"Won't you have the lamp lit, Miss Millicent?"
"No, Thisbe, not yet," said Mrs Hallam, in a low, dreamy voice, and
without a word the faithful follower of her mistress in trouble went
softly out, closing the door, and leaving mother and daughter alone.
"She's got one of her fits on," mused Thisbe. "Ah, how it does come
over me sometimes like a temptation--just about once a month ever
since--to have one good go at her and tell her I told her so; that it
was all what might be expected of wedding a handsome man. `Didn't I
warn you?' I could say. `Didn't I tell you how it would be?' But no:
I couldn't say a word to the poor dear, and her going on believing in
the bad scamp as she does all these years. She's different to me. It's
just for all the world like a temptation that comes over me, driving me
like to speak, but I've kept my mouth shut all these years and I'm going
to do it still."
Thisbe had reached her little brightly-kept kitchen, where she stood
thoughtfully gazing at the fire, with one hand upon her hip, for some
minutes.
Then a peculiar change came upon Thisbe's hard face. It seemed as if it
had been washed over with something sweet, which softened it; then it
suggested the idea that she was about to sneeze, and ended by a violent
spasmodic twitch, quite a convulsion. Thisbe's body remained
motionless, though her face was altered, and by degrees her eyes, after
brightening and sparkling, grew suffused and dreamy, as she gazed
straight before her and seemed to be thinking very deeply. Her
countenance was free from the spasm now, and as the candle shone upon
it, it brought prominently into notice the fact that in her love of
cleanliness Thisbe was not so particular as she might have been in the
process of rinsing; for the fact was patent that she rubbed herself
profusely with soap, and left enough upon her face after her ablutions
to produce the effect of an elastic varnish or glaze.
Everything was very still, the only sounds being the dull wooden tick of
the Dutch clock, and the drowsy chirp of an asthmatic cricket, which
seemed to have wedded itself somewhere in a crack behind the grate, and
to be bemoaning its inability to get out; while the clock ticked
hoarsely, as if its life were a burden, and it were heartily sick of
having that existence renewed by a nightly pulling up of the two black
iron sausages that hung some distance below its sallow face.
Suddenly Thisbe walked sharply to the fire, seized the poker, and
cleared the bottom bar. This done she replaced the poker, and planted
one foot upon the fender to warm, and one hand upon the mantel-piece
with so much inadvertence that she knocked down the tinder-box, and had
to pick the flint and steel from out of the ashes with the brightly
polished tongs.
"I don't know what's come to me," she said sharply, as soon as the
tinder-box was replaced. "Think of her holding fast to him all these
years, and training up my bairn to believe in him as if he was a noble
martyr! My word, it's a curious thing for a woman to be taken like that
with a man, and no matter what he does, to be always believing him!"
Thisbe pursed up her lips, and twitched her toes up and down as they
rested upon the fender, while she directed her conversation at the
golden caverns of the fire.
"They say Gorringe the tailor used to beat his wife, but that woman
always looked happy, and I've seen her smile on him as if there wasn't
such another man in the world."
Just then the clock gave such a wheeze that Thisbe started and stared at
it.
"Quite makes me nervous," she said, turning back to the fire. "What
with the thinking and worry, and her keeping always in the same mind--
oh, my!"
She took her hand from the mantel-piece to clap it upon its fellow as a
sudden thought struck her, which made her look aghast.
"If he did!" she said after a pause. "And yet she expects it some day.
Oh, dear me! oh, dear me! what weak, foolish, trusting things women are!
They take a fancy to a man, and then because you don't believe in him,
too, it's hoity-toity and never forgive me. Well, poor soul! perhaps
it's all for the best. It may comfort her in her troubles. I wonder
what Tom Porter looks like now," she said suddenly, and then looked
sharply and guiltily round to see if her words had been heard. "I
declare I ought to be ashamed of myself," she said, and rushing at some
work, she plumped herself down and began to stitch with all her might.
In the little parlour all was very quiet, save the occasional footstep
in the street. The blind was not drawn down, and the faint light from
outside mingled with the glow from the fire, which threw up the face of
Julia Hallam, where she sat dreamily gazing at the embers, against the
dark transparency, giving her the look of a painting by one of the
Italian masters of the past.
At the old-fashioned square piano her mother was seated with her hands
resting upon the keys which were silent. Farther distant from the fire
her figure, graceful still, seemed melting into a darker transparency,
one which grew deeper and deeper, till in the corner of the room and
right and left of the fireplace the shadows seemed to be almost solid.
Then the accustomed eye detected the various objects that furnished the
room, melting, as it were, away.
Only on one spot did there seem a discordant note in the general harmony
of the softly glowing scene, and that was where the rays from a
newly-lighted street lamp shone straight upon the wall and across the
picture of Robert Hallam, cutting it strangely asunder, and giving to
the upper portion of the face a weird and almost ghastly look.
Thisbe's steps had died out and her kitchen door had closed, but the
musings of the two women had been interrupted and did not go back to
their former current.
