POPULAR NOVELS.
_By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes._
I.— TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
II.— ENGLISH ORPHANS.
III.— HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE.
IV.— LENA RIVERS.
V.— MEADOW BROOK.
VI.— DORA DEANE.
VII.— COUSIN MAUDE.
VIII.— MARIAN GRAY.
IX.— DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
X.— HUGH WORTHINGTON.
XI.— CAMERON PRIDE.
XII.— ROSE MATHER.
XIII.— ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.
XIV.— MILLBANK.
XV.— EDNA BROWNING. (_New._)
Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books
are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the
sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention
to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.
All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50 each, and sent
_free_ by mail, on receipt of price by
G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
New York.
MILLBANK;
OR,
ROGER IRVING’S WARD.
A NOVEL.
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,
AUTHOR OF
TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.—’LENA RIVERS.—MARIAN GREY.—MEADOWBROOK.—ENGLISH
ORPHANS.—COUSIN MAUDE.—HOMESTEAD.—DORA DEANE.—DARKNESS AND
DAYLIGHT.—HUGH WORTHINGTON.—THE CAMERON PRIDE.—ROSE MATHER.—ETHELYN’S
MISTAKE.—ETC.—ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK:
_G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers_
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
M.DCCC.LXXII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
DANIEL HOLMES,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TO
GEORGE W. CARLETON, ESQ.,
[WHOM I ESTEEM SO HIGHLY AS A
PERSONAL FRIEND AND PUBLISHER,]
I DEDICATE
THIS STORY OF MILLBANK.
_Brown Cottage, Brockport, N. Y.,
April, 1871._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EXPECTING ROGER 9
II. ROGER’S STORY 19
III. WHAT THEY DID AT MILLBANK 27
IV. THE MORNING OF THE FUNERAL 33
V. THE FUNERAL 41
VI. THE EVENING AFTER THE FUNERAL 45
VII. MILLBANK AFTER THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL 55
VIII. THE STRANGER IN BELVIDERE 59
IX. A STIR AT MILLBANK 67
X. FRANK AT MILLBANK 74
XI. ROGER’S LETTERS AND THE RESULT 85
XII. ALICE GREY 92
XIII. A RETROSPECT 104
XIV. IN THE EVENING 108
XV. ROGER AND FRANK 110
XVI. LIFE AT MILLBANK 117
XVII. LOVE-MAKING AT MILLBANK 130
XVIII. THE LOOSE BOARD IN THE GARRET 138
XIX. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE 146
XX. WHAT MAGDALEN FOUND IN THE GARRET 156
XXI. FRANK AND THE WILL 162
XXII. MRS. WALTER SCOTT AND THE WILL 172
XXIII. ROGER AND THE WILL 178
XXIV. HESTER AND THE WILL 186
XXV. MAGDALEN AND ROGER 198
XXVI. ‘SQUIRE IRVING’S LETTER 204
XXVII. JESSIE’S LETTER 208
XXVIII. THE WORLD AND THE WILL 216
XXIX. POOR MAGDA 223
XXX. LEAVING MILLBANK 227
XXXI. THE HOME IN SCHODICK 236
XXXII. MAGDALEN’S DECISION 241
XXXIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END 250
XXXIV. MRS. PENELOPE SEYMOUR 253
XXXV. ALICE AND MAGDALEN 262
XXXVI. MR. GREY AND MAGDALEN 265
XXXVII. LIFE AT BEECHWOOD 273
XXXVIII. THE MYSTERY AT BEECHWOOD 280
XXXIX. MAGDALEN AND THE MYSTERY 284
XL. A GLIMMER OF LIGHT 293
XLI. MRS. SEYMOUR AND MAGDALEN 298
XLII. IN CINCINNATI 308
XLIII. IN CYNTHIANA 314
XLIV. FATHER AND DAUGHTER 320
XLV. AT BEECHWOOD 325
XLVI. THE CLOUDS BREAK OVER BEECHWOOD 333
XLVII. BELL BURLEIGH 337
XLVIII. THE WEDDING, AND HESTER FLOYD’S ACCOUNT OF IT 345
XLIX. HOW THEY LIVED AT MILLBANK 354
L. ROGER 362
LI. MAGDALEN IS COMING HOME 369
LII. MILLBANK IS SOLD AT AUCTION 373
LIII. MAGDALEN AT ROGER’S HOME 378
LIV. ROGER AND MAGDALEN 382
LV. MILLBANK IS CLEAR OF ITS OLD TENANTS 388
LVI. THE BRIDAL 391
LVII. CHRISTMAS-TIDE 395
MILLBANK;
OR,
ROGER IRVING’S WARD.
