BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS.
THE Cartwrights often urged me to go to Lint Hall during Miss Flint's
absence.
"All the old things are in it, and just where they used to be. Your
cousin has made no alterations, and does not seem to care enough about
the place to make any. I keep the furniture as it was, for I know the
spot for every chair, just as it stood in your father's time. You have
not much chance on week-days, but you could come on Sundays, now and
again. Wouldn't you like to play on your mamma's piano?" asked Jane.
"I should think it must be terribly out of tune," I replied. "I should
have little pleasure in using it."
"You are mistaken, Mr. John. It is in first-rate order. Miss Flint had
it seen to when she was last at the Hall. Not tuned only, but there was
a man down here from the maker's place in London, and he spent three
whole days on it, and said he left it almost as good as new. I had the
strictest orders to keep the drawing-room aired and have regular fires,
so that the piano might not suffer."
This information astonished me, and I asked if Miss Flint ever used the
instrument herself.
"Not she. But it is singular that, being so very particular, she is no
dog-in-the-manger about that piano. She actually left the key with me,
and said,—
"'If any old friend of yours comes here and would like to give you a
tune to cheer you up, Jane, you are welcome to let them. It will do the
piano more harm to be always shut up than to be used. Only mind—I don't
want your sons or Mary, pattering their clumsy fingers over the keys,
or any village children. It must be some one who knows how to play that
would be welcome to use it.'
"She might have been sure our boys would never take such a liberty,"
added Jane, "but you can play, Mr. John."
A strange thought flashed across my mind. Could it be possible that
cousin Dorothy thought of my going to Lint Hall, that she was less hard
than she seemed, and wished her orphan kinsman to have an unlooked-for
pleasure.
"You see, Mr. John, you could play on the piano without getting me into
any trouble," persisted Jane. "I wish you would come."
"Did Miss Flint say that she wished me to come to the Hall?"
"No, Mr. John. She never named you either to me or Cartwright, good,
bad, or indifferent."
"Then I cannot cross the threshold of Lint Hall. I can never go
there by stealth, or by the invitation of any person but its present
mistress. If Miss Flint had wished me to go, she would have said so;
though why she spent so much on the piano is a mystery to me."
"She was fond of your mother, Mr. John. You can remember that much,
though the master and she got across sadly. Dear, dear! When the
mistress died, she grieved as if she had been her own sister; and she
got the most beautiful mourning, the best crape that money could buy,
and never wore it after the first week."
"How was that?" I asked, though I recollected almost immediately that
Mrs. Burford had told me the reason.
"Your cousin," she said, "was going abroad with Miss Watkin, and she
decided that all the expensive crape would be ruined by packing and
exposure to the weather. She said to me,—
"'It would be a perfect sin, my dear, to spoil what has cost so much;
and I never would have bought it but out of affection for the poor
woman who is gone. She had as much sense in her little finger, as her
husband carries in his whole body. What will become of him, I don't
know, except that he will go to the bad in some way. I hate the putting
on of black. It is often a sign of anything but sorrow. I can mourn
quite as honestly without crape as with it, and as I am going where
nobody will know that I have lost a friend, I will leave mine behind.'
"And she did said Mrs. Burford. By the time she came back to England,
the period for wearing it was over, and all the things which had cost
so much, would be stowed away to mildew and get old-fashioned, and be
useless to Miss Flint and every one else. I do say that, for a miserly
woman, Dorothy Flint does the queerest things, and is often penny wise
and pound foolish."
Mrs. Burford did not know everything, and no amount of searching would
have discovered those mourning garments still in Miss Flint's wardrobe.
I knew long afterwards that they had been given away to one who needed
but could not buy such articles.
I persevered in my determination, and did not visit Lint Hall during
her absence; but Jabez and Betsy went, and the Cartwrights came to the
cottage. I learned that cousin Dorothy was spending her Christmas in
Germany, and though I was not told this, I had a strong suspicion that
she and Nelly Burford were not far apart during that festive season.
She visited the Hall in the spring for a short time, and spent a few
weeks there in summer also, but that was when the Burford family were
away from home.
As Nelly had predicted, she was not allowed to come home for her long
holidays, but passed them at a seaside place far-away from Oakhill.
I must not hope to see her again until the two years should come to
an end. I could only wait patiently, and trust that the sweet, frank
nature of the girl would remain unchanged, and I cheered myself by
recalling her own written words.
All things considered, I was well treated by my employers, who had
advanced my salary from time to time, until, after three years'
service, I had forty-five pounds per annum. This, added to the interest
of my five hundred, made me feel quite rich.
