Missing! and other tales

Front matter

MISSING! (JfD OTHER TALES. VOL. MISSING! AND OTHER TALES BY MARY CECIL HAY ATJTHOE OF "OLD MYDDELTON'S MONEY," &c, &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: HUKST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1881. All rights reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET. (coNirnraD.) VOL. III. B

CHAPTER IX.

I HAD promised to play the service at the village church next day, so on this Saturday morning I sat at the window of Mrs. Luard's own little sitting-room, choos ing the hymns and chants. I had tried every room in the house, but the heat was so intense that I could stay nowhere more than a few minutes at a time, and this was my last experiment. The old lady was sitting at her writing-table, but not writing, and, though the light was diminished by the awnings outside the windows (for we could not bear the jalousies closed), I could see that she was fidgeted by something even b more trying than the heat. It was nearly a month now since the day she had driven me from Mr. Lockharfc's house, with that look of anger and distress upon her face ; but, as she had never alluded to the day, nor mentioned his name, I did not.

Chapter I. The

little boys have just started off to school, Dolf carrying the bag of school-books, and Stevie a little parcel of my seed-cake for their luncheon ; and I, still standing at the shop-door, where I always wait for their last nod and smile, feel my eyes fill with tears. Though I sat up so late last night mending their coats, though I brushed their caps so carefully, and though I made their little frayed collars as white as hands could make them, my little brothers still look very, very poor. And I cannot help it. Those who are poor know how impossible it is to look otherwise, even with all care, and will un derstand how, though I try so hard (and have tried for all the seven years since our mother died), we all still look — what we are — very, very poor. My little brothers are at the corner of the street now ; they turn, with their last smile, and in another moment they are out of sight.

I go in from the door, and wipe my eyes, and begin to dust the books in the shop ; and presently I find myself actually singing over the task ; for, after all, poverty is not sickness or death, and, indeed, singing comes more naturally to me even yet than crying. I polish the glass case (very carefully, for fear of the cracked panes giving way), and display to the greatest advantage the few little prints and showy articles which we possess. I make the brightest books conspicuous, and put the faded ones into the background. Then I change the places of the prints and periodicals in the window, that the stationer opposite (whose books and pictures are constantly renewed) may imagine that we sometimes replenish our stock. And, while I am busy, the old, sad thoughts lie only half hidden under those passing fancies I try so hard to hold.

" How hard it is to pay our way from day to day ! How long shall we be able to do it? How long, above all, will my dear old father " I stifle that thought, and go back to my singing, while I put my duster away in its drawer, and rule and date the day-book. This is Thursday, and only six shil lings and • tenpence have been taken through the week. I make a rapid men tal calculation — rent for house and shop ; gas, which must be burned all the evening in the shop, whether customers come in or not ; coal ; taxes ; food for six people, three of whom are hungry, growing chil dren ; clothing for us all ; the stock to keep up ; the schoolbills to meet ; and a few poor to help, to whom our mother used to be kind, and whom she begged us never to forget. And against all this, six shillings and tenpence taken in three days !

In the few moments of silence, while my head is still bent over the day-book, and I am vainly trying to feel strong and ready for whatever may happen, some one, whose step I know, comes into the shop. Yet I do not raise my head ; no, not though my heart is beating with a love which in its great intensity amounts to pain, because it is a love which has never yet gone hand in hand with hope. Gently, though by hands that are used to work, my head is lifted ; then, while my eyes grow hot and troubled under the long gaze that holds them (so tender, so longing, so unutterably sad !) a cry escapes my lips involuntarily, for I know now that this is to be our good-bye, Philip's and mine. Still it is long before I can even whisper his name, to disturb this silence which seems so full of heartache for us both; but for the first time in his life he does not answer me.

Then, as I cannot Dear that yearning gaze of his any longer, I draw my face away and cover it. And when at last he breaks this miserable silence of his, leaning on the counter with his head in his hands in a weary, spiritless way, I hardly recognize the heavy voice as his. " Jeanie, say good-bye to me, and let me go." "Not a last good-bye — oh, not a last good-bye !" I falter. "Why not?" he questions, moodily, but his face is so full of misery, the hand some, honest face that I have seen so happy and content. "Why not? Are these such pleasant interviews that we should multiply them ? Is it manly for me to come and make your hard life harder by letting you witness — beyond your own — my poverty and my despair ?" " They are my poverty and my despair too," I say, very timidly, " and I cannot bear them without you."

