"Mother always believed me when I told her what I had done," I answered, boldly. "I believe you, Aunt Belinda, because you have always told the truth ever since I have known you. I don't see why you should not believe me in the same way. I have never told you a lie yet, have I?"
If I had tried to manage Aunt Belinda—which I certainly never did—I could not have found a better method than the frankness I used toward her. She was truthfulness itself, and she appreciated truthfulness in others, though her system of management was not calculated to bring it about. I was in doubt as to the effect of my bold words on this occasion, but as I looked up at her I saw at once that she was not angry.
"No, Olivia, I have never found you out in a lie," she answered; "and as you say, I think justice requires me to trust you. If; then, you will give me your word to indulge in no other conversation, I will permit you to repeat to Amelia such hymns and verses as you already know, and also the poems you may have learned during the day."
So this matter was settled, to my great delight.
My next effort was to make Amelia as open and frank with my aunt as I was myself, but in this I never could succeed: she had been too thoroughly cowed between Aunt Belinda's strictness and Elmina's bullying. I don't think the system of education was a good one for any child, but to one like Amelia it was utterly ruinous.
The fall and winter passed away quietly enough; and though I had times of being dreadfully home-sick, I was not very unhappy on the whole. I liked my lessons better every day, and especially my music-lessons. My aunt had a harpsichord, which would be insignificant enough by the side of a modern Steinway piano, but was a very fine instrument for the time, and she played very well. She herself gave me a few lessons by way of finding out whether I had a correct ear and some musical talent, for she said—and I think truly—that where these are absent music-lessons were only time and money thrown away. Finding that I succeeded very well, she engaged for me the best master the city afforded, and after that I practised an hour and a half every day. I took great pleasure in my music, and very much delighted I was when I was able to play Handel's "Harmonious Blacksmith," then quite a new piece, so as to satisfy my aunt.
Elmina wished also to take lessons, but she had absolutely no ear for music—indeed, she could hardly tell one tune from another—and my aunt would not allow it, but said she might have drawing-lessons instead. I think she might have done very well with them if she had chosen, but she was vexed about the music-lessons, and would take no pains.
Amelia, on the contrary, seemed to find in Miss Sulley's instructions exactly the stimulus she wanted. She showed a remarkable talent for drawing, and especially for catching likenesses, and she made pencil sketches of everybody in the house, from my aunt down to the cat, some of which were extraordinary for so young a child. Of course her drawings were incorrect, but they had a surprising degree of life about them. I shall never forget her alarm when my aunt found one of these portraits of herself on a loose bit of blotting-paper, nor her change to delighted surprise when Aunt Belinda, instead of blaming her, as she expected, praised the drawing and told her if she took pains, she might perhaps become a good portrait painter, like some lady she mentioned—Angelica Kaufmann, I think it was—who was attracting a great deal of notice at the time.
Amelia worked with double diligence after this, and it happened with her as I afterward observed to be the case with others—that success in one point seemed to stimulate her powers in other directions. She began to have some confidence in herself, and to recite without stammering. She was always drawing in her hours of recreation, and she really learned to take an interest in her English history when illustrated by pictures of King Alfred burning the cake, and William the Conqueror killing Harold at Hastings in a manner totally inconsistent not only with the laws of war, but also of gravitation. My aunt was much pleased with Amelia's improvement, and I heard her remark to Phebe that her system was at last beginning to bear fruit.
Elmina did not improve. My aunt now watched her more closely, and understood her better, so she could not do quite as much mischief as formerly; but there was no amendment in her real disposition. In her heart she hated my aunt and rebelled against her rule, and yet she was jealous of any one whom she favoured or loved. She tyrannized over Amelia, and tormented her in every possible way. She liked her own comfort too well to come into open collision with Aunt Belinda, but her obedience was all outward: there was no conscience about it.
I do not think Aunt Belinda's beloved system was at all calculated to develop or cultivate the conscience. It set out with the proposition that all children were bad as a matter of course. Mother always went upon the supposition that her children meant to be good, and she was always surprised and disappointed to find them otherwise, but Aunt Belinda seemed to conclude that we meant to be naughty, and that the only way to keep us within any kind of bounds was to fence us in with endless restrictions and rules. Mother, on the contrary, had very few rules. I think she used rather to give us principles and leave us to apply them for ourselves.
It was in religious matters, however, that I think Aunt Belinda's system was the worst, and had the worst effect. Good Christian as she meant to be, she made the subject absolutely hateful to us children—at least to Elmina and Amelia. My "Pilgrim's Progress" and the remembrance of mother's teaching saved me from that extreme, but even to me the vital truths of the gospel grew more and more dim and lifeless, and my heavenly Father and my Saviour became not so much living persons taking an interest in me, and wishing me to be good and happy, as mere doctrines—things to be believed in as I believed in the rules in Murray's grammar. If God had any reality, it was as a tremendous law-giver and ruler, carrying on a system something like Aunt Belinda's, only on an infinitely greater scale, or an engineer managing some mighty machine of which I was an insignificant part which might be taken out at any time and thrown into the fire. As I said, my aunt used to give punishment lessons out of the Bible—a very effectual way of making children dislike any book whatever. Phebe disapproved of this method of punishment, and more than once spoke her mind freely on the subject, but without producing any change.
My great pleasures this winter were the few letters I had from home—not more than four or five in all, for communication was slow and uncertain. These letters were written on large sheets, and every member of the family added a little, mother's coming last of all. Jeanne told me about the house and the neighbours, the new church and school-house that were being built in the village, and the prospect there was of her teaching the school next summer. Ruth told me about the cows and sheep, the flying-squirrel Ezra had caught for her, and also of the wolves they heard howling at night and the deer whose tracks father and Ezra saw in the morning when they went out to the barn. Once she wrote that Ezra had actually shot a fat bear. They were living on his flesh, and Ezra was going to send the skin to Aunt Belinda for her carriage. But mother's was the best of all. I used to read these letters over and over till I knew them by heart. At first I was afraid Aunt Belinda would ask to see them, but she was too much of a lady to do that, nor did she ever ask any questions as to what I wrote in return. It was this lady-like spirit and her strict sense of justice which made her rule endurable.
