MILDRED.
A Novel.
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,
AUTHOR OF
EDITH LYLE—EDNA BROWNING—TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE—’LENA RIVERS—WEST
LAWN—MARIAN GREY—HUGH WORTHINGTON—ETHELYN’S MISTAKE, ETC., ETC.
“——Love soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.”
SOUTHEY.
[Illustration: Logo]
NEW YORK:
_G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers_.
LONDON: S. LOW & CO.
MDCCCLXXVII.
COPYRIGHT BY
DANIEL HOLMES.
1877.
TROW’S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
_205–213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
TO
MRS. G. W. CARLETON
[OF NEW YORK CITY],
_I DEDICATE THIS STORY OF_
MILDRED,
IN MEMORY
OF THE MANY HAPPY HOURS SPENT WITH HER
OF THE “STARRY EYES AND
NUT-BROWN HAIR.”
BROCKPORT, N. Y.,
_October, 1877_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Storm, and what it Brought 9
II. Village Gossip 27
III. Nine Years Later 35
IV. Oliver and Mildred visit Beechwood 50
V. Lawrence Thornton and his Advice 60
VI. What came of it 72
VII. Lilian and Mildred 93
VIII. Lawrence and his Father 111
IX. Lawrence at Beechwood 119
X. The River 131
XI. Lawrence Deceived and Undeceived 142
XII. The Proposal 157
XIII. The Answer 173
XIV. What Followed 201
XV. The Sun Shining through the Cloud 214
XVI. The Ebbing of the Tide 228
XVII. The Deserted Hut 238
XVIII. The Guests at the Hotel 256
XIX. Lawrence and Oliver 276
XX. Oliver and Mildred 285
XXI. The Meeting 299
XXII. Natural Results 314
XXIII. Conclusion 321
MILDRED.
CHAPTER I.
THE STORM, AND WHAT IT BROUGHT.
The sultry September day was drawing to a close, and as the sun went
down, a dark thunder-cloud came slowly up from the west, muttering in
deep undertones, and emitting occasional gleams of lightning by way of
heralding the coming storm, from which both man and beast intuitively
sought shelter. Ere long the streets of Mayfield were deserted, save by
the handsome carriage and span of spirited grays, which went dashing
through the town toward the large house upon the hill, the residence of
Judge Howell, who paid no heed to the storm, so absorbed was he in the
letter which he held in his hand, and which had roused him to a state of
fearful excitement. Through the gate, and up the long avenue, lined with
giant trees of maple and beech, the horses flew, and just as the rain
came down in torrents they stood panting before the door of Beechwood.
“Bring me a light! Why isn’t there one already here?” roared the Judge,
as he stalked into his library, and banged the door with a crash
scarcely equalled by the noise of the tempest without.
“Got up a little thunder-storm on his own account! Wonder what’s
happened him now!” muttered Rachel, the colored housekeeper, as she
placed a lamp upon the table, and then silently left the room.
Scarcely was she gone when, seating himself in his armchair, the Judge
began to read again the letter which had so much disturbed him. It was
post-marked at a little out-of-the-way place among the backwoods of
Maine, and it purported to have come from a young mother, who asked him
to adopt a little girl, nearly two months old.
“Her family is fully equal to your own,” the mother wrote; “and should
you take my baby, you need never blush for her parentage. I have heard
of you, Judge Howell. I know that you are rich, that you are
comparatively alone, and there are reasons why I would rather my child
should go to Beechwood than any other spot in the wide world. You need
her, too,—need something to comfort your old age, for with all your
money, you are far from being happy.”
