Tried and True. A tale

Front matter

♦ gtr. Ifchjijv/s ittto In 3 vols. Price, 36a. THE FIRST TEMPTATION: OK, ERITIS SICUT DEUS. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE, Translated from the German by Mrs. WILLIAM R. WILDE, IN THE PRESS. I. In 3 vols. Price, 31s. 6d. YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY, By CYRUS REDDING, Being a continuation of " Fifty Tears' Recollections." II. In 2 vols. 21s. IL PELEGRINO: OR, WANDERINGS AND WONDERINGS, By CAPTAIN CLAYTON, Author of "Ubique," &o. in. In 1 vol. Price, 7s. 6d. (Ready). LONG AGO AND NOW, By P. YOUNG, Esq. In 3 vols. Price, 31s. 6d. A COUNTRY VISIT, By the Author of "Constance Dale," "The Cliffords of Oakley," " Family Troubles," &c. V. In 2 vols. 21s. AFTER LONG YEARS. A NOVEL, By Mrs. MACKENZIE DANIELS, Author of "My Sister Minnie," " Marrying for Money," " Brother Paul," &c. VI. In 1 vol. Price, 10s. 6d. POETRY ANCIENT AND MODERN, By WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

VII. In 3 vols. Price, 31s. 6d. SNOWED UP, By Mrs. OCTAVIUS OWEN, Author of "Raised to the Peerage," "Heroines of History," &c. VIII. ANECDOTAL MEMOIRS OF ENGLISH PRINCES, AND NOTICES OF CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL HOUSES OF ENGLAND. By W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS, Author of " Memorable Battles in English History," "The Sea-Kings of England," &c, &c. IN TWO VOLUMES. TEIED AND TKUE. A TALE. By ALTON CLYDE. Creatures not too pore or good, For human nature's daily food ; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. Wordsworth. SoaujJtt : T. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1863. \The Right of Translation is Reserved*].

Chapter I

" Have you nothing to give me, Grace ? I am so faint and weary, and I think if I could only eat, I should soon get strong. Have you nothing for me, Grace ?" And the sick man turned feebly on his pillow, extended his worn hand over the scanty coverlet, and looked with almost pitiful eagerness towards a slight young girl who sat close to the window, making the most of the waning day light, and stitching as if the chances of life and death were hanging on every frail thread. VOL. I. B A spasm of anguish crossed the care-worn young face as she hurriedly answered, still sewine: on, for she could not afford to lose one moment of the precious light, " I have nothing yet, father, that you can eat, only the dry toast and gruel." The invalid turned away his face with a fretful wailing moan that went to the heart of the pale worker.

The dusky evening shadows were darkening over the room, which was one of the most ill-ventilated and ill furnished that could have been found even in that class of London lodging-houses. The gas lamps were lighted in the court when Grace Arnold rose from her seat, and with flushed cheeks and brightening eyes held up for final inspection the dress to which she had just put the finishing touch. Then she went to her father's bedside, and bent over him, whispering tenderly, " I have finished my work, father ; only keep up your heart, and you shall have something to make you strong. The doctor said you ought to have wine, and you shall have it" — If I sit up every night, she was going to add, but she checked the words on her lips, and busied herself with arrano-inothe bed clothes. "Grace, are you going out?" asked the sick man, raising himself on his pillow with painful effort.

" Yes, father, to take home my work.' " You will not be long gone ?" " Oh, no, dear father," she answered, cheerfully ; " and when I come back, I mean to make you such a nice tempting supper." " You are a good girl, Grace, you always were." He laid his hand caressingly on hers and looked at her with dim eyes, all the querulous selfishness of sickness being for the time forgotten in the stirring of nobler feelings. He was touched by the devotion with which his only child had clung to him in all the chances and changes of his fortune. Mr. Arnold had not always occupied his present position, and Grace had not always toiled for daily bread. She could look back to a B home where a fond mother smiled upon her, and they had all the comforts and refinements of life. To use a common but most expres sive phrase, the Arnolds had seen better days.

It is needless to go further into a painful his tory ; such vicissitudes are of every day occurrence — 'the inevitable consequence of the commercial failures that are continually agitating the money-making world. The poor father's heart might well yearn with ten derness towards his daughter, for nothing had outlived his prosperity except her love. " You are wearing yourself out, my poor Grace. You must take better care of yourself, child, or Harry will not know you when he comes home." At these last words there was a start, a vivid blush, and a sudden brightness in her eyes. The life of the poor dressmaker had its under current of love and happiness, which once in every life-time comes as natural to the young heart as the morning gush of song to the sky-lark. " Who is that dress for, Grace?"

