CHAPTER IVSTARTLING NEWS

CHAPTER IVSTARTLING NEWS

Nahum opened conversation with Mr. Campbell.

“The last of the workmen have left to-day, sir,” he said.

“The workmen? Oh, the decorators and upholsterers who were fitting up Haymore Hold for the young squire and his bride.”

“Yes, sir. All is finished in the very latest style, and with all the modernest improvements. And they do say as there is not a place in the North Riding aquil to it for magnificence and splendiferousness! They do that!”

“Ah, when are the young pair expected?”

“That I can’t jest tell you, sir. But Mr. Isaiah Prowt, the bailiff, do say as he is to receive a week’s notice of their arrival, so as to have the triumphanting arches put up all along the road leading into the village and the avenue from the park gate to the hall.”

“That will make a fine display, Nahum, but an expensive one. However, I suppose it will give pleasure to the people.”

“It will that, your reverence. And that is not all! They are to have tents and markees and pavilions all over the lawn, and a great outdoor gala for all the tenants, and even the villagers who are not tenants, and for the whole neighborhood; in fact, men, women, and children, sir, are to be feasted on the fat of the land, and have dances and games, and all that, all day long, and at night fireworks! All at the young squire’s expense.”

“It will be a boon to the village, where there is never even a market day or a fair.”

“It will that, sir. Why, the people have gone stark, staring mad over the very thought of it, though they don’t the least know when it is to come off. But they are lookingforrid to it. For, as you say, sir, they never have anything here. Chuxton is the market town, and the fairs go there on market day.”

“So they never have a public fête unless it is given by the lord of the manor on the occasion of a marriage, or a coming of age in the family?”

“And never then, up to this toime. Such a day as this coming on has never been seen at Haymore in the memory of man. The old squires never did nothing like it.”

“No? Why was that?”

“Oh, they kept themselves aloof. They never thought about their tenants, except to keep them pretty strict and punctuous in the payment of the rents. Otherwise they looked down on them as dirt underneath of their feet.”

“Let us hope, from the present signs, that the new squire will be more genial and benevolent.”

“He will that, sir. You may depend upon it. And no doubt he will have the old church repaired. And you’ll do your part to welcome the bridal pair. You’ll have the parish school children drilled to stand aich side the road by which they come and sing songs and throw flowers? And you’ll have the bellringers to ring out joyful peals of music?”

“Oh, yes, certainly, with all my heart. It falls in the way of my office to see that the parish school children and the bellringers take their part and do their duties properly in the ceremonial reception of the bridal couple,” cordially responded Mr. Campbell.

No more was said just then.

Jennie was aghast. She had not thought that Kightly Montgomery would bring his deceived bride, who was not a lawful wife, to England so soon after hisrencontrewith herself on shipboard. When he had left the steamer at Queenstown, to avoid meeting her father at Liverpool, she had supposed that he would go to the continent for his bridal tour, and return later to England. But instead of doing so he had written a letter from Queenstown, on the morning of his arrival there, to announce his intention of coming to Haymore. This letter he must have posted on the same morning, so that it came over land and sea by the shorter route of the Irish mail, and reached its destination at Haymore before she, by the longer way of the channel, arrivedat Liverpool. But why did he think of coming to Haymore at this time?

A little reflection told her why. She tried to put herself in Kightly Montgomery’s place and think out his motives. Then she understood.

Kightly Montgomery knew certainly that Jennie had gone home to her father’s, but he believed, erroneously, that she had gone to him in his old parish at Medge, in Hantz, where the curate had lived and preached for twenty years past, and where he was likely to continue to minister for forty years to come.

Nearly the whole length of England lay between Medge, on the south coast of Hantz, and Haymore, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He might, therefore, go safely to his manor house without fear of being troubled by Jennie or her people. He could not dream, of course, that the Rev. James Campbell had left Medge to become the pastor of the parish of Haymore, where his daughter would be with him; else he would as soon have rushed into a burning furnace as to come to Yorkshire.

So far Jennie reasoned out correctly the meaning of Kightly Montgomery’s course. But there was more cause for his false sense of security than she knew anything about.

