Below the Salt. A novel

Chapter I

" Lo ! this man's visage, like a title page, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume." Presently the conviction strengthened to each woman that the person was a naval officer unknown to them, and that he was coming to their residence. With open lips, to try to breathe more freely, they both watched the unfamiliar figure. Mrs. Heath dale, with a face hke ashes, grey and colour less, came down to the small drawing-room to hear her fate. There was a ring at the bell ; they heard Sally's tardy preparations for'answering it — the pulling out of the dresser drawer for the clean white apron. VOL. II. " Let me go," cried Pleasance, impetuously, but as she spoke the front door was opened, and they heard the footstep of the maid on the stairs, bringing the gentleman's card, "Captain Malcolm, R.N., H.M.S. 'Isis.'" Mrs. Heathdale signed that he was to be admitted.

He was already on the threshold. He was a man whose face had never blanched in battle or shipwreck, but it was now corpse like in its paleness. "I believe I am in the presence of Mrs. Heathdale ; and — can it be " Pleasance signed assent. " Of Mrs. Petrel ? It is most miserable to me to come on such an errand." " Oh !" cried the poor mother, with one bitter cry, "Edward is dead!" and she flung her bead on to the outstretched arms which were laid along the table, and gave no other token of the pang which had severed the dearest tie which bound her to hfe. "Is Edgar— is Midshipman Petrel dead too?" asked Pleasance, with frightful com posure. "He is, my dear young lady; I feel for you both. This poor widow lady is your mo ther, I suppose ?" "My mother in affection," replied the girl. " Oh, sir ! how could you let them die ?

How could such a fate reach them in that noble ship ? My poor, poor Edgar !" and she wept bitterly. Captain Malcolm walked to the window, turning his back on the ladies, and wiped his face with his bandana handkerchief. " I knew they were dead !" cried Pleasance, in a rage of grief and despair. " When those strange faces looked over the side of the vessel, I knew my Edgar was not alive, or he would have been watching for my coming, as for hours I had watched for his." Mrs. Heathdale lifted her ghastly face, now fixed in the calm of a sorrow which even time could never lessen in this world. " Tell us, Captain Malcolm, if you please " Here her voice failed her, and the captain began to speak eagerly. " They were friends ; they were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths were not divided.

Two of the best officers that ever trod the deck of the ' Isis,' or any other ship 1—2 of war. It was in the Bay of Biscay ; the weather was stormy, the waves like moun tains of yeast, the sky thick with mist ; it was getting dark. The man on the look-out reported a vessel foundering in the offing. She was flying signals of distress and firing minute guns. Her crew and passengers were crowding the deck and clinging to the masts. The state of the weather made it impossible to order a boat to go to their assistance, but I told my crew that if any officer and men volunteered, they might take the long boat and try to save as many as they could. Lieutenant Heathdale and Midshipman Petrel came forward at once. Heathdale cried aloud for volunteers, but there was a deep silence. At length three men from the maintop sang out, ' Anywhere with you, sir.' They hoisted out the long boat.

The two young officers looked at the distant vessel, then at the smoking sea, through which their course must be steered, and they turned and shook hands before they sprang into the boat. We watched that gallant little crew with throb bing hearts till she was out of sight, for even ing was increasing the gloom of the sea and sky, and the ship herself was one black undistinguishable blot on the white waves. We held our breath with anxiety for the next ten minutes, when we saw the boat return ing crowded with miserable wretches re deemed from death by our officers and sea men. Then such a shout went up to Heaven of such glad acclamation from our sailors and officers, as must have thrilled the brave hearts whom it was intended to honour. They reached the ship's side ; the shipwrecked men were placed on board. ' Come on board, gentlemen,' I cried.

Lieutenant Heathdale shouted through the roar of the blast, ' There are many more left ; we must return for them.' — ' No, no,' I cried. — -' Captain, I have promised,' he shouted. — ' Go, then, and may God prosper you,' I answered through the trumpet. They went and returned, and went again. We were more hopeful ; they had done it twice with safety, why not a third time ? Once more we watched them through the surf ; now topping the billows, now lost to sight in the trough of waves, then all was indistinct and night fell on the scene, but lights were burning to guide them back. There were none in the doomed vessel. We watched, we shouted, but no answer came on the blast over the waves. The wind had freshened at night, but when the sun rose the sea was comparatively smooth, and its level rays shone over a world of barren waters.

