Pearl-Fishing; Choice Stories from Dickens' Household Words; First Series
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As they entered the house in Crown-street, they perceived that the door would not open freely on its hinges, and Susan instinctively looked behind to see the cause of the obstruction. She immediately recognized the appearance of a little parcel, wrapped in a scrap of newspaper, and evidently containing money. She stooped and picked it up. “Look!” said she, sorrowfully, “the mother was bringing this for her child last night.”
But Mrs. Leigh did not answer. So near to the ascertaining if it were her lost child or no, she could not be arrested, but pressed onwards with trembling steps and a beating, fluttering heart. She entered the bed-room, dark and still. She took no heed of the little corpse, over which Susan paused, but she went straight to the bed, and withdrawing the curtain, saw Lizzie, – but not the former Lizzie, bright, gay, buoyant, and undimmed. This Lizzie was old before her time; her beauty was gone; deep lines of care, and alas! of want (or thus the mother imagined) were printed on the cheek, so round, and fair, and smooth, when last she gladdened her mother’s eyes. Even in her sleep she bore the look of woe and despair which was the prevalent expression of her face by day; even in her sleep she had forgotten how to smile. But all these marks of the sin and sorrow she had passed through only made her mother love her the more. She stood looking at her with greedy eyes, which seemed as though no gazing could satisfy their longing; and at last she stooped down and kissed the pale, worn hand that lay outside the bed-clothes. No touch disturbed the sleeper; the mother need not have laid the hand so gently down upon the counterpane. There was no sign of life, save only now and then a deep sob-like sigh. Mrs. Leigh sat down beside the bed, and, still holding back the curtain, looked on and on, as if she could never be satisfied.
Susan would fain have stayed by her darling one; but she had many calls upon her time and thoughts, and her will had now, as ever, to be given up to that of others. All seemed to devolve the burden of their cares on her. Her father, ill-humored from his last night’s intemperance, did not scruple to reproach her with being the cause of little Nanny’s death; and when, after bearing his upbraiding meekly for some time, she could no longer restrain herself, but began to cry, he wounded her even more by his injudicious attempts at comfort: for he said it was as well the child was dead; it was none of theirs, and why should they be troubled with it? Susan wrung her hands at this, and came and stood before her father, and implored him to forbear. Then she had to take all requisite steps for the coroner’s inquest; she had to arrange for the dismissal of her school; she had to summon a little neighbor, and send his willing feet on a message to William Leigh, who, she felt, ought to be informed of his mother’s whereabouts, and of the whole state of affairs. She asked her messenger to tell him to come and speak to her, – that his mother was at her house. She was thankful that her father sauntered out to have a gossip at the nearest coach-stand, and to relate as many of the night’s adventures as he knew; for as yet he was in ignorance of the watcher and the watched, who silently passed away the hours up stairs.
At dinner-time Will came. He looked real glad, impatient, excited. Susan stood calm and white before him, her soft, loving eyes gazing straight into his.
“Will,” said she, in a low, quiet voice, “your sister is up stairs.”
“My sister!” said he, as if affrighted at the idea, and losing his glad look in one of gloom. Susan saw it, and her heart sank a little, but she went on, as calm to all appearance as ever.
“She was little Nanny’s mother, as perhaps you know. Poor little Nanny was killed last night by a fall down stairs.” All the calmness was gone; all the suppressed feeling was displayed in spite of every effort. She sat down and hid her face from him, and cried bitterly. He forgot everything but the wish, the longing to comfort her. He put his arm round her waist, and bent over her. But all he could say, was, “Oh, Susan, how can I comfort you! Don’t take on so, – pray don’t!” He never changed the words, but the tone varied every time he spoke. At last she seemed to regain her power over herself; and she wiped her eyes, and once more looked upon him with her own quiet, earnest, unfearing gaze.
“Your sister was near the house. She came in on hearing my words to the doctor. She is asleep now, and your mother is watching her. I wanted to tell you all myself. Would you like to see your mother?”
“No!” said he. “I would rather see none but thee. Mother told me thou knowest all.” His eyes were downcast in their shame.
But the holy and pure did not lower or vail her eyes.
She said, “Yes, I know all – all but her sufferings. Think what they must have been!”
He made answer low and stern, “She deserved them all; every jot.”
“In the eye of God perhaps she does. He is the judge: we are not.”
