The fly was already at the door, and Miss Williams, with her small
luggage, would in five minutes have departed, followed by the good wishes
of all the household, from Miss Maclachlan's school to her new situation,
when the postman passed and left a letter for her.
"I will put it in my pocket and read it in the train," she said, with a
slight change of color. For she recognized the handwriting of that good
man who had loved her, and whom she could not love.
"Better read it now. No time like the present," observed Miss
Maclachlan.
Miss Williams did so. As soon as she was fairly started and alone in the
fly, she opened it, with hands slightly trembling, for she was touched by
the persistence of the good rector, and his faithfulness to her, a poor
governess, when he might have married, as they said in his neighborhood,
"anybody." He would never marry any body now--he was dying.
"I have come to feel how wrong I was," he wrote, "in ever trying to
change our happy relations together. I have suffered for this--so have
we all. But it is now too late for regret. My time has come. Do not
grieve yourself by imagining it has come the faster through any decision
of yours, but by slow, inevitable disease, which the doctors have only
lately discovered. Nothing could have saved me. Be satisfied that there
is no cause for you to give yourself one moment's pain." (How she sobbed
over those shaky lines, more even than over the newspaper lines which she
had read that sun-shiny morning on the shore!) "Remember only that you
made me very happy--me and all mine--for years; that I loved you, as even
at my age a man can love; as I shall love you to the end, which can not
be very far off now. Would you dislike coming to see me just once again?
My girls will so very glad, and nobody knows any thing. Besides, what
matter? I am dying. Come, if you can within a week or so; they tell me
I may last thus long. And I want to consult with you about my children.
Therefore I will not say good-by now, only good-night, and God bless
you."
But it was good-by, after all. Though she did not wait the week; indeed,
she waited for nothing, considered nothing, except her gratitude to this
good man--the only man who had loved her--and her affection for the two
girls, who would soon be fatherless; though she sent a telegram from
Brighton to say she was coming, and arrived within twenty-four hours,
still--she came too late.
When she reached the village she heard that his sufferings were all over;
and a few yards from his garden wall, in the shade of the church-yard
lime-tree, the old sexton was busy re-opening, after fourteen years, the
family grave, where he was to be laid beside his wife the day after
to-morrow. His two daughters, sitting alone together in the melancholy
house, heard Miss Williams enter, and ran to meet her. With a feeling of
nearness and tenderness such as she had scarcely ever felt for any human
being, she clasped them close, and let them weep their hearts out in her
motherly arms.
Thus the current of her whole life was changed; for when Mr. Moseley's
will was opened, it was found that, besides leaving Miss Williams a
handsome legacy, carefully explained as being given "in gratitude for her
care of his children," he had chosen her as their guardian, until they
came of age or married, entreating her to reside with them, and desiring
them to pay her all the respect due to "a near and dear relative." The
tenderness with which he had arranged every thing, down to the minutest
points, for them and herself, even amidst all his bodily sufferings, and
in face of the supreme hour--which he had met, his daughters said, with a
marvelous calmness, even joy--touched Fortune as perhaps nothing had ever
touched her in all her life before. When she stood with her two poor
orphans beside their father's grave, and returned with them to the
desolate house, vowing within herself to be too them, all but in name,
the mother he had wished her to be, this sense of duty--the strange new
duty which had suddenly come to fill her empty life--was so strong, that
she forgot every thing else--even Robert Roy.
And for months afterward--months of anxious business, involving the
leaving of the Rectory, and the taking of a temporary house in the
village, until they could decide where finally to settle--Miss Williams
had scarcely a moment or a thought to spare for any beyond the vivid
present. Past and future faded away together, except so far as concerned
her girls.
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," were words
which had helped her through many a dark time. Now, with all her might,
she did her motherly duty to the orphan girls; and as she did so,
by-and-by she began strangely to enjoy it, and to find also not a little
of motherly pride and pleasure in them. She had not time to think of
herself at all, or of the great blow which had fallen, the great change
which had come, rendering it impossible for her to let herself feel as
she had used to feel, dream as she used to dream, for years and years
past. That one pathetic line
"I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin," burned itself into
her heart, and needed nothing more.
"My children! I must only love my children now," was her continual
thought, and she believed she did so.
