Margaret Moore, Spinster: her love story, etc

Front matter

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Chapter I

I have just heard an ill-mannered girl say, pointing to me : " She is the ugliest old woman I ever saw." Is it true, I wonder ? I look in the glass, old like myself and not likely to flatter, and this is what I see. A brown, wrinkled face, eyes pale and bleared, shadowed by shaggy gray eyebrows ; a receding mouth destitute of teeth, and a nutcracker chin covered with not a few straggling gray hairs ; and I know that if I removed the front of brown curls which I have worn for many years beneath my lace cap, I should see a head almost bald, but with a few patches of iron-gray hair here and there, the sorry remnants of the luxuriant tresses of which I was once so proud. Yes, I am truly an ugly old woman, and I fear there is no mill wherein I may be ground young B again. I am not sure that I would go to it if there were, for my life has not been so full of sweetness that I should wish to renew it ; and yet in my younger days I was reckoned a beauty, at all events by some.

Could that really have been so, or was it only lover's flattery ? I unlock the secret drawer of my writing-desk and draw out two miniatures which I have not looked at for years ; the first in a black frame represents a pretty little damsel of about six, with light-brown curls, sparkling eyes, and rosy cheeks, and beneath it is written in my dear mother's cramped handwriting, " My dear daughter Maggie, aged six yeares." Ah, my dear mother thought a deal of her eldest daughter, and was used to call me her right hand, and this likeness which in her pride she had taken of me, used always to hang in her bedchamber, for there were two boys older and four younger than I before there came another girl, so that I was looked upon for some years as an only daughter. And although the two youngest of our large family were girls, and dear little things too, I fancy our mother always clung to me most, and looked to me to help her in all sorts of ways, for she was never quite strong after the birth of little Jenny, who came five years after me, and I had, as she said, to be little mother to the baby, and to help to make and mend for the others; and, oh dear me, what a lot of socks there were to darn after our monthly buckin !

I always hated stocking mending, but I used to set to work for mother's sake, to save her trouble, and often and often I was up at five o'clock, darning away till breakfast time. But I am forgetting the second picture I had intended to look at. Forgetting ! Oh, no, I never forget that, for upon it hangs my life's history, and yet I have never looked at it for years. Years ! How many, I wonder ? I am now seventy-five, and I was but three-and-twenty when this was consigned to the drawer in which it still lies — and I have never once opened it, or looked at it all these long years ; but I have never forgotten it. Oh, no, that would be impossible, for even now, as I take it ia my withered old hand, I shudder as I read the faded lines upon the paper in which it is folded, and yet they are simple enough : " To Miss Margaret Moore, with Mrs. Leslie's compliments/' Mrs. Leslie, forsooth !

Who was she that she should be able to affect me thus, when she has b been in her grave these fifty years ? Ah, well, it is a pitiful story of falsehood and treachery which is connected with her, and with the picture I hold in my hand, which has on the back in quite a different hand, "My own deare Maggie." As I look at what I was more than fifty years ago, the old times come back to me as fresh as though it were but yesterday, and I were only twenty instead of seventy-five. A buxom lass I was then, a merry little gipsy maid — his pretty Maggie, he called me — and the portrait I hold in my hand represents a smiling little brunette, with regular features, sparkling hazel eyes, rosy cheeks, and a mass of brown curls tied up on the top of the head with blue ribbon. If this was ever bke me I can see plainly that I was a presentable lass, and might have been called pretty even by strangers, though no one now would recognise it as resembling me ; but he always said it was a capital likeness, although it did not do me justice.

Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had not been so good-looking. My poor mother used to say beauty was a snare, and she did not wish her daughters to be beautiful. And yet I think she was proud to see them admired, as she herself had been when young ; for I have been told since that she was quite a beauty, and that more than one grandee would have been proud to marry her. But she preferred my father, who was but a respectable yeoman, holding land which his father and his grandfather had held, but making no pretence to gentility ; a plain man but honest, respected by his neighbours, both gentle and simple, and respecting himself too much to try to thrust himself among those above him in station ; though equally determined not to descend the social ladder, or allow his children to do so.

A fine lot of children we were, too : six tall sons and three good-looking daughters, all, as he used to say, "as tall and as straight as a poplar tree," not one deficient in mind or defective iu body, although not all equally clever. My eldest brother John was my father's pride, honest as the day, very fond of farming and of all sorts of country sports and amusements, and something of a scholar ; but no bookworm like James, who was never happy unless he had some dry old volume in his hand, over which he would pore by the firelight, although my mother was always telling him he would ruin his eyes. James didn't take much to farming, and my father used often to say he didn't know what would become of him, for his book-learning would never find him in bread and cheese ; but James only smiled, saying people had made a living out of books before now ; to which my father replied : " Yes, by selling 'em, and a few by writing 'em, but nover by reading 'em," so that if he wouldn't put up his books and attend to the sheep, he would apprentice him to a bookseller.

