A PAGE OF ANCIENT HISTORY
Before we can bring happiness to others, we must first be happy
ourselves; nor will happiness abide within us unless we confer it on
others.--MAETERLINCK.
During the preceding hour or two Malcolm's face had worn its brightest
and most youthful aspect--the society of Cedric had roused him and
taken him out of himself; but as he approached the handsome and
imposing-looking house where his mother lived, his countenance resumed
its normal gravity.
To him it had been a house of bondage, and he had never regarded it as
a home; his environment from boyhood had not suited him, and though he
loved his mother, and gave her, at least outwardly, the obedience and
honour that were due to her, there had not been that sympathy between
them that one would have expected from an only son to a widowed mother.
Malcolm's father had died when he was about six years old, but his
infant recollections of him were wonderfully vivid. He remembered
waking up one night from some childish dream that had frightened him,
to see a kind face bending over him, and to feel warm, strong arms
lifting him up.
"Never mind, Sonny, father's with you," he heard a cheery voice say.
"Daddy's wid baby," he repeated drowsily, as he nestled down in his
father's arms. "Nice, nice daddy," and two hot little hands patted his
face.
Then a voice in the distance said, "You are spoiling him, Rupert.
Malcolm ought to be a brave boy and not cry on account of a silly
dream." Of course it was his mother who spoke; even from his infancy
her method of education had been bracing. "Baby isn't a boy, movver,"
he had once said in extenuation of some childish fault; "movver must
not punish Baby."
The memories of early childhood are always vague and hazy; but in the
distance, among shifting forms and changing prospects, there was always
a big, big figure, with kind eyes and strong arms, looming largely in
his recollection.
"If my father had lived, I know we should have been such friends,"
Malcolm would sigh to himself in his growing youth; and though his
mother never suspected it, he often looked at his father's portrait
that hung in her dressing-room, until his eyes were full of tears. "If
father had lived, I shouldn't have been so lonely and out of it all,"
he would say as he turned away with a quivering lip.
Mrs. Herrick tried to do her duty by the boy; but she was a busy woman,
and had no leisure to devote to his amusement. The long holidays were
more pleasant in anticipation to both mother and son than they proved
in reality.
In the working hive at 27 Queen's Gate there seemed no place for the
restless, growing lad. His mother was always shut up in the library,
where she wrote her endless letters and reports and added up her
accounts, and Anna was with her governess.
Malcolm would be put in Anderson's charge, the steady, reliable butler
and factotum, and introduced to all the sights of London--Westminster
Abbey and St. Paul's, the Tower, and the British Museum, the Zoological
Gardens, and Madame Tussaud's. Sometimes they went to Kew, or Richmond
Park, or took the steamer to Hampton Court. The nearest approach to
dissipation was an afternoon spent with the Christy Minstrels. Mrs.
Herrick would not hear of the theatre; but once, sad to relate, when
Anderson was indisposed, and the footman, a rather feeble-minded young
man, had been sent with Malcolm to see a panorama that was considered
interesting and instructing, Malcolm, by sundry bribes and many
blandishments, had seduced his guardian into accompanying him to Drury
Lane, where they sat in the pit, side by side, and watched with
breathless interest the never-to-be-forgotten pantomime of "Jack and
the Bean Stalk."
"They'll run you in for this, Master Malcolm," Charles had observed
ruefully, as they hurried through the dark streets. "If I lose my place
it will be all along of you, and it is a good place too, though Mr.
Anderson is a bit down on one." But, strange to say, they escaped
scot-free. Mrs. Herrick had not returned from a monster meeting at St.
James's Hall, and Anderson had retired to bed to nurse his cold.
Malcolm confided the whole story of his escapade to Anna, and she had
wept with grief and dismay. "Oh, Mally, how wicked of Charles to take
you!" she sobbed. "I never did think he looked quite good. Mother would
be so angry and unhappy if she knew; she says theatres are not good for
young people."
"It is just a crank on mother's part," returned Malcolm loudly; his
eyes were bright with excitement. "It was the loveliest thing you ever
saw, Anna. The princess was a beauty, and no mistake; even Charles
thought so, and he has seen princesses by the score. I am glad I went;
the boys won't think me such a duffer when I tell them. Don't shake
your head, Anna; you are a girl, and you don't understand how much one
has to put up with from the fellows. They call me the Puritan, and ask
if I wear pinafores at home. But I stopped that," and here Malcolm
doubled up his fists in a singularly suggestive manner.
