‘MOTHER.’
It was close upon Easter. The long, dark days of Lent, with their melancholy ceremonials, were nearly over, and, as if in recognition of the event, the sun was shining brightly in the heavens. The hawthorn bushes had broken into bloom, and the wild birds were bursting their little throats in gratitude. The boys were almost as wild and joyous as the birds, as they rushed about the playground, knocking each other over in the exuberance of their glee, and forgetting to be angry in the remembrance that the next day would be Holy Thursday, when they should all go home to their fathers and mothers to spend the Easter holidays. I alone of the merry throng sat apart under the quick-set hedge, joining in neither game nor gaiety, as I wondered, with the dull, unreasoning perception of childhood, why I had been the one selected, out of all that crowd of boys, to have no part in their anticipation or their joy. Even poor, lame Jemmy, who had no remembrance of his father or his mother, and who had been, in a way, adopted by our schoolmaster, and lived all the year round, from January to December, in the same dull house and rooms, looked more cheerful than I did. He was incapacitated by his infirmity from taking part in any of the noisy games that were going on around us, yet he smiled pleasantly as he came limping up towards me on his crutches, and told me that Mrs Murray (who bestowed on him all the mother’s care he would ever know) had promised, if he were good, to give him a donkey ride during Easter week, and some seeds to plant in his strip of garden.
‘What’s the matter with you, Charlie?’ he asked presently; ‘aren’t you glad to be going home?’
‘Oh! I don’t care,’ I answered, listlessly.
‘Don’t care about seeing your father and mother again?’
‘I haven’t got a mother,’ I rejoined, quickly.
‘Is your mother dead, like mine? Oh, I am sorry! But your father loves you for them both, perhaps.’
‘No, he doesn’t! He doesn’t care a bit about me. He never asks to see me when I do go home; and he frightens me. I wish I might stay all the holidays with Mrs Murray, like you do.’
‘That is bad,’ quoth the lame child. ‘Well, maybe they’ll forget to send for you, Charlie, and then we’ll have fine times together, you and I.’
I had not the same hope, however. I knew that if by any oversight my father forgot to send the servant for me, that my schoolmaster would take the initiative and despatch me home himself.
How I dreaded it. The gloomy, half-closed house, the garden paths, green with damp and thick with weeds, the servants acting entirely upon their own authority, and the master querulous, impatient, and unjust, either shut up in his own room brooding over the past and present, or freely distributing oaths, complaints, and sometimes even blows, amongst the unfortunate inmates of his household. As for myself, I seldom came within the range of his arm without being terrified away, and it had been a great relief to me when I returned home for the previous Christmas holidays to find that he was absent, and the term of my penance passed peacefully, if nothing else. But now he was at home again, so my master informed me, my father had never dreamt of writing to me, and I looked forward to the coming visit with dread. A strange, unnatural state of things for a child of eight years old, who had never known a mother’s love nor care, had never even heard her name mentioned by any one with whom he was connected.
‘What was your mother like?’ continued Jemmy, after a few minutes’ pause, during which we two unfortunates had been ruminating upon our lot. ‘Had she light-coloured hair, like Mrs Murray, or dark, like the cook?’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered, sadly. ‘I never saw her, that I remember.’
‘Haven’t you got a likeness of her at home?’ he demanded with surprise. ‘Wait till I show you mine.’
He fumbled about in his waistcoat, and produced a much faded daguerreotype of an ordinary-looking young woman in old-fashioned habiliments.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ he exclaimed, with weak enthusiasm as he pressed the miniature to his lips.
‘Oh, how I wish she hadn’t died! I know I should have loved her so much!’
I made no reply. Poor Jemmy’s imagination did not run so fast as mine. If my mother had lived to side with my father, where should I have been between them? I turned my face away, and sighed.
It was strange that I had no idea of what my mother had been like. I had never even formed one, neither had I any relation to whose memory I might have appealed on the subject. My father lived a solitary, aimless life in the old neglected house I have alluded to, seldom leaving his own apartments, except at meal times, and certainly never asking any friend to enter them to bear him company. The servants had their parents, or lovers, or brothers, to visit them by stealth in the kitchen, but the master sat by himself, gloomy and pre-occupied, and irritable almost to frenzy when provoked. No wonder I wished that I could have spent the Easter holidays with Mrs Murray. But a great surprise was in store for me. The boys had hardly concluded the game of football they had been carrying on during my colloquy with Jemmy, when Mrs Murray came smiling down the playground in search of me.
