The next day she met Mr. and Mrs. Macintosh, and the former actually congratulated her on what Hector had done and what people thought of him for it; but the latter only gave a sniff. And the next post brought the book itself, and with it a petition from Hector that she would fix the day to join him in London.
Annie made haste, therefore, to get ready the dress of white linen in which she meant to be married, and a lady, the sister of Hector’s friend, meeting her in London, they were married the next day, and went together to Hector’s humble lodgings in a northern suburb.
Hector’s new volume, larger somewhat, but made up of smaller poems, did not attract the same amount of attention as the former, and the result gave no encouragement to the publisher to make a third venture. One reason possibly was that the subjects of most of the poems, even the gayest of them, were serious, and another may have been that the common tribe of reviewers, searching like other parasites, discovered in them material for ridicule—which to them meant food, and as such they made use of it. At the same time he was not left without friends: certain of his readers, who saw what he meant and cared to understand it, continued his readers; and his influence on such was slowly growing, while those that admired, feeling the power of his work, held by him the more when the scoffers at him grew insolent. Still, few copies were sold, and Hector found it well that he had other work and was not altogether dependent on his pen, which would have been simple starvation. And, from the first, Annie was most careful in her expenditure.
Among the simple people whom her husband brought her to know, she speedily became a great favorite, and this circle widened more rapidly after she joined it. For her simple truth, which even to Hector had occasionally seemed some what overdriven, now revealed itself as the ground of her growing popularity. She welcomed all, was faithful to all, and sympathetic with all. Nor was it longer before her husband began to study her in order to understand her—and that the more that he could find in her neither plan nor system, nothing but straightforward, foldless simplicity. Nor did she ever come to believe less in the foreseeing care of God. She ceased perhaps to attribute so much to the ministry of the angels as when she took the fiercer blast that rescued from the flames the greasy note and blew it uncharred up the roaring chimney for the sudden waft of an angel’s wing; but she came to meet them oftener in daily life, clothed in human form, though still they were rare indeed, and often, like the angel that revealed himself to Manoah, disappeared upon recognition.
By-and-by it seemed certain that, if ever Hector had had anything of what the world counts success, it had now come to a pause. For a long time he wrote nothing that, had it been published, could have produced any impression like that of his first book; it seemed as if the first had forestalled the success of those that should follow. That had been of a new sort, and the so-called Public, innocent little personification, was not yet grown ready for anything more of a similar kind, which, indeed, seemed to lack elements of attraction and interest; and the readers to whom the same man will tell even new things are apt to grow weary of his mode of saying, even though that mode have improved in directness and force; the tide of his small repute had already begun to take the other direction. Those who understood and prized his work, still holding by him, and declaring that they found in him what they found in no other writer, remained stanch in their friendship, and among them the little old lady who had at once welcomed his first poem to her heart and whose name and position were now well known to Hector. But the reviewers, seeming to have forgotten their first favorable reception of him, now began to find nothing but faults in his work, pointing out only what they judged ill contrived and worse executed in his conceptions, and that in a tone to convey the impression that he had somehow wheedled certain of them into their former friendly utterances concerning him.
And about the same time it so happened that business began to fall away rapidly from the bank of which his father held the chief country agency, so that he was no longer able to continue to Hector his former subsidy, the announcement of which discouraging fact was accompanied by a lecture on the desirableness of a change in his choice of subject as well as in his style; if he continued to write as he had been doing of late, no one would be left, his father said, to read what he wrote!
And now it began to be evident what a happy thing it was for Hector that Annie was now at his side to help him. For, as his courage sank, and he saw Annie began to feel straitened in her housekeeping, he saw also how her courage arose and shone. But he grew more and more discouraged, until it was all that Annie could do to hold him back from despair. At length, however, she began to feel that possibly there might be some truth in what his father had written to him, and a new departure ought to be attempted. She could not herself believe that her husband was limited to any style or subject for the embodiment of his thoughts; he who had written so well in one fashion might write at least well, if not as well, in another! Had she not heard him say that verse was the best practice for writing prose?
Gently, therefore, and cautiously she approached the matter with him, only to find at first, as she had expected, that he but recoiled from the suggestion with increase of discouragement. Still, taking no delight in obstinacy, and feeling the necessity of some fresh attempt grow daily more pressing, he turned his brains about, and sending them foraging, at length bethought him of a certain old Highland legend with which at one time he had been a good deal taken, from the discovery in it of certain symbolical possibilities. This legend he proceeded to rewrite and remodel, doing his best endeavor to preserve in it the old Celtic aroma and aerial suggestion, while taking care neither to lose nor reproduce too manifestly its half-apparent, still evanishing symbolism. Urged by fear and enfeebled by doubt, he wrote feverously, and, after three days of laborious and unnatural toil, submitted the result to Annie, who was now his only representative of the outer world, and the only person for whose criticism he seemed now to care. She, greatly in doubt of her own judgment, submitted it to his friend; and together they agreed on this verdict: That, while it certainly proved he could write as well in prose as in verse, people would not be attracted by it, and that it would be found lacking in human interest. His friend saw in it also too much of the Celtic tendency to the mystical and allegorical, as distinguished from the factual and storial.
