It was to Mrs. Baker's credit that she did not attempt to investigate
the affairs of her hapless lodger till after the funeral. A purse,
containing twelve guineas, which she found on her table, served, indeed,
to satisfy her that she would be no immediate loser. However, as soon as
the sod covered the gentle form of the unfortunate lady, she proceeded
to examine her papers. The first that presented itself was the
unfinished letter which Mrs. Raby was engaged in writing at the time of
her death. This promised information, and Mrs. Baker read it with
eagerness. It was as follows:--
"My dearest Friend,
"A newspaper has just informed me that you are returned to England,
while I still believed you to be, I know not where, on the Continent.
Dearest girl, it is long since I have written, for I have been too sad,
too uncertain about your movements, and too unwilling to cloud your
happiness, by forcing you to remember one so miserable. My beloved
friend, my schoolfellow, my benefactress; you will grieve to hear of my
misfortunes, and it is selfish in me, even now, to intrude upon you with
the tale; but, under heaven, I have no hope, except in my generous, my
warm-hearted Alithea. Perhaps you have already heard of my disaster, and
are aware that death has robbed me of the happiness which, under your
kind fosterage, I had acquired and enjoyed. He is dead who was my all in
this world, and but for one tie I should bless the day when I might be
permitted to rest for ever beside him.
"I often wonder, dear Alithea, at the heedlessness and want of foresight
with which I entered life. Doomed, through poverty and my orphan state,
to earn my bread as a governess, my entrance on that irksome task was
only delayed by my visit to you; then under your dear roof I saw and was
beloved by Edwin; and his entreaties, and your encouragement, permitted
my trembling heart to dream of--to possess happiness. Timidity of
character made me shrink from my career: diffidence never allowed me to
suppose that any one would interest themselves enough in me to raise the
poor trembler from the ground, to shelter and protect her; and this kind
of despondency rendered Edwin's love a new, glorious, and divine joy.
Yet, when I thought of his parents, I trembled--I could not bear to
enter a family where I was to be regarded as an unwelcome intruder; yet
Edwin was already an outcast--already father and brothers, every
relation, had disowned him--and he, like I, was alone. And you, Alithea,
how fondly, how sweetly did you encourage me--making that appear my duty
which was the fulfilment of my wildest dreams of joy. Surely no being
ever felt friendship as you have done--sympathizing even in the untold
secrets of a timid heart--enjoying the happiness that you conferred with
an ardour few can feel, even for themselves. Your transports of delight
when you saw me, through your means, blessed, touched me with a
gratitude that can never die. And do I show this by asking now for your
pity, and saddening you by my grief? Pardon me, sweet friend, and do not
wonder that this thought has long delayed my letter.
"We were happy--poor, but content. Poverty was no evil to me, and Edwin
supported every privation as if he had never been accustomed to luxury.
The spirit that had caused him to shake off the shackles his bigoted
family threw over him, animated him to exertions beyond his strength. He
had chosen for himself--he wished to prove that his choice was good. I
do not allude to our marriage, but to his desertion of the family
religion, and determination to follow a career not permitted by the
policy of his relations to any younger son. He was called to the bar--he
toiled incessantly--he was ambitious, and his talents gave every promise
of success. He is gone--gone for ever! I have lost the noblest, wisest
friend that ever breathed, the most devoted lover, and truest husband
that ever blessed woman!
"I write incoherently. You know what our life in London was--obscure,
but happy--the scanty pittance allowed him seemed to me amply to suffice
for all our wants; I only then knew of the wants of youth and health,
which were love and sympathy. I had all this, crowning to the brim my
cup of life--the birth of our sweet child filled it to overflowing. Our
dingy lodgings, near the courts of law, were a palace to me; I should
have despised myself heartily could I have desired anything beyond what
I possessed. I never did--nor did I fear its loss. I was grateful to
Heaven, and thus I fancied that I paid the debt of my unmeasured
prosperity.
"Can I say what I felt when I marked Edwin's restless nights, flushed
cheek, and the cough that would not go away? these things I dare not
dwell upon--my tears overflow--my heart beats to bursting--the fatal
truth was at last declared; the fatal word, consumption, spoken: change
of air was all the hope held out--we came here; the churchyard near
holds now all earthly that remains of him--would that my dust were
mingling with his!
