TERRACE HILL
The storm which visited Kentucky so wrathfully, and was far milder among
the New England hills, and in the vicinity of Snowdon, whither our story
now tends, was scarcely noticed, save as an ordinary winter's storm. As
yet it had been comparatively warmer in New England than in Kentucky;
and Miss Anna Richards, confirmed invalid though she was, had decided
that inasmuch as Terrace Hill mansion now boasted a furnace in the
cellar, it would hardly be necessary to take her usual trip to the
South, so comfortable was she at home, in her accustomed chair, with her
pretty crimson shawl wrapped gracefully around her. Besides that, they
were expecting her Brother John from Paris, where he had been for the
last eighteen months, pursuing his medical profession, and she must be
there to welcome him.
Anna was proud of her young, handsome brother, as were the entire
family, for on him and his success in life all their future hopes were
pending. Aside from being proud, Anna was also very fond of John,
because as all were expected to yield to her wishes, she had never been
crossed by him, and because he was nearer to her own age, and had
evidently preferred her to either of his more stately sisters, Miss
Asenath and Miss Eudora, whose birthdays were very far distant from his.
John had never been very happy at home--never liked Snowdon much, and
hence the efforts they were putting forth to make it attractive to him
after his long absence. He could not help but like home now, the ladies
said to each other, as, a few days before his arrival, they rode from
the village, where they had been shopping, up the winding terraced hill,
admiring the huge stone building embosomed in evergreens, and standing
out so distinctly against the wintry sky. And indeed Terrace Hill
mansion was a very handsome place, exciting the envy and admiration of
the villagers, who, while commenting upon its beauty and its well-kept
grounds, could yet remember a time when it had looked better even than
it did now--when the house was oftener full of city company, of
sportsmen who came up to hunt, and fish, and drink, as it was sometimes
hinted by the servants, of whom there was then a greater number than at
present--when high-born ladies rode up and down in carriages, or dashed
on horseback through the park and off into the leafy woods--when sounds
of festivity were heard in the halls from year's end to year's end, and
the lights in the parlors were rarely extinguished, or the fires on the
hearth put out. All this was during the lifetime of its former owner.
With his death there had come a change to the inhabitants of Terrace
Hill. In short it was whispered rather loudly now that the ladies of
Terrace Hill were restricted in their means, that it was harder to
collect a bill from them than it used to be, that there was less display
of dress and style, fewer fires, and lights, and servants, and
withdrawal from society, and an apparent desire to be left to
themselves.
This was what the village people whispered, and none knew the truth of
the whisperings better than the ladies in question. They knew they were
growing poorer with each succeeding year, but it was not the less
mortifying to be familiarly accosted by Mrs. Deacon Briggs, or invited
to a sociable by Mrs. Roe.
How Miss Asenath and Miss Eudora writhed under the infliction, and how
hard they tried to appear composed and ladylike just as they would deem
it incumbent upon them to appear, had they been on their way to the
gallows. How glad, too, they were when their aristocratic doors closed
upon the little, talkative Mrs. Roe, and what a good time they had
wondering how Mrs. Johnson, who really was as refined and cultivated as
themselves, could associate with such folks to the extent she did. She
was always present at the Snowdon sewing circles, they heard, and
frequently at its tea-drinkings, while never was there a sickbed but she
was sure to find it, particularly if the sick one were poor and
destitute. This was very commendable and praiseworthy, they admitted,
but they did not see how she could endure it. Once Miss Asenath had
ventured to ask her, and she had answered that all her best, most useful
lessons, were learned in just such places--that she was better for these
visits, and found her purest enjoyments in them. To Miss Asenath and
Miss Eudora, this was inexplicable, but Anna, disciplined by years of
ill health, had a slight perception of higher, purer motives than any
which actuated the family at Terrace Hill. On the occasion of little
Mrs. Roe's call it was Anna who apologized for her presumption, saying
that Mrs. Roe really had the kindest of hearts; besides, it was quite
natural for the villagers not to stand quite so much in awe of them now
that their fortune was declining, and as they could not make
circumstances conform to them, they must conform to circumstances.
Neither Asenath nor Eudora, nor the lady mother liked this kind of
conformation, but Anna was generally right, and they did not annihilate
Mrs. Roe with a contemptuous frown as they had fully intended doing.
