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HERIOT'S CHOICE
A Tale
BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY
AUTHOR OF 'NELLIE'S MEMORIES,' 'NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS,' 'SIR GODFREY'S
GRANDDAUGHTERS,' ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1902
_All rights reserved_
_First Edition, 3 Vols. Crown 8vo, 31s. 6d., 1879_
_Second Edition, 1 Vol. Crown 8vo, 6s., 1890_
_Reprinted 1891, 1895,(3s. 6d.) 1898_
_Transferred to Macmillan & Co., Ltd., August 1898, 1902_
TO
The Rev. Canon Simpson, LL.D.
THIS STORY
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. 'SAY YES, MILLY'
CHAPTER II. 'IF YOU PLEASE, MAY I BRING RAG AND TATTERS?'
CHAPTER III. VIA TEBAY
CHAPTER IV. MILDRED'S NEW HOME
CHAPTER V. OLIVE
CHAPTER VI. CAIN AND ABEL
CHAPTER VII. A MOTHER IN ISRAEL
CHAPTER VIII. 'ETHEL THE MAGNIFICENT'
CHAPTER IX. KIRKLEATHAM
CHAPTER X. THE RUSH-BEARING
CHAPTER XI. AN AFTERNOON IN CASTLESTEADS
CHAPTER XII. THE WELL-MEANING MISCHIEF-MAKER
CHAPTER XIII. A YOUTHFUL DRACO AND SOLON
CHAPTER XIV. RICHARD COEUR-DE-LION
CHAPTER XV. THE GATE AJAR
CHAPTER XVI. COMING BACK
CHAPTER XVII. THREE YEARS AFTERWARDS--A RETROSPECT
CHAPTER XVIII. OLIVE'S WORK
CHAPTER XIX. THE HEART OF COEUR-DE-LION
CHAPTER XX. WHARTON HALL FARM
CHAPTER XXI. UNDER STENKRITH BRIDGE
CHAPTER XXII. DR. HERIOT'S WARD
CHAPTER XXIII. 'AND MAIDENS CALL IT LOVE-IN-IDLENESS'
CHAPTER XXIV. THE DESERTED COTTON-MILL IN HILBECK GLEN
CHAPTER XXV. ROYAL
CHAPTER XXVI. 'IS THAT LETTER FOR ME, AUNT MILLY?'
CHAPTER XXVII. COOP KERNAN HOLE
CHAPTER XXVIII. DR. HERIOT'S MISTAKE
CHAPTER XXIX. THE COTTAGE AT FROGNAL
CHAPTER XXX. 'I CANNOT SING THE OLD SONGS'
CHAPTER XXXI. 'WHICH SHALL IT BE?'
CHAPTER XXXII. A TALK IN FAIRLIGHT GLEN
CHAPTER XXXIII. 'YES'
CHAPTER XXXIV. JOHN HERIOT'S WIFE
CHAPTER XXXV. OLIVE'S DECISION
CHAPTER XXXVI. BERENGARIA
HERIOT'S CHOICE
CHAPTER I
'SAY YES, MILLY'
'Man's importunity is God's opportunity.'
'O fair, O fine, O lot to be desired!
Early and late my heart appeals to me,
And says, "O work, O will--Thou man, be fired,
To earn this lot--" she says--"I would not be
A worker for mine own bread, or one hired
For mine own profit. O, I would be free
To work for others; love so earned of them
Should be my wages and my diadem."'--Jean Ingelow.
'Say yes, Milly.'
Three short words, and yet they went straight to Milly's heart. It was
only the postscript of a long, sorrowful letter--the finale brief but
eloquent--of a quiet, dispassionate appeal; but it sounded to Mildred
Lambert much as the Macedonian cry must have sounded of old: 'Come over
and help us.'
Mildred's soft, womanly nature was capable of only one response to such
a demand. Assent was more than probable, and bordered on certainty, even
before the letter was laid aside, and while her cheek was yet paling at
the thought of new responsibilities and the vast unknown, wherein duty
must tread on the heel of inclination, and life must press out thought
and the worn-out furrows of intro- and retrospection.
