“It will, indeed, dear nurse! You are very right, and very wise in this. She shall go with us, poor child. Though it will be a dreadful task for her!” replied Mary.
“And you would rather take it, dear, all on your own shoulders? I do not doubt that — only you don’t know how to manage it,” replied Mrs. Tremlett. “But there is another thing, Mary, that I have been thinking of,” continued the kind-hearted old woman, “and that is the other poor boy. I’ll engage to say, he has never missed school for an hour, after what you said to him about exerting himself. I saw how he took it; and, therefore, you may depend upon it, that he is at the schoolhouse now. Then just think, my dear, what his going home will be after you have told all! Poor creatures! It makes one’s heart sick to fancy it! If I were you, Mary, I would send for him, tell him every thing at once, and then take him home to his mother.”
Miss Brotherton instantly rose and rang the bell.
“Do not say you are of no use, my dear good creature!” said she. “How infinitely better this will be than the hurried, thoughtless plan which I had sketched!”
A message was accordingly despatched to the schoolhouse to suramon Edward Armstrong, and in a few minutes he stood before them.
Most true is it that there is something holy and imposing in the presence of sorrow. It would be difficult to imagine any entrée into the boudoir of Miss Brotherton, which would have inspired a feeling both in her and her friend so nearly approaching awe, as did that of Edward Armstrong.
“There is no need to tell him, poor fellow!” exclaimed Mrs. Tremlett, mournfully shaking her head, as she saw the sudden and eloquent change in Edward’s countenance the moment he looked in the face of Miss Brotherton. “There is no need to tell him! He knows it all, already!”
“He is dead, then!” said the boy, his pale lips parting, as it seemed, with difficulty, to pronounce the words, “Please, ma’am, let me go away.”
He looked as if he were unable to sustain himself; and Mary, really fearing he might fall, started from her seat, and throwing her arms round him, almost carried him to the sofa.
“No, no, my poor Edward!” she said, “do not go away. Stay with those who love and pity you! Poor Michael is dead, Edward, and we must all try to support your mother under the dreadful news.”
“How do you know he is dead?” cried Edward, starting up, and looking almost sternly at his benefactress. “How do you know that they have not hid him away where you cannot find him, that they may torture him, and work him to the bone, when there is nobody by to see?”
“I know that he is dead but too well, Edward,” replied Mary, gently. “I have brought home with me a little girl who worked in the same factory, and who knew him well. He died of an infectious fever that killed many, many more. I am going to take this little girl with me to your mother, Edward, that she may question her, if she wishes it, about poor Michael, and I wish you to go with us, my dear boy; it is better that your poor mother should have you with her.”
“You are going to tell mother?” said the boy with a shudder.
“Yes, Edward! — it must be done, and the sooner it is over the better. Your mother is a good woman, and a pious Christian, my dear boy. She will know and feel that all that can befall her is the will of God; and when she remembers this, she will rise above her sorrow, and thinking of the better world hereafter, will be able to say, ‘ His will be done!’”
“Yes, ma’am — if it does not kill her first,” answered Edward.
“Indeed, I think a great deal will depend on you, dear Edward, as to her manner of bearing it. If she sees you sink, be sure she will sink too; but if you make her feel that she has still a beloved child to live for, to whom life may yet be a blessing, she will cease to repine for the loss of one child, for the sake of making the other happy.”
Edward slowly and silently shook his head; but after the melancholy silence of a minute or two, he said, “I will do my best, ma’am.” —
The scene which followed beside the bed of the poor widow, was one of such deep, but patient sorrow, as left an impression never to be forgotten on the minds of those who witnessed it. Mary’s counsel had not been thrown away upon Edward. The boy displayed both a delicacy and firmness of character beyond his years, and above his education. No ordinary topics of consolation were clumsily uttered to redeem his pledge to Mary, nor did he affect a stoical indifference which he could not feel; but with gentle endearments he drew the mourning mother to think of him, and there was healing, as well as agony, in the tears she shed upon his bosom.
Of all this Fanny was a silent, but deeply-moved spectator. The widow gave her one earnest look when Mary said, “This little girl was the last person who spoke to Michael before he was laid on the sick bed from whence be never rose, and she seems to have loved him dearly.”
One long earnest look was turned upon her when this was said, but no word was spoken to her, for the time was not yet come when the bereaved mother could seek comfort in any thing. Nevertheless, when Miss Brotherton rose to go, and pressing the hand of the poor sufferer in her own, promised to pay her another visit soon, Mrs. Armstrong murmured in her ear, “I should like to see that little girl again, when I can bear to name him.” Mary nodded her assent, and left the mother and son to exchange thoughts and feelings, which, when deep and genuine, must ever be held sacred from every unkindred eye.