It was not until spring came, healing the girls' grief as naturally as it
covered their father's grave with violets and primroses, and making them
cling a little less to home and her, a little more to the returning
pleasures of their youth, for they were two pretty girls, well-born, with
tolerable fortunes, and likely to be much sought after--not until the
spring days left her much alone, did Fortune's mind recur to an idea
which had struck her once, and then been set aside--to write to Robert
Roy. Why should she not? Just a few friendly lines, telling him how,
after long years, she had seen his name in the papers; how sorry she was,
and yet glad--glad to think he was alive and well, and married; how she
sent all kindly wishes to his wife and himself, and so on. In short the
sort of letter that any body might write or receive, whatever had been
the previous link between them. And she wrote it on an April day, one of
those first days of spring which make young hearts throb with a vague
delight, a nameless hope; and older ones--but is there any age when hope
is quite dead? I think not, even to those who know that the only spring
that will ever come to them will dawn in the world everlasting.
When her girls, entering, offered to post her letter, and Miss Williams
answered gently that she would rather post it herself, as it required a
foreign stamp, how little they guessed all that lay underneath, and how,
over the first few lines, her hand had shaken so that she had to copy it
three times. But the address, "Robert Roy, Shanghai"--all she could put,
but she had little doubt it would find him--was written with that firm,
clear hand which he had so often admired, saying he wished she could
teach his boys to write as well. Would he recognize it? Would he be
glad or sorry, or only indifferent? Had the world changed him? or, if
she could look at him now, would he be the same Robert Roy--simple, true,
sincere, and brave--every inch a man and a gentleman?
For the instant the old misery came back; the sharp, sharp pain; but
she smothered it down. His dead child, his living, unknown wife, came
between, with their soft ghostly hands. He was still himself; she
hoped absolutely unchanged; but he was hers no more. Yet that strange
yearning, the same which had impelled Mr. Moseley to write and say, "Come
and see me before I die," seemed impelling her to stretch a hand out
across the seas--"Have you forgotten me: I have never forgotten you."
As she passed through the church-yard on her way to the village, and saw
the rector's grave lie smiling in the evening sunshine, Fortune thought
what a strange lot hers had been. The man who had loved her, the man
whom she had loved, were equally lost to her; equally dead and buried.
And yet she lived still--her busy, active, and not unhappy life. It was
God's will, all; and it was best.
Another six months went by, and she still remained in the same place,
though talking daily of leaving. They began to go into society again,
she and her girls, and to receive visitors now and then: among the rest,
David Dalziel, who had preserved his affectionate fidelity even when he
went back to college, and had begun to discover somehow that the direct
road from Oxford to every where was through this secluded village. I am
afraid Miss Williams was not as alive as she ought to have been to this
fact, and to the other fact that Helen and Janetta were not quite
children now, but she let the young people be happy, and was happy with
them, after her fashion. Still, hers was less happiness than peace; the
deep peace which a storm-tossed vessel finds when kindly fate has towed
it into harbor; with torn sails and broken masts, maybe, but still safe,
never needing to go to sea any more.
She had come to that point in life when we cease to be "afraid of evil
tidings," since nothing is likely to happen to us beyond what has
happened. She told herself that she did not look forward to the answer
from Shanghai, if indeed any came; nevertheless, she had ascertained what
time the return mail would be likely to bring it. And, almost punctual
to the day, a letter arrived with the postmark, "Shanghai." Not his
letter, nor his handwriting at all. And, besides, it was addressed to
"_Mrs._ Williams."
A shudder of fear, the only fear which could strike her now--that he
might be dead--made Fortune stand irresolute a moment, then go up to her
own room before she opened it.
"Madam,--I beg to apologize for having read nearly through your letter
before comprehending that it was not meant for me, but probably for
another Mr. Robert Roy, who left this place not long after I came here,
and between whom and myself some confusion arose, till we became
intimate, and discovered that we were most likely distant, very distant
cousins. He came from St. Andrews, and was head clerk in a firm here,
doing a very good business in tea and silk, until they mixed themselves
up in the opium trade, which Mr. Roy, with one or two more of our
community here, thought so objectionable that at last he threw up his
situation and determined to seek his fortunes in Australia. It was a
pity, for he was in a good way to get on rapidly, but everybody who knew
him agreed it was just the sort of thing he was sure to do, and some
respected him highly for doing it. He was indeed what we Scotch call
'weel respeckit' wherever he went. But he was a reserved man; made few
intimate friends, though those he did make were warmly attached to him.