And so it was that the page of a negative existence was turned; and
Mildred agreed to become the inmate of her brother's home.
'Aunt Milly!' How pleasant it would be to hear that again, and to be in
the centre of warm young life and breathless activity, after the torpor
of long waiting and watching, and the hush and the blank and the
drawn-out pain, intense yet scarcely felt, of the last seven years.
To begin life in its fulness at eight-and-twenty; to taste of its real
sweets and bitters, after it had offered to her nothing but the pale
brackish flavour of regret for a passing youth and wasted powers,
responsive rather than suggestive (if there be such monstrous anomaly on
the whole face of God's creation), nothing being wasted, and all
pronounced good, that comes direct from the Divine Hand. To follow fresh
tracks when the record of the years had left nothing but the traces of
the chariot-wheels of daily monotonous duties that dragged heavily, when
summer and winter and seed-time and harvest found Mildred still through
those seven revolving courses of seasons within the walls of that quiet
sickroom.
It is given to some women to look back on these long level blanks of
life; on mysteries of waiting, that intervene between youth and work,
when the world's noise comes dimly to them, like the tumult of city's
streets through closed shutters; when pain and hardship seem preferable
to their death-in-life, and they long to prove the armour that has grown
rusted with disuse.
How many a volume could be written, and with profit, on the watchers as
well as the workers of life, on the bystanders as well as the sufferers.
'Patient hearts their pain to see.' Well has this thought been embodied
in the words of a nineteenth-century Christian poet; while to many a
pallid malcontent, wearied with inaction and panting for strife, might
the Divine words still be applied: 'Could ye not have watched with Me
one hour?'
Mildred Lambert's life for eight-and-twenty years might be summed up in
a few sentences. A happy youth, scarcely clouded by the remembrance of a
dead father and the graves of the sisters that came between her infancy
and the maturer age of her only brother; and then the blurred brightness
when Arnold, who had married before he had taken orders, became the
hard-working vicar of a remote Westmorland parish--and he and his wife
and children passed out of Milly's daily life.
Milly was barely nineteen when this happened; but even then her
mother--who had always been ailing--was threatened with a chronic
complaint involving no ordinary suffering; and now began the long seven
years' watching which faded Milly's youth and roses together.
Milly had never known how galling had been the strain to the nerves--how
intense her own tenacity of will and purpose, till she had folded her
mother's pale hands together; and with a lassitude too great for tears,
felt as she crept away that her work was finished none too soon, and
that even her firm young strength was deserting her.
Trouble had not come singly to Mildred. News of her sister-in-law's
unexpected death had reached her, just before her mother's last brief
attack, and her brother had been too much stunned by his own loss to
come to her in her loneliness.
Not that Milly wondered at this. She loved Arnold dearly; but he was so
much older, and they had grown necessarily so apart. He and his wife had
been all in all to each other; and the family in the vicarage had seemed
so perfected and completed that the little petted Milly of old days
might well plead that she was all but forgotten.
But Betha's death had altered this; and Arnold's letter, written as good
men will write when their heart is well-nigh broken, came to Mildred as
she sat alone in her black dress in her desolate home.
New work--unknown work--and that when youth's elasticity seemed gone,
and spirits broken or at least dangerously quieted by the morbid
atmosphere of sickness and hypochondria. They say the prisoner of twenty
years will weep at leaving his cell. The tears that Mildred shed that
night were more for the mother she had lost and the old safe life of the
past, than pity for the widowed brother and motherless children.
Do we ever outlive our selfishness? Do we ever cease to be fearful for
ourselves?
And yet Mildred was weary of solitude. Arnold was her own, her only
brother; and Aunt Milly--well, perhaps it might be pleasant.
'Say yes, Milly--for Betha's sake--for my darling's sake (she was so
fond of you), if not for mine. Think how her children miss her! Matters
are going wrong already. It is not their fault, poor things; but I am so
helpless to decide. I used to leave everything to her, and we are all so
utterly lost.