Kightly Montgomery had not the least idea that Jennie, by putting odds and ends of facts and probabilities together, had made herself acquainted with his fraudulent claim to the name of Hay, and to the inheritance of Haymore. He thought she knew nothing beyond the fact of his second marriage, not even the name under which he married, and that, therefore, she could not know how or where to seek him, even if she were disposed to do so, which he utterly disbelieved. With his wronged wife at the extreme south of England, and in ignorance of his present name and residence, he felt perfectly safe in coming to Haymore in the north, to gratify his pride and vanity by a triumphant entry, with his queenly and beautiful bride, into the village and on to the manor house.

He little dreamed of the dread Nemesis awaiting him there.

“Jennie, my darling, why are you so silent?” inquired Mr. Campbell, breaking in upon his daughter’s reverie.

“I have been listening, papa.”

“But you have not heard anything for the last half hour. We have not been talking.”

“I listened with a great deal of interest while you did talk, papa.”

“And you have heard that in a few days, perhaps, we are going to have grand doings at Haymore to welcome the young squire and his bride.”

“Yes, papa dear, I heard all that.”

“What do you think of it?”

“I think it will be a very exciting time,” evasively replied the young woman.

“Jennie, my dear, you speak so faintly. Are you tired?”

“Yes, papa dear—rather tired.”

“Take courage, then, for we are near home, where the mother is waiting to welcome us with a bright fire and a nice tea table,” said the curate.

“Yes, papa. Don’t mind me, dear. It is a healthful weariness that will make me sleep all the better,” replied Jennie.

But the last words were fairly jolted out of her mouth, for the carryall was now ascending a very steep hill.

The curate turned his head again to speak to his daughter.

“We are entering the village, dear, and the church and parsonage are at this end. You can see nothing from where you sit behind there. If you could you would see a stony road, with paving stones set sharp edge up to make a hold for horses’ hoofs, otherwise they could scarcely climb it And you would see high stone walls on each side of the road, with plantations behind them. These walls, my dear, inclose Haymore Park, through a portion of which this road runs. On the top of the hill is Haymore Old Church and Rectory. There is our home at present. There is an old graveyard around the church, and an old garden around the rectory. All this is at the entrance of the village, which stretches on both sides of the road over the hill and down the declivity. All around the manor, the church and the village roll the everlasting moors from the center to the circumference. There, my dear, you have a picture of our home, though you cannot see it.”

“I see it in my mind’s eye, papa.”

All this time the mule was toiling slowly, painfully up the steep ascent.

Jennie, straining her eyes to look forward, saw nothing for a while but the black forms of her father and the driver against the darkness, but presently fitful lights glanced in sight and disappeared. After a while they grew more steady and stationary, and Jennie recognized

“The lights in the village,”

“The lights in the village,”

“The lights in the village,”

“The lights in the village,”

though they were still distant before her.

“Here we are,” said the curate blithely as the panting mule drew up before a gate in a wall, all covered with ivy or some other creeping plant, Jennie could not see what.

Beyond the gate and the wall was the front of a two-story, double stone house, like the wall, all covered with creeping vines, but with a bright firelight and lamplight gleaming redly from the windows of the lower room on the right-hand side.

The curate lifted his daughter and her child from the carryall and opened the gate that led between two low stone walls, also covered with green creepers, up to the steps of the long porch before the house. But some one in the house had heard the sound of wheels, for the front door was flung open, a small, slender woman rushed out and threw herself, sobbing, into the arms of Jennie.

“Oh, my darling! my darling! my darling!”

“Oh, mother! mother! mother!”

That was all they could say, as they clasped each other, sobbing.

Mr. Campbell went on before them into the house, carrying the baby out of the night air.

“Come in, come in, come in! Oh, welcome home, my child! my child!” sobbed the mother, as, with her arm around the waist of her daughter, she supported her into the house, through the hall and into that warm, bright room, where a sea coal fire was blazing in the grate, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling just over a dainty white cloth that covered the tea table, on which a pretty china service was arranged.

The parlor was furnished entirely in crimson—carpet, curtains, chair and sofa covers were all crimson, which, inthe lamplight and firelight, gave a very warm, bright glow to the room, which the travelers had seen from the carryall without.

Jennie was placed in an easy-chair, and her fur-lined cloak and beaver hat taken off her by gentle mother hands. Even in that sacred moment of meeting, the feminine instinct caused the curate’s wife to hold up and admire the rich cloak and hat that had been given Jennie by her New York friends.