“The deuce I am!” muttered the Judge. “How did the trollop know that, or
how did she know of _me_, any way? _I_ take a child to comfort my old
age! Ridiculous! I’m not old,—I’m only fifty,—just in the prime of life;
but I _hate_ young ones, and I won’t have one in my house! I’m tormented
enough with Rachel’s dozen, and if that madame brings hers here, I’ll——”
The remainder of the sentence was cut short by a peal of thunder, so
long and loud that even the exasperated Judge was still until the roar
had died away; then, resuming the subject of his remarks, he continued:
“Thanks to something, this letter has been two weeks on the road, and as
she is tired of looking for an answer by this time, I sha’n’t trouble
myself to write,—but what of Richard?—I have not yet seen why he is up
there in New Hampshire, chasing after that Hetty, when he ought to have
been home weeks ago;” and taking from his pocket another and an unopened
letter, he read why his only son and heir of all his vast possessions
was in New Hampshire “chasing after Hetty,” as he termed it.
Hetty Kirby was a poor relation, whom the Judge’s wife had taken into
the family, and treated with the utmost kindness and consideration; on
her death-bed she had committed the young girl to her husband’s care,
bidding him be kind to Hetty for her sake. In Judge Howell’s crusty
heart there was one soft, warm spot,—the memory of his wife and
beautiful young daughter, the latter of whom died within a few months
after her marriage. _They_ had loved the orphan Hetty, and for their
sakes, he had kept her until accident revealed to him the fact that to
his son, then little more than a boy, there was no music so sweet as
Hetty’s voice,—no light so bright as that which shone in Hetty’s eye.
Then the lion was roused, and he turned her from his door, while Richard
was threatened with disinheritance if he dared to think again of the
humble Hetty. There was no alternative but to submit, for Judge Howell’s
word was _law_, and, with a sad farewell to what had been her home so
long, Hetty went back to the low-roofed house among the granite hills,
where her mother and half-imbecile grandmother were living.
Richard, too, returned to college, and from that time not a word had
passed between the father and the son concerning the offending Hetty
until now, when Richard wrote that she was dead, together with her
grandmother,—that news of her illness had been forwarded to him, and
immediately after leaving college, in July, he had hastened to New
Hampshire, and staid by her until she died.
“You can curse me for it if you choose,” he said, “but it will not make
the matter better. I loved Hetty Kirby: while living, I love her memory
now that she is dead; and in that little grave beneath the hill I have
buried my heart forever.”
The letter closed by saying that Richard would possibly be home that
night, and he asked that the carriage might be in waiting at the depot.
The news of Hetty’s death kept the Judge silent for a moment, while his
heart gave one great throb as he thought of the fair-haired, blue-eyed
girl, who had so often ministered to his comfort.
“Poor thing, she’s in heaven, I’m sure,” he said; “and if I was ever
harsh to her, it’s too late to help it now. I always liked her well
enough, but I did not like her making love to Richard. He’ll get over
it, too, even if he does talk about his heart being buried in her grave.
Stuff and nonsense! Just as if a boy of twenty knows where his heart is.
Needn’t tell me. He’ll come to his senses after he’s been home a spell,
and that reminds me that I must send the carriage for him. Here, Ruth,”
he continued, as he saw a servant passing in the hall, “tell Joe not to
put out the horses, or if he has, to harness up again. Richard is coming
home, and he must meet him at the station.”
Ruth departed with the message and the Judge again took up the letter in
which a child had been offered for his adoption. Very closely he
scrutinized the handwriting, but it was not a familiar one to him. He
had never seen it before, and, tearing the paper in pieces, he scattered
them upon the floor.
The storm by this time had partially subsided, and he heard the carriage
wheels grinding into the gravel as Joe drove from the house. Half an
hour went by, and then the carriage returned again; but Richard was not
in it, and the father sat down alone to the supper kept in waiting for
his son. It was a peculiarity of the Judge to retire precisely at nine
o’clock; neither friend nor foe could keep him up beyond that hour, he
said; and on this evening, as on all others, the lights disappeared from
his room just as the nine o’clock bell was heard in the distance. But
the Judge was nervous to-night. The thunder which at intervals continued
to roar, made him restless, and ten o’clock found him even more wakeful
than he had been an hour before.