CHAPTER I.
EXPECTING ROGER.
Every window and shutter at Millbank was closed. Knots of crape were
streaming from the bell-knobs, and all around the house there was that
deep hush which only the presence of death can inspire. Indoors there
was a kind of twilight gloom pervading the rooms, and the servants spoke
in whispers whenever they came near the chamber where the old squire lay
in his handsome coffin, waiting the arrival of Roger, who had been in
St. Louis when his father died, and who was expected home on the night
when our story opens. Squire Irving had died suddenly in the act of
writing to his boy Roger, and when found by old Aleck, his hand was
grasping the pen, and his head was resting on the letter he would never
finish. “Heart disease” was the verdict of the inquest, and then the
electric wires carried the news of his decease to Roger, and to the
widow of the squire’s eldest son, who lived on Lexington avenue, New
York, and who always called herself Mrs. Walter Scott Irving, fancying
that in some way the united names of two so illustrious authors as
Irving and Scott shed a kind of literary halo upon one who bore them.
Mrs. Walter Scott Irving had been breakfasting in her back parlor when
the news came to her of her father-in-law’s sudden death, and to say
that she was both astonished and shocked, is only to do her justice, but
to insinuate that she was sorry, is quite another thing. She was not
sorry, though her smooth white brow contracted into wrinkles, and she
tried to speak very sadly and sorrowfully as she said to her son Frank,
a boy of nine or more,—
“Frank, your grandfather is dead; poor man, you’ll never see him again.”
Frank _was_ sorry. The happiest days of his life had been spent at
Millbank. He liked the house, and the handsome grounds, with the grand
old woods in the rear, and the river beyond, where in a little sheltered
nook lay moored the boat he called his own. He liked the spotted pony
which he always rode. He liked the freedom from restraint which he found
in the country, and he liked the old man who was so kind to him, and who
petted him sometimes when Roger was not by. Roger had been absent on the
occasion of Frank’s last visit to Millbank, and his grandfather had
taken more than usual notice of him,—had asked him many questions as to
what he meant to be when he grew to manhood, and what he would do,
supposing he should some day be worth a great deal of money. Would he
keep it, or would he spend it as fast and as foolishly as his father had
spent the portion allotted to him?
“You’d keep it, wouldn’t you, and put it at interest?” his mother had
said, laying her hand upon his hair with a motion which she meant should
convey some suggestion or idea to his mind.
But Frank had few ideas of his own. He never took hints or suggestions,
and boy-like he answered:
“I’d buy a lot of horses, and Roger and me would set up a circus out in
the park.”
It was an unlucky answer, for the love of fast horses had been the ruin
of Frank’s father, but the mention of Roger went far toward softening
the old man. Frank had thought of Roger at once; he would be generous
with him, let what would happen, and the frown which the mention of
horses had brought to the squire’s face cleared away as he said:
“Hang your horses, boy; keep clear of them as you would shun the
small-pox, but be fair and just with Roger; poor Roger, I doubt if I did
right.”
This speech had been followed by the squire’s going hastily out upon the
terrace, where, with his hands behind him and his head bent forward, he
had walked for more than an hour, while Mrs. Walter Scott peered
anxiously at him from time to time, and seemed a good deal disturbed.
They had returned to the city the next day, and Frank had noticed some
changes in their style of living. Another servant was added to their
establishment; they had more dishes at dinner, while his mother went
oftener to the opera and Stewart’s. Now, his grandfather was dead, and
she sat there looking at him across the table as the tears gathered in
his eyes, and when he stammered out, “We shall never go to Millbank any
more,” she said soothingly to him, “We may live there altogether. Would
you like it?”
He did not comprehend her clearly, but the thought that his
grandfather’s death did not necessarily mean banishment from Millbank
helped to dry his eyes, and he began to whistle merrily at the prospect
of going there at once, for they were to start that very day on the
three-o’clock train. “It was better to be on the ground as soon as
possible,” Mrs. Walter Scott reflected, and after a visit to her
dressmaker, who promised that the deepest of mourning suits should
follow her, she started with Frank for Millbank.
