Her tortures were unendurable. To relieve them she hastened to her desk, and wrote these words:—
“Dearest Leon, forgive me; let the past be forever forgotten. Return to your Anielka. She always has been, ever will be yours.”
She despatched the missive. Was it too late? or would it bring him back? In the latter hope she retired to her chamber, to execute a little project.
Leon was in despair. He saw he had been premature in so soon declaring his passion after the news of his wife’s death, and vowed he would not see Anielka again for several months. To calm his agitation, he had ridden some miles into the country. When he returned to his hotel after some hours, he found her note. With the wild delight it had darted into his soul, he flew back to her.
On regaining her saloon a new and terrible vicissitude seemed to sport with his passion:—she was nowhere to be seen. Had the Italian cantatrice fled? Again he was in despair; stupefied with disappointment. As he stood uncertain how to act in the midst of the floor, he heard, as from a distance, an Ave Maria poured forth in tones he half-recognized. The sounds brought back to him a host of recollections; a weeping serf, the garden of his own palace. In a state of new rapture he followed the voice. He traced it to an inner chamber, and he there beheld the lovely singer kneeling in the costume of a Polish serf. She rose, greeted Leon with a touching smile, and stepped forward with serious bashfulness. Leon extended his arms; she sank into them; and in that fond embrace all past wrongs and sorrows were forgotten! Anielka drew from her bosom a little purse, and took from it a piece of silver. It was the rouble. Now, Leon did not smile at it. He comprehended the sacredness of this little gift; and some tears of repentance fell upon Anielka’s hand.
A few months after, Leon wrote to the steward of Olgogrod to prepare everything splendidly for the reception of his second wife. He concluded his letter with these words:—“I understand that in the dungeon beneath my palace there are some unfortunate men, who were imprisoned during my father’s lifetime. Let them be instantly liberated. This is my first act of gratitude to God, who has so infinitely blessed me!”
Anielka longed ardently to behold her native land. They left Vienna immediately after the wedding, although it was in the middle of January.
It was already quite dark when the carriage, with its four horses, stopped in front of the portico of the palace of Olgogrod. Whilst the footman was opening the door on one side, a beggar soliciting alms appeared at the other, where Anielka was seated. Happy to perform a good action, as she crossed the threshold of her new home, she gave him some money; but the man, instead of thanking her, returned her bounty with a savage laugh, at the same time scowling at her in the fiercest manner from beneath his thick and shaggy brows. The strangeness of this circumstance sensibly affected Anielka, and clouded her happiness. Leon soothed and re-assured her. In the arms of her beloved husband, she forgot all but the happiness of being the idol of his affections.
Fatigue and excitement made the night most welcome. All was dark and silent around the palace, and some hours of the night had passed, when suddenly flames burst forth from several parts of the building at once. The palace was enveloped in fire; it raged furiously. The flames mounted higher and higher; the windows cracked with a fearful sound, and the smoke penetrated into the most remote apartments.
A single figure of a man was seen stealing over the snow, which lay like a winding-sheet on the solitary waste; his cautious steps were heard on the frozen snow as it crisped beneath his tread. It was the beggar who had accosted Anielka. On a rising ground, he turned to gaze on the terrible scene. “No more unfortunate wretches will now be doomed to pass their lives in your dungeons,” he exclaimed. “What was my crime? Reminding my master of the lowness of his birth. For this they tore me from my only child—my darling little Anielka; they had no pity even for her orphan state; let them perish all!”
Suddenly a young and beautiful creature rushes wildly to one of the principal windows: she makes a violent effort to escape. For a moment her lovely form, clothed in white, shines in terrible relief against the background of blazing curtains and walls of fire, and as instantly sinks back into the blazing element. Behind her is another figure, vainly endeavoring to aid her,—he perishes also; neither are ever seen again!
This appalling tragedy horrified even the perpetrator of the crime. He rushed from the place; and as he heard the crash of the falling walls, he closed his ears with his hands, and darted on faster and faster.
The next day some peasants discovered the body of a man frozen to death, lying on a heap of snow,—it was that of the wretched incendiary. Providence, mindful of his long, of his cruel imprisonment and sufferings, spared him the anguish of knowing that the mistress of the palace he had destroyed, and who perished in the flames, was his own beloved daughter—the Serf of Pobereze!
I AM fond of Gardening. I like to dig. If among the operations of the garden any need for such a work can be at any time discovered or invented, I like to dig a hole.
On the 3d of March, 1849, I began a hole behind the kitchen wall, whereinto it was originally intended to transplant a plum tree. The exercise was so much to my taste, that a strange humor impelled me to dig on. A fascination held me to the task. I neglected my business. I disappeared from the earth’s surface. A boy who worked a basket by means of a rope and pulley, aided me; so aided, I confined my whole attention to spade labor. The centripetal force seemed to have made me its especial victim. I dug on until Autumn. In the beginning of November I observed that, upon percussion, the sound given by the floor of my pit was resonant. I did not intermit my labor, urged as I was by a mysterious instinct downwards. On applying my ear, I occasionally heard a subdued sort of rattle, which caused me to form a theory that the centre of the earth might be composed of mucus. In November, the ground broke beneath me into a hollow, and I fell a considerable distance. I alighted on the box-seat of a four-horse coach, which happened to be running at that time immediately underneath. The coachman took no notice whatever of my sudden arrival by his side. He was so completely muffled up, that I could observe only the skilful way in which he manipulated reins and whip. The horses were yellow. I had seen no more than this, when the guard’s horn blew, and presently we pulled up at an inn. A waiter came out, and appeared to collect four bags from the passengers inside the coach. He then came round to me.
“Dine here, Sir?”
“Yes, certainly,” said I. I like to dine—not the sole point of resemblance between myself and the great Johnson.
“Trouble you for your stomach, Sir.”
While the waiter was looking up with a polite stare into my puzzled face, my neighbor, the coachman, put one hand within his outer coat, as if to feel for money in his waistcoat pocket. Directly afterwards his fingers came again to light, and pulled forth an enormous sack. Notwithstanding that it was abnormally enlarged, I knew by observation of its form and texture that this was a stomach, with the œsophagus attached. This, then, the waiter caught as it was thrown down to him, and hung it carelessly over his arm, together with the four smaller bags (which I now knew to be also stomachs) collected from the passengers within the coach. I started up, and as I happened to look round, observed a skeleton face upon the shoulders of a gentleman who sat immediately behind my back. My own features were noticed at the same time by the guard, who now came forward touching his hat.
“Beg your pardon, Sir, but you’ve been and done it.”
“Done what?”
“Why, Sir, you should have booked your place, and not come up in this clandestine way. However, you’ve been and done it!”
“My good man, what have I done?”
“Why, Sir, the Baron Terroro’s eyes had the box seat, and I strongly suspect you’ve been and sat upon them.”
I looked involuntarily to see whether I had been sitting upon anything except the simple cushion. Truly enough, there was an eye, which I had crushed and flattened.
“Only one,” I said.
“Worse for you, and better for him. The other eye had time to escape, and it will know you again, that’s certain. Well, it’s no business of mine. Of course you’ve no appetite now for dinner? Better pay your fare, Sir. To the Green Hippopotamus and Spectacles, where we put up, it’s ten-and-six.”
“Is there room inside?” I inquired. It was advisable to shrink from observation.
