Works of Ellen Wood, page 128
She was to enter the school, which was near Harrow, in another week, at the termination of the holidays, and Mrs. Tait and Jane had their hands full, getting her things ready.
“Was this slip measured, mamma?” Jane suddenly asked, after attentively regarding the work she had on her knee.
“I think so,” replied Mrs. Tait. “Why?”
“It looks too short for Margaret. At least it will be too short when I have finished this fourth tuck. It must have been measured, though, for here are the pins in it. Perhaps Margaret measured it herself.”
“Then of course it must be measured again. There’s no trusting to anything Margaret does in the shape of work. And yet, how clever she is at music and drawing — in fact at all her studies!” added Mrs. Tait. “It is well, Jane, that we are not all gifted alike.”
“I think it is,” acquiesced Jane. “I will go up to Margaret’s room for one of her slips, and measure this.”
“You need not do that,” said Mrs. Tait. “There’s an old slip of hers amongst the work on the sofa.”
Jane found the slip, and measured the one in her hand by it. “Yes, mamma! It is just the length without the tuck. Then I must take out what I have done of it. It is very little.”
“Come hither, Jane. Your eyes are younger than mine. Is not that your papa coming towards us from the far end of the square?”
Jane approached the window nearest to her, not the one at which Mrs. Tait was sitting. “Oh, yes, that’s papa. You might tell him by his dress, if by nothing else, mamma.”
“I could tell him by himself, if I could see,” said Mrs. Tait, quaintly. “I don’t know how it is, Jane, but my sight grows very imperfect for a distance.”
“Never mind that, mamma, so that you can continue to see well to work and read,” said Jane cheerily. “How fast papa is walking!”
Very fast for the Rev. Francis Tait, who was not in general a quick walker. He entered his house, and came up to the drawing-room. He had not been well for the last few days, and threw himself into a chair, wearily.
“Jane, is there any of that beef-tea left, that was made for me yesterday?”
“Yes, papa,” she said, springing up that she might get it for him. “I will bring it to you immediately.”
“Stay, stay, child, not so fast,” he interrupted. “It is not for myself. I can do without it. I have been pained by a sad sight,” he added, looking at his wife. “There’s that daughter of the Widow Booth’s come home again. I called in upon them and there she was, lying on a mattress, dying from famine, as I verily believe. She returned last night in a dreadful state of exhaustion, the mother says, and has had nothing within her lips since but cold water. They tried her with solid food, but she could not swallow it. That beef-tea will just do for her. Have it warmed, Jane.”
“She is a sinful, ill-doing girl, Francis,” remarked Mrs. Tait, “and does not really deserve compassion.”
“All the more reason, wife, that she should be rescued from death,” said the rector, almost sternly. “The good may dare to die: the evil may not. Don’t waste time, Jane. Put it into a bottle, warm, and I’ll carry it round.”
“Is there nothing else we can send her, papa, that may do for her equally well?” asked Jane. “A little wine, perhaps? There is very little of the beef-tea left, and it ought to be kept for you.”
“Never mind; I wish to take it to her,” said the rector. “A little wine afterwards may do her good.”
Jane hastened to the kitchen, disturbing a servant who was doing something over the fire. “Susan, papa wants the remainder of the beef-tea warmed. Will you make haste and do it, whilst I search for a bottle to put it into? It is to be taken round to Charity Booth.”
“What! is she back again?” exclaimed the servant, slightingly, which betrayed that her estimation of Charity Booth was no higher than was that of her mistress. “It’s just like the master,” she continued, proceeding to do what was required of her. “It’s not often that anything’s made for himself; but if it is, he never gets the benefit of it; he’s sure to drop across somebody that he fancies wants it worse than he does. It’s not right, Miss Jane.”
Jane was searching a cupboard, and brought forth a clean green bottle, which held about half-a-pint. “This will be quite large enough, I think.”
“I should think it would!” grumbled Susan, who could not be brought to look upon the giving away of her master’s own peculiar property as anything but a personal grievance. “There’s barely a gill of it left, and he ought to have had it himself, Miss Jane.”
“Susan,” she said, turning her bright face laughingly towards the woman, “it is a good thing that you went to church and saw me married, or I might think you meant to reflect upon me. How can I be ‘Miss Jane,’ with this ring on?”
“It’s of no good my trying to remember it, ma’am. All the parish knows you are Mrs. Halliburton, fast enough; but it don’t come ready to me.”
Jane laughed pleasantly. “Where is Mary?” she asked.
“In the back room, going on with some of Miss Margaret’s things. It’s cooler, sitting there, than in this hot kitchen.”
Jane carried the little bottle of beef-tea to her father, and gave it into his hand. He looked very pale, and rose from his chair slowly.
“Oh, papa, you do not seem well!” she involuntarily exclaimed. “Let me run and beat you up an egg. I will not be a minute.”
“I can’t wait, child. And I question if I could eat it, were it ready before me. I do not feel well, as you say.”
“You ought to have taken this beef-tea yourself, papa. It was made for you.”
Jane could not help laying a stress upon the word. Mr. Tait placed his hand gently upon her smoothly parted hair. “Jane, child, had I thought of myself before others throughout life, how should I have been following my Master’s precepts?”