“What the plague ails me?” he exclaimed, tossing uneasily from side to
side, “and what the deuce can that be? Rachel’s baby as I live! What is
she doing with it here? If there’s anything I detest, it is a baby’s
squall. Just hear that, will you?” and raising himself upon his elbow he
listened intently to what was indisputably an infant wail, rising even
above the storm, for it had commenced raining again, and the thunder at
times was fearfully loud.
“Screech away,” said the Judge, as a cry, sharper and more prolonged,
fell upon his ear; “screech away till you split your throat; but I’ll
know why a Christian man, who hates children, must be driven distracted
in his own house,” and stepping into the hall, he called out, at the top
of his voice, “Ho, Rachel!” but no Rachel made her appearance; and a
little further investigation sufficed to show that she had retired to
the little cottage in the back yard, which, in accordance with a
Southern custom, the Judge, who was a Virginian, had built for herself
and her husband. Rachel was also a native of Virginia, but for many
years she had lived at Beechwood, where she was now the presiding
genius,—and the one servant whom the Judge trusted above all others. But
she had one great fault, at which her master chafed terribly; she had
nearly as many children as the fabled woman who lived in a shoe. Indeed
there seemed to be no end to the little darkies who daily sunned
themselves upon the velvety sward in front of their cabin door, and were
nightly stowed away in the three wide trundle-beds, which Rachel brought
forth from unheard-of hiding-places, and made up near her own. If there
was one thing in the world more than another which the Judge professed
to hate, it was children, and when Rachel innocently asked him to name
her _twelfth_, he answered wrathfully:
“A dozen,—the old Harry!—call it FINIS,—and let it be so,—do you hear?”
“Yes, marster,” was the submissive answer, and so Finis, or _Finn_, for
short, was the name given to the child, which the Judge fancied was so
disturbing him, as, leaning over the banister, he called aloud to
Rachel, “to stop that noise, and carry Finn back where he belonged.”
“She has carried him back, I do believe,” he said to himself, as he
heard how still it was below, and retiring to his room, he tried again
to sleep, succeeding so far as to fall away into a doze, from which he
was aroused by a thunder-crash, which shook the massive building to its
foundation, and wrung from the watch-dog, Tiger, who kept guard without,
a deafening yell.
But to neither of these sounds did the Judge pay the least attention,
for, mingled with them, and continuing after both had died away, was
that same infant wail, tuned now to a higher, shriller note, as if the
little creature were suffering from fear or bodily pain.
“Might as well try to sleep in bedlam!” exclaimed the exasperated Judge,
stepping from his bed a second time, and commencing to dress himself,
while his nervousness and irritability increased in proportion as the
cries grew louder and more alarming.
Striking a light and frowning wrathfully at the sour, tired-looking
visage reflected by the mirror, he descended the stairs and entered the
kitchen, where everything was in perfect order, even to the kindlings
laid upon the hearth for the morning fire. The cries, too, were fainter
there and could scarcely be heard at all, but as he retraced his steps
and came again into the lower hall, he heard them distinctly, and also
Tiger’s howl. Guided by the sound, he kept on his way until he reached
the front door, when a thought flashed upon him which rendered him for
an instant powerless to act. What if that Maine woman, tired of waiting
for an answer to her letter, had taken some other way of accomplishing
her purpose? What if he _should_ find a baby on his steps! “But I
sha’n’t,” he said, decidedly; “I _won’t_, and if I do, I’ll kick it into
the street, or something,” and emboldened by this resolution he unlocked
the door, and shading the lamp with his hand, peered cautiously out into
the darkness.
With a cry of delight Tiger sprang forward, nearly upsetting his master,
who staggered back a pace or two, and then, recovering himself, advanced
again toward the open door.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, thrusting his head out into the rain,
which was dropping fast through the thick vine leaves which overhung the
lattice of the portico.