Towards evening a solitary object was descried. A boat was sent towards it, and returned towing the long boat, which was floating keel uppermost. " Madam, death must come to us all. Could your son, and your husband, my dear young lady, have died more nobly ? They died for others in the prime of their youth and strength. This is better than to linger on earth for the fourscore years which are but labour and sorrow and utter helplessness of mind and body. " These men were an example of steadiness and well doing in their lives, and of disinterested self-sacrifice in their deaths. They are hallowed in the memories of their shipmates for their undaunted courage, as shown both in the tenor of their lives and the manner of their deaths. Believe me, ladies, there are bitterer things than the death of those we love.

I have had young men in my ship who have brought disgrace on their kindred." "Disgrace never could have attached to the name of Heathdale," said the widow, putting aside the consolation offered. " I thank you, sir, you have been very kind. We will not trouble you further ; you cannot give us back our dead. We must bear our hard lot as we can. She rose and stood up, very pale and com posed. A new trouble seemed to strike Plea sance, a fresh agony of conviction. " Oh ! I do not know where his dear body is carried about on the wicked waves. Dashed and hurt against the rocks, never to be laid on holy ground. I cannot, cannot bear it !" and she flung herself on the ground, clenching her fingers in her luxuriant hair, as if she would pull out handfulls. Captain Malcolm raised her. " Poor girl !" he cried.

" She is young to have such grief to bear. There are the poor young fellows' effects, madam — their sea-chests. I will send them here." Thus saying he tendered his hand to the elder lady ; and finding Pleasance utterly in- BELO W THE SALT. 8 capable of replying to his leave-taking, he departed. The blow was greatest to Mrs. Heathdale. She felt it to be so ; but the young can never believe that the sufferings they endure are not the most poignant ever before experienced by humanity. Mrs. Heathdale had before lost the partner of her life, and the creature most bound to love and cherish her. Her son grew up, and took his father's place in devotion to her welfare. She was his one thought, for whose sake he forbade his eyes and his inclinations from resting on the fair creatures on shore, who seemed angelic, and whom he would have liked to worship.

He was taken from her ; and, though in the first anguish of her grief it did not strike her, she had lost, in losing him, a great source of pecuniary comfort. It could not be helped. She trusted she should not live long, for life was as a rose from which the blossoms had been riven, and the thorns strengthened. She had that quiet sublimity of grief which could accept of no consolation, and which de .sired none. I question if she understood what was said to her on the subject. It was an incongruous noise, like the soundings of brass and the tinkling of cymbals. An awful carelessness of life, and of all but the troubled deep of sorrow within her, brooded over her existence ; yet she never swerved from her duty to Pleasance and her child. Poor Plea sance ! But to be -consoled by the possession of Pleasance, would have been as if one sheltered under a majestic oak should have found com fort under its destruction by cherishing a knot of primroses which clustered amongst the spreading roots.

When Captain Malcolm had departed, Pleasance heard a cry from little Margaret in the nursery ; and on ascending thither she discovered that it had arisen from a difference of opinion between Sally and the child, who insisted on pulling on the pretty red shoes which Mrs. Heathdale had given her to wear when her father returned. Sally, with a delicacy which would have done honour to a more refined station, was trying to conceal them from Pleasance as she entered the room. The tears and sobbings, which re-echoed through the small house, had confirmed Sally's suspi cions that something fatal had happened, and the maid had listened with tears to the account of the death of her master and his friend. " Give her the shoes, Sally, never mind ;" and the poor young widow leaned her aching head against the child's fat shoulders and cried feebly.

She was too much exhausted to be as miserable as she would be after she slept. On the following morning the chests were brought up on the shoulders of some stalwart seamen. Mrs. Heathdale paid them double what she would have given to porters, for they had known and served under Lieutenant Heathdale. It was breaking the last link with the profession of her husband and son, when, with raised hats from their curly heads, the men left the house. The heavy chests, which represented the homes of exiles on the broad sea, could not be carried up the small staircase. They were to be unpacked in the dining room, and Mrs. Heathdale advised Pleasance not to open hers for a few weeks, when they would be more inured to sorrow. She dreaded the violent bursts of grief, which would be reawakened by the sight of all the small trifles which must bring the dead so vividly to the memory of the survivors.

Chapter II

" An anodyne, but not a remedy.'' Ninety pounds a year pension, as the widow of a lieutenant, and the house, were all that remained for the support of Mrs. Heathdale. Whilst her son lived he had contributed liberally to her comfort from his pay. Plea sance would possess the five hundred a year left to Edgar, and would be comparatively wealthy. " I fear I must leave this house, and take a lodging," Mrs. Heathdale said. " Oh !" cried Pleasance ; " is not my money enough for us all three ?" and she fetched little Margaret, and, placing her in the arms of her friend, said proudly, " There ! I know you would never leave her. Let us always live together. ' Where thou diest I will die, and there will I also be buried.' " Mr. Syer craved permission to call and offer consolation to the sufferers. Mrs. Heathdale declined, for her own part and for Pleasance's, to see any one for the present.