Mrs. Walter Scott Irving had never been a favorite at Millbank since her
husband had taken her there as a bride, and she had given mortal offence
to the two real heads of the household, Aleck and Hester Floyd, by
putting on all sorts of airs, snubbing little Roger, and speaking of his
mother as “that low creature, whose disgraceful conduct could never be
excused.” Hester Floyd, to whom this was said, could have forgiven the
airs; indeed, she rather looked upon them as belonging by right to one
who was so fortunate as to marry into the Irving family. But when it
came to slighting little Roger for his mother’s error, and to speaking
of that mother as a “low creature,” Hester’s hot blood was roused, and
there commenced at once a quiet, unspoken warfare, which had never
ceased, between herself and the offending Mrs. Walter Scott. Hester was
as much a part of Millbank as the stately old trees in the park, a few
of which she had helped Aleck to plant when she was a girl of eighteen
and he a boy of twenty. She had lived at Millbank more than thirty
years. She had come there when the first Mrs. Irving was a bride. She
had carried Walter Scott to be christened. She had been his nurse, and
slapped him with her shoe a dozen times. She had been married to Aleck
in her mistress’s dining-room. She had seen the old house torn down, and
a much larger, handsomer one built in its place; and then, just after it
was completed, she had followed her mistress to the grave, and shut up
the many beautiful rooms which were no longer of any use. Two years
passed, and then her master electrified her one day with the news that
he was about bringing a second bride to Millbank, a girl younger than
his son Walter, and against whom Hester set herself fiercely as against
an usurper of her rights. But when the sweet, pale-faced Jessie Morton
came, with her great, sad blue eyes, and her curls of golden hair,
Hester’s resentment began to give way, for she could not harbor malice
toward a creature so lovely, so gentle, and so sad withal: and after an
interview in the bed-chamber, when poor Jessie threw herself with a
passionate cry into Hester’s arms, and sobbed piteously, “Be kind to me,
won’t you? Be my friend. I have none in all the world, or I should not
be here. I did not want to come,”—she became her strongest ally, and
proved that Jessie’s confidence had not been misplaced. There had come a
dark, dark day for Millbank since then, and Jessie’s picture, painted in
full dress, with pearls on her beautiful neck and arms, and in her
golden hair, had been taken from the parlor-wall and banished to the
garret; and Jessie’s name was never spoken by the master, either to his
servants or his little boy Roger, who had a dash of gold in his brown
hair, and a look in his dark-blue eyes, like that which Jessie’s used to
wear, when, in the long evenings before his birth, she sat with folded
hands gazing into the blazing fire, as if trying to solve the dark
mystery of her life, and know why her lot had been cast there at
Millbank with the old man, whom she did not hate, but whom she could not
love. There was a night, too, which Hester never forgot,—a night when,
with nervous agony depicted in every lineament, Jessie made her swear
that, come what might, she would never desert or cease to love the boy
Roger, sleeping so quietly in his little crib. She was to care for him
as if he were her own; to consider his interest before that of any
other, and bring him up a good and noble man. That was what Jessie
asked, and what Hester swore to do; and then followed swiftly terror and
darkness and disgrace, and close upon their footsteps came retribution,
and Jessie’s golden head was lying far beneath the sea off Hatteras’s
storm-beaten shore, and Jessie’s name was rarely heard. But Hester kept
her vow, and since the dreadful morning when Jessie did not answer to
the breakfast call, and Jessie’s room was vacant, Roger had never wanted
for a mother’s care. Hester had no children of her own, and she took him
instead, petting and caring for, and scolding him as he deserved, and
through all, loving him with a brooding, clinging, unselfish love, which
would stop at nothing which she could make herself believe was right for
her to do in his behalf. And so, when the young bride looked coldly upon
him and spoke slightingly of his mother, Hester declared battle at once;
and the hatchet had never been buried, for Mrs. Walter Scott, in her
frequent visits to Millbank, had only deepened Hester’s first
impressions of her.
“A proud, stuck-up person, with no kind of reason for bein’ so except
that she married one of the Irvingses,” was what Hester said of her, and
this opinion was warmly seconded by Aleck, who always thought just as
Hester did.
Had she been Eve, and he her Adam, he would have eaten the forbidden
fruit without a question as to his right to do so, just because she gave
it to him, but, unlike Adam, he would not have charged the fault to her;
he would have taken it upon himself, as if the idea and the act had been
his alone.
For Frank there was more toleration at Millbank. “He was not very
bright,” Hester said; “but how could he be with such a mother? Little
pimpin’, spindlin’, white-haired critter, there wasn’t half so much snap
to him as there was to Roger.”
In this condition of things it was hardly to be supposed that Mrs.
