Hand and Glove

Front matter

" Take "si" your glove, or. bv Heaven!" . — P 3S1 HAND & GLOVE | Hotel BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS Author of "" Barbara 's History," "Haifa Million of Money," 6-v. 'AnJ sweep* a few wild chords with his still gloved right."— P. 183. N E W EDITION LONDON JOHN MAXWELL & CO., 122, FLEET STREET [AU Rights of Translation are reserr'etf.'] GLOVE % $obcl BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS AUTHOR OK " BARBARA'S HISTORY," " MISS CARKW," " HALF A MILLION OF MOSEY," ETC. ETC. NEW EDITION LONDON JOHN MAXWELL AND COMPANY 122 FLEET STREET M DCCC LXV [All ri'jhU are reserved] LONDON : ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. GLOYE.

Chapter I

A MIDNIGHT VIGIL. The stealthy opening of the door awoke me. ' How does he seem now, Janet ?' I asked, starting up in an instant with all my senses about me. ' Does he still sleep?' ' Yes, he still sleeps,' said the old woman mournfully. Worn and weary as I was, I could not restrain a movement of impatience. 'Why did you disturb me, then?' I said, peevishly. The fire and candle had both nearly burnt out, and 1 shivered as I spoke. ' I did not mean to wake ye,' said Janet, with unusual mildness. ' But it was awfu' to sit there and hear him havering in his sleep about them that are dead and gone long ago.' She busied herself at the hearth as she said this, and blew the scattered embers red again. Presently she came over to the sofa, and bestowed the shawls more carefully about me. B < You're cold, Gartha,' she said, compassionately, ' aud you've had no food for hours.

Try to eat some supper.' I shook my head, muttered something about trying to sleep again, and cowered down with my face to the wall, shuddering _s before. But this time it was in vain. Not a thought wandered, and every sense seemed sharpened to a painful acuteness. The slow ticking of the great clock in the hall — the monotonous rocking to and fro of Janet in her chair — the lengthened blasts of melancholy March «vinds across the moors, all fretted and tried me to the very verge of nervous irritation. Yet I lay quite still, hand and foot, aud listened to the sounds as they came and went, and repeated themselves over, and over, and over again. Listened, above all, for any stir that there might be in the silent chamber overhead. This lasted for a long time. By-and-by my father's bell rang. We were both up in an instant.

Janet, being in advance, entered the room first. ' AVhere's Gartha ?' I heard him say. ' Where's Gartha? Why am I left alone ? Where's Gartha, I say ?' The querulous tone, and the thin fingers plucking powerlessly at the curtain, struck me with a cold fear. ' I am here, sir,' I said, going round to the foot of the bed, and shading the light with my hand. ' Are you better now ?' He had shifted his position in his sleep, and lay in a slanting direction, with his feet towards the door. He looked up sharply when I spoke, and shook his head. ' Why do you ask ?' he said, even more petulantly than before. ' You don't care how I am ! I might die up here for all the attention I get from you !' I made no reply ; but Janet charged herself with my defence. ' You ought to be ashamed o' yersel', Martin Wylde !' she exclaimed, in her rough north-country accent. ' Not care, indeed !

D'ye ken that the child hasn't been to bed these five nights past, and that she's wearin' herself out for you every hour in the twenty-four ?' ' Hush, Janet !' I cried ; ' you forget !' ' I forget naething,' said Janet, obstinately, ' and it's because I forget naething that I speak plainly. He has nae mair thocht or heart in him now than he had when his puir young wife . . . .' I put ray hand suddenly over her mouth, and pointed to my father. He had contrived to raise himself on his elbow. His eyes were literally on fire. His lips quivered, and, pale with passion, he strove convulsively for utterance. 'Curse you, you venomous beldame!' he gasped at length. ' What devil possesses you ? I'll turn you out ! You shall starve on the moors like a dog ! I'll . . .' His voice broke, a change passed over his countenance, and he fell back heavily upon the pillows. ' Nobody loves me !' he sobbed, with a bitter moaning in his voice. ' Nobody loves me !' Accustomed as I had been for long years to his paroxysms of anger, to his neglect, to his sarcasms, I knew not how to treat so strange a mcod as this.

Pale and trembling, I stood aside and listened in silence to that complaining cry. Even Janet was appalled. ' Eh, Gartha !' she muttered, 'but he's awfu' bad to-night b child ! Don't ye think we maun speak to him again o' the doctor ?' He overheard her. ' The doctor !' he repeated, with a quick scowl. ' I hate him. He shall never cross my threshold. I'll die first!' ' May be ye will die first, Martin Wylde,' said Janet, solemnly. He turned a shade paler than before, but made no reply. The old servant pursued her advantage. ' You hate the cleverest gentleman and the best Christian in all this country-side,' she said. 'You're not more disliked yersel than Mr. Bryant is beloved, and that's sayin' muckle for him. Even now ye maun hae his help if you wish to see ere another simmer.' There was an interval of silence, during which my father moved uneasily.

