly enough at present, and none but Margaret knew what was concealed in one of them.

She and Ann Johnson walked about among the ruins, thinking of all the memories that were associated with them, and their hearts were full of sorrow.

“I am glad he died before this happened,” said Ann; “it would have broken his dear heart, and killed him into the bargain.”

Margaret felt very desolate as she stood among the ruins. John was not there; he did not know that she had been sent for; he had not been able to give a thought even to his love. She could have cried out, not for him, but for her grandfather, as she always lovingly called him in her thoughts.

As soon as it was known in the village that she had arrived, a dozen offers of hospitality reached her. But best of all Tom Whitwell hastened down, thinking it possible that she might have arrived. Margaret was unfeignedly thankful to see her friend.

“You can do nothing. Come home with me,” said Tom.

“I must see a magistrate. I have something to tell him,” answered Margaret. “It is very important, and must be told at once.”

“There is no magistrate nearer than my father, and he is at Scourby to-day. What is it, Margaret?”

“Do you think the walls are safe? There is something inside one of them, something that belongs to your Cousin John; and I am afraid that if that wall comes down, all these people would be tempted to take it.”

Tom looked at her friend as if she thought Margaret must be going mad too.

“John also is in great distress,” she said, “for my aunt is—very ill.”

“Will you drive me to Scourby first, Tom, and let us find your father? I must have some one to act for me now, for John’s sake,” said Margaret.

It was well for her that Mr. Whitwell happened not to be in London that day. Margaret told him her strange story in a few words. It was like bringing an old-time romance into modern prosaic days.

“I must not act alone; I must get a brother-magistrate to come with me and a few policemen,” he said. “Will you go home with Tom, Margaret, and leave it to me?”

Margaret was very willing to do that; she had much to hear from Tom, and much to tell her too; and their confidences were more lengthened than their drive.

“Poor John! what a terrible thing it is for him!” she said. “And poor Mrs. Hunter, too! I think it must have been her mental deficiency which caused her so to dislike me.”

Tom could not help smiling, but Margaret did not see the joke, until Tom said, “I agree with you, dear, that no one in his or her sober senses could help liking you.”

“Oh, Tom, how can you joke at such a time?”

“Indeed, I do not know, Madge, unless it is because of my inherent wickedness. But I assure you that I do not feel very merry. It is a sad enough time for us all. You must marry John now, Margaret. You cannot do otherwise if you have a woman’s heart, or indeed a heart of any sort.”

“How can I? We have only just commenced our home in Yorkshire, and the man, whoever he is, will hold me to my agreement. Not that I am necessary there, for the real, moving spirit of the thing is Miss Wentworth. And as for that Andromeda Jones, whom Mary sent, she is invaluable. She will make a most clever woman; she can influence those girls as none of us can; she knows them and their ways so thoroughly; and she loves them, and they love her.”

“I expect she is what she is in consequence of the Craighelbyl training. That is the place in which good characters are made.”

“It is one of the places; and our High Seathorpe is another.”

“How is your enterprise there going to answer, really?”

“It will do much good to many young women, but it cannot do all. The girls who are sent are young, but they are not young enough. It is already too late to do all that we wish. The time to influence girls is before they become engaged. I should like to hand over the engaged girls to Miss Wentworth and Drom, with the other valuable assistants whom we have, and myself to form a home for neglected girls between the ages of twelve and fourteen; for that is the important age.”

“Yes, it is; but, you know, Margaret, that girls as well as boys are to be kept at the ordinary and the technical school now until they are fourteen. And they are no longer to be trusted to anybody who likes to take up the teaching profession for a livelihood; some of the best, and ablest, and highest people of the land are undertaking the work of the upper standards in the schools.”

“Yes; I do not forget that, and I am most thankful for it. In a few years such a place as that at High Seathorpe will surely not be required. In the meantime, it is needed very greatly, only the worst of it is that those who need it most will not come to share its advantages.”

“I wish they could be compelled. But I do not myself think so highly of these big Homes, as they are called; they are very different from real homes, you know, Margaret. If I ever have a home of my own—which I suppose I never shall have—I should like to keep two rooms for the use of poor little girls who have come to the turning-point in their lives, and need a friend.”

“Yes, I should like that, too,” said Margaret.