“Yes, Sir. The inside passengers are mostly skeleton. There’s room for three, Sir. Inside, one-pound-one.”
I paid the money, and became an inside passenger.
Professor Essig’s Lectures on Anatomy had so fortified me, that I did not shrink from entering the Skitzton coach. It contained living limbs, loose or attached to skeletons in other respects bare, except that they were clothed with broadcloth garments, cut after the English fashion. One passenger only had a complete face of flesh, he had also one living hand; the other hand I guessed was bony, because it was concealed in a glove obviously padded. By observing the fit of his clothes, I came to a conclusion that this gentleman was stuffed throughout; that all his limbs, except the head and hand, were artificial. Two pair of Legs, in woollen stockings, and a pair of Ears, were in a corner of the coach, and in another corner there were nineteen or twenty Scalps.
I thought it well to look astonished at nothing, and, having pointed in a careless manner to the scalps, asked what might be their destination? The person with the Face and Hand replied to me; and although evidently himself a gentleman, he addressed me with a tone of unconcealed respect.
“They are going to Skitzton, Sir, to the hairdresser’s.”
“Yes, to be sure,” I said. “They are to make Natural Skin Wigs. I might have known.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir. There is a ball to-morrow night at Culmsey. But the gentry do not like to employ village barbers, and therefore many of the better class of people send their hair to Skitzton, and receive it back by the return coach properly cut and curled.”
“Oh,” said I. “Ah! Oh, indeed!”
“Dinners, gentlemen!” said a voice at the window, and the waiter handed in four stomachs, now tolerably well filled. Each passenger received his property, and pulling open his chest with as much composure as if he were unbuttoning his waistcoat, restored his stomach, with a dinner in it, to the right position. Then the reckonings were paid, and the coach started.
I thought of my garden, and much wished that somebody could throw Professor Essig down the hole that I had dug. A few things were to be met with in Skitzland which would rather puzzle him. They puzzled me; but I took refuge in silence, and so fortified, protected my ignorance from an exposure.
“You are going to court, Sir, I presume?” said my Face and Hand friend, after a short pause. His was the only mouth in the coach, excepting mine, so that he was the only passenger able to enter into conversation.
“My dear Sir,” I replied, “let me be frank with you. I have arrived here unexpectedly out of another world. Of the manners and customs, nay, of the very nature of the people who inhabit this country, I know nothing. For any information you can give me, I shall be very grateful.”
My friend smiled incredulity, and said,
“Whatever you are pleased to profess, I will believe. What you are pleased to feign a wish for, I am proud to furnish. In Skitzland, the inhabitants, until they come of age, retain that illustrious appearance which you have been so fortunate as never to have lost. During the night of his twenty-first birthday, each Skitzlander loses the limbs which up to that period have received from him no care, no education. Of those neglected parts the skeletons alone remain, but all those organs which he has employed sufficiently continue unimpaired. I, for example, devoted to the study of the law, forgot all occupation but to think, to use my senses, and to write. I rarely used my legs, and therefore Nature has deprived me of them.”
“But,” I observed, “it seems that in Skitzland you are able to take yourselves to pieces.”
“No one has that power more largely than yourself. What organs we have we can detach on any service. When dispersed, a simple force of Nature directs all corresponding members whither to fly that they may re-assemble.”
“If they can fly,” I asked, “why are they sent in coaches? There were a pair of eyes on the box-seat.”
“Simply for safety against accidents. Eyes flying alone are likely to be seized by birds, and incur many dangers. They are sent, therefore, usually under protection, like any other valuable parcel.”
“Do many accidents occur?”
“Very few. For mutual protection, and also because a single member is often all that has been left existing of a fellow Skitzlander, our laws, as you, Sir, know much better than myself, estimate the destruction of any part absent on duty from its skeleton as a crime equivalent to murder——”
After this I held my tongue. Presently my friend again inquired whether I was going up to Court?
“Why should I go to Court?”
“Oh, Sir, it pleases you to be facetious. You must be aware that any Skitzlander who has been left by Nature in possession of every limb, sits in the Assembly of the Perfect, or the Upper House, and receives many State emoluments and dignities.”
“Are there many members of that Upper Assembly?”
“Sir, there were forty-two. But if you are now travelling to claim your seat, the number will be raised to forty-three.”
“The Baron Terroro—” I hinted.
“My brother, Sir. His eyes are on the box-seat under my care. Undoubtedly he is a Member of the Upper House.”
I was now anxious to get out of the coach as soon as possible. My wish was fulfilled after the next pause. One Eye, followed by six Pairs of Arms, with strong hard Hands belonging to them, flew in at the window. I was collared; the door was opened, and all hands were at work to drag me out and away. The twelve Hands whisked me through the air, while the one Eye sailed before us, like an old bird, leader of the flight.
What sort of sky have they in Skitzland? Our earth overarches them, and, as the sun-light filters through, it causes a subdued illumination with very pure rays. Skitzland is situated nearly in the centre of our globe, it hangs there like a shrunken kernel in the middle of a nutshell. The height from Skitzland to the over-arching canopy is great; so great, that if I had not fallen personally from above the firmament, I should have considered it to be a blue sky similar to ours. At night it is quite dark; but during the day there is an appearance in the Heaven of white spots; their glistening reminded me of stars. I noticed them as I was being conveyed to prison by the strong arms of justice, for it was by a detachment of members from the Skitzton Police that I was now hurried along. The air was very warm, and corroborated the common observation of an increase of heat as you get into the pith of our planet. The theory of Central Fire, however, is, you perceive, quite overturned by my experience.
We alighted near the outskirts of a large and busy town. Through its streets I was dragged publicly, much stared at, and much staring. The street life was one busy nightmare of disjointed limbs. Professor Essig, could he have been dragged through Skitzton, would have delivered his farewell lecture upon his return. “Gentlemen, Fuit Ilium—Fuit Ischium—Fuit Sacrum—Anatomy has lost her seat among the sciences. My occupation’s gone.” Professor Owen’s Book “On the Nature of Limbs,” must contain, in the next edition, an Appendix “Upon Limbs in Skitzland.” I was dragged through the streets, and all that I saw there, in the present age of little faith, I dare not tell you. I was dragged through the streets to prison and there duly chained, after having been subjected to the scrutiny of about fifty couples of eyes drawn up in a line within the prison door. I was chained in a dark cell, a cell so dark that I could very faintly perceive the figure of some being who was my companion. Whether this individual had ears wherewith to hear, and mouth wherewith to answer me, I could not see, but at a venture I addressed him. My thirst for information was unconquerable; I began, therefore, immediately with a question:
“Friend, what are those stars which we see shining in the sky at mid-day?”
An awful groan being an unsatisfactory reply, I asked again.
“Man, do not mock at misery. You will yourself be one of them.”
‘The Teachers shall shine like Stars in the Firmament.’ I have a propensity for teaching, but was puzzled to discover how I could give so practical an illustration of the text of Fichte.
“Believe me,” I said, “I am strangely ignorant. Explain yourself.”
He answered with a hollow voice:
“Murderers are shot up out of mortars into the sky, and stick there. Those white, glistening specks, they are their skeletons.”
