HOPE MILLS;
OR,
BETWEEN FRIEND AND SWEETHEART.
BY
AMANDA M. DOUGLAS,
AUTHOR OF "FROM HAND TO MOUTH," "NELLY KINNARD'S KINGDOM," "IN TRUST,"
&C., &C.
"Abou spake more low,
But cheerly still; and said, 'I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.'"
LEIGH HUNT.
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM.
THE DOUGLAS NOVELS.
OSBORNE OF ARROCHAR.
A MODERN ADAM AND EVE IN A GARDEN.
THE FORTUNES OF THE FARADAYS.
FOES OF HER HOUSEHOLD.
A WOMAN'S INHERITANCE.
CLAUDIA.
FLOYD GRANDON'S HONOR.
FROM HAND TO MOUTH.
HOME NOOK.
HOPE MILLS.
IN TRUST.
LOST IN A GREAT CITY.
NELLIE KINNARD'S KINGDOM.
OUT OF THE WRECK.
SEVEN DAUGHTERS.
STEPHEN DANE.
SYDNIE ADRIANCE.
THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE.
WHOM KATHIE MARRIED.
* * * * *
PRICE PER VOL., $1.50.
* * * * *
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS,
BOSTON.
COPYRIGHT, 1879,
BY LEE AND SHEPARD.
_All rights reserved._
TO
HON. MARCUS L. WARD,
As a Tribute
TO ONE WHO HAS HELD LOYALLY TO GOD AND HIS FELLOW-MEN,
WHO HAS LABORED IN THE NOBLE CAUSE OF HUMANITY,
NOT DISHEARTENED WHEN RESULTS WERE INFREQUENT,
BUT CONTENT TO REAP THE REWARD
IN THE GREAT HEREAFTER.
BETWEEN FRIEND AND SWEETHEART.
CHAPTER I.
"THERE is Fred again with his arm around Jack Darcy's neck. I declare,
they are worse than two romantic schoolgirls. I am so thankful Fred goes
away to-morrow for a year! and I do hope by that time he will have
outgrown that wretched, commonplace youth. Mother, it is very fortunate
that Jack is the sole scion of the Darcy line; for, if there were a
daughter, you would no doubt be called upon to receive her into the
bosom of the family."
"Which I never should do," remarked quiet, aristocratic Mrs. Lawrence,
not even raising her eyes from her book.
"Not for the sake of your only son?" continued Agatha, with an
irritating laugh.
"Don't be silly, Agatha," returned the mother, with an indifference that
took off the point of the query.
Her second sister glanced up from a bit of pencil-drawing, then lowered
her eyes to the street where the boy friends stood, one with his arm
over the other's shoulder.
"Think of a Harvard graduate arm-in-arm with--well, a mill-hand! No
doubt Jack's father will put him in the mill. I cannot see any sense in
a boy of that class taking two years at the academy."
On the opposite side of the room were two girls, hardly more than
children, busily engaged in ornamenting a box with transfer-pictures.
One had a rather haughty mien, as became a Lawrence; the other, pretty,
piquant little Sylvie Barry, looked toward the elders, knit her brow,
with both thought and indignation visible in its lines, and held her
picture absently in her hand.
"Why do you listen to that?" asked Irene Lawrence disdainfully. "It is
only Jack Darcy, and he's nobody. His father works in the mill."
"I know that!" was Sylvie's rather sharp retort, answering the latter
part of the sentence merely. Child as she was, she experienced a strong
desire to do battle, not only for Jack, but for some puzzling cause she
could not quite comprehend. With the blood of a French duke in her
veins, of soldiers and martyrs as well, she was a sturdy little
democrat. It seemed cowardly not to take up arms.
"That butterfly is to go next," remarked Irene, reaching out for it; and
Sylvie held her peace, though she felt the warm blood burning in her
cheeks.
Jack Darcy did not need any champion within doors; for Fred stood up
bravely against these three girls, and from them received his first
impression that women were small of soul and narrow of mind. As they
stood by the gate now, this last hour grudged to them, neither dreamed
that this was the final canto in the poem of boyhood. They had been fast
friends since the first day pale, puny Fred made his appearance in
school, and was both laughed at and bullied by some boys larger in size,
but younger in years.
