HER WELCOME HOME
The curate and his daughter found themselves in a crowded carriage of
the second class, on the Great Northern express train from Liverpool to
Glasgow. I say crowded, for though no one was standing up, yet many of
the passengers had well-grown children on their laps.
Mr. Campbell and Jennie took the last two vacant seats.
“Give me the baby now, papa dear,” said the little mother, holding opt
her arms, as soon as she had settled herself in her seat.
“No, dear, the child is sleeping. If she wakes and frets, I will hand
her over to you; otherwise I will hold her to rest you,” replied her
father.
Their fellow travelers turned and looked at the young grandfather and
the youthful mother, and very naturally drew false conclusions.
They were mostly of the class who listen, comment and observe.
“It’s easy to see that is a young married pair, with their first child,”
whispered a fat, florid country woman, with one baby sitting on her
knees and two on the floor at her feet.
“He won’t be quite so fond of loading himself down with, the kids when
there’s a dozen of ’em, maybe,” replied her companion, a stout, brown
woman with a burden of two heavy bundles and a basket on and about her.
The minister and his daughter heard every word of this whispered
colloquy with slight smiles of amusement; but it warned them that they
could not indulge in any very confidential discourse there, where every
whispered word could be so distinctly heard.
All further explanations would have to be postponed until they should
reach Medge Parsonage. And that was a hundred miles off as yet. Nothing
but the commonplaces of conversation could pass between them.
“Are you quite comfortable, my dear?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You don’t feel the draught from that window?”
“No, papa dear.” Etcetera.
Jennie took particular pains to call her young father “papa” whenever
she spoke to him.
But that did not enlighten their companions as to the true relations
between the two. They thought it only one more silly affectation of the
youthful parents. Many vain young mothers called their husbands “papa”
for baby, as many proud young fathers called their wives “mamma” also
for baby.
So merely trivial talk passed between the father and daughter until the
train blew the steam whistle and “slowed” into the first station after
leaving Liverpool, stopped ten seconds and sped on again.
Jennie had not seen her native country for two years, and she looked out
at the vanishing station almost with the curiosity of a stranger, and
then exclaimed with a look of astonishment:
“Why, papa! That was Huton!”
“Well, my dear!”
Jennie looked at her father in amazement.
“What is the matter, my dear?” inquired the curate.
“Matter? Why, papa, matter enough. We have certainly taken the wrong
train. Huton is on the Great Northern, and not the South Eastern
Railroad. This is not the way to Medge.”
“But, dear, we are not going to Medge.”
“Not going to Medge?”
“No, my dear.”
Jennie stared.
“I also have something to tell you which I have reserved until now,”
said the minister gravely.
“What is it, papa? Oh, what is it?” demanded the young girl in sudden
alarm. “You said my dear mother was quite well. If she were in heaven,
you might say with truth she was quite well; but oh! how could I bear
it! Oh, how could I bear it! Is she quite well in this world?”
“Quite well, here on earth, my dear. Compose yourself.”
“Then what is it?”
“Nothing to alarm you, Jennie.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Haymore, in the North Biding of Yorkshire, where I have a curacy.”
“To Hay—— And you never told me!” said Jennie, aghast with astonishment.
All her life, until her hasty marriage, two years before, she had lived
with her parents at Medge. She considered them as fixtures to that spot.
She would as soon have expected the old parish church and graveyard to
be plucked up by the roots from Medge and transplanted to Haymore as to
have her father and mother removed from the first to the last named
place. “‘Haymore!’” she said to herself—“‘Haymore!’ Surely that was the
name of the manor to which Kightly Montgomery had fallen heir. And in
Yorkshire, too. It must be the same place! She and her father were going
there! And—Kightly Montgomery, under his new name, and with his new
bride, was also going there. The first as the lord of the manor, the
second as pastor of the parish. What was to be done? They must surely
meet, and then?” Jennie was dumfounded from consternation.
“Why, what ails you, Jennie, my child?” inquired her father.
She found her tongue at last, and said, because she did not know what
else to say:
“You never told me.”
“I explained that I reserved the information for our meeting,” gently
replied the curate.
“How long have you been at Haymore?” was her next question.
“About twelve weeks. Not quite three months. But don’t look so
horrified, my dear. If I had changed my religion, instead of having
changed my parish, you could scarcely seem more confounded,” said the
curate, with a little laugh.
“Oh, papa dear, what made you leave dear old Medge?” she dolefully
inquired.
“Necessity, Jennie. My old rector died——”
“Oh! Good old Dr. Twomby! Has he gone?” exclaimed Jennie in a tone of
grief.