‘I’ve a piece of news for you, Master Vere,’ she exclaimed. ‘Some one is waiting to see you in the parlour.’
‘Not papa!’ I said, quickly.
‘No; not your papa,’ replied Mrs Murray, laying her hand compassionately on my shoulder, ‘but a new friend—a lady whom you will like very much indeed.’
‘A lady!’ I repeated, in utter bewilderment, whilst my schoolmates crowded round Mrs Murray, with the question, ‘Is she come to take Vere home?’
‘Perhaps! most probably,’ was her answer, whilst exclamations of, ‘Oh, I say, that’s a jolly shame. It isn’t fair. School doesn’t break up till to-morrow. We sha’n’t get off to-day, try as hard as we may,’ greeted her supposition from every side, and I, trembling like a culprit, affirmed that I would much rather not be introduced to the pleasures of home one hour earlier than was needful.
‘Come into the parlour, dear, and see the lady,’ Mrs Murray replied, ‘and we will decide what to do afterwards.’
So my face and hair were hurriedly washed and arranged, and I sheepishly followed my master’s wife to the formal little apartment dedicated to the reception of visitors, where we found the lady she had alluded to.
Shall I ever forget her face as she rose to greet me, and drew me into her arms! Such a fair, sweet, fresh face as it was, but with an amount of sorrowful thought pictured in the serious eyes.
‘And so this is Charlie Vere,’ she said, as she gazed into my features. ‘I should have known you anywhere, my darling, from your likeness to your father! And now do you guess who I am?’
‘No!’ I answered, shyly; for Mrs Murray had slipped away and left me all alone with the stranger.
‘I am your mother, dear; your new mother who means to love you very dearly, and I have come to take you home!’
Mother and Home! How sweet the dear familiar words sounded in my ears; familiar alas! to everyone but me. The hawthorn blossoms in the playground seemed to smell sweeter than they had done before, as she pronounced them, and the birds’ chorus rang out harmoniously.
‘Will papa be there?’ I asked, nervously.
‘Papa! of course! What would home be without your father?’
I had found it much pleasanter without him than with him hitherto, but some instinct made me hold my tongue.
‘Don’t you love papa, dear?’ the lady went on softly. ‘Don’t you think that he loves you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, picking my fingers.
‘Poor child! Perhaps you have thought not, but that will all be altered now. But you have not yet told me if you will like to have me for a mother!’
‘I think I shall like you very much!’
‘That’s right, so we will go home together and try to make each other happy. You want a mother to look after you, dear child, and I want a little boy to love me. We will not part again, Charlie, now I have found you, not for the present, at all events. You have been too long away from home as it is. That is why I came to-day. I could not wait till to-morrow, even: I was so impatient to see you and to take you home.’
How she dwelt and lingered on the word and repeated it, as though it gave her as much happiness to listen to as it did me.
‘Will you be there?’ I asked, presently.
‘Of course, I shall—always! What would be the use of a mother, Charlie, if she didn’t live in the house close to you, always ready to heal your troubles and supply your wants to the utmost of her power?’
‘Oh! let us go at once!’ I exclaimed, slipping my hand into hers. All dread of my father seemed to have deserted me. The new mother was a guardian angel, under whose protection I felt no fear. She was delighted with my readiness.
‘So we will, Charlie! We need not even wait for your box to be packed. Mrs Murray can send on everything to-morrow. And papa will be anxious until he sees us home again!’
My father anxious about me! That was a new thing to be wondered at. I was too much of a baby still to perceive that his anxiety would be for her—not for me! I had not yet been able to grasp the idea that she was his wife. I only regarded her as my new mother.
As we passed out of the house, I asked leave to say good-bye to my friend Jemmy.
‘His mother is dead, like mine,’ I said, in explanation. ‘He will be so pleased to hear that I have got a new one.’
‘Poor boy!’ she sighed; ‘we will ask him to spend the summer holidays with you Charlie. A great happiness like ours should make us anxious to make others happier.’