'I could not have asked you if our mother had lingered; but your
faithful charge, my poor Milly, is over--your martyrdom, as Betha called
it. She was so bright, and loved to have things so bright round her,
that your imprisonment in the sickroom quite oppressed her. It was "poor
Milly," "our dear good Milly," to the last. I wish her girls were more
like her; but she only laughed at their odd ways, and told me I should
live to be proud of them.
'Olive is as left-handed as ever, and Chrissy little better. Richard is
mannish, but impracticable, and a little difficult to understand. We
should none of us get on at all but for Roy: he has his mother's
heart-sunshine and loving smile; but even Roy has his failures.
'We want a woman among us, Milly--a woman with head and hands, and a
tolerable stock of patience. Even Heriot is in difficulties, but that
will keep till you come--for you will come, will you not, my dear?'
'Come! how could you doubt me, Arnold?' replied Mildred, as she laid
down the letter; but 'God help me and them' followed close on the sigh.
'After all, it is a clear call to duty,' she soliloquised. 'It is not my
business to decide on my fitness or unfitness, or to measure myself to
my niche. We are not promised strength before the time, and no one can
tell before he tries whether he be likely to fail. Richard's
mannishness, and Olive's left-handed ways, and Chrissy's poorer
imitation, shall not daunt me. Arnold wants me. I shall be of use to
some one again, and I will go.'
But Mildred, for all her bravery, grew a little pale over her brother's
second letter:--'You must come at once, and not wait to summer and
winter it, or, as some of our old women say, "to bide the bitterment
on't." Shall I send Richard to help you about your house business, and
to settle your goods and chattels? Let the old furniture go, Milly; it
has stood a fair amount of wear and tear, and you are young yet, my
dear. Shall I send Dick? He was his mother's right hand. The lad's
mannish for his nineteen years.' Mannish again! This Richard began to be
formidable. He was a bright well-looking lad of thirteen when Mildred
had seen him last. But she remembered his mother's fond descriptions of
Cardie's cleverness and goodness. One sentence had particularly struck
her at the time. Betha had been comparing her boys, and dwelling on
their good points with a mother's partiality. 'As to Roy, he needs no
praise of mine; he stands so well in every one's estimation--and in his
own, too--that a little fault-finding would do him good. Cardie is
different: his diffidence takes the form of pride; no one understands
him but I--not even his father. The one speaks out too much, and the
other too little; but one of these days he will find out his son's good
heart.'
'I wonder if Arnold will recognise me,' thought Mildred, sorrowfully,
that night, as she sat by her window, looking out on her little strip of
garden, shimmering in the moonlight. 'I feel so old and changed, and
have grown into such quiet ways. Are there some women who are never
young, I wonder? Am I one of them? Is it not strange,' she continued,
musingly, 'that such beautiful lives as Betha's are struck so suddenly
out of the records of years, while I am left to take up the incompleted
work she discharged so lovingly? Dear Betha! what a noble heart it was!
Arnold reverenced as much as he loved her. How vain to think of
replacing, even in the faintest degree; one of the sweetest women this
earth ever saw: sweet, because her whole life was in exact harmony with
her surroundings.' And there rose before Mildred's eyes a faint image
that often haunted her--of a face with smiling eyes, and brown hair just
touched with gold--and the small firm hand that, laid on unruly lips,
could hush coming wrath, and smooth the angry knitting of baby brows.
It was strange, she thought, that neither Olive nor Chrissy were like
their mother. Roy's fairness and steady blue eyes were her sole
relics--Roy, who was such a pretty little fellow when Mildred had seen
him last.
Mildred tried to trace out a puzzled thought in her head before she
slept that night. A postscript in Arnold's letter, vaguely worded, but
most decidedly mysterious, gave rise to a host of conjectures.
'I have just found out that Heriot's business must be settled long
before the end of next month--when you come to us. You know him by name
and repute, though not personally. I have given him your address. I
think it will be better for you both to talk the matter over, and to
give it your full consideration, before you start for the north. Make
any arrangements you like about the child. Heriot's a good fellow, and
deserves to be helped; he has been everything to us through our
trouble.'