“Oh!” she said with a sudden burst, “Will Leigh! I have thought so well of you; don’t go and make me think you cruel and hard. Goodness is not goodness unless there is mercy and tenderness with it. There is your mother who has been nearly heart-broken, now full of rejoicing over her child – think of your mother.”
“I do think of her,” said he. “I remember the promise I gave her last night. Thou shouldst give me time. I would do right in time. I never think it o’er in quiet. But I will do what is right and fitting, never fear. Thou hast spoken out very plain to me; and misdoubted me, Susan; I love thee so, that thy words cut me. If I did hang back a bit from making sudden promises, it was because not even for love of thee, would I say what I was not feeling; and at first I could not feel all at once as thou wouldst have me. But I’m not cruel and hard; for if I had been, I should na’ have grieved as I have done.”
He made as if he were going away; and indeed he did feel he would rather think it over in quiet. But Susan, grieved at her incautious words, which had all the appearance of harshness, went a step or two nearer – paused – and then, all over blushes, said in a low soft whisper —
“Oh Will! I beg your pardon. I am very sorry – won’t you forgive me?”
She who had always drawn back, and been so reserved, said this in the very softest manner; with eyes now uplifted beseechingly, now dropped to the ground. Her sweet confusion told more than words could do; and Will turned back, all joyous in his certainty of being beloved, and took her in his arms and kissed her.
“My own Susan!” he said.
Meanwhile the mother watched her child in the room above.
It was late in the afternoon before she awoke; for the sleeping draught had been very powerful. The instant she awoke, her eyes were fixed on her mother’s face with a gaze as unflinching as if she were fascinated. Mrs. Leigh did not turn away, nor move. For it seemed as if motion would unlock the stony command over herself which, while so perfectly still, she was enabled to preserve. But by-and-bye Lizzie cried out in a piercing voice of agony —
“Mother, don’t look at me! I have been so wicked?” and instantly she hid her face, and grovelled among the bedclothes, and lay like one dead – so motionless was she.
Mrs. Leigh knelt down by the bed, and spoke in the most soothing tones.
“Lizzie, dear, don’t speak so. I’m thy mother, darling; don’t be afeard of me. I never left off loving thee, Lizzie. I was always a-thinking of thee. Thy father forgave thee afore he died.” (There was a little start here, but no sound was heard). “Lizzie, lass, I’ll do aught for thee; I’ll live for thee; only don’t be afeard of me. Whate’er thou art or hast been, we’ll ne’er speak on’t. We’ll leave th’ oud times behind us, and go back to the Upclose Farm. I but left it to find thee, my lass; and God has led me to thee. Blessed be His name. And God is good too, Lizzie. Thou hast not forgot thy Bible, I’ll be bound, for thou wert always a scholar. I’m no reader, but I learnt off them texts to comfort me a bit, and I’ve said them many a time a day to myself. Lizzie, lass, don’t hide thy head so, it’s thy mother as is speaking to thee. Thy little child clung to me only yesterday; and if it’s gone to be an angel, it will speak to God for thee. Nay, don’t sob a that ’as; thou shalt have it again in Heaven; I know thou’lt strive to get there for thy little Nancy’s sake – and listen! I’ll tell thee God’s promises to them that are penitent – only don’t be afeard.”
Mrs. Leigh folded her hands, and strove to speak very clearly, while she repeated every tender and merciful text she could remember. She could tell from the breathing that her daughter was listening; but she was so dizzy and sick herself when she had ended, that she could not go on speaking. It was all she could do to keep from crying aloud.
At last she heard her daughter’s voice.
“Where have they taken her to?” she asked.
“She is down stairs. So quiet, and peaceful, and happy she looks.”
“Could she speak? Oh, if God – if I might but have heard her little voice! Mother, I used to dream of it. May I see her once again – Oh mother, if I strive very hard, and God is very merciful, and I go to heaven, I shall not know my own again – she will shun me as a stranger and cling to Susan Palmer and to you. Oh woe! Oh woe!” She shook with exceeding sorrow.
In her earnestness of speech she had uncovered her face, and tried to read Mrs. Leigh’s thoughts through her looks. And when she saw those aged eyes brimming full of tears, and marked the quivering lips, she threw her arms round the faithful mother’s neck, and wept there as she had done in many a childish sorrow; but with a deeper, a more wretched grief.