I had persevered in living economically, and had paid Miss Flint's
principal and interest to the last farthing. This done, I began to save
money, though I could not, nor did I wish to limit my expenses to the
very small amount at first allotted to them. Still, I always felt glad
that the resolution to pay that fifty pounds got me into the way of
doing without many little things which I should once have considered
necessary.
I had enjoyed wonderfully good health, to which my simple, regular
habits and occupation no doubt contributed. I now persisted in paying
the Harwoods four shillings a week, contrary to their wishes, but I was
sure they needed and merited the additional sum.
I had been above a year at Oakhill Station when Nelly Burford went to
Germany, and the time fixed for her return had nearly arrived. I was
looking forward to it with mingled hope and fear, for Nelly would now
be quite a grown-up young lady of eighteen and a half. There was, as I
have already said, just a year between us, but the girl would be really
older in many ways, than the youth whose age was so little in advance
of her own.
I had heard less about Nelly for some time past, Miss Flint and her
friend, Miss Watkin, having been for several months almost as far from
the girl as she was from Oakhill.
I heard of the elder ladies from Jane Cartwright, who was ever
expressing her surprise that people of Miss Flint's time of life could
take pleasure in going from place to place, like tramps, and looking
very little better than such, when they had good homes to shelter them.
"And the stuff they do talk," said Jane. "Miss Flint might have been at
the Tower of Babel and got hold of the different languages, she knows
such a lot. If you believe me, Mr. John, the last time our lady was at
Lint Hall, there was an organ-grinder with a monkey in front of the
dining-room window.
"'Be off,' says I; 'you'll get nothing here; for we don't encourage
vagabonds about the place.'
"Actually, out stepped Miss Flint, all for contradiction, and gave the
man a shilling, and talked to him in a foreign tongue, and the soft
fellow cried like a baby, and seized hold of her hand and kissed it!
Would you believe it, now?"
"I should hardly have expected it of Miss Flint," I said, "but I can
quite understand the poor fellow's gladness at hearing his own language
in a foreign land. You would be the same yourself."
"You don't call England a foreign land, I hope," replied Jane. "It was
the man that was foreign."
And I had some difficulty in making her realise that I was right, in
saying that England was a strange country to the poor wanderer.
"Ah, well! There are folks that could stay at home and will not, and
there are some that would come and are not to be allowed. There is Miss
Nelly Burford. She would like to come home, I've no doubt, but she is
to be kept away another year."
I started, and felt my face go hot as I heard this news. It gave me a
great shock, for I had been so longing to look once more on the dear
face of my girl-friend, and counting the days that must pass before she
would be again settled in my neighbourhood.
I glanced at Jane Cartwright to see if she were noticing my heightened
colour, but she appeared to be intently watching the gambols of Betsy
Harwood's pet cat and her kitten.
Betsy asked the question I was longing to put.
"Are you sure about Miss Nelly stopping another year away?"
"Certain. You know I have had all the fine laundry-work from Mrs.
Burford's for a good while past. There being no family at the Hall,
I have time to do it, and I can have Mary at home, too, to help. The
girl could get a good place, but we have enough work for both, with the
washing and the Hall to look after, and she is my only daughter, so I
am glad to keep her with me.
"Well, I was in Mrs. Burford's kitchen, waiting, and the cook said to
me, 'I thought you would have had another young lady's fine things to
do, and I told you so last week, but I am wrong. Our Miss Ellen is not
to come home yet.'
"'How is that?' I asked.
"'Between ourselves,' said cook, 'the master wants her, but the
mistress doesn't, and Miss Burford doesn't. Miss Nelly is the flower,
and Miss Rose has got a wrong name, except for the thorns, and she has
plenty of them. She is as proud and stuck-up as you like. She'd almost
run over a poor body before she'd speak to her, as if she was made
of better stuff. As to us servants, she gives us ten times the work
Miss Nelly did. Not a finger will she lift for herself, if she can get
anybody else to do it. She thinks it is not becoming to a lady to make
herself useful. Now, Miss Nelly was always trying how she could save
trouble instead of giving it. She had a pleasant smile for every one,
and if she could give nothing else, she gave a kind word. Everybody
loves her and wants her back; and I believe it is just because of that
she is to be kept away—and her full eighteen years old.
"'Miss Rose thinks she is such a beauty, and that her sister is nothing
to look at; and yet she is as jealous of her as can be, because
everybody likes her. The mistress can see no wrong in her eldest
daughter, so Miss Rose gets her way with her mother, and Mrs. Burford
will have hers with her husband, poor gentleman! He gives in for peace
and quietness. Now you know all about it.'
"I say it is a shame," added Jane Cartwright, "but we all know what
Mrs. Burford is."
I did only too well, and I realised that even in the matter of his own
child's presence or absence, the father's will would go for nothing.