This wasn't quite what James wanted, for he had confided to me that he would like to be a parson; but my father wouldn't hear of a son of his going to college, and, besides, couldn't afford it, with such a lot of us to keep. So James was sent off to Coxeter, where my father had a friend in the book trade. Tom, the third boy, was apprenticed to a linen draper in the same town ; George was put into an apothecary's shop to see if he would like to be apprenticed to a doctor, and the two younger ones, twins, were kept at home to help in the farm. As for us three girls, there was plenty for us to do in butter and cheese-making, as well as taking care of the poultry, aud helping to bake and to brew, to sweep and dust the bedrooms, card wool, mend clothes, pick fruit, make wine, and a score of other things ; and I and Susan took turns, week and week about, to help in the kitchen, make cakes, puddings, and pies, and see that the kettles and saucepans were well scoured.

Susan was only fifteen, but she was very active and fond of doing all she could, and I believe was the best cook of us all, for her puddings and pastry always turned out much lighter than mine, so that my father used to say, "'Tis easy to know whose week it is at the housekeeping, Sue, the pies are so good." But my mother, who was always ready to take my part, would pat me on the cheek and say gently, " Never mind, Maggie, your butter is the best ; and as for darning, there is no one can come up to my ' little mother.' " As for Jenny, she was still too young to do much in the house, for she had not done her schooling, but was sent as weekly boarder to a good school at Coxeter, and we used to fetch her home every Saturday and take her back on Monday morning. She was the life of the house when she was at home, and she and the two younger boys, who were twins, and always up to mischief, used to scamper all over the place and play all sorts of pranks, getting into the pantry and eating all the tarts and cakes Sue and I had made for the week's consumption, which I must say made me rather cross ; but my mother would take my hand and say : " Never mind, dear Maggie, let the children enjoy themselves, for the black ox will tread upon their toes soon enough, depend upon it."

And indeed the " black ox " came to us all when we were least prepared for it, and trod very heavily too, for one night when I was sitting up with my mother waiting for father to come home from market, we thought we heard him ride round to the stables, as usual, to put up his horse, so we folded up our work, and got ready to go to bed. But he didn't come in, and at last mother got a little uneasy, and said to me: " Go out, Maggie, and see why your father doesn't come in." I went out and called, but there was no answer, only the horse whinneyed. It was very dark, so I went in again and fetched a lantern, and there, sure enough, was old Tom standing at the stable door saddled and bridled, but no father. I ran back to mother as white as a sheet, and she guessed in a moment what was the matter, and called out to John, who had gone to bed very tired.

We had some trouble to wake him, but when we made him understand, he was up and into his clothes in a minute. He snatched the lantern out of my hand and, telling me to look to mother, went to call up the carter, and the boy that groomed the horses, and the three were off at once on the search. Oh, what an age they seemed to be gone ! Mother and I sat hugging each other, with our hearts beating almost aloud, and listening — listening At last we heard them coming slowly up the gravel walk, and hastening to open the door, we saw them carrying their load on a hurdle. My mother rushed forward, and I followed her trembling, but alas ! there was no greeting for either of us, my poor father was quite dead ! How it happened we never knew ; he was not a man given to take too much at market, and we always thought he must have had a fit and fallen from his horse ; but who could say ?

All we knew about it was, that our dear kind father was taken from us, and all we could do was to mourn his loss, and try our best to help our poor bereaved mother in her distress. My poor mother, she grieved indeed, and never recovered from the shock ; she would start and turn pale whenever she heard the clatter of a horse's hoof, and if ever my brother John were out after dark, she could not rest till he came in. Poor dear, no wonder she wore herself out with grief and care, for it was no light thing to have nine children to look after, although happily we were not left destitute. Yet John was young to have the management of my father's two farms, and the twins, who were the only ones besides to take to farming, were but boys and very little help, although I must say they were good lads, and did their best ; but John was sometimes a bit sharp with them, and then they would turn upon him and declare they weren't going to be under their own brother, so at last it was agreed that it was better for John to go to the other farm to live, and take Sue to keep house for him, whilst mother and I and the two boys stayed on in the old house, and managed the business as best we could, John just riding over — it was but a mile away — two or three times a week to see how things were going on.