All at once, soft as a memory of the bygone, the notes of the piano
began to sound, and Julia changed her position, resting one arm upon the
chair by her side and listening intently to a dreamy old melody that
brought back to her the drawing-room in the old house at Castor--a
handsomely-furnished, low-ceiled room with deep window-seat, on whose
cushion she had often knelt to watch the passing vehicles while her
mother played that very tune in the half light.
So dreamy, so softened, as if mingled there with a strange sadness. Now
just as it was then, one of the vivid memories of childhood, Weber's
"Last Waltz," an air so sweet, so full of melancholy, that it seems
wondrous that our parents could have danced to its strains, till we
recall the doleful minor music of minuet, coranto, and saraband.
Dancing must have been a serious matter in those days.
Soft and sweet, chord after chord, each laden with its memory to Julia
Hallam.
Her mother was playing that when her father came in hastily one night,
and was so angry because there were no lights; that night when she stole
away to Thisbe.
She was playing it too that afternoon when Grandmamma Luttrell came and
was in such low spirits, and would not tell the reason why. Again, that
night when she shrank away from her father, and he flung her hands from
him, and said that angry word.
Memory after memory came back from the past as Millicent Hallam played
softly on, making her child's face lustrous, eyes grow more dreamy, the
curved neck bend lower, and the tears begin to gather, till, with quite
a start, the young girl raised her head and saw the rays from the
gas-lamp shining across the picture beyond her mother's dimly-seen
profile.
Julia rose to cross to her mother's side, and knelt down to pass her
arms round the shapely waist and there rest.
"Go on playing," she said softly. "Now tell me about poor papa."
The notes of the old melody seemed to have an additional strain of
melancholy as they floated softly through the room, sometimes almost
dying away, while after waiting a few minutes they formed the
accompaniment to the sad story of Millicent Hallam's love and faith,
told for the hundredth time to her daughter.
For Millicent talked on without a tremor in her voice, every word
distinct and firm, and yet softly sweet and full of tenderness, as it
seemed to her that she was telling the story of a martyr's sufferings to
his child.
"And all these years, and we have heard so little," sighed Julia. "Poor
papa! Poor father!"
The music ceased as she spoke, but went on again as she paused.
"Waiting, my child; waiting as I wait, and as my child waits, for the
time when he will be declared free, and will take his place again among
honourable men."
"But, mother," said Julia, "could not Mr Bayle or Sir Gordon have done
more; petitioned the king, and pointed out this grievous wrong?"
"I could not ask Sir Gordon, my child. There were reasons why he could
not act; but I did all that was possible year after year till, in my
despair, I found that I must wait."
"How glad he must be of your letters!" said Julia suddenly.
Millicent Hallam sighed.
"I suppose he cannot write to us. Perhaps he feels that it would pain
us. Mother, darling, was I an ill-conditioned, perverse child?"
"My Julia," said Mrs Hallam, turning to her and drawing her closely to
her breast, "what a question! No. Why do you ask?"
"Because I seem just to recollect myself shrinking away from papa as if
I were sulky or obstinate. It was as if I was afraid of him."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Mrs Hallam anxiously, "you were very young then,
and your poor father was constrained, and troubled with many anxieties,
which made him seem cold and distant. It was his great love for us, my
child."
"Yes, dear mother, his great love for us--his misfortune."
"His misfortune," sighed Mrs Hallam.
"But some day--when he returns--oh, mother! how we will love him, and
make him happy! How we will force him to forget the troubles of the
past!"
"My darling!" whispered Mrs Hallam, pressing her fondly to her heart.
"Do you think papa had many enemies, then?"
"I used to think so, my child, but that feeling has passed away. I seem
to see more clearly now that those who caused his condemnation were but
the creatures of circumstances. It was the villain who seemed to be
your father's evil genius caused all our woe. He made me shiver on the
morning of our wedding, coming suddenly upon us as he did, as if he were
angry with your father for being so happy."
"But could we not do something?" said Julia earnestly. "It seems to be
so sad--year after year goes by, and we sit idle."
"Yes," said Mrs Hallam with a sob; "but that is all we can do, my
child--sit and wait, sit and wait, but keeping the home ready for our
darling when he comes--the home here--and in our hearts."
"He is always there, mother," said Julia in a low, sweet voice, "always.
How I remember him, with his soft dark hair, and his dark eyes! I
think I used to be a little afraid of him."
"Because he seemed stern, my child, that was all. You loved him very
dearly."
"He shall see how I will love him when he returns, mother," she added
after a pause. "Do you think he gives much thought to us?"
"Think, my darling? I know he prays day by day for the time when he may
return. Ah!" she sighed to herself, "he reproached me once with
teaching his child not to love him. He could not say so now."
"I wonder how long it will be?" said Julia thoughtfully. "Do you think
he will be much changed?"
She glanced up at the picture.