“Yes, dear—full of years and honors. It would be impious to mourn the
departure of so sainted a man. His successor was a young Oxonian, who
gave me warning and put in a classmate of his own as his curate.”
“And what made you go so far—quite from the south to the north of
England?”
“Again necessity, my dear. I was out of employment, and your mother and
myself were living in cheap lodgings in the village, when I received a
letter from Dr. Orton—an old friend of my father, who had heard of my
misfortune—inviting me to come with my wife to Haymore and take his
parish and occupy his parsonage for a year, during which he was ordered
by his physician to travel for his health. I gratefully accepted the
offer.”
“And how do you like it, papa?”
“Very much, my dear. The rectory is a beautiful old house, very
conveniently fitted with all modern improvements and very comfortably
furnished. The house is covered with ivy and the porches with climbing
plants. There is a luxuriant old garden, full of flowers and herbs and
all kinds of fruits and vegetables that our climate will grow, and there
is a lawn with old oak trees.”
“How lovely!” impulsively exclaimed Jennie. But then her face fell.
“Yes, it is lovely,” assented the minister, who had not noticed the
change in his child’s countenance. “And I like it so well that I shall
grieve to leave it.”
“Oh, but you are sure of it for a twelvemonth!” exclaimed Jennie, eager
to please her father, yet again stopping short at the sudden memory of
what must meet him at Haymore.
“Oh, no, my dear. I am not sure of the place for a month even. Orton has
heart disease, and, though he may live for months or years, he may drop
dead at any moment. He may be dead now. And in such a case, you see, the
very same thing that happened to me at Medge would happen again at
Haymore.”
“How, papa?”
“If Orton should die, his successor would turn me adrift, to put in my
place some friend of his own.”
“Who has the appointing of the incumbent? The bishop of the diocese or
some nobleman?”
“Neither. The living is attached to Haymore Manor, and is in the gift of
the new squire.”
In the gift of the new squire, and that squire Kightly Montgomery under
a new name!
The thought of this complication turned Jennie pale. In her dismay and
confusion, she could settle upon but one course—the course she had
thought of all along—to tell her father everything; every single fact
she knew concerning Kightly Montgomery.
The minister was now watching her curiously, anxiously.
To cover her distress, she asked the first question that came into her
head, and not an irrelevant one:
“Were the terms favorable upon which you agreed to take this parish for
a year, papa?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so. The living is worth six hundred pounds a year,
and Orton gives me two hundred, with the use of the rectory.”
“And you do all the work for one-third of the salary?”
“Yes, my dear; and I am very glad to do it. And there are hundreds of
capable clergymen in England who would be glad to do it for one-sixth of
the salary.”
Then Mr. Campbell suddenly became conscious that he was talking too
freely of private matters in a crowded car. He looked about him. But
every one seemed too sleepy to attend to him.
The woman with the three babies was sound asleep, as was her brood, and
the group reminded the curate of a fat, cozy pussy cat and her kittens.
The woman with the bundles was nodding, catching herself, gripping her
parcels and nodding again.
These were the nearest passengers to the curate and his daughter, and
had evidently not been listening to the conversation.
The express had been running on a long while without stopping, but now,
about noon, the steam horn shrieked again and the train drew into the
station of a large manufacturing town, stopped two minutes and roared on
again.
The swift motion of the train, that sent nearly all the grown people to
nodding and all the children to sleep, seemed to have so overpowered the
nerves of Jennie’s young baby as to steep it into a deep stupor.
The little mother at length grew anxious.
“Don’t you think baby sleeps too soundly, papa?” she inquired uneasily.
“Oh, no, my dear! She is all right. She will sleep until we get home and
then wake up as bright as a daisy.”
“Ten minutes for refreshments!” shouted the guard at the window, as he
climbed along on the outside of the carriage, while the train drew into
the station of another large town.
“Will you get out, Jennie?” inquired her father.
“No papa dear, I would much rather not,” she answered.
“Then take the baby while I go,” he said, carefully placing the little
one on her lap within her arms.
“Now, what shall I bring you, dear?” he next inquired.
“A cup of tea and a biscuit, papa, nothing more,” replied Jennie, who
remembered the slender purse of the curate, who could ill afford the
journey to Liverpool and back with his daughter.
She had ten pounds left of her own, but did not dare to offer them to
her father, whose very poverty made him sensitive. She meant, however,
when she should reach the parsonage, to put that little fund, through
her mother’s agency, into the general household expenses.