Chapter II

Mt mother never got over my poor father's death; she wasted away daily, and grew so thin and pale that it seemed as though a breath of wind would blow her away. She did not seem ill, only so weak, and she would not have a doctor, though we all tried to persuade her to. She said no, all she wanted was rest. So I tried to do all I could to save her trouble, and coaxed her to lie down on the couch in the parlour, and made her all sorts of jellies and blanc-manges, chicken broth, and panada, and everything I could think of to tempt her to eat; but for all we could do she grew weaker and weaker, till at last there was no need to coax her to lie down, for she could not get up ; and when we insisted upon having a doctor he could do her no good. So just a year after my father's death, we laid her beside him, under the old yew in Lytton churchyard.

Oh, how we all mourned our dear, kind, gentle mother ! She was the one to bind us all together, and heal the little differences which will arise between brothers and sisters, who are not always ready to give and take with each other. I think she saw this, poor darling, and it made her loath to leave us, for before she died she called us all to her bedside, and taking John by the hand she said he must now be father and mother to his brothers and sisters, and that she hoped for her sake we would all look up to him, and do as he bade us, and so hang together as brothers and sisters ought. We could hardly any of us speak for crying, but we all promised as well as we could to do as she wished ; and then turning to me she said she knew I would do my part, as I always had done, and she blessed me as a loving and dutiful daughter.

I felt proud, even in the midst of all my grief, at my mother's praise, and thought I would never, never do anything which would have grieved her had she been alive ; but, alas ! alas ! we are poor weak creatures, and love is with most girls an uncontrollable passion. But I knew nothing of it at that time, and went on doing everything as far as possible just as it used to be done in my mother's time, for John thought I might as well try to keep the house going for the twins and Jenny, so that the others might have a home to come to whenever they got a holiday, for his house was but small, and he couldn't have us all to live with him. Things went on smoothly enough for a time. I rendered my accounts to John weekly, and he was pleased with my management, and said I made a capital farmer and housekeeper ; whilst Jenny and the boys were very fond of me, and always ready to help, so that John didn't think it necessary to come to the house very often, because he said he could trust me to let him know if there was anything the matter.

Oue day the shepherd came in to say that several of the sheep seemed ailing, and he didn't know what to do with them, for the linseed tea didn't do them any good ; so as I wanted to see Sue, as well as my brother, I thought I would just walk up to Lytton myself. There were two ways there : one by the road, which was hot and dusty, and one by the fields, which was shorter and much more pleasant, so of course I chose the latter, although there were cows iu most of the fields; but I had always been used to cows, and didn't mind them a bit. It happened, however, on this day, that some young heifers with their first calves had been turned out among the dairy cows in the largest field I had to cross, and just as I got about in the middle of the field, one of these little things took it into her head that I was going to interfere with her calf, which lay just in the path, so she began to toss her head and blare at me, and came galloping up as fast as she could from the other end of the field.

At first I took no notice, but I soon saw she meant mischief, and the worst of it was, the others, when they heard her, thought, I suppose, that there was something terrible the matter, and the whole herd came tearing across the field towards me, with their tails in the air and making a great noise. I had not even a parasol with me, for it was drawing towards evening, and my hat was broad enough to shelter me. There was no one near to help, so I knew there was nothing for it but to run. As there was no chance of getting across the field by the path, I turned aside towards a stile, which I knew was there, and led to a smaller field close to the turnpike road. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, and I was active enough in those days, but the cows gained upon me, and I began to be afraid I should never be able to reach the stile, and to wonder whether I had better lie down flat on the ground, which they say is the best thing to do in such cases, when a fine handsome gentleman jumped over the stile, and came running towards me, flourishing a riding-whip in his hand.

He caught me in his arms just as I was sinking to the ground, and facing the herd as they came bounding towards us, he gave the first a good cut across the nose with his riding whip, whereupon they all stopped short and formed a circle round us; then he gave a cut right and left, shouting to them as he did so, and presently they all rushed off almost as fast as they had come. When they were gone he turned to me, still holding me with his left arm, and said : " Where would you have been, my pretty lass, if I hadn't happened to ha' been passing, and heard the rumpus the cows were kicking up ? How are you going to reward me for saving your life ? " "Oh, sir," I said, blushing, "I am indeed greatly indebted to you, and my brother will, I am sure, thank you for me ; but please let me go now." " Not without a kiss, pretty one," said he, still holding me tight ; " that is the least you can give," whereupon he stooped down and kissed me on the cheek.