Her mother hushed her on her breast; and lulled her as if she were a baby; and she grew still and quiet.
They sat thus for a long, long time. At last Susan Palmer came up with some tea and bread and butter for Mrs. Leigh. She watched the mother feed her sick, unwilling child, with every fond inducement to eat which she could devise; they neither of them took notice of Susan’s presence. That night they lay in each other’s arms; but Susan slept on the ground beside them.
They took the little corpse (the little unconscious sacrifice, whose early calling-home had reclaimed her poor wandering mother,) to the hills, which in her life-time she had never seen. They dared not lay her by the stern grand-father in Milne-Row churchyard, but they bore her to a lone moorland graveyard, where long ago the quakers used to bury their dead. They laid her there on the sunny slope, where the earliest spring-flowers blow.
Will and Susan live at the Upclose Farm. Mrs. Leigh and Lizzie dwell in a cottage so secluded that, until you drop into the very hollow where it is placed, you do not see it. Tom is a school-master in Rochdale, and he and Will help to support their mother. I only know that, if the cottage be hidden in a green hollow of the hills, every sound of sorrow in the whole upland is heard there – every call of suffering or of sickness for help is listened to, by a sad, gentle-looking woman, who rarely smiles (and when she does, her smile is more sad than other people’s tears), but who comes out of her seclusion whenever there’s a shadow in any household. Many hearts bless Lizzie Leigh, but she – she prays always and ever for forgiveness – such forgiveness as may enable her to see her child once more. Mrs. Leigh is quiet and happy. Lizzie is to her eyes something precious, – as the lost piece of silver – found once more. Susan is the bright one who brings sunshine to all. Children grow around her and call her blessed. One is called Nanny. Her, Lizzy often takes to the sunny graveyard in the uplands, while the little creature gathers the daisies, and makes chains, Lizzie sits by a little grave, and weeps bitterly.
V.
The Old Churchyard Tree
A PROSE POEMTHERE is an old yew tree which stands by the wall in a dark quiet corner of the church-yard.
And a child was at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine day in the early spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to himself as he wove them into garlands.
And a little girl at play among the tombstones crept near to listen; but the boy was so intent upon his garland, that he did not hear the gentle footsteps, as they trod softly over the fresh green grass. When his work was finished, and all the flowers that were in his lap were woven together in one long wreath, he started up to measure its length upon the ground, and then he saw the little girl, as she stood with her eyes fixed upon him. He did not move or speak, but thought to himself that she looked very beautiful as she stood there with her flaxen ringlets, hanging down upon her neck. The little girl was so startled by his sudden movement, that she let fall all the flowers she had collected in her apron, and ran away as fast as she could. But the boy was older and taller than she, and soon caught her, and coaxed her to come back and play with him, and help him to make more garlands; and from that time they saw each other nearly every day, and became great friends.
Twenty years passed away. Again he was seated beneath the old yew tree in the church-yard.
It was summer now; bright, beautiful summer, with the birds singing, and the flowers covering the ground, and scenting the air with their perfume.
But he was not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on tiptoe, fearful of being heard. She was seated by his side, and his arm was round her, and she looked up into his face, and smiled as she whispered: “The first evening of our lives we were ever together was passed here: we will spend the first evening of our wedded life in the same quiet, happy place.” And he drew her closer to him as she spoke.
The summer is gone; and the autumn; and twenty more summers and autumns have passed away since that evening, in the old church-yard.
A young man, on a bright moonlight night, comes reeling through the little white gate, and stumbling over the graves. He shouts and he sings, and is presently followed by others like unto himself or worse. So, they all laugh at the dark solemn head of the yew tree, and throw stones up at the place where the moon has silvered the boughs.
Those same boughs are again silvered by the moon, and they droop over his mother’s grave. There is a little stone which bears this inscription: —
“HER HEART BRAKE IN SILENCE.”
But the silence of the churchyard is now broken by a voice – not of the youth – nor a voice of laughter and ribaldry.
“My son! – dost thou see this grave? and dost thou read the record in anguish, whereof may come repentance?”
“Of what should I repent?” answers the son; “and why should my young ambition for fame relax in its strength because my mother was old and weak?”
“Is this indeed our son?” says the father, bending in agony over the grave of his beloved.
“I can well believe I am not;” exclaimeth the youth. “It is well that you have brought me here to say so. Our natures are unlike; our courses must be opposite. Your way lieth here – mine yonder!”