Mr. Campbell left the carriage and went across to the refreshment rooms.
Jennie’s fellow passengers of the second class did not leave their
seats, but took out luncheon baskets, and soon the air was full of the
sound of popping ginger beer or ale or porter bottles, while bread and
cheese and beef were laid out on laps covered with brown wrapping paper
for a tablecloth.
The woman with the babies and the woman with the bundles, who sat
opposite to Jennie and seemed to be friends, drew the cork of brown
stout—one holding the bottle, and the other pulling the screw with all
her might.
Then the mother filled a little thick glass tumbler with the foaming
porter and held it to Jennie, saying kindly:
“Drink it, dearie. It’ll do ’ee good; ’specially as ye’re nussing a
young babe.”
Jennie, touched by the kindness, smiled her sweetest and thanked her
neighbor, explaining that her heart was weak and that she could not bear
strong porter.
“Then I hope your good man will bring ’ee some light wine,” replied the
woman.
“The gentleman with me is my father,” said Jennie, glad to make this
explanation.
“Your fey—— And the grandfeyther o’ the bairn?” exclaimed the woman,
opening her eyes with astonishment.
“Yes,” said Jennie.
“Well, it’s wonderful! He didn’t look a day over twenty-five. Do he,
now, M’riah?” she said, appealing to her companion of the bundles.
“He don’t that,” replied the latter.
But here the three babies became clamorous for something to eat, and the
two women turned their attention to them. And though this party had been
nibbling cake or candy, more or less, during the whole journey, as is
too much the custom of their class, yet now they all ate as if they had
fasted since breakfast.
Mr. Campbell reappeared with a little tray in his hand, on which was
arranged a cup of tea, a small plate of cream toast, and another plate
with the wing of a roast chicken, which he placed on the vacant seat,
while he relieved Jennie of her sleeping babe.
“Oh, dear papa, to think that you should remember my taste for milk
toast and chicken, and bring them to me! This is killing the fatted
calf, indeed,” said Jennie gratefully as she took the tray upon her lap.
Mr. Campbell then sat down on the vacant seat with the baby in his arms;
but he made no reply except by a smile.
The train started.
“Oh, dear,” said Jennie, “we are carrying off the crockery ware!”
“Not at all,” replied the father. “The return train will bring them back
and leave them at this station. Such is the arrangement.”
“Then my mind is easy. Did you get anything to eat, papa dear?”
“Oh, yes; a slice of cold beef and a cup of coffee while they were
fixing up your tray.”
“I am glad,” said Jennie; and she gave her attention to her tray, and
exhibited such a healthy appetite that not a crumb or a drop was left
when she finished her meal and put the little service under the seat.
The train rushed on, nor stopped again until nearly sunset, when it ran
in at the station of York.
Here the father and daughter got off to take a branch line to Chuxton,
the nearest railway station to Haymore.
Willingly would the curate have stayed here overnight to show his
daughter the great cathedral city, which she had never seen, had not two
good reasons prevented—first, his poverty, which could not bear the
expense; secondly, the anxiety of the wife and mother at home to see her
long-absent daughter, which, he knew, could not tolerate the delay.
“Some day we will return to see this ancient city, my dear; but to-day
we must hurry home to your mother,” he said as he led her into the
waiting-room to stay till their train should be ready to start.
There the “little angel” awoke in no angelic temper, but impatient to be
nursed.
Jennie took her into the dressing-room, where she attended to all her
needs, and presently brought her back smiling and good-natured to the
arms of her grandfather.
“I foresee what an idol the grandmother will make of this little one,”
he said as he received her.
“The idea of calling my pretty young mamma a grandmother! It is well she
is not a woman of fashion, or she would be disgusted,” said Jennie,
laughing.
“As it is, she will be delighted,” said her father, looking curiously at
his child. He was very pleasantly disappointed in Jennie. He had feared
to meet in her a heartbroken woman—a forsaken wife, whom none of her
“old blessings” of father and mother, home and family affection, could
possibly console—and he found a daughter who had let go the unfaithful
husband and comforted herself with her unoffending babe, and meant even
to enjoy herself with her parents at the parsonage in the performance of
every filial, maternal and domestic duty. And that this disposition was
not forced, but was natural, might be seen and heard in her contented
countenance and frequent laugh. Even now, if the thought would recur
that the curate’s temporary parish lay in the manor of Haymore, and the
reigning or pretending squire was Kightly Montgomery, still, upon later
reflection, she felt so much confidence in the wisdom and goodness of
her father that she dismissed all dread of any fatal or even serious
result of his meeting with her husband. And for one circumstance Jennie
felt glad and grateful, namely, for the change of residence from Medge,
where everybody had known her from childhood, and might, therefore,
wonder and ask questions why the curate’s married daughter should return
home to live without her husband—since it was clear from her dress that
she was not a widow.