At length he spoke. ' Do you think there's danger?' he said, in a tone that strove to be indifferent. ' Danger ! Eh ! but you suld ha' sent for him a week ago, for the matter o' that !' replied Janet, bluntly. I went over to the bedside, and took my usual seat in the easy-chair. ' Janet is right, sir,' I said, very gently. ' Consent before it is too late !' He looked up with a ghastly expression on his face, and then turned from me. ' Too late!' he echoed. ' Am I, then, so very ill?' ' Very ill, sir,' I replied. ' Who's to pay him ? Where's the money to come from ? I haven't a farthing ! haven't a farthing !' And again he moaned and sobbed, and plucked in that pitiful wavering way at the heavy curtain. ' Oh, sir,' I exclaimed, ' don't think of money now ! Let Janet go for Mr. Bryant !' 'You must keep her out of the way, then,' he said hurriedly. 'Who, sir?

Janet?' ' No — your mother.' My mother ! I drew back, startled and bewildered. ' Hush !' he whispered, with a wandering stare. ' Hush ! She was here just now. She stood at the foot of the bed, and Eleanor with her. Poor Eleanor !' I rose hastily, and dragged Janet towards the door. ' Go, go, Janet,' I cried, in an agony of terror. ' He raves — don't you hear him ? My God ! what shall I do ? Oh bring him — bring the doctor !' ' Has the master agreed ?' asked the old woman, doubtfully. ' I darena' gang without he's agreed.' ' Agreed or not matters little now. I will be answer able — take all the blame — oh, pray go, Janet, dear !' But Janet was unwilling to venture without per mission. Outspoken as she was, nothing ever induced her to act in opposition to his entire and absolute autho rity. ' It's a gude three miles ow'r the muir,' said she, seeking an excuse. ' And there's nae moon worth speaking of.

You'd better bide till the morn, and maybe he'll give leave his ainsel'.' I snatched a bonnet from behind the door. ' Let me go !' I cried, impatiently. ' I care nothing for darkness or distance !' ' You'll do nowt of the sort,' said Janet, forcibly possessing herself of the bonnet, and preparing to be gone. 'I'll just gang mysel', child, while you bide herewith the auld man ; and I'll be sworn I shall meet naebody this side of the town.' She wrapped herself in her cloak, and we went down together. I lit the lantern for her, and stood at the door, watching her as she hurried away. The retreating figure was soon lost in the darkness, and only the glimmer of the lantern, rising and falling, and swinging to and fro, like a will-o'-the-wisp, remained to indicate her route. Even this diminished rapidly, became a mere speck, and presently disappeared.

There was a heavy oppression upon me, such as I had never felt before. I remember now how I started when the clock gave warning for mid night — how slowly I made my way back up the stairs — and how I paused outside the bedroom door, listening to my father's rapid muttering, and dreading to go in. He still wandered. Sometimes he spoke of money. Sometimes, though rarely, of my mother. But the name of Eleanor — my aunt Eleanor, who lived with us after my mother died — came most frequently to his lips. At last he fell into a troubled sleep. I stole over to the window and looked out at the bleak and dusky undulations of the moors. They extended round our house in every direction. The waning moon was just scaling a bank of piled black cloud — the three solitary poplars beside the "-ate swayed with the coming and going of the wind — the owl that I had been used to hear ever since my childhood, sent up a quavering wild cry, like the lamentation of a wandering spirit.

I pressed my forehead down upon my hands, and tried to bring back something of the past — but, alas ! it was a past long gone by, and the pictures were broken and confused, like reflections in the water. I was a very little child when my mother died and my aunt Eleanor took her place in our household. She lived with us for six years or more, and I was about nine when she left u<. Nobody ever spoke of her after she was gone, and my father, always harsh, grew more exacting and mo rose than before. She was his only sister, and, I believe, the only creature that he ever loved. I had gathered from a chance word or so of Janet's, that she married badly and died abroad, and this, with such fading and fragmentary recollections as remained upon my mind, was all that I knew of my aunt Eleanor. That she was beautiful, and serious, and cold, and stately, I felt rather than remembered; but the grave tones of her voice still vibrated upon my ears, and I could almost fancy that the frosty touch of her slender fingers yet lingered on my palm.