I had concluded for some little while past, that I must not hope for
any further advance of salary whilst I remained at Oakhill Station. If
my position were to be bettered, it must be by removal, and for this I
was not anxious, for it would have meant leaving behind me every friend
I had in the world. None of these were rich or great people, but they
had been true to me in my time of trouble, and treated me with such
hearty kindness as I could never forget. Yet I was wholly cut off from
those who used to be frequent guests at my father's table, some of them
seeming even to forget that the railway clerk had ever been in a higher
position.
I saw Mr. Burford less frequently now that I had paid cousin Dorothy,
though I still went to his office twice a year for the interest of
my own capital. He always asked kindly enough about my concerns, and
was glad to hear of my prosperity. But he said nothing about his own
family, and did not ask me why I never inquired after its younger
members. Even the old joke, which used to be never omitted, about my
buying back Lint Hall, seemed to have faded from his memory.
As I left his office on July 26th, I thought to myself, "Mr. Burford
is like all the rest of those who called my father friend. In a little
while, I shall be just the clerk at the station, to whom, in the way of
business, he pays a certain amount of interest. He never thinks of me
now as once—Jack Simpson of Lint Hall."
I did my true friend injustice. He did not forget, but he was a good
deal harassed at the time by domestic and professional matters. It
was not long after these bitter thoughts crossed my mind, that I was
thoroughly ashamed of having ever doubted Mr. Burford's goodwill
towards me.
I have said that Mr. Edelston, the station-master at Oakhill, was a
very kindly man, who had treated me with great consideration, done his
utmost to make me acquainted with all that could be of use to me in my
situation, and never lost an opportunity of saying a good word for me
to those in authority.
Just after my last call at Mr. Burford's office, Mr. Edelston received
a notice that in a month he would be removed to a much better post.
The news was very welcome. He was married, and his increasing family
made his income appear very small in proportion to his needs. I
rejoiced with him when he came to me, letter in hand, to tell me of his
good fortune. My only regret was at the thought of losing him, and I
told him so.
"And I am only sorry to think that a stranger may be placed over you,"
he said. "If only the company would let you slip into my shoes and
bring a youth under you, I should be content. You are quite equal to
the work, and you are so careful and correct."
"But I am so young," said I. "Thanks to you, the duties are mere A B C
work to me, but I am not of age, you know."
"Companies never lose a chance of saving if it can be done safely. You
would not begin with my salary, but if they started you, say at sixty
pounds a year, and gave a lad such as you were at first, the same that
you began with, both amounts would be less than I get now. And the
station-master has house, fire, and lights in addition."
"None of which I want," said I. "I would rather be at the cottage."
"True, but somebody else would like these along with his present place.
Pritchard wants to get married, but there is no house to be had."
Pritchard was over the goods department. And it struck me at once that
he was more likely to be Mr. Edelston's successor than myself, and I
said so.
"He would not take my post. He is better off where he is. Only he would
be glad of the station house, and an arrangement might be made to
suit everybody, if only the directors could be induced to see things
properly."
"That is, as we do," I replied, with a laugh. "But matters seldom
arrange themselves so delightfully."
"Mr. Burford has plenty of influence, and his father is a director,
though he does not now attend many meetings. Still, his word would go a
long way."
"I shall not ask either of the gentlemen to speak for me," I said.
"They did it once, but I could not bear to trouble them again on my
account."
Mr. Edelston did not press me further, but quietly did for me far more
than I would or could have done for myself. He saw both the lawyer
and his father, and laid the whole case before them. He showed that
not only would such an arrangement benefit me, but it would satisfy
Pritchard, be a saving to the company, and give me a prospect of a
further increase of salary without removing me from Oakhill.
"Mr. John Simpson is a high-principled young man, with a good business
head on his shoulders," pleaded the station-master. "He is well up in
the work, and has it at his finger-ends. When I was laid up for weeks,
not a thing went wrong, not a halfpenny was he incorrect in his daily
balances. No stranger could do better—few so well as he. He would
most likely want some one to be security for a larger amount than at
present, but surely some old friend of his father's would—"
Mr. Randal Burford did not wait for the station-master to finish his
sentence.
"There would be no difficulty about that, even if Jack had nothing
of his own. I shall be only too glad to be his surety, and to a far
greater amount than will be required. If my father were here, he would
say the same, and his best efforts may be relied on. I hope young
Simpson will get the place."
Mr. Edelston was well satisfied with the result of the interview, and
still more so when matters were arranged exactly in accordance with
his wishes on my behalf. The plan commended itself to the directors
from every point of view, but they were just a little more generous
than I expected, for they increased my salary to sixty-five pounds a
year, with a promise of another advance at the six months' end should I
continue to give satisfaction.