"He will have to get the nonsense rubbed out of him some time," thought
Jack; "and it can never be younger." But, when the contest degenerated
into the force of the strong against the weak, one blow of Jack's fist
sent Brown reeling and howling.
"Try a fellow of your own size next time," was Jack's pithy advice.
Fred came to him, and cried hysterically in his arms. Jack had
experienced the same feeling for some poor rescued kitten. Fred, with
his head full of King Arthur and his knights, mythology, and bits of
children's histories, wherein figured heroes and soldiers, elected Jack
to the highest niche in his regard.
Jack Darcy was a wonderful boy withal, a very prince of boys, who hated
study and work, and loved play; who despised Sunday clothes and girls'
parties; but who had not his equal for spinning a top, or raising a
kite, and when it came to leap-frog, or short stop, he was simply
immense. Then he always knew the best places to dig worms, and the
little nooks where fish were sure to bite, the best chestnut and walnut
trees; and, with years and experience, he excelled in baseball, skating,
wrestling, leaping, and rowing. Jack Darcy was no dunce, either. Only
one subject extinguished him entirely, and that was composition. Under
its malign influence he sank to the level of any other boy. And here
Fred shone pre-eminently, kindly casting his mantle over his
friend,--further, sometimes, than a conscientious charity would have
admitted; but a boy's conscience is quite as susceptible of a bias as
that of older and wiser people. On the other hand, Jack wrestled
manfully with many a tough problem on which Fred would have been
hopelessly stranded. Once rouse the belligerent impulse in Jack, and he
would fight his way through.
These two were at different ends of the social plane. Fred's father was
the great man of Yerbury, the present owner of Hope Mills; not only
rich, but living in luxury. He had married Miss Agatha Hope, and by the
death of her two brothers she had become sole heir to the Hope estate:
though it was whispered that her brothers had left a heavy legacy of
debts behind them. There was family on the Lawrence side as well, but
not much money. David Lawrence had prospered beyond his wildest dreams.
He had twice been mayor of Yerbury, gone to the State Legislature, and
been spoken of as a possible senator; but he did not sigh for political
distinction.
Agatha was their first-born; then Frederic De Woolfe, named for some
Hope ancestor. Two girls afterward; but Fred remained the only son. He
was a delicate boy, and, until he reached the age of ten, studied with
his sisters' governess, when he rebelled, and insisted upon his boy's
prerogative of going to school. Here he met and loved Jack Darcy.
Jack was a few months the elder,--a stout, hardy, robust boy, full of
mischief, falling into scrapes, and slipping out easily. Not vicious or
ugly; in fact, he had thrashed Ned Thomas for robbing birds' nests, been
known to rescue a miserable kitten from its tormentors, and was always
bringing home sore-eyed, mangy curs to be nursed and healed. If he had
cared, he could have boasted as good a pedigree as the Hopes and the
Lawrences. For his grandmother was of pure old French Jacobin descent,
titled too. Many a wild romance and adventure had her family figured
in,--now on the top round of prosperity, now in bitter poverty and
exile. At the age of eighteen she was living on the western coast of
Ireland with her old father, when she fell in love with handsome Jack
Darcy, whose persuasive blue eyes were enough to melt the heart of the
most obdurate woman; the merriest, wittiest, best-tempered lad for miles
around, the owner of a small farm and numberless family traditions that
counted back to the time when
"Malachi wore the collar of gold,
He won from the proud invader."
For a while they were prosperous and happy: then came bad seasons,
famine, and finally typhus. Two bright, handsome sons and a little
daughter were victims, leaving only baby Bernard. They came to the New
World, and began life again, managing thriftily, and buying a house and
garden in the quaint old town of Yerbury. Mr. Darcy died; and his son
grew to man's estate, settled to the business of carpenter and builder
(as he possessed a good deal of mechanical skill), married a pretty,
delicate girl, but did not seem to make of life a signal success. Still
it is possible that a life of happiness and content may have its use in
this world, if it does not serve to point a prosperous moral.
He added a wing to the house, he raised fruit and flowers that were
marvels. Grandmother preferred for several years to keep house by
herself, raise chickens and geese, and keep putting by a little of her
very own. They had a choice garden and a soft-eyed Alderney cow, but
Bernard Darcy had surely missed his vocation. He should have been a
scientific farmer.