My own letters home were very long and full, but I said very little in them of the things which annoyed me, while I enlarged upon my music-lessons, my embroidery, and the books I was reading. I told how my aunt had taken me to see a lady who had just received from England one of those wonderful new instruments called a piano-forte, how I had been allowed to play upon it, and how my aunt had promised that I should some time have one of my own if I were industrious with my music. I told how I had seen Mrs. Adams, wife of the Vice-president, how I had sat in the room with her and heard her describe the wonderful things she had seen abroad, and had had the distinguished honour of playing one of my music-lessons for her. I told of my new dresses and my drives with my aunt. In short, I told of everything pleasant, and kept my annoyances in the back-ground as much as possible. My aunt would sometimes write little notes to be enclosed in my letters. I never saw these notes, but from what I heard, I suppose they were satisfactory to mother.
Poor Amelia used sometimes to cry when she saw me reading or answering my letters from home. She was far happier since she began drawing-lessons, and she and Aunt Belinda got on better, but she still sighed for her old home in Nantucket and for her mother, and she still—which was no marvel—disliked Elmina, though she feared her less than formerly. She had acquired a new weapon of defence, and even of offence, in her pencil, and she produced some caricatures of Elmina which excited their subject fury and made Miss Sulley laugh heartily.
My aunt saw a great deal of company in a quiet way, though she never gave large entertainments. She used to have tea- and supper-parties of twenty or thirty ladies and gentlemen, at which the gentlemen rather preponderated, attracted, I fancy, fully as much by the excellence of Phyllis's cooking and the quality of my aunt's Madeira as by the charms of her conversation. We little girls were sometimes permitted to be present at these parties, and sometimes, at the intercession of Mrs. Adams or some other special friend of my aunt's, to sit up to supper.
Amelia and I enjoyed these occasions very much—Amelia because she could make studies of dresses and faces, and I because I liked listening to the conversation. The circle of society in which my aunt moved was highly cultivated, and embraced a good many distinguished people—public men, clergymen and professors, officers in army and navy, doctors, and lawyers. My aunt took great interest in all public affairs both at home and abroad, and these were freely discussed at her house. The French revolution was in progress, the royal family virtually prisoners, and every ship brought news of some new outbreak of violence on the part of the revolutionists, some new piece of folly on the part of the royalists. News was "news" in those days, and I really think people enjoyed it far more than they do now, when the queen's speech is read at half the breakfast-tables in America on the morning after its delivery. I used to drink in like water the discussions that took place every time there was a new arrival from France or England. I often longed to ask questions, but this was a liberty not permitted to little girls, so I listened in silence and formed my own theories and opinions, and laid up in my memory such pieces of news as I thought would most interest my friends at home.
Besides the French revolution and the books of the day, there were English and American politics to be discussed; and very hot discussions those were. Party-spirit never ran higher than at that day, and I used sometimes to be much astonished at the vituperative epithets applied to their opponents by well-bred and religious ladies and gentlemen. I shall never forget my amazement and horror at hearing a famous politician speak of General Washington as "a concealed traitor." I disliked these political discussions, and was always delighted when the conversation turned on books or foreign travel. Sometimes we had music, and then I would be called upon to play some of my little pieces. I don't remember being very much frightened on these occasions. I had a business-like way of looking at such things which saved me from a great deal of embarrassment.
Indeed, I gained a great deal this winter both in book-learning and in manners. I honestly tried to please my aunt, and succeeded, on the whole, pretty well. I liked my lessons better and better. I learned to love Amelia, as we almost always do love those we try to benefit, and I had the pleasure of seeing her improve in health and courage, and also—perhaps consequently—in truthfulness and honesty. She no longer told lies every day at Elmina's bidding or to conceal her own faults, and she was much merrier and better company.
CHAPTER XI.
NEW CHANGES.
LATE in March that year we began to hear that the measles were prevailing in town, and in the course of a week all three of us children and Jane, the house-maid, were taken down with them. Amelia and I were very sick from the first; the others had the disease lightly. Phebe took care of me, and my aunt of Amelia, while a woman from outside who often worked for us attended on the other two.
On the tenth day after my attack I was better, and Phebe left me to myself for what seemed to me a very long time. I heard movements in the other room, and now and then I could distinguish Amelia's voice, and a great longing seized me to see her again. I rose; and putting on such of my clothes as could find, I stole softly into the next room. At first I did not understand the state of things at all. Amelia was sitting up in bed supported in my aunt's arms. The eruption had all disappeared and her eyes looked bright and clear, and she was not much thinner or paler than usual, but I saw that she breathed with difficulty. Dr. Warren stood at one side of the bed with the sick child's hand in his, and Phebe at the other with her handkerchief at her eyes. My aunt was very pale, and now and then a tear rolled down her cheeks.
"I am not afraid," I heard Amelia say, speaking distinctly, but stopping between the words. "I think He will be good to me and let me go to father and mother. I am sorry I told lies, Aunt Belinda, but I was so weak, and it frightened me so to be punished."
I saw a spasm as of pain cross my aunt's face at these words. They were the last that Amelia spoke. She lay quiet for some time—I don't know how long—then she suddenly raised herself, with a bright, happy smile, and put out her arms like a baby which sees its mother, and the next moment she was gone.
"It is all over," said Doctor Warren, taking the little body from my aunt's arms and laying it down. "The dear child is at rest."
I comprehended then that Amelia was dead, and burst out crying. My aunt rose from the bed; and taking my hand, she led me to my own room and put me to bed without saying a word.
"Please don't go away, Aunt Belinda," I sobbed; "please do stay with me."
"If you will be quiet and try to go to sleep, I will lie down on the bed with you," said my aunt. "We must try to comfort each other Olivia."