Mrs. Johnson and her daughter Alice had been present, they heard, the
latter actually joining in some of the plays, and the new clergyman, Mr.
Howard, had suffered himself to be caught by Miss Alice, who disfigured
her luxuriant curls with a bandage, and played at blindman's buff. This
proved conclusively to the elder ladies of Terrace Hill that ministers
were no better than other people, and they congratulated themselves
afresh upon their escape from having one of the brotherhood in thir
family.
In this escape Anna was particularly interested, as it had helped to
make her the delicate creature she was, for since the morning when she
had knelt at her proud father's feet, and begged him to revoke his cruel
decision, and say she might be the bride of a poor missionary, Anna had
greatly changed, and the father, ere he died, had questioned the
propriety of separating the hearts which clung so together. But the
young missionary had married another, and neither the parents nor the
sisters ever forgot the look of anguish which stole into Anna's face,
when she heard the fatal news. She had thought herself prepared, but the
news was just as crushing when it came, accompanied, though it was with
a few last lines from him. Anna kept this letter yet, wondering if the
missionary remembered her yet, and if they would ever meet again. This
was the secret of the missionary papers scattered so profusely through
the rooms at Terrace Hill. Anna was interested in everything pertaining
to the work, though, it must be confessed, that her mind wandered
oftenest to the banks of the Bosphorus, the City of Mosques and
Minarets, where he was laboring. Neither the mother, nor Asenath, nor
Eudora ever spoke to her of him, and so his name was never heard at
Terrace Hill, unless John mentioned it, as he sometimes did, drawing
comical pictures of what Anna would have been by this time had she
married the missionary.
Anna only laughed at her wild brother's comments, telling him once to
beware, lest he, too, follow her example, and was guilty of loving some
one far beneath him. John Richards had spurned the idea. The wife who
bore his name should be every way worthy of a Richards. This was John's
theory, nursed and encouraged by mother and sisters, the former charging
him to be sure and keep his heart from all save the right one. Had he
done so?
A peep at the family as on the day of his expected arrival from Paris
they sat waiting for him will enlighten us somewhat. Taken as a whole,
it was a very pleasant family group, which sat there waiting for the
foreign lion, waiting for the whistle of the engine which was to herald
his approach.
"I wonder if he has changed," said the mother, glancing at the opposite
mirror and arranging the puffs of glossy false hair which shaded her
aristocratic forehead.
"Of course he has changed somewhat," returned Miss Asenath, rubbing
together her white, bony hands, on one of which a costly diamond was
flashing. "Nearly two years of Paris society must have imparted to him
that _air distingué_ so desirable in a young man who has traveled."
"He'll hardly fail of making a good match now," Miss Eudora remarked,
caressing the pet spaniel which had climbed into her lap. "I think we
must manage to visit Saratoga or some of those places next summer. Mr.
Gardner found his wife at Newport, and they say she's worth half a
million."
"But horridly ugly," and Anna looked up from the reverie in which she
had been indulging. "Lottie says she has tow hair and a face like a
fish. John would never be happy with such a wife."
"Possibly you think he had better have married that sewing girl about
whom he wrote us just before going to Europe," Miss Eudora said
spitefully, pinching the long silken ears of her pet until the animal
yelled with pain.
There was a faint sigh from the direction of Anna's chair, and all knew
she was thinking of the missionary. The mother continued:
"I trust he is over that fancy, and ready to thank me for the strong
letter I wrote him."
"Yes, but the girl," and Anna leaned her white cheek in her whiter hand.
"None of us know the harm his leaving her may have done. Don't you
remember he wrote how much she loved him--how gentle and confiding her
nature was, and how to leave her then might prove her ruin?"
"Our little Anna is growing very eloquent upon the subject of sewing
girls," Miss Asenath said, rather scornfully, and Anna rejoined:
"I am not sure she was a sewing girl. He spoke of her as a schoolgirl."
"But it is most likely he did that to mislead us," said the mother. "The
only boarding school he knows anything about is the one where Lottie
was. If he were not her uncle by marriage I should not object to Lottie
as a daughter," was the next remark, whereupon there ensued a
conversation touching the merits and demerits of a certain Lottie
Gardner, whose father had taken for a second wife Miss Laura Richards.
This Laura had died within a year of her marriage, but Lottie had
claimed relationship to the family just the same, grandmaing Mrs.