Walter Scott’s reception at Millbank was very cordial, when, on the
evening after the squire’s death, the village hack deposited her at the
door. Mrs. Walter Scott did not like a depot hack, it brought her so
much on a level with common people; and her first words to Hester were:
“Why wasn’t the carriage sent for us? Weren’t we expected?”
There was an added air of importance in her manner, and she spoke like
one whose right it was to command there; and Hester detected it at once.
But in her manner there was, if possible, less of deference than she had
usually paid to the great lady.
“Aleck had the neurology, and we didn’t know jestly when you’d come,”
was her reply, as she led the way to the chamber which Mrs. Walter Scott
had been accustomed to occupy during her visits to Millbank.
“I think I’ll have a fire, the night is so chilly,” the lady said, with
a shiver, as she glanced at the empty grate. “And, Hester, you may send
my tea after the fire is made. I have a headache, and am too tired to go
down.”
There was in all she said a tone and air which seemed to imply that she
was now the mistress; and, in truth, Mrs. Walter Scott did so consider
herself, or rather, as a kind of queen-regent who, for as many years as
must elapse ere Frank became of age, would reign supreme at Millbank.
And after the fire was lighted in her room, and her cup of tea was
brought to her, with toast, and jelly, and cold chicken, she was
thinking more of the changes she would make in the old place, than of
the white, motionless figure which lay, just across the hall, in a room
much like her own. She had not seen this figure yet. She did not wish to
carry the image of death to her pillow, and so she waited till morning,
when, after breakfast was over, she went with Hester to the darkened
room, and with her handkerchief ostensibly pressed to her eyes, but
really held to her nose, she stood a moment by the dead, and sighed:
“Poor, dear old man! How sudden it was; and what a lesson it should
teach us all of the mutability of life, for in an hour when we think
not, death cometh upon us!”
Mrs. Walter Scott felt that some such speech was due from her,—something
which savored of piety, and which might possibly do good to the angular,
square-shouldered, flat-waisted woman at her side, who understood what
_mutability_ meant quite as well as she would have understood so much
Hebrew. But she knew the lady was “putting on;” that, in her heart, she
was glad the “poor old man” was dead; and with a jerk she drew the
covering over the pinched white face, dropped the curtain which had been
raised to admit the light, and then opened the door and stood waiting
for the lady to pass out.
“I shall dismiss that woman the very first good opportunity. She has
been here too long to come quietly under a new administration,” Mrs.
Walter Scott thought, as she went slowly down the stairs, and through
the lower rooms, deciding, at a glance, that this piece of furniture
should be banished to the garret, and that piece transferred to some
more suitable place. “The old man has lived here alone so long, that
everything bears the unmistakable stamp of a bachelor’s hall; but I
shall soon remedy that. I’ll have a man from the city whose taste I can
trust,” she said; by which it will be seen that Mrs. Walter Scott fully
expected to reign triumphant at Millbank, without a thought or
consideration for Roger, the dead man’s idol, who, according to all
natural laws, had a far better right there than herself.
She had never fancied Roger, because she felt that through him her
husband would lose a part of his father’s fortune, and as he grew older
and she saw how superior he was to Frank, she disliked him more and
more, though she tried to conceal her dislike from her husband, who,
during his lifetime, evinced almost as much affection for his young half
brother as for his own son. Walter Scott Irving had been a spendthrift,
and the fifty thousand dollars which his father gave him at his marriage
had melted away like dew in the morning sun, until he had barely enough
to subsist upon. Then ten thousand more had been given him, with the
understanding that this was all he was ever to receive. The rest was for
Roger, the father said; and Walter acquiesced, and admitted that it was
right. He had had his education with sixty thousand beside, and he could
not ask for more. A few weeks after this he died suddenly of a
prevailing fever, and then, softened by his son’s death, the old man
added to the ten thousand and bought the house on Lexington avenue, and
deeded it to Mrs. Walter Scott herself. Since that time fortunate
speculations had made Squire Irving a richer man than he was before the
first gift to his son, and Mrs. Walter Scott had naturally thought it
very hard that Frank was not to share in this increase of wealth. But no
such thoughts were troubling her now, and her face wore a very satisfied
look of resignation and submission as she moved languidly around the
house and grounds in the morning, and then in the afternoon dressed
herself in her heavy, trailing silk, and throwing around her graceful
shoulders a scarlet shawl, went down to receive the calls and
condolences of the rector’s wife and Mrs. Colonel Johnson, who came in
to see her. She did not tell them she expected to be their neighbor a
portion of the year, and when they spoke of Roger, she looked very
sorry, and sighed: “Poor boy, it will be a great shock to him.”