It was a wonderful thought to me that I could do anything to comfort Aunt Belinda. She lay down on the bed by my side, and I put my arms round her and kissed her over and over again as I might have done with my own mother, and she did not repel my caresses, but drew me close to her and called me her dear little girl. It was the first time she had ever given me a pet name of any kind. I fell asleep in her arms after a while, and slept for a long time. I do not think my aunt slept, though she lay quite still. When I awoke, she kissed me again and said I had done her good, but she was very sad for a long time.
Amelia's death seemed to make a great change in our household. Both Elmina and I had weak eyes, which prevented our resuming our lessons immediately. My aunt's rules were very much relaxed; and though she never indulged us in anything wrong, she allowed us much more liberty. She even tried to make herself a companion to us, laying aside her usual employments, in which she was very systematic, to read to us the few story-books we possessed, and telling us tales of her early days in the colony and afterward in the English boarding-school where she lived for more than six years.
My enjoyment of these tales was very great especially as my aunt allowed me to ask questions and make remarks. Her school was a very strict and fashionable one near London; and when I heard her account of the way she had been trained and repressed and disciplined day and night, I no longer wondered at her ideas of education, but rather that she had lived through the process at all. And, after all, with the exception of French and music, I did not see that she had really learned much more than Jeanne and I had acquired under Miss Tempy Hutchinson.
Elmina did not like these conversations as much as I did. She thought them stupid and tiresome, and was always stealing away to gossip with Jane, and, as I suspected, to read the books with which Jane furnished her. Where Jane got them I don't know; I suppose she borrowed them among her acquaintances. They consisted of novels as novels were about the middle of the last century—stories about fine ladies who fell in love with footmen, and chamber-maids who were noblemen's daughters in disguise, or who attracted the notice of dukes and earls by their beauty; and they were not only the poorest of the poor in a literary point of view, but so utterly low, coarse, and immoral that it is no wonder serious and right-minded people of those days objected to novels altogether.
Elmina's eyes were left weak by the measles, as usually happens with that disease, and they did not improve as mine did. If they were better for a day or two, they invariably got worse again, and at last Aunt Belinda called in Doctor Warren to examine them. Elmina was very unwilling to see him, but she had no choice.
Dr. Warren looked at her eyes, and asked if she used them by candle-light.
"She uses them very little by any light," said my aunt. "She has no lessons, and is not allowed to read or do any fine work."
"They ought to be well by this time," said the doctor. "You see how much Olivia's have improved."
He made some prescription for her and sent her away; and then, turning to my aunt, he said, abruptly,—
"Madam, I am convinced that child does not tell the truth."
My aunt looked annoyed.
"I am aware that the heart of man it deceitful," said she; "but I hardly think Elmina could have imposed on me even if so disposed."
"I think you will find she has," answered the doctor. And so it proved.
Elmina and I usually went to bed at eight, unless on company nights, when we were allowed to sit up an hour longer. We usually left our candles burning; and when we were in bed, Phebe came and carried them away. Phebe, as well as the doctor, had suspicions about Elmina, and one night, instead of going directly down stairs, as usual, she quietly remained in the hall for half an hour, and then, suddenly opening the door of my aunt's room, she discovered Elmina reading in bed by the light of an end of sperm candle which she held in her hand. My aunt burned sperm candles in her drawing-room instead of wax, though she preferred the latter, because sperm candles were a New England manufacture; and there had lately been several altercations between Phebe and Jane concerning certain candle-ends which were not forthcoming.
The mystery was now explained. Elmina in her fright actually tried to hide the lighted candle in the bed, and but for Phebe's promptness and presence of mind she might have been burned to death. As it was, her hands and face were a good deal scorched; and if her sheets and night-gown had been of cotton instead of good solid linen, she would hardly have escaped.
My aunt was called directly, and made some suitable application to the burns, postponing all questions until the next day.
In the morning came Phebe with the news that Jane was missing.
"Reckon she thought it best to be out of the way," said Phebe, with a grim smile. "She knows what's good for herself. A good riddance, any way."
At first Elmina was sullenly silent under my aunt's questioning, but at last she confessed that she had bribed Jane to get her the books and hide the candles for her.
But how had she obtained the money? We each had sixpence a week for pocket-money. I had saved mine ever since I came to Boston that I might have something wherewith to buy presents when I went home, and my aunt did not disapprove of my doing so; but Elmina never had any beforehand. I was startled by the look in my aunt's face when she called me and asked me where my money was. "In a box in my drawer, Aunt Belinda," I replied. "Don't you remember the money-box you gave me?"
"Bring it to me," said my aunt.
I did so, rejoicing in my own mind at its weight.
"It feels very heavy," I ventured to say as I put it into my aunt's hand.
She poised it a moment, and then a sudden suspicion seemed to strike her.
"I must ask you to let me open this box and see what is in it, Olivia," said she.
The box had a lid with a slit in it which was fastened by a hasp and a little padlock. I produced the key, not at all unwilling to see my hoard displayed. My aunt unlocked and opened it, and turned the contents out on her lap. There was not a single silver piece in the box—not a bit of money of any kind except two English half-pennies. All the rest were bits of stone and pebbles.
I was utterly astounded, and my aunt turned absolutely white. It was plain I had been robbed, but by whom?
"When did you put the last money in your box?" asked my aunt.
"It was last Saturday," I answered. "Don't you remember you did not give me any money the week before, and last Saturday you gave me an English shilling—a new one with a hole in it?"
"True; so I did. How long is it since you opened the box?"
"Never since you gave it to me," I answered. "I meant to keep it a year."
"Where have you kept the key?" was the next question.
I told her in my work-box, tied to the key of my little writing-desk.
With all her strictness and system, my aunt was rather careless about money. She used to leave her purse on the table and in her work-box, and often forgot to lock her writing-desk. She now went to this writing-desk—it was a high, old-fashioned secretary—and opened a little drawer where I knew she kept a collection of gold and silver pieces, foreign and old coins most of them. She looked them over, closed the drawer, and returned to her seat paler than before.
"I have been robbed as well as yourself;" said she; "but I will repay your loss, Olivia."