Upon learning this their decision, poor Hector fell once more into a state of great discouragement, not feeling in him the least power of adopting another way; there seemed to him but one mode, the way things came to him. And in this surely he was right—only might not things come, or be sent to him in some other way? His friend suggested that he might, changing the outward occurrences, and the description of the persons to whom they happened, in such fashion that there could be no identification of them, tell the very tale of how Annie and he came to know and love each other, taking especial care to muffle up to shapelessness, or at least featurelessness, the part his mother had taken in their story. This seeming to Hector a thing possible, he took courage, and set about it at once, gathering interest as he proceeded, and writing faster and faster as he grew in hope of success. At the same time it was not favorable to the result that he felt constantly behind him, the darkly lowering necessity that, urging him on, yet debilitated every motion of the generating spirit.
It took him a long time to get the story into a condition that he dared to consider even passable; and the longer that he had not the delight that verse would have brought with it in the process of its production. Nevertheless he would now and then come to a passage in writing which the old emotion would seem to revive; but in reading these, Annie, modest and doubtful as she always was of her own judgment, especially where her husband’s work was concerned, seemed to recognize a certain element of excitement that gave it a glow, or rather, glamour of unreality, or rather, unnaturalness, which affected her as inharmonious, therefore unfit, or out of place. She thought it better, however, to say little or nothing of any such paragraph, and tried to regard it as of small significance, and probably carrying little influence in respect of the final judgment.
The narrative, such as it might prove, was at length finished, and had been read, at least with pleasure and hope, by his friend, who was still the only critic on whose judgment he dared depend, for he could not help regarding Annie as prejudiced in his favor, although her approval continued for him absolutely essential. The sole portions to which his friend took any exception were the same concerning which Annie had already doubted, and which he found too poetical in their tone—not, he took care to say, in their meaning, for that could not be too poetical, but in their expression, which must impinge too sharply upon prosaic ears that cared only for the narrative, and would recoil from any reflection, however just in itself, that might be woven into it.
But, alas, now came what Hector felt the last and final blow to the possibility of farther endeavor in the way of literature!
The bank to which Hector had been introduced by his father, and in which he had been employed ever since, had of late found it necessary to look more closely to its outlay and reduce its expenses; therefore, believing that Hector had abundance of other resources, its managers decided on giving him notice first of all that they must in future deprive themselves of the pleasure of his services. And this announcement came at a time when Annie was already in no small difficulty to make the ends of her expenditure meet those of her income. In fact, she had no longer any income. For a considerable time she had, by the stinting of what had before that seemed necessities, been making a shilling do the work of eighteenpence, and now she knew nothing beyond, except to go without. But how allow Hector to go without? He must die if she did! Already he had begun to shrink in his clothes from lack of proper nourishment.
A rumor reaching him of a certain post as librarian, in the gift of an old corporation, being vacant, Hector at once made application for it, but only to receive the answer that Pegasus must not be put in harness: poor Pegasus, on a false pretense of respect, must be kept out of the shafts! His fat friends would not permit him to degrade himself earning his bread by work he could have done very well; he must rather starve! He tried for many posts, one after the other. Heavier and heavier fell upon him each following disappointment. Annie had in her heart been greatly disappointed that no prospect appeared of a child to sanctify their union; but for that she had learned more than to console herself with the reflection that at least there was no such heavenly visitor for whose earthly sojourn to provide; and now how gladly would she have labored for the child in the hope that such a joy and companionship might lift him up out of his despondency! Then he would be able to enjoy and assimilate the poor food she was able to get for him. It is true he always seemed quite content; but, then, he would often, she believed, pretend not to be hungry, and certainly ate less and less. Hitherto she had fought with all her might against running in debt to the tradespeople, for, more than all else, she feared debt. Now, at last, however, her resolution was in danger of giving way, when, happily, Hector bethought himself of his precious books; to what better use could he put them than sell them to buy food—wherein the books he had written had failed him? Parcel by parcel in a leather strap, he carried them to the nearest secondhand bookseller, where he had so often bought; now he wanted to sell, but, unhappily, he soon found that books, like many other things, are worth much less to the seller than to the buyer, and where Hector had calculated on pounds, only shillings were forthcoming. Yet by their sale, notwithstanding, they managed to keep a little longer out of debt.