" Mrs. Foster." The sick man sank back with a sigh of disappointment. " The lady who owes you so much, love ? Perhaps she will not even pay you for this." " Oh, yes, father," said Grace, putting on her faded black bonnet with trembling haste, " she cannot refuse when she knows we are in such need, ahd that it has taken all the money I had to buy the trimmings. Oh, no, she cannot surely refuse." o 3

Chapter II

" Ah ! there is the dressmaker with my new brocade, Alice, love. I wish you would just go and speak to the young person, for I really don't feel quite equal to the exertion just now." " Dear me, ma, how very provoking, just when I was practising this difficult air." And the young lady rose from the piano with a very unwilling grace. " It will not detain you long, my dear : I never like to keep poor people waiting, for to them time is money. And, now I think of it, Alice, she had better take back with her your new French merino, you can give your own instructions about the style of trimmings; and, my dear, be sure you impress upon her that the dress must be brought home by Friday evening at the latest. Now I know many ladies," Mrs. Foster continued, compla cently settling herself in her easy chair, as her daughter swept out of the room, " who would not think of employing a dressmakerof that class; but I am above such prejudices.

Wherever I meet talent of any kind, how ever humble its position, I like to encou rage it and bring it forward. This is a supe riorsort of young person, and her work is done quite as well as it would be even in one of the first-class establishments, and — " " So much cheaper," added a voice from the further end of the room, abruptly finishing the sentence. The bold speaker was a niece of Mrs. Foster's, then staying with her on a visit. A little, slight thing, with very bright black eyes. She had not spoken a word for some time, but had been sitting in a distant corner with her face nearly eclipsed behind the leaves of a huge folio which she seemed to have been intently studying. Mrs. Foster's cheek flushed angrily. But as it chanced that this young lady was a wealthy heiress, and she was anxious to make up a match between her and her eldest son, she could not afford to be offended.

It was against her line of policy. Mrs. Foster was a prudent woman ; she in stantly smoothed her ruffled feathers, and re plied, with a short, forced laugh, " You little book-worm, what could put such an idea into your head. I really don't know where you get all your odd sayings ; but it is impossible to be displeased with you, so you take an unfair advantage. Fanny dear, I wish you would not sit so far away from the fire ; it looks so unsocial, my love." " Do you think so, aunt ?*' said the uncom promising heiress, giving her a shrewd look out of the corners of her black eyes. She did not change her seat, but went on reading, leaving Mrs. Foster to draw her own conclusions. In the meantime, a somewhat different scene was passing in another room of the same well-appointed mansion. On one side of a table heaped with elegant trifles, stood the only daughter of the house of Foster, stately, fair, and well-dressed, lightly resting her white, ringed hand on a parcel, about which she was condescendingly giving directions to poor Grace Arnold, who stood shrinking back, as if painfully conscious of all that separated them.

With her young face prematurely sharpened, flushed, anxious, and trembling, she stood, while the hope that had sustained her was fast ebbing away ; tightly crushing her small hands together, as if to choke back some involuntary expression of suffering which she feared might be forced from her, revealing all the home misery. Here were two great social contrasts; B Dress-wearer and Dress-maker. The picture was a study in itself. "I — I hope you will not be displeased, Miss Foster," poor Grace faltered out at last, when the young lady, who seemed to have a decided talent for business, had run through a string of minute directions concerning the quality and style of the trimmings to be pur chased for her new dress, " but I wish to speak to your mamma fora moment," Grace continued, making a painful effort to approach the question which, since her father's illness, had become one of such vital importance to her, remuneration for her labour.

" If I could only see Mrs. Foster for one moment !" she went on, nervously twitching a corner of her shawl, while her cheek flushed in painful confusion, and her eyes sought the carpet, more like a culprit detected in a fraud than one who was only asking her just right. The young lady elevated her eyebrows in disdainful surprise, she considered the dress maker's manner quite incomprehensible. " You appear to have forgotten that I told you mamma was engaged this evening, Miss Arnold ? Is your business really so important that another time will not do as well ?" Poor Grace ! The vision of her home rose up before her, with its cheerless hearth so bare of warmth and comfort. Her sick father lying pale and helpless, with his pitiful cry wailing in her ear, " Have you nothing to give me, Grace?" and as a background to this picture there was the landlord fiercely clamouring for arrears of rent, and a crowd of small creditors rudely reproaching her with broken promises of payment.