"Yet I have a child, my Alithea; and you, who are incomparable as a
mother, will feel that I ought not to grieve so bitterly while this dear
angel remains to me. I know, indeed, that without her life would at once
suspend all its functions; why, then, is it, that while she is with me I
am not stronger, more heroic? for, to keep her with me, I must leave the
indolence of my present life--I must earn the bread of both. I should
not repine at this--I shall not when I am better; but I am very ill and
weak; and though each day I rise, resolving to exert myself, before the
morning has passed away I lie down exhausted, trembling, and faint.
"When I lost Edwin, I wrote to Mr. Raby, acquainting him with the sad
intelligence, and asking for a maintenance for myself and my child. The
family solicitor answered my letter; Edwin's conduct had, I was told,
estranged his family from him; and they could only regard me as one
encouraging his disobedience and apostacy. I had no claim on them. If my
child were sent to them, and I would promise to abstain from all
intercourse with her, she should be brought up with her cousins, and
treated in all respects like one of the family. I answered this letter
hastily and proudly. I declined their barbarous offer, and haughtily,
and in few words, relinquished every claim on their bounty, declaring my
intention to support and bring up my child myself. This was foolishly
done, I fear; but I cannot regret it, even now.
"I cannot regret the impulse that made me disdain these unnatural and
cruel relatives, or that led me to take my poor orphan to my heart with
pride, as being all my own. What had they done to merit such a treasure?
How did they show themselves capable of replacing a fond and anxious
mother? How many blooming girls have they sacrificed to their peculiar
views! With what careless eyes they regard the sweetest emotions of
nature! never shall my adored girl be made the victim of that loveless
race. Do you remember our sweet child? She was lovely from her birth;
and surely, if ever angel assumed an earthly vesture, it took a form
like my darling: her loveliness expresses only the beauty of her
disposition: so young, yet so full of sensibility; her temper is without
a flaw, and her intelligence transcends her age. You will not laugh at
me for my maternal enthusiasm, nor will you wonder at it; her endearing
caresses, her cherub smiles, the silver accents of her infantine voice,
fill me with trembling rapture. Is she not too good for this bad world?
I fear it, I fear to lose her; I fear to die and to leave her; yet, if I
should, will you not cherish, will you not be a mother to her? I may be
presumptuous; but if I were to die even now, I should die in the belief
that I left my child another mother in you--"
The letter broke off here, and these were the last words of the
unfortunate writer. It contained a sad, but too common story of the
hard-heartedness of the wealthy, and the misery endured by the children
of the high-born. Blood is not water, it is said, but gold with them is
dearer far than the ties of nature; to keep and augment their
possessions being the aim and end of their lives, the existence, and,
more especially, the happiness of their children, appears to them a
consideration at once trivial and impertinent, when it would compete
with family views and family greatness. To this common and iniquitous
feeling these luckless beings were sacrificed; they had endured the
worst, and could be injured no more; but their orphan child was a living
victim, less thought of than the progeny of the meanest animal which
might serve to augment their possessions.
Mrs. Baker felt some complacency on reading this letter: with the common
English respect for wealth and rank, she was glad to find that her
humble roof had sheltered a man who was the son--she did not exactly
know of whom, but of somebody, who had younger sons and elder sons, and
possessed, through wealth, the power of behaving frightfully ill to a
vast number of persons. There was a grandeur and dignity in the very
idea; but the good woman felt less satisfaction as she proceeded in her
operations--no other letter or paper appeared to inform or to direct.
Every letter had been destroyed, and the young pair had brought no
papers or documents with them. She could not guess to whom the
unfinished letter she held was addressed; all was darkness and
ignorance. She was aghast--there was none to whom to apply--none to whom
to send the orphan. In a more busy part of the world, an advertisement
in the newspapers would have presented itself as a resource; but Treby
was too much cut off from the rest of the world for its inhabitants to
conceive so daring an idea; and Mrs. Baker, repining much at the burden
fallen upon her, and fearful of the future, could imagine no means by
which to discover the relations of the little orphan; and her only
notion was to wait, in hopes that some among them would at last make
inquiries concerning her.
