SORROW AND CHANGE
"The Leaves of Memory seem to make a mournful rustling in the
dark."
* * * * *
"We try in the darkness of Sorrow the wings that shall bear us out
of it."
We took leave of the Isle of Man with heavy hearts, and sailed direct
from Douglas to Whitehaven, landing there in the evening of a wet
August day. The town was finely situated, and the wide haven filled
with ships of all kinds. There was even a man-of-war lying at the long
new pier. But the scene was not cheerful; how could it be, after a
steady, soft rain from morning to night? Two officers of the church
met us, and, in a few minutes, we were at the dwelling which was to be
our home for the next three years. It was a handsome-looking house,
and stood midway in a block of similar ones. There was a table laid
for supper in the living-room, but the room itself was a dreary one. I
do not know why, unless it was the want of fire on the hearth, and the
dark-green moreen curtaining. A gray-haired woman served tea, and said
she was ready to stay with us, if so be Mr. and Mrs. Huddleston were
agreeable.
So in a few days the house was in order, and Mother professed to be
much pleased with our new quarters. She pointed out the large size and
number of the rooms, and the quiet of the locality, and, with a
pleasant laugh, said she supposed we were among the aristocrats of
Whitehaven.
"My cousin's curate lives two doors below us," Father said, and then,
for the first time, he spoke of his cousin, Dr. Andrew Huddleston, who
was at that time rector of the parish of Whitehaven, and also had the
living of another parish a few miles distant, both being the
presentation of the Earl of Lonsdale. He said he was a bachelor, of
about fifty years of age, and was seldom in England; his curates
performed his duties for him. But he was in Whitehaven when we arrived
there, for I saw him walking up Duke Street with Father, two or three
days after our arrival. There was a singular resemblance between them,
though Dr. Andrew Huddleston was portly and robust, and dressed in
extreme clerical fashion, while my Father was tall and thin, and
ascetic in appearance, with the slight stoop forward of one used to
looking into things invisible. But the tie was felt and acknowledged;
I knew it by the way they stood with clasped hands a moment or two at
our open door.
There were many other Huddleston families in Whitehaven, all of them
sailors, excepting one fine young man whom the Earl was educating, and
who was painting a portrait of Lonsdale the first time I saw him. It
happened that my father and mother received an invitation to dine at
Captain Thomas Huddleston's. Father said the thing was impossible,
that the company and the conversation alike, would be antagonistic to
his office, and his personal feelings; and the kindness which was
intended, would be turned into offence. So I was sent with a note of
regrets, and orders to make myself as agreeable as possible.
The latter injunction was easy to obey. I found that Captain
Huddleston's family consisted of his mother, and sister, and the youth
I have mentioned, who was the grandson of Captain Huddleston. Their
house was a large one, in a queer court close to the waters of the
harbor, and the big low rooms looked like museums; for it seemed as if
every rare and lovely thing from strange lands and strange seas were
there; and the footstool of the old lady was a living tortoise of
great size, which had an inscription on its shell, showing it to be
nearly ninety years old.
The old lady was dressed in a gown of gay colors, open very low in
front, and filled in with clear-starched muslin. Her apron was of
black silk, trimmed with black Spanish lace, and she had a cap of
white Spanish lace on her plentiful white hair, and a very long gold
chain around her neck. Her knitting lay on the table beside her, but
she was adding up a bill as I entered the room, and though she looked
at me, she did not speak until the total was satisfactorily reached.
With this family I became familiar, and I wish I had space to say more
about them. I spent much time in their company, and liked nothing
better; especially when young Tom Huddleston, a midshipman on _The
Royal George_, came home. This handsome young sailor was my first
dream of a lover. I cried when he went away, and was not comforted by
his promise to bring me "lots of lace from Malta." Poor lad! He never
came home, but died in the West Indies of yellow fever.
There was really a little sailor settlement around Captain Tom's home,
and I was soon welcome in it, a strange, happy-go-lucky company, full
of sharp transitions; for in their lives they knew not what a day or
an hour might bring forth. However unexpectedly my visits were made, I
was sure to find some gathering rejoicing over the return of a husband
or son, or perhaps mourning over his detention or death. And among
people so affectionate and emotional it was easy for me to rejoice
with those who did rejoice, and to weep with those who wept. They did
not attract Jane; they were too extravagant and reckless, and Jane
liked everything done decently and in order.
Perhaps this sailor society prevented me from making as high an
estimate of the Reverend William Morley Punshon as I ought to have
done. He came a great deal to our home, and used to recite for our
entertainment fine examples of prose and poetry from the great
writers. As long as John was able to bear it, he frequently read
aloud, and I considered him an extraordinarily clever man. And, if one
looked only at his fine eyes and forehead, he was also a very handsome
man. I am sure all the religious young women in Whitehaven thought so,
and he was much praised and courted, the chapel being crowded whenever
he preached. Young ladies wore white veils then, and I used to watch
them from the organ loft coming into the chapel, and compare them to
an army with white banners; for I played the organ, which was
immediately behind the pulpit, so that everything was before my
vision.
