CHAPTER II.VILLAGE GOSSIP.
Little Mildred lay in the willow basket, where Richard Howell had placed her when he brought her from the cabin. Between himself and father there had been a spirited controversy as to what should be done with her, the one insisting that she should be sent to the poor-house, and the other that she should stay at Beechwood. The discussion lasted long, and they were still lingering at the breakfast table, when Rachel came in, her appearance indicating that she was the bearer of some important message.
“If you please,” she began, addressing herself to the Judge, “I’ve jest been down to Cold Spring after a bucket o’ water, for I feel mighty like a strong cup of hyson this mornin’, bein’ I was so broke of my rest, and the pump won’t make such a cup as Cold Spring——”
“Never mind the pump, but come to the point at once,” interposed the Judge, glancing toward the basketwith a presentiment that what she had to tell concerned the little Mildred.
“Yes, that’s what I’m coming to, ef I ever get thar. You see, I ain’t an atom gossipy, but bein’ that the Thompson door was wide open, and looked invitin’ like, I thought I’d go in a minit, and after fillin’ my bucket with water,—though come to think on’t, I ain’t sure I had filled it,—had I? Let me see,—I b’lieve I had, though I ain’t sure——”
Rachel was extremely conscientious, and no amount of coaxing could have tempted her to go on until she had settled it satisfactorily as to whether the bucket was filled or not. This the Judge knew, and he waited patiently until she decided that “the bucketwasfilled, or else itwasn’t, one or t’other,” any way, she left it on the grass, she said, and went into Thompson’s, where she found Aunt Hepsy “choppin’ cabbage and snappin’ at the boy with the twisted feet, who was catching flies on the winder.”
“I didn’t go in to tell ’em anything particular, but when Miss Hawkins, in the bedroom, give a kind of lonesomesithe, which I knew was for dead Bessy, I thought I’d speak of our new baby that come last night in the basket; so I told ’em how’t you wanted to send it to the poor-house, but I wouldn’t let you, and was goin’ to nuss it and fotch it up as my own, and then Miss Hawkins looked up kinder sorry-like, and says, ‘Rather than suffer that, I’ll take it in place of my little Bessy.’
“You or’to of seen Aunt Hepsy then,—but I didn’t stay to hear her blow. I clipped it home as fast as ever I could, and left my bucket settin’ by the spring.”
“So you’ll have no difficulty in ascertaining whether you filled it or not,” slyly suggested Richard. Then, turning to his father, he continued, “It strikes me favorably, this letting Hannah Hawkins take the child, inasmuch as you are so prejudiced against it. She will be kind to it, I’m sure, and I shall go down to see her at once.”
There was something so cool and determined in Richard’s manner, that the Judge gave up the contest without another word, and silently watched his son as he hurried along the beaten path which led to the Cold Spring.
Down the hill, and where its gable-roof was just discernible from the windows of the Beechwood mansion, stood the low, brown house, which, for many years, had been tenanted by Hezekiah Thompson, and which, after his decease, was still occupied by Hepsabah, his wife. Only one child had been given to Hepsabah,—a gentle, blue-eyed daughter, who, after six years of happy wifehood, returned to her mother,—a widow, with two little fatherless children,—one a lame, unfortunate boy, and the other a beautiful little girl. Toward the boy with the twisted feet, Aunt Hepsy, as she was called, looked askance, while all the kinder feelings of her nature seemed called into being by the sweet, winning ways of the baby Bessy; but when one bright September day they laid the little oneaway beneath the autumnal grass, and came back to their home without her, she steeled her heart against the entire world, and the wretched Hannah wept on her lonely pillow, uncheered by a single word of comfort, save those her little Oliver breathed into her ear.
Just one week Bessy had lain beneath the maples when Rachel bore to the cottage news of the strange child left at the master’s door, and instantly Hannah’s heart yearned toward the helpless infant, which she offered to take for her own. At first her mother opposed the plan, but when she saw how determined Hannah was, she gave it up, and in a most unamiable frame of mind was clearing her breakfast dishes away, when Richard Howell appeared, asking to see Mrs. Hawkins. Although a few years older than himself, Hannah Thompson had been one of Richard’s earliest playmates and warmest friends. He knew her disposition well, and knew she could be trusted; and when she promised to love the little waif, whose very helplessness had interested him in its behalf, he felt sure that she would keep her word.