And when Jemmy came forward on his crutches, and smiled his congratulations on the wonderful piece of news I had to give him, she stooped down and kissed his forehead. Then we passed out of the playground together, I clinging to her hand, and proud already to hear the flattering comments passed upon her appearance by the other boys, and to remember that from that time forward she was to be called my mother.
Lilyfields, as my father’s house was designated, was not more than ten or twelve miles from the school; but we had to make a little railway journey to reach it, and I thought I had never travelled so pleasantly before. My new mother laughed so often and chatted so continuously to me, that I caught the infection of her mirthful loquacity, and, long before we got home, had revealed so much of my past life and feelings, that more than once I brought a shadow over her sunny face, and closed her smiling lips with a sigh. But as we left the train and commenced to walk towards Lilyfields, my old fears showed symptoms of returning, and my sudden silence, with the tightening clasp of my hand, did not pass unobserved by my companion.
‘What is the matter, Charlie? Of what are you afraid?’
‘Won’t papa be angry with me for coming back before the holidays begin?’ I whispered.
Her clear laugh rang over the peaceful meadows we were traversing.
‘If he is angry with any one, he must be so with me, as I fetched you home Charlie.’
‘And you are not afraid of him?’
‘Afraid!’ The sweet serious eyes she turned upon me as she ejaculated the word were just about to deprecate so monstrous an idea, when they caught sight of an approaching figure, and danced with a thousand little joys instead.
‘There he is!’ she exclaimed excitedly. She ran up to him, dragging me with her.
He took her in his arms (there was not another living soul within sight of us) and embraced her fervently, whilst I stood by, open-mouthed with astonishment.
‘My angel,’ he murmured, as she lay there, with her face pressed close to his; ‘life has been insupportable without you.’
‘Ah, Harold! it does me good to hear you say so; and I am so glad to get back to you again. See! here is Charlie waiting for his father to welcome him home.’
She lifted me up in her arms—big boy as I was—and held me towards him for a kiss. How strange it was to feel my father kiss me; but he did so, though I think his eyes never left her face the while. Then he took her hand, and held it close against his heart, and they walked through the silent, balmy-breathed fields together. As I entered the house I could hardly help exclaiming aloud at the marvellous changes that had taken place there. Not an article of furniture had been changed, not a picture moved from its place, yet everything looked bright as the glorious spring. The rooms had been thoroughly cleaned, and lace curtains, snowy table-cloths, and vases of flowers, with here and there a bright bit of colour in the shape of a rug, or a piece of china, had transformed the house—not into a paradise—but into a home. Even my father was changed like his surroundings. He looked ten years younger, as with nicely kept hair, and a becoming velveteen lounging coat, he sunk down into an easy-chair, and deprecated, whilst he viewed with delight, the alacrity with which my new mother insisted upon removing his boots and fetching his slippers. It was such a novelty to both of us to be attended to in any way, that I was as much surprised as he to find that the next thing she did was to take me upstairs, and tidy me for tea herself, showering kisses and love words upon me all the while. Oh! the happy meal that followed. How unlike any we had taken in that house before! I, sitting up at table, with my plate well provided; my father in his arm-chair, looking up with loving eyes at each fresh proof of her solicitude for him, and my new mother seated at the tea-tray, full of smiles and innocent jests, watching us both with the utmost affection; but apparently too excited to eat much herself. Once my father noticed her want of appetite and reproached her with it.
‘I am too happy to eat, Harold!’ was her reply.
‘Too happy,’ he repeated in a low voice, ‘really too happy! No regrets, my Mary, no fears! Your future does not terrify you. You would not undo the past if it were in your power!’
‘Not one moment of it, Harold! If I ever think of it, with even a semblance of regret, it is that it did not begin ten years sooner.’
‘God bless you!’ was all he answered.
If I had not been such a child I should have echoed the words; for before many days were over my head, the whole of my joyous young life was an unuttered blessing upon her. The darkness of fear and despondency—the most unnatural feelings a young child can entertain—had all passed away. I no longer dreaded my father’s presence; on the contrary, it was my greatest treat to bear him company as he worked in the garden, or whistled over his carpentering, or accompanied my mother in strolls about the country.
He never shut himself up in his room now, unless she was shut in too; and although his new-born love was for her, and not for me, the glory of it was reflected in his treatment of me.