Nearly a year had passed away, and no one had appeared. The unfortunate
lady's purse was soon emptied--and her watch, with one or two trinkets
of slight value, disposed of. The child was of small cost, but still her
sordid protectress harped perpetually on her ill luck: she had a family
of her own, and plenty of mouths to feed. Missy was but little, but she
would get bigger--though for that matter it was worse now, as she wanted
more taking care of--besides, she was getting quite a disgrace--her
bonnet was so shabby, and her shoes worn out--and how could she afford
to buy others for one who was not a bit of her flesh and blood, to the
evident hurt of her own children? It was bad enough now; but, by-and-by,
she saw nothing but the parish; though Missy was born for better than
that, and her poor mamma would turn in her grave at the name of such a
thing. For her part, she was to blame, she feared, and too generous--but
she would wait yet a little longer before it came to that--for who could
tell--and here Mrs. Baker's prudence dammed up the stream of her
eloquence--to no living ear did she dare trust her dream of the coach
and six that might one day come for her little charge--and the
remuneration and presents that would be heaped upon her; she actually
saved the child's best frock, though she had quite outgrown it, that on
such a day her appearance might do her honour. But this was a
secret--she hid these vague but splendid images deep in her heart, lest
some neighbour might be seized with a noble emulation--and, through some
artifice, share in her dreamy gains. It was these anticipations that
prevented Mrs. Baker from taking any decisive step injurious to her
charge--but they did not shed any rosy hues over her diurnal
complaints--they grew more peevish and frequent as time passed away, and
her visions attained no realization.
The little orphan grew, meanwhile, as a garden rose that accident has
thrown amid briers and weeds--blooming with alien beauty, and unfolding
its soft petals--and shedding its ambrosial odour beneath the airs of
heaven, unharmed by its strange position. Lovely as a day of paradise,
which, by some strange chance, visits this nether world to gladden every
heart, she charmed even her selfish protectress; and, despite her shabby
attire, her cherub smiles--the free and noble steps which her tiny feet
could take even now, and the music of her voice, rendered her the object
of respect and admiration, as well as love, to the whole village.
The loss of her father had acquainted the poor child with death. Her
mother had explained the awful mystery as well as she could to her
infantine intellects, and, indulging in her own womanish and tender
fancies, had often spoken of the dead as hovering over and watching
around his loved ones, even in the new state of existence to which he
had been called. Yet she wept as she spoke: "He is happy," she
exclaimed, "but he is not here! Why did he leave us? Ah, why desert
those who loved him so well, who need him so dearly! How forlorn and
cast away are we without him!"
These scenes made a deep impression upon the sensitive child--and when
her mother died too, and was carried away and placed in the cold earth
beside her husband, the orphan would sit for hours by the graves, now
fancying that her mother must soon return, now exclaiming, "Why are you
gone away? Come, dear mamma, come back--come quickly!" Young as she was,
it was no wonder that such thoughts were familiar to her. The minds of
children are often as intelligent as those of persons of maturer
age--and differ only by containing fewer ideas--but these had so often
been presented to her--and she so fixed her little heart on the idea
that her mother was watching over her, that at last it became a part of
her religion to visit, every evening, the two graves, and saying her
prayers near them, to believe that her mother's spirit, which was
obscurely associated with her mortal remains reposing below, listened to
and blessed her on that spot.
At other times, neglected as she was, and left to wander at will, she
conned her lesson, as she had been accustomed at her mother's feet,
beside her grave. She took her picture-books there, and even her
playthings. The villagers were affected by her childish notion of being
"with mamma;" and Missy became something of an angel in their eyes, so
that no one interfered with her visits, or tried to explain away her
fancies. She was the nursling of love and nature: but the human hearts
which could have felt the greatest tenderness for her beat no longer,
and had become clods of the soil--
"Borne round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees."
There was no knee on which she could playfully climb--no neck round
which she could fondly hang--no parent's cheek on which to print her
happy kisses--these two graves were all of relationship she knew upon
the earth--and she would kiss the ground and the flowers, not one of
which she plucked--as she sat embracing the sod. "Mamma" was everywhere
around. "Mamma" was there beneath, and still she could love and feel
herself beloved.
At other times she played gayly with her young companions in the
village--and sometimes she fancied that she loved some one among
them--she made them presents of books and toys, the relics of happier
days; for the desire to benefit, which springs up so naturally in a
loving heart, was strong within her, even in that early age. But she
never took any one with her in her churchyard visits--she needed none
while she was with mamma. Once, indeed, a favourite kitten was carried
to the sacred spot, and the little animal played amid the grass and
flowers, and the child joined in its frolics--her solitary gay laugh
might be heard among the tombs--she did not think it solitary; mamma was
there to smile on her, as she sported with her tiny favourite.