Richards and aunty-ing the sisters. John, however, was never called
uncle, except in fun. He was too near her age, the young lady frequently
declaring that she had half a mind to throw aside all family ties and
lay siege to the handsome young man, who really was very popular with
the fair sex. During this discussion of Lottie, Anna had sat listlessly
looking up and down the columns of an old _Herald_, which Dick, Eudora's
pet dog, had ferreted out from the table and deposited at her feet. She
evidently was not thinking of Lottie, nor yet of the advertisements,
until one struck her notice as being very singular. Holding it a little
more to the light she said: "Possibly this is the very person I
want--only the child might be an objection. Just listen," and Anna read
as follows:
"WANTED--By an unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few
months old, a situation in a private family either as governess,
seamstress, or lady's maid. Country preferred. Address--"
Anna was about to say whom when a violent ringing of the bell announced
an arrival, and the next moment a tall young man, exceedingly
Frenchified in his appearance, entered the room, and was soon in the
arms of his mother.
John, hastening to where Anna sat, wound his arms around her light
figure, and kissed her white lips and looked into her face with an
expression, which told that, however indifferent he might be to others,
he was not so to Anna.
"You have not changed for the worse," he said. "You are scarcely thinner
than when I went away."
"And you are vastly improved," was Anna's answer.
His mother continued: "I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain
letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of
course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you
have done with a wife in Paris?"
"I should not have gone," John answered, moodily, a shadow stealing over
his face.
It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce a topic
on which John was really so sore, and for a moment an awkward silence
ensued, broken at last by the mother again, who, feeling that all was
not right, and anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a
poor, unknown daughter-in-law, asked, hesitatingly:
"Have you seen her since your return?"
"She's dead," was the laconic reply, and then, as if anxious to change
the conversation, the young doctor turned to Anna and said: "Guess who
was my fellow traveler from Liverpool?"
Anna never could guess anything, and after a little her brother said:
"The Rev. Charles Millbrook, missionary to Turkey, returning for his
health."
For an instant Anna trembled as if she saw opening before her the grave
which for fourteen years had held her buried heart. Charlie was
breathing again the air of the same hemisphere with herself. She might,
perhaps, see him once more, and Hattie, was she with him, or was there
another grave made with the Moslem dead by little Anna's aide? She would
not ask, for she felt the cold, critical eyes bent upon her from across
the hearth, and a few commonplace inquiries was all she ventured upon.
Had Mr. Millbrook greatly changed since he went away? Did he look very
sick? And how had her brother liked him?
"I scarcely spoke to him," was John's reply. "I confess to a most
lamentable ignorance touching the Rev. Mr. Millbrook and his family. He
wore crape on his hat, I remember, but there was a lady with him to whom
he was quite attentive, and who, I think, was called by his name."
"Tall, with black eyes, like Lottie's?" Anna meekly asked, and John
replied: "Something after the Lottie order, though more like yourself."
"It's strange I never saw a notice of his expected return," was Anna's
next remark. "Perhaps it was in the last _Missionary Herald_. You have
not found it yet, have you, mother?"
The ringing of the supper bell prevented Mrs. Richards from answering.
How gracefully he did the honors, and how proud all were of him, as he
repeated little incidents of Parisian life, speaking of the emperor and
Eugenie as if they had been everyday sights to him. In figure and form
the fair empress reminded him of Anna, he said, except that Anna was the
prettier of the two--a compliment which Anna acknowledged with a blush
and a trembling of her long eyelashes. It was a very pleasant family
reunion, for John did his best to be agreeable.
"Oh, John, please be careful. There's an advertisement I want to save,"
Anna exclaimed, as she saw her brother tearing a strip from the _Herald_
with which to light his cigar, but as she spoke, the flame curled around
the narrow strip, and Dr. Richards had lighted his cigar with the name
and address appended to the advertisement which had so interested Anna.
How disturbed she was when she found that nought was left save the
simple wants of the young girl.
"Let's see," and taking the mutilated sheet, Dr. Richards read the
"Wanted, by a young unfortunate married woman."
"That unfortunate may mean a great deal more than you imagine," he said.
"Yes, but she distinctly says married. Don't you see, and I had really
some idea of writing to her."