So I was very happy, and so was he, and so most people would have thought my mother to be. But though she never appeared before my father without a bright face, she was not always so careful in my presence, thinking me, perhaps, too young to observe the changes in her countenance; and sometimes when she and I were alone together, I marked the same look steal over her which I had observed on the occasion of our first meeting—an undercurrent of thoughtful sadness—the look of one who had suffered, who still suffered, from a pain which she kept to herself.
Once I surprised her in tears—a violent storm of tears, which she was powerless for some time to control; and I eagerly inquired the reason of them.
‘Mamma, mamma, what is it, mamma? Have you hurt your foot? Did Prince bite you? Have you got a pain anywhere?’
My childish mind could not comprehend that her tears should flow for any other than a physical reason. Did not papa and I love her dearly? and she was afraid of no one, and she never went to school. What possible cause could she have for tears?
My mother composed herself as soon as she was able, and laid her burning face against my cheek.
‘Will my little boy love me always?’ she asked—‘always—always—whatever happens?’
‘Always, dear mamma. Papa and I would die if we hadn’t you. Oh, you don’t know what it was like before you came here!’
‘Then mamma will never again be so silly as to cry,’ said my mother, as she busied herself over some occupation to divert her thoughts.
But although this was the only time she betrayed herself so openly before me, I often detected the trace of weeping on her face, which she would try to disguise by excessive mirth.
So the years went on, until one bright summer’s day a little sister was born in our house. I hailed the advent of this infant with the greatest possible delight. It was such a new wonderful experience to have a playmate so dependent on me, and yet so entirely my own. I positively worshipped my little sister, although her birth was the signal for my being sent back to school, but this time only as a weekly boarder.
Hitherto my mother had taught me herself, and very sorry I was to give up those delightful lessons, which were rendered so easy by the trouble she took to explain them to me; but her time was too much taken up with her baby to allow her to devote sufficient to me. Besides, I was now eleven years old, growing a great lad, and able to take every advantage of the education afforded me at Mr Murray’s school.
My old friend, lame Jemmy, who had spent many a pleasant week at Lilyfields meanwhile, was still there to welcome me back and make me feel less of a stranger; and my father took away the last sting of the new arrangement by buying me a sturdy pony on which to ride backwards and forwards every week to see my mother and him.
But the greatest pang which I experienced was parting, even for a few days, with baby Violet. I cried over her so much, indeed, that I made my mother cry too, as she asked God to bless the boy who had been a true son to her. I was very glad to think she loved me so much, for I loved her dearly in return; but as I galloped back to Lilyfields every Saturday afternoon, my thoughts were all for the dimpled baby sister whom I would carry about in my arms, or roll with amongst the newly-mown grass, rather than with those who had proved themselves to be real parents to me,—she from the commencement of her knowledge of me, and he from the date of his knowing her. It was my mother alone I had to bless for it all. But I had grown accustomed to happiness by this time, and took it as my due.
My parents were very proud of their little daughter, who grew into a lovely child, but she did not seem to afford them as much pleasure as pride. Sometimes I detected my mother looking at her as we romped together, with more pain in the expression of her face than anything else. Once she caught her suddenly to her bosom, and kissed her golden curls with passion, exclaiming,—
‘Oh, my heart, if I were to go, what would become of you?—what would become of you?’
I was still too young to grasp the full meaning of her words, but I knew my mother meant that if she died, no one would take such good care of Violet as she had done. So I marched up to her confidently, with the assurance that I would take that responsibility upon my own shoulders.
‘Don’t be afraid, mamma! As soon as I am a man, I mean to get a house all to myself, and the best rooms in it shall be for Violet.’
She looked at me with her sweet, earnest, searching gaze for a moment, and then folded me in one embrace with her own child.
‘Father’s boy!’ she murmured, caressingly over me—‘father’s brave, loving boy! No, Charlie, I will not be afraid! If it be God’s will that I should go, I will trust Violet to father and to you.’
Meanwhile my father was a very contented man. He had undergone much the same change as myself, and forgotten, in the sunshine that now surrounded him, all the miserable years he had spent in that once desolate mansion.
I do not suppose a happier nor more peaceful family existed than we were. No jars nor bickering ever disturbed the quiet of the household; everything seemed to go as smoothly as though it had been oiled. We were like the crew of some ship, safely moored within a sunny harbour, never giving a thought to what tempests might be raging outside the bar.