What could Arnold mean? Betha's chatty letters--thoroughly womanly in
their gossip--had often spoken of Arnold's friend, Dr. Heriot, and of
his kindness to their boys. She had described him as a man of great
talents, and an undoubted acquisition to their small society. 'Arnold
(who was her universal referee) wondered that a man like Dr. Heriot
should bury himself in a Westmorland valley. Some one had told them that
he had given up a large West End practice. There was some mystery about
him; his wife made him miserable. No one knew the rights or the wrongs
of it; but they would rather believe any thing than that he was to
blame.'
And in another letter she wrote: 'A pleasant evening has just been sadly
interrupted. The Bishop was here and one or two others, Dr. Heriot among
them; but a telegram summoning him to his wife's deathbed had just
reached him.
'Arnold, who stood by him, says he turned as pale as death as he read
it; but he only put it into his hand without a word, and left the room.
I could not help following him with a word of comfort, remembering how
good he was to us when we had nearly lost Chrissy last year; but he
looked at me so strangely that the words died on my lips. "When death
only relieves us of a burden, Mrs. Lambert, we touch on a sorrow too
great for any ordinary comfort. You are sorry for me, but pray for her."
And wringing my hand, he turned away. She must have been a bad wife to
him. He is a good man; I am sure of it.'
How strange that Dr. Heriot should be coming to see her, and on private
business, too! It seemed so odd of Arnold to send him; and yet it was
pleasant to feel that she was to be consulted and her opinion respected.
'Mildred, who loves to help everybody, must find some way of helping
poor Heriot,' had been her brother's concluding words.
Mildred Lambert's house was one of those modest suburban residences
lying far back on a broad sunny road bordering on Clapham Common; but on
a May afternoon even Laurel Cottage, unpretentious as it was, was not
devoid of attractions, with its trimly cut lawn and clump of
sweet-scented lilac and yellow drooping laburnum, stretching out long
fingers of gold in the sunshine.
Mildred was sitting alone in her little drawing-room, ostensibly sorting
her papers, but in reality falling into an occasional reverie, lulled by
the sunshine and the silence, when a brisk footstep on the gravel
outside the window made her start. Visitors were rare in her secluded
life, and, with the exception of the doctor and the clergyman, and
perhaps a sympathising neighbour, few ever invaded the privacy of Laurel
Cottage; the light, well-assured footstep sounded strange in Mildred's
ears, and she listened with inward perturbation to Susan's brief
colloquy with the stranger.
'Yes, her mistress was disengaged; would he send in his name and
business, or would he walk in?' And the door was flung open a little
testily by Susan, who objected to this innovation on their usual
afternoon quiet.
'Forgive me, if I am intruding, Miss Lambert, but your brother told me I
might call.'
'Dr. Heriot?'
'Yes; he has kept his promise then, and has written to inform you of my
intended visit? We have heard so much of each other that I am sure we
ought to need no special introduction.' But though Dr. Heriot, as he
said this, held out his hand with a frank smile, a grave, penetrating
look accompanied his words; he was a man rarely at fault, but for the
moment he seemed a little perplexed.
'Yes, I expected you; will you sit down?' replied Mildred, simply. She
was not a demonstrative woman, and of late had grown into quiet ways
with strangers. Dr. Heriot's tone had slightly discomposed her;
instinctively she felt that he failed to recognise in her some given
description, and that a brief embarrassment was the result.
Mildred was right. Dr. Heriot was trying to puzzle out some connection
between the worn, soft-eyed woman before him, and the fresh girlish face
that had so often smiled down on him from the vicarage wall, with shy,
demure eyes, and the roses in her belt not brighter than the pure
colouring of her bloom. The laughing face had grown sad and
quiet--painfully so, Dr. Heriot thought--and faint lines round mouth and
brow bore witness to the strain of a wearing anxiety and habitual
repression of feeling; the skin of the forehead was too tightly
stretched, and the eyes shone too dimly for health; while the thin,
colourless cheek, seen in juxtaposition to the black dress, told their
own story of youthful vitality sacrificed to the inexorable demand of
hypochondria.