My family were; and though it is now five years since we have heard
anything of or from him, we remember him still."
Five years! The letter dropped from her hands. Lost and found, yet
found and lost. What might not have happened to him in five years? But
she read on, dry-eyed: women do not weep very much or very easily at her
age.
"I will do my utmost, madam, that your letter shall reach the hands for
which I am sure it was intended; but that may take some time, my only
clue to Mr. Roy's whereabouts being the branch house at Melbourne. I can
not think he is dead, because such tidings pass rapidly from one to
another in our colonial communities, and he was too much beloved for his
death to excite no concern.
"I make this long explanation because it strikes me you may be a lady, a
friend or relative of Mr. Roy's, concerning whom he employed me to make
some inquiries, only you say so very little--absolutely nothing--of
yourself in your letter, that I can not be at all certain if you are the
same person. She was a governess in a family named Dalziel, living at
St. Andrews. He said he had written to that family repeatedly, but got
no answer, and then asked me, if any thing resulted from my inquiries, to
write to him to the care of our Melbourne house. But no news ever came,
and I never wrote to him, for which my wife still blames me exceedingly.
She thanks you, dear madam, for the kind things you say about our poor
child, though meant for another person. We have seven boys, but little
Bell was our youngest, and our hearts' delight. She died after six
hours' illness.
"Again begging you to pardon my unconscious offense in reading a
stranger's letter, and the length of this one, I remain your very
obedient servant, R. Roy
"P.S.--I ought to say that this Mr. Robert Roy seemed between thirty-five
and forty, tall, dark-haired, walked with a slight stoop. He had, I
believe, no near relatives whatever, and I never heard of his having been
married."
Unquestionably Miss Williams did well in retiring to her chamber and
locking the door before she opened the letter. It is a mistake to
suppose that at thirty-five or forty--or what age?--women cease to feel.
I once was walking with an old maiden lady, talking of a character in a
book. "He reminded me," she said, "of the very best man I ever knew, whom
I saw a good deal of when I was a girl." And to the natural question,
was he alive, she answered, "No; he died while he was still young." Her
voice kept its ordinary tone, but there came a slight flush on the cheek,
a sudden quiver over the whole withered face--she was some years past
seventy--and I felt I could not say another word.
Nor shall I say a word now of Fortune Williams, when she had read through
and wholly taken in the contents of this letter.
Life began for her again--life on a new and yet on the old basis; for it
was still waiting, waiting--she seemed to be among those whose lot it is
to "stand and wait" all their days. But it was not now in the absolute
darkness and silence which it used to be. She knew that in all human
probability Robert Roy was alive still some where, and hope never could
wholly die out of the world so long as he was in it. His career, too, if
not prosperous in worldly things, had been one to make any heart that
loved him content--content and proud. For if he had failed in his
fortunes, was it not from doing what she would most have wished him to
do--the right, at all costs? Nor had he quite forgotten her, since even
so late as five years back he had been making inquiries about her. Also,
he was then unmarried.
But human nature is weak, and human hearts are so hungry sometimes.
"Oh, if he had only loved me, and told me so!" she said, sometimes, as
piteously as fifteen years ago. But the tears which followed were not,
as then, a storm of passionate despair--only a quiet sorrowful rain.
For what could she do? Nothing. Now as ever, her part seemed just to
fold her hands and endure. If alive, he might be found some day; but now
she could not find him--oh, if she could! Had she been the man and he
the woman--nay, had she been still herself, a poor lonely governess,
having to earn every crumb of her own bitter bread, yet knowing that he
loved her, might not things have been different? Had she belonged to
him, they would never have lost one another. She would have sought him,
as Evangeline sought Gabriel, half the world over.