She ran down the stairs before him, opening the front door for him to pass through, that even that little exertion should be spared him. A loving, dutiful daughter was Jane; and it is probable that the thought of her worth especially crossed the mind of the rector at that moment. “God bless you, my child!” he aspirated, as he passed her.
Jane watched him across the square. Their house, though not actually in the square, commanded a view of it. Then she returned upstairs to her mother. “Papa thinks he will not lose time,” she observed. “He is walking fast.”
“I should call it running,” responded Mrs. Tait, who had seen the speed from the window. “But, my dear, he’ll do no good with that badly conducted Charity Booth.”
About an hour passed away, and it was drawing towards dinner-time. Jane and Mrs. Tait were busy as ever, when Mr. Halliburton’s well-known knock was heard.
“Edgar is home early this morning!” Jane exclaimed.
He came springing up the stairs, two at a time, in great haste, opened the drawing-room door, and just put in his head. Mrs. Tait, sitting with her back to the door and her face to the window, did not turn round, and consequently did not see him. Jane did; and was startled. Every vestige of colour had forsaken his face.
“Oh, Edgar! You are ill!”
“Ill! Not I,” affecting to speak gaily. “I want you for a minute, Jane.”
Mrs. Tait had looked round at Jane’s exclamation, but Mr. Halliburton’s face was then withdrawn. He was standing outside the door when Jane went out. He did not speak; but took her hand in silence and drew her into the back room, which was their own bedroom, and closed the door. Jane’s face had grown as white as his.
“My darling, I did not mean to alarm you,” he said, holding her to him. “I thought you had a brave heart, Jane. I thought that if I had a little unpleasant news to impart it would be best to tell you, that you may help me break it to the rest.”
Jane’s heart was not feeling very brave. “What is it?” she asked, scarcely able to speak the words from her ghastly lips.
“Jane,” he said, tenderly and gravely, “before I say any more, you must strive for calmness.”
“It is not about yourself! You are not ill?”
The question seemed superfluous. Mr. Halliburton was evidently not ill; but he was agitated. Jane was frightened and perplexed: not a glimpse of the real truth crossed her. “Tell me what it is at once, Edgar,” she said, in a calmer tone. “I can bear certainty better than suspense.”
“Why, yes, I think you are becoming brave already,” he answered, looking straight into her eyes and smiling — which was intended to reassure her. “I must have my wife show herself a woman to-day; not a child. See what a bungler I am! I thought to tell you all quietly and smoothly, without alarming you; and see what I have done! — startled you to terror.”
Jane smiled faintly. She knew all this was only the precursor of tidings that must be very ill and grievous. By a great effort she schooled herself to calmness. Mr. Halliburton continued:
“One, whom you and I love very much, has — has — met with an accident, Jane.”
Her fears went straight to the right quarter at once. With that one exception by her side, there was no one she loved as she loved her father.
“Papa?”
“Yes. We must break it to Mrs. Tait.”
Her heart beat wildly against his hand, and the livid hue was once more overspreading her face. But she strove urgently for calmness: he whispered to her of its necessity for her own sake.
“Edgar! is it death?”
It was death; but he would not tell her so yet. He plunged into the attendant details.
“He was hastening along with a small bottle in his hand, Jane. It contained something good for one of the sick poor, I am sure, for he was in their neighbourhood. Suddenly he was observed to fall; and the spectators raised him and took him to a doctor’s. That doctor, unfortunately, was not at home, and they took him to another, so that time was lost. He was quite unconscious.”
“But you do not tell me!” she wailed. “Is he dead?”
Mr. Halliburton asked himself a question — What good would be done by delaying the truth? He thought he had performed his task very badly. “Jane, Jane!” he whispered, “I can only hope to help you to bear it better than I have broken it to you.”
She could not shed tears in that first awful moment: physically and mentally she leaned on him for support. “How can we tell my mother?”
It was necessary that Mrs. Tait should be told, and without delay. Even then the body was being conveyed to the house. By a curious coincidence, Mr. Halliburton had been passing the last doctor’s surgery at the very moment the crowd was round its doors. Unusual business had called him there; or it was a street he did not enter once in a year. “The parson has fallen down in a fit,” said some of them, recognizing and arresting him.
“The parson!” he repeated. “What! Mr. Tait?”
“Sure enough,” said they. And Mr. Halliburton pressed into the surgeon’s house just as the examination was over.
“The heart, no doubt, sir,” said the doctor to him.
“He surely is not dead?”
“Quite dead. He must have died instantaneously.”
The news had been wafted to the mob outside, and they were already taking a shutter from its hinges. “I will go on first and prepare the family,” said Mr. Halliburton to them. “Give me a quarter of an hour’s start, and then come on.”
So that he had only a quarter of an hour for it all. His thoughts naturally turned to his wife: not simply to spare her alarm and pain, so far as he might, but he believed her, young as she was, to possess more calmness and self-control than Mrs. Tait. As he sped to the house he rehearsed his task; and might have accomplished it better but for his tell-tale face. “Jane,” he whispered, “let this be your consolation ever: he was ready to go.”