So the son left the father kneeling by the grave.
Again a few years are passed. It is winter, with a roaring wind and a thick gray fog. The graves in the Church-yard are covered with snow, and there are great icicles in the Church-porch. The wind now carries a swathe of snow along the tops of the graves, as though the “sheeted dead” were at some melancholy play; and hark! the icicles fall with a crash and jingle, like a solemn mockery of the echo of the unseemly mirth of one who is now coming to his final rest.
There are two graves near the old yew tree; and the grass has overgrown them. A third is close by; and the dark earth at each side has just been thrown up. The bearers come; with a heavy pace they move along; the coffin heaveth up and down, as they step over the intervening graves.
Grief and old age had seized upon the father, and worn out his life; and premature decay soon seized upon the son, and gnawed away his vain ambition, and his useless strength, till he prayed to be borne, not the way yonder that was most opposite to his father and his mother, but even the same way they had gone – the way which leads to the Old Churchyard Tree.
VI.
The Modern “Officer’s” Progress
I. – JOINING THE REGIMENT
“I HAVE got some very sad news to tell you,” wrote Lady Pelican to her friend, Mrs. Vermeil, a faded lady of fashion, who discontentedly occupied a suite of apartments at Hampton Court; “our Irish estates are in such a miserable condition – absolutely making us out to be in debt to them, instead of adding to our income, that poor George – you will be shocked to hear it – is actually obliged to go into the Infantry!”
The communication of this distressing fact may stand instead of the regular Gazette, announcing the appointment of the Hon. George Spoonbill to an Ensigncy, by purchase, in the 100th regiment of foot. His military aspirations had been “Cavalry,” and he had endeavored to qualify himself for that branch of the service by getting up an invisible moustache, when the Irish agent wrote to say that no money was to be had in that quarter, and all thoughts of the Household Brigade were, of necessity, abandoned. But, though the more expensive career was shut out, Lord Pelican’s interest at the Horse Guards remained as influential as before, and for the consideration of four hundred and fifty pounds which – embarrassed as he was – he contrived to muster, he had no difficulty in procuring a commission for his son George, in the distinguished regiment already named. There were, it is true, a few hundred prior claimants on the Duke’s list; “but,” as Lord Pelican justly observed, “if the Spoonbill family were not fit for the army, he should like to know who were!” An argument perfectly irresistible. Gazetted, therefore, the young gentleman was, as soon as the Queen’s sign-manual could be obtained, and the usual interval for preparation over, the Hon. George Spoonbill set out to join. But before he does so, we must say a word of what that “preparation” consisted in.
Some persons may imagine that he forthwith addressed himself to the study of Polybius, dabbled a little in Cormontaigne, got up Napier’s History of the Peninsular War, or read the Duke’s Despatches; others, that he went down to Birdcage-Walk, and placed himself under the tuition of Color-Sergeant Pike, of the Grenadier Guards, a warrior celebrated for his skill in training military aspirants, or that he endeavored by some other means to acquire a practical knowledge, however slight, of the profession for which he had always been intended. The Hon. George Spoonbill knew better. The preparation he made, was a visit, at least three times a day, to Messrs. Gorget and Plume, the military tailors in Jermyn Street, whose souls he sorely vexed by the persistance with which he adhered to the most accurate fit of his shell-jacket and coatee, the set of his epaulettes, the cut of his trowsers, and the shape of his chako. He passed his days in “trying on his things,” and his evenings – when not engaged in the Casino, the Cider Cellar, or the Adelphi – in dining with his military friends at St. James’s Palace, or at Knightsbridge Barracks. In their society he greatly improved himself, acquiring an accurate knowledge of lansquenet and ecarté, cultivating his taste for tobacco, and familiarizing his mind with that reverence for authority which is engendered by the anecdotes of great military commanders that freely circulate at the mess-table. His education and his uniform being finished at about the same time, George Spoonbill took a not uncheerful farewell of the agonized Lady Pelican, whose maternal bosom streamed with the sacrifice she made in thus consigning her offspring to the vulgar hardships of a marching regiment.
An express train conveyed the honorable Ensign in safety to the country town where the “Hundredth” were then quartered, and in conformity with the instructions which he received from the Assistant Military Secretary at the Horse Guards – the only instructions, by-the-bye, which were given him by that functionary – he “reported” himself at the Orderly-room on his arrival, was presented by the Adjutant to the senior Major, by the senior Major to the Lieutenant-Colonel, and by the Lieutenant-Colonel to the officers generally when they assembled for mess.