Half an hour later and Mildred lay sleeping in Bessy’s cradle, as calmly as if she were not the subject of the most wonderful surmises and ridiculous conjectures. On the wings of the wind the story flew that a baby had been left on Judge Howell’s steps,—that the Judge had sworn it should be sent to the poor-house; while the son, who came home at twelve o’clock at night, covered with mudand wet to the skin, had evinced far more interest in the stranger than was at all commendable for a boy scarcely out of his teens.
“But there was no tellin’ what young bucks would do, or old ones either, for that matter!” so at least said Widow Simms, the Judge’s bugbear, as she donned her shaker and palm-leaf shawl, and hurried across the fields in the direction of Beechwood, feeling greatly relieved to find that the object of her search was farther down the hill, for she stood somewhat in awe of the Judge and his proud son. But once in Hannah Hawkins’ bedroom, with her shaker on the floor and the baby on her lap, her tongue was loosened, and scarcely a person in the town who could by any possible means have been at all connected with the affair, escaped a malicious cut. The infant was then minutely examined, and pronounced the very image of the Judge, or of Captain Harrington, or of Deacon Snyder, she could not tell which.
“But I’m bound to find out,” she said; “I sha’n’t rest easy nights till I do.”
Then suddenly remembering that a kindred spirit, Polly Dutton, who lived some distance away, had probably not yet heard the news, she fastened her palm-leaf shawl with her broken-headed darning-needle, and bade Mrs. Hawkins good-morning just as a group of other visitors was announced.
All that day, and for many succeeding ones, the cottagewas crowded with curious people, who had come to see the sight, and all of whom offered an opinion as to the parentage of the child. For more than four weeks a bevy of old women, with Widow Simms and Polly Dutton at their head, sat upon the character of nearly every person they knew, and when at last the sitting was ended and the verdict rendered, it was found that none had passed the ordeal so wholly unscathed as Richard Howell. It was a little strange, they admitted, that he should go to Kiah Thompson’s cottage three times a day; but then he had always been extremely fond of children, and it was but natural that he should take an interest in this one, particularly as his father had set his face so firmly against it, swearing heartily if its name were mentioned in his presence, and even threatening to prosecute the Widow Simms if she ever again presumed to say that the brat resembled him or his.
With a look of proud disdain upon his handsome, boyish face, Richard, who on account of his delicate health had not returned to college, heard from time to time what the gossiping villagers had to say of himself, and when at last it was told to him that he was exonerated from all blame, and that some had even predicted what the result would be, were his interest in the baby to continue until she were grown to womanhood, he burst into a merry laugh, the first which had escaped him since he came back to Beechwood.
“Stranger things than that had happened,” Widow Simms declared, and she held many a whispered conference with Hannah Hawkins as to the future, when Mildred would be the mistress of Beechwood, unless, indeed, Richard died before she were grown, an event which seemed not improbable, for as the autumn days wore on and the winter advanced, his failing strength became more and more perceptible, and the same old ladies, who once before had taken his case into consideration, now looked at him through medical eyes and pronounced him just gone with consumption.
Nothing but a sea voyage would save him, the physician said, and that to a warm, balmy climate. So when the spring came, he engaged a berth on board a vessel bound for the South Sea Islands, and after a pilgrimage to the obscure New Hampshire town where Hetty Kirby was buried, he came back to Beechwood one April night to bid his father adieu.
It was a stormy farewell, for loud, angry words were heard issuing from the library, and Rachel, who played the part of eaves-dropper, testified to hearing Richard say: “Listen to me, father, I have not told you all.” To which the Judge responded, “I’ll stop my ears before I’ll hear another word. You’ve told me enough already; and, from this hour, you are no son of mine. Leave me at once, and my curse go with you.”
With a face as white as marble, Richard answered, “I’llgo father, and it may be we shall never meet again; but, in the lonesome years to come, when you are old and sick, and there is none to love you, you’ll remember what you’ve said to me to-night.”
The Judge made no reply, and without another word Richard turned away. Hastening down the Cold Spring path, he entered the gable-roofed cottage, but what passed between himself and Hannah Hawkins no one knew, though all fancied it concerned the beautiful baby Mildred, who had grown strangely into the love of the young man, and who now, as he took her from her crib, put her arms around his neck, and rubbed her face against his own.
“Be kind to her, Hannah,” he said. “There are none but ourselves to care for her now;” and laying her back in her cradle, he kissed her lips and hastened away, while Hannah looked wistfully after him, wondering much what the end would be.
Fleuron