"I don't think you ought, Aunt Belinda," I interrupted. "It wasn't your fault."
Now, an interruption was one of the worst sins in Aunt Belinda's calendar, and I expected a severe reproof as soon as the words were spoken, but I received only a very mild one:
"You should not interrupt me, Olivia. I say I will repay your loss. Meantime, I trust you will not mention this affair of the missing money to any one. I trust you, Olivia, because I believe you to be trustworthy. You have many faults, as all children have, but I have always found you perfectly truthful. God bless you, my child!"
These words and the kiss which went with them almost made amends for the loss of my money. I was allowed to read a little now, and Aunt Belinda told me I might take any book I pleased from the book-case by the fire-place and amuse myself with it for an hour. I chose "Hakluyt's Voyages," and opened to the story of the sailing and destruction of the Spanish Armada—one of the finest historical pieces I ever read—but I could hardly fix my attention on the narrative. I wondered whether Elmina had really taken the money, and if so what would be done to her. I wondered whether she would have been a better girl if she had been brought up by my mother instead of Aunt Belinda, and then I remembered how many naughty things I had done myself, and felt very much ashamed of them.
I had not read a great deal when the clock struck the hour, but I remembered Aunt Belinda's directions and put the book back on the shelf, locked the case, and, as Aunt Belinda had told me, I put the key into the drawer. I sat for some minutes looking out of the window, and then Phebe entered and called me to dinner. To my surprise, the table was set for me alone.
"My mistress has a bad headache and won't come down," said Phebe. "I have taken her some tea, and she says you can have a cup if you like."
Now, a cup of tea at dinner, unless we were ill, was an almost unheard-of indulgence.
"I hope Aunt Belinda isn't going to be sick," said I.
Phebe shook her head:
"I don't know. She feels dreadfully about this business. I never saw her so cut up about anything."
"Do you really think Elmina got the money?" I ventured to ask.
"There's no doubt about it," answered Phebe. "We searched her pocket, and there was your shilling and one of my mistress's silver pocket-pieces, and after that Elmina owned that she took them and gave them to Jane to buy her books and raisins and so on. But she says Jane got some of the money, and I think it very likely."
"What do you suppose has become of Jane?" I asked.
Jane was a slave; for there were slaves in New England in those days.
"I know what ought to become of her," said Phebe, grimly enough; "but I think it very likely mistress won't do anything—not even advertise her. You see she blames herself for putting temptation in her way by leaving her desk unlocked and her keys about; and I don't think it right myself, though I do say that folks who want to steal will steal, lock up as you may. It is all the worse in Jane because it shows such ingratitude. Jane lived with some horrid, low, wicked people that misused her dreadfully, and mistress bought her to save her out of their hands. She was only ten years old then, and she has lived here eight years, being taken care of and taught to read and sew, and everything; and now to turn out like this! It beats all how unlucky mistress is in bringing-up children, with all the pains she takes."
I had my own thoughts on this point; but if I had learned nothing else at Aunt Belinda's, I had acquired the art—and a very good one it is to acquire—of keeping my thoughts to myself.
CHAPTER XII.
ELMINA'S FORTUNE.
ELMINA stayed up stairs for a week and then resumed her place in the family and school-room. I had dreaded meeting her, thinking how ashamed and mortified she must be, but she did not seem so at first. She only looked hard and sullen. Aunt Belinda made her beg my pardon for the robbery, and she did so without any more apparent feeling than if she had been saying an ordinary lesson.
When we were left alone together, I felt very much embarrassed. I wanted to go on talking as usual, but I did not know where to begin.
"Well, don't you mean to speak to me?" asked Elmina, after a few minutes' silence. "I suppose you think yourself too nice and good to have anything to do with me, but I can tell you one thing: if you had grown-up as I have, you wouldn't be any better than I am—so there!"
I hardly knew what to answer to this.
Elmina continued, as if she found relief in talking: "Before I came here I just lived with the servants. Mother never had any time to see to me. She was always going into company and having company at home; sometimes I wouldn't see her more than once a day. Father was away most of the time. I don't know what he did; but when he was at home, he indulged me in everything I had a notion for. He used to say he had had enough of government for two, and he wouldn't have my spirit broken. I learned everything bad and nothing good in the kitchen and down at the quarters. Aunt Dinah taught me to say my prayers, to be sure, but father found it out, and he laughed at me, so I gave it up. Well, he was killed in a duel one day while mother had a young baby, and they told her so suddenly that the shock killed her too. Then it was found that mother's money was all gone—father never had any, I guess—and the house and the servants were sold, and Aunt Belinda came and brought me here; and I wish she had thrown me into the sea first."
Elmina said these words with a bitterness which I can't describe. She was silent a minute, and then added,—
"If I had had a father and mother like yours, maybe I should have been different; but as it is, I shall never be good for anything. I wish I was dead."
"You mustn't say so—it is very wicked," said I; "and you wouldn't be better off if you were. And besides that, Elmina, you can be good if you want to be, I know. Why don't you try?"
"Because there is no use in trying, I tell you," said she, almost fiercely. "I hate everything about it—Sunday and the Bible, and everything—and I don't much believe in it, either."
"Oh, Elmina, you can't hate the Lord, when he is so good," said I, horrified, but feeling more sorry for her than I had ever done before. "Just think how much he has done for us. And he will forgive you if you ask him. I am sure he will. You know he said we must forgive each other till seventy times seven, and he wouldn't do less than that himself. Do ask him, please. Oh, I am so sorry for you!"
"I do believe you are," said Elmina, looking at me with wonder, for I was crying. "Are you, really? Wasn't you glad to have me found out and punished?"
"No, indeed, I wasn't," I sobbed; "and I am truly just as sorry for you as I can be."
"I do believe you are," said Elmina, again, with tears glittering in her own hard black eyes—the first I had ever seen there. "Come, don't cry. You will make your eyes bad again. I'm sorry I got your money, and I'd pay you back if I had any."
"Aunt Belinda paid me," said I. "But please, Elmina, won't you try to be good?"