When she did receive Mr. Syer, she stipulated by a previous note that no reference should be made to any personal subjects. The chests were opened after such a lapse of time as Mrs. Heathdale had considered prudent with regard to the health of Plea sance. She, herself, knew the contents of her son's,. of which she had so frequently superintended the packing. There were her letters, all dated and tied carefully, labelled " letters from my beloved mother," a few favourite books, his log book, that record of a daily life, so useful, and so abruptly closed. Pleasance also found her letters carefully tied together ; Edgar had a long one addressed to her unfinished in his blotting-book with reference to them, speaking with the greatest admiration on the signs of mental culture they exhibited ; " much as I loved you, darling Pleasance," he had written, " I had felt a little repugnance to introducing an uneducated girl to my father and sisters ; your humble birth was a matter of indifference to me — but the want of culture was, shall I confess it ? a serious drawback to the thought of our meeting my faxpily.

But my Pleasance now is not only one of the most beautiful of her sex, but one of the best educated and intelli gent. "We owe this first to your love for me, which gave the impulse to study, and has continued to influence you for three years ; and next to the careful training of that dear and charming woman wdth whom you reside. May you ever continue to do so when I am compelled to be absent on duties connected with my profession. I can now look forward with much pleasure to my return t you ; will you forgive me, Pleasance, that I have never told them at home of my marriage ? The sub ject was painful to me — I could hardly confide it to my father when my mother was scarcely laid in her grave, and the concealment, once entered upon, was difficult to break through ; but now I can take you by the hand and say, ' Father, I sinned in that I married her without your knowledge, but you will find her worthy to be your daughter, and afar better wife than I deserve.' My thoughts are always homeward bound ; they rest on you and the small house overlooking the sea with longing so intense, that, as the time decreases when I may hope to meet you again, sad forebodings dim the prospect, and whisper that we are never again to be re united in this world.

If this be so, may you be protected in your lonely journey through life, you and that angel child whom I never, never saw ! I bless you, darling, for the photographs you have sent me of her and of yourself. Those of the child satisfy me most ; you come out too dark — your golden hair is not represented truly — yellow becomes black in a photograph it seems ; but the infant is charming from the first, taken at three months old- — -when she slept with the perfect little fingers relaxed in repose, painted as only the sun can paint — to the handsome clever-looking child of two years, standing sturdily on her feet and looking out of the picture as if she was scanning the world in which she must take her part. Dear as she is to me, my Pleasance, she has not usurped the first place in my heart : you there reign without a rival ; may heaven bless you both and make her a comfort to your life if mine be not spared !

Do not stint yourself of anything you require for my sake. The only thing which I very much longed for was books, before poor Pyne's legacy made me really a wealthy man for a sailor, and those I have been able to afford myself. The ship is roll ing so desperately that I can scarcely make my words distinct. I hear there is a ship in distress. " Farewell, my own darling." The last half page was left, the blotted words visible on the opposite sheet. They were the last of which that true heart had left its tracings on paper. The last circum stances of his life might plead with the recording angel for the obliteration of the single unfilial act which had blurred its brightness. The eyes of the young widow were tear stained and blood-shot for some days after reading this. She kept it for some time as being too sacred to reveal to anyone ; but a generous desire to give her elder friend pleasure induced her to place it in her hands.

Mrs. Heathdale smiled sadly, patted her cheek, and gave back the letter, " Praise gave her no pleasure now — The springs of happiness were dried up." Again it was morning at Birchland Rectory, but tbis time Mr. Petrel, the father of poor Edgar, was to learn from the public paper? the bad news about his son. There was n«. mother whose heart would have thrilled with anxiety or subsided into hopeless grief — but at the table where sat Mr. Petrel and his daughter Mary, a step-mother presided ; she was grand in folds of massive grey silk, which gave dignity to her spare form, and crowned with feathery folds of delicate lace, which shadowed locks in which glistened, sparsely, grey hairs. Mr. Petrel had married Miss Earl twelve months after poor Margaret's death. The lady was not so blunt-witted as not to require VOL. ii. a settlement of all her own property on her self and her children, if she should bear any to Mr. Petrel.