During the Christmas holidays of this year, 1844, my brother Henry was
born. We welcomed him as a gift and a compensation, and the shadow of
suffering and death passed gradually away. After the holidays I went
to a fashionable school kept by Miss Penelope Flinders. I only
remained there three months, and, as far as study was concerned, they
were of little service to me; for Miss Flinders had a lawsuit in
progress at this time, and she made me her confidant, and discussed
endlessly the pros and cons with me. I was very sorry for her, and
feverishly anxious that she might succeed. She told me that her lover
had been prevented from marrying her by the bitter opposition of his
mother; that he had left England in consequence, and, when dying in
India had made a will, leaving every shilling of his wealth to her.
The mother was fighting the carrying out of this will, and Miss
Flinders could not sleep or eat, and how, then, could she teach
pending the court's verdict? One morning I went to school a little
late, and found the class rooms empty. The school had been dismissed
forever. She had won her case. I sat and talked with her a long time,
and she told me she would never teach another hour, for she had now
five thousand pounds a year to be happy with.
I went to no other school, but I read a great deal, and kept up the
practice of my music and drawing. There was a good public library, and
there was my father's library, and the public one suited me best now;
for I wanted Scott, Dickens and Thackeray, and I also read many novels
by Mrs. Gore, a writer nearly forgotten, but whose pictures of the
lives led by the highest society of that day were interesting and
instructive. One day Mr. Punshon was sitting in our parlor when I came
in with my hands full of books. He looked at them and asked, "Does
your father know, Amelia?" I answered, "No, but Mother does. She says
it is right. We do not trouble Father about little things. He is not
very well lately."
"Amelia," he continued, "I want some books out of the library, but I
do not like to go for them."
"Novels?" I asked.
"Yes," he answered.
"I will get them for you. I am sorry for people who want novels, and
do not feel able to ask for them."
He said something about his position, and my father not liking him to
go to a public library for novels, and I understood the situation. I
wonder now why I did not fall in love with him. He could be so
charming, and I certainly thought his recitations marvelous, and his
own poetry full of genius. But I liked Tom Huddleston in his open
collar, and sailor jacket, with a sailor's song on his lips, far
better. Once I wondered about it to Jane, and she looked at me
incredulously, if not scornfully, as she answered, "The idea of being
in love with Mr. Punshon!"
"Why not?" I demanded.
"For one thing, Milly, he does not wear straps." Gentlemen at that
time wore their trousers strapped down under their feet. "His trousers
are sloppy, and he looks quite common."
"He is handsome," I returned, "and he has fine eyes, and beautiful
brown hair; it is curly, too."
"I dare say he puts it in papers every night. Miss Annie Townley
thinks so. But if he was ten times as handsome, I would not marry him.
He is a Wesleyan preacher, and could never give his wife a home of her
own. I hate living in a Chapel House."
Under conditions and surroundings like these, our lives went on. John
was dying daily, and Mother was very anxious about Father, who seemed
possessed by a never ceasing passion for preaching. It appeared to
her, that he worked and preached as if he feared he would not have
time to say all he wanted to say. The "sensations" of which he had
complained at intervals, grew more frequent, and in the autumn of our
second year in Whitehaven, he partially lost the use of his right
hand. Then I wrote his letters and sermons as he dictated them to me.
But, oh, how it pained him! I could not bear to see the sorrow in his
eyes, and what was coming he knew not; for the doom that walks by our
side from the cradle to the grave, never warns us. At this time of my
life my thoughts turn to his memory with a great tenderness. His heart
was then given to all humanity, his soul was all God's, and his life
but a flesh and blood conductor of eternal spirit.
At the close of the second year, John died after great suffering, and
he was laid among his kindred in a small cemetery in Charles Street.
As a burial ground it was no longer used, except by the families who
had originated it more than one hundred years previously. It was a
neglected enclosure, over-grown with tall grasses and rank weeds, and
surrounded by the decaying untidy houses of poverty. A more dreary,
ghastly place I never saw, and my heart ached for the little lad laid
there. I was thankful my mother was too ill to go to the mournful
service, but Father was consoled by the fact, that he was among his
kindred; and it seemed to me, there was no one but Huddlestons buried
there. Every stone I read was in memoriam of a Huddleston, and always
that same persistence of the name "Henry."
Not more than a month afterwards, our baby Henry was laid beside his
brother in the desolate place. I have no heart to write of his death.
He was taken in the midst of health, and went laughing to seize the
bowl of boiling milk, from which he drank a cruel death. It is better
to be silent about such calamities; at the time we were all dumb with
grief. Yet it was an accident, and accident is always God's part in
any event; so to this knowledge we bowed our hearts in submission.
There is a difference, however, in silence. Mother's quiet was full of
heavenly hope and trust; Father's speechless, tearless grief, was
almost despair, and many times afterward, I heard Mother rejoice over
a trouble treading close upon Henry's death, because it roused the
physical man to wrath, and broke up the spiritual torpor into which
Father had fallen.