Most watchfully, did Mary attend to this poor pensioner; and many were the hours during which she sat, reading the book of life beside her bed. By degrees, too, the bereaved mother did bear to name her lost darling to Fanny Fletcher; and having once listened to the sweet tones of her gentle voice, as she related all she had heard him say, all he had seemed to feel, and all he had seemed to think, the poor woman grew so enamoured of the uneventful tale, that she wearied not of making her repeat it. For days together Fanny would beg to be left beside her, while Edward resumed his place in the school; and Miss Brotherton often thought, when she drove to Hoxley-lane in the evenings, to bring back her little protégée, that she had never chanced to witness so pretty a specimen of female tenderness and pity, as this lovely little girl exhibited, while ministering to the poor crippled woman, whose only claim upon her love was, that she wanted it — a species of claim, by the by, that is very rarely made in vain upon any uncorrupted female heart.
With every want prevented, soothed by the most generous kindness, attended with the most watchful Jove, and cheered by a greater appearance of reviving health in the boy that she had thought crippled for life, than she had ever ventured to hope for, it might have been expected that the widow Armstrong would, in some degree, have forgotten passed sufferings, and have once more looked forward with hope. But no, it could not be! This last, this heaviest of all her sorrows came too late to be wrestled with, as others had been; and though her meek nature seemed so peacefully resigned, that there was more pleasure than pain in watching over her, she was, in truth, dying of a worn-out spirit and a broken heart.
By some means or other, the news that little Michael Armstrong was dead, reached Dowling Lodge. Sir Matthew knit his brows — wondered how the devil any body could have got tidings of him, but said nothing. To all the rest of the family, save one, the intelligence was too unimportant to be listened to at all; but to that one, to the already conscience-stricken and repentant Martha, it was a heavy blow! Most miserable, indeed, had been her state of mind for the last few months; from the day of her painful, but useless visit to Miss Brotherton, her eyes had been, in a great degree, opened to the hard and avaricious nature of her father’s character. Like a person excluded from the light of the sun, and seeing only by the delusive glare of an unsteady lamp, Martha had passed her whole life in mistaking the nature and the value of almost every object around her. The language of Mary Brotherton had shot with a painful and unwelcome brightness upon the dim and uncertain twilight of her moral perceptions; and the unhappy girl learned to know that the only being who had ever seemed to love her, or whom she had ever venture
d to love, was one that her better reason shrunk from, and her sober judgment condemned.
Yet still he was her father, and still she loved him, and gladly, joyfully, would she have given her young life, could she thereby have changed his love of gold, for love of mercy. Sometimes she thought that time and age would teach him the hollowness of his present pursuits, and that if she never left him, but ever stood ready at his side to watch some favourable moment, she might have the surpassing joy of seeing his heart open to the truth, and in a state to permit her helping to lead him to efficient repentance, and the all-merciful forgiveness of God. It was impossible but that such thoughts and feelings must separate her, more than ever, from the rest of her family, and she had already pretty generally received the epithet of methodistical, from the whole neighbourhood; but she hailed it as a blessing, and without a shadow of religious enthusiasm, beyond what was almost inevitable under the circumstances, and with no sectarian views or notions whatever, poor Martha gladly sheltered herself under the imputation of both in order to avoid joining in scenes of amusement for which she had no relish.
In such a state of mind it was natural enough that Martha should deem a visit to the bereaved mother a penance which it was her duty to perform (though it was more painful to her, perhaps, than almost any other to which she could have been subjected), and she did perform it accordingly. She found the poor sufferer, whose eye she dreaded to meet, sinking fast into peace and rest, that never more could be disturbed. Miss Brotherton and Fanny were both with her; a bible was in the hands of the former, and Mrs. Armstrong’s countenance, though greatly more pinched and pallid than she had ever before seen it, expressed a tranquil calmness which it was impossible to contemplate without pleasure.
But, alas! for poor Martha! she had the pang of seeing this consoled and consoling look suddenly changed to an expression of intense suffering, the moment her own person met the poor woman’s eye. They had never seen each other since the fatal morning on which Martha had so innocently persuaded her to sign the articles of her boy’s apprenticeship, and the recollection of that scene, and all its consequences, could not so suddenly come upon one, reduced already to almost the last stage of weakness, without shaking her terribly. The distended eye, the open mouth, the heaving breast, all spoke a degree of agitation, which in her condition was frightfully alarming; and Mary, who dreaded lest the calmness of her last moments should be disturbed, hastily turned to the intruder, and said, “Go, go! — the sight of you will kill her!”
Though there was no more of harshness in this, than the urgent circumstances of the case seemed to call for, Mary Brotherton would have rather died than utter it, could she have guessed the pang it gave to the already wounded heart of poor Martha. She made no reply; but, fixing on the victim of her most innocent delusion, a look, just long enough to impress the terrible expression of her countenance upon her own heart for ever, she turned away, and reached her splendid home in a state of mind that seemed fearfully to verify the annunciation, “He will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.”
That day was the last of the widow’s life, and it is probable it might have been so, even if Martha Dowling had not made her unfortunate visit; but the coincidence was fatal to the poor girl’s peace, for the anxious inquiries she made respecting her, brought the intelligence of her death, and the time of it, with sufficient accuracy to leave no doubt on Martha’s mind, that the event had been accelerated by her appearance.