"Changed, Julia?" said her mother, taking the sweet, earnest face
between her hands, to shower down kisses upon it, kisses mingled with
tears, "no, not in the least. It is twelve long years since, now;
heaven only knows how long to me! Years when, but for you, my darling,
I should have sunk beneath my burden. I think I should have gone mad.
In all those years you have been the link to bind me to life--to make me
hope and strive and wait, and now I feel sometimes as if the reward were
coming, as if this long penance were at an end. My love! my husband!
come to me! oh, come!"
She uttered these last words with so wild and hysterical a cry that
Julia was alarmed.
"Mother," she whispered, "you are ill!"
"No, no, my child; it is only sometimes that I feel so deeply stirred.
Your words about his being changed seemed to move me to the quick. He
will not be changed; his hair will be grey, his face lined with the
furrows of increasing age and care; but he himself--my dear husband,
your loving father--will be at heart the same, and we shall welcome him
back to a life of rest and peace."
"Yes, yes!" cried Julia, catching the infection of her mother's
enthusiasm; "and it will be soon, will it not, mother--it will be soon?"
"Let us pray that it may, my child."
"But, mother, why do we not go to him?" Mrs Hallam shivered slightly.
"We should have been near him all these years, and we might have seen
him. Oh, mother! if it had been only once! Why did you not go?" She
rose from her knees, as if moved by her excitement. "Why, I would have
gone a hundred times as far!" she said excitedly. "No distance should
have kept me from the husband that I loved."
"Julie! Julie! are you reproaching me?"
"Mother!" cried the girl, flinging herself upon her neck, "as if I could
reproach you!"
"It would not be just, my child," said Mrs Hallam, caressing the soft
dark head, "for I have tried so hard."
"Yes, yes, I know, dear; and I have known ever since I have been old
enough to think."
"In every letter I have sent I have prayed for his leave to come out and
join him--that I might be near him, for I dared not take the
responsibility upon myself with you."
"Mother!"
"If I had been alone in the world, Julia, I should have gone years upon
years ago; but I felt that I should be committing a breach of trust to
take his young, tender child all those thousands of miles across the
sea, to a land whose society is wild, and often lawless."
"And so you asked papa to give his consent?"
"Every time I wrote to him, Julia--letters full of trust in the future,
letters filled with the hope I did not feel. I begged him to give me
his consent that I might come."
"And he has not replied, mother?"
"Not yet, my child. Innocent and guilty alike have a long probation to
pass through."
"But he might have written, dear."
"How do we know that, Julia?" said Mrs Hallam, with a shade of
sternness in her voice. "I have studied the matter deeply from the
reports and dispatches, and often the poor prisoners are sent far up the
country as servants--almost slaves--to the settlers. In places
sometimes where there are no fellow-creatures save the blacks for miles
upon miles. No roads, Julia; no post; no means of communication."
"My poor father!" sighed Julia, sinking upon the carpet, half sitting,
half kneeling, with her hands clasped upon her knees, and her gaze
directed up at the dimly-seen picture on the wall.
"Yes, my child, I know all," said Mrs Hallam. "I know him and his
pride. Think of a man like him, innocent, and yet condemned; dragged
from his home like a common felon, and forced to herd with criminals of
the lowest class. Is it not natural that his heart should rebel against
society, and that he should proudly make his stand upon his innocency,
and wait in silent suffering for the day when the law shall say:
`Innocent and injured man, come back from the desert. You have been
deeply wronged!'"
"Yes, dear mother. Poor father! But not one letter in all these
years!"
"Julia, my child, you pain me," cried Mrs Hallam excitedly. "When you
speak like that, your words seem to imply that he has had the power to
send letter or message. He is your father--my husband. Child, you must
learn to think of him with the same faith as I."
"Indeed I will, dear," cried Julia passionately; and then she started to
her feet, for there was a quick, decided knock at the front door.
Mrs Hallam hurriedly tried to compose her features; and as Thisbe's
step was heard in the passage she drew in her breath, gazed wildly at
the picture, just as Julia drew down the blind and blotted it from her
sight. Then the door was opened, and their visitor came in the centre
of the glow shed by the passage light.
"Aha! In the dark!" cried Bayle in his cheery voice, as Thisbe opened
the door. "How I wish I had been born a lady! I always envy you that
pleasant hour you spend in the half light, gazing into the fire."
Julia echoed his laugh in a pleasant silvery trill, as she hastily lit
the lamp, Bayle watching her as the argand wick gradually burned round,
and she put on the glass chimney, the light throwing up her handsome
young face against the gloom till she lifted the great dome-shaped
globe, which emitted a musical sound before being placed over the lamp,
and throwing Julia's countenance once more into the shade.
"What are you laughing at?" said Bayle.
"At the idea of our Mr Bayle being idle for an hour, sitting and
thinking over the fire," said Julia playfully, to draw his attention
from her mother's disturbed countenance.
The attempt was a failure, for Bayle saw clearly that something was
wrong; that pain and suffering had been there before him; and he sighed
as he asked himself what he could do more, in his unselfish way, to
chase earthly cares from that quiet home.