The Hallam Succession, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [desktop ebook reader .txt] 📗

his head in emphatic denial of any such intention. Still, even with Peter Crag to stand behind her, Elizabeth did not find her self-elected office an easy one. She was quite sure that many a complaint was entered, and many a demand made, that would never have been thought of if Whaley had been the judge of their justice.

She had to look at her position in many lights, and chiefly in that of at least five years' poverty. At the New-Year she withdrew her balance from Josiah Broadbent's. It was but little over L600, and this sum was to be her capital upon which, in cases of extra expenditure, she must rely. For she had no idea of letting either the house or grounds fall into decay or disorder. She calculated on many days of extra hire to look after the condition of the timber in the park, the carriages and the saddlery, and the roofs and gutterings of the hall and the outhouses. She had carefully considered all necessary expenditures, and she had tried in imagination to face every annoyance in connection with her peculiar position.

But facing annoyances in reality is a different thing, and Elizabeth's sprang up from causes quite unforeseen, and from people whom she had never remembered. She had a calm, proud, self-reliant nature, but such natures are specially wounded by small stings; and Elizabeth brought home with her from her necessary daily investigations many a sore heart, and many a throbbing, nervous headache. All the spirit of her fathers was in her. She met insult and wrong with all their keen sense of its intolerable nature, and the hand that grasped her riding whip could have used it to as good purpose as her father would have done, only, that it was restrained by considerations which would not have bound him.

In her home she had, however, a shelter of great peace. Her neighbors and acquaintances dropped her without ceremony. The Whaleys had thought it necessary in their own defense to say some unkind things, and to suppose others still more unkind; and it was more convenient for people to assume the Whaleys' position to be the right one, than to continue civilities to a woman who had violated the traditionary customs of her sex, and who was not in a position to return them. But in her home Martha's influence was in every room, and it always brought rest and calm. She knew instinctively when she was needed, and when solitude was needed; when Elizabeth would chose to bear her troubles in silence, and when she wanted the comfort of a sympathizing listener.

Thus the first nine months of her ordeal passed. She heard during them several times from Phyllis, but never one line had come from Richard, or from Antony. Poor Antony! He had dropped as absolutely out of her ken as a stone dropped in mid-ocean. The silence of both Richard and her brother hurt her deeply. She thought she could have trusted Richard if their positions had been reversed. She was sure she would have helped and strengthened him by constant hopeful letters. For a month or two she watched anxiously for a word; then, with a keen pang, gave up the hope entirely. Through Phyllis she learned that he was still in New Orleans, and that he had gone into partnership with a firm who did a large Mexican trade. "He is making money fast," said Phyllis, "but he cares little for it."

It is one good thing in a regular life that habit reconciles us to what was at first very distasteful. As the months went on Elizabeth's business difficulties lessened. The tenants got accustomed to her, and realized that she was neither going to impose upon them, nor yet suffer herself to be imposed upon. The women found her sympathizing and helpful in their peculiar troubles, and there began to be days when she felt some of the pleasures of authority, and of the power to confer favors. So the summer and autumn passed, and she began to look toward the end of her first year's management. So far its record had been favorable; Page and Thorley had had no reason to complain of the three installments sent them.

She was sitting making up her accounts one evening at the end of October. It was quite dark, and very cold, and Martha had just built up a fire, and was setting a little table on the hearth-rug for Miss Hallam's tea. Suddenly the bell of the great gates rang a peal which reverberated through the silent house. There was no time for comment. The peal had been an urgent one, and it was repeated as Martha, followed by Elizabeth, hastened to the gates. A carriage was standing there, and a man beside it, who was evidently in anxiety or fright.

"Come away wi' you! Don't let folks die waiting for you. Here's a lady be varry near it, I do be thinking."

The next moment Martha was helping him to carry into the house a slight, unconscious form. As they did so, Elizabeth heard a shrill cry, and saw a little face peering out of the open door of the carriage. She hastened to it, and a child put out his arms and said, "Is you my Aunt 'Izzy?"

Then Elizabeth knew who it was. "O my darling!" she cried, and clasped the little fellow to her breast, and carried him into the house with his arms around her neck and his cheeks against hers.

Evelyn lay, a shadow of her former self, upon a sofa; but in a short time she recovered her consciousness and, opening her large, sad eyes, let them rest upon Elizabeth--who still held the boy to her breast.

"I am come to you, Elizabeth. I am come here to die. Do not send me away. It will not be long."