But it was a refined, womanly face, and one that could not fail to
interest; a kind patient soul looked through the quiet eyes; youth and
its attractions had faded, but a noble unconsciousness had replaced it;
in talking to her you felt instinctively that the last person of whom
Mildred thought was herself. But if Dr. Heriot were disappointed in the
estimate he had formed of his friend's sister, Mildred on her side was
not the less surprised at his appearance.
She had imagined him a man of imposing aspect--a man of height and
inches, with iron-gray hair. The real Dr. Heriot was dark and slight,
rather undersized than otherwise, with a dark moustache, and black,
closely-cropped hair, which made him look younger than he really was. It
was not a handsome face; at first sight there was something stern and
forbidding about it, but the lines round the mouth relaxed pleasantly
when he smiled, and the eyes had a clear, straightforward look; while
about the whole man there was a certain indefinable air of
good-breeding, as of one long accustomed to hold his own amongst men who
were socially his superiors.
Mildred had taken her measurement of Dr. Heriot in her own quiet way
long before she had exhausted her feminine budget of conversation: the
fineness of the weather, the long dusty journey, his need of
refreshment, and inquiries after her brother's health and spirits.
'He is not a man to be embarrassed, but his business baffles him,' she
thought to herself; 'he is ill at ease, and unhappy. I must try and meet
him half-way.' And accordingly Mildred began in her straightforward
manner.
'It is a long way to come up on business, Dr. Heriot. Arnold told me you
had difficulties, though he did not explain their nature. Strange to
say, he spoke as though I could be of some assistance to you!'
'I have no right to burden you,' he returned, somewhat incoherently;
'you look little fit now to cope with such responsibilities as must fall
to your share. Would not rest and change be beneficial before entering
on new work?'
'I am not talking of myself,' returned Mildred, with a faint smile,
though her colour rose at the unmistakable tone of sympathy in Dr.
Heriot's voice. 'My time for rest will come presently. Is it true, Dr.
Heriot, that I can be of any service to you?'
'You shall judge,' was the answer. 'I will meet your kindness with
perfect frankness. My business in London at the present moment concerns
a little girl--a distant relative of my poor wife's--who has lost her
only remaining parent. Her father and I were friends in our student
days; and in a weak moment I accepted a presumptive guardianship over
the child. I thought Philip Ellison was as likely as not to outlive me,
and as he had some money left him there seemed very little risk about
the whole business.'
Mildred gave him a glance full of intelligence. It was clear to her now
wherein Dr. Heriot's difficulty lay. He was still too young a man to
have the sole guardianship of a motherless orphan.
'Philip was but a few years older than myself, and, as he explained to
me, it was only a purely business arrangement, and that in case of his
death he wished to have a disinterested person to look after his
daughter's interest. Things were different with me then, and I had no
scruples in acceding to his wish. But Philip Ellison was a bad manager,
and on an evil day was persuaded to invest his money in some rotten
company--heaven knows what!--and as a natural consequence lost every
penny. Since then I have heard little about him. He was an artist, but
not a rising one; he travelled a great deal in France and Germany, and
now and then he would send over pictures to be sold, but I am afraid he
made out only a scanty subsistence for himself and his little daughter.
A month ago I received news of his death, and as she has not a near
relation living, except some cousins in Australia, I find I have the
sole charge of a girl of fourteen; and I think you will confess, Miss
Lambert, that the position has its difficulties. What in the
world'--here Dr. Heriot's face grew a little comical--'am I to do with a
raw school-girl of fourteen?'
'What does Arnold suggest?' asked Mildred, quietly. In her own mind she
was perfectly aware what would be her brother's first generous thought.
'It was my intention to put the child at some good English school, and
have her trained as a governess; but it is a dreary prospect for her,
poor little soul, and somehow I feel as though I ought to do better for
Philip Ellison's daughter. He was one of the proudest men that ever
lived, and was so wrapped up in his child.'