And in these days Annie had at length finished her fair copy of Hector’s last book, writing it out in her own lovelily legible hand—not such as ladies in general count legible, because they can easily read it themselves; she could do better than that, she could write so that others could not fail to read. For Hector had always believed that the acceptance of his first volume had been owing not a little to the fact that he had written it out most legibly, and he held that what reveals itself at once and without possibility of mistake may justly hope for a better reception than what from the first moment annoys the reader with a sense of ill-treatment. It is no wonder, he said, if such a manuscript be at once tossed aside with an imprecation. Legibility is the first and intelligibility the only other thing rendered due by the submission of a manuscript to any publisher.
Hector spent a day or two in remodeling and modifying the passages remarked upon by his wife and his friend, and then, with hope reviving in both their hearts, the manuscript was sent in, acknowledged, and the day appointed when an answer would be ready.
Upon a certain dark morning, therefore, in November, having nothing else whatever to do, Hector set out in his much-worn Inverness cape to call upon his former publisher in the City, with whom of late he had had no communication. The weather was cold and damp, threatening rain. But Hector was too much of a Scotchman to care about weather, and too full of anxiety to mind either cold or wet. He had, indeed, almost always felt gloomy weather exciting rather than depressing. For one thing, it seemed, when he was indoors, to close him about with protection from uncongenial interruption, leaving the freer his inventive faculty; and now that he was abroad in it, and no inventive faculty left awake, it seemed to clothe him with congenial sympathy, for the weather was just the same inside him. And now, as he strode along with his eyes on the ground, he scarcely saw any of the objects about him, but sought only the heart of the City, where he hoped to find the publisher in his office, ready to print his manuscript, and advance him a small sum in anticipation of possible profit. So absorbed was he in thought undefined, and so sunk in anxiety as to the answer he was about to receive, that more than once he was nearly run over by the cart of some reckless tradesman—seeming to him, in its over-taking suddenness, the type of prophetic fate already at his heels.
At length, however, he arrived safe in the outer shop, where the books of the firm were exposed to sight, in process of being subscribed for by the trade. There a pert young man asked him to take a seat, while he carried his name to the publisher, and there for some time he waited, reading titles he found himself unable to lay hold of; and there, while he waited, the threatened rain began, and, ere he was admitted to the inner premises, such a black deluge came pouring down as, for blackness at least, comes down nowhere save in London. With this accompaniment, he was ushered at length into a dingy office, deep in the recesses of the house, where a young man whom he saw for the first time had evidently, while Hector waited in the shop, been glancing at the manuscript he had left. Little as he could have read, however, it had been enough, aided perhaps by the weather, to bring him to an unfavorable decision; his rejection was precise and definite, leaving no room for Hector to say anything, for he did not seem ever to have heard of him before. Hector rose at once, gathered up his papers from the table where they lay scattered, said “Good-morning,” and went out into the sooty rain.
Not knowing whitherward to point his foot, he stopped at the corner of King William Street, close to the money-shops of the old Lombards, and there stood still, in vain endeavor to realize the blow that had stunned him. There he stood and stood, with bowed head, like an outcast beggar, watching the rain that dropped black from the rim of his saturated hat. Becoming suddenly conscious, however, that the few wayfarers glanced somewhat curiously at him as they passed, he started to walk on, not knowing whither, but trying to look as if he had a purpose somewhere inside him, whereas he had still a question to settle—whether to buy a bun, and, on the strength of that, walk home, or spend his few remaining pence on an omnibus, as far as it would take him for the money, and walk the rest of the way.
Then, suddenly, as if out of the depths of despair, arose in him an assurance of help on the way to him, and with it a strength to look in the face the worst that could befall him; he might at least starve in patience. Therewith he drew himself up, crossed the street to the corner of the Mansion House, and got into an omnibus waiting there.
If only he could creep into his grave and have done! Why should that hostelry of refuge stand always shut? Surely he was but walking in his own funeral! Were not the mourners already going about the street before ever the silver cord was loosed or the golden bowl broken? Might he not now at length feel at liberty to end the life he had ceased to value? But there was Annie! He would go home to her; she would comfort him—yes, she would die with him! There was no other escape; there was no sign of coming deliverance. All was black within and around them. That was the rain on the gravestones. He was in a hearse, on his way to the churchyard. There the mourners were already gathered. They were before him, waiting his arrival. No! He would go home to Annie! He would not be a coward soldier! He would not kill himself to escape the enemy! He would stand up to the Evil One, and take his blows without flinching. He and his Annie would take them together, and fight to the last. Then, if they must die, it was well, and would be better.
But alas! what if the obligation of a live soul went farther than this life? What if a man was bound, by the fact that he lived, to live on, and do everything possible to keep the life alive in him? There his heart sank, and the depths of the sea covered it! Did God require of him that, sooner than die, he should beg the food to keep him alive? Would he be guilty of forsaking his post, if he but refused to ask, and waited for Death? Was he bound to beg? If he was, he must begin at once by refusing to accept the smallest credit! To all they must tell the truth of their circumstances, and refuse aught but charity. But was there not something yet he could try before begging? He had had a good education, had both knowledge and the power of imparting it; this was still worth money in the world’s market. And doubtless therein his friend could do something for him.