Every Saturday when I rode home on my pony, I found my father either working out of doors if it were summer, or indoors if it were winter, but always with the same satisfied easy smile upon his countenance, as though he had no trouble in the world, as indeed he had not; for my mother warded off the most trifling annoyance from him as though he were a sick child, that must not be upset; whilst she threaded her quiet way through the kitchen and bedrooms, with little Violet clinging to her gown, regulating the household machinery by her own supervision, that no accident might occur to ruffle her husband’s temper.
I believed her in those days—I believe her still to be the noblest woman ever planned. One thing alone puzzled me—or rather, I should say, seemed strange to me, for I did not allow it to go the length of puzzlement—and that was why we had so few visitors at Lilyfields. True, my father had made himself so unsociable in the old days that strangers might well have been shy of intruding themselves upon him now; but my mother was so sweet and gentle, I felt it must be their loss rather than hers, that so few people knew her. When, as a lad of fifteen, I mentioned this circumstance to her, she put it aside as a matter of course.
‘When I made up my mind, Charlie, to try as far as in me lay, to render the remainder of your father’s life happy, I was perfectly aware that I should have to depend for companionship upon him alone. We have each other, and we have you and Violet. We want no other society but yours.’
Still, I thought the clergyman and his wife might sometimes have come to see us, as they did the rest of their parishioners, and I should have liked an occasional game of play with the sons of Squire Roberts up at the Hall. But, with the exception of the doctor, who sometimes came in for a chat with my father, no one but ourselves ever took a meal at Lilyfields.
As I grew still older, and others remarked on the circumstance in my hearing, I came to the conclusion that my father must have offended his own friends by marrying my mother, whose connections might be inferior to his own. This idea was confirmed in my mind by observing that she occasionally received letters she was anxious to conceal, which, knowing the frankness of her disposition, and her great love for him, appeared very strange to me. One day, indeed, my suspicions became almost certainties. It so happened that my mother had appeared very fidgety and unlike herself at the breakfast-table, and more than once had spoken to Violet and me in a voice hardly to be recognised as her own. We felt instinctively that something was the matter, and were silent, but my father, who was not well, seemed irritated by the unusual annoyance. He wished to remain quietly at home that morning, but my mother found a dozen reasons why he should ride to the neighbouring town and take me with him. He combatted her wish for some time, till, finding that her arguments were revolving themselves into entreaty, his affection conquered his irresolution, and we set off together. It was not a genial day for a ride, and the trifling commissions my mother had given us to execute were not of sufficient consequence to turn the duty into a pleasure. I was rather pleased than otherwise, therefore, when we had left Lilyfields some miles behind us, to find that my pony had cast a shoe, and to be able, according to my father’s direction, to turn back and walk it gently home again, whilst he went forward to do my mother’s bidding.
When I reached Lilyfields I left the animal in the stables, and, walking up to the house, gained the hall before anyone was sensible of my approach. What was my surprise to hear a loud altercation going on within the parlour. My first impulse was to open the door; but as my mother turned and saw me standing on the threshold, she came forward and pushed me back into the hall.
‘Go away!’ she whispered hurriedly; ‘go upstairs; hide yourself somewhere, and do not come down until I call you!’
Her eyes were bright as though with fever, and a scarlet spot burned on either cheek. I saw she was labouring under the influence of some strong excitement, and I became intensely curious to learn the reason.
‘Whom have you in there?’ I demanded, for I had caught sight of another figure in the drawing-room.
‘Oh! you wish to know who I am, young man, do you?’ exclaimed a coarse, uncertain voice from the other side the half-opened door. ‘Well, I’m not ashamed of myself, as some people ought to be, and you’re quite welcome to a sight of me if it’ll give you any pleasure.’
The door was simultaneously pulled open, and a woman stood before me.
How shall I describe her.
She may have been beautiful, perhaps, in the days long past, but all trace of beauty was lost in the red, blotchy, inflamed countenance she presented to my gaze. Her eyes were bloodshot; her hair dishevelled; her dress tawdry and untidy, and if she had even been a gentlewoman, which I doubted, she had parted with every sign of her breeding. As she pushed her way up behind my mother—looking so sad and sweet and ladylike beside her—she inspired me with nothing but abhorrence.