"Nobody cares whether I am good or not," said Elmina. "I'm not like you. You have got a father and mother; I haven't any one."
"I care," I answered, "and Aunt Belinda cares."
Elmina shook her head with a look of contemptuous unbelief.
"She does," I persisted. "Phebe told me she cried about you till she made herself sick, and she said she was afraid she had managed you badly, but she had meant it for the best, and she would give her right hand if only she could see you real sorry. I heard her say that myself."
"Why didn't she say so to me instead of being so hard and sharp, then?" said Elmina, relenting a little, as I thought.
"Well, I suppose she thought it wasn't the best way. Anyhow, Elmina, she did say so; and besides that," I added, reverently, "God cares, I know. Mother used to tell me so, and it is in the Bible. I can show you ever so many places. It says he gave his Son to die for us when we were sinners, and that he has no pleasure in having any one perish."
"Are you sure about that?" asked Elmira. "I don't remember any such verse."
"I can show you if you will let me," I answered, eagerly. "I found them all when I used to read the Bible with mother Saturday evenings. Oh, we used to have such nice times reading the Bible with mother."
"Then she used to read it with you—not for a punishment?" said Elmira.
"No, indeed; it was the greatest pleasure we had."
"Perhaps I should have liked it if I had read it in that way," said Elmina; "but here it seems just like any other lesson, only worse, because we have to learn it for a punishment. I don't believe any one ever 'could' like it, reading it as we do on Saturdays. But come, Olivia; if your eyes don't ache, let us take the Bible and find the verses you spoke of. It will pass away the time as well as anything."
The words were not very reverent, certainly, but I was delighted to have Elmina propose of her own accord to look at the Bible, and I was glad to find her disposed to be friendly, for I never could bear to keep up a quarrel with any one. We spent an hour looking over the Bible and finding different texts.
"If I thought he really did love me and want me to be good, I believe I would try," said Elmina, at last; "but it does not seem possible. And besides, it would make me feel so wicked. I should be ashamed."
"The thief on the cross wasn't ashamed," said I. "But won't you try?"
"There would be no use in it. Who would believe me, after all? They would think it was only pretence."
"But he wouldn't think so, because he knows all our thoughts and feelings a great deal better than we do ourselves," I persisted. "And I don't think aunt would, either. She would see after a little while that you meant it."
"Well, perhaps. Come, we ought to get ready for tea."
We went up stairs together. As we left the library, where we had been talking, and passed the open door of the drawing-room, I saw my aunt lying on the sofa by the folding-doors, and I wondered if she could have heard our conversation. I confess I hoped she had. I said nothing to Elmina, however.
When we parted at the door of my room, she kissed me.
"If you believe in praying, you may pray for me," said she. "Perhaps it will do me some good."
Now, my own prayers had lately been very much a matter of form, but I did not forget Elmina's request. I prayed that she might be made a good girl and learn to love the Bible instead of hating it. And I found, to my surprise, as I believe many Christians have found before and since, that the best way to put life into our prayers for ourselves is to intercede for others. I was led to see how I had myself forgotten my mother's lessons, how I had neglected to learn my verses, as I had promised to do, and how often I had forgotten my prayers or said them hastily and carelessly. I think that night's experience has done me good ever since.
Elmina's hand was still lame from the burns, and she needed help in dressing and undressing. That night Aunt Belinda went up stairs with her instead of Phebe, and I heard them talking for a long time. The next day, as we went down stairs to breakfast, Elmina said to me,—
"You were right, Olivia; Aunt Belinda does care. If she had always talked to me as she did last night, it would have been very different."
Certainly Elmina changed very much after this. She was far more gentle and pleasant with me; and though now and then the old teasing spirit would come up, it never stayed long. But she was very low spirited and unhappy. She could not believe that there was any use in her trying to be good after she had been wicked so long. She read the Bible a great deal, but she got very little comfort from it. Sometimes we read together, and then I used to point out all my favourite verses, but she would always shake her head and say they were not for her.
"They are for people who want to be good," she said one day.
"And don't you want to be good?" I asked.
She hesitated a little before she answered:
"I don't know. Sometimes I do and sometimes—I can't make you understand, Olivia, and I don't understand myself. I 'want' to wish to be good, and yet I don't. It seems to me as if my whole nature was against it—as if I should have to be made over altogether before I came to anything. And that can't be, you know."
"Who told you it couldn't?" asked Phebe.
She always went round as still as a cat, and had come into the room, without our seeing or hearing her, in time to hear Elmina's last remark.
"Nobody ever told me so, but I don't see how it can be," said Elmina.
"Neither did Nicodemus," replied Phebe. "He was a very learned man, I expect—as learned, maybe, as Mr. Otis or Mr. Adams; but when the Lord told him,—
"'Ye must be born again,' he said.
"'How can a man be born when he is old?' 'How can these things be?'
said he.
"And yet there is a way, though we don't understand how exactly it comes about—at least I don't. Let me take the book a minute."
She turned over to the fifty-first Psalm.
"See here, child; here's the prayer you need:
"'Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within
me.'
"That is what he'll do for you, child. He will change your whole mind and will and desires so that you'll love to please him and to do good to other folks. See here again in Second Corinthians iv. 17:
"'Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things
are passed away; behold, all things are become new.'"
Elmina looked as if she had received a perfectly new idea.
"If that could be—But how do I know that it means me?" said she. "How do I know that he will do it for me?"
"Because he says he will do it for everybody:
"'He will have all men to be saved.'
"A good man said once that he was in that state that if he had read in the Bible, 'This is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save John Nelson,' he would have thought it meant some other John Nelson, but because it said 'to save sinners' he knew it meant him. No, no, my dear! Don't ever think of doubting the mercy of your Father and your Saviour, whatever you do: you can't please the Lord better than by believing his word. I don't understand a good deal of the high doctrines the ministers preach here—I was brought up among the Moravians in Pennsylvania, where they don't make so much account of them—but I do know enough to read my Bible, and I don't find there that he ever turned any away that came to him."