Therewithal his new dread was gone; one possibility was yet left him in store! To his wife he must go, and talk the thing over with her. He had still, he believed, threepence in his pocket to pay for the omnibus.
It began to move; and then first, waking up, he saw that he had seated himself between a poor woman and a little girl, evidently her daughter.
“I am very sorry to incommode you, ma’am,” he said apologetically to the white-faced woman, whose little tartan shawl scarcely covered her shoulders, painfully conscious of his dripping condition, as he took off his hat, and laid it on the floor between his equally soaking feet. But, instead of moving away from him to a drier position beyond, the woman, with a feeble smile, moved closer up to him, saying to her daughter on his other side:
“Sit closer to the gentleman, Jessie, and help to keep him warm. She’s quite clean, sir,” she added. “We have plenty of water in our place, and I gave her a bath myself this morning, because we were going to the hospital to see my husband. He had a bad accident yesterday, but thank God! not so bad as it might have been. I’m afraid you’re feeling very cold, sir,” she added, for Hector had just given an involuntary shiver.
“My husband he’s a bricklayer,” she went on; “he has been in good work, and I have a few shillings in hand, thank God! Times are sure to mend, for they seldom turns out so bad as they looks.”
Involuntarily Hector’s hand moved to his trouser pocket, but dropped by his side as he remembered the fare. She saw his movement, and broke into a sad little laugh.
“Don’t mistake me, sir,” she resumed. “I told you true when I said I wasn’t without money; and, before the pinch comes, wages, I dare say, will show their color again. Besides, our week’s rent is paid. And he’s in good quarters, poor fellow, though with a bad pain to keep him company, I’m afraid.”
“Where do you live?” asked Hector “But,” he went on, “why should I ask? I am as poor as you—poorer, perhaps, for I have no trade to fall back upon. But I have a good wife like you, and I don’t doubt she’ll think of something.”
“Trust to that, sir! A good woman like I’m sure she is ’ll be sure to think of many a thing before she’ll give in. My husband, he was brought up to religion, and he always says there’s one as know’s and don’t forget.” But now the omnibus had reached the spot where Hector must leave it. He got up, fumbling for his threepenny-piece, but failed to find it.
“Don’t forget your hat, sir; it’ll come all right when it’s dry,” said the woman, as she handed it to him. But he stood, the conductor waiting, and seemed unable to take it from her: he could not find the little coin!
“There, there, sir!” interposed the woman, as she made haste and handed him three coppers; “I have plenty for both of us, and wish for your sake it was a hundred times as much. Take it, sir,” she insisted, while Hector yet hesitated and fumbled; “you won’t refuse such a small service from another of God’s creatures! I mean it well.”
But the conductor, apparently affected with the same generosity, pushed back the woman’s hand, saying, “No, no, ma’am, thank you! The gentleman ’ll pay me another day.”
Hector pulled out an old silver watch, and offered it.
“I cannot be so sure about that,” he said. “Better take this: it’s of little use to me now.”
“I’ll be damned if I do!” cried the conductor fiercely, and down he jumped and stood ready to help Hector from the omnibus.
But his kindness was more than Hector could stand; he walked away, unable to thank him.
“I wonder now,” muttered the conductor to himself when Hector was gone, “if that was a put-up job between him and the woman? I don’t think so. Anyhow, it’s no great loss to anybody. I won’t put it down; the company ’ll have to cover that.”
Hector turned down a street that led westward, drying his eyes, and winking hard to make them swallow the tears which sought to hide from him a spectacle that was calling aloud to be seen. For lo! the street-end was filled with the glory of a magnificent rainbow. All across its opening stretched and stood the wide arch of a wonderful rainbow. Hector could not see the sun; he saw only what it was making; and the old story came back to him, how the men of ancient time took the heavenly bow for a promise that there should no more be such a flood as again to destroy the world. And therefore even now the poets called the rainbow the bow of hope.
Nor, even in these days of question and unbelief, is it matter of wonder that, at sight of the harmony of blended and mingling, yet always individual, and never confused colors, and notwithstanding his knowledge of optics, and of how the supreme unity of the light was secerned into its decreed chord, the imaginative faith of the troubled poet should so work in him as to lift his head for a moment above the waters of that other flood that threatened to overwhelm his microcosm, and the bow should seem to him a new promise, given to him then and individually, of the faithfulness of an unseen Power of whom he had been assured, by one whom he dared not doubt, that He numbered the very hairs of his head. Once more his spirit rose upon the wave of a hope which he could neither logically justify nor dare to refuse; for hope is hope whencesoever it spring, and needs no justification of its self-existence or of its sudden marvelous birth. The very hope was in itself enough for itself. And now he was near his home; his Annie was waiting for him; and in another instant his misery would be shared and comforted by her! He was walking toward the wonder-sign in the heavens. But even as he walked with it full in view, he saw it gradually fade and dissolve into the sky, until not a thread of its loveliness remained to show where it had spanned the infinite with its promise of good. And yet, was not the sky itself a better thing, and the promise of a yet greater good? He must walk onward yet, in tireless hope! And the resolve itself endured—or fading, revived, and came again, and ever yet again.