Truly her business was important. " Oh ! if they knew all ; if I could only tell them," murmured the poor girl to herself, as she thrust back the hot tears that filled her eyes. " Perhaps you would like to leave a mes sage for mamma ?" said Miss Foster, becoming slightly impatient. "Oh, yes!" said Grace, eagerly catching at this forlorn hope. Briefly and timidly she then told the history of her embarrassment, concluding with her modest request for a small payment upon the old account. " I will deliver your message, but I cannot say how mamma will receive it. She is not accustomed to be urged in this way by the people whom she employs. You may wait a few moments," and without deigning to notice the effect of her words, proud Alice Foster swept out of the room, compressing the ample folds of her silk dress as she passed Grace that it might not come in contact with the dressmaker's rusty mourning.

It was only a slight action, but it was strongly characteristic. The next few minutes was an age of sus pense and anxiety to Grace. Until now she had always shrank from making any appeal to Mrs. Foster's tardy sense of justice, for that lady was one of her principal employers, and she feared (not without reason) that such a course would involve the loss of her patronage. Alone, sickening for want of food, for dinner had been a fiction to the poor dressmaker that day, the interval of suspense was becoming almost beyond endurance, when a pert page, who looked as if he had outgrown his livery, entered, and with an insolent stare handed her a note from his mistress. It contained only a few words, to the effect that Mrs. Foster's engagements made it impos sible for her to attend to Miss Arnold's business that evening, but if she would call about eleven o'clock on Thursday morning she would probably be at leisure to look over her ac count.

The note expressed some stately sur prise at the nature of the message which Miss Foster had delivered, and concluded with a pointed request that Miss Arnold would not trouble herself to take with her the French merino dress, as it was not particularly wanted, and had only been offered from a charitable wish to keep her employed. Grace uttered no exclamation as she finished reading the note. She was to all appearance perfectly calm, but her young brow was fur rowed into unnatural lines, her shoulders had a weary stoop, and her slight figure bent as under some crushing weight, and her tearless eyes had a dull fixed look. If Mrs. Foster could have seen her then, she would surely have been moved to some womanly show of pity. It was a sad picture of dejected hopeless ness : as if the pulses of life were deadened, and she had not vitality left to grasp any keen sense even of her own miseries.

She unconsciously dropped the note, which was suffered to lie unheeded where it fell. She did not recollect it until some time after, when it was beyond her power to recover it, and the pert page had closed the hall door upon her, as she shrunk away, faint and heart sick, from the sight of the crimson curtained windows that were sending forth a ruddy glow of light into the chill November dusk.

Chapter III

Poor Grace was toiling up the last flight of steep dark stairs, for the room they occupied was on the third floor. Her step was lingering and slow, for her heart was heavy, and she was trying to think of some way by which she could soften for her father the bitterness of the .disappointment which seemed to have crushed the last hope out of her heart. If she had had none but herself to care for in that hour, she might have sunk down in the spiritless apathy of despair and let the dark waves of fate close over her head. She was saved by the blessed necessity that obliged her to think for another, and the oft-recurring thought that there was one whom she loved dependent on her care for everything on this side the grave. " No, I must hide the worst from him. Whatever happens, he must be kept hopeful.

We can afford to lose anything but hope : it is such a precious thing." As Grace murmured these words her step grew lighter. It was at this moment that she felt a gentle pull at the skirt of her dress, and "It's only me, miss," came in a smothered whisper from a small treble voice as she started and turned round. It was the poor little hard-worked drudge of the house, whose entire existence was bounded by the scrub bing brush, and who might be said, literally as well as figuratively, to be always living in hot water, for the anger of her mistress was continually descending on her devoted head. There was a curious bond of sympathy between Grace and this little forlorn beino-. It was simply the working of the Divine law of kindness. Grace was perhaps the only one who ever spoke gently to the poor child or treated her with any consideration, and she had several times saved her from unjust punishment.

Poor Susan almost worshipped the young dressmaker. She did not know how to express it, but still she had a feeling of her own that Grace, with her pale face, her little white hands, and her soft voice, belonged to an order of beings very far above the people among whom she now lived. If Grace had been less sad at heart she might have been inclined to laugh at the picture before her. Divided between her fear of being detected, and her eagerness to arrest Grace's attention, the little maid of all work had lost one of her old slippers on the stairs, and her distress at this circumstance was ludicrously mingled with other feelings. She brought with her a warm damp odour of soap and wet clothes, for washing was going on in the remote lower regions. " What is the matter, Susan ? I hope you have not been getting into more trouble," said Grace, in her sweet grave voice, as she paused on the stairs, looking at the poor little creature in kind pity.