If I still preserve a faint impression of a warmer hand and a fonder voice, if I love to imagine that hand upon the draperies of my tiny cot, and that voice murmuring a gentle ' good-night,' surely — surely, this is something more than a sweet delusion ! Oh, my mother ! is it not possible that I may yet retain, through all this waste of time, some fleeting memory of thee ? My father turned just now, and muttered in his sleep. An impulse of reluctant curiosity forced me back to his bedside, and I bent over him, listening. He was still speaking of his sister. Some other name (a foreign name, I thought) came in now and then ; but the words were for the most part unintelligible, and I could make out nothing distinctly. I then ventured to touch his hand, and finding it very cold, heaped more coverings upon him, and re turned to my station by the window.

The moon was higher now, and troops of swift ragged clouds were traversing the sky from left to right. Thin ground-mists, like strips of fallen cloud, floated here and there in the hollows, and made the dreary moors look still more ghostly. I sighed, and thought how often, in my restless girlhood, I had wearied of this familiar scene ; compared it with places written about in books, and rebelled against it like an exile in a desert. I remembered how, when the evening dusk closed in, I used to sit, with half-closed eyes, and try to fancy that I saw the ridged ocean in place of the wide heath — and how often, at the same hour, I had watched the piled autumnal clouds, dreaming of sunset peaks and everlasting snows. But that was long ago. I had given up hoping now, and when a thought of change came wandering back, I banished it like an enemy, or avoided it like a temptation.

It was strange, but at thirty years of age I had outlived the aspirations of youth, and learned to dread the freedom I desired. I think I almost loved the dark home, and the bare heath, and the dead life of the place. As for the great beautiful world beyond, what part could I take in it, and what had I to hope from it now? Was I not thirty years of age ? Thirty years of age ! The fact was not new to me. I had thought of it before, and thought of it without regret ; but to-night it struck upon me with a feeling of uneasiness such a_ I had seldom experienced. Half of life already gone ! — the latter half .... Ah ! the latter half, what was there for me there ? Life, sunshine, hope ? No — no — not these — not these. I closed my eyes to happiness as to a thing impossible, and would not think of it.

Still it came back, and back, and I could not banish it. ' A crisis must come,' whispered the voice less thought, ' sooner or late — sooner or later.' Sooner or later ! — oh, not soon — not for years, perhaps ! What should I do when .... Involuntarily I snatched up the candle and went over to the bedside. My father had turned, and was lying heavily across his left arm, with his face pressed to the pillow. It was an uneasy posture, and 1 wondered that he should rest in it so peacefully. No start, no broken mutteriugs, no deep fitful breathing now ! Once again I ventured, very cautiously, to touch the out stretched hand. Something in the cold clammy contact, light as it was, startled me, and, with trembling haste, I felt cheeks, lips, and brow, and found all cold alike. ' Father !' I cried, trying to lift his head from the pillow. ' Father !' My voice was harsh and sudden, and the jarring of it on my own ear startled me.

Gently I laid it down, that heavy head in which the springs of thought were at rest for ever — gently I drew the sheet over it, and closed the curtains. Then I stood still, cold, trembling, and be wildered — stood still and listened. How silent the room was now ! How silent all the house was ! I could hear the clock ticking on the stairs, and the crickets chirping on the kitchen hearth, and the flapping to and fro of a loose window-shutter in a distant room. Even the wind had died away. Even the owl had ceased crying. Oh, the intolerable solitude! Oh, the silence! Oh, the bitter want of something to cling to — something to listen to — something to calm this rising terror at my heart ! Utterly stunned, and full of a blind fear against which I had no power to reason, I staggered, somehow or another, from the room, made my way down the creaking stair-case, and gained the door from whence I had watched Janet's lantern fading over the moor.

I could not stay in the house now — I could not bear to be the only living thing in it. So I opened the door, closed without fastening it behind me, and sat down in the porch to wait. If I had not done so, I should have fainted ; as it was, the keen air revived me, and I recovered somewhat of my self-possession. Still I dared not return within doors, even for a warmer shawl, though the atmosphere was damp and piercing, and I shivered in every limb. And, sitting there in the misty night, one only thought possessed me — ' The crisis has come. I am alone in the world.'

Chapter II. Dr

BRYANT. I cannot tell how long I waited in the porch. I do not know at what time I made the discovery of mv father's death. From midnight to sunrise I kept no count of hours. They are all confused together in my memory, and I retain but a vague impression of them. It seemed a weary interval, however, before Janet returned. The sky was gray with dawn, and a white billowy fog obscured all the country, breaking away, however, at times after a ghostly cosmoramic fashion, and in some places creeping so near the ground as to show the gaunt poplars DR. BRYANT. piercing upwards here and there, like tree-tops above an inundated plain. Thus it was that I heard the quick wheels long before any object was visible through the mist, and was prepared to see Janet, accompanied by Dr Bryant, for some minutes previous to their arrival at the garden-gate.