Elmina did not answer except to say, "Thank you, Phebe."
After Phebe went out of the room, however, she turned to me: "Isn't she good? Just think how I used to plague her! And yet she has never given me an unkind word since—that time."
"God is a great deal better than she is," I ventured to say.
"Yes, I suppose so," she answered, thoughtfully; and that was the end of our conversation.
I noticed, however, that Elmina was a good deal more cheerful after this. She took great pains to please my aunt in everything, and Aunt Belinda, on her part, was very ready to be pleased. She had certainly relaxed her rule very much about that time. She sat with us a good deal, and not only exerted herself to tell us things which she thought would be entertaining, but she allowed, and even encouraged, us in talking to her and asking her questions—a thing never permitted under the old regime. Her "musts" and "must nots" were as imperative as ever,—they were matter of principle as well as of habit,—but were fewer in number, and a great many vexatious little rules were allowed to fall into disuse.
I think a good many changes grew out of the state of Elmina's health. She continued very delicate all through the early spring. The measles had left her with a hard, dry cough which was aggravated by the least cold or change in the weather. She grew thin and pale, and was tired out with a very little exertion. Doctor Warren said she ought to have a change of air, and my aunt was considering various plans for that purpose when a letter came from England which put them all aside.
I had learned already from Phebe that Elmina's father was an English officer who had fallen in love with and married her mother while a prisoner in Virginia—that he had been a very worthless kind of man at best, who had quarrelled with his own family and been cast off by them entirely after his marriage. It now appeared that Captain Vernon's only brother had kept his niece in sight all these years, and that he had by will left a large fortune to her on the condition that she should return to England and be educated there till she was of age, after which she was at liberty to reside where she pleased. I did not of course understand all the details of the business, but this was the amount of it: Elmina was to be sent to England under the charge of some competent person, and my aunt was to receive a fit compensation for the care and expense she had bestowed on the child.
I don't know how it happened that I was present at the interview between my aunt and the English lawyer in which this last point was brought up, but I was, and I shall never forget how my aunt drew herself up as she said,—
"When I ask for compensation, it will be time for Mr. Vernon to offer it. I took my first husband's niece out of a sense of duty and from motives of compassion when she had no other refuge, and when her father's family absolutely refused to have any charge of her. I am willing to resign her to them if it seems to be for her good, but any talk of compensation I must regard as nothing less than insulting under the circumstances."
The Englishman looked embarrassed and glanced at Mr. Otis, who was my aunt's lawyer, but Mr. Otis only rubbed his glasses on the great white silk handkerchief he always carried, and could give no help. But he was a very courtly, accomplished gentleman, this English lawyer, and got out of the scrape very well.
"It was an awkward way of putting the matter, madam, I admit," said he. "So far as the care and protection go which you have so kindly afforded to this young lady, it must be evident that no money can even begin to pay for them. In fact, they are not to be valued in money at all. But I presume—indeed, I may say that I know—my late esteemed client Mr. Richard Vernon felt that both himself and his late father were to blame in neglecting Miss Vernon and allowing the whole expense of her maintenance and education to fall upon her mother's family, and he wished to assume his share of the same, however late. I did not myself draw up the will, or I should have suggested putting the matter in a less exceptionable shape."
My aunt accepted the apology graciously enough, but she steadily refused to receive the money, and I believe the matter was dropped. The two gentlemen were often at our house after that, and my aunt invited a very distinguished party to meet Mr. Wyndham; that was the lawyer's name. The Vice-president happened to be in town with his wife on a short visit, and he came with the rest. I don't know but that the young men of the present day will grow up to be as distinguished in appearance and conversation as the circle of gentlemen I used to see at my aunt's house in those days, but I doubt it. They will certainly have to mend their manners—a good many of them at least—if they are ever as polite.
It was settled that Elmina was to go to England and be placed in a certain famous school near London; and then arose the question who was to go with her. Her health was failing every day, and she needed continual care. At last Mr. Wyndham asked my aunt herself to accompany Elmina and see her settled. My aunt hesitated. She liked the idea of seeing England once more, and she did not like to have Elmina make the voyage in the care of a servant or of any one who did not understand her. The house could be shut up and left in charge of Phyllis, as it had been before, but what was to be done with me?
"I wish Olivia could go with us," said Elmina, one day when we were talking the matter over with Phebe; "I shouldn't mind it half so much."
"My mistress would like to take her, I know," answered Phebe, "but she wouldn't want to do so without asking her pa and ma; and you see there isn't time for that, it takes so long to hear from Vermont."
"Does Aunt Belinda really want to have me go?" I asked, very much pleased.
"Yes, indeed. She says it would do you good; and besides that, she wants your company. I don't see how you are ever to be spared to go home, Miss Olivia. I never saw Mrs. Evans set so much by any child—not by her own step-daughters—as she does by you."
"Why don't my cousins ever come to see their mother?" I ventured to ask.
Phebe shook her head, and put her finger on her lip.
"You mustn't never say anything to my mistress about her step-daughters," said she; "and little girls mustn't ask questions, either. However, I don't mind telling you that for all the pains she took with their education—nursing 'em in the small-pox and everything—they didn't turn out very well. One of 'em ran away and married a miserable fellow who had been an actor in the theatre when the British were here. She went to England, and used to write to her ma for money sometimes, but we haven't heard anything of her in several years. I believe one reason why my mistress wants to go to England is that she thinks she may get some news of the poor thing. And the other daughter, she went to visit some of her father's relations in Baltimore at the close of the war, and there she turned papist and made herself a nun and gave all her money to the convent. It was a dreadful blow to my mistress."
"It was queer that she should want to go into a convent, of all things," said I. "I should think she might have had enough of rules."
"I guess she didn't know very well what she did want," returned Phebe. "But about Miss Olivia's going to England: my mistress would like to take her, I know, especially as I can't go."
"Why can't you go?" asked Elmina.