She had instituted many re forms in the Rectory— only the eldest daughter was permitted to share the meals of her father and step-mother. The younger ones lived in the nursery with a governess, which, whilst it increased Mr. Petrel's ex penses, increased also his daily comfort. " Bless me !" cried the father, opening and turning the pages of the Times. " Here is an extract from the Portsmouth Chronicle — about someone of my name. It cannot be ! Yes, the ' Isis.' Oh ! Good Heaven ! Poor Edgar." "What about poor Edgar?" asked Mrs. Petrel, fretfully and mockingly. The father did not hear. He was reading a paragraph which spoke of the gallantry and devotion, even unto death, of the youth and his lieutenant ; and, touched by the reflected glory on himself, he covered his face with his handkerchief and left the table, taking refuge in the walled garden and a cigar.

Mary put forth her hand to reach the paper, having dimly caught the truth that Edgar was mentioned in it. Mrs. Petrel removed it quietly out of her reach, and placed her own elbow on it. " No well brought up young woman ever reads the public papers, especially the Times, which is intended only for the perusal of men and matrons." " Perhaps then, madam," replied the rebel lious step-daughter, " you will be so good as to read aloud for my benefit the account which has reference to my brother." Mrs. Petrel could scarcely refuse a request so reasonable — but she indemnified herself for the conception by lingering as long as she could first over a crusty piece of buttered toast. Then she finished her coffee and read, with as little feeling as an automaton, the ac count which had fired hundreds of sympa thetic brains, and softened hundreds of devoted hearts, at breakfast-tables of the United Kingdom that morning — for, " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

And the pulses of stranger men and women beat quicker as they read of the helpless, 2—2 saved by the helpful, who were so soon to lack the aid they had given. Mary wept, for all little jealousies of her brothers and sisters had vanished when that dreadful mother-in-law had been imported, and she thought only how her mother had loved the drowned youth, and that no one would now weep for him but herself, and, per haps, her father. Mr. Petrel was striding up and down the walled garden. He had succeeded in winning Miss Earl, and having adored her delicate minc ing ways, and her refined toilette when she was Miss Earl, he hated her now that she was Mrs. Petrel. The marriage of convenience had turned out no better than the imprudent marriage of love. " It is really extraordinary," Mr. Petrel had observed to himself, when the slow con viction of its failure stole over his mind ■ "it is most incomprehensible how those women could neither of them make me happy, nor thern selves, such a good-tempered fellow as I am ! never interfering in the comfort of others, only asking leave to enjoy the sunshine of my own placid temper !"

Margaret was poor and pinched; Jane is rich and pinching. Jane Earl chose to have her own coachman and horses and footman, in attendance on herself. These belongings were considered next to herself in importance in the family, and if by any mismanagement the sugar ran short, Mrs. Petrel's attendants, i.e., the ladysmaid, coachman and footman, took what quantity there was, and the nur sery went without. Mr. Petrel vainly tried to re-establish his authority over his better half by taking the high ground of a minister of the gospel on whom in a great degree depended " Her certain title to the joys above." But fainiliarity had produced contempt, and she gave her husband to understand that she had discovered to her cost that he possessed not that divining rod which could guide to the living waters — the true high priest was yet to seek.

Mr. Petrel did not insist. It was a rdle too artificial to Jasper Petrel to simulate for any lengthened period. So long as Mrs. Petrel possessed any latent hope of maternity, her temper was kept within bounds ; but as the hope of progeny grew less and less, the desire of possessing it grew stronger and stronger, and her irritability became almost pitiable, even to the victims of it. Mr. Petrel had to pay his household expenses, now increased by three persons, if he balanced the cost of one wife by that of another, and he became more and more pinched for ready-money, whilst his wife, with her large balance at her bankers, might have rendered him wealthy, but declined to help to bear his load even by the touch of her little finger. Now " the father " was stirred to a spas modic life in the depths of that selfish heart.

" Poor young fellow ! poor Edgar ! how well he was spoken of ! Any one might be proud of having possessed such a son !" Then he lighted a fresh cigar to continue his mental discourse on the new phase of circumstances. " I wonder if the young fellow had saved money. He sent me two hundred the first year that he took his legacy. I should not have minded if he had continued that sub scription to the family expenses." Suddenly he stopped. A bright thought struck him. " Sailors are the most reckless creatures that live. He is sure not to have made a will. That five hundred a year must be mine." He flung away the remainder of his cigar, and went in to his bureau to write a letter to his lawyer. When the letter was written and posted, he returned to his family with a charming air of resignation on his countenance, which might almost have been mistaken for one of subdued hilarity.