For ere he had passed the few yards that lay between him and Annie yet another wonder befell: as if the rainbow had condensed, and taken shape as it melted away, there on the pathway, in the thickening twilight of the swift-descending November night, stood a creature, surely not of the night, but rather of the early morn, a lovely little child—whether wandered from the open door of some neighboring house, or left by the vanished rainbow, how was he to tell? Endeavoring afterward to recall every point of her appearance, he could remember nothing of her feet, or even of the frock she wore. Only her face remained to him, with its cerulean eyes—the eyes of Annie, looking up from under the cloud of her dark hair, which also was Annie’s. She looked then as she stood, in his memory of her, as if she were saying, “I trust in you; will you not trust in Him who made the rainbow?” For a moment he seemed to stand regarding her, but even while he looked he must have forgotten that she was there before him, for when again he knew that he saw her, though he did not seem ever to have looked away from her, she had changed in the gathering darkness to the phantasm of a daisy, which still gazed up in his face trustingly, and, indeed, went with him to his own door, seeming all the time to say, “It was no child; it was me you saw, and nothing but me; only I saw the sun—I mean, the man that was making the rainbow.” And never more could he in his mind separate the child, whom I cannot but think he had verily seen, from the daisy which certainly he had not seen, except in the atmosphere of his troubled and confused soul.
It may help my reader to understand its confusion if I recall to him the fact that Hector had that day eaten nothing. Nor must my wife reader think hardly of Annie for having let him leave the house without any food, for he had stolen softly away, and closed the door as softly behind him, thinking how merrily they would eat together when he came back with his good news. And now he was bringing nothing to her but the story of a poor woman and her child who had warmed him, and of an omnibus-conductor who had trusted him for his fare, and of a rainbow and a child and a daisy.
“Oh, you naughty, naughty dear!” cried Annie, as she threw herself into his arms, rejoicing. But at sight of his worn and pallid face the smile faded from hers, and she thought, “What can have befallen him?”
His lip quivered, and, seeking with a watery smile to reassure her, he gave way and burst into tears. Unmanly of him, no doubt, but what is a man to do when he cannot help it? And where is a man to weep if not on his wife’s bosom? Call this behavior un-English, if you will; for, indeed, Hector was in many ways other than English, and, I protest, English ways are not all human. But I will not allow that it manifested any weakness, or necessarily involved shame to him; the best of men, and the strongest—yea, the one Man whose soul harbored not an atom of self-pity—upon one occasion wept, I think because he could not persuade the women whom he loved and would fain console to take comfort in his Father. Annie, for one reverent moment, turned her head aside, then threw her arms about him, and hid her glowing face in his bosom.
“There’s only me in the house, dear,” she said, and led the way to their room.
When they reached it, she closed the door, and turned to him.
“So they won’t take your story?” she said, assuming the fact, with a sad, sunny smile.
“They refused it absolutely.”
“Well, never mind! I shall go out charing to-morrow. You have no notion how strong I am. It is well for you I have never wanted to beat you. Seriously, I believe I am much stronger than you have the least notion of. There! Feel that arm—I should let you feel it another way, only I am afraid of hurting you.”
She had turned up the sleeve of her dress, and uncovered a grandly developed arm, white as milk, and blossoming in a large, splendidly formed hand. Then playfully, but oh! so tenderly, with the under and softest part of her arm she fondled his face, rubbing it over first one, then the other cheek, and ended with both arms round his neck, her hands folding his head to her bosom.
“Wife! wife!” faltered Hector, with difficulty controlling himself; “my strong, beautiful wife! To think of your marrying me for this!”
“Hector,” answered Annie, drawing herself back with dignity, “do you dare to pity me? That would be to insult me! As if I was not fit to be your wife when doingeverythingfor my mother! There are thousands of Scotch girls that would only be proud to take my place, poor as you are—and you couldn’t be much poorer—and serve you, without being your wife, as I have the honor and pride to be! But, my blessed man, I do believe you have eaten nothing to-day; and here am I fancying myself your wife, and letting you stand there empty, instead of bestirring myself to get you some supper! What a shame! Why, you are actually dying with hunger!” she cried, searching his face with pitiful eyes.
“On the contrary, I am not in the least hungry,” protested Hector.
“Then you must be hungry at once, sir. I will go and bring you something the very sight of which will make you hungry.”
“But you have no money, Annie; and, not being able to pay, we must go without. Come, we will go to bed.”