Justice is prompt in Skitzland. I was tried incredibly fast by a jury of twelve men who had absolutely heads. The judges had nothing but brain, mouth, and ear. Three powerful tongues defended me, but as they were not suffered to talk nonsense, they had little to say. The whole case was too clear to be talked into cloudiness. Baron Terroro, in person, deposed, that he had sent his eyes to see a friend in Culmsey, and that they were returning on the Skitzton coach, when I, illegally, came with my whole bulk upon the box-seat, which he occupied. That one of his eyes was, in that manner, totally destroyed, but that the other eye, having escaped, identified me, and brought to his brain intelligence of the calamity which had befallen. He deposed further, that having received this information, he despatched his uncrushed eye with arms from the police-office, and accompanied with several members of the detective force, to capture the offender, and to procure the full proofs of my crime. A sub-inspector of Skitzton Police then deposed that he sent three of his faculties, with his mouth, eye, and ear, to meet the coach. That the driver, consisting only of a stomach and hands, had been unable to observe what passed. That the guard, on the contrary, had taxed me with my deed, that he had seen me rise from my seat upon the murdered eye, and that he had heard me make confession of my guilt. The guard was brought next into court, and told his tale. Then I was called upon for my defence. If a man wearing a cloth coat and trousers, and talking excellent English, were to plead at the Old Bailey that he had broken into some citizen’s premises accidentally by falling from the moon, his tale would be received in London as mine was in Skitzton. I was severely reprimanded for my levity, and ordered to be silent. The Judge summed up and the Jury found me Guilty. The Judge who had put on the black cap before the verdict was pronounced, held out no hope of mercy, and straightway sentenced me to Death, according to the laws and usage of the Realm.
The period which intervenes between the sentence and execution of a criminal in Skitzland, is not longer than three hours. In order to increase the terror of death by contrast, the condemned man is suffered to taste at the table of life from which he is banished, the most luscious viands. All the attainable enjoyment that his wit can ask for, he is allowed to have, during the three hours before he is shot, like rubbish, off the fields of Skitzland.
Under guard, of course, I was now to be led whithersoever I desired.
Several churches were open. They never are all shut in Skitzton. I was taken into one. A man with heart and life was preaching. People with hearts were in some pews; people with brains, in others; people with ears only, in some. In a neighboring church there was a popular preacher, a skeleton with life. His congregation was a crowd of ears, and nothing more.
There was a day-performance at the Opera. I went to that. Fine lungs and mouths possessed the stage, and afterwards there was a great bewilderment with legs. I was surprised to notice that many of the most beautiful ladies were carried in and out, and lifted about like dolls. My guides sneered at my pretence of ignorance, when I asked why this was. But they were bound to please me in all practicable ways, so they informed me, although somewhat pettishly. It seems that in Skitzland, ladies who possess and have cultivated only their good looks, lose at the age of twenty-one, all other endowments. So they become literally dolls, but dolls of a superior kind; for they can not only open and shut their eyes, but also sigh; wag slowly with their heads, and sometimes take a pocket-handkerchief out of a bag, and drop it. But as their limbs are powerless, they have to be lifted and dragged about after the fashion that excited my astonishment.
I said then, “Let me see the Poor.” They took me to a Workhouse. The men, there, were all yellow; and they wore a dress which looked as though it were composed of asphalte; it had also a smell like that of pitch. I asked for explanation of these things.
A Superintendent of Police remarked that I was losing opportunities of real enjoyment for the idle purpose of persisting in my fable of having dropped down from the sky. However, I compelled him to explain to me what was the reason of these things. The information I obtained was chiefly this:—that Nature, in Skitzland, never removes the stomach. Every man has to feed himself; and the necessity for finding food, joined to the necessity for buying clothes, is a mainspring whereby the whole clockwork of civilized life is kept in motion. Now, if a man positively cannot feed and clothe himself, he becomes a pauper. He then goes to the Workhouse, where he has his stomach filled with a cement. That stopping lasts a life-time, and he thereafter needs no food. His body, however, becomes yellow by the superfluity of bile. The yellow-boy, which is the Skitzland epithet for pauper, is at the same time provided with a suit of clothes. The clothes are of a material so tough that they can be worn unimpaired for more than eighty years. The pauper is now freed from care, but were he in this state cast loose upon society, since he has not that stimulus to labor which excites industry in other men, he would become an element of danger in the state. Nature no longer compelling him to work, the law compels him. The remainder of his life is forfeit to the uses of his country. He labors at the workhouse, costing nothing more than the expense of lodging, after the first inconsiderable outlay for cement wherewith to plug his stomach, and for the one suit of apparel.
When we came out of the workhouse, all the bells in the town were tolling. The Superintendent told me that I had sadly frittered away time, for I had now no more than half an hour to live. Upon that I leaned my back against a post, and asked him to prepare me for my part in the impending ceremony by giving me a little information on the subject of executions.
I found that it was usual for a man to be executed with great ceremony upon the spot whereon his crime had been committed. That in case of rebellions or tumults in the provinces, when large numbers were not unfrequently condemned to death, the sentence of the law was carried out in the chief towns of the disturbed districts. That large numbers of people were thus sometimes discharged from a single market-place, and that the repeated strokes appeared to shake, or crack, or pierce in some degree that portion of the sky towards which the artillery had been directed. I here at once saw that I had discovered the true cause of earthquakes and volcanoes; and this shows how great light may be thrown upon theories concerning the hidden constitution of this earth, by going more deeply into the matter of it than had been done by any one before I dug my hole. Our volcanoes, it is now proved, are situated over the market-places of various provincial towns in Skitzland. When a revolution happens, the rebels are shot up,—discharged from mortars by means of an explosive material evidently far more powerful than our gunpowder, or gun-cotton; and they are pulverized by the friction in grinding their way through the earth. How simple and easy truth appears, when we have once arrived at it.
The sound of muffled drums approached us, and a long procession turned the corner of a street. I was placed in the middle of it,—Baron Terroro by my side. All then began to float so rapidly away, that I was nearly left alone, when forty arms came back and collared me. It was considered to be a proof of my refractory disposition, that I would make no use of my innate power of flight. I was therefore dragged in this procession swiftly through the air, drums playing, fifes lamenting.
We alighted on the spot where I had fallen, and the hole through which I had come I saw above me. It was very small, but the light from above shining more vividly through it made it look, with its rough edges, like a crumpled moon. A quantity of some explosive liquid was poured into a large mortar, which had been erected (under the eye of Baron Terroro) exactly where my misfortune happened. I was then thrust in, the Baron ramming me down, and pounding with a long stock or pestle upon my head in a noticeably vicious manner. The Baron then cried “Fire!” and as I shot out, in the midst of a blaze, I saw him looking upward.
By great good fortune, they had planted their artillery so well, that I was fired up through my hole again, and alighted in my own garden, just a little singed. My first thought was to run to an adjoining bed of vegetable marrows. Thirty vegetable marrows and two pumpkins I rained down to astonish the Skitzlanders, and I fervently hope that one of them may have knocked out the remaining eye of my vindictive enemy, the Baron. I then went into the pantry, and obtained a basket full of eggs, and having rained these down upon the Skitzlanders, I left them.
It was after breakfast when I went down to Skitzland, and I came back while the dinner bell was ringing.