" Your brother could not have perished more nobly," he said with seeming tenderness to his red-eyed daughter. " Let that tend to console you, my child, as it has already served to diminish my paternal suffering." Mrs. Petrel listened in silence. " I dare say he was just as intolerable as are all the rest of that woman's children : but he is dead, and there is an end of the matter," was Mrs. Petrel's epitaph on poor Edgar. " To the Rev. Jasper Petrel, Birchland Rectory, Mudshire. "Rev. Sir, "In answer to your inquiries as to whether your son, my lamented officer, died intestate, I regret I can give you no information. All his property on board the ' Isis/ contained in his sea-chest, was delivered by my sailors to his wife, residing at Plymouth, to whom I had the heartrending task of convey ing the news of his decease."

" Good heavens and earth, the sea, and all that in them is !" exclaimed the Rev. Jasper- Petrel. "What a miserable affair, what an unlooked-for disappointment ! What a good for-nothing boy to marry without my con sent." He had to conceal his chagrin as he best could, lest it might provoke the sneers and cruel smiles of his wife. How he hated her cold grey eyes and thin compressed lips. She was sufficiently shrewd to suspect that some disappointed hope existed. Mary, that is, the eldest daughter, was a shield with which the father could cover his head in the day of battle, i.e., of keen encounter of wits between Mrs. Petrel and himself. Mrs. Petrel had " a lean and hungry look," and required but little sleep. How her husband dreaded the glisten of her grey eye, when he had nodded over his newspaper, till he started up, having become chilly down the back, by outsitting the fire.

She knew as well as possible that if she moved hand or foot, or disturbed an inch of bed clothes, Mr. Petrel would be on his guard, and rebuild the fire, and take the Saturday Review or the Spectator, and leave her waiting in ambush till the small hours ; when, how ever, the clothes were turned down, and the marital knee gingerly inserted beneath them, " Lest his too lawful bedfellow should wake," and his eyes fixed anxiously on the partner of his days and nights, she would open one glistening grey orb, and observe him in silence. She was swathed in a cobweb of laces, of which the centre seemed a solid white bag, such as are to be observed in the corners of neglected rooms, where Betsy, the maid, can not reach them, and has no male friend out of doors to attach the brush to the convenient branch of a tree.

On the night in question she had received BELO W THE SALT. during the day a letter from her sister — the wife of the magistrate who had committed poor Pleasance to prison — and was burning with the malicious desire to inflict the con tents on her husband. She could hardly do so with due regard to propriety in the presence of so young a girl as Mary. Mr. Petrel suppressed a groan at the glance of that terrible eye, and turned his back on the partner of his bed. " Mr. Petrel," she began, with cat-like softness. " What is it ?" cried Jasper, with less than his usual patience. " We have so little opportunity of speaking in private, Mr. Petrel, having your daughter always in our company, that I am obliged to break my own rest and yours if I want to speak on any subject unfitted for her ear." " Speak away," cried Mr. Petrel, crossly, with his face turned to the distant wall.

" Oh, I shall not interfere with your dreams long, sir, only you know your eldest son is dead, and you have expressed no wishes about mourning. It is almost a week since you read the account in the Times, and I thought possibly that it might have slipped your memory." Now Mr. Petrel had intended to place his children in handsome mourning if he had found that Edgar had made him his heir ; but a saying impressed on his mind in childhood by his nurse made him hesitate. " For my part," said the crone, " I never cry for them as don't leave me enough to buy a pocket handkerchief to wipe my eyes." Had he succeeded to his son's poor five hundred a year, all the children should have mourned with due decorum ; but if there was a wife there was probably a child, and if a child, certainly a will, or such a legal distribu tion of property as would make his share not worth inquiring about.

" 1 really wish, Jane, you would let a poor fellow sleep. I cannot, talk on subjects so painful at night." " You are always so drowsy in the morning, Mr. Petrel. You know I altered the breakfast hour to ten o'clock to suit you, and yet you are never ready." " Well, speak away, Mrs. Petrel, and have done with it." " Do you wish the mourning to be ordered or not ? If you do, you had better write the letter yourself. I do not feel disposed to pro vide my step-children with mourning for a wild young fellow I never saw." h " I never heard that Edgar was a wild young fellow, madam. He died most nobly, according to all accounts." Mrs. Petrel sighed. " I feel more reconciled daily to my child less state, when I see the marvellous blindness of parents with regard to their offspring. The pious head-master of Dulchester college once said in my presence that parents were utterly ignorant as to the characters of their sons.