As if to disprove this assertion, the heavens for an instant blazed with
light, and showed him where a small white object lay in a willow basket
beneath the seat built on either side of the door. He knew it was not
Finn, for the tiny fingers which grasped the basket edge were white and
pure as wax, while the little dimples about the joints involuntarily
carried him back to a time when just such a baby hand as this had patted
his bearded cheek or pulled his long black hair. Perhaps it was the
remembrance of that hand, now cold in death, which prompted him to a
nearer survey of the contents of the basket, and setting down his lamp,
he stooped to draw it forth, while Tiger stood by trembling with joy
that his vigils were ended, and that human aid had come at last to the
helpless creature he had guarded with the faithfulness peculiar to his
race.
It was a fair, round face which met the judge’s view as he removed the
flannel blanket, and the bright, pretty eyes which looked up into his
were full of tears. But the Judge hardened his heart, and though he did
not kick the baby into the rain, he felt strongly tempted so to do, and
glancing toward the cornfield not far away, where he fancied the mother
might be watching the result, he screamed:
“Come here, you madame, and take the brat away, for I sha’n’t touch it,
you may depend upon that.”
Having thus relieved his mind, he was about to re-enter the house, when,
as if divining his intention, Tiger planted his huge form in the
doorway, and effectually kept him back.
“Be quiet, Tiger, be quiet,” said the Judge, stroking his shaggy mane;
but Tiger refused to move, until at last, as if seized by a sudden
instinct, he darted toward the basket, which he took in his mouth, and
carried into the hall.
“It sha’n’t be said a brute is more humane than myself,” thought the
Judge, and leaving the dog and the baby together, he stalked across the
yard, and, pounding on Rachel’s door, bade her come to the house at
once.
But a few moments elapsed ere Rachel stood in the hall, her eyes
protruding like harvest apples when she saw the basket and the baby it
contained. The twelve young Van Brunts sleeping in their three
trundle-beds, had enlarged her motherly heart, just as the Judge’s
lonely condition had shrivelled his, and kneeling down she took the wee
thing in her arms, called it a “little honey,” and then, woman-like,
examined its dress, which was of the finest material, and trimmed with
costly lace.
“It’s none of your low-flung truck,” she said. “The edgin’ on its slip
cost a heap, and its petticoats is all worked with floss.”
“Petticoats be hanged!” roared the Judge. “Who cares for worked
petticoats? The question is, what are we to do with it?”
“Do with it?” repeated Rachel, hugging it closer to her bosom. “Keep it,
in course. ’Pears like it seems mighty nigh to me,” and she gave it
another squeeze, this time uttering a faint outcry, for a sharp point of
something had penetrated through the thin folds of her gingham dress.
“Thar’s somethin’ fastened to ’t,” she said, and removing the blanket,
she saw a bit of paper pinned to the infant’s waist. “This may ’splain
the matter,” she continued, passing it to the Judge, who read, in the
same handwriting of the letter: “God prosper you, Judge Howell, in
proportion as you are kind to my baby, whom I have called _Mildred_.”
“Mildred!” repeated the judge, “Mildred be——”
He did not finish the sentence, for he seemed to hear far back in the
past a voice much like his own, saying aloud:
“I, Jacob, take thee, Mildred, to be my wedded wife.”
The Mildred _taken_ then in that shadowy old church had been for years a
loving, faithful wife, and another Mildred, too, with starry eyes and
nut-brown hair had flitted through his halls, calling him her father.
The Maine woman must surely have known of this when she gave her
offspring the only name in the world which could possibly have touched
the Judge’s heart. With a perplexed expression upon his face, he stood
rubbing his hands together, while Rachel launched forth into a stream of
baby-talk, like that with which she was wont to edify her twelve young
blackbirds.
“For Heaven’s sake, stop that! You fairly turn my stomach,” said the
Judge, as she added the finishing touch by calling the child “a pessus
’ittle darlin’ dumplin’!” “You women are precious big fools with
babies!”