Malcolm's only sister, a pretty, fair-haired girl, had died of fever
when she was eight years old, and for years Mrs. Herrick had felt her
loss too deeply to mention her name. "If Florence had lived," she once
said rather bitterly to her son, "she would have been my close
companion, and we should have thought alike on all points;" but it may
be doubted if this maternal dream would ever have been realised.
A mere accident had led to the adoption of Anna Sheldon shortly after
Florence's death. She was the orphan child of a young artist in whom
Mrs. Herrick had interested herself, and when the broken-hearted wife
had followed her husband, Mrs. Herrick had taken the lonely child home.
The kind action had brought its own reward. Anna's gentleness and
sweetness of disposition soon won the affection of her adopted mother.
She was submissive by nature, and yielded readily to the opinions and
wishes of those she loved. Mrs. Herrick's ideas on the subject of
education might be bracing and invigorating, but there was nothing
oppressive in her rule. Perhaps she understood girls better than boys,
for Anna thrived under her system. The old nurse Mrs. Dawson, who still
officiated as Mrs. Herrick's personal attendant, taught her
needle-work: an excellent governess, who was both judicious and
reasonable, presided over the schoolroom and accompanied her in her
walks; nor was she entirely without companions, for she attended
dancing and deportment classes with the young daughters of their vicar,
a much-esteemed guide, philosopher, and friend to the Herrick family.
Until the governess, Miss Greenwood, left them to be married, and Anna
grew up to woman's estate, her life was as happy as most girls'. The
chief events in it were Malcolm's holidays. Anna looked forward to them
for months beforehand, and she always cried herself to sleep the day he
left.
She and her adopted mother were the best of friends. Anna regarded Mrs.
Herrick as one of the noblest of women, and her dutiful submission and
anxiety to please her benefactress secretly surprised Malcolm.
Mrs. Herrick was not a demonstrative woman, but in her own way she was
very good to Anna; she encouraged her to call her mother, bought her
pretty dresses and ornaments such as girls loved, but there Anna's list
of privileges was at an end. It never struck Mrs. Herrick that she had
simply no life of her own--that at seventeen or eighteen a girl craves
for congenial companionship, pleasant occupation, and a fair amount of
amusement.
When Anna was liberated from the schoolroom, she would have liked to go
to picture-galleries, attend concerts, and mix with interesting people;
in spite of her shyness and gentleness, she had plenty of mind and
character, and Malcolm had already cultivated her artistic tastes. One
summer, indeed, they had gone abroad, and Malcolm had been with them,
and for two months Anna felt they had been in the anteroom of Paradise.
"The summer we spent in Switzerland and in the Austrian Tyrol," were
words perpetually on Anna's lips. Poor child, she little guessed, as
she built up wonderful castles in the air, that it would be long before
she had such a holiday again.
It was an evil moment for Anna when she volunteered to learn
typewriting, that she might help her adopted mother; from that day she
became the willing slave bound at the chariot wheels of a good-natured
despot. No amount of work tired Mrs. Herrick; she had the strength and
vitality of ten women. It never entered her head that a growing girl in
her teens was liable to flag and grow weary, and so the pretty pink
roses that had bloomed among Alpine snows faded out of Anna's cheeks,
and the soft brown eyes grew heavy.
Anna never complained; if her back ached and her head was hot and
throbbing, Mrs. Herrick never knew it, and she was quite indignant when
Malcolm spoke to her of Anna's changed looks.
"She is not strong, and she is doing far too much. Dawson and I both
think so." Perhaps he spoke with some degree of bluntness, for Mrs.
Herrick responded with unusual irritability.
"I am very much obliged to you and Dawson," she returned rather
sarcastically, "for your solicitude on Anna's account, but I believe I
am still quite equal to the charge of looking after her."
"Oh, if you take it in that way," retorted Malcolm in an offended
voice; and then Mrs. Herrick resumed her smooth manner. She was a
good-tempered woman, and seldom indulged in sarcasm; but things had
gone wrong that morning, and her young secretary had made several
mistakes. Anna had at last been obliged in her own self-defence to own
that she had a severe headache.
Mrs. Herrick had just sent her to her own room to lie down, and had
rung for Dawson to attend her. She was sadly inconvenienced by this
untoward accident, and it was at this inauspicious moment that Malcolm
lodged his complaint.
"If these headaches continue I shall ask Dr. Armstrong to look in," she
continued tranquilly. "Anna's services are most valuable to me. I
almost feel lost without her. It was a good day for me when she threw
herself into the work; it makes me regret my dear child less, to feel
that Anna sympathises with me so entirely;" and, in spite of himself,
Malcolm felt a little touched by these words.
