WHAT THEY DID AT MILLBANK.
“Oh! Roger, this is a sorry coming home,” Mrs. Walter Scott had said
when Roger first appeared in view; and taking a step forward, she kissed
him quite affectionately, and even ran her white fingers through his
moist hair in a pitying kind of way.
She could afford to be gracious to the boy whom she had wronged, but
when Frank threw the bomb-shell at her feet with regard to the
mysterious bundle under Hester’s shawl, she drew back quickly, and
demanded of her young brother-in-law what it meant. She looked very
grand, and tall, and white in her mourning robes, and Roger quaked as he
had never done before in her presence, and half wished he had left the
innocent baby to the tender mercies of the conductor and the poor-house.
But this was only while he stood damp and uncomfortable in the chilly
hall, with the cold rain beating in upon him. The moment he entered the
warm parlor, where the fire was blazing in the grate and the light from
the wax candles shone upon the familiar furniture, he felt a sense of
comfort and reassurance creeping over him, and unconscious to himself a
feeling of the _master_ came with the sense of comfort, and made him
less afraid of the queenly-looking woman standing by the mantel, and
waiting for his story. He was at home,—his own home,—where he had a
right to keep a hundred deserted children if he liked. This was what
Hester had said in referring to Mrs. Walter Scott, and it recurred to
Roger now with a deeper meaning than he had given it at that time. He
_had_ a right, and Mrs. Walter Scott, though she might properly suggest
and advise, could not take that right from him. And the story which he
told her was colored with this feeling of doing as he thought best; and
shrewd Mrs. Walter Scott detected it at once, and her large black eyes
had in them a gleam of scorn not altogether free from pity as she
thought how mistaken he was, and how the morrow would materially change
his views with regard to many things. She had not seen Roger in nearly a
year and a half, and in that time he had grown taller and stouter and
more manly than the boy of twelve, whom she remembered in roundabouts.
He wore roundabouts still, and his collar was turned down and tied with
a simple black ribbon, and he was only fourteen; but a well-grown boy
for that age, with a curve about his lip and a look in his eyes, which
told that the man within him was beginning to develop, and warned her
that she had a stronger foe to deal with than she had anticipated; so
she restrained herself, and was very calm and lady-like and collected as
she asked him what he proposed doing with the child whom he had so
unwisely brought to Millbank.
Roger had some vague idea of a nurse with a frilled cap, and a nursery
with toys scattered over the floor, and a crib with lace curtains over
it, and a baby-head making a dent in the pillow, and a baby voice cooing
him a welcome when he came in, and a baby-cart, sent from New York, and
a fancy blanket with it. Indeed, this pleasant picture of something he
had seen in St. Louis, in one of the handsome houses where he
occasionally visited, had more than once presented itself to his mind as
forming a part of the future, but he would not for the world have let
Mrs. Walter Scott into that sanctuary. That cold, proud-faced woman
confronting him so calmly had nothing in common with his ideals, and so
he merely replied:
“She can be taken care of without much trouble. Hester is not too old.
She made me a capital nurse.”
It was of no use to reason with him, and Mrs. Walter Scott did not try.
She merely said:
“It was a very foolish thing to do, and no one but you would have done
it. You will think better of it after a little, and get the child off
your hands. You were greatly shocked, of course, at the dreadful news?”
It was the very first allusion anybody had made to the cause of Roger’s
being there. The baby had absorbed every one’s attention, and the dead
man upstairs had been for a time forgotten by all save Roger. He had
through all been conscious of a heavy load of pain, a feeling of loss;
and as he drove up to the house he had looked sadly toward the windows
of the room where he had oftenest seen his father. He did not know that
he was there now; he did not know where he was; and when Mrs. Walter
Scott referred to him so abruptly, he answered with a quivering lip:
“Where is father? Did they lay him in his own room?”
“Yes, you’ll find him looking very natural,—almost as if he were alive;
but I would not see him to-night. You are too tired. You must be hungry,
too. You have had no supper. What can Hester be doing?”
Mrs. Walter Scott was in a very kind mood now, and volunteered to go
herself to the kitchen to see why Roger’s supper was not forthcoming.
But in this she was forestalled by Ruey, who came to say that supper was
waiting in the dining-room, whither Roger went, followed by his
sister-in-law, who poured his tea and spread him slices of bread and
butter, with plenty of raspberry jam. And Roger relished the bread and
jam with a boy’s keen appetite, and thought it was nicer to be at
Millbank than in the poor clergyman’s box of a house at St. Louis, and
then, with a great sigh, thought of the white-haired old man, who used
to welcome him home and pat him so kindly on his head and call him
“Roger-boy.” The white-haired man was gone forever now, and with a
growing sense of loneliness and loss, Roger finished his supper and went
to the kitchen, where Baby lay sleeping upon the settee which Hester had
drawn to the fire, while Frank sat on a little stool, keeping watch over
her. He had indorsed the Baby from the first, and when Hester gruffly
bade him “keep out from under foot,” he had meekly brought up the stool
and seated himself demurely between the settee and the oven door, where
he was entirely out of the way.
