HAPPY HOURS.
The bed was wheeled up to the fireplace, the tea table and two chairs
were grouped about the hearth, and there they had their last meal
together in happy peacefulness.
A sense of quiet rested on them all, a shade of awe, of feelings so
deep that ordinary chatter would have seemed out of place. Emma
Smith's thoughts were still lingering about that figure standing
outside the door, "Knocking, knocking." She must have seen a picture
once of that figure with the patient, tender eyes, knocking at a
fast-closed door, but she had never troubled to ask who it was.
Now it all seemed close, He was so real. It was ordinary, everyday
life that seemed unreal now, that began to seem to her so far away.
Huldah was drawing bright pictures in her mind of days when the
spring would come, and Aunt Emma would be stronger and able to walk
about; they would be able to go and see Aunt Martha sometimes.
Her thoughts dwelt lovingly on Aunt Martha and Dick. She saw them
seldom now, the storms and the rough roads kept Aunt Martha at home,
and Huldah could not leave her Aunt Emma.
So busy was she with her thoughts that she forgot all about Miss
Rose's promised piece of news, until, when the tea was over, Miss
Rose spoke of it again.
"You must light the lamp now, brownie. I want to talk to your aunt.
There is someone wanting to see her,--someone that she wants to see,
I think."
Emma Smith turned quickly, an eager light flashing over her face.
"Is it--Tom?" she asked, excitedly.
"Yes--your husband. He has behaved so well he got his discharge as
soon as it was possible, and he has come in search of you."
Suddenly the light and eagerness died out of her face. "Charlie--and
the van!" she cried, growing white to the lips. "I've got to tell
him,--he'll never forgive me." Her lips quivered piteously.
"He knows," said Miss Rose, soothingly. "I told him. I thought it
better to explain quickly what had happened, and not let him be
expecting to find them too."
She did not tell of the scene there had been when first he had heard
of the loss, nor the difficulty they had had in persuading him to see
his wife, and be kind to her. "I don't want her; 'twas the horse and
van I wanted," he said, cruelly.
He was not really as cruel, though, as he appeared. He seemed quite
touched when he heard of his wife's starving state when she came in
search of Huldah, and of her condition now, and expressed a desire to
see her. "I won't say nothing to upset her," he promised, when they
seemed to hesitate.
Huldah's face had turned even whiter than Emma's, when she heard who
was near, and what he wanted, her fear of him had been so increased
since he carried her away by force that night. But when she saw how
eager her aunt was to see him, she did try to overcome her fears.
Within a few moments of Miss Rose's telling of her "news," he was
there, in their midst. To pale, trembling Huldah, whose every nerve
had been set quivering by the mere sound of his step on the stair, he
threw only a cool nod, as, awkwardly enough, he made his way to his
wife's bedside, and sat down beside her.
"I hear you'm bad," he said, coolly, but it was plain that her
altered appearance shocked him. Every now and again, when she was
not looking, he gave long wondering glances at her, and his eyes were
almost troubled. "So I hear you and the kid have been living
together again."
"Huldah? Oh, Tom, she's been such a comfort to me--"
"That's all right. I s'pose she isn't such a bad kid, on the whole."
"She's more'n good to me." Then quickly, feverishly she began to
pour out the story of her life since he "was took away." She told
him of Charlie and the van, and how she was tricked. Of her coming
to Huldah, and their home together, and her own illness, until
gradually her voice grew weary and fainter and fainter. The flush
died out of her cheeks, the light out of her eyes. She was
exhausted, but after she could not even whisper, a smile still
hovered about her lips, and her hand held that of her husband.
He sat on, apparently content to do so. When her voice ceased, he
did not seem to notice. He appeared to be lost in thought to which
no one had the clue.
Huldah sat as still as a mouse, never speaking, and hoping to escape
being spoken to. Occasionally she placed a piece of coal or wood on
the fire, but that was all. She could not see her aunt's face, but
she thought at last she must be asleep, she was so still and quiet.
The silence, broken as it was only by the crackle of the fire, had
begun to grow oppressive, when suddenly it was broken by a sound of
singing, low, quivering, almost indistinct:--
"For the end--of my--journey--I see--
Many dear to my heart--over there
Are watching--and waiting for me.
Over--there, over--there--
I'll soon be--at--home--"
Tom Smith tried to draw away his hand, but his wife's hand clung to
it, her voice died away. "Kiss me--Tom, won't you?" she gasped.
He stooped and kissed her. She lifted her hand to touch his cheek,
but it fell back helpless. "Hark," she gasped--"the knocking! I--am
coming--" then with one long deep sigh, her voice was still for ever.
A few moments later, Tom Smith stumbled down the stairs, and out into
the darkness and away, never to be seen by Huldah again. She knew
and realised nothing then, but that her Aunt Emma was dead, that all
her dreams had ended, all her plans for the future were fruitless,
that their living together was ended, her home broken up once more.
