CHAPTER XIV
Thenext few weeks worked a great and serious change in George. It was the first time he had seen death since he was ten years old, when his father died. That had made a great impression on him at the time, but the feelings of a child of ten and a youth of sixteen are very different. He had loved little Mildred dearly, and the child’s death was a deep sorrow to him. The grief of his brother and sister was piteous. As the case often is, the father was the more overwhelmed, and the poor mother had to stifle her own grief to help her husband. George could not but love and admire his sister the more when he saw her calm fortitude, and how, inspired by love for her husband, she bore bravely the loss of her only child. Both Madam Washington and Betty had come to Mount Vernon the day of little Mildred’s death. Madam Washington was obliged to return, after a few days, to her younger children, but George and Betty remained.
“For George is the heir now,” said Laurence,with a sad smile, “and he must learn to manage what will one day be his own.”
“Oh, brother,” burst out George, with strange violence, “do you believe I wanted this place at the price of your child’s life? I would give it all, twenty times over, to have her back!”
“If I had thought you coveted it I should never have made you my heir,” was Laurence’s reply to this.
Never was there a kinder or more helpful soul than Betty, now a tall and beautiful girl of fourteen. Mrs. Washington’s health was much shattered by this last and greatest sorrow and Laurence, who had always been of a delicate constitution, became every day more feeble. George attended him assiduously, rarely leaving him. He persuaded his brother to ride out and take some interest in the place. He read to Laurence of evenings in the library, and tried to interest him with accounts of the new regions in which the younger brother had spent so many months. Nothing could ever make Laurence Washington a happy man again, but by George’s efforts he was saved from falling into utter melancholy.
Mrs. Washington’s sorrow, though as great, was better controlled. She always managed to wear a cheerful look before her husband, and althoughshe was not able to accompany him in his out-door life, she was with him every moment he spent in-doors. Betty was to her as great a comfort as George was to Laurence Washington. Betty had so tender a heart and so excellent an understanding that she was as helpful as a woman twice her age, and these two young creatures, George and Betty, were mainstays and comforts at an age when most young creatures rely wholly on other people.
All day they were engaged, each in gentle and untiring efforts to make life a little brighter to their brother and sister. But after the older persons had retired every night George and Betty would sit up over the fire in the library and talk for hours. Their conversations were not always sad—it is not natural for the young to dwell in sadness—but they were generally serious. One night Betty said:
“Don’t you think, George, we ought to write to our mother and ask her to let us stay over Christmas with brother Laurence and sister Anne? You remember how gay it was last Christmas, and how glad we were to be here? Now, I think when they are in great trouble, we ought to be as willing to stay with them as when they were happy and bright and could make us enjoy ourselves.”
“Betty,” answered George, in admiration, “why did I not think of this? I see it is just what we ought to do.”
“Because,” said Betty, promptly, “women are much more thoughtful than men, and girls are much more thoughtful than boys.”
George did not dispute this, as he had been taught never to call in question any woman’s goodness, and in his heart he believed them to be all as good as his mother and Betty and his sister Anne. The lesson of chivalry towards all women had been early and deeply taught him, and it was a part of the fibre of his being. “And shall I write and ask our mother to let us stay?” asked George, humbly.
“No,” replied Betty, with a slight accent of scorn; “you might not ask it in the right way. I shall write myself.”
Now, although Betty always assumed, when alone with George, this superior tone, yet when they were in company nothing could exceed her submissiveness towards this darling brother, and it was then George’s turn to treat her with condescending kindness. But each thought this arrangement perfectly natural and mutually satisfactory. Whenever they had a discussion, though, Betty always carried the day, for she was really a girl of remarkably fine sense andmuch more glib and persuasive than George, who could always be silenced, if not convinced, by Betty’s ready tongue and quick wit. The next day the letter was written to Madam Washington, and within a week a reply was received giving permission for the brother and sister to remain over Christmas.