Hester still looked very much disturbed and aggrieved, and when she met
Roger on his way to the kitchen, she passed him without a word; but the
Hester Floyd who, after a time, went back to the kitchen, was in a very
different mood from the one who had met Roger a short time before. This
change had been wrought by a few words spoken to her by Mrs. Walter
Scott, who sat over the fire in the dining-room when Hester entered it,
and who began to talk of the baby which “that foolish boy had brought
home.”
“I should suppose he would have known better; but then, Mrs. Floyd, you
must be aware of the fact that in some things Roger is rather weak and a
little like his mother, who proved pretty effectually how vacillating
she was, and how easily influenced.”
Hester’s straight, square back grew a trifle squarer and straighter, and
Baby’s cause began to gain ground, for Hester deemed it a religious duty
to oppose whatever Mrs. Walter Scott approved. So if the lady was for
sending the Baby away from Millbank, she was for keeping it there. Still
she made no comments, but busied herself with putting away the sugar and
cream and pot of jam, into which Roger had made such inroads.
Seeing her auditor was not disposed to talk, Mrs. Walter Scott
continued:
“You have more influence with Roger than any one else, and I trust you
will use that influence in the right direction; for supposing everything
were so arranged that he could keep the child at Millbank, the trouble
would fall on you, and it is too much to ask of a woman of your age.”
Hester was not sensitive on the point of age, but to have Mrs. Walter
Scott speak of her as if she were in her dotage was more than she could
bear, and she answered tartly,—
“I am only fifty-two. I reckon I am not past bringin’ up a child. I
ain’t quite got softenin’ of the brain, and if master Roger has a mind
to keep the poor forsaken critter, it ain’t for them who isn’t his
betters to go agin it. The owner of Millbank can do as he has a mind,
and Roger is the master now, you know.”
With this speech Hester whisked out of the room, casting a glance
backward to see the effect of her parting shot on Mrs. Walter Scott.
Perhaps it was the reflection of the fire or her scarlet shawl which
cast such a glow on the lady’s white cheek, and perhaps it was what
Hester said; but aside from the rosy flush there was no change in her
countenance, unless it were an expression of benevolent pity for people
who were so deluded as Mrs. Floyd and Roger. “Wait till to-morrow and
you may change your opinion,” trembled on Mrs. Walter Scott’s lips, but
to say that would be to betray her knowledge of what she meant should
appear as great a surprise to herself as to any one. So she wrapped her
shawl more closely around her, and leaned back languidly in her chair,
while Hester went up the back stairs to an old chest filled with linen,
and redolent with the faint perfume of sprigs of lavender and cedar,
rose-leaves and geraniums, which were scattered promiscuously among the
yellow garments. That chest was a sacred place to Hester, for it held
poor Jessie’s linen, the dainty garments trimmed with lace, and tucks
and ruffles and puffs, which the old Squire had bidden Hester put out of
his sight, and which she had folded away in the big old chest, watering
them with her tears, and kissing the tiny slippers which had been found
just where Jessie left them. The remainder of Jessie’s wardrobe was in
the bureau in the Squire’s own room,—the white satin dress and pearls
which she wore in the picture,—the expensive veil, the orange wreath
which had crowned her golden hair at the bridal, and many other costly
things which the old man had heaped upon his darling, were all there
under lock and key. But Hester kept the oaken chest, and under Jessie’s
clothes were sundry baby garments which Hester had laid away as mementos
of the happy days when Roger was a baby, and his beautiful mother the
pride of Millbank and the belle of Belvidere.
“If that child only stays one night, she must have a night-gown to sleep
in,” she said, as with a kind of awe she turned over the contents of the
chest till she came to a pile of night gowns which Roger had worn.
Selecting the plainest and coarsest of them all, she closed the chest
and went down stairs to the kitchen, where both the boys were bending
over the settee and talking to the Baby. There was a softness in her
manner now, something really motherly, as she took the little one, and
began to undress it, with Roger and Frank looking curiously on.
“Dirty as the rot,” was her comment, as she saw the marks of car-dust
and smoke cinders on the fat neck and arms and hands. “She or’to have a
bath, and she must, too. Here, Ruey, bring me some warm water, and fetch
the biggest foot-tub, and a piece of castile soap, and a crash-towel,
and you boys, go out of here, both of you. I’ll see that the youngster
is taken care of.”
Roger knew from the tone of her voice that Baby was safe with her, and
he left the kitchen with his spirits so much lightened that he began to
hum a popular air he had heard in the streets in St. Louis.
“Oh, Roger, _singin’_, with grandpa dead,” Frank exclaimed; and then
Roger remembered the white, stiffened form upstairs, and thought himself
a hardened wretch that he could for a moment have so forgotten his loss
as to sing a negro melody.
“I did not mean any disrespect to father,” he said softly to Frank, and
without going back to the parlor, he stole up to his own room, and
kneeling by his bedside, said the familiar prayer commencing with “Our
Father,” and then cried himself to sleep with thinking of the dead
father, who could never speak to him again.