And little did her two girls imagine, as they called her down stairs that
night, secretly wondering what important business could make "Auntie"
keep tea waiting fully five minutes, and set her after tea to read some
"pretty poetry," especially Longfellow's, which they had a fancy
for--little did they think, those two happy creatures, listening to their
middle-aged governess, who read so well that sometimes her voice actually
faltered over the line, how there was being transacted under their very
eyes a story which in its "constant anguish of patience" was scarcely
less pathetic than that of Acadia.
For nearly a year after that letter came the little family of which Miss
Williams was the head went on in its innocent quiet way, always planning,
yet never making a change, until at last fate drove them to it.
Neither Helen nor Janetta were very healthy girls, and at last a London
doctor gave as his absolute fiat that they must cease to live in their
warm inland village, and migrate, for some years at any rate, to a
bracing sea-side place.
Whereupon David Dalziel, who had somehow established himself as the one
masculine adviser of the family, suggested St. Andrews. Bracing enough
it was, at any rate: he remembered the winds used almost cut his nose
off. And it was such a nice place too, so pretty, with such excellent
society. He was sure the young ladies would find it delightful. Did
Miss Williams remember the walk by the shore, and the golfing across the
Links?
"Quite as well as you could have done, at the early age of seven," she
suggested, smiling. "Why are you so very anxious we should go to live at
St. Andrews?"
The young fellow blushed all over his kindly eager face, and then frankly
owned he had a motive. His grandmother's cottage, which she had left
him, the youngest and her pet always, was now unlet. He meant, perhaps,
to go and live at it himself when--he was of age and could afford it; but
in the mean time he was a poor solitary bachelor, and--and--
"And you would like me to keep your nest warm for you till you can claim
it? You want us for your tenants, eh, Davie?"
"Just that. You've hit it. Couldn't wish better. In fact, I have
already written to my trustees to drive the hardest bargain possible."
Which was an ingenious modification of the truth, as she afterward found;
but evidently the lad had set his heart upon the thing. And she?
At first she shrank back from the plan with a shiver almost of fear. It
was like having to meet face to face something--some one--long dead. To
walk among the old familiar places, to see the old familiar sea and
shore, nay, to live in the very same house, haunted, as houses are
sometimes, every room and every nook, with ghosts--yet with such innocent
ghosts--Could she bear it?
There are some people who have an actual terror of the past--who the
moment a thing ceases to be pleasurable fly from it, would willingly bury
it out of sight forever. But others have no fear of their harmless
dead--dead hopes, memories, loves--can sit by a grave-side, or look
behind them at a dim spectral shape, without grief, without dread, only
with tenderness. This woman could.
After a long wakeful night, spent in very serious thought for every one's
good, not excluding her own--since there is a certain point beyond which
one has no right to forget one's self, and perpetual martyrs rarely make
very pleasant heads of families--she said to her girls next morning that
she thought David Dalziel's brilliant idea had a great deal of sense in
it; St. Andrews was a very nice place, and the cottage there would
exactly suit their finances, while the tenure upon which he proposed they
should hold it (from term to term) would also fit in with their undecided
future; because, as all knew, wherever Helen or Janetta married, each
would take her fortune and go, leaving Miss Williams with her little
legacy, above want certainly, but not exactly a millionaire.
These and other points she set before them in her practical fashion, just
as if her heart did not leap--sometimes with pleasure, sometimes with
pain--at the very thought of St. Andrews, and as if to see herself sit
daily and hourly face to face with her old self, the ghost of her own
youth, would be a quite easy thing.
The girls were delighted. They left all to Auntie, as was their habit to
do. Burdens naturally fall upon the shoulders fitted for them, and which
seem even to have a faculty for drawing them down there. Miss Williams's
new duties had developed in her a whole range of new qualities, dormant
during her governess life. Nobody knew better than she how to manage a
house and guide a family. The girls soon felt that Auntie might have
been a mother all her days, she was so thoroughly motherly and they gave
up every thing into her hands.
So the whole matter was settled, David rejoicing exceedingly, and
considering it "jolly fun," and quite like a bit out of a play, that his
former governess should come back as his tenant, and inhabit the old
familiar cottage.
"And I'll take a run over to see you as soon as the long vacation begins,
just to teach the young ladies golfing. Mr. Roy taught all us boys, you
know; and we'll take that very walk he used to take us, across the Links
and along the sands to the Eden. Wasn't it the river Eden, Miss
Williams? I am sure I remember it. I think I am very good at
remembering."