"No, miss, nothing to speak of," Susan replied, thrusting her red knuckles into her eyes at this allusion to her own private griefs ; " I only just waited to know if you has any errands to do, for I be a-going out soon to fetch beer for the back parlour. And please, Miss Grace, there's a man brought a letter for your father. Missis told me to take it up, as the man said it was to be give in his own hands. And please," continued the girl, apologetically, " I lit the candle, and stirred the fire, cause I thought he'd like it." " Thank you, Susan, that was very thought ful and kind. No, I think I shall not want you to night, Susan ; take care you do not fall, the stairs are very dark." And Grace went wearily up to her own room, unconscious how her gentle words were treasured in the forlorn heart that was always hungering for a little kindness, or how a friendless human life was made brighter and happier through her means.

" Grace, Grace," said the sick man's wailing, querulous voice, " is it you at last ? I thought you would never come, child." She found her father sitting up in bed with an open letter in his shaking hands which he was vainly trying to read by the dim light of the unsnuffed candle. His breath came quick and hard, his cheeks burned with unwonted fire, and there was a restless, excited glitter in his eyes. The daughter's heart sank in vague, terrified foreboding. " Come here, Grace, and read this ; read, read, for yourself. I cannot make it out clearly by this light," and the letter was im patiently thrust towards her. She took it with a sickening sense of dread, of she knew not what. As she prepared to read, her father fastened his dry, glittering eyes on her face, and tightened his clasp upon the coverlet till the veins started out from the back of his white hand, like knots of dim purple cords.

It was not long before Grace understood, only too well, the cause of her father's agitation. The letter came from the wealthy uncle of Harry Clare, the young man to whom Grace had plighted her faith in days of hap piness and prosperity. This uncle was the great man of the Clare family. As he had no children, he adopted Harry in his boyhood, and had him educated as the future heir of his wealth ; but beyond the ties of relation ship and gratitude, the uncle and nephew were not drawn together by any dearer feel ing, for nothing could be more dissimilar than the natures of the cold, calculating man of the world and the generous high-spirited youth who had won Grace Arnold's early love. At the time of their engagement, the elder Clare had not shown himself much opposed to it; but since Mr. Arnold's reverse of fortune he had formed other views for his nephew.

It was in order to see if separation and absence would effect what he had vainly tried, the es trangement of the young pair, that he contrived to be in sudden and serious perplexity for want of a trustworthy agent to transact some important business for him at Calcutta, and so successfully worked upon Harry's sense of duty that the young man, without any sus picion of his uncle's real intentions, consented to undertake the mission, making it a condition that on his return he and Grace were to be married. " Well, well, my boy," the uncle had an swered evasively, " if you both remain in the same mind we shall see ; young folks are not to be trusted. Go and see a little of the world first." The letter announced that Harry Clare was now on his way home, and as his uncle had gathered from the tone of his letters that he was not yet cured of his passion for Grace Arnold, he had resolved to take more effec tual means to separate the lovers.

His plans were soon formed. He had a promissory note from Mr. Arnold for the repayment of a certain sum of money which he had advanced to him in his necessities. This was the instru ment of power which he now determined to use over the unfortunate gentleman whom he had once called his friend, though he knew to what abject poverty his unhappy debtor was reduced, and that he was stretched on a sick bed, from which even his daughter despaired to see him ever rise. He urged what he knew was impossible in their present circumstances, the immediate repayment of the money, or at least of a part ; and scrupled not to arm himself with the terrors of the law, and threaten the man whom he knew to be slowly dying in that miserable attic with the last crushing calamity of a debtor's prison. The only condition on which his forbearance could be purchased was through Grace.

He offered to forego his claim on her father, and even hinted at the possibility of a further ad vance, if she would consent to break off her engagement with his nephew, and give him her written promise that she would never en courage any future addresses from Harry Clare. It was a heartless, cruel letter, one that only such a man could have written. Grace read it to the end with white, quivering lips, a wildly-beating heart, and throbbing brain. " And this comes from a Clare," said the sick man with a painful catch of his breath. " It almost makes me hate the name. Grace, Grace, what is to be done ?" " There is no choice left, father. We are in his power, and must purchase forbearance at his own hard price." " What, Grace, would you let him wring such a pledge from you?" " Oh, father, can you doubt me.