WHEN Death is present in a household on a Christmas Day, the very contrast between the time as it now is, and the day as it has often been, gives a poignancy to sorrow,—a more utter blankness to the desolation. James Leigh died just as the far-away bells of Rochdale Church were ringing for morning service on Christmas Day, 1836. A few minutes before his death he opened his already glazing eyes, and made a faint motion of his lips, that he had yet something to say. She stooped close down, and caught the broken whisper, “I forgive her, Anne! May God forgive me.”
“Oh my love, my dear! only get well, and I will never cease showing my thanks for those words. May God in heaven bless thee for saying them. Thou’rt not so restless, my lad! may be—Oh God!”
For even while she spoke, he died.
They had been two-and-twenty years man and wife; for nineteen of those years their life had been as calm and happy, as the most perfect uprightness on the one side, and the most complete confidence and loving submission on the other, could make it. Milton’s famous line might have been framed and hung up as the rule of their married life, for he was truly the interpreter, who stood between God and her; she would have considered herself wicked if she had ever dared even to think him austere, though as certainly as he was an upright man, so surely was he hard, stern, and inflexible. But for three years the moan and the murmur had never been out of her heart; she had rebelled against her husband as against a tyrant, with a hidden sullen rebellion, which tore up the old land-marks of wifely duty and affection, and poisoned the fountains whence gentlest love and reverence had been forever springing.
But those last blessed words replaced him on his throne in her heart, and called out penitent anguish for all the bitter estrangement of later years. It was this which made her refuse all the entreaties of her sons, that she would see the kind-hearted neighbors, who called on their way from church, to sympathize and condole. No! she would stay with the dead husband that had spoken tenderly at last, if for three years he had kept silence; who knew but what, if she had only been more gentle and less angrily reserved he might have relented earlier—and in time.
She sat rocking herself to and fro by the side of the bed, while the footsteps below went in and out; she had been in sorrow too long to have any violent burst of deep grief now; the furrows were well worn in her cheeks, and the tears flowed quietly, if incessantly, all the day long. But when the winter’s night drew on, and the neighbors had gone away to their homes, she stole to the window, and gazed out, long and wistfully, over the dark gray moors. She did not hear her son’s voice, as he spoke to her from the door, nor his footstep as he drew nearer. She started when he touched her.
“Mother! come down to us. There’s no one but Will and me. Dearest mother, we do so want you.” The poor lad’s voice trembled, and he began to cry. It appeared to require an effort on Mrs. Leigh’s part to tear herself away from the window, but with a sigh she complied with his request.
The two boys (for though Will was nearly twenty-one, she still thought of him as a lad) had done everything in their power to make the house-place comfortable for her. She herself, in the old days before her sorrow, had never made a brighter fire or a cleaner hearth, ready for her husband’s return home, than now awaited her. The tea-things were all put out, and the kettle was boiling; and the boys had calmed their grief down into a kind of sober cheerfulness. They paid her every attention they could think of, but received little notice on her part; she did not resist—she rather submitted to all their arrangements; but they did not seem to touch her heart.
When the tea was ended,—it was merely the form of tea that had been gone through,—Will moved the things away to the dresser. His mother leant back languidly in her chair.
“Mother, shall Tom read you a chapter? He’s a better scholar than I.”
“Aye, lad!” said she, almost eagerly. “That’s it. Read me the Prodigal Son. Aye, aye, lad. Thank thee.”
Tom found the chapter, and read it in the high-pitched voice which is customary in village-schools. His mother bent forward, her lips parted, her eyes dilated; her whole body instinct with eager attention. Will sat with his head depressed, and hung down. He knew why that chapter had been chosen; and to him it recalled the family’s disgrace. When the reading was ended, he still hung down his head in gloomy silence. But her face was brighter than it had been before for the day. Her eyes looked dreamy, as if she saw a vision; and by-and-bye she pulled the Bible towards her, and putting her finger underneath each word, began to read them aloud in a low voice to herself; she read again the words of bitter sorrow and deep humiliation; but most of all she paused and brightened over the father’s tender reception of the repentant prodigal.
So passed the Christmas evening in the Upclose Farm.
The snow had fallen heavily over the dark waving moorland, before the day of the funeral. The black, storm-laden dome of heaven lay very still and close upon the white earth, as they carried the body forth out of the house which had known his presence so long as its ruling power. Two and two the mourners followed, making a black procession, in their winding march over the unbeaten snow, to Milne-Row Church—now lost in some hollow of the bleak moors, now slowly climbing the heavy ascents. There was no long tarrying after the funeral, for many of the neighbors who accompanied the body to the grave had far to go, and the great white flakes which came slowly down, were the boding fore-runners of a heavy storm. One old friend alone accompanied the widow and her sons to their home.
The Upclose Farm had belonged for generations to the Leighs; and yet its possession hardly raised them above the rank of laborers. There was the house and outbuildings, all of an old-fashioned kind, and about seven acres of barren, unproductive land, which they had never possessed capital enough to improve; indeed they could hardly rely upon it for subsistence; and it had been customary to bring up the sons to some trade—such as a wheelwright’s, or blacksmith’s.
James Leigh had left a will, in the possession of the old man who accompanied them home. He read it aloud. James had bequeathed the farm to his faithful wife, Anne Leigh, for her life-time, and afterwards to his son William. The hundred and odd-pounds in the savings-bank was to accumulate for Thomas.
After the reading was ended, Anne Leigh sat silent for a time; and then she asked to speak to Samuel Orme alone. The sons went into the back-kitchen, and thence strolled out into the fields regardless of the driving snow. The brothers were dearly fond of each other, although they were very different in character. Will, the elder, was like his father, stern, reserved, scrupulously upright. Tom (who was ten years younger) was gentle and delicate as a girl, both in appearance and character. He had always clung to his mother, and dreaded his father. They did not speak as they walked, for they were only in the habit of talking about facts, and hardly knew the more sophisticated language applied to the description of feelings.
Meanwhile their mother had taken hold of Samuel Orme’s arm with her trembling hand.
“Samuel, I must let the farm—I must.”
“Let the farm! What’s come o’er the woman?”
“Oh, Samuel!” said she, her eyes swimming in tears, “I’m just fain to go and live in Manchester. I mun let the farm.”
Samuel looked, and pondered, but did not speak for some time. At last he said—
“If thou hast made up thy mind, there’s no speaking again it; and thou must e’en go. Thou’lt be sadly pottered wi’ Manchester ways, but that’s not my look out. Why, thou’lt have to buy potatoes, a thing thou hast never done afore in all thy born life. Well! it’s not my look out. It’s rather for me than again me. Our Jenny is going to be married to Tom Higginbotham, and he was speaking of wanting a bit of land to begin upon. His father will be dying sometime, I reckon, and then he’ll step into the Croft Farm. But meanwhile”—
“Then, thou’lt let the farm,” said she, still as eagerly as ever.
“Aye, aye, he’ll take it fast enough, I’ve a notion. But I’ll not drive a bargain with thee just now; it would not be right; we’ll wait a bit.”
“No; I cannot wait, settle it out at once.”
“Well, well; I’ll speak to Will about it. I see him out yonder. I’ll step to him, and talk it over.”
Accordingly he went and joined the two lads, and without more ado, began the subject to them.