'But my brother has negatived that, and proposed another plan,'
interrupted Mildred, softly. She knew her brother well.
'He was generous enough to propose that she should go at once to the
vicarage until some better arrangement could be made. He assured me that
there was ample room for her, and that she could share Olive's and
Chrissy's lessons; but he begged me to refer it to you, as he felt he
had no right to make such an addition to the family circle without your
full consent.'
'Arnold is very good, but he must have known that I could have no
objection to offer to any plan of which he approves. He is so
kind-hearted, that one could not bear to damp his enthusiasm.'
'Yes, but think a moment before you decide,' returned Dr Heriot,
earnestly. 'It is quite true that I was bound to your brother and his
wife by no ordinary ties of friendship, and that they would have done
anything for me, but this ought not to be allowed to influence you. If I
accept Mr. Lambert's offer, at least for the present, I shall be adding
to your work, increasing your responsibilities. Olive and Chrissy will
tax your forbearance sufficiently without my bringing this poor little
waif of humanity upon your kindness; and you look so far from strong,'
he continued, with a quick change of tone.
'I am quite ready for my work,' returned Mildred, firmly; 'looks do not
always speak the truth, Dr. Heriot. Please let me have the charge of
your little ward; she will not be a greater stranger to me than Olive
and Chrissy are. Why, Chrissy was only nine when I saw her last. Ah,'
continued Mildred, folding her hands, and speaking almost to herself,
'if you knew what it will be to me to see myself surrounded by young
faces, to be allowed to love them, and to try to win their love in
return--to feel I am doing real work in God's world, with a real trust
and talent given to me--ah! you must let me help you in this, Dr.
Heriot; you were so good to Betha, and it will make Arnold happy.' And
Mildred stretched out her hand to him with a new impulse, so unlike the
composed manner in which she had hitherto spoken, that Dr. Heriot,
surprised and touched, could find no response but 'God bless you for
this, Miss Lambert!'
Mildred's gentle primness was thawing visibly under Dr. Heriot's
pleasant manners. By and by, as she presided at the sunny little
tea-table, and pressed welcome refreshment on her weary guest, she heard
more about this strange early friendship of his, and shared his surmises
as to the probable education and character of his ward.
'She must be a regular Bohemian by this time,' he observed. 'From what I
can hear they were never long in one place. It must be a strange
training for a girl, living in artists' studios, and being the sole
companion of a silent, taciturn man such as Philip was.'
'She will hardly have the characteristics of other girls,' observed
Mildred.
'She cannot possibly be more out of the common than Olive. Olive has all
sorts of absurd notions in her head. It is odd Mrs. Lambert's training
should have failed so signally in her girls. I am afraid your
preciseness will be sometimes offended,' he continued, looking round the
room, which, with all its homeliness, had the little finishes that a
woman's hand always gives. 'Olive might have arranged those flowers, but
she would have forgotten to water them, or to exclude their presence
when dead.'
'You are a nice observer,' returned Mildred, smiling. 'Do not make me
afraid of my duties beforehand, as though I do not exactly know how all
the rooms look! Betha's pretty drawing-room trampled by dirty boots,
Arnold's study a hopeless litter of books, not a corner of the
writing-table clear. Chrissy used them as bricks,' she continued,
laughing. 'Roy and she had a mighty Tower of Babel one day. You should
have seen Arnold's look when he found out that _The Seven Lamps of
Architecture_ laid the foundation; but Betha only laughed, and told him
it served him right.'
'But she kept them in order, though. In her quiet way she was an
excellent disciplinarian. Well, Miss Lambert, I am trespassing overmuch
on your goodness. To-morrow I am to make my ward's acquaintance--one of
the clique has brought her over from Dieppe--and I am to receive her
from his hands. Would it be troubling you too much if I ask you to
accompany me?--the poor child will feel so forlorn with only men round
her.'
'I will go with you and bring her home. No, please, do not thank me, Dr.
Heriot. If you knew how lonely I am here----' and for the first time
Mildred's eyes filled with tears.