Other people were also "good at remembering." During the first few
weeks after they settled down at St. Andrews the girls noticed that
Auntie became excessively pale, and was sometimes quite "distrait" and
bewildered-looking, which was little wonder, considering all she had to
do and arrange. But she got better in time. The cottage was so sweet,
the sea so fresh, the whole place so charming. Slowly, Miss Williams's
ordinary looks returned--the "good" looks which her girls so
energetically protested she had now, if never before. They never allowed
her to confess herself old by caps or shawls, or any of those pretty
temporary hindrances to the march of Time. She resisted not; she let
them dress her as they please, in a reasonable way, for she felt they
loved her; and as to her age, why, _she_ knew it, and knew that nothing
could alter it, so what did it matter? She smiled, and tried to look as
nice and as young as she could for her girls' sake.
I suppose there are such things as broken or breaking hearts, even at St.
Andrews, but it is certainly not a likely place for them. They have
little chance against the fresh, exhilarating air, strong as new wine;
the wild sea waves, the soothing sands, giving with health of body
wholesomeness of mind. By-and-by the busy world recovered its old face
to Fortune Williams--not the world as she once dreamed of it, but the
real world, as she had fought it through it all these years.
"I was ever a fighter, so one fight more!" as she read sometimes in the
"pretty" poetry her girls were always asking for--read steadily, even
when she came to the last verse in that passionate "Prospice:"
"Till, sudden, the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end:
And the elements rage, the fiend voices that rave
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy,
Then a light--then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!"
To that life to come, during all the burden and heat of the day (no, the
afternoon, a time, faded, yet hot and busy still, which is often a very
trying bit of woman's life) she now began yearningly to look. To meet
him again, even in old age, or with death between, was her only desire.
Yet she did her duty still, and enjoyed all she could, knowing that one
by one the years were hurrying onward, and the night coming, "in which no
man can work."
Faithful to his promise, about the middle of July David Dalziel appeared,
in overflowing spirits, having done very well at college. He was such a
boy still, in character and behavior; though--as he carefully informed
the family--now twenty-one and a man, expecting to be treated as such.
He was their landlord too, and drew up the agreement in his own name,
meaning to be a lawyer, and having enough to live on--something better
than bread and salt--"till I can earn a fortune, as I certainly mean to
do some day."
And he looked at Janetta, who looked down on the parlor carpet--as young
people will. Alas! I fear that the eyes of her anxious friend and
governess were not half wide enough open to the fact that these young
folk were no longer boy and girls, and that things might happen--in fact,
were almost certain to happen--which had happened to herself in her
youth--making life not quite easy to her, as it seemed to be to these two
bright girls.
Yet they were so bright, and their relations with David Dalziel were so
frank and free--in fact, the young fellow himself was such a thoroughly
good fellow, so very difficult to shut her door against, even if she had
thought of so doing. But she did not. She let him come and go,
"miserable bachelor" as he proclaimed himself, with all his kith and kin
across the seas, and cast not a thought to the future, or to the sad
necessity which sometimes occurs to parents and guardians--of shutting
the stable door _after_ the steed is stolen.
Especially, as not long after David appeared, there happened a certain
thing to all but her, and yet to her it was, for the time being, utterly
overwhelming. It absorbed all her thoughts into one maddened channel,
where they writhed and raved and dashed themselves blindly against
inevitable fate. For the first time in her life this patient woman felt
as if endurance were _not_ the right thing; as if wild shrieks of pain,
bitter outcries against Providence, would be somehow easier, better:
might reach His throne, so that even now He might listen and hear.
The thing was this. One day, waiting for some one beside the laurel bush
at her gate--the old familiar bush, though it had grown and grown till
its branches, which used to drag on the gravel, now covered the path
entirely--she overheard David explaining to Janetta how he and his
brothers and Mr. Roy had made the wooden letter-box, which actually
existed still, though in very ruinous condition.
"And no wonder, after fifteen years and more. It is fully that old,
isn't it Miss Williams? You will have to superannuate it shortly, and
return to the old original letter-box--my letter-box, which I remember so
well. I do believe I could find it still."