VOL. III. f " I want a heart of iron to fight my way from this humiliation," he goes on, still in that unfamiliar tone ■ " and when I am with you I grow weak and trembling like a woman. I — will not come again," " If I thought you meant it, Philip," I say with a smile — a real smile, for could I pretend anything in the face of his intense earnestness? — " I would help you to go away. I would even ask you never to come again, if I thought I really made you weak. So you shall think it over, and tell me exactly what you think, next time you come. "Next time," he echoes, but the unfamiliar bitterness has almost vanished from his tone now, and the old warm, loving look comes back into his eyes, as he takes my hand in his and kisses me. " Next time, Jeanie ! Very well, there shall be one more. I had meant this to be the last.

I had meant to put a hundred miles to-day between myself and you, but your own words are always best. And what a respite it seems ! Isn't that cowardly ? But oh, my dear, my dear, how shall I ever bear that parting which is so near ?" "You really think it wiser to go, Philip," I ask, trying not to let there be any disap pointment in my tone. " It is my only hope," he answers me, covering my hands warmly and closely in his own, just as if to show me how he Avould hold and protect me if he could. " It is the only chance I have of ever win ning you, darling, into my own home, and cherishing you there as you are cherished now in my heart. Dear love, for such an end a man may well work hard, and long, and uncomplaining, and I will — I will. You have calls enough upon your courage and your patience, my own love, without my giving you others.

And I ought at least to comfort and encourage you until I can bear the hardness for you, and give you ease and rest at last. Oh, Jeanie, Jeanie, when shall we gain that sweet ' at last ' we have so long thought of, and that f2 seems to get farther from us day by day ?" " But is really coming nearer to us day by day," I correct, trying to look hope fully into Philip's grave, sad eyes. " And we are both young and faithful, and can wait." "Dear," he whispers, in an unsteady voice, " I seem to have waited so long, and to be no nearer claiming you to-day than I was two years ago, when I found you first, my child-love. Not so near," he goes on, brokenly, "for I was full of hope and courage then, and now " "Aud now," I cry, not minding that my eyes are filled with tears, because I can only think of the two years of poverty and disappointment he has borne in vain, and which have told sadly on his strong young figure and his dauntless, gentle nature; "your child-love is a wo man, Philip, and the love she gives you is stronger and truer a hundredfold than it was two years ago."

Then, as he gently takes my face between his hands once more and kisses it, I see the old, steadfast, patient look come back into his eyes, and I shrink from ask ing him any questions that may chase it again. But he does not wait to be asked. He gives me the gloomy tidings tenderly, and tries to make me believe that he is not depressed and sick at heart because another scheme of his has failed. "It was of no use," he says; "the post was filled an hour before I reached Staf ford. Yet the manager seemed pleased too, Jeanie, with the specimen I took." "Pleased! I should think so," I cry, and I can feel that my pride in him brings a warm colour into my cheeks. " Father says that when he went over the Worcester factories, years ago, he never saw any painting so clever as yours, Philip — none!" " Perhaps," Philip answers, smiling gent ly, for he would never doubt my father's judgment ; " painting on china has made a great advance since then, Jeanie.

The work, in its perfection, is very beautiful now, clear." " Yours is, Philip." " Yes, mine is — sometimes," he assents, with a sigh which I see him try to stifle. "But I often get low, like a fool, and out of heart, and then my work is vile. I need no one to tell me this, I can see it myself, and, as I see it so different from my idea, you may guess my hand does not gain in cun ning. But sometimes again I am satisfied with my own designs ; and — yes, I think they are even as you say, beautiful. If I had only one fair start," he cries, drawing his hand wearily through his hair, " I might " " ' Look the whole world in the face and owe not any man,' " I put in, trying to bring a smile to his harassed face. " I might give you — but what is the use to think of an impossible case ?" he says, unsteadily.

" Not impossible at all, Philip," I contra dict. " It is two years nearer than it was when I knew you first, and then you said you should soon be at the top of the pro fession. Do you forget?" " Forget !'' he echoes, meeting my eyes with just his own old smile. " It takes a man more than two years to forget such castles as I built then, my darling. They have fallen about me in ashes, but I cannot forget them." " Now, Philip," I say, trying in a most unnatural way to be cheerful, " tell me what is your next plan ?" At first I think he does not hear, for he stands quite still opposite me, looking at me in a wistful, questioning way, yet with his lips closed and stern. So I repeat the question, with a still greater effort to be cheerful — and consequently I think a still greater failure. "My next plan," he said, in a hard, curt way, " is — America."