“You haven’t looked at baby, mother dear,” said Jennie.

“Oh! so I haven’t! How could I forget!” exclaimed the young grandmother; and down went cloak and hat, disregarded, on the floor, while she turned to look for the little queen who was destined to ascend the throne of the household.

Mr. Campbell, smiling at this impetuosity, placed the infant in her arms.

And then—but I will spare my readers the rhapsodies that ensued.

Meanwhile, everything else was forgotten.

But Nahum, the driver, remembered he had to collect his fare, and so “made bold” to walk into the curate’s house, and stand, hat in hand, at the parlor door. As he stood in the full glare of the light, he appeared a little, sturdy, muscular man, with a strange mixture of complexion; for while his skin was swarthy and his short hair, stubby beard and heavy eyebrows were as black as jet, his eyes were light blue. But the most characteristic feature in his remarkable face was his nose, which was large and turned up so that his nostrils described a semicircle upward. It was a “mocking nose,” of the most distinct type. He wore a suit of coarse blue tweed, and carried a battered felt hat.

“Well, Nahum!” exclaimed the curate on catching sight of him.

“Please, your reverence, it is eight shillings, sir.”

“Oh! Ah! Yes!” said the curate.

And the price was paid and the driver dismissed.

Esther Campbell and her recovered daughter were now seated close together on the crimson sofa, which was drawn up on one side of the blazing fire. Esther had her grandchild on her lap and her right arm around Jennie’s waist, while Jennie’s head rested on her shoulder.

“Come, Hetty, my love, we want our tea,” said the curate.

Mrs. Campbell put the baby in its mother’s arms and rang the bell.

A Yorkshire woman of middle age, dressed in a blue cheviot cloth skirt and a gay striped sack of many colors, came in with the tea urn and put it on the table. She was a stranger to Jennie, but she courtesied to the “master’s” daughter, who returned her greeting with a smile and bow.

“Where is our old servant, mamma?” inquired Jennie when the new one had left the room.

“Oh, Julia? She married the greengrocer and left us just before we left Medge.”

“Why, Julia was forty years old at least!”

“Yes, dear, and the greengrocer was a widower of fifty with all his children grown up, married and settled.”

“A good match for Julia, then!”

“Excellent.”

The Yorkshire woman re-entered the room, bringing in a tray on which was arranged hot muffins, dried toast, broiled chicken and fried ham, all of which she placed on the table.

“This is our daughter, Mrs. Montgomery, whom we have been expecting to see for so long a time, Elspeth,” said Mrs. Campbell, speaking from her own genial nature and overflowing happiness.

Elspeth courtesied again and smiled, but said nothing; she was rather shy. She took the baby, however, when the curate and his wife and daughter sat down to the table.

Esther Campbell looked a young, fair and pretty woman as she presided over the tea urn. She was really thirty-five years old, but did not look more than twenty-three. But, then, she had always had excellent health, few family cares and no sorrows, except in the marriage of her daughter, and even that was a light one compared to what that wayward daughter was made to suffer. She was a woman of medium height and slender form, for she had escaped the malady of fat to which women of middle age or those approaching middle age are subjected. Her figure was girlish, her features were delicate, her complexion very fair, with a faint rose hue over cheeks and chin. Her hair was brown, bright and curly. She wore her only Sunday’s dress, a dark green silk with a little lace at the throat and wrists. It was put on in honor of her daughter’s return.

The party of three waited on themselves and each other.

When all were served Hetty Campbell would most eagerly have asked her daughter:

“Where is your husband?” but that she feared something was very wrong with him and dared not question Jennie on this subject in the presence of the new servant.

Jennie had a healthy young appetite, and ate heartily, to the great comfort of her mother, who joyously watched her plate and kept it well supplied.

“Do you like this place, mamma?” inquired Jennie at length.

“Yes, my dear, on many accounts I like it very much. Of course we felt a natural regret at leaving a home where we had lived so long that we seemed grown into it, like a cluster of oysters in their shells, which to shuck out is death. But as it was not our own act there was no compunction; and as it was inevitable, there had to be resignation. We are happy here, my dear.”

