Mistress and Maid Part 44

"It's not," said Hilary, starting up--"it's not their knock. It is--"

She never finished the sentence, for she was sobbing in Robert Lyon's arms.

"What does it all mean?" cried the bewildered Johanna, of whom, I must confess, for once n.o.body took the least notice.

It meant that, by one of these strange accidents, as we call them, which in a moment alter the whole current of things, the senior partner had suddenly died, and his son, not being qualified to take his place in the Liverpool house, had to go out to India instead of Robert Lyon, who would now remain permanently, as the third senior partner, in England.

This news had met him at Southampton. He had gone thence direct to Liverpool, arranged affairs so far as was possible, and returned, traveling without an hour's intermission, to tell his own tidings, as was best--or as he thought it was.

Perhaps at the core of his heart lurked the desire to come suddenly back, as, it is said, if the absent or the dead should come, they would find all things changed; the place filled up in home and hearth--no face of welcome--no heart leaping to heart in the ecstasy of reunion.

Well, if Robert Lyon had any misgivings--and being a man, and in love, perhaps he had--they were ended now.

"Is she glad to see me?" was all he could find to say when, Johanna having considerately vanished, he might have talked as much as he pleased.

Hilary's only answer was a little, low laugh of inexpressible content.

He lifted up between his bands the sweet face, neither so young nor so pretty as it had been, but oh! so sweet, with the sweetness that long outlives beauty--a face that a man might look on all his life time and never tire of--so infinitely loving, so infinitely true! And he knew it was his wife's face, to shine upon him day by day, and year by year, till it faded into old age--beautiful and beloved even then. All the strong nature of the man gave way; he wept almost like a child in his "little woman's" arms.

Let us leave them there, by that peaceful fireside--these two, who are to sit by one fire-side as long as they live. Of their further fortune we know nothing--nor do they themselves--except the one fact, in itself joy enough for any mortal cup to hold, that it will be shared together. Two at the hearth, two abroad; two to labor, two to rejoice; or, if so it must be, two to weep, and two to comfort one another; the man to be the head of the woman, and the woman the heart of the man. This is the ordination of G.o.d; this is the perfect life; none the less perfect that so many fall short of it.

So let us bid them good-by: Robert Lyon and Hilary Leaf, "Good-by; G.o.d be with ye!" for we shall see them no more.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Elizabeth stood at the nursery window, pointing out to little Henry how the lilacs and laburnums were coming into flower in the square below, and speculating with him whether the tribe of sparrows which they had fed all the winter from the mignonette boxes on the window sill would be building nests in the tall trees of Russell Square; for she wished, with her great aversion to London, to make her nursling as far as possible "a country child."

Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. He would run about on his tottering fat legs, and he could say, "Mammy Lizzie,"

also, "Pa-pa," as had been carefully taught him by his conscientious nurse. At which papa had been at first excessively surprised, then gratified, and had at last taken kindly to the appellation as a matter of course.

It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott's life. At first twice a week, and then every day, he sent up for "Master Ascott" to keep him company at dessert; he then changed his dinner hour from half past six to five, because Elizabeth, with her stern sacrifice of every thing to the child's good, had suggested to him, humbly but firmly, that late hours kept little Henry too long out of his bed. He gave up his bottle of port and his after-dinner sleep, and took to making water-lilies and caterpillars out of oranges and boats out of walnut sh.e.l.ls, for his boy's special edification. Sometimes when, at half past six, Elizabeth, punctual as clock-work, knocked at the dining room door, she heard father and son laughing together in a most jovial manner, though the decanters were in their places and the wine gla.s.ses untouched.

And even after the child disappeared, the butler declared that master usually took quietly to his newspaper, or rang for his tea, or perhaps dozed harmlessly in his chair till bedtime.

I do not allege that Peter Ascott was miraculously changed; people do not change, especially at his age; externally he was still the same pompous, overbearing, coa.r.s.e man, with whom, no doubt, his son would have a tolerably sore bargain in years to come. But still the child had touched a soft corner in his heart, the one soft corner which in his youth had yielded to the beauty of Miss Selina Leaf; and the old fellow was a better fellow than he had once been. Probably, with care, he might be for the rest of his life at least manageable.