" Oh, Philip !" The cry of sorrow and fear comes from me sorely against my will ; and, when I see the change it brings into his face, I understand that it was the strong command he had put upon himself which had made him tell me of this project so coldly and briefly. " Don't say a word to me, Jeanie — not one Avord. It is ruin to me to stay here, and it is you only who can keep me." But my heart is stronger because I have seen how he suffers, and I feel how un- Avorthy I shall be of his great love, if I do not help him in such hours as these. "If you say it is best for you to go, Philip," I say, as steadily as ever I can, " I shall know it really is best, and I shall — I shall think all day and night of hoAv you will some day come home again to me, and of how happy we shall be — then." " My dearest," he says, in a strange sort of intense whisper, holdiug my hands so tightly that he really pains me.

And then it seems as if the other words he wished to say will not come. So I smile a little — though it all seems strange, as if my A SHADOW ON' THfcl THRESHOLD. lips could never have known how to smile before — and say that he shall tell me everything next time he comes — next time. "I had so much to tell you, Jeanie, to explain and soften that resolution I have had to make in my deep despair ; and I have said nothing." D "You have told me of the resolution, Philip," I answer, almost steadily. " That is enough for this morning. It will seem O o different to me when you come next ; and we can talk of other things — too. I — I see exactly what you mean, Philip — ex actly." " I do not,"' he says, in an odd, bitter way, as he turns his head suddenly from me. " I would to heaven I did ! When will it all be clear ?"

" Very soon," I answer, feeling strangely shy while I speak thus to Philip, because he has always been so much braver than I have ; and there never was a time before this when I have had to speak as if he were impatient or discontented. " Very soon, Philip ; and when we see our future clearly, as you say, we shall see it so bright ! And we shall love it so — we two — always together. What will this little separation signify, for all will be bright at last ? And — oh, my love, I am so faithful in my heart ?" I had not thought what words I was going to say. They came from me like a sob, in my great love and yearning, and in my pity for us both. Very quietly he holds me for a moment, while I feel the quick, irregular beating of his heart ; then he leaves upon my shaking lips one of his old long, gentle kisses, and I am alone ; standing with my eyes covered that I may not see him go, for I am still so cowardly and so unworthy of his great love !

"Jeanie!" It is father calling, and I run to him into the parlour behind the shop, and take my morning kiss ; a double kiss this morn ing, because it is his birthday. Then I bring up his breakfast from the fire, where I have been keeping it warm ever since Lottie took Aunt Charlotte's up to bed to her, nearly half an hour before. " Now, father dear," I whisper, putting one arm softly round him, when I give him his coffee, and dropping my eyes that they may not rest upon his worn and hag gard face, " you must make a good meal, because, you know, however late you stay in the City, you never get yourself any thing there, and you need it so much. And don't stay late to-day, dear," I plead, kissing his thin cheek, still with my eyes turned away. " Promise me you will not stay late. It is better far, dear, to be — to go on as we are, than for you to wear yourself out as you are— as you would do, I'm sure, in your hope of helping us."

"Go on as we are?" he murmurs, echo ing my words drearily. " Jeanie dear, we cannot go on as we are." " Then things will get better," I put in, picking specks of dust from his worn coat. " Or worse," he adds, very low, putting down his knife and fork, and looking out into the shop — no, not into it, but as if through it, into a great vacancy beyond. " They cannot be worse, father dear," I say, in quite a cheery sort of way. " The very first change that comes must neces sarily be a change for the better." " If I get nothing to do, Jean " — he never calls me " Jean " when he is not sorely troubled — " very soon everything we have must go." " Why, father, there is no one to take them !" I say ; but there comes a great lump into my throat quite suddenly, and a sort of mist before my eyes ; for it does not need beautiful and costly things about one to make one love one's home and all within it, even with a strong and clinging love.