“Yes, I am ready; I had a good breakfast. But you have had nothing all day. And for money, do you know Miss Hamper, the dressmaker, actually offered to lend me a shilling, and I took it. Here it is. You see, I was so sure you would bring money home that I thought wemightrun that much farther into debt. So I got you two fresh eggs and such a lovely little white loaf. Besides, I have just thought of something else we could get a little money for—that dainty chemise my mother made for me with her own hands when we were going to be married. I will take it to the pawnbroker to-morrow.”
“I was never in a pawnshop, Annie. I don’t think I should know how to set about it.”
“You!” cried Annie, with a touch of scorn. “Do you think I would trust a man with it? No; that’s a woman’s work. Why, you would let the fellow offer you half it was worth—and you would take it too. I shall show it to Mrs. Whitmore:shewill know what I ought to get for it. She’s had to do the thing herself—too often, poor thing!”
“It would be like tearing my heart out.”
“What! to part with my pretty chemise. Hector, dear, you must not be foolish! What does it matter, so long as we are not cheating anybody? The pawnshop is a most honorable and useful institution. No one is the worse for it, and many a one the better. Even the tradespeople will be a trifle the better. I shall be quite proud to know that I have a pawn-ticket in my pocket to fall back upon. Oh, there’s that old silk dress your mother sent me—I do believe that would bring more. It is in good condition, and looks quite respectable. If Eve had got into a scrape like ours, she would have been helpless, poor thing, not having anythingto put away—that is the right word, I believe. There is really nothing disgraceful about it. Come now, dear, and eat your eggs—I’m afraid you must do without butter. I always preferred a piece of dry bread with an egg—you get the true taste of the egg so much better. One day or another we must part with everything. It is sure to come. Sooner or later, what does that matter? ‘The readiness is all,’ as Hamlet says. Death, or the pawnshop, signifies nothing. ‘Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is it to leave betimes?’ We do but forestall the grave for one brief hour with the pawnshop.”
“You deserve to have married Epictetus, Annie, you brave woman, instead of Xantippe!”
“I prefer you, Hector.”
“But what might you have said if he had asked you, and you had heard me bemoaning the pawnshop?”
“Ah, then, indeed! But, in the meantime, we will go to bed and wait there for to-morrow. Is it not a lovely thing to know that God is thinking about you? He will bring us toour desired haven, Hector, dearest!”
So in their sadness they laid them down. Annie opened her arms and took Hector to her bosom. There he sighed himself to sleep; and God put His arms about them both, and kept them asleep until the morning.
And in this love, more than in bed, I rest.
Annie was the first to spring up and begin to dress herself, pondering in her mind as she did so whether to go first to the pawnbroker’s or to the baker, to ask him to recommend her as a charwoman. She would tell him just the truth—that she must in future work for her daily bread. Then Hector rose and dressed himself.
“Oh, Annie!” he said, as he did so, “is it gone, that awful misery of last night in the omnibus? It seemed, as I jolted along, as if God had forgotten one of the creatures he had made, and that one was me; or, worse, that he thought of me, and would not move to help me! And why do I feel now as if He had help for me somewhere near waiting for me? I think I will go and see a man who lives somewhere close by, and find out if he is the same I used to know at St. Andrews; if he be the same, he may know of something I could try for.”
“Do,” replied Annie. “I will go with you, and on the way call at the grocer’s—I think he will be the best to ask if he knows of any family that wants a charwoman or could give me any sort of work. There’s more than one kind of thing I could turn my hand to—needle-work, for instance. I could make a child’s frock as well, I believe, as a second-rate dressmaker. Can you tell me who was the first tailor, Hector? It was God himself. He made coats of skins for Adam and his wife.”
“Quite right, dear. You may well try your hand—as I know you have done many a time already. And, if I can get hold of ever so young a pupil, I shall be glad even to teach him his letters. We must try anything and everything. We are long past being fastidious, I hope.”
He turned and went on with his toilet.
“Oh, Hector,” said Annie suddenly, and walked to the mantelpiece, “I am so sorry! Here is a letter that came for you yesterday. I did not care to open it, though you have often told me to open any letters I pleased. The fact is, I forgot all about it, I believe, because I was so unhappy at your going away without breakfast. Or perhaps it was that I was frightened at its black border. I really can’t tell now why I did not open it.”
With little interest and less hope, Hector took the letter,—black-bordered and black-sealed,—opened it, and glanced carelessly at the signature, while Annie stood looking at him, in the hope merely that he would find in it no fresh trouble—some forgotten bill perhaps!
She saw his face change, and his eyes grow fixed. A moment more and the letter dropped in the fender. He stood an instant, then fell on his knees, and threw up his hands.
“What is it, darling?” she cried, beginning to tremble.
“Only five hundred pounds!” he answered, and burst into an hysterical laugh.
“Impossible!” cried Annie.
“Whocanhave played us such a cruel trick?” said Hector feebly.
“It’s no trick, Hector!” exclaimed Annie. “There’s nobody would have the heart to do it. Letmesee the letter.”