"Oh, I've got to stay and keep house. Phyllis, she wants to get married again—more fool she, not to know when she's well off!—and mistress doesn't like to leave the house alone."
No more was said on this subject except between Elmina and myself.
Elmina disliked the idea of going to England. She felt a kind of resentment, not wholly unnatural, I think, against her father's family for having neglected her so long, and she had lately grown very fond of Aunt Belinda. My lively imagination built endless castles in the air on the subject, and my mind was divided between the wish to go with my aunt and my hope of being sent to make a visit at home.
One day, to my great and joyful surprise, the matter was settled. My father walked in upon us.
At first I thought something dreadful must have happened at home, but I was soon reassured. They were all well, father said; mother's health had improved by the change, and she was better than she had been for years. Jeanne was teaching school in the village, and liked it. The children were well and happy, and the farm was going on finely. But this was not all. Father had recovered a debt of some thousands of dollars—that was about the amount, though we had not begun to reckon much by dollars and cents at that time—which he had never expected to see again. It was business connected with this which had brought him to Boston; but the matter was all settled, and on the strength of it, Ezra was going to college at last. Not, however, to Harvard, as I was sorry to hear, but to Dartmouth, in New Hampshire, which was nearer home, and where all my uncles were educated. They had all sent me letters and presents, which were in father's trunk.
Aunt Belinda made father very welcome, and was much pleased with the bear-skin which Ezra sent for her carriage and the flounce Jeanne had worked for her. Father was a very polite, well-bred man, with a soldierly air and manner, and I was proud to see how well he appeared. I was especially delighted when, on Aunt Belinda's remarking that she used to be very fond of riding, father invited her to ride with him. Phebe got out and brushed up my aunt's scarlet cloth habit trimmed with blue, and her tall beaver hat. Father was always a splendid figure on horseback, and my aunt also rode very well, so it was with great pride and pleasure that we watched them from the door. They were gone a long time; and when Aunt Belinda came home, she remarked that she felt quite young again.
That evening I spent alone with my father in the library.
"Aunt Belinda tells me she wants to take you abroad with her," said he.
My heart began to beat very fast.
"Has she said anything to you about it?"
"Phebe told me," said I; "and Elmina wants me to go."
"Yes, I dare say, poor little thing!" said my father. "It is hard for her to have to go away among strangers. Well, Aunt Belinda says it will be a great comfort for her to have you along, and a great advantage to you in the way of education and seeing the world, and so on. I don't know about that. My own opinion is that an American education is good enough for American girls, though it is well enough to see the world when one has a chance. But Aunt Belinda has been very kind and liberal in the matter of your education, and we owe her something for that; and so, as she really desires your company, I think I shall let you go—that is, if you wish to do so."
I did not know what to say.
"Aunt Belinda proposes, if you do not go with her, to leave you at boarding-school here in Boston," continued my father. "I could take you home for the time, but the journey is long and hard, and it, might not be so easy for you to come back. But what do 'you' say? Are you afraid of the sea?"
"No, indeed, father," I answered, very truly; "and if I can't go home, I would much rather go with Aunt Belinda than stay here at boarding-school. But what will mother say?"
"Of course mother would rather you should be at home with her than anywhere else," answered my father, "but she thinks your education is the principal thing just now; and as I said, we owe something to Aunt Belinda for her kindness. She seems a very fine, good lady, and rides better than any woman I ever saw except my mother."
"A fine lady" and "a fine gentleman" were words of praise in those days, though afterward they came to be terms of reproach.
Well, the matter was talked over and over, and at last it was decided that I should go to England with Aunt Belinda. She expected to be away for some months at least—perhaps all winter. My father stayed nearly a fortnight in Boston and its neighbourhood, and went away loaded with presents for the dear ones at home.
My aunt's dress-maker, Miss Jane Wallace, came to stay in the house, with another sewing-woman, and everybody was in a hustle of preparation, for we were to go in a fortnight. Never did any time pass more slowly to me than this fortnight.
CHAPTER XIII.
NEW SCENES.
THE fortnight came to an end, as all fortnights do, and the appointed day saw us on board the good ship "Speedwell" dropping rapidly down the bay with the tide, our party, consisting of Mr. Wyndham, the English lawyer, who was Elmina's guardian, Aunt Belinda, Elmina, and myself, being the only passengers. A voyage across the ocean was a greater event in those days than it is now. Three weeks was the shortest time in which it could be performed, and it not uncommonly consumed five or six. We made great provision for our own private table of biscuits, gingerbread, plum-cake, and so forth, with sundry bottles of wine and brandy. It is curious to me, as I look back at those times, to see how entirely wine and spirits were considered necessaries of life. My aunt always had decanters of brandy, West India rum, and Jamaica standing on her side-board, of which all gentleman visitors partook as a matter of course. She had some famous Madeira, which Mr. Wyndham declared to be the very best he had ever tasted, and she had presented him with a case of the same to carry home. But this is by the way.
I said our party were standing on the deck, but they did not remain there long. The wind blew fresh; and when we reached the outer harbour, and the ship began to feel the motion, to lift her head to the waves and drop again, my aunt and Elmina speedily became too sick to stand, and betook themselves to their berths in the little cramped-up state-room below. I was not sick in the least, and would have enjoyed staying on deck, but of course it was my place to wait on my aunt and Elmina. Our accommodations were no more like those even of the second cabin in an ocean steamer nowadays than a log shanty is like my aunt's drawing-room. However, my aunt, who had made the voyage several times, said they were the nicest she had ever seen, and we were content to make the best of them.
My aunt never complained, and was very kind and considerate to me, often sending me on deck in the care of the captain's wife "to refresh myself with the inhalation of the fresh air, and with such exercise as the confined space afforded," she said; for Aunt Belinda's conversational style was by no means at the mercy of such trifling enemies as winds and waves.