“Will, thy mother is fain to go live in Manchester, and covets to let the farm. Now, I’m willing to take it for Tom Higginbotham; but I like to drive a keen bargain, and there would be no fun chaffering with thy mother just now. Let thee and me buckle to, my lad! and try and cheat each other; it will warm us this cold day.”
“Let the farm!” said both the lads at once, with infinite surprise. “Go live in Manchester!”
When Samuel Orme found that the plan had never before been named to either Will or Tom, he would have nothing to do with it, he said, until they had spoken to their mother; likely she was “dazed” by her husband’s death; he would wait a day or two, and not name it to any one; not to Tom Higginbotham himself, or may be he would set his heart upon it. The lads had better go in and talk it over with their mother. He bade them good day, and left them.
Will looked very gloomy, but he did not speak till they got near the house. Then he said,—
“Tom, go to th’ shippon, and supper the cows. I want to speak to mother alone.”
When he entered the house-place, she was sitting before the fire, looking into its embers. She did not hear him come in; for some time she had lost her quick perception of outward things.
“Mother! what’s this about going to Manchester?” asked he.
“Oh, lad!” said she, turning round and speaking in a beseeching tone, “I must go and seek our Lizzie. I cannot rest here for thinking on her. Many’s the time I’ve left thy father sleeping in bed, and stole to th’ window, and looked and looked my heart out towards Manchester, till I thought I must just set out and tramp over moor and moss straight away till I got there, and then lift up every downcast face till I came to our Lizzie. And often, when the south wind was blowing soft among the hollows, I’ve fancied (it could but be fancy, thou knowest) I heard her crying upon me; and I’ve thought the voice came closer and closer, till at last it was sobbing out ‘Mother’ close to the door; and I’ve stolen down, and undone the latch before now, and looked out into the still black night, thinking to see her,—and turned sick and sorrowful when I heard no living sound but the sough of the wind dying away. Oh! speak not to me of stopping here, when she may be perishing for hunger, like the poor lad in the parable.” And now she lifted up her voice and wept aloud.
Will was deeply grieved. He had been old enough to be told the family shame when, more than two years before, his father had had his letter to his daughter returned by her mistress in Manchester, telling him that Lizzie had left her service some time—and why. He had sympathized with his father’s stern anger; though he had thought him something hard, it is true, when he had forbidden his weeping, heart-broken wife to go and try to find her poor sinning child, and declared that henceforth they would have no daughter that she should be as one dead, and her name never more be named at market or at meal time, in blessing or in prayer. He had held his peace, with compressed lips and contracted brow, when the neighbors had noticed to him how poor Lizzie’s death had aged both his father and his mother; and how they thought the bereaved couple would never hold up their heads again. He himself had felt as if that one event had made him old before his time; and had envied Tom the tears he had shed over poor, pretty, innocent, dead Lizzie. He thought about her sometimes, till he ground his teeth, and could have struck her down in her shame. His mother had never named her to him until now.
“Mother!” said he at last. “She may be dead. Most likely she is.”
“No, Will; she is not dead,” said Mrs. Leigh. “God will not let her die till I’ve seen her once again. Thou dost not know how I’ve prayed and prayed just once again to see her sweet face, and tell her I’ve forgiven her, though she’s broken my heart—she has, Will.” She could not go on for a minute or two for the choking sobs. “Thou dost not know that, or thou wouldst not say she could be dead,—for God is very merciful, Will; He is,—He is much more pitiful than man,—I could never ha’ spoken to thy father as I did to Him,—and yet thy father forgave her at last. The last words he said were that he forgave her. Thou’lt not be harder than thy father, Will? Do not try and hinder me going to seek her, for it’s no use.”
Will sat very still for a long time before he spoke. At last he said, “I’ll not hinder you. I think she’s dead, but that’s no matter.”
“She is not dead,” said her mother, with low earnestness. Will took no notice of the interruption.
“We will all go to Manchester for a twelve-month, and let the farm to Tom Higginbotham. I’ll get blacksmith’s work; and Tom can have good schooling for awhile, which he’s always craving for. At the end of the year you’ll come back, mother, and give over fretting for Lizzie, and think with me that she is dead,—and, to my mind, that would be more comfort than to think of her living;” he dropped his voice as he spoke these last words. She shook her head, but made no answer. He asked again,—
“Will you, mother, agree to this?”
“I’ll agree to it a-this-ns,” said she. “If I hear and see nought of her for a twelve-month, me being in Manchester looking out, I’ll just ha’ broken my heart fairly before the year’s ended, and then I shall know neither love nor sorrow for her any more, when I’m at rest in the grave—I’ll agree to that, Will.”
“Well, I suppose it must be so. I shall not tell Tom, mother, why we’re flitting to Manchester. Best spare him.”
“As thou wilt,” said she, sadly, “so that we go, that’s all.”
Before the wild daffodils were in flower in the sheltered copses round Upclose Farm, the Leighs were settled in their Manchester home; if they could ever grow to consider that place as a home where there was no garden, or outbuilding, no fresh breezy outlet, no far-stretching view, over moor and hollow,—no dumb animals to be tended, and, what more than all they missed, no old haunting memories, even though those remembrances told of sorrow, and the dead and gone.
Mrs. Leigh heeded the loss of all these things less than her sons. She had more spirit in her countenance than she had had for months, because now she had hope; of a sad enough kind, to be sure, but still it was hope. She performed all her household duties, strange and complicated as they were, and bewildered as she was with all the town-necessities of her new manner of life; but when her house was “sided,” and the boys come home from their work, in the evening, she would put on her things and steal out, unnoticed, as she thought, but not without many a heavy sigh from Will, after she had closed the house-door and departed. It was often past midnight before she came back, pale and weary, with almost a guilty look upon her face; but that face so full of disappointment and hope deferred, that Will had never the heart to say what he thought of the folly and hopelessness of the search. Night after night it was renewed, till days grew to weeks and weeks to months. All this time Will did his duty towards her as well as he could, without having sympathy with her. He staid at home in the evenings for Tom’s sake, and often wished he had Tom’s pleasure in reading, for the time hung heavy on his hands, as he sat up for his mother.
I need not tell you how the mother spent the weary hours. And yet I will tell you something. She used to wander out, at first as if without a purpose, till she rallied her thoughts, and brought all her energies to bear on the one point; then she went with earnest patience along the least known ways to some new part of the town, looking wistfully with dumb entreaty into people’s faces; sometimes catching a glimpse of a figure which had a kind of momentary likeness to her child’s, and following that figure with never-wearying perseverance, till some light from shop or lamp showed the cold strange face which was not her daughter’s. Once or twice a kind-hearted passer-by, struck by her look of yearning woe, turned back and offered help, or asked her what she wanted. When so spoken to, she answered only, “You don’t know a poor girl they call Lizzie Leigh, do you?” and when they denied all knowledge, she shook her head, and went on again. I think they believed her to be crazy. But she never spoke first to any one. She sometimes took a few minutes’ rest on the door-steps, and sometimes (very seldom) covered her face and cried; but she could not afford to lose time and chances in this way; while her eyes were blinded with tears, the lost one might pass by unseen.