Baby Jack came to them. He certainly had not inherited the beauty of the
Darcys nor the Beaumanoirs, not even the delicacy of his mother. The
eyes of Irish blue were tinged with gray, his hair inclined to the
warmer tints of chestnut, and now he always kept the curls cropped
short. However, his magnificently shaped head was not disfigured by the
process. He did get terribly freckled and tanned as warm weather came
on, and the hair turned almost red by much bathing and sunshine. A
striking contrast indeed to the handsome, well-dressed Frederic.
When Fred went to the academy he pleaded for Jack to go, and Grandmother
Darcy decided that he should. She had never taken kindly to her son's
rather plebeian occupation. After several years of indifferent success,
Mr. Darcy had accepted a position at the mill, in which, if there was
not so much profit, there were no losses.
Jack was not a student in an intellectual point of view. He did not
care to be a doctor, lawyer, or clergyman, and certainly not a
professor. He would have liked to pack a satchel, and start westward,
prospect for a railroad, gold or silver mine, and live the rugged,
unconventional camp-life. Once he had ventured to suggest this noble
ambition; but his timid mother was startled out of her wits, and his
grandmother said with a sage shake of the head,--
"A rolling stone gathers no moss."
"Grandmother," began Jack argumentatively, "of what real value is the
moss to the stone, except in the picturesque aspect? Do you know that a
great many of these time revered and honored adages are the greatest
humbugs in the world?" asked the audacious young iconoclast. "Who wants
to be a stone or a clod, or even a bit of velvet moss? They go to make
up the world, it is true; but is that narrow, torpid, insensate life any
pattern for human souls and active bodies? I think a man's business in
this world is to find out new channels, to build up, to broaden and
deepen, and somehow to make the world feel that he has been in it. I
can't just explain,"--and his brows knit into a puzzled frown,--"but it
seems to me there is something grander than plodding along and saving a
little money."
"No doubt you would be glad enough to have the money, when you have gone
off like the prodigal son, and wasted health and substance in foreign
lands," said grandmother with some asperity.
Jack had been brought up to reverence the Bible and religion, and to
respect his grandmother was the first article in his creed. He relapsed
into silence, but the busy brain kept up a vigorous ferment. What was
life all about, anyhow? Why did people come into the world, live thirty,
sixty, or even eighty years, and then drop out of it. Was it merely to
eat, drink, and sleep?
The wider lore at the academy had a peculiar effect upon Jack, tangled
his brain, begat confusing mental processes. Greek he hated; Latin he
barely endured; chemistry and mineralogy interested him, and in
mathematics he excelled. Fred carried every thing before him, graduated
with honors, and was to enter Harvard. The Lawrences went to Newport,
and Jack missed his bosom friend sorely. He rambled through the woods,
read every thing that came in his way, and thought a good deal in his
crude, undisciplined fashion.
What was he to do with this tough problem of unknown quantities?
He ventured at last to broach the subject to his father.
Bernard Darcy studied his son gravely. Now, it must be considered that
he had never been troubled with this hungry, perplexing view of life
that urges one on to dip deep into the secrets of existence. To have a
pretty house and garden, to watch his flowers, vegetables, and chickens
grow, to dream over his books in his cosey sitting-room, not to be
pinched for money, not to be anxious about employment, but to go on
serenely day after day,--this was Mr. Darcy's idea of happiness; and,
having this, he was perfectly content.
His mother secretly chafed at his lack of ambition; his neighbors said,
"A good, honest fellow, but with no 'push' in him." Curiously enough,
the virtues that are preached from pulpits Sunday after Sunday, that we
are always recommending to our friends, are _not_ the ones that gain any
vast amount of credit in this life. "Be content! be content!" cries
every one, from revelation downward; yet content, pure and simple, is
rather despised and flouted by our fellow-men.
"I don't know, Jack," said the elder, gravely shaking his head with slow
dubiousness. "What would you do if you were once away?"
"I'd go on until I found some place into which I just fitted;" and the
boy glanced over westward with hungering eyes.