Mrs. Washington, ever thoughtful of others, made the same preparation for the holiday on the estate as usual, so that, however sad the house might be, the servants should have their share of jollity. But the tie between a kind master and mistress and their slaves was one of great affection, and especially were the white children objects of affection to the black people. Therefore, although the usual Christmas holiday was given, with all the extra allowances and indulgences, it was a quiet season at Mount Vernon. On Christmas Day, instead of the merry party in carriages going to Pohick Church, and an equally merry one going on board theBellonato service, the coach only took Mr. and Mrs. Washington and Betty to church, George riding with them, for he hated a coach, and never drove when he could ride.
Meanwhile William Fairfax had returned to Belvoir, where there were Christmas festivities. George and Betty were asked, and, althoughtheir brother and sister urged them to go, neither felt really inclined for gayety. They were not of those natures forever in pursuit of pleasure, although none could enjoy it more when it came rightly; and a native good sense and tender sympathy with others, which found no expression in words, made them both feel that they should omit no mark of respect in a case where they were so directly benefited as by the little girl’s death. Laurence Washington and his wife could not admire too much George’s delicacy about Mount Vernon. While he made use of the servants and the horses and carriages and boats, and everything else on the place, with the freedom of a son rather than a younger brother, no word or look escaped him that indicated he was the heir.
William Fairfax was a great resource to both George and Betty. Living a whole summer together as he and George had done, it was inevitable that they should become either very much attached or very antagonistic—and luckily they had become devotedly fond of one another. William was preparing to enter William and Mary College the following year, and George bitterly regretted that he would not have so pleasant a companion for his next summer’s work. Very different were his circumstances now, the acknowledgedheir of a rich brother. But George determined to act as if no such thing existed, and to carry out his plan of finishing the surveys on Lord Fairfax’s lands. The universal expectation of war with France, whenever the French and English outposts should get sufficiently near, made him sure that he would one day bear arms; but he prepared for whatever the future might hold for him by doing his best in the present.
BY DAYLIGHT GEORGE WAS IN THE SADDLE“BY DAYLIGHT GEORGE WAS IN THE SADDLE”
“BY DAYLIGHT GEORGE WAS IN THE SADDLE”
“BY DAYLIGHT GEORGE WAS IN THE SADDLE”
In February he returned to Ferry Farm for a while, but he had only been there a month when Laurence Washington wrote, begging that he would return, and saying that he himself felt utterly unequal to carrying on the affairs of a great estate in his present wretched state of health and spirits. Madam Washington made no objection to George’s return to Mount Vernon. She realized the full extent of Laurence’s kind intentions towards George, and that his presence was absolutely necessary to keep the machinery of a large plantation going.
In March, therefore, George was again at Mount Vernon, practically in charge of the place. There was ploughing and ditching and draining and clearing and planting to be done, and, with a force of a hundred and fifty field-hands and eighteen hundred acres of arable land,it was no small undertaking. By daylight George was in the saddle, going first to the stables to see the stock fed, then to the kennels, and, after breakfast, riding over the whole estate. It kept him in the open air all day, and he began to like not only the life but the responsibility. He had all the privileges of the master, Laurence leaving everything to his judgment, and his sister was glad to have it so. This continued until June, when, the crops being well advanced and Lord Fairfax having written urgently for him, he turned affairs over to the overseer until the autumn, and prepared to resume his work as a surveyor.
He paid a hurried visit to Ferry Farm, where, although he was painfully missed, things went on perfectly well, for no better farmer than Madam Washington could be found in the colony of Virginia. Indeed, George’s success at Mount Vernon was due in great measure to applying the sound system in vogue at Ferry Farm to the larger interests at Mount Vernon. Madam Washington’s pride in his responsible position at Mount Vernon, and his still greater responsibility as a State surveyor for Lord Fairfax, did much to reconcile her to George’s long absences. Deep in her heart she cherished a pride in her eldest son that was one of the master-passionsof her life. The extreme respect that George paid her filled her with more satisfaction than the attentions of all the rest of the world. Once only had they clashed—in the matter of the midshipman’s warrant. She had won a nominal victory by an appeal to his feelings, but she had no mind after that for any more battles of the sort. So with tears, but with encouraging smiles, she saw him set forth, in the summer of 1749, upon his second year’s work in the wilderness.