“Oh yes!” she answered, bursting into a storm of most distressing tears. “If any one here was ever fit for heaven, it was my dear father.”
“Hark!” exclaimed Mr. Halliburton.
Some noise had arisen downstairs — a sound of voices speaking in undertones. There could be no doubt that people had come to the house with the news, and were imparting it to the two trembling servants.
“There’s not a moment to be lost, Jane.”
How Jane dried her eyes and suppressed all temporary sign of grief and emotion, she could not tell. A sense of duty was strong within her, and she knew that the most imperative duty of the present moment was the support and solace of her mother. She and her husband entered the drawing-room together, and Mrs. Tait turned with a smile to Mr. Halliburton.
“What secrets have you and Jane been talking together?” Then, catching sight of Jane’s white and quivering lips, she broke into a cry of agony. “Jane! what has happened? What have you both come to tell me?”
The tears poured from Jane’s fair young face as she clasped her mother fondly to her, tenderly whispering: “Dearest mamma, you must lean upon us now! We will all love you and take care of you as we have never yet done.”
CHAPTER IV.
NEW PLANS.
The post-mortem examination established beyond doubt the fact that the Rev. Francis Tait’s death was caused by heart disease. In the earlier period of his life it had been suspected that he was subject to it, but of late years unfavourable symptoms had not shown themselves.
With him died of course almost all his means; and his family, if not left utterly destitute, had little to boast in the way of wealth. Mrs. Tait enjoyed, and had for some time enjoyed, an annuity of fifty pounds a year; but it would cease at her death, whenever that event should take place. What was she to do with her children? Many a bereaved widow, far worse off than Mrs. Tait, has to ask the same perplexing question every day. Mrs. Tait’s children were partially off her hands. Jane had her husband; Francis was earning his own living as an under-master in a school; with Margaret ten pounds a year must be paid; and there was still Robert.
The death had occurred in July. By October they must be away from the house. “You will be at no loss for a home, Mrs. Tait,” Mr. Halliburton took an opportunity of kindly saying to her. “You must allow me and Jane to welcome you to ours.”
“Yes, Edgar,” was Mrs. Tait’s unhesitating reply; “it will be the best plan. The furniture in this house will do for yours, and you shall have it, and you must take me and my small means into it — an incumbrance to you. I have pondered it all over, and I do not see anything else that can be done.”
“I have no right whatever to your furniture,” he replied, “and Jane has no more right to it than have your other children. The furniture shall be put into my house if you please; but you must either allow me to pay you for it, or it shall remain your own, to be removed again at any time you may please.”
A house was looked for and taken. The furniture was valued, and Mr. Halliburton bought it — a fourth part of the sum Mrs. Tait positively refusing to take, for she declared that so much belonged to Jane. Then they quitted the old house of many years, and moved into the new one: Mr. and Mrs. Halliburton, Mrs. Tait, Robert, and the two servants.
“Will it be prudent for you, my dear, to retain both the servants?” Mrs. Tait asked of her daughter.
Jane blushed vividly. “We could do with one at present, mamma; but the time will be coming that I shall require two. And Susan and Mary are both so good that I do not care to part with them. You are used to them, too.”
“Ah, child! I know that in all your plans and schemes you and Edgar think first of my comfort. Do you know what I was thinking of last night as I lay in bed?”
“What, mamma?”
“When Mr. Halliburton first spoke of wanting you, I and your poor papa felt inclined to hesitate, thinking you might have made a better match. But, my dear, I was wondering last night what we should have done in this crisis but for him.”
“Yes,” said Jane, gently. “Things that appear untoward at the time frequently turn out afterwards to have been the very best that could have happened. God directs all things, you know, mamma.”
A contention arose respecting Robert, some weeks after they had been in their new house — or it may be better to call it a discussion. Robert had never taken very kindly to what he called book-learning. Mr. Tait’s wish had been that both his sons should enter the Church. Robert had never openly opposed this wish, and for the calling itself he had a liking; but particularly disliked the study and application necessary to fit him for it. Silent while his father lived, he was so no longer; but took every opportunity of urging the point upon his mother. He was still attending Dr. Percy’s school daily.
“You know, mother,” dropping down one day in a chair, close to his mother and Jane, and catching up one leg to nurse — rather a favourite action of his— “I shall never earn salt at it.”
“Salt at what, Robert?” asked Mrs. Tait.
“Why, at these rubbishing classics. I shall never make a tutor, as Mr. Halliburton and Francis do; and what on earth’s to become of me? As to any chance of my being a parson, of course that’s over: where’s the money to come from?”
“What is to become of you, then?” cried Mrs. Tait. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Besides,” went on Robert, lowering his voice, and calling up the most effectual argument he could think of, “I ought to be doing something for myself. I am living here upon Mr. Halliburton.”
“He is delighted to have you, Robert,” interrupted Jane, quickly. “Mamma pays — —”
“Be quiet, Mrs. Jane! What sort of a wife do you call yourself, pray, to go against your husband’s interests in that manner? I heard you preaching up to the charity children the other day about its being sinful to waste time.”
“Well?” said Jane.