‘Who is this person?’ I repeated, with an intimation of disgust that apparently offended the stranger, for in a shrill voice she commenced some explanation which my mother was evidently most anxious I should not hear.
‘Oh, Charlie! do you love me?’ she whispered.
‘Mother! yes!’
‘Then go up to your room, now, at once, and wait there till I come to you! I will speak to you afterwards—I will tell you all—only go now!’
She spoke so earnestly that I could not refuse her request, but did as she desired me at once, the woman I had seen, screaming some unintelligible sentence after me as I ascended the stairs. But when I found myself alone, the scene I had witnessed recurred rather unpleasantly to my memory. It was an extraordinary circumstance to see a stranger at all within our walls; still more so a woman, and one who dared to address my mother in loud and reproachful tones. And I was now sixteen, able and willing to defend her against insult, why, therefore, had she not claimed my services to turn this woman from the house, instead of sending me upstairs, as she might have done little Violet, until she had settled the matter for herself? But then I remembered the trouble my mother had taken to get my father and me away from Lilyfields that morning, and could not believe but that she had foreseen this visitation and prepared against it. It was then as I had often supposed. She had relations of whom she was ashamed, with whom she did not wish my father to come in contact. Poor mother! If this was one of them, I pitied her! I believed the story I had created myself so much, that I accepted it without further proof, and when my mother entered the room, and laying her head against my shoulder, sobbed as if her heart would break, I soothed her as well as I was able, without another inquiry as to the identity of the person with whom I had found her.
‘Don’t tell your father, Charlie!’ she said, in parting. ‘Don’t mention a word to anyone of what you have seen to-day. Promise me, darling! I shall not be happy till I have your word for it!’
And I gave her my word, and thought none the less of her for the secrecy, although I regretted it need be.
Not long after this my father articled me, at my own request, to an architect in London, and my visits to the happy home at Lilyfields became few and far between. But I had the consolation of knowing that all went well there, and that I was taking my place in the world as a man should do.
I had worked steadily at my profession for two years, and was just considering whether I had not earned the right to take a real good long holiday at Lilyfields (where Violet, now a fine girl of seven years old, was still my favourite plaything), when I received a letter from the doctor of the village—desiring me to come home at once as my father was ill, beyond hope of recovery. I knew what that meant—that he was already gone; and when I arrived at Lilyfields I found it to be true; he had died of an attack of the heart after a couple of hours’ illness. The shock to me was very great. I had never loved my father as I did my mother; the old childish recollections had been too strong for that, but the last few years he had permitted me to be very happy, and I knew that to her his loss must be irreparable. Not that she exhibited any violent demonstration of grief. When I first saw her, I was surprised at her calmness. She sat beside my father’s body, day and night, without shedding a tear; and she spoke of his departure as quietly as though he had only gone on a journey from which she fully expected him to return. But though her eyes were dry, they never closed in sleep, and every morsel of colour seemed to have been blanched out of her face and hands. So the first day passed, and when the second dawned, I, having attained the dignity of eighteen years, thought it behoved me to speak of my late father’s affairs and my mother’s future.
‘Where is father’s will, mother?’
‘He never made one, dear!’
‘Never made a will! That was awfully careless.’
‘Hush, Charlie!’
She would not brook the slightest censure cast on her dead love.
‘But there must be a will, mother.’
‘Darling, there is none! It was the one thought that disturbed his last moments. But I am content to let things be settled as they may.’
‘Lilyfields will be yours of course, and everything in it,’ I answered decidedly. ‘No one has a better right to them than you have. And you and Violet will live here to your lives’ end, won’t you?’
‘Don’t ask me, dear Charlie, don’t think of it—not just yet at least! Let us wait until—until—it is all over, and then decide what is best to be done!’
Before it was all over; matters were decided for us.
It was the day before the funeral. I had just gone through the mournful ceremony of seeing my father’s coffin soldered down, and, sad and dispirited, had retired to my own room for a little rest, when I heard the sound of carriage wheels up on the gravel drive. I peered over the window blind curiously, for I had never heard of my father’s relations, and had been unable in consequence to communicate with any of them. A lumbering hired fly, laden with luggage, stopped before the door, and from it descended, to my astonishment, the same woman with the fiery red face whom I had discovered in my mother’s company two years before. I decided at once that, whatever the claims of this stranger might be, she could not be suffered to disturb the widow in the first agony of her crushing grief, and, quick, as thought, I ran down into the hall and confronted her before she had entered the house.