" But, if I do get employment," my father goes on, while I try in vain to give him the smile I can so plainly see he misses — " and I quite believe I soon shall, my deai' — we may manage to tide over the Avinter, Jeanie." " How good that will be, father !" I say, for indeed I feel very thankful to think we may pass the hardest season of all, and begin a fresh year. " So you see, Jeanie," father says, rising with the very busiest air imaginable, and looking, for a moment, quite important as he buttons up his thin black coat, " how much depends upon my going into the City, don't you ?" " Yes, father; but you will not walk too far, or fast too long ?" No, he will not. He will remember that he is old, and that his children are young — so he tells me, with the dreamy smile which makes his pinched face look a little like what I have seen it in the old days long ago.

I kiss him again, finding no words to answer this, and then we talk of other things, while he eats his breakfast, because I want to tempt him on to take more than he usually does, before his long day's walking, and talking, and anxiety, and dis appointment. I tell him how Jennings sister (Jenning is the boy who takes down our shop-shutters every morning) has a situation in Hammersmith, to which she goes to-night, and how Jenning begged a sheet of notepaper and an envelope to give her as a parting gift, and what a wise present I think it, because it will be sure to come back to him. I tell him that I believe Preston, the chemist, has a new assistant, and that Evans's windows next door look nice and dusty, and show off ours beautifully. Then (in quite the same tone) I tell him that Philip has been into the shop, having had quite ten minutes to stay and chat.

But I do not tell him of the two new prints in the stationer's opposite, nor — nor of Avhat Philip came to tell me. "Now, father," I say at last, when he has left the table, and I am putting into paper for him a good slice of my seed cake, " you will eat this, won't you, as you pass through some unfrequented street ? Don't forget it, as you did yesterday, and bring it home unopened. I really shall feel it a personal insult, and shall know you are as hard to please as aunt Charlotte, who says my cakes want richness." " My dear," he explains, anxiously, " I always enjoy it, but I forgot it yesterday. Yes, I will eat it surely, Jeanie. As for the unfrequented streets, dear, why, I know plenty of frequented ones in the City where I could peacefully demolish a whole loaf, without anyone but myself being aware of the dark deed.

Now are you sure you have told me everything you want for the shop ?" I give him a list, scarcely one item is more than the merest trifle, but the me morandum is elaborately copied out and explained, to give it an air of importance. Then I brush his hat, and tie on his com forter, and by that time we hear aunt Charlotte's heavy step, and she meets us, leaning heavily upon Lottie's shoulder. The taking up of aunt Charlotte's breakfast, waiting on her while she eats it, and then assisting her industriously during the protracted performance of dressing, is always Lottie's morning work, while I have the breakfast to prepare, father's coffee to pour out, and the shop to dust and arrange. And (fortunately, I think) it very rarely happens that father has not started before aunt Charlotte makes her appearance downstairs, always entering so heavily and so gloomily, with her hand on Lottie's shoulder, looking as if she hated each fresh day as it comes, and always seeming injured if this gloomy shadow does not reach Lottie's gentle face below her.

But to-day father meets her, as I say, and so turns back, after his cheery greeting to her, to wheel her chair to the fire. " Going out again, Steven !" she exclaims, in her most fretful tone. " You must have plenty of money to spare. No one who had not his purse full would go back wards and forwards to town as you do day after day." "My dear, I am going to make the little that I have into much," father says, speaking hopefully, as he invariably does to aunt Charlotte in her dismal, worrying moods. " Well," she sighs, pushing away the knitting Lottie brings her, " it is only wast ing words to tell you what I think about it. You will never see your own imprudence, I'm convinced, till it's too late. But then I am glad to think its consequence will be a more effectual punishment than my warn ing words."

" And a sharper one too, Charlotte." Aunt Charlotte turns her head away im patiently, at these gentle words. "You none of you feel things as I do," she moans ; " but how can I expect you should. You don't sit here all day thinking what might have been. You are o o VOL. III. G A SHADOW ON THE THRESHOLD. not capable of looking far on and seeing the ruin and poverty that threaten us. You act like babies, and don't seem to know what misery means. You laugh as you never could if you felt for those who suffer denials like me. You have no considera tion for me. You forget that I know how things ought to be with us if right were done." "I remember Who knows exactly how things ought to be with us, and Who "will some day set them right," my father whispers, so low that I think no one hears him but me ; for I always do hear every word he says, whatever I may be doing, because I have been so long trying to be to him just a little what mother was.