This trouble came in a letter, which was handed into the parlor where
we were together one afternoon three weeks after Henry's death. Mother
and Jane were sewing. I was copying music--a song of Balfe's, I
believe, and father was walking up and down--up and down the room. All
was so still I could hear the ashes dropping from the grate to the
hearth. Then came the postman's knock, and the delivery of the letter
to Father.
He read it without a word, growing every moment grayer and more angry.
As he finished, he slowly tore the paper into fragments, his passion
growing with every movement of his hands, and stamping on them, gave
way to an inconceivable rage, accompanied by words that shocked and
terrified us. It was not Father, it was some madman who had taken
possession of him. Mother went to him, put her hands on his
shoulders, and said softly, "William! William!"
"Mary! Forgive me!" he cried. "You see now, what I have to struggle
against. Every day I have this temper to fight; it will conquer me
some time, and then I shall be lost--but this trouble is my own fault.
You have warned me, and I would not listen to you. Yes, I have been
warned twice by dreams I understood, but would not obey. If I could
suffer alone! If I could suffer alone, I would not care. It is my
great punishment. You and the children must suffer with me."
"What punishment? What has happened, William?" asked Mother.
"I have lost every shilling. That scoundrel Philip Blackpool has gone
to Australia with my money, a month ago."
"My dear, we can live without it."
"We cannot live without it, Mary," he answered. "What is the good of
talking nonsense?"
Then Mother was silent. She sat down and lifted her work, Jane
followed her example, and I went on copying my song, while from the
next room came the faint sounds of Alethia and Mary playing. Before
our silence and assumed indifference his anger waned; he said again,
"Forgive me, Mary! I will go to my study now, and come down when I am
better. Disturb me for nothing."
Mother was wretched. She put down her work, and I went to her. "What
does Father mean?" I asked.
"He means that we shall now be poor, Milly. This money stolen from him
was the best part of our living. I do not know how much it was, for he
never told me the amount, and often I have advised him to put it in
some reputable bank. But Philip Blackpool was his friend, at least he
supposed so. I have always doubted it. We must send away one servant
to-morrow; we shall have to do with much less new clothing, and many
good things that we have thought necessary, we must learn to do
without. Great changes will have to be made; my dear girls, let us
make them cheerfully."
Then I spoke to Mother about turning my education into money, and she
was pleased with my readiness. "Father is ill," she said, "and I fear
he will not be able to preach much longer. I have thought of these
things often," she continued, "and wondered how we were to live, when
he had only his retiring income, and this idea has come to me--that if
we knew how to conduct a small ladies' boarding-school, it might
suffice. Jane and I could look after the house and children, and you,
Milly, could, with the help of teachers, conduct the school. Of course
you would have to be trained for such a task."
We were all pleased with this idea, and discussed it over our tea, in
which Father did not join us. Then it appeared that this school
project was an old thought with Mother. She asked us if we remembered
a certain Miss Sarah Berners who stayed a week with us when we were in
Penrith, adding, "She was my friend through all the years in which I
was at school, and we used to talk of starting a school together, and
being independent of our stepmothers; for we both had stepmothers, and
not very kind ones--but I married, you know."
"Yes," said Jane, "and what did Miss Berners do?"
"She opened a school at Downham Market, Norfolk, fifteen years ago,
and has done well. Suppose, Milly, you went to her for a year, and
learned how to manage a school."
I answered, "I would like to do so, Mother. I would like it very
much."
So Mother wrote to Miss Berners, and received a glad consent to her
wish. I was to go as second teacher, and assist in the music, drawing
and English classes; and she promised to give me twenty-five pounds a
year with my board and lodging, and the opportunity to study the
French language if I wished, as I would room with Miss Stromberg, a
Russian, who spoke it, and nearly every other European language,
perfectly.
When this news came, Father was told of our plans. There was some
opposition, but not much, and I began with a hopeful heart to prepare
for the change before me. This event appeared to break up the storm of
sorrow and ill fortune which had assailed us. We had feared Father's
next appointment lest it should be some large manufacturing city,
demanding more strength than he had to give, but when it came, it was
to Kendal. Nothing could have been better. It was my mother's
birthplace; she had many friends there, and my father was a great
favorite with Kendal Methodists; and there was a pleasant preacher's
house in a pretty garden, surrounded by poplar trees.
It was a joyful removal. We bid farewell to the little graves we
had to leave behind us, and then turned our faces, as it were,
homeward. And as I was not wanted in Norfolk, until early in
September, I went to Kendal with my family, and helped to settle them
in their new home. I was very happy in my own prospects. I had no
fears, and I had a great many hopes and pleasant expectations. My
life was yet to me like a book of uncut leaves. I had finished the
preface, and the first chapter was to open in Norfolk. I put
behind me all past sorrows, and was just an eager girl leaning
over the narrow rim of my small world, and gladly anticipating the
wide, wide world into which I was going. And I was made strangely
happy, because on the night before I left home, when I lifted the
little red Bible that lay upon my dressing-table, my eyes lighted
on this verse, "Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called
thee by thy name; thou art mine." (Isaiah, 43:1.)