‘I beg your pardon, madam,’ I commenced, ‘but Mrs Vere is unable to see anyone at present. There has been a great calamity in the family, and—’
‘I know all about your calamity,’ she interrupted me rudely ‘if it were not for that I shouldn’t be here.’
‘But you cannot see Mrs Vere!’ I repeated.
‘And pray who is Mrs Vere?’ said the woman.
‘My mother,’ I replied proudly, ‘and I will not allow her to be annoyed or disturbed.’
‘Oh! indeed, young man. It strikes me you take a great deal of authority upon yourself; but as I mean to be mistress in my own house, the sooner you stop that sort of thing the better! Here! some of you women!’ she continued, addressing the servants who had come up from the kitchen to learn the cause of the unusual disturbance. ‘Just help the flyman up with my boxes, will you—and look sharp about it.’
I was thunderstruck at her audacity.
For a moment I did not know what to answer. But when this atrocious woman walked past me into the parlour, and threw herself into my dead father’s chair, I followed her, and felt compelled to speak.
‘I do not understand what you mean by talking in this way,’ I said. ‘Mrs Vere is the only mistress in this house, and—’
‘Well, young man, and suppose I am Mrs Vere!’
‘I can suppose no such thing. You cannot know what you are talking about. My mother—’
‘Your mother! And pray, what may your name be and your age?’
‘Charles Vere; and I was eighteen last birthday,’ I said, feeling compelled, I knew not by what secret agency, to reply.
‘Just so! I thought as much! Well, I am Mrs Vere, and I am your mother!’
‘My mother! You must be mad, or drunk! How dare you insult the dead man in his coffin upstairs. My mother! Why, she died years ago, before I can remember.’
‘Did she? That’s the fine tale, Madam, who’s been taking my place here all this time, has told you, I suppose. But I’ll be even with her yet. I’m your father’s widow, and all he’s left behind him belongs to me, and she’ll be out of this house before another hour’s over her head, or my name’s not Jane Vere!’
‘You lie!’ I exclaimed passionately. This tipsy, dissipated, coarse-looking creature, the woman who bore me, and whom I had believed to be lying in her grave for sixteen years and more. Was it wonderful that at the first blush my mind utterly refused to credit it? The angry accusation I have recorded had barely left my lips, when I looked up and saw my mother—the woman who had come as an angel of light into my father’s darkened home, and watched over me with the tenderest affection since—standing on the threshold, pale and peaceful in her mourning garb, as the Spirit of Death itself.
‘Mother! say it is not true,’ I cried as I turned towards her.
‘Oh, Charlie, my darling boy! my brave, good son! Be quiet! bear it like a man; but it is true!’
‘This—this woman was my father’s wife!’
‘She was!’
‘And you, mother!’ I exclaimed in agony.
‘I was only the woman that he loved, Charlie,’ she answered, with downcast eyes. ‘You must think no higher of me than that!’
‘I think the very highest of you that I can. You were my father’s loving companion and friend for years: you saved his life and his reason! You were his true, true wife, and my mother. I shall never think of you in any lower light.’
My emotion had found vent in tears by that time. It was all so new and so horrible to believe, and my mother’s hand rested fondly on my bowed head.
Then that other woman, whose existence I can never recall without a shudder, seized her hateful opportunity, and levelled the most virulent abuse at my poor martyr mother’s head. Words, such as I had never heard from a female before, rained thickly from her lips, until I lost sight of my own grief in my indignation at the shower of inuendoes which were being hurled at the person dearest to me of all the world.
‘Be silent,’ I said in a loud authoritative voice. ‘Were you twenty times my mother I would not permit you to speak as you are speaking now. If it is true that you were my father’s wife, why were you not in your proper place, instead of leaving your lawful duties to another?’
‘Oh! madam here can answer that question better than myself. She knows well enough there was no room left for me where she was.’