" If turning into fun things that ought to be cried over, would bring us money," Aunt Charlotte goes on, icily, " I would try to do it. And if laughing would pro vide any one of us with warm clothes for the winter, I would try to laugh too." " Do, Charlotte," poor father interposes, with quite a beaming smile " Do try, my dear, and then at any rate we shall — see." " I never," says Aunt Charlotte, with a slow, rigid gaze into poor father's face, " saw anything so ridiculous, Steven, as your pretending to believe we are not hopelessly poor, aud need not be utterly depressed. Why, bless me, just tell me what we are, if we are not about the very poorest people in Hackney !" " I don't know — I don't know what we are, if not," murmurs poor father, the frail gleam of spirit quite dead now. "And Jean is the worst of you all," Aunt Charlotte goes on, for she seldom has one of these fretful attacks without very specially alluding to me.

" She sings about the house, while I may sit here aud break my heart." Then father pauses a moment, just as he is leaving the room, and lays his gentle hand upon my head. " Even Jeanie's singing," he says, "does a A SHADOW ON THE THRESHOLD. not make us poorer. She has care enough, for we all lean on her young willing hands. She has need of some brightness, even if she has to make it for herself as well as for us. God bless her ! Let her sing."

Chapter II. Standing

just within the shop door, I watch father out of sight, just as I watched the children ; then I go back to have my own breakfast with Lottie, if we ean both be spared for it just then. And we can, for Aunt Charlotte is too moody and silent now to find employment for either of us. We, too, are unusually silent this morning, Lottie looking pale and tired, though it is so early, and I haunted ceaselessly by the memory that Philip is going away from me. When our breakfast is over (it is al ways a brief meal enough, but to-day it is briefer than usual), Lottie helps me to carry the things down into the kitchen, then takes her sewing, and sits where she can mind the shop, as well as be near enough to Aunt Charlotte to wait upon her, and to talk to her if she should feel inclined to talk. I do not sing this morning as I go about my household work, but it is quite late on before I discover this fact, stopping and wondering over it then, with a sort of solitary self-pitying little laugh.

I am dusting Aunt Charlotte's bed-room, and, without exactly knowing what thought follows my discovery, I go up to her glass and look at my own face. It is not changed. It looks no older than it did this morning, when I stood plaiting my hair, and romancing with Lottie upon happy impossibilities, while she sat up in bed screwing her courage for the final plunge out into the cold. Yet I never dreamed then of Philip going — nor will I dream of it now, for, if I do, oh, how heavily, how heavily the hours will pass f And when father comes No, not an other thought. What a blessing work is ! I daresay many a girl's heart is saved from breaking, and her thoughts saved from bitterness, by daily tasks that must be done for others. While the potatoes are steaming, I run up to lay the cloth for dinner ; and, finding Lottie has done that for me, I stay a few minutes chatting by Aunt Charlotte's chair, before I go down again to broil her chop.

It is not an extra large or fine one, but as father brought it from town yesterday so cautiously and circumspectly, and as I have cooked it with the greatest care, it has such an intrinsic value in my eyes that I feel as if Aunt Charlotte must surely make some pleasant remark upon it. But she does not. There are plenty of potatoes for Lottie and me and the children, and Ave are all healthy, and can enjoy a meal of potatoes or bread and cheese most heartily — Lottie especially, because she is growing so fast that she is generally hungry ; but indeed father says that I, though I am nearly nineteen (six years older than Lottie), am growing too. When I have washed up and put every thing away after dinner, and changed my frock, it is my turn to mind shop ; so I get the waistcoat I am making for father, and stitch at it, helping Lottie the while with her lessons.

Poor little Lottie ! These lessons of hers are a struggle for both of us, and I am sure she must know as well as I do (though she would never say it, never) that I am scarcely educated enough myself to help her, and that, if father could possibly afford to send her to school, she would soon be a very clever girl, as well as such a very happy one. " Don't you ever wonder, Jean," she says to me sometimes — but very seldom — " why things should be always hard for us, when they seem to be so smooth for other people ? Oh ! how it puzzles me when I see girls of nry own age going to school so unwillingly, while I should think it such a great bless ing ! Jean, what are we to do ? No one gives father anything to do, and I don't A SHADOW ON THE THRESHOLD. wonder. Even you don't wonder, Jeanie, though you so persistently pretend you see no change in him ; for he gets to look weak and old, poor father !