Elizabeth hoped so for his boy's sake, and little as she liked him, she tried to conquer her antipathy as much as she could. She always ways took care to treat him with extreme respect, and to bring up little Henry to do the same. And, as often happens, Mr. Ascott began gradually to comport himself in a manner deserving of respect. He ceased his oaths and his coa.r.s.e language; seldom flew into a pa.s.sion; and last, not least, the butler avouched that master hardly ever went to bed "muzzy" now. Toward all his domestics, and especially his son's nurse, he behaved himself more like a master and less like a tyrant; so that the establishment at Russell Square went on in a way more peaceful than had ever been known before.

There was no talk of his giving it a new mistress; he seemed to have had enough of matrimony. Of his late wife he never spoke; whether he loved her or not, whether he had regretted her or not, the love and regret were now alike ended.

Poor Selina! It was Elizabeth only, who, with a sacred sense of duty, occasionally talked to little Henry about "mamma up there"--pointing to the blank bit of blue sky over the trees of Russell Square, and hoped in time to make him understand something about her, and how she had loved him, her "baby." This love, the only beautiful emotion her life had known, was the one fragment that remained of it after her death; the one remembrance she left to her child.

Little Henry was not in the least like her, nor yet like his father.

He took after some forgotten type, some past generation of either family, which reappeared in this as something new. To Elizabeth he was a perfect revelation of beauty and infantile fascination. He filled up every corner of her heart. She grew fat and flourishing, even cheerful; so cheerful that she bore with equanimity the parting with her dear Miss Hilary, who went away in glory and happiness as Mrs. Robert Lyon, to live in Liverpool, and Miss Leaf with her. Thus both Elizabeth's youthful dreams ended in nothing, and it was more than probable that for the future their lives and hers being so widely apart, she would see very little of her beloved mistresses any more. But they had done their work in her and for her; and it had borne fruit a hundred fold, and would still.

"I know you will take care of this child--he is the hope of the family," said Miss Leaf, when she was giving her last kiss to little Henry. "I could not bear to leave him, if I were not leaving him with you."

And Elizabeth had taken her charge proudly in her arms, knowing she was trusted, and in vowing to be worthy of that trust.

Another dream was likewise ended; so completely that she sometimes wondered if it was ever real, whether she had ever been a happy girl, looking forward as girls do to wifehood and motherhood; or whether she had not been always the staid middle aged person she was now, whom n.o.body ever suspected of any such things.

She had been once back to her old home, to settle her mother comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to 'prentice her little brother, to see one sister married, and the other sent off to Liverpool, to be servant to Mrs. Lyon. While at s...o...b..ry, she had heard by chance of Tom Cliffe's pa.s.sing through the town as a Chartist lecturer, or something of the sort, with his pretty, showy London wife, who, when he brought her there, had looked down rather contemptuously upon the street where Tom was born.

This was all Elizabeth knew about them. They, too, had pa.s.sed from her life as phases of keen joy and keener sorrow do pa.s.s, like a dream and the shadows of a dream. It may be, life itself will seem at the end to be nothing more.

But Elizabeth Hand's love story was not so to end.

One morning, the same morning when she had been pointing out the lilacs to little Henry, and now came in from the square with a branch of them in her hand, the postman gave her a letter; the handwriting of which made her start as if it had been a visitation from the dead.

"Mammy Lizzie, mammy Lizzie!" cried little Henry, plucking at her gown, but for once his nurse did not notice him. She stood on the door-step, trembling violently; at length she put the letter into her pocket, lifted the child, and got up stairs somehow. When she had settled her charge to his mid-day sleep, then, and not till then, did she take out and read the few lines, which, though written on shabby paper, and with more than one blot, were so like--yet so terribly unlike--Tom's calligraphy of old:

"DEAR ELIZABETH,--I have no right to ask any kindness of you; but if you would like to see an old friend alive, I wish you would come and see me. I have been long of asking you, lest you might fancy I wanted to get something out of you; for I'm as poor as a rat; and once lately I saw you, looking so well and well-to-do. But it was the same kind old face, and I should like to get one kind look from it before I go where I sha'n't want any kindness from any body. However, do just as you choose.