Mrs. Clarkson was very kind to me. She was one of the most agreeable women I ever met in my life. She had been three times married, always to sailors, and had been more than once around the world, and she had a wonderful faculty of describing what she had seen. I remember she had once been shipwrecked on New Holland, as Australia was then called, where she had all sorts of wonderful adventures, and came near being eaten up by cannibals. She declared it was a beautiful country, and would some time become a great nation. I remember that she was very much interested in the subject of foreign missions—a subject on which the American Church was just beginning to wake up. I enjoyed her society very much, but I always found Elmina so low spirited when I returned to her, and so certain that she should never live to see England, that I did not like to leave her long at a time.
After a while, however, matters improved.
My aunt and Elmina so far recovered from their sea-sickness as to be able to come on deck. Mr. Wyndham also appeared again, and resumed his animated political discussions with my aunt on the future prospects of the United States. Mr. Wyndham was quite certain that the independence of the new republic could not last, that so many discordant elements could not possibly be harmonized—that, as he expressed it, the conglomeration would fall apart by its own weight, and its elements would either go to utter destruction or be saved only by seeking the protection of that country which they had disowned. I have lived to hear similar prophecies once or twice since that day.
My aunt, who was very patriotic, and also very well informed on all political subjects, held her own very well in these discussions, and also kept her temper, which was more than Elmina and I could do. Of course we took no part in the conversation, for it was a fundamental principle of good manners in those days—and I must say one that had its advantages—that in the company of their elders little girls were to be seen and not heard; but we relieved our minds when we were alone together.
"And just to think," said Elmina one day, "that I have got to live with English people and hear just such talk for seven long years! I don't care. I will come back to America the very minute I am of age, and bring all Uncle Richard Vernon's money and plate, and everything, with me, and give it to the United States to buy ships of war with; and then see!"
I highly approved this patriotic resolve of Elmina's, but suggested that she would want some of the property to live on.
"Well, anyhow, I will give a thousand dollars," said Elmina; "and the ship shall be called the Olivia."
My aunt had many letters of introduction to ladies and gentlemen in England, both English and American. She proposed, after seeing Elmina settled in her new home, to spend some time in London, that I might take music and drawing-lessons, since, as she said, I might never have such another opportunity.
Travelling on the Continent was now out of the question even if my aunt had desired it, but I don't think she did. She said, however, that she should like to have me see the Alps, and perhaps we might visit Switzerland before our return if public affairs should become more settled.
"Yes, you will be having all the nice times travelling about with Aunt Belinda and living with her in London," grumbled Elmina, "while I shall be shut up in the country with a stupid governess whom I shall dislike—I know I shall."
"Perhaps she won't be stupid; and if she is, you needn't dislike her," said I, sententiously. "We ought not to dislike people because they are stupid. You used to think you would give anything to get away from Aunt Belinda."
"Aunt Belinda was very different then, and so was I," answered Elmina, to which I agreed.
"But just think of living in a beautiful country-house all your own," said I, "with a carriage and horses and a beautiful library and green-house, and everything such as one reads about in 'Evelina' and 'Cecilia.'"
"I never read 'Evelina' and 'Cecilia,' but I don't care a pin about all these fine things," answered Elmina; and I really don't think she did. "I mean to make an American flag and keep it hung up in my room over my picture of Washington all the time. And I 'won't' ever be an English girl!" said Elmina, vehemently. "I will be a Yankee girl just as long as I live; and the very minute I get to be twenty-one, I mean to take all my property and get on a ship and come home."
I applauded these sentiments, and we spent a long time telling each other what we meant to do when we were grown-up. I told Elmina for the first time of my favourite castle in the air—the boarding-school for young ladies which I meant to establish, and which I was never tired of thinking about.
Elmina did not altogether sympathize with me in this pet scheme. She could not imagine why anybody could want to keep a school, but she promised to buy me some nice books and pictures and a pair of globes like those we had once seen at one of the professor's houses in Cambridge. Also she meant to find all the poor little girls who had no mothers to take care of them, and send them to the to school. We used to amuse ourselves for hours with these plans for the future. I don't think they did us any harm. Certainly they were very unselfish, for the most part, however unpractical they might have been, since they were all intended for the benefit of our fellow-creatures. I have learned since then that it is by no means so easy to do good to people as those imagine who have never tried. I don't suppose, for example, that all the good influences in Boonville would make Lucinda Bell take decent care of her children, for all the dreadful warning she had in the death of her two oldest girls by the explosion of kerosene. She has had help enough and good counsel enough, if that is all, but I am afraid she will be nothing better than a scold and a slattern to the end of her days.
Our voyage went on very much like any other sea-voyage. We had very good weather, for the most part. We slept as much as we possibly could, and ate twice as much as usual, partly from idleness, partly because the air made us hungry. I had brought along books enough to last out the voyage, as I thought, only I read them every one through the first week, and had done the same by every volume on board by the second. My aunt and Mr. Wyndham played chess and discussed French; English, and American politics; with theological arguments Mr. Wyndham would have nothing to do. Elmina and I walked on the deck, and built our castles in the air, anal made friends with the captain's cat and with a pet goat who went where she liked, was a great favourite with all on board, and learned of the mate how to tie all sorts of curious knots such as sailors use about ship. Once or twice we had a heavy blow which made all the rest sick and gave me plenty of work in waiting on them, for, oddly enough, I never was sick at all.
"Little Miss Evans is sure to get on in life wherever she is," I heard the captain say once to my aunt. "She never misses learning everything that comes in her way. She knows the ropes pretty well already, and can make as neat a splice as many an old sailor. I have had plenty of lady passengers who never learned to know the difference between stem and stern, and didn't want to."
And indeed it was true that I had always a great thirst for knowledge of every sort, and I don't know that I ever acquired any which I have not some time found useful, from the studies I pursued with my aunt down to such little accomplishments as the making of paper flowers and filigree frames.
One joyful afternoon land was seen, and the captain promised to land us at Bristol, which was to be our port, in the course of forty-eight hours, if the weather held good.
"But there's just the p'int, you see," continued Captain Coffin, squinting up at the sky. "It looks a little like dirty weather; and if it comes on to blow from the north-east, it is a chance. However, we won't borrow trouble. Time enough when it comes."