"She's had such a hard life!" she sobbed. "And I thought I was going
to make her so happy when she got about a bit again."
"But she never would have got about again, dear. She could never
have got beyond these rooms, and I feel sure she would always have
worried about her husband. She could never have gone about with him
again, and she would have fretted at being left behind. She is happy
now, brownie, and out of pain. No one who really loved her could
wish her back again. Don't grieve so, Huldah dear. You made the
last months of her life happier than any she had known."
"But I ran away and left her, and he beat her and Charlie for it,
and--and--"
"Brownie, dear, if you want to do what would have pleased your aunt,
you will forget all that. She loved him and forgave him everything,
and she longed for others too to forget that he was ever anything but
a kind husband."
Huldah was silent. She understood the feeling. It was what she
wanted everyone to feel with regard to Aunt Emma,--to remember only
what was good of her.
And she had her wish. The little group gathered in the churchyard a
few days later remembered only her suffering and her sorrows, and the
love which had lived through all, and many a pretty bunch of winter
flowers and leaves and berries were laid on her grave by kindly,
pitying hands. In the furthest corner of the little churchyard they
laid her, in a corner where the sun rested, and where a hawthorn
grew, in which a robin sang hopefully while they laid her to rest.
Huldah, standing by the grave-side while the beautiful words of the
Burial Service were being read, thought of those other partings, so
sad, so cruel,--oh, this was better than those, and not so complete.
She could still feel that Aunt Emma was near her, and safe, and in
the best of all keeping, at peace for ever and ever.
They thought it best that Huldah should not go back to the empty
rooms again, and she was glad; so after the service was over she
walked back to her old home once again, as though she had never left
it, and the last few months had been but a dream. And it was all so
like a dream that at the top of the lane she paused and looked about
her, half bewildered. Could she be, she asked herself, the same
Huldah who not so many months before had stood there a cowed,
frightened, hunted thing, starving, exhausted, but minding nothing as
long as--as what?
As long as she escaped from the two she had so lately parted with,
with such an aching heart. She looked down over her black frock.
She felt the sadness in her heart, the sense of loss. Could such
changes really have come about, that now she was full of grief that
she could never again see or hear the aunt she had so feared?
"Come home, dear; come home. I want you too, oh so badly!"
Aunt Martha's voice broke in on her thoughts, and brought her quickly
back to the present. Aunt Martha's face was white and tired with
cold and weariness. Huldah was filled with repentance.
"Oh, you're tired," she cried, remorsefully, "and chilled, and I'm
keeping you standing here. Oh, Aunt Martha, I hope you haven't
taken cold. We'll hurry now, and I'll make you a good fire, and some
tea, and--and I am going to take care of you now, auntie, all the
rest of my days, till I'm an old, old woman, and I'll never go and
leave you any more, for it's plain to see, looking up at her half
mischievously, you can't take care of yourself without me."
So, for the third time Huldah came back to Woodend Lane, and to Dick,
who went nearly crazy with joy, and to the chickens, and garden and
her basket-making; and this time she stayed, if not till she was an
old woman, at any rate until someone big and strong and very fond of
her, came and built a new cottage, to join Mrs. Perry's old one, and
a new fowl's house on to the old one which Dick had guarded so well,
that he earned for his little mistress and himself a home and friends
for ever. And even then one could scarcely call it "leaving," for
presently the wall which divided them was knocked down, and the two
cottages were made one.
Huldah's basket-making business increased and increased, until at
last she had to teach another little girl, that she might come and
help her, and then another and another; and perhaps the proudest
moment of her life was when she was able to buy the cottage she loved
so much, and present it to her dearly-loved 'Aunt Martha' as a
Christmas gift.
By that time Huldah, the little waif, who had earned for herself the
name of "the Brownie," had made for herself so many friends, that
when her wedding took place, so many wished to attend it, they had to
borrow the field opposite for the wedding-feast. And where she had
once sat and worked and dreamed of the future, there she sat now
flushed, smiling and happy, cutting the wedding cake which old Dinah,
with great pride, had made in the vicarage kitchen.
There she sat, with Dick close beside her, his old heart somewhat sad
with fear of another parting, Aunt Martha opposite, divided between
smiles and tears, and beside her her husband, who was not going to
divide them, but bind them more securely together; and last, but not
least, on Huldah's other hand sat Miss Rose,--no longer "Miss," but
always "Miss Rose" to everyone in Woodend,--who, if Huldah had been
the "brownie," had proved herself the fairy godmother, the best of
guides and friends to those two who had strayed into her life that
hot summer's morning years ago--those two poor loving, hungry,
friendless waifs,--Dick and the Brownie.