"Yours affectionately, T. CLIFFE.

"Underneath is my address."

It was in one of those wretched nooks in Westminster, now swept away by Victoria Street and other improvements. Elizabeth happened to have read about it in one of the many charitable pamphlets, reports, etc., which were sent continually to the wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he sent down stairs to light fires with. What must not poor Tom have sunk to before he had come to live there? His letter was like a cry out of the depths, and the voice was that of her youth, her first love.

Is any woman ever deaf to that? The love may have died a natural death; many first loves do: a riper, completer, happier love may have come in its place; but there must be something unnatural about the woman and man likewise, who can ever quite forget it--the dew of their youth--the beauty of their dawn.

"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" sighed Elizabeth, "my own poor Tom!"

She forgot Esther; either from Tom's not mentioning her, or in the strong return to old times which his letter produced; forgot her for the time being as completely as if she had never existed. Even when the recollection came it made little difference. The sharp jealousy, the dislike and contempt had all calmed down: she thought she could now see Tom's wife as any other woman. Especially if, as the letter indicated, they were so very poor and miserable.

Possibly Esther had suggested writing it? Perhaps, though Tom did not, Esther did "want to get something out of her"--Elizabeth Hand, who was known to have large wages, and to be altogether a thriving person? Well, it mattered little. The one fact remained: Tom was in distress; Tom needed her; she must go.

Her only leisure time was of an evening, after Henry was in bed. The intervening hours, especially the last one, when the child was down stairs with his father, calmed her; subdued the tumult of old remembrances that came surging up and beating at the long shut door of her heart. When her boy returned, leaping and laughing, and playing all sorts of tricks as she put him to bed, she could smile too. And when kneeling beside her in his pretty white night gown, he stammered through the prayer she had thought it right to begin to teach him, though of course he was too young to understand it--the words "Thy will be done;" "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive those who trespa.s.s against us;" and lastly, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," struck home to his nurse's in most soul.

"Mammy, mammy Lizzie's 'tying."

Yes, she was crying, but it did her good. She was able to kiss her little boy, who slept like a top in five minutes: then she took off her good silk gown, and dressed herself; soberly and decently, but so that people should not suspect, in that low and dangerous neighborhood, the sovereigns that she carried in an under pocket, ready to use as occasion required. Thus equipped, without a minute's delay, she started for Tom's lodging.

It was poorer than even she expected. One attic room, bate almost as when it was built. No chimney or grate, no furniture except a box which served as both table and chair; and a heap of straw, with a blanket thrown over it. The only comfort about it was that it was clean; Tom's innate sense of refinement had abided with him to the last.

Elizabeth had time to make all these observations, for Tom was out--gone, the landlady said, to the druggist's shop, round the corner.

"He's very bad, ma'am," added the woman, civilly, probably led thereto by Elizabeth's respectable appearance, and the cab in which she had come--lest she should lose a minute's time. "Can't last long, and Lord knows who's to bury him."

With that sentence knelling in her ears, Elizabeth waited till she heard the short cough and the hard breathing of some one toiling heavily up the stair. Tom, Tom himself. But oh, so altered! with every bit of youth gone out of him; with death written on every line of his haggard face, the death he had once prognosticated with a sentimental pleasure, but which now had come upon him in all its ghastly reality.

He was in the last stage of consumption. The disease was latent in his family, Elizabeth knew: she had known it when she belonged to him, and fondly thought that, as his wife, her incessant care might save him from it; but nothing could save him now.

"Who's that?" said he, in his own sharp, fretful voice.

"Me, Tom. But don't speak. Sit down till your cough's over."