As they came up the path, I rose, pale and ghastly enough, I dare say, and advanced to meet them. Janet started back with a quick instinct of evil. ' What ails ye, Gartha ?' she said, hurriedly. ' Why have ye left him?' 'I could not stay in the house — alone,' I replied, faintly. She pushed past me without a word, and went in ; but Dr. Bryant took me gently by the hand, and made me sit down again in the porch. ' I am shocked that this should have happened,' he said, kindly. ' How long have you been sitting here, exposed to the damp air ?' I shook my head, but tried in vain to answer. ' You are ill,' he said, still holding my hand, and looking at me with a kind of wistful curiosity. ' The trial has been too strong for you, and, poor child ! you have had to bear it alone. You won't mind corning into the house with me?' Again I shook my head, and he carried, rather than supported, me to the room in which I was sleeping when Janet, so many hours since, awoke me.

With the tender ness of a woman, he placed me on the sofa, wrapped me in the shawls which had been my covering before, and chafed my icy hands between his own. Then the last remnant of my fortitude gave way, and I burst into tears. ' I had never seen death before !' I said, sobbing. • 1 could not help it !' ' Of course not,' he replied, quickly and soothingly. ' Of course not. It is at all time3 awful, even to me. How much more so to you, Gartha !' He called me Gartha, as if he had known me for years already, and smoothed my hair off gently from my brow. ' Come,' he continued, ' my duty here to-day is to make you better, and the first medicine that I prescribe shall be brandy. Where do you keep it?' I pointed to a cupboard beside the window, and he poured out a wine-glassful and bade me drink it off. • And, in the second place, I prescribe a fire.

Why, you tremble as if you had an ague ! Here, mistress Janet, we want some wood and your good help, if you please. Come, come, Gartha, no more tears. We must try to be calm now ; calm and brave, my dear!' Janet came in, looking very pale ; but knelt down in silence and lit the fire, while Dr. Bryant walked up and down the room with his hands behind his back, only paus ing now and then to say a word of encouragement, or to place my pillows more comfortably. Presently he turned towards the door. ' I may as well go up stairs for a moment,' he said, hesitatingly. ' Is it — is it the—the same room, mistress Janet?' ' Yes, sir,' replied Janet, without looking up, and speaking in a low constrained tone. ' It's the same room.' He shut the door after him, and went up. In another moment I heard his footsteps overhead. ' Has Dr. Bryant been here before, Janet ?' I asked.

But she seemed not to hear me, and I felt too ill to repeat DR. BRYANT. 13 the question. He was a long time gone — so long that the fire was blazing, and the room well warmed before he came down again. Then he also looked pale, and I saw that his eyes were red with weeping. ' You must excuse me, Gartha,' he said, huskily, ' if I prescribe for myself this time. My — my nerves to-day are somewhat shaken, and old associations are too strong for me.' He poured out some more brandy as he said this, drank it hastily, and began walking to and fro again between my sofa and the door. After a time he seemed to grow weary of this, and, resting his elbow on the chimney-piece, stood there with his eyes bent on the ground, thinking pro foundly. As for me, I lay quite still and looked at him. He had been handsome in his youth — was handsome yet, ruddy, gray-haired, and portly, with fine white hands, and a smile more sad than cheerful.

Gentlemanly in his address, scrupulously neat in his attire, there was still a shade of indecision in his manner, a tremulousness of the voice and hands, a melancholy line or two about his kind mouth and thoughtful eyes, which impressed one at the very first with what was almost a feeling of compassion. He stood there so long, and a solitary life had made of me so keen an observer, that I had time enough to analyze all this before he changed his position. By-and-by ht looked up, and his eyes encountered mine. Then he brought a chair over and sat down beside me. ' I dare say you wonder what I have been thinking about ?' he said, sighing. Then, finding that I made no reply, he added, hesitatingly, ' My last visit to this house was — was of a very painful nature, Gartha.' ' Then you have been here before ?' ' Yes ; I have been here twice before.' ' Not since I can remember, doctor ?' Again he laid his hand upon my hair, gently and caressingly, as if I were a mere child. ' The first time was when you were born, my dear,' he said. ' The second time was — was . . .' He played nervously with my hand, and broke oS abruptly.