Then, when the ladies suggested that he would undoubtedly have a great
deal of property left to him, and wondered who his guardian would be,
she said “she did not know. Lawyer Schofield, perhaps, as he had done
the most of Squire Irving’s business.”
“But Lawyer Schofield is dead. He died three weeks ago,” the ladies
said; and Mrs. Walter Scott’s cheek for a moment turned pale as she
expressed her surprise at the news, and wondered she had not heard of
it.
Then the conversation drifted back to Roger, who was expected the next
night, and for whom the funeral was delayed.
“I always liked Roger,” Mrs. Johnson said; “and I must say I loved his
mother, in spite of her faults. She was a lovely creature, and it seems
a thousand pities that she should have married so old a man as Squire
Irving when she loved another so much.”
Mrs. Walter Scott said it was a pity,—said she always disapproved of
unequal matches,—said she had not the honor of the lady’s acquaintance,
and then bowed her visitors out with her loftiest air, and went back to
the parlor, and wondered what people would say when they knew what she
did. She would be very kind to Roger, she thought. Her standing in
Belvidere depended upon that, and he should have a home at Millbank
until he was of age, when, with the legacy left to him, he could do very
well for himself. She wished the servants did not think quite so much of
him as they did, especially Aleck and Hester Floyd, who talked of
nothing except that “Master Roger was coming to-morrow.” Her mourning
was coming, too; and when the next day it came, she arrayed herself in
the heavy bombazine, with the white crape band at the throat and wrists,
which relieved the sombreness of her attire. She was dressing for Roger,
she said, thinking it better to evince some interest in an event which
was occupying so much of the servants’ thoughts.
The day was a damp, chilly one in mid-April, and so a fire was kindled
in Roger’s room, and flowers were put there, and the easy chair from the
hall library; and Hester went in and out and arranged and re-arranged
the furniture, and then flitted to the kitchen, where the pies and
puddings which Roger loved were baking, and where Jeruah, or “Ruey,” as
she was called was beating the eggs for Roger’s favorite cake. He would
be there about nine o’clock, she knew, for she had received a telegram
from Albany, saying, “Shall be home at nine. Meet me at the depot
without fail.”
In a great flurry Hester read the dispatch, wondering why she was to
meet him without fail, and finally deciding that the affectionate boy
could not wait till he reached home before pouring out his tears and
grief on her motherly bosom.
“Poor child! I presume he’ll cry fit to bust when he sees me,” she said
to Mrs. Walter Scott, who looked with a kind of scorn upon the
preparations for the supposed heir of Millbank.
The night set in with a driving rain, and the wind moaned dismally as it
swept past the house where the dead rested so quietly, and where the
living were so busy and excited. At half-past eight the carriage came
round, and Aleck in his waterproof coat held the umbrella over Hester’s
head as she walked to the carriage, with one shawl wrapped around her
and another on her arm. Why she took that second shawl she did not then
know, but afterward, in recounting the particulars of that night’s
adventures, she said it was just a special Providence and nothing else
which put it into her head to take an extra shawl, and that a big warm
one. Half an hour passed, and then above the storm Mrs. Walter Scott
heard the whistle which announced the arrival of the train. Then twenty
minutes went by, and Frank, who was watching by the window, screamed
out:
“They are coming, mother. I see the lights of the carriage.”
If it had not been raining, Mrs. Walter Scott would have gone to the
door, but the damp air was sure to take the curl from her hair, and Mrs.
Walter Scott thought a great deal of the heavy ringlets which fell about
her face by day and were tightly rolled in papers at night. So she only
went as far as the parlor door, where she stood holding together the
scarf she had thrown around her shoulders. There seemed to be some delay
at the carriage, and the voices speaking together there were low and
excited.
“No, Hester; she is mine. She shall go in the front way,” Roger was
heard to say; and a moment after Hester Floyd came hurriedly into the
hall, holding something under her shawl which looked to Mrs. Walter
Scott like a package or roll of cloth.
Following Hester was Frank, who, having no curls to spoil, had rushed
out in the rain to meet his little uncle, of whom he had always been so
fond.
“Oh, mother, mother!” he exclaimed. “What do you think Roger has brought
home? Something which he found in the cars where a wicked woman left it.
Oh, ain’t it so funny,—Roger bringing a baby?” and having thus thrown
the bomb-shell at his mother’s feet, Frank darted after Hester, and poor
Roger was left alone to make his explanations to his dreaded
sister-in-law.