One evening, in the rich time of shortening autumn-days, Will saw an old man, who, without being absolutely drunk, could not guide himself rightly along the foot-path, and was mocked for his unsteadiness of gait by the idle boys of the neighborhood. For his father’s sake Will regarded old age with tenderness, even when most degraded and removed from the stern virtues which dignified that father; so he took the old man home, and seemed to believe his often-repeated assertions that he drank nothing but water. The stranger tried to stiffen himself up into steadiness as he drew nearer home, as if there were some one there, for whose respect he cared even in his half-intoxicated state, or whose feelings he feared to grieve. His home was exquisitely clean and neat even in outside appearance; threshold, window, and windowsill, were outward signs of some spirit of purity within. Will was regarded for his attention by a bright glance of thanks, succeeded by a blush of shame, from a young woman of twenty or thereabouts. She did not speak, or second her father’s hospitable invitations to him to be seated. She seemed unwilling that a stranger should witness her father’s attempts at stately sobriety, and Will could not bear to stay and see her distress. But when the old man, with many a flabby shake of the hand, kept asking him to come again some other evening and see them, Will sought her down-cast eyes, and, though he could not read their veiled meaning, he answered timidly, “If it’s agreeable to everybody, I’ll come—and thank ye.” But there was no answer from the girl, to whom this speech was in reality addressed; and Will left the house liking her all the better for never speaking.
He thought about her a great deal for the next day or two; he scolded himself for being so foolish as to think of her, and then fell to with fresh vigor, and thought of her more than ever. He tried to depreciate her; and told himself she was not pretty, and then made indignant answer that he liked her looks much better than any beauty of them all. He wished he was not so country looking, so red-faced, so broad-shouldered; while she was like a lady, with her smooth colorless complexion, her bright dark hair and her spotless dress. Pretty, or not pretty, she drew his footsteps towards her; he could not resist the impulse that made him wish to see her once more, and find out some fault which should unloose his heart from her unconscious keeping. But there she was, pure and maidenly as before. He sat and looked, answering her father at cross-purposes, while she drew more and more into the shadow of the chimney-corner out of sight. Then the spirit that possessed him (it was not he himself, sure, that did so impudent a thing!) made him get up and carry the candle to a different place, under the pretence of giving her more light at her sewing, but, in reality, to be able to see her better; she could not stand this much longer, but jumped up, and said she must put her little niece to bed; and surely, there never was, before or since, so troublesome a child of two years old; for, though Will staid an hour and a half longer, she never came down again. He won the father’s heart, though, by his capacity as a listener, for some people are not at all particular, and, so that they may talk on undisturbed, are not so unreasonable as to expect attention to what they say.
Will did gather this much, however, from the old man’s talk. He had once been quite in a genteel line of business, but had failed for more money than any greengrocer he had heard of; at least, any who did not mix up fish and game with greengrocery proper. This grand failure seemed to have been the event of his life, and one on which he dwelt with a strange kind of pride. It appeared as if at present he rested from his past exertions (in the bankrupt line), and depended on his daughter, who kept a small school for very young children. But all these particulars Will only remembered and understood, when he had left the house; at the time he heard them, he was thinking of Susan. After he had made good his footing at Mr. Palmer’s, he was not long, you may be sure, without finding some reason for returning again and again. He listened to her father, he talked to the little niece, but he looked at Susan, both while he listened and while he talked. Her father kept on insisting upon his former gentility, the details of which would have appeared very questionable to Will’s mind, if the sweet, delicate, modest Susan had not thrown an inexplicable air of refinement over all she came near. She never spoke much; she was generally diligently at work; but when she moved it was so noiselessly, and when she did speak, it was in so low and soft a voice, that silence, speech, motion and stillness, alike seemed to remove her high above Will’s reach into some saintly and inaccessible air of glory—high above his reach; even as she knew him! And, if she were made acquainted with the dark secret behind, of his sister’s shame, which was kept ever present to his mind by his mother’s nightly search among the outcast and forsaken, would not Susan shrink away from him with loathing as if he were tainted by the involuntary relationship? This was his dread; and thereupon followed a resolution that he would withdraw from her sweet company before it was too late. So he resisted internal temptation, and staid at home, and suffered and sighed. He became angry with his mother for her untiring patience in seeking for one who, he could not help hoping, was dead rather than alive. He spoke sharply to her, and received only such sad deprecatory answers as made him reproach himself, and still more lose sight of peace of mind. This struggle could not last long without affecting his health; and Tom, his sole companion through the long evenings, noticed his increasing languor, his restless irritability, with perplexed anxiety, and at last resolved to call his mother’s attention to his brother’s haggard, care-worn looks. She listened with a startled recollection of Will’s claims upon her love. She noticed his decreasing appetite, and half-checked sighs.
“Will, lad! what’s come o’er thee?” said she to him, as he sat listlessly gazing into the fire.
“There’s nought the matter with me,” said he, as if annoyed at her remark.
“Nay, lad, but there is.” He did not speak again to contradict her; indeed she did not know if he had heard her, so unmoved did he look.
“Would’st like to go back to Upclose Farm?” asked she, sorrowfully.
“It’s just blackberrying time,” said Tom.
Will shook his head. She looked at him awhile, as if trying to read that expression of despondency and trace it back to its source.
“Will and Tom could go,” said she; “I must stay here till I’ve found her, thou know’st,” continued she, dropping her voice.
He turned quickly round, and with the authority he had at all times exercised over Tom, bade him begone to bed.
When Tom had left the room he prepared to speak.
“Mother,” then said Will, “why will you keep on thinking she’s alive? If she were but dead, we need never name her name again. We’ve never heard nought on her since father wrote her that letter; we never knew whether she got it or not. She’d left her place before then. Many a one dies is——”
“Oh my lad! dunnot speak so to me, or my heart will break outright,” said his mother, with a sort of cry. Then she calmed herself, for she yearned to persuade him to her own belief. “Thou never asked, and thou’rt too like thy father for me to tell without asking—but it were all to be near Lizzie’s old place that I settled down on this side o’ Manchester; and the very day after we came, I went to her old misses, and asked to speak a word wi’ her. I had a strong mind to cast it up to her, that she should ha’ sent my poor lass away without telling on it to us first; but she were in black, and looked so sad I could na’ find in my heart to threep it up. But I did ask her a bit about our Lizzie. The master would have turned her away at a day’s warning, (he’s gone to t’other place; I hope he’ll meet wi’ more mercy there than he showed our Lizzie,—I do,—) and when the missus asked her should she write to us, she says Lizzie shook her head; and when she speered at her again, the poor lass went down on her knees, and begged her not, for she said it would break my heart, (as it has done, Will—God knows it has),” said the poor mother, choking with her struggle to keep down her hard overmastering grief, “and her father would curse her—Oh God, teach me to be patient.” She could not speak for a few minutes,—“and the lass threatened, and said she’d go drown herself in the canal, if the missus wrote home,—and so—
“Well! I’d got a trace of my child,—the missus thought she’d gone to th’ workhouse to be nursed; and there I went,—and there, sure enough, she had been,—and they’d turned her out as soon as she were strong, and told her she were young enough to work,—but whatten kind o’ work would be open to her, lad, and her baby to keep?”
Will listened to his mother’s tale with deep sympathy, not unmixed with the old bitter shame. But the opening of her heart had unlocked his, and after awhile he spoke.
“Mother! I think I’d e’en better go home. Tom can stay wi’ thee. I know I should stay too, but I cannot stay in peace so near—her—without craving to see her—Susan Palmer I mean.”