Then, almost in a whisper — ' Do you,' he faltered — ' Do you remember your mother ?' 'My mother!' I exclaimed, eagerly. 'Oh, did you know her ?' His lips quivered, and his voice was so low that the words, ' Yes, I knew her,' seemed rather shaped by the motion of his mouth than uttered audibly. ' Tell me something of her !' I said, flushing and trembling. ' Tell me what she was like ! She was young, was she not ? Young and pretty, with a sweet soft voice, and large brown eyes, and a low merry laugh, like the warbling of a bird ? And her hair, doctor — Janet says my hair is like it ! Oh, pray tell me — pray tell me !' ' Your mother was very beautiful,' he said, with averted face, ' and as — as good as she was beautiful.' ' Did you know her before she married ?' He bent his head affirmatively. ' And everybody loved her, did they not ?' Dr. Bryant turned again and looked straight at me, with his eyes full of tears. ' My dear Gartha,' he said, tremulously, ' I, for one, DR. BRYANT. loved your mother so well that I have lived all my life a lonely man for her dear sake.' I understood the secret of his emotion now.

There wa; a long interval of silence. ' She was too good for me,' he said, at length ; ' but I would have cherished her truly for all that. However, God willed otherwise. When they sent for me the second time, it was to see her fading away — fading away like a little autumn flower. I only attended her for a few clays, Gartha, and the last time I saw her was in the — the room overhead, my dear. I came quite early in the morning — as it might be this morning, when the mists were rising from the heath, and — and she had passed away in the night. Now you know it all, just as it happened, dear — just as it happened !' I tried to say something consoling ; but my voice died away, and my own tears were falling fast. ' Do you think,' I ventured to say at last, ' do you think she was happy after her marriage?' The doctor coughed uneasily. ' Your father,' he replied, ' was the man of her choice.' ' But was he kind to her ?' 'Was he kind to you?' said the doctor, answering a question with a question.

I remained silent. ' Did he do his duty by you ?' ' Yes ; he fed and clothed me.' ' But did you love him, Gartha ?' asked my new friend, laying his hand upon my arm, and speaking very earnestly. ' Did you love your father ?' 'My father never loved me,' I replied, bitterly. ' If I did not love him it was because I could not. I tried hard enough, heaven knows ! The sin was not mine.' ' I am sure of that,' said Dr. Bryant. ' I only asked you that I might better reply to your own question. I fear your mother was not very happy in her preference. Your father was too cold and gloomy — the very house and its surroundings were too cold and gloomy for her. She drooped away, Gartha, from the very first ; but you were her greatest comfort — remember that, dear — her little baby was her greatest comfort while she lived.

And now all this brings me to what I was going to say at the first. You have no near relation or friend at hand, have you, upon whom to lean at the present juncture ?' ' I have no friend in the world, except Janet,' I replied. ' Nobody ever came here, and I think I have no rela tions.' ' Don't tell me that you have no friend in the world,' said the doctor, quickly. ' I am an old friend, Gartha, though you know me to-day for the first time ; and, in proof of it, I shall charge myself with all that is to be done. Leave everything to me, and as soon as I get back to Brookfield, I shall give the requisite directions. As for you, dear, you are my patient, and must obey my orders. When all is over, you shall come to Brookfield, and be my visitor awhile, if an old bachelor's establishment have any attractions for you.

Hush ! no thanks — I cannot bear them from your mother's child.' ' And when will you come again ?' I asked, detaining \iim a moment longer. ' To-night — to-night, if my other patients will let me ; if not, to-morrow morning early. Till then, rest and TREASURE-SEEKING. sleep, and take food, and keep up a good heart for the future. There, good-bye !' I raised myself on the sofa, and watched him driving away in the bright sunshine. ' God bless him !' said Janet, emphatically. ' There goes the best gentleman in a' the twel' parishes, and the man your father disliked maist in the world.' ' How could he dislike him !' I exclaimed, involuntarily. ' That don't matter now,' said Janet, shaking her head. ' He'll dislike naebody ever again.' But I remembered Dr. Bryant's story, and thought I could answer the question myself.

Chapter III. Treasure-seeking

Through all the weary week that followed, I found myself the object of Dr. Bryant's indefatigable care. He minis tered alike to my body and to my mind, fortifying the one by means of his art, and the other with his paternal affection. Not that I leaned upon him. It was sympathy that I borrowed, not strength ; and sympathy in abundance he had to give. Decisive enough in any professional emergency, the doctor, I soon discovered, was of a yielding and somewhat weak nature; but his very weakness only endeared him to me the more. The sympathy of one weaker than ourselves, the sympathy even of a little child will aid the most resolute; and I believe that even then, when I felt my utter loneliness most keenly, when my c future lay so dark before me, and death was in the house both by day and night, I was yet the stronger of the two.