"Long or short, Evelyn, this is your home. You are very, very welcome to it. I am glad to have you near me."

There was no more said at that time, but little by little the poor lady's sorrowful tale was told. After Antony's failure she had returned to her father's house. "But I soon found myself in every one's way," she said, mournfully. "I had not done well for the family--they were disappointed. I was interfering with my younger sisters--I had no money--I was an eye-sore, a disgrace. And little Harry was a trouble. The younger children mocked and teazed him. The day before I left a servant struck him, and my mother defended the servant. Then I thought of you. I thought you loved the child, and would not like him to be ill-used when I can no longer love him."

"I do love him, Evelyn; and no one shall ill-use him while I live."

"Thank God! Now the bitterness of death is passed. There is nothing else to leave."

The boy was a lovely boy, inheriting his father's _physique_ with much of his mother's sensitive refined nature. He was a great joy in the silent, old house. He came, too, just at the time when Elizabeth, having conquered the first great pangs of her sorrow, was needing some fresh interest in life. She adopted him with all her heart. He was her lost brother's only child, he was the prospective heir of Hallam. In him were centered all the interests of the struggle she was making. She loved him fondly, with a wise and provident affection.

It scarcely seemed to pain Evelyn that he clung to Elizabeth more than to herself. "He cannot reason yet," she said, "and instinct leads him to you. He feels that you are strong to love and protect him. I am too weak to do any thing but die." She was, indeed, unable to bear his presence long at a time; and his short visits to the silent, darkened chamber were full of awe and mystery to the sensitive child. In a month it became evident that the end was very near. She suffered much, and Elizabeth left her as little as possible. She was quite dependent upon her love, for Elizabeth had notified the dying lady's family of her dangerous condition, and no action of any kind was taken upon the information.

One night Evelyn seemed a little easier, and Harry stayed longer with her. Martha came three times for the child ere she would consent to let him go. Then she took the pretty face in her hands, gave it one long gaze and kiss, and shut her eyes with a painful, pitiful gasp. Elizabeth hastened to her side; but she knew what was passing in the mother's heart, and presumed not to intermeddle in her sorrow. But half an hour afterward, when she saw heavy tears steal slowly from under the closed eyelids, she said, as she wiped them, gently away,

"Dear Evelyn, why do you weep?"

"For my poor little wasted life, love; what a mistake it has been. I do not remember a single happiness in it."

"Your childhood, Evelyn?"

"I think it was saddest of all. Children miss happiness most. My childhood was all books and lessons and a gloomy nursery, and servants who scolded us when we were well, and neglected us when we were sick. I remember when I had scarlet fever, they used to put a little water and jelly on a chair beside me at night, but I was too weak to reach them. What long hours of suffering! What terrors I endured from many causes!" "Forget that now, dear."

"I cannot. It had its influence on all the rest. Then when I grew to childhood I heard but one thing: 'You must marry well.' I was ordered to make myself agreeable, to consider the good of the family, to remember my little sisters, my brothers who had no money and very few brains. It was to be my duty to sacrifice myself for them. Antony saw me; he thought I should be of service to him. My father thought Antony's business would provide for the younger boys. I was told to accept him, and I did. That is all about my life, Elizabeth, I had my dream of love, and of being loved like all other girls, but--"

"But Antony was kind to you?"

"Yes; he was never unkind. He troubled me very little. But I was very lonely. Poor Antony! I can remember and understand now; he also had many sorrows. It was in those days I first began to pray, Elizabeth. I found that God never got tired of hearing me complain; mother scarcely listened--she had so much to interest her--but God always listened."

"Poor Evelyn!"


"So I am watching quietly
Every day;
Whenever the sun shines brightly,
I rise, and say,
'Surely it is the shining of His face!'


I think he will come to-night, Elizabeth."

"You have no fear now?"

"It has gone. Last night I dreamed of passing through a dreary river, and as I stumbled, blind and weak in the water, Christ Jesus stretched out his hand--a gentle, pierced hand, and immediately I was on the shore, and there was a great light whose glory awoke me. When the river is to cross, 'the hand' will be there."

She spoke little afterward. About midnight there was a short struggle, and then a sudden solemn peace. She had touched the hand pierced for her salvation, and the weary was at rest. Elizabeth had promised her that she should be laid in the church-yard at Hallam. There was no opposition made to this disposition of the remains, and the funeral was very