A few weeks later he spoke to Anna; the girl had not recovered her
looks, and Nurse Dawson told him privately that she was losing her
appetite and getting thin; but Anna's eyes filled with tears at the
first words.
"Oh hush, dear Malcolm, please," she said, encircling his wrist with
her soft hand; it was a favourite caress with her, and Malcolm used
playfully to term it "Anna's handcuff," or the "Sheldon shackles." In
spite of their close intimacy as brother and sister, he had never
kissed her, but there was entire confidence between them.
"Please, please, Malcolm, do not say any more; it was very wrong of
nurse to put these ideas in your head. You know mother spoke to Dr.
Armstrong, and he is giving me a tonic; he says I must go out more, so
mother is trying to spare me all she can."
"And the headaches are better?" Malcolm looked at her quite sternly as
he put the question.
"Yes, I think so--I hope so," rather hesitatingly, for Anna was
absolutely truthful. "I still feel rather stupid of an evening; but
mother is so good, she lets me go to bed early."
She sighed rather heavily. "I wish I were stronger, Malcolm. Nurse says
I have never been robust. I do so love to help mother. I always feel as
though I can never do enough to show my gratitude to her. What would
have become of me when my parents died if she had not brought me here.
We were so dreadfully poor, and had so few friends. Oh Malcolm, think
of it," and then she whispered in his ear, "they would have taken me to
the workhouse--there was nothing else."
"Nonsense--rubbish," began Malcolm wrathfully; but Anna put her hand
upon his lips.
"No, dear, not nonsense. I am telling you the sober truth--mother would
endorse it. Do you think I do not owe her a life's service and love for
all her dear care of me!"
"If I am tired, I glory in my fatigue, for it is for my adopted mother
and her poor that I am working;" and Anna's eyes were very soft and
bright. "Malcolm, you have no idea how much happier she is now I share
her work. I know she never complained of her loneliness--it is not her
way to complain--but she has missed Florence so terribly. We talk of
her sometimes, mother and I," continued the girl thoughtfully, "and she
tells me what a sweet daughter she would have been, and how we should
have been sisters. It is so dear of her never to exclude me, even when
she is thinking and talking of Florence. 'If my little girl had lived,'
she said once, 'I should have had two daughters.'"
Malcolm had to hold his tongue at last, but he grumbled freely to Nurse
Dawson. In her he had a staunch ally; the old woman was devoted to
Anna, and by no means sided with her mistress.
"You see it is just this way, Mr. Malcolm, my dear," she said to him
once; "the mistress, bless her heart, thinks of nothing but them
charitable societies, from morning till night; they are more to her
than meat or drink or rest. She is as strong as a horse, and so she is
never tired like other folks. Why, my dear, I have known her spend a
whole day going from one meeting to another, speechifying and reading
reports, and yet when I have gone up to dress her in the evening she
has been as fresh as paint. She is made of cast-iron, that's my
belief," continued Dawson, who secretly adored her mistress; "but
cast-iron is one thing and a fragile blossom like Miss Anna is another,
as I made bold to tell my mistress the other day; 'for it stands to
reason, ma'am,' I said to her, 'that a young creature like Miss Anna is
not seasoned and toughened like a lady of your age, and I never did
think much of her constitution.'"
"And what did my mother say to that, Dawson?"
"Well, dearie, she had a deal to say, for I am free to confess that my
mistress is never at a loss for words. She argued with me for pretty
nigh half an hour--until she made things look so different that I did
not know whether I was on my head or my heels."
"She would have it that every one ought to work, old or young, rich or
poor; that she loved Miss Anna all the better for so readily offering
herself for the work. 'I should have left her free,' she said that, Mr.
Malcolm--'no one in my house should be compelled or urged to put their
hand to the plough; but when she came to me of her own accord I could
have wept with joy.'"
"Did my mother really say that, Dawson?"
"Ay, Mr. Malcolm, she did; and begging your pardon, dearie, you do not
half understand my mistress. She is quiet-spoken, and does not show her
feelings; but she has a warm heart. I know as well as you do that our
poor child is put upon and overworked, but she is the sunshine of my
mistress's life; that's what makes things so difficult, for Miss Anna
is bent on helping her, and will not listen to a word."
Malcolm soon found he must hold his peace, and very soon his mind was
too much absorbed by his own concerns. After a time he got used to
Anna's pale cheeks; she had refused to listen to his advice, and must
dree her weird.