“Has the old Mr. Palmer thou telled me on a daughter?” asked Mrs. Leigh.
“Aye, he has. And I love her above a bit. And it’s because I love her I want to leave Manchester. That’s all.”
Mrs. Leigh tried to understand this speech for some time, but found it difficult of interpretation.
“Why should’st thou not tell her thou lov’st her? Thou’rt a likely lad, and sure o’ work. Thou’lt have Upclose at my death; and as for that I could let thee have it now, and keep mysel’ by doing a bit of charring. It seems to me a very backwards sort o’ way of winning her to think of leaving Manchester.”
“Oh mother, she’s so gentle and so good,—she’s downright holy. She’s never known a touch of sin; and can I ask her to marry me knowing what we do about Lizzie, and fearing worse! I doubt if one like her could ever care for me; but if she knew about my sister, it would put a gulf between us, and she’d shudder at the thought of crossing it. You don’t know how good she is, mother!”
“Will, Will! if she’s as good as thou say’st, she’ll have pity on such as my Lizzie. If she has no pity for such, she’s a cruel Pharisee, and thou’rt best without her.”
But he only shook his head, and sighed; and for the time the conversation dropped.
But a new idea sprang up in Mrs. Leigh’s head. She thought that she would go and see Susan Palmer, and speak up for Will, and tell her the truth about Lizzie; and according to her pity for the poor sinner, would she be worthy or unworthy of him. She resolved to go the very next afternoon, but without telling any one of her plan. Accordingly she looked out the Sunday clothes she had never before had the heart to unpack since she came to Manchester, but which she now desired to appear in, in order to do credit to Will. She put on her old-fashioned black mode bonnet, trimmed with real lace; her scarlet cloth cloak, which she had had ever since she was married, and always spotlessly clean, she set forth on her unauthorized embassy. She knew the Palmers lived in Crown Street, though where she had heard it she could not tell; and modestly asking her way, she arrived in the street about a quarter to four o’clock. She stopped to inquire the exact number, and the woman whom she addressed told her that Susan Palmer’s school would not be loose till four, and asked her to step in and wait until then at her house.
“For,” said she, smiling, “them that wants Susan Palmer wants a kind friend of ours; so we, in a manner, call cousins. Sit down, missus, sit down. I’ll wipe the chair, so that it shanna dirty your cloak. My mother used to wear them bright cloaks, and they’re right gradely things agin a green field.”
“Han ye known Susan Palmer long?” asked Mrs. Leigh, pleased with the admiration of her cloak.
“Ever since they comed to live in our street. Our Sally goes to her school.”
“Whatten sort of a lass is she, for I ha’ never seen her?”
“Well,—as for looks, I cannot say. It’s so long since I first knowed her, that I’ve clean forgotten what I thought of her then. My master says he never saw such a smile for gladdening the heart. But maybe it’s not looks you’re asking about. The best thing I can say of her looks is, that she’s just one a stranger would stop in the street to ask help from if you needed it. All the little childer creeps as close as they can to her; she’ll have as many as three or four hanging to her apron all at once.”
“Is she cocket at all?”
“Cocket, bless you! you never saw a creature less set up in all your life. Her father’s cocket enough. No! she ’s not cocket any way. You’ve not heard much of Susan Palmer, I reckon, if you think she’s cocket. She’s just one to come quietly in, and do the very thing most wanted; little things, maybe, that any one could do, but that few would think on, for another. She’ll bring her thimble wi’ her, and mend up after the childer o’ nights,—and she writes all Betty Barker’s letters to her grandchild out at service,—and she’s in nobody’s way, and that’s a great matter, I take it. Here’s the childer running past! School is loosed. You’ll find her now, missus, ready to hear and to help. But we none on us frab her by going near her in school-time.”
Poor Mrs. Leigh’s heart began to beat, and she could almost have turned round and gone home again. Her country breeding had made her shy of strangers, and this Susan Palmer appeared to her like a real born lady by all accounts. So she knocked with a timid feeling at the indicated door, and when it was opened, dropped a simple curtsey without speaking. Susan had her little niece in her arms, curled up with fond endearment against her breast, but she put her gently down to the ground, and instantly placed a chair in the best corner of the room for Mrs. Leigh, when she told her who she was. “It’s not Will as has asked me to come,” said the mother, apologetically, “I’d a wish just to speak to you myself!”
Susan colored up to her temples, and stooped to pick up the little toddling girl. In a minute or two Mrs. Leigh began again.
“Will thinks you would na respect us if you knew all; but I think you could na help feeling for us in the sorrow God has put upon us; so I just put on my bonnet, and came off unknownst to the lads. Every one says you’re very good, and that the Lord has keeped you from falling from his ways; but maybe you’ve never yet been tried and tempted as some is. I’m perhaps speaking too plain, but my heart’s welly broken, and I can’t be choice in my words as them who are happy can. Well now! I’ll tell you the truth. Will dreads you to hear it, but I’ll just tell it you. You mun know,”—but here the poor woman’s words failed her, and she could do nothing but sit rocking herself backwards and forwards, with sad eyes, straight-gazing into Susan’s face, as if they tried to tell the tale of agony which the quivering lips refused to utter. Those wretched stony eyes forced the tears down Susan’s cheeks, and, as if this sympathy gave the mother strength, she went on in a low voice, “I had a daughter once, my heart’s darling. Her father thought I made too much on her, and that she’d grow marred staying at home; so he said she mun go among strangers, and learn to rough it. She were young, and liked the thought of seeing a bit of the world; and her father heard on a place in Manchester. Well! I’ll not weary you. That poor girl were led astray; and first thing we heard on it, was when a letter of her father’s was sent back by her missus, saying she’d left her place, or, to speak right, the master had turned her into the street soon as he had heard of her condition—and she not seventeen!”
She now cried aloud; and Susan wept too. The little child looked up into their faces, and, catching their sorrow, began to whimper and wail. Susan took it softly up, and hiding her face in its little neck, tried to restrain her tears, and think of comfort for the mother. At last she said:
“Where is she now?”
“Lass! I dunnot know,” said Mrs. Leigh, checking her sobs to communicate this addition to her distress. “Mrs. Lomax telled me she went”—
“Mrs. Lomax—what Mrs. Lomax?”
“Her as lives in Brabazon-street. She telled me my poor wench went to the workhouse fra there. I’ll not speak again the dead; but if her father would but ha’ letten me,—but he were one who had no notion—no, I’ll not say that; best say nought. He forgave her on his death-bed. I dare say I did na go th’ right way to work.”
“Will you hold the child for me one instant?” said Susan.
“Ay, if it will come to me. Childer used to be fond on me till I got the sad look on my face that scares them, I think.”
But the little girl clung to Susan; so she carried it upstairs with her. Mrs. Leigh sat by herself—how long she did not know.
Susan came down with a bundle of far-worn baby-clothes.