The “Hundredth,” being “Light Infantry,” called itself “a crack regiment:” the military adjective signifying, in this instance, not so much a higher reputation for discipline and warlike achievements, as an indefinite sort of superiority arising from the fact that no man was allowed to enter the corps who depended on his pay only for the figure he cut in it. Lieutenant-Colonel Tulip, who commanded, was very strict in this particular, and, having the good of the service greatly at heart, set his face entirely against the admission of any young man who did not enjoy a handsome paternal allowance, or was not the possessor of a good income. He was himself the son of a celebrated army clothier, and in the course of ten years, had purchased the rank he now held, so that he had a right, as he thought, to see that his regiment was not contaminated by contact with poor men. His military creed was, that no man had any business in the army who could not afford to keep his horses or tilbury, and drink wine every day; that he called respectable, anything short of it the reverse. If he ever relaxed from the severity of this rule, it was only in favor of those who had high connections; “a handle to a name” being as reverently worshipped by him as money itself; indeed, in secret, he preferred a lord’s son, though poor, to a commoner, however rich; the poverty of a sprig of nobility not being taken exactly in a literal sense. Colonel Tulip had another theory also: during the aforesaid ten years, he had acquired some knowledge of drill, and possessing an hereditary taste for dress, considered himself, thus endowed, a first-rate officer, though what he would have done with his regiment in the field is quite another matter. In the meantime he was gratified by thinking that he did his best to make it a crack corps, according to his notion of the thing, and such minor points as the moral training of the officers, and their proficiency in something more than the forms of the parade ground, were not allowed to enter into his consideration. The “Hundredth” were acknowledged to be “a devilish well-dressed, gentlemanly set of fellows,” and were looked after with great interest at country-balls, races, and regattas; and if this were not what a regiment ought to be, Colonel Tulip was, he flattered himself, very much out in his calculations.
The advent of the Hon. George Spoonbill was a very welcome one, as the vacancy to which he succeeded had been caused by the promotion of a young baronet into “Dragoons,” and the new comer being the second son of Lord Pelican, with a possibility of being graced one day by wearing that glittering title himself, the hiatus caused by Sir Henry Muff’s removal was happily filled up without any derogation to the corps. Having also ascertained, in the course of five minutes’ conversation, that Mr. Spoonbill’s “man” and two horses were to follow in a few days with the remainder of his baggage; and the young gentlemen having talked rather largely of what the Governor allowed him (two hundred a-year is no great sum, but he kept the actual amount in the back ground, speaking “promiscuously” of “a few hundreds”), and of his intimacy with “the fellows in the Life Guards;” Colonel Tulip at once set him down as a decided acquisition to the “Hundredth,” and intimated that he was to be made much of accordingly.
When we described the regiment as being composed of wealthy men, the statement must be received with a certain reservation. It was Colonel Tulip’s hope and intention to make it so in time, when he had sufficiently “weeded” it, but en attendant there were three or four officers who did not quite belong to his favorite category. There were the senior Major, and an old Captain, both of whom had seen a good deal of service, the Surgeon, who was a necessary evil, and the Quarter-master, who was never allowed to show with the rest of the officers except at “inspection,” or some other unusual demonstration. But the rank and “allowance” of the first, and something in the character of the second, which caused him to be looked upon as a military oracle, made Colonel Tulip tolerate their presence in the corps, if he did not enjoy it. Neither had the Adjutant quite as much money as the commanding officer could have desired, but as his position kept him close to his duties, doing that for which Colonel Tulip took credit, he also was suffered to pass muster; he was a brisk, precise, middle-aged personage, who hoped in the course of time to get his company, and whose military qualifications consisted chiefly in knowing “Torrens,” the “Articles of War,” the “Military Regulations,” and the “Army List,” by heart. The last-named work was, indeed, very generally studied in the regiment, and may be said to have exhausted almost all the literary resources of its readers, exceptions being made in favor of the weekly military newspaper, the monthly military magazine, and an occasional novel from the circulating library. The rest of the officers must speak for themselves, as they incidentally make their appearance. Of their character, generally, this may be said; none were wholly bad, but all of them might easily have been a great deal better.