"But, Jack," said his father, after a pause, "I think people oftener fit
themselves into a place. There are so few places ready made to one's
hand. It's always something. Now, I'll venture to say that David
Lawrence, with all his money, doesn't see as much real happiness as I
do. His is a slave's life, after all. It's day and night, bills to pay
and stock to get, dissatisfied hands, poor hands spoiling work, losses
here and there, little leisure, small peace of mind; and all for what?
There was a time when I might have envied him: I don't now."
Jack had lost all but the first two sentences.
"That's the thing!" he cried, with boyish enthusiasm,--"fitting
yourself; coming to something that takes hold of you like an
inspiration; that you could work for, fight for, that rouses soul and
body."
Bernard Darcy studied the youthful face, eager, alert, hopeful, and with
something else in it that he could not understand.
"I never had any such dreams or desires," he said in an uncertain tone,
as if fearful he might lose his way among his son's vagaries. "I wanted
a pleasant home, and a loving wife and children. I wish there had been
more of them, Jack, for your sake," and his voice took on a tender
inflection. "Then, if one wanted to go away, there would have been
others left. You see, Jack, mother's heart is bound up in you, and she's
getting to be an old woman with but few ties. I might manage to comfort
your own mother; but you are so young, Jack. There will be many years
before you, doubtless; and if you could give a few to us," with a
wistful, loving look. "Now, if you wanted to study"--
"But I don't," in a hasty, husky tone. "I believe I hate quiet. I want
life, adventure! I've staid in school this last year just to please
Larry."
"Have a little patience, Jack. Old people are not like young ones. They
feel the changes keenly. And you are all we have. It would take the
sunshine out of our lives. It would seem as if there had been a
funeral."
"Yes," said Jack with meek hopelessness that one would hardly look for
in a vigorous boy; and winking hard to keep back some tears. No logical
argument, no stricture of duty, could have half the weight of this bit
of love pleading. Father was right. God had made him a son first of all,
given him a son's duties. Jack had never troubled his head much about
religion in any theological sense; but his simple creed had some great
if old-fashioned truths in it.
"If there's any thing you would like to do, I'd be glad to give you a
chance. And there's no need to hurry. You may come to the right thing
presently."
Jack swallowed over a great lump in his throat. The two kittens came
scampering up the walk, and he caught one, lifting it to his shoulder.
Then Sylvie Barry entered the gate with her dainty milk-kettle shining
like silver.
They were in a manner neighbors, for Larch Avenue was the next street to
Maple Place. Both streets were now given over to what is termed decayed
gentility. The larches were old and ragged and brown with clustering
cones, and the blue blood of the denizens had grown a little sluggish.
Miss Honoria Barry and her small niece lived together, with a tall and
gaunt handmaiden Norman French, and a broad Yorkshire gardener. Miss
Barry was the old cream of Yerbury. Here her family had lived since the
Huguenot persecution, and dwindled finally to two. Louis Barry was a
dissipated spendthrift. He married, and tormented his wife into an early
grave, and might have worn out his sister, but Providence kindly removed
him. Miss Honoria retrenched, paid off debts and mortgage by degrees,
and brought up Sylvie in a quaint, refined, old-world fashion.
Old Mrs. Darcy and Miss Barry exchanged formal calls, and discussed la
belle France. Sylvie took great delight in listening to grandmother's
stories of brave heroes and handsome women who figured in old legends.
Oddly enough, one of the many points of agreement between Jack and Fred
had been their aversion to girls in general. Fred judged them from his
sisters, who were always nagging, always exhorting him to be a
gentleman, and always holding up Jack Darcy to ridicule. Jack, on the
other hand, had a bashful fear of girls, and fancied they were laughing
at every little awkwardness; then they cried so easily, went off in a
huff if they could not have their own way, were silly, vain, and
tattling, ready enough to beg your assistance if there was a munching
cow by the roadside, a worm swinging from a tree, or a harmless mouse
running across the floor. The great fascination to the Darcy house was,
that the boys could sit in the large, clean kitchen, trying all sorts of
crude experiments, with Ann to clear away the _débris_ and find no
fault. Jack never wanted to go to the great house. In true boy fashion
he understood without any explanation. But they both liked little
Sylvie. She was taught at home except in music and drawing, and she was
as much interested in grandmother's heroes as the two boys.