He had his own battles to fight, and victory was not easily achieved;
nevertheless his masculine will prevailed.
It was no hastily considered resolution that determined Malcolm to
leave his mother's roof and set up in chambers of his own, neither did
he effect his purpose without a good deal of pain; but, as he told
Cedric, life at 27 Queen's Gate was becoming impossible to him.
But it was one of the worst moments of his life when he announced his
intention to his mother. She listened to his embarrassed explanation
silently, and without offering any interruption; but her pleasant,
strong-featured face grew set and stern, and when he had finished she
looked at him almost solemnly.
"He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow," she said
slowly and sadly, and no word of reproach could have stung him more
deeply. It made him angry.
"Mother, you have no right to say that, and to speak as though I were
failing in my duty towards you," he returned indignantly; "it is not
fair--all my life I have tried to please you, and to carry out your
wishes."
"I am not complaining of you, Malcolm," she replied quietly; "your own
conscience is accusing you, not your mother. Would you have me suppress
the truth or tell you a lie? Do you think any mother could listen
unmoved to what you have told me just now--that you intend to leave my
roof, that my only son finds his home so uncongenial, and his life here
so irksome, that he is forced to quit it?"
"Mother, you are making things worse and worse," returned Malcolm
passionately; "you are putting matters in a wrong light. Will you
listen to me a moment?"
"Have I ever refused to listen to you, my son?" and a softer and more
motherly expression came into the gray eyes.
"No, you have always been kind," he replied; but there was a slight
quiver in his voice. "Mother, it is not my fault--at least I hope
not--that we think so differently on most subjects. I am nearly
eight-and-twenty, and at that age a man is bound to do the best for
himself."
"I hoped you would have married before this, Malcolm."
"There is no question of marrying at present," he returned in a
constrained voice. "I have not yet seen the woman whom I wish to make
my wife."
Then a singular expression crossed Mrs. Herrick's face.
"I am sorry to hear that, Malcolm; I would have willingly given you up
to a wife, but life in chambers seems to me so Bohemian."
"It is only an idea," he returned impatiently. "Mother dear, try to
believe that I am doing it for the best--for both our sakes. I am not
leaving you alone--you have Anna; and in spite of all your kindness to
me, I am well aware that I have never been any real help or comfort; if
I thought you needed me--that you relied on me for assistance or
protection--I would never have carved out this independent life."
"It is the spirit of the age," she returned a little bitterly; "it is
the children who make terms, and the parents who have to yield and
submit."
"That is an old argument, mother," replied Malcolm wearily; "how often
we have gone over that ground, you and I. When our wills have clashed
it seems to me the concessions have all been on my side. How many men
of my age do you suppose would have yielded to you in the matter of a
latch-key? Poor old Anderson has been the chief sufferer, and the
victim of your strictness; do you think it has not troubled me to keep
him up night after night?"
"Anderson is my servant, and has to do his duty," replied Mrs. Herrick
rather stiffly.
"And he has done it," was Malcolm's answer; "he has been perfectly
conscientious; if he grumbled a bit now and then, no one could wonder,
at his age. Mother, it is no good talking--it is not only the question
of the latch-key, I want to have a place where I can be free to lead my
own life and see my own friends; there is no room for them here--your
busy life is too much crowded up with work to have leisure for society."
"I have never refused to entertain your friends, Malcolm;" and a dull
red flush crossed the mother's face, as though this reproach had gone
home.
"Possibly not," rather coldly, "I do not think I have ever asked you;
but, mother, let us make an end of this. The first break will be
painful to all of us, but we shall soon shake down, and then you and
Anna will own that it was for the best. When you want me I shall always
be at your service. I shall see you every few days--Cheyne Walk and
Queen's Gate are not very far apart. As soon as I am settled, you and
Anna must come and have tea with me, and I must introduce you to the
Kestons. Now, mother dear, say something comforting to a fellow;" and
then Mrs. Herrick smiled faintly. She loved her son far too well to
hurt him by her reproaches; in her secret heart she strongly
disapproved of the step he was taking, but she was a sensible woman,
and knew that it was no good crying over spilt milk.
At eight-and-twenty a man may refuse with some show of reason to be
attached to his mother's leading-strings, and may also be permitted to
strike out new paths for himself. Nevertheless, for many a long day
Mrs. Herrick carried a heavy heart, and only her adopted daughter
guessed how sorely Malcolm was missed by his mother.