Do you think I would let them drag you to prison while it is in my power to save you ? I would sign away my own life rather than see you come to such a fate;" and Grace crept shudderingly towards the bed, and almost wildly kissed one of his wasted hands. " My noble, precious child, I have done nothing to deserve this." "It is my duty, dear father, and I will not shrink from it." " No, Grace," said Mr. Arnold firmly, the last feeble, flickering spark of physical strength flaming up with unnatural vigour, " it would be sin to suffer such a sacrifice. I feel that my life is drawing to an end, and it will make but little difference whether I close my eyes in a prison or in this room. Let old Matthew Clare do what he threatens ; his persecution can extend no further, and the disgrace will remain with him.

Poverty is not a crime." But Grace was still unshaken in her gene rous resolution. " It must be, father ; sooner or later it would come to this. I should have to give up Harry, for his uncle would never consent to our marriage, and you know that Harry's future prospects are all dependent upon him, and I would not be the means of brirrrinodiscord into a family. No, father, Harry and I must part, our ways in life are so different now." Grace spoke firmly, though she had to stifle many a heaving sob in the effort, and her beautiful brown eyes were dim with unshed tears : Mr. Arnold pondered a moment, then his eyes brightened suddenly, and he said, "Grace, I have only just thought of it. The money that Mrs. Foster owes you will be j ust enough to satisfy a part of Mr. Clare's demand. If we can only pay him, and save you from being bound by a hateful pledge, it will be a satisfaction to me before I die.

Never mind me, Grace, I can do without wine, anything, so that we may be free from that man." Grace read in her father's look the inquiry she had been dreading, about the result of her errand to Mrs. Foster's. She thought it best to anticipate his questions, so she said sooth ing1^ c " I took home my work father, but Mrs. Foster was engaged and could not see me. I am to go to her on Thursday morning." Mr. Arnold uttered a fretful, weary sigh. She went on, " This delay has troubled me a good deal, father, for your sake. It was a cruel disappoint ment, but ladies like Mrs. Foster do not com prehend our necessities, they know nothing of us ; we are out of reach of their sympa thies, and they cannot understand how a trifle of money is sometimes a question of life or death to us." Grace had unconsciously spoken some stern truths.

Her words would have sounded bitter if they had not been softened by her gentle voice. Her father did not answer. Within the last few moments there was a change in him that alarmed her. A glazed film crept over his eyes, and his hands relaxed their hold of the bed clothes. Exhausted, and almost fainting, he sank back on his pillows with a low moan. His false strength was fast ebbing away. This was the reaction which Grace had feared, the excitement of the last half-hour had already told upon his feeble frame. The shock of the letter had visibly shaken the lessening sands in his hour-glass. Grace tenderly wiped the cold dews from his fore • head, and moistened his pale lips with a little cordial which had been providentially left in one of the bottles. After which, seeing him somewhat revived, she set herself resolutely to work to renew the expiring fire and prepare him a cup of tea, in the purchase of which she had that evening expended her last few pence ; bustling about to give the room the nearest approach to an air of comfort that it was capable of receiving.

When their scanty meal was over, and her father, seemingly more refreshed and com posed, had sunk into a slumber that relieved her anxious watch by his bed-side, Grace stole into the little closet that by a stretch of courtesy was called her bed-room. Perhaps c the full heart could only there give free vent to its pent-up agony. When she came out, her eyes looked as if she had been weeping. There were dark purple lines under their drooping lashes, and her white, worn face had a hopeless, despairing look. She was very quiet and calm, but her resolution was taken. She would never allow her father to suspect what it would cost her to renounce the love, dearer than life, which had grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength. Grace was not one of those noisy, demonstrative persons whose deepest feelings always lie upon the surface.

Perhaps it was a merciful dispen sation that the stern, practical duties of life left her no time to sentimentalize and nurse her own sorrows in selfish exclusion of all other claims. The fire of adversity had tried and purified the gold of her nature. Good, conscientious Grace, it was like herself to sit down, as she did, and begin bravely stitch ing at the homely stuff dress which her landlady had benevolently given her to make that it might help to pay off their arrears of rent; it was characteristic of the self-forget fulness and enduring patience that formed the underlying strength of her character. Grace Arnold, in that squalid room, in the midst of such surroundings, with her pure, pale beauty, gentle, lady-like manners, refined instincts, and delicate tastes, was like one of those sweet wild flowers, that we may some times see blooming in some hidden out-of the-way nook where we least expected to find such treasures, nestling at the foot of a rugged craig, or gleaming out like stars under the brow of some dark, frowning rock, breathing away their fragrant lives in rough desert places ; all the more beautiful for the barrenness that surrounds them, and filling their appointed place, with sweet content, from which restless, human ambition would do well to take a lesson.