On the other hand, the Hopes and the Barrys had always been great
friends; and, from some odd freak of unlikeness, Sylvie and Irene
Lawrence carried on the intimacy.
She stopped now, and talked about the kitten with Jack; and he carried
her milk-pail home to the gate.
It was a long, wearisome vacation to poor Jack. Fishing lost its charm,
even tramps in the woods became monotonous. He spent hours in his
father's shop, inspecting machinery, though he seldom asked a question
or ventured upon a remark. Indeed, some of the hands thought "Darcy's
boy wasn't over-bright." Yet here he laid the foundation of the problem
that was to vex and puzzle his soul in after-years. Here was the great,
whirring machinery, belts, bands, spindles, looms, and oftentimes a
stupid and stolid enough workman at one end, grinding out luxury and
elegance for David Lawrence, Esq.; that his family might tread on Wilton
and Axminster, dine from silver and crystal, dress in silks and velvets,
drive about with high-stepping bays, and scorn all beneath them. Once as
Jack was thinking it over he laughed aloud.
"You must feel very much amused," said a rather sour-looking man
standing near by, with a peculiar touchiness as if he had been laughed
at.
"No, I wasn't amused, I was only thinking"-- But Jack stopped in the
middle of his sentence. Could _this_ man take any such position as that
of Mr. Lawrence?
Then he came across a volume of self-made men, which he eagerly
devoured. Every one seemed to have commenced life without a dollar, and
almost without friends. Were those the important factors in the race, to
be light-weighted? And he had a triple chain.
Fred returned, handsomer than ever, and doubly glad to get back to Jack.
There was just four days grace. They revisited old haunts, talked
endlessly and to little purpose, like so much of the talk of youth, and
now they were parting at the gate for the last time. Unlike girls they
exchanged no vows or kisses. It is not in boy-nature to be effusive.
"To think that I shall not be home until Christmas! If only you _were_
going with me, Jack, what jolly times we would have!"
"I could have gone," answered Jack with some pride, "that is, if I had
been prepared. Father was willing, and grandmother would have been proud
enough;" and just then Jack wondered why going to seek his fortune
appeared so much more terrible to them.
"Well, why not, Jack?" with impetuous eagerness. "It isn't too late."
"I don't want the years of study. I should come to hate the sight of a
book. No, I'll find out where I belong, some day. Don't worry about me,"
with an abrupt laugh.
"But I am so sorry!" Then they looked into each other's eyes. All these
years had been filled with such good, honest boy-love.
"Good-by, old chap!" cried Jack suddenly; for the wrench must come, and
lingering over it was painful. "I shall miss you lots! it seems so queer
to be without you! Of course you'll succeed: there's no use wishing
about that."
"It's a good wish from you, Jack. Good-by. I hate awfully to say it: I
hate to think that our jolly boyish frolics are over."
"But we'll have many a good row on the river, and tramps through the
woods. We can't outgrow every thing. And there'll be summers and
summers."
"Good-by."
The gate-latch clicked: Jack walked rapidly down the street, whistling
"Kathleen Mavourneen" unconsciously. Did he dream the simple faith of
boyhood had reached its culmination, and was henceforth to wane?
"Dear old Jack," thought Fred: "I don't know as he is quite Launcelot,
though I used to think so at first. But there was Sir Gawain and Sir
Bedevere and a host of worthies, and if he only _would_ he could come up
to the highest. What makes him so obstinate and unambitious, I wonder?
Are there any King Arthurs and loyal knights nowadays, or only common
men and women?"
His sisters opened upon him with the fatal persistency of narrow
feminine natures.
"You may say what you like about Jack Darcy," he flung out angrily, "but
you'll never make me give him up,--never, never!"
"Do hush, children," interposed Mrs. Lawrence. "Fred, I hope you will
learn to modulate your voice, and not shriek so."
Sylvie put on her hat to go home. As she passed Fred she said just above
her breath,--
"You are right and brave. I wouldn't give up my friend because he was
poor; and Jack is so nice!"
"Much she knows about it," thought Fred, with a true boyish disdain. Yet
her approval of Jack was a virtue in his eyes.