MISS MCPHERSON AND THE LETTER.
Nine years had made but little change in Miss Betsey McPherson, either
mentally or physically. As she had been at the Thanksgiving dinner where
we first met her, so she was now, with possibly a little sharper tone in
her voice and a shade more of eccentricity in her nature. As she lived
alone then with her two servants, so she lived alone now, with the same
cook in the kitchen, but not the same housemaid to attend her. Flora had
been married for five or six years to a respectable mechanic, and lived
in a small white house across the common, with three children to care
for--two boys and a girl. This last she had thought to call for her
former mistress to whom she had timidly expressed her intention, asking
if she would be godmother.
"Flo is a fool to saddle her child with a name she hates," Miss
McPherson thought, but she consented to act as sponsor, and wore her
best black silk in honor of the occasion, when Sunday came and she took
her accustomed seat in church.
But her thoughts were evidently not upon the service, for she knelt in
the wrong place, and once said aloud in her abstraction, "Let us pray,"
and there was a twinkle in her round bright eyes, and a grim smile on
her face when she at last arose, and straight and stiff as a
darning-needle walked up the aisle, and took in her arms the little pink
and white baby who was to bear her name. It was a pretty child, and as
she held it for a moment and looked into its clear blue eyes fixed so
questioningly upon her face, there came to her the thought of another
little blue-eyed girl who had come to her on the sands of Aberystwyth,
and the touch of whose hands as they rubbed and patted the folds of her
dress she could feel even now after the lapse of many years. That child
had said to her that Betsey was a horrid name; this child in her arms
would think so, too, and hate it all her life, and when the clergyman,
said, "Name this child," she answered, in a loud, clear voice, which
rang distinctly through the church:
"Bessie McPherson!"
"No, no; oh, no!" Flora gasped in a whisper, "it is Betsey, ma'am; it is
for you."
"Hush! I know what I am about," was whispered back, and so Bessie
McPherson, and not Betsey, was received into Christ's flock and signed
with the sign of the cross, and given to the happy mother happier than
she dared to own because of the change of name.
The next day five hundred dollars were placed in the Allington Savings
Bank to the credit of Bessie McPherson Bowen, and the spinster washed
her hands of the whole affair, as she expressed it to herself. But she
could not quite forget the child, and when on the Monday evening after
the christening she sat by her open fire with her round tea table at her
side, there was a thought of it in her mind, and she said to herself:
"I am glad I did not give it my name. Betsey is not very poetical, and
they are sure to call you Bets when they are angry at you. Bessie is
better and sweeter every way."
And then her thoughts went over the sea after that other Bessie, her own
flesh and blood, of whom she had not heard in years. It was very seldom
that her brother John wrote to her, and when he did he never mentioned
Archie or his family, and so she knew nothing of them except that Daisy
was still carrying on her business at Monte Carlo and was known as an
adventuress to every frequenter of the place. But where was Bessie? Miss
McPherson asked herself, us she gazed dreamily into the fire. Was she
like her mother, a vain coquette and a mark for coarse jests and vulgar
admiration?
"For the girl must be pretty," she said, "There was the promise of great
beauty in that face, and true, pure womanhood, too, if only she were
well brought up."
And then through the woman's heart there shot a pang as she wondered if
she had done right to leave Archie and his child to their poverty all
these years. Might she not have done something for them, and so perhaps
have saved the daughter from sin? The little room at the head of the
stairs was still kept just as it was when she was expecting Bessie.
There was the big doll in the corner, the dishes on the shelf, and the
single bed with its lace hangings was freshly made every month, and by
its side each night the lonely woman knelt and prayed for the little
girl who had come to her on the sands and looked into her eyes with a
look which had haunted her ever since. But of what avail was all this?
Ought she not to have acted as well as prayed? What was faith without
works, and if Bessie had gone to destruction, as most likely she had,
was it not in part her fault? Such were the questions tormenting Miss
McPherson when at last Winny came in to remove the tea things and
brought with her a letter, which she gave into her mistress' hand. It
was Neil's letter, and Miss Betsey examined it very carefully before
opening it, wondering who had written her from London, and experiencing
a feeling that its contents would not prove altogether agreeable.
Adjusting her spectacles a little more firmly on her nose, she opened it
at last, and read it through very slowly, taking in its full meaning as
she read, and commenting to herself in her characteristic way.
Two years before, she had met an old acquaintance from London, who knew
Neil and disliked him, consequently the impression she had received of
him was not altogether favorable.
"A good-looking, well-meaning fellow," the man had said, "but very
indolent, and selfish, and proud, with an inordinate love of money, and
respect for those who have it."
And in this opinion the spinster was confirmed by his letter.