No such wonder could be excited at Haymore; no such questions asked. The
people were strangers. They had taken their temporary pastor upon
well-merited trust, and his family history was unknown to them.
As for the other matter connected with Kightly Montgomery, she would
tell her father everything, and he would know what to do.
Kightly Montgomery, she knew, never by any chance entered a church, so
her father would never see him there.
As for the curate, when she should have told him who the new squire
really was, it was unlikely that Mr. Campbell would feel disposed to
make a clerical call at the manor house.
Under the divine Providence she would leave everything to her father.
While the father and daughter were still chatting pleasantly together a
door was flung open and a voice was heard announcing:
“Train for Chuxton.”
“Come, my child,” said Mr. Campbell, rising with the baby on his arms
and crossing the room, followed by Jennie.
They went out to the train and entered the second-class carriage.
In five minutes, after they were comfortably seated, the train was off,
speeding away from the old cathedral city in a northerly direction
across the moors.
The sun had not yet set, though it was on the edge of the horizon.
Jennie fixed her eyes on the vastness of the brown moor that stretched,
or rather rolled, away in all directions to meet the horizon. It
reminded her of the sea. It seemed a boundless ocean, enchanted into
stillness; for not a breath of air disturbed the motionless heather, and
not a hamlet or a farmhouse broke the illusion. No doubt there were
farms and villages not far off, but they were in the hollows, out of
sight.
Presently Jennie turned from the window to look at her baby. The little
one was fast asleep again; so was the curate, who had been traveling all
night and all day, for twenty-four hours. He had his arms so securely
wound around the sleeping child that Jennie forbore to take it away,
lest she should disturb their rest.
The sun set; twilight faded; yet the train sped on over the moor.
Presently Jennie observed twinkling lights before her that seemed to be
on the edge of the horizon. As the train sped on toward those lights she
recognized them as belonging to a station.
Then the steam horn shrieked and waked up all the passengers, and the
guide shouted:
“Chuxton!”
“Here we are, my dear,” said the curate, waking up as the train stopped.
There were but few passengers who got out here, and there were all sorts
of conveyances waiting for them, from donkey carts to fine coaches.
“How far are we from Haymore, papa?” inquired Jennie as her father led
her from the train to the waiting-room of the station.
“Ten miles, my dear.”
“Is there a stagecoach to Haymore?”
“No, my dear, but I took the precaution to engage the fly from the Red
Fox to meet us here for this train. If it has not come yet—and I do not
see it—it will be here soon.”
“How much expense I put you to, dear papa!”
“Tut, tut! there is a time to spend! Whether there is a time to save or
not, while there is the least need anywhere of spending, I really do not
know! There’s the fly now!” exclaimed the curate, at the sound of
wheels, suddenly breaking off in his discourse and going to the door.
“Well, Nahum, you are on time, I see!” said Mr. Campbell, speaking
cheerfully to some one in the outer darkness.
“Ay, bound to be, sir, when your reverence had bespoken the kerridge,”
answered a buoyant voice from the shades.
“Come, my dear! But, Nahum, perhaps the mule wants food and water?”
“Not she, sir! She had her oats and her water and her mug of ale! You’d
no believe, sir, how that lass loves ale! So, with your leave, I’ll e’en
give her another mug of that same, whiles she rests five minutes. No
longer, your reverence. No longer, sir.”
“Quite right. Let us know when you are ready.”
The curate sat down by his daughter.
In something less than five minutes the voice of the hostler was heard,
calling:
“All right now, sir. Miss Nancy and me is at your service, sir.”
“Miss Nancy?” inquired Jennie as she arose and took her father’s arm.
“This mule, of course. Nahum is an oddity! His avocations are multiform.
He is coachman, groom, hostler and handy man generally at the Red Fox,”
Mr. Campbell explained as he took his daughter out to the carriage.
It was not a “fly” at all, though they called it so; it was a strong,
snug carryall, covered all over with a black tarpaulin, except the
front, which was open. It was drawn by a stout mule.
Mr. Campbell put his daughter and her child in the sheltered back seat
and placed himself beside the coachman in the front. And the carryall
rolled away over the murky moor until it seemed to be swallowed up in
the darkness.
But “Miss Nancy” knew the road, and, if she had not known it, her driver
did. So they went on in safety.