She almost caught it from his hands as he picked it from the fender, and looked at the signature.
“Hale & Hale?” she read. “I never heard of them!”
“No, nor anyone else, I dare say,” answered Hector.
“Let us see the address at the top,” said Annie.
“There it is—Philpot Lane.”
“Where is that? I don’t believe there is such a place!”
“Oh, yes, there is; I’ve seen it—somewhere in the City, I believe. But let us read the letter. I saw only the figures. I confess I was foolish enough at first to fancy somebody had sent us five hundred pounds!”
“And why not?” cried Annie. “I am sure there’s no one more in want of it.”
“That’s just why not,” answered Hector. “Did you ever know a rich man leave his money to a poor relation? Oh, I hope it does not mean that my father is gone. He may have left us a trifle. Only he could not have had so much to leave to anybody. I know he loved you, Annie.”
In the meantime Annie had been doing the one sensible thing—reading the letter, and now she stood pondering it.
“I have it, Hector. He always uses good people to do his kindnesses. Don’t you remember me telling you about the little old lady in Graham’s shop the time your book came out?”
“Yes, Annie; I wasn’t likely to forget that; it was my love for you that made me able to write the poem. Ah, but how soon was the twenty pounds I got for it spent, though I thought it riches then!”
“So it was—and so it is!” cried Annie, half laughing, but crying outright. “It’s just that same little old lady. She was so delighted with the book, and with you for writing it, that she put you down at once in her will for five hundred pounds, believing it would help people to trust in God.”
“And here was I distrusting so much that I was nearly ready to kill myself. Only I thought it would be such a terrible shock to you, my precious! It would have been to tell God to his face that I knew he would not help me. I am sure now that he is never forgetting, though he seems to have forgotten. There was that letter lying in the dark through all the hours of the long night, while we slept in the weariness of sorrow and fear, not knowing what the light was bringing us. God is good!”
“Let us go and see these people and make sure,” said Annie. “‘Hale and Hearty,’ do they call themselves? But I’m going with you myself this time! I’m not going to have such another day as I had yesterday—waiting for you till the sun was down, and all was dark, you bad man!—and fancying all manner of terrible things! I wonder—I wonder, if—”
“Well, what do you wonder, Annie?”
“Only whether, if now we were to find out it was indeed all a mistake, I should yet be able to hope on through all the rest. I doubt it; I doubt it! Oh, Hector, you have taught me everything!”
“More, it seems, than I have myself learned. Your mother had already taught you far more than ever I had to give you!”
“But it is much too early yet, I fear, to call in the City,” said Annie. “Don’t you think we should have time first to find out whether the gentleman we were thinking of inquiring after to-day be your old college friend or not? And I will call at the grocer’s, and tell him we hope to settle his bill in a few days. Then you can come to me, and I will go to you, and we shall meet somewhere between.”
They did as Annie proposed; and before they met, Hector had found his friend, and been heartily received both by him and by his young wife.
When at length they reached Philpot Lane, and were seated in an outer room waiting for admission, Annie said: “Surely, if rich people knew how some they do not know need their help, they would be a little more eager to feather their wings ere they fly aloft by making friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness. Don’t you think it may be sometimes that they are afraid of doing harm with their money?”
“I’m afraid it is more that they never think what our Lord meant when he said the words. But oh, Annie! is it a bad sign of me that the very possibility of this money could make me so happy?”
They were admitted at length, and kindly received by a gray-haired old man, who warned them not to fancy so much money would last them very long.
“Indeed, sir,” answered Annie, “the best thing we expect from it is that it will put my husband in good heart to begin another book.”
“Oh! your husband writes books, does he? Then I begin to understand my late client’s will. It is just like her,” said the old gentleman. “Had you known her long?”
“I never once saw her,” said Hector.
“But I did,” said Annie, “and I heard her say how delighted she was with his first book. Please, sir,” she added, “will it be long before you can let us have the money?”
“You shall have it by-and-by,” answered the lawyer; “all in good time.”
And now first they learned that not a penny of the money would they receive before the end of a twelvemonth.
“Well, that will give us plenty of time to die first,” thought Hector, “which I am sure the kind lady did not intend when she left us the money.”
Another thing they learned was that, even then, they would not receive the whole of the money left them, for seeing they could claim no relation to the legator, ten per cent must be deducted from their legacy. If they came to him in a year from the date of her death, he told them he would have much pleasure in handing them the sum of four hundred and fifty pounds.
So they left the office—not very exultant, for they were both rather hungry, and had to go at once in search of work—with but a poor chance of borrowing upon it.
Nevertheless, Hector broke the silence by saying:
“I declare, Annie, I feel so light and free already that I could invent anything, even a fairy tale, and I feel as if it would be a lovely one. I hope you have a penny left to buy a new bottle of ink. The ink at home is so thick it takes three strokes to one mark.”