Kneeling down, he thrust his hand through the thick barricade of leaves
into the very heart of the tree.
"I've found it; I declare I've found it; the identical hole in the trunk
where I used to put all my treasures--my 'magpie's nest,' as they called
it, where I hid every thing I could find. What a mischievous young scamp
I was!"
"Very," said Miss Williams, affectionately, laying a gentle hand on his
curls--"pretty" still, though cropped down to the frightful modern
fashion. Secretly she was rather proud of him, this tall young fellow,
whom she had had on her lap many a time.
"Curious! It all comes back to me--even to the very last thing I hid
here, the day before we left, which was a letter."
"A letter!"--Miss Williams slightly started--"what letter?"
"One I found lying under the laurel bush, quite hidden by its leaves. It
was all soaked with rain. I dried it in the sun, and then put it in my
letter-box, telling nobody, for I meant to deliver it myself at the hall
door with a loud ring--an English postman's ring. Our Scotch one used to
blow his horn, you remember?"
"Yes," said Miss Williams. She was leaning against the fatal bush, pale
to the very lips, but her veil was down--nobody saw. "What sort of a
letter was it, David? Who was it to? Did you notice the handwriting?"
"Why, I was such a little fellow," and he looked up in wonder and
slight concern, "how could I remember? Some letter that somebody had
dropped, perhaps, in taking the rest out of the box. It could not
matter--certainly not now. You would not bring my youthful misdeeds up
against me, would you?" And he turned up a half-comical, half-pitiful
face.
Fortune's first impulse--what was it? She hardly knew. But her second
was that safest, easiest thing--now grown into the habit and refuge of
her whole life--silence. "No, it certainly does not matter now."
A deadly sickness came over her. What if this letter were Robert Roy's,
asking her that question which he said no man ought ever to ask a woman
twice? And she had never seen it--never answered it. So, of course, he
went away. Her whole life--nay, two whole lives--had been destroyed, and
by a mere accident, the aimless mischief of a child's innocent hand. She
could never prove it, but it might have been so. And, alas! alas! God,
the merciful God, had allowed it to be so.
Which is the worst, to wake up suddenly and find that our life has been
wrecked by our own folly, mistake, or sin, or that it has been done for
us either directly by the hand of Providence, or indirectly through some
innocent--nay, possibly not innocent, but intentional--hand? In both
cases the agony is equally sharp--the sharper because irremediable.
All these thoughts, vivid as lightning, and as rapid, darted through poor
Fortune's brain during the few moments that she stood with her hand on
David's shoulder, while he drew from his magpie's nest a heterogeneous
mass of rubbish--pebbles, snail shells, bits of glass and china,
fragments even of broken toys.
"Just look there. What ghosts of my childhood, as people would say! Dead
and buried, though." And he laughed merrily--he in the full tide and
glory of his youth.
Fortune Williams looked down on his happy face. This lad that really
loved her would not have hurt her for the world, and her determination
was made. He should never know any thing. Nobody should ever know any
thing. The "dead and buried" of fifteen years ago must be dead and
buried forever.
"David," she said, "just out of curiosity, put your hand down to the very
bottom of that hole, and see if you can fish up the mysterious letter."
Then she waited, just as one would wait at the edge of some long-closed
grave to see if the dead could possibly be claimed as our dead, even if
but a handful of unhonored bones.
No, it was not possible. Nobody could expect it after such a lapse of
time. Something David pulled out--it might be paper, it might be rags.
It was too dry to be moss or earth, but no one could have recognized it
as a letter.
"Give it me," said Miss Williams, holding out her hand.
David put the little heap of "rubbish" therein. She regarded it a
moment, and then scattered it on the gravel--"dust to dust," as we say in
our funeral service. But she said nothing.
At the moment the young people they were waiting for came, to the other
side of the gate, clubs in hand. David and the two Miss Moseleys had by
this time become perfectly mad for golf, as is the fashion of the place.
The proceeded across the Links, Miss Williams accompanying them, as in
duty bound. But she said she was "rather tired," and leaving them in
charge of another chaperon--if chaperons are ever wanted or needed in
those merry Links of St. Andrews--came home alone.