I struggled and got away from him, and was over the stile in a minute ; but somehow I could not feel so angry as I ought to have done, for he was young and very handsome, I thought, and quite a gentleman ; and when I got into the next field I saw that he had a fine horse tethered to the gate by the bridle. I did not know what to do to get out of his way, for I was afraid to go back through the fields again, and was obliged to get over the gate into the road; and I knew that, however fast I might run, he could overtake me if he chose. All this time he was walking slowly after me, so I scrambled over the gate into the road as quickly as I could, and made up my mind to sit down on some stones by the roadside, and let him ride on past me. But when he saw me sitting there, he took his horse by the bridle and led him up to me.

There he stood before me, hat in hand, looking so handsome in his riding dress and top-boots, with the sun shining on his bare head, that I could not help admiring him. " Forgive me, fair maid," said he ; "I was greatly to blame, but I could not resist the temp tation of so much beauty within my grasp. If you can pardon, allow me to ask your name, and whether I can be of any further assistance." " My name, sir," said I, looking down, and feeling rather flustered by so many compliments, "is Maggie Moore, and I was going to see my brother at Lytton. Thank you kindly for your help, but I can get on very well alone now. There won't be any cows in the road," I said, smiling. " Bless me," said he, " are you John Moore's sister ? Sly dog ! he never told me he had such a pretty sister 1 " So saying, he took my hand and kissed it respectfully; and then he mounted his horse and rode off, looking back ever so many times as he went, to wave his hat to me.

I felt all in a whirl as I walked on slowly towards Lytton. Somehow I did not feel at all inclined to tell brother John of my adventure, and I was not sorry to find that he was not at home when I got to the house ; so Sue and I chatted about it together. c Sue laughed and said it was certainly a fairy prince in disguise, and she expected a wedding to come of it some day, which only made me laugh and blush. " But didn't you ask the name of your fairy prince ? " said she. " Why, if it had been me, I should have curtseyed to him and thanked him, and pretended to have been so frightened that he would have been obliged to have seen me home; and then I should have asked him to tell me his name that I might remember my gallant rescuer, and so on. You don't half know how to coquet, sister Maggie," said she, kissing me.

" Sue," said I, " I am quite ashamed of you. I don't want to play the coquette, I am sure ; and I wouldn't have told you if I thought you would have taken it in that way. I am afraid you will make brother John think I have been doing something very wrong, and I am sure I couldn't help it." " As though I should tell brother John ! " said Sue scornfully. " Why, he'd be more afraid than ever to let me out of his sight, lest some hand some prince should be lying in wait for me behind every stile. He's much too careful of me as it is, so never fear that I shall tell, my dear." " Sue," said I, feeling quite abashed, " I don't want to have any secrets from brother John, who, as you know, is like a second father to us; and I should be very sorry if I thought you meant what you have been saying. I shall tell him my self as soon as he comes in."

She only laughed and nodded her head, saying : " We shall see ! We shall see ! " And indeed it so chanced that I had no opportunity of telling that day, for John never came in till just as I was obliged to go home, and I could only find time to tell him about the sheep, and then had to run, for it was getting dark. All that night I kept dreaming of cows, and of my new acquaintance, and in the morning my thoughts still lingered upon the handsome stranger. I went through my daily tasks as in a dream, and was called to account ever so many times by the dairymaid for neglecting this and that, putting a double lot of salt in the butter, or forgetting to wash it, or something quite as stupid. " La, Miss Maggie," she said, " sure you must be in love, for I never knowed you do such like things afore."

In love ! The idea startled me. Was it possible c ■20 MARGARET MOORE, SPINSTER. that I could be so foolish as to fall in love with a stranger whose very name I did not know ? I reasoned with myself, scolded myself, and made up my mind that I would not think about him, but it was all in vain ; the image of my handsome and gallant rescuer had so impressed itself upon me, that it had become as it were a part of myself. Over and over again I rehearsed mentally every look and tone of that never-to-be-forgotten meeting, and, as Sue had prophesied, I could never summon up courage to tell brother John about it; indeed, I rather avoided him, lest he should guess my secret. I felt as though I could not meet his eye, for fear he should say to me : " What are you thinking about, Maggie ? You seem to have got some maggot in your head ; out with it !

" Whenever I heard his voice I pretended to be so very busy that I could only just say a word about the stock, or the men and their work, and then had to bustle off again. Then I used to go mooning about through the fields, and looking over the gates into the road, hoping to catch a glimpse of the one being who seemed to fill my whole thoughts day and night ; but he never passed, and I had to go back home and attend to my household affairs, with an aching and hungry heart. I fear, too, I was often cross and pettish to the boys and dear Jenny, for they used to look at me in a surprised kind of way, and then laugh together and shrug their shoulders, which only made me more cross.