“But the old friends—the people papa has christened and married and comforted and instructed for twenty years! For he was there before you were married, mamma.”

“Yes, it was hard to leave them. But the knowledge that we must submit to the inevitable strengthened us even for that.”

“And how do you like the people here, mamma?”

“Very much, indeed. They are exceedingly kind.”

Elspeth having set the baby in its mother’s lap, and left the room to take a new supply of hot muffins from the oven, Jennie lowered her voice and inquired:

“And the one humble woman among the people with whom we are in daily intercourse, and on whom so much of our comfort must depend, mamma?”

“You mean our new servant?”

“Of course. Is she a worthy successor to Julia?”

“A most worthy one. Elspeth—the widow Longman—has not always been in service. She has had reverses and great sorrows—the loss of her husband while she was still a young woman with an infant boy, a boy whom she spoiled as only a widowed mother can spoil an only child. He grew up, so it is said, not really wicked or worthless, but idle, wilful, headstrong, and fond of pleasure and of roving. One day the poor mother lost her temper, under some greatprovocation, and told him he was the one grief and trial of her life, or words to that effect. He took his hat and walked out of the house. She thought he had only gone to the barn or to the village, and her burst of grief and anger being over, she prepared that evening an extra good supper for her boy, that they might make up their misunderstanding. But, though she waited long and anxiously, he did not come, nor has he ever come, nor has she ever heard one word of him since that day when he walked out of the house in sullen wrath.”

“Oh, how dreadful! how dreadful!” exclaimed Jennie.

“Yes; it nearly killed her. The farm, with no one to look after it, went to rack and ruin. She was compelled to sell off all the stock to pay the rent, and then to give up the lease and go into service. That is Elspeth’s sad little story,” said Mrs. Campbell, hurriedly concluding as she saw the subject of her discourse re-entering the room with the plate of hot muffins in hand.

But no one wanted any more.

The curate gave thanks and they arose from the table.

The mother and daughter reseated themselves on the crimson sofa in the glow of the fire, Hetty Campbell took the baby on her lap, and the fondling and idolizing recommenced, and might have continued all night, but that James Campbell wisely put an end to the play.

“Come!” he said. “I have been traveling night and day for twenty-four hours, and am well worn out. So is Jennie, though she has only traveled one day by rail. So we had better go straight to bed. Listen, Hetty: I have had our daughter all day long to myself. You take her to your bosom to-night.”

“Eh?” exclaimed his wife, not understanding.

“Do you sleep with Jennie and the precious baby to-night. That will make you all very happy, though I am not so sure about the baby. Only don’t talk all night. Put off all mutual explanations until the morning,” the curate explained.

Jennie sprang to her father and embraced him, exclaiming:

“Oh, papa! how good of you!”

Hetty, with the baby in her arms, came up on the other side, kissed him, and said:

“How kindly thoughtful of you, dear Jim!”

The curate laughed.

“There! there! I shall not break my heart for your absence this one night, Hetty, my dear. I shall sleep too soundly. And the arrangement is on no account to be a perpetual one.”

Elspeth, having cleared away the tea table, was called in, and the evening worship was offered earlier than usual.

Mr. Campbell in the course of his devotions prayed for the safe return of the poor widow’s son. This he had always done morning and evening since Elspeth had been living with the family.

It was a great comfort to the poor mother, who one day said to Mrs. Campbell:

“No minister ever prayed for my poor lad to come back before. Now the minister prays for him, I know he will come. I see it a’ as plain as if my eyes were opened; the maister’s prayer goes straight up to the Throne; the Lord receives it, and sends its spirit straight down to my boy’s heart, wherever he may be on the footstool; and he will feel it a-drawing and a-drawing of him until he turns his steps homeward. I know it! And, oh! mem, the one that kept me from going crazy with the trouble was the thought that go where he would, he wouldn’t get out of the Lord’s world; and if I didn’t know where he was, the Lord did; and if I couldn’t see him, the Lord could. So I prayed for him, and by the Lord’s help kept up.”

When the prayers were over the little family circle separated.

Elspeth went back to her kitchen to wash up her dishes.

Hetty and Jennie kissed the husband and father good-night and went up to a spacious, white-draped chamber which was over the parlor, and where a fine sea coal fire was burning; and there they went to rest.

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