“You must listen to me a bit, and not think too much about what I’m going to tell you. Nanny is not my niece, nor any kin to me that I know of. I used to go out working by the day. One night, as I came home, I thought some woman was following me; I turned to look. The woman, before I could see her face (for she turned it to one side), offered me something. I held out my arms by instinct: she dropped a bundle into them with a bursting sob that went straight to my heart. It was a baby. I looked round again; but the woman was gone. She had run away as quick as lightning. There was a little packet of clothes—very few—and as if they were made out of its mother’s gowns, for they were large patterns to buy for a baby. I was always fond of babies; and I had not my wits about me, father says; for it was very cold, and when I’d seen as well as I could (for it was past ten) that there was no one in the street, I brought it in and warmed it. Father was very angry when he came, and said he’d take it to the workhouse the next morning, and flyted me sadly about it. But when morning came I could not bear to part with it; it had slept in my arms all night; and I’ve heard what workhouse bringing up is. So I told father I’d give up going out working, and stay at home and keep school, if I might only keep the baby; and after awhile, he said if I earned enough for him to have his comforts, he’d let me; but he’s never taken to her. Now, don’t tremble so,—I’ve but a little more to tell,—and maybe I’m wrong in telling it; but I used to work next door to Mrs. Lomax’s, in Brabazon-street, and the servants were all thick together; and I heard about Bessy (they called her) being sent away. I don’t know that ever I saw her; but the time would be about fitting to this child’s age, and I’ve sometimes fancied it was her’s. And now, will you look at the little clothes that came with her—bless her!”
But Mrs. Leigh had fainted. The strange joy and shame, and gushing love for the little child had overpowered her; it was some time before Susan could bring her round. There she was all trembling, sick impatience to look at the little frocks. Among them was a slip of paper which Susan had forgotten to name, that had been pinned to the bundle. On it was scrawled in a round stiff hand.
“Call her Anne. She does not cry much, and takes a deal of notice. God bless you and forgive me.”
The writing was no clue at all; the name “Anne,” common though it was, seemed something to build upon. But Mrs. Leigh recognized one of the frocks instantly, as being made out of part of a gown that she and her daughter had bought together in Rochdale.
She stood up, and stretched out her hands in the attitude of blessing over Susan’s bent head.
“God bless you, and show you His mercy in your need, as you have shown it to this little child.”
She took the little creature in her arms, and smoothed away her sad looks to a smile, and kissed it fondly, saying over and over again, “Nanny, Nanny, my little Nanny.” At last the child was soothed, and looked in her face and smiled back again.
“It has her eyes,” said she to Susan.
“I never saw her to the best of my knowledge. I think it must be her’s by the frock. But where can she be?”
“God knows,” said Mrs. Leigh; “I dare not think she’s dead. I’m sure she isn’t.”
“No! she’s not dead. Every now and then a little packet is thrust under our door, with maybe two half-crowns in it; once it was a half-sovereign. Altogether I’ve got seven-and-thirty shillings wrapped up for Nanny. I never touch it, but I’ve often thought the poor mother feels near to God when she brings this money. Father wanted to set the policeman to watch, but I said No, for I was afraid if she was watched she might not come, and it seemed such a holy thing to be checking her in, I could not find in my heart to do it.”
“Oh, if we could but find her! I’d take her in my arms, and we’d just lie down and die together.”
“Nay, don’t speak so!” said Susan gently, “for all that’s come and gone, she may turn right at last. Mary Magdalen did, you know.”
“Eh! but I were nearer right about thee than Will. He thought you would never look on him again if you knew about Lizzie. But thou’rt not a Pharisee.”
“I’m sorry he thought I could be so hard,” said Susan in a low voice, and coloring up. Then Mrs. Leigh was alarmed, and in her motherly anxiety, she began to fear lest she had injured Will in Susan’s estimation.
“You see Will thinks so much of you—gold would not be good enough for you to walk on, in his eye. He said you’d never look at him as he was, let alone his being brother to my poor wench. He loves you so, it makes him think meanly on everything belonging to himself, as not fit to come near ye,—but he’s a good lad, and a good son—thou’lt be a happy woman if thou’lt have him—so don’t let my words go against him; don’t!”
But Susan hung her head and made no answer. She had not known until now, that Will thought so earnestly and seriously about her; and even now she felt afraid that Mrs. Leigh’s words promised her too much happiness, and that they could not be true. At any rate the instinct of modesty made her shrink from saying anything which might seem like a confession of her own feelings to a third person. Accordingly she turned the conversation on the child.
“I’m sure he could not help loving Nanny,” said she. “There never was such a good little darling; don’t you think she’d win his heart if he knew she was his niece, and perhaps bring him to think kindly on his sister?”
“I dunnot know,” said Mrs. Leigh, shaking her head. “He has a turn in his eye like his father, that makes me——. He’s right down good though. But you see I’ve never been a good one at managing folk; one severe look turns me sick, and then I say just the wrong thing, I’m so fluttered. Now I should like nothing better than to take Nancy home with me, but Tom knows nothing but that his sister is dead, and I’ve not the knack of speaking rightly to Will. I dare not do it, and that’s the truth. But you mun not think badly of Will. He’s so good hissel’, that he can’t understand how any one can do wrong; and, above all, I’m sure he loves you dearly.”
“I don’t think I could part with Nancy,” said Susan, anxious to stop this revelation of Will’s attachment to herself. “He’ll come round to her soon; he can’t fail; and I’ll keep a sharp lookout after the poor mother, and try and catch her the next time she comes with her little parcels of money.”
“Aye, lass! we mun get hold of her; my Lizzie. I love thee dearly for thy kindness to her child; but, if thou can’st catch her for me, I’ll pray for thee when I’m too near my death to speak words; and while I live, I’ll serve thee next to her,—she mun come first, thou know’st. God bless thee, lass. My heart is lighter by a deal than it was when I comed in. Them lads will be looking for me home, and I mun go, and leave this little sweet one,” kissing it. “If I can take courage, I’ll tell Will all that has come and gone between us two. He may come and see thee, mayn’t he?”
“Father will be very glad to see him, I’m sure,” replied Susan. The way in which this was spoken satisfied Mrs. Leigh’s anxious heart that she had done Will no harm by what she had said; and with many a kiss to the little one, and one more fervent tearful blessing on Susan, she went homewards.
That night Mrs. Leigh stopped at home; that only night for many months. Even Tom, the scholar, looked up from his books in amazement; but then he remembered that Will had not been well, and that his mother’s attention having been called to the circumstance, it was only natural she should stay to watch him. And no watching could be more tender, or more complete. Her loving eyes seemed never averted from his face; his grave, sad, care-worn face. When Tom went to bed the mother left her seat, and going up to Will where he sat looking at the fire, but not seeing it, she kissed his forehead, and said,
“Will! lad, I’ve been to see Susan Palmer!”
She felt the start under the hand which was placed on his shoulder, but he was silent for a minute or two. Then he said,
“What took you there, mother?”
“Why, my lad, it was likely I should wish to see one you cared for; I did not put myself forward. I put on my Sunday clothes, and tried to behave as yo’d ha liked me. At least I remember trying at first; but after, I forgot all.”
She rather wished that he would question her as to what made her forget all. But he only said,
“How was she looking, mother?”
“Will, thou seest I never set eyes on her before; but she’s a good gentle looking creature; and I love her dearly, as I’ve reason to.”
Will looked up with momentary surprise; for his mother was too shy to be usually taken with strangers. But after all it was natural in this case, for who could look at Susan without loving her? So still he did not ask any questions, and his poor mother had to take courage, and try again to introduce the subject near to her heart. But how?
“Will!” said she (jerking it out, in sudden despair of her own powers to lead to what she wanted to say), “I telled her all.”