“Very well,” rejoined Tom, “you can have the privilege at once. There are several unused rooms in the Manor House.”

It was late at night before Mr. Whitwell reached home.

“We found your treasure-trove, Margaret,” he said, “and have placed the contents in safe keeping at my London bank. It was a most astonishing find. I had no idea that it would prove so valuable. You are a lady of fortune.”

“I do not feel that the money is mine, Mr. Whitwell. It belongs to Mr. Dallington.”

“No; that it certainly does not. It belongs to you. John’s uncle had every right to do what he pleased with his own, and the terms of his will could not have been more explicit than they were. You are his heiress after Mr. Harris, the house and all that was in it being left absolutely to you. I am glad that wall was not destroyed; but the thing that puzzles me is where Captain Dallington got all that money, foreign and English, and why he chose to hide it in a wall, instead of putting it in a bank, or investing it in some way, as any other man would have done. But he was always eccentric. I have been told that even as a boy he was considered strange, and only a little better than an idiot; and I think he must have remained so. But whatever may have been his reason, he was evidently very fond of you. Do not answer me unless you please, Margaret; but I have often wondered whether you know the secret of his life and of yours.”

“No, I do not, and I expect that now I never shall,” said Margaret. “For some reason—and I am sure it was a good one—my grandfather—Mr. Harris—never told me. Only on the evening on which he died he promised that he would; but he was so weak and ill that I begged him to wait until the next day, and the next day he was gone.”

“It cannot be helped, my dear, and it does not matter. You are whatever your life and character make you.”

“And they could not be better,” said Tom, affectionately.

“And it will not matter who you were when you are happily married to my nephew,” continued Mr. Whitwell. “He is so good a fellow that it will be too bad if you keep him waiting longer. His mother is quite out of the question now, I am sure of that. And the best medical authority of the land has declared it to-day, for I met Dr. Stapleton, who told me so. That will be the way out of the difficulty. If you think this money ought to be his, what is yours may be made his, in spite of the Married Women’s Property Act.”

Margaret returned to Yorkshire the next day without seeing John. She rightly judged that it was better so. It was doubtful if John would ask her again to marry him after all his trouble, and especially when he knew the amount of her possessions. But the long railway ride gave her time to think; and by the time she reached the Home her mind was fully made up.

The place had been speedily got into good working condition, and already there were thirty girls who had been sent down from London, in order that they might be prepared for the work that was before them. And there were as many helpers as could possibly be needed. Miss Wentworth, who knew London well, and who had spent her life and her money chiefly in work among women and girls, knew exactly where to find the right women to help, and the girls who would be the most benefited by their ministrations. She had entered into the scheme with enthusiasm, and it was she who was making it a success.

Her large motherly nature made her very sympathetic. If the truth must be told, she already loved every inmate in the Home; but she loved Margaret the most of all, and when the girl laid her head upon her shoulder, and told her all the history of her life, and confided the secret about John, she was most tender and kind.

“My dear child” she said, “you must marry your lover, and at once. Love is not everything. I do not say it is; but it was meant to occupy the first place where it has been given at all. This work is beautiful, but it can go on without you; and no one else can take your place in that other empty home which needs you so greatly. Now, you must write, and tell all your story to our eccentric friend—Friend Philip, and I am very much mistaken if he does not say as I do. I feel sure he will trust in me, because his lawyer and I are such good friends, and he has seen for himself how we go on with the work here. Write your letter as simply as you like; when your story is known the rest will follow.”

And so it did. The owner of High Seathorpe was ill; and it seemed to him as he read Margaret’s letter that it was a great thing that she should make the man whom she loved happy. He had discovered that there were many other women longing to do the work which he most wished to see done, and since they were well able to carry out his wishes, he was perfectly willing to release Margaret, only stipulating that she should occasionally visit and supervise the institution.

But Margaret had not waited for his answer before she wrote to John.

“We are both so lonely and desolate without each other,” she said, “that if you still wish me to come to you, I will come at any time. Let me try to comfort you a little; and perhaps we shall both find that we can still do something for the great world though we live in a little one of our own.”

John was not slow in responding to that letter; and a few weeks after its receipt the two were married quietly from Mr. Whitwell’s home, and in the old church at Darentdale.