‘Untrue!’ murmured my mother, but without any anger. ‘I would have shielded your character from your boy’s censure, as I have done for so long, but justice to the dead compels me to speak. You left this home desolate for many miserable years before I entered it. You deserted your child in his infancy, but your husband had so good and forgiving a heart that, when you cried to him for pardon, he took you back again and condoned your great offence, and therefore, when you left him a second time, the law contained no remedy for his wrong. He was compelled to live on—alone—dishonoured and comfortless, whilst you—you can best tell your son what your life has been since.’
‘Anyway I am Mrs Vere,’ retorted the other, ‘and my husband has died intestate, and his property belongs to me, so I’ll thank you to take your brat, and clear out of my house before the sun goes down.’
‘Oh! mother, this is infamous! It can never be!’
‘It must be, Charlie! It is the law. I knew all this when I consented to come here as your father’s wife. He never deceived me for a single moment; and if I have any regret that he put off providing against this contingency until it was too late, it is only for fear lest he should be regretting it also. But, my dear, dear love!’ she added in a lower tone, ‘I acquit you of this as of all things. I know your great love for me never failed, and I am content!’
‘I will not believe it without further proof!’ I exclaimed. ‘I will send Ellen at once for the solicitor. I cannot leave you alone with this horrid woman!’
‘Hush, Charlie! she is your mother.’
‘I will not acknowledge it. You are the only mother I have ever had—the only mother I ever will have to my life’s end.’
Mr Chorberry, the solicitor, came without delay, but he could give me no comfort. My poor father, by that strange indifference which has been the curse of so many, had put off making his will until it was too late, by reason of which he had left the one to whom he owed most in the world, the woman who had sacrificed friends and reputation to spend her life in a dull country home, administering to his pleasures, entirely dependent on her own resources for support—whilst the faithless, drunken creature he had the misfortune to be still chained to, walked in as the lawful wife, and claimed her share of the property. There was only one drop of balm in his decision. I, as my father’s son, shared what he had left behind him, but my angel mother and dear baby-sister were cast upon the world to shift for themselves.
And this was the law.
Oh, father! did your spirit look down from whichever sphere it had been translated to, and witness this?
‘But, surely,’ I said to Chorberry, ‘there can be no necessity for my mother leaving Lilyfields before the funeral?’
‘Of course there is no necessity; but do you think it advisable, under the circumstances, that she should remain? Mrs Vere has the legal power to enforce her departure, and I am afraid will not be slow to use it.’
My mother evidently was of one mind with him, for in an incredibly short space of time she had packed her belongings. Mrs Vere, standing over her meanwhile to see she did not purloin anything from the house, and was waiting in the hall with little Violet, ready to go to the house of the clergyman’s wife, who, to her honour, having heard how matters stood at Lilyfields, had promptly sent my mother an invitation to the vicarage for the night.
‘Are you ready, dear mother?’ I said sadly, as I joined her in the hall, and drew her arm within my own.
‘Well, Mr Charles, I suppose I shall see you back again here before long?’ screamed the shrill voice of Mrs Vere down the staircase.
I started.
See me back! Was it possible that this woman believed I intended to make friends with her?
‘We’ve been parted long enough, it strikes me,’ she continued; ‘and now your father’s gone, and left no one behind him but yourself, I suppose you’ll be looking out for my share of the property at my death, so we may as well let bye-gones be bye-gones—eh?’
‘I wish for none of your property, madam,’ I answered haughtily, ‘since the law gives it to you you are welcome to keep it.’
‘Charlie, dear, think what you may be resigning,’ urged my mother in my ear.
‘I think of nothing but you, mother!’
‘Hoity, toity! here’s manners,’ cried the other woman. ‘You seem to forget, Master Charlie, that I’m your mother!’
Still holding my mother’s hand, I turned and confronted her.
‘I forget nothing, madam! I wish I could; but I remember that here stands the woman who laboured where you refused to work; who loved, where you had insulted and betrayed; who was faithful where you were faithless and undeserving; and, I say, that here stands my dead father’s true wife; and here stands, in God’s sight, my mother! The blessing of man may not have sanctified her union, but the blessing of heaven shall be upon it and upon her—upon the creatures she rescued from a living death and upon the gracious hand with which she did it, until time itself shall be no more.’
So saying, I passed with my mother beyond the gates of Lilyfields, to make a new life for her in some quiet spot where she might outlive her grief, and to repay, if possible, by the protection and support of my manhood, the love she had given me as a little child.
THE END.