"I'm sorry I was so careless, but there are a thousand unfortunate women
who would gladly be your maid, little sister. I'll send you out a score,
if you say so," and John laughed.
"Has anything of importance occurred in this slow old town?" he
inquired, after Anna had become reconciled to her loss. "Are the people
as odd as usual?"
"Yes, more so," Miss Eudora thought, "and more presuming," whereupon she
rehearsed the annoyances to which they had been subjected from their
changed circumstances, dwelling at length upon Mrs. Roe's tea drinking,
and the insult offered by inviting them, when she knew there would be no
one present with whom they associated.
"You forget Mrs. Johnson," interposed Anna. "We would be glad to know
her better than we do, she is so refined and cultivated in all her
tastes, while Alice is the sweetest girl I ever knew. By the way,
brother, they have come here since you left, consequently you have a
rare pleasure in store, the forming their acquaintance."
"Whose, the old or the young lady's?" John asked.
"Both," was Anna's reply. "The mother is very youthful in her
appearance. Why, she scarcely looks older than I, and I, you know, am
thirty-two."
As if fearful lest her own age should come next under consideration,
Miss Eudora hastened to say:
"Yes, Mrs. Johnson does look very young, and Alice seems like a child.
Such beautiful hair as she has. It used to be a bright yellow, or
golden, but now it has a darker, richer shade, while her eyes are the
softest, handsomest blue."
Alice Johnson was evidently a favorite, and this stamped her somebody,
so John began to ask who the Johnsons were.
Mrs. Richards seemed disposed to answer, which she did as follows:
"Mrs. Johnson used to live in Boston, and her husband was grandson of
old Governor Johnson."
"Ah, yes," and John began to laugh. "I see now what gives Miss Alice's
hair that peculiar shade, and her eyes that heavenly blue; but go on,
mother, and give her figure as soon as may be."
"What do you mean?" asked Anna. "I should suppose you'd care more for
her face than her form."
John smiled mischievously, while his mother continued:
"I fancy that Mrs. Johnson's family met with a reverse of fortune before
her marriage. I do not see her as often as I would like to, for I am
greatly pleased with her, although she has some habits of which I cannot
approve. Why, I hear that Alice had a party the other day
consisting-wholly of ragged urchins."
"They were her Sabbath school scholars," interposed Anna.
"I vote that Anna goes on with Alice's history. She gives it best," said
John, and so Anna continued:
"There is but little more to tell. Mrs. Johnson and her daughter are
both nice ladies, and I am sure you will like them--everybody does; and
rumor has already given Alice to our young clergyman, Mr. Howard."
"And she is worth fifty thousand dollars, too," rejoined Asenath.
"I have her figure at last," said John, winking slyly at Anna.
And, indeed, the fifty thousand dollars did seem to make an impression
on the young man, who grew interested at once, making numerous
inquiries, asking where he would be most likely to see her.
"At church," was Anna's reply. "She is always there, and their pew joins
ours."
Dr. Richards was exceedingly vain, and his vanity manifested itself from
the tie of his neckerchief down to the polish of his boots. Once, had
Hugh Worthington known him intimately, he would have admitted that there
was at least one man whose toilet occupied quite as much time as
Adaline's. In Paris the vain doctor had indulged in the luxury of a
valet, carefully keeping it a secret from his mother and sisters, who
were often compelled to deny themselves that the money he asked for so
often might be forthcoming. But that piece of extravagance was over now;
he dared not bring his valet home, though he sadly wished him there as
he meditated upon the appearance he would make in church next Sabbath.
He was glad there was something new and interesting in Snowdon in the
shape of a pretty girl, for he did not care to return at once to New
York, where he had intended practicing his profession. There were too
many sad memories clustering about that city to make it altogether
desirable, but Dr. Richards was not yet a hardened wretch, and thoughts
of another than Alice Johnson, with her glorious hair and still more
glorious figure, crowded upon his mind as on that first evening of his
return, he sat answering questions and asking others of his own.
It was late ere the family group broke up, and the storm, beating so
furiously upon Spring Bank, was just making its voice heard around
Terrace Hill mansion, when the doctor took the lamp the servant brought,
and bidding his mother and sisters good-night, ascended the stairs
whither Anna had gone before him. She was not, however, in bed, and
called softly to him:
"John, Brother John, come in a moment, please."