"Let me see!" she said, taking off her glasses, and regarding the fire
intently. "He wishes me to send him a few thousand pounds to enable him
to marry his cousin and live in idleness in his father's house on
Warwick Crescent until his mother is reconciled, and he wishes to know
if I intend to make Bessie my heir. No, my fine London gentleman! If
Bessie ever has a fortune it will not be from me. Now, if Neil wanted
this money to set himself up in business; if he was going to work to
earn his own bread and butter and support his family like an honest man,
I would let him have it cheerfully. But work is the last thing he thinks
about. It would degrade him. Ugh! it makes me so mad!" and she shook her
head fiercely at the fire, as she went on:
"But the girl, if he tells the truth, is the right kind of stuff,
staying at home, caring for her father, wearing shabby clothes, and even
washing the dishes, which I have no doubt hurts him the most. I rather
like this girl, and for her sake I will give Neil a chance, though I
don't suppose he will accept it. There are those cotton mills which I
had to take on that debt of Carson's. They have been nothing but a
torment to me for the want of a capable man to look after them. I will
offer the situation to Neil with a salary of two thousand dollars a
year, and ten per cent. of the net profits, and I will let him have,
rent free, the house which Carson occupied, and will furnish it, too,
and have everything in running order when he gets here with his bride.
That I call a right generous offer, but, bless your soul, do you suppose
he will take it?"
And she interrogated the fire, which made no response, except that a
half dead coal dropped into the pan and went out into blackness.
"Of course he won't," she continued, "for that would be doing something!
But we shall see. I will write the letter to-night," and ringing for her
writing materials the old lady began her letter to Neil, telling him
what she would do for him if he chose to come to America and try to help
himself.
"The work is not hard," she wrote. "It requires more thought, and
judgment, and tact, than anything else, but it will bring you in contact
with some very second-class people--_scum_, if you choose to call them
so--and with some of the excellent of the earth as well for all grades
are represented in the mills, and for what I know, the future Governor
of Massachusetts is working there to-day; but if he is, you may be sure
he has a book somewhere around and studies it every chance he gets, for
in this way our best men are made. If you do not choose to take my
offer, I shall do nothing for you, and Bessie will be a fool to marry
one who does not care enough for her to be willing to work and support
her. I have no intention of making her my heir. My will is made, and I
do not often change my mind. Still, I have a fancy for the girl--have
always had a fancy for her, and if you bring her to me on the terms I
offer, you will never be sorry."
This last Miss Betsey wrote because of the desire which kept growing in
her heart as once it had before, to look again in Bessie's face, to hear
her voice, to feel the touch of her hands; and in short, to have some
one to love and be interested in, as something told her she could be
interested in and love Bessie McPherson.
The letter was sent to Neil, and the same mail took another to a
well-known banking house in London with which Miss McPherson had
business relations. To this house she gave instructions that the sum of
one hundred pounds should at once be forwarded to Archibald McPherson,
who was not on any account to know from whom the money came.
When her letters were gone she began again to build castles with regard
to Bessie, whom she was expecting, in spite of her lack of confidence in
Neil's willingness to accept her offer.
In fancy she furnished the large stone house on the cliff above the
mills, which Bessie was to occupy, and furnished it with no sparing
hand. In fancy she climbed the sleep steps every day, and went in and
out with the freedom of a mother, for such she meant to be to the young
couple, both her own blood, and both seeming very near to her now when
there was a chance of their coming to her and dispelling the loneliness
of her monotonous life. But she kept her expectations to herself, not
even telling them to Lucy Grey, or Hannah Jerrold, her most intimate
friends, both of whom noticed a change in her, but did not guess why she
seemed so much more cheerful and happy, or why she was so often in
Worcester, inquiring the prices of china and glassware, and household
furniture generally.
Once she was very near letting it out, and that was when Hannah was
spending the afternoon with her, and said: "I have received a letter
from Grey, who writes that he spent a day at Stoneleigh and saw your
grandniece Bessie."
"What did he think of her?" Miss Betsey asked, and Hannah replied:
"He thought her the loveliest creature he had ever seen. I do believe he
is more than half in love with her, for I never knew him so enthusiastic
over a girl before."
"Yes," Miss McPherson said, and remembering what she knew Grey to be and
what she feared Neil was, she thought, "Oh, if it were Grey and Bessie;"
and that night she dreamed that it was Grey and Bessie, and that she
tore down the house on the cliff, overlooking the mill, and built there
a palace something after the fashion of Chatsworth, except that it was
more modern in its style and general appearance, and many pairs of eyes
like those seen on the terrace at Aberystwyth looked into hers, and many
little hands rubbed holes in her stuff dress, and many little voices
called her grandma the name she bade them give her in place of auntie.