“Yes, dear, I have a penny; I have two, indeed—just twopence left. We shall buy a bottle of ink with one, and—shall it be a bun with the other? I think one penny bun will divide better than two halfpenny ones.”
“Very well. Only, mind,I’mto divide it. But, do you know, I’ve been thinking,” said Hector, “whether we might not take a holiday on the strength of our expectations, for we shall have so long to wait for the money that I think we may truly say we havegreatexpectations.”
“I think we should do better,” answered Annie, “to go back to your old friend, Mr. Gillespie, and tell him of our good-fortune, and see whether he can suggest anything for us to do in the meantime.”
Hector agreed, and together they sought the terrace where Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie lived, who were much interested in their story; and then first they learned that the lady was at least well enough off to be able to help them, and, when they left, she would have Annie take with her a dozen of her handkerchiefs, to embroider with her initials and crest; but Annie begged to be allowed to take only one, that Mrs. Gillespie might first see how she liked her work.
“For, then, you see,” she said to her husband, as they went home, “I shall be able to take it back to her this very evening and ask her for the half-crown she offered me for doing it, which I should not have had the face to do with eleven more of them still in my possession. I have no doubt of her being satisfied with my work; and in a week I shall have finished the half of them, and we shall be getting on swimmingly.”
Throughout the winter Hector wrote steadily every night, and every night Annie sat by his side and embroidered—though her embroidery was notallfor other people. Many a time in after years did their thoughts go back to that period as the type of the happy life they were having together.
The next time Hector went to see Mr. Gillespie, that gentleman suggested that he should give a course of lectures to ladies upon English Poetry, beginning with the Anglo-Saxon poets, of whom Gillespie said he knew nothing, but would be glad to learn a great deal. He knew also, he said, some ladies in the neighborhood willing to pay a guinea each for a course of, say, half-a-dozen such lectures. They would not cost Hector much time to prepare, and would at once bring in a little money. Coleridge himself, he suggested, had done that kind of thing.
“Yes,” said Hector, “but he was Coleridge. I have nothing to say worth saying.”
“Leave your hearers to judge of that,” returned Gillespie. “Do your best, and take your chance. I promise you two pupils at least not over-critical—my wife and myself. It is amazing how little those even who imagine they love it know about English poetry.”
“But where should I find a room?” Hector still objected.
“Would not this drawing room do?” asked his friend.
“Splendidly!” answered Hector. “But what will Mrs. Gillespie say to it?”
“She and I are generally of one mind—about people, at least.”
“Then I will go home at once and set about finding what to say.”
“And I will go out at once and begin hunting you up an audience.”
Gillespie succeeded even better than he had anticipated; and there was at the first lecture a very fair gathering indeed. When it was over, the one that knew most of the subject was the young lecturer’s wife. The first course was followed by two more, the third at the request of almost all his hearers. And the result was that, before the legacy fell due, Annie had paid all their debts and had not contracted a single new one.
But when the happy day dawned Annie was not able to go with her husband to receive the money; neither did Hector wish that she had been able, for he was glad to go alone. By her side lay a lovely woman-child peacefully asleep. Hector declared her the very image of the child the rainbow left behind as it vanished.
One day, when the mother was a little stronger, she called Hector to her bedside, and playfully claimed the right to be the child’s godmother, and to give it her name.
“And who else can have so good a right?” answered Hector. Yet he wondered just a little that Annie should want the child named after herself, and not after her mother.
But when the time for the child’s baptism came, Annie, who would hold the little one herself, whispered in the ear of the clergyman:
“The child’s name is Iris.”
I have told my little story. But perhaps my readers will have patience with me while I add just one little inch to the tail of the mouse my mountain has borne.
Hector’s next book, although never so popular as in any outward sense to be called a success, yet was not quite a failure even in regard to the money it brought him, and even at the present day has not ceased to bring in something. Doubtless it has faults not a few, but, happily, the man who knows them best is he who wrote it, and he has never had to repent that he did write it. And now he has an audience on which he can depend to welcome whatever he writes. That he has enemies as well goes without saying, but they are rather scorners than revilers, and they have not yet caused him to retaliate once by criticising any work of theirs. Neither, I believe, has he ever failed to recognize what of genuine and good work most of them have produced. One of the best results to himself of his constant endeavor to avoid jealousy is that he is still able to write verse, and continues to take more pleasure in it than in telling his tales. And still his own test of the success of any of his books is the degree to which he enjoyed it himself while writing it.
His legacy has long been spent, and he has often been in straits since; but he has always gathered good from those straits, and has never again felt as if slow walls were closing in upon him to crush him. And he has hopes by God’s help, and with Annie’s, of getting through at last, without ever having dishonored his high calling.
The last time I saw him, he introduced his wife to me—having just been telling me his and her story—with the rather enigmatical words:
“This is my wife. You cannot see her very well, for, like Hamlet, I wear her ‘in my heart’s core, aye, in my heart of hearts!’”