“Wasn’t Miss Milly just as silly as any on us?” asked Rachel, who knew
his weak point; “and if she was here to-night, instead of over Jordan,
don’t you believe she’d take the little critter as her own?”
“That’s nothing to do with it,” returned the Judge. “The question is,
how shall we dispose of it—to-night, I mean, for in the morning I shall
see about its being taken to the poor-house.”
“The poor-house!” repeated Rachel. “Ain’t it writ on that paper, ‘The
Lord sarve you and yourn as you sarve her and hern’? Thar’s a warnin’ in
that which I shall mind ef you don’t. The baby ain’t a-goin’ to the
poor-house. I’ll take it myself first. A hen don’t scratch no harder for
thirteen than she does for twelve, and though Joe ain’t no kind o’
count, I can manage somehow. Shall I consider it mine?”
“Yes, till morning,” answered the Judge, who really had no definite idea
as to what he intended doing with the helpless creature thus forced upon
him against his will.
He abhorred children,—he would not for anything have one abiding in his
house, and especially this one of so doubtful parentage; still he was
not quite inclined to cast it off, and he wished there was some one with
whom to advise. Then, as he remembered the expected coming of his son,
he thought, “Richard will tell me what to do!” and feeling somewhat
relieved he returned to his chamber, while Rachel hurried off to her
cabin, where, in a few words, she explained the matter to Joe, who,
being naturally of a lazy temperament, was altogether too sleepy to
manifest emotion of any kind, and was soon snoring as loudly as ever.
In his rude pine cradle little Finn was sleeping, and once Rachel
thought to lay the stranger baby with him; but proud as she was of her
color and of her youngest born, too, she felt that there was a dividing
line over which she must not pass, so Finn was finally removed to the
pillow of his sire, the cradle re-arranged, and the baby carefully lain
to rest.
Meantime, on his bedstead of rosewood, Judge Howell tried again to
sleep, but all in vain were his attempts to woo the wayward goddess, and
he lay awake until the moon, struggling through the broken clouds, shone
upon the floor. Then, in the distance, he heard the whistle of the night
express, and knew it was past midnight.
“I wish that Maine woman had been drowned in Passamaquoddy Bay!” said
he, rolling his pillow into a ball and beating it with his fist. “Yes, I
do, for I’ll be hanged if I want to be bothered this way! Hark! I do
believe she’s prowling round the house yet,” he continued, as he thought
he caught the sound of a footstep upon the gravelled walk.
He was not mistaken in the sound, and he was about getting up for the
third and, as he swore to himself, the last time, when a loud ring of
the bell, and a well-known voice, calling: “Father! father! let me in,”
told him that not the Maine woman, but his son Richard, had come.
Hastening down the stairs, he unlocked the door, and Richard Howell
stepped into the hall, his boots bespattered with mud, his clothes wet
with the heavy rain, and his face looking haggard and pale by the dim
light of the lamp his father carried in his hand.
“Why, Dick!” exclaimed the Judge, “what ails you? You are as white as a
ghost.”
“I am tired and sick,” was Richard’s reply. “I’ve scarcely slept for
several weeks.”
“Been watching with Hetty, I dare say,” thought the Judge; but he merely
said: “Why didn’t you come at seven, as you wrote you would?”
“I couldn’t conveniently,” Richard replied: “and, as I was anxious to
get here as soon as possible, I took the night express, and have walked
from the depot. But what is that?” he continued, as he entered the
sitting-room, and saw the willow basket standing near the door.
“Dick,” and the Judge’s voice dropped to a nervous whisper,—“Dick, if
you’ll believe me, some infernal Maine woman has had a baby, and left it
on our steps. She wrote first to know if I’d take it, but the letter was
two weeks coming. I didn’t get it until to-night, and, as I suppose she
was tired of waiting, she brought it along right in the midst of that
thunder-shower. She might have known I’d kick it into the street, just
as I said I would,—the trollop!”
“Oh, father!” exclaimed the more humane young man, “you surely didn’t
treat the innocent child so cruelly!”
“No, I didn’t, though my will was good enough,” answered the father.
“Just think of the scandalous reports that are certain to follow. It
will be just like that gossiping Widow Simms to get up some confounded
yarn, and involve us both, the wretch! But I sha’n’t keep it,—I shall
send it to the poor-house.”
And, by way of adding emphasis to his words, he gave the basket a shove,
which turned it bottom side up, and scattered over the floor sundry
articles of baby-wear, which had before escaped his observation.
Among these was a tiny pair of red morocco shoes; for the “Maine woman,”
as he called her, had been thoughtful both for the present and future
wants of her child.
“Look, father,” said Richard, taking them up and holding them to the
light. “They are just like those sister Mildred used to wear. You know
mother saved them, because they were the first; and you have them still
in your private drawer.”
Richard had touched a tender chord, and it vibrated at once, bringing to
his father memories of a little soft, fat foot, which had once been
encased in a slipper much like the one Richard held in his hand. The
patter of that foot had ceased forever, and the soiled, worn shoe was
now a sacred thing, even though the owner had grown up to beautiful
womanhood ere her home was made desolate.
“Yes, Dick,” he said, as he thought of all this. “It is like our dear
Milly’s, and what is a little mysterious, the baby is called Mildred,
too. It was written on a bit of paper, and pinned upon the dress.”
“Then you will keep her, won’t you? and Beechwood will not be so
lonely,” returned Richard, continuing after a pause, “Where is she, this
little lady? I am anxious to pay her my respects.”
“Down with Rachel, just where she ought to be,” said the Judge; and
Richard rejoined, “Down with all those negroes? Oh, father, how could
you? Suppose it were your child, would you want it there?”
“The deuce take it—’tain’t mine—there ain’t a drop of Howell blood in
its veins, the Lord knows, and as for my lying awake, feeding sweetened
milk to that Maine woman’s brat, I won’t do it, and that’s the end of
it. I won’t, I say,—but I knew’t would be just like you to want me to
keep it. You have the most unaccountable taste, and always had. There
isn’t another young man of your expectations, who would ever have cared
for that——”
“Father,” and Richard’s hand was laid upon the Judge’s arm. “Father,
_Hetty is dead_, and we will let her rest, but if she had lived, I would
have called no other woman my wife.”
“And the moment you had called her so, I would have disinherited you,
root and branch,” was the Judge’s savage answer. “I would have seen her
and you and your children starve before I would have raised my hand. The
heir of Beechwood marry Hetty Kirby! Why, her father was a blacksmith
and her mother a factory girl,—do you hear?”
Richard made no reply, and striking another light, he went to his
chamber, where varied and bitter thoughts kept him wakeful until the
September sun shone upon the wall, and told him it was morning. In the
yard below he heard the sound of Rachel’s voice, and was reminded by it
of the child left there the previous night. He would see it for himself,
he said, and making a hasty toilet, he walked leisurely down the
well-worn path which led to the cottage door. The _twelve_ were all
awake, and as he drew near, a novel sight presented itself to his view.
In the rude pine cradle, the baby lay, while over it the elder Van
Brunts were bending, engaged in a hot discussion as to which should have
“the little white nigger for their own.” At the approach of Richard
their noisy clamor ceased, and they fell back respectfully as he drew
near the cradle. Richard Howell was exceedingly fond of children, and
more than one of Rachel’s dusky brood had he held upon his lap, hence it
was, perhaps, that he parted so gently the silken rings of soft brown
hair, clustering around the baby’s brow, smoothed the velvety cheek, and
even kissed the parted lips. The touch awoke the child, who seemed
intuitively to know that the face bending so near to its own was a
friendly one, and when Richard took it in his arms, it offered no
resistance, but rather lovingly nestled its little head upon his
shoulder, as he wrapped its blanket carefully about it, and started for
the house.