Happily, however, for those who tenderly watched her last moments, the widow Armstrong’s gentle nature permitted her not long to suffer from the irritation which the presence of Martha produced, and many hours before she closed her eyes for ever, she expressed her sorrow for having yielded so weakly to feelings which she had hoped were altogether conquered; assuring Mary (who never left her) that she acquitted the young lady of all intention to deceive her, and that the shock she felt from seeing her, only proceeded from the vivid recollections her appearance awakened.
Unhappily, however, it was long ere this healing assurance reached poor Martha; for Miss Brotherton, who was far from guessing its importance to her, had decided upon having no further intercourse with the Dowling family: a resolution which would never have been taken had her last interview with Martha at Milford Park ended more pleasantly. But it had been already so long acted upon, that it would have been equally awkward and disagreeable to break through it; and Martha long continued in the terrible persuasion that she had been accessory to the death of both mother and son.
The loss of the only relatives he had ever known, following as they did so closely on each other, made Mary tremble for the health of Edward. She had watched the affecting close of the poor widow’s life with all the tender feeling such a spectacle was calculated to excite in such a heart as hers. She had mourned for Michael for many reasons, and mourned sincerely; but she had hardly known the boy, and it was her sympathy with the sorrow of others, rather than her own, which caused the event to touch her so deeply. But to Edward she had become attached with so much fondness, and he had inspired such a feeling of wondering admiration in her mind by the extraordinary faculties he displayed, and the justness and uprightness of every thought and feeling, that to watch over his health and welfare had become nearly the first object of her isolated existence. The few months which had elapsed since the whole system of his life had been changed from all that was most injurious to health, to a mode of living in every way conducive to its recovery, had produced a more favourable and decisive effect on him, than could have been reasonably hoped for in the time; and it was a remarkable evidence of the powerful influence which such a change produces on the frame, that not all the sorrow and suffering which Miss Brotherton’s intelligence brought, or the heartwringing loss which followed it, could check the active energy of benignant nature in restoring health, where all she required for it was given, and all that had hitherto impeded her kindly operations was removed. Yet Edward was still lame, though so much less so than he had been, that his benefactress could not help indulging a hope that time and judicious treatment might remove the infirmity altogether. For some reason or other Miss Brotherton entertained no very particular respect for the medical practitioners of her immediate neighbourhood, and for several months after her return she contented herself with following Mr. Bell’s prescriptions, for friction and moderate exercise, without calling in any medical assistance at all. But though the improvement that followed was very perceptible, it was not rapid, and the idea of London advice suggested itself, as the most satisfactory mode of ascertaining at once whether a perfect recovery might be hoped for; information which it was very desirable she should obtain, before she decided in what way she should bring him up. Since the death of his mother, Milford Park had been Edward’s home, and the orphan boy’s hold on Miss Brotherton’s warm heart had been greatly increased by the opportunities this gave her of more frequent intercourse with her. In truth, though he still attended the school for an hour or two every morning, by far the more important portion of his education went on under her own eye, and, as well as that of his little companion Fanny, was beginning to take a form and extent totally different from what she had at first intended for either of them. Ideas respecting them both, began by degrees to arise in her mind, which she at first endeavoured to resist, as being too much out of the usual course to be safely indulged in; but “use lessens marvel,” and the notion of making a man of learning of Edward, and a woman of fortune of Fanny, which once and again she had rejected, as too romantic and absurd, gradually grew into an habitual theme of meditation on which her fancy delighted to fix itself.
Mary Brotherton was at that time about twenty-two years old, extremely pretty, and moreover almost childishly young-looking for her age; and whatever she might have brought herself to think of it, most others would very naturally have deemed her adopting a boy of twelve, and a girl of eleven, a most outrageously preposterous and imprudent act. But her situation was one in most respects quite out of
the common way, and she every day felt it more impossible that she could continue to endure the station of one of the magnates of a manufacturing neighbourhood, with all eyes fixed upon every thing she did, and her whole heart and soul recoiling from companionship with the only persons whom her neighbours and watchers would deem fit to be her particular friends.
The heart of this isolated girl was so clingingly affectionate that it is probable she would, under almost any other circumstances, have at least loved the beautiful mansion in which she had passed the greatest part of her life, and felt the trees and flowers that adorned it to be as companions, and familiar friends; but a thousand painful thoughts were mingled with the consciousness that she was mistress of that fair domain; and the very fact that the education she felt inclined to bestow upon the two orphans would bring down upon her the criticisms, and probably the reprobation, of the whole neighbourhood, making it very desirable that the extraordinary project should be carried into execution elsewhere, was in her estimation more in its favour, than against it. When, in addition to all this, she succeeded in persuading herself, from some of her miscellaneous reading, that there were German baths which might assist the restoration of Edward’s limbs, and that it was her duty to consult the most approved authorities upon his case, the decision to leave Milford Park, and remove to London, was at no great distance.
Had her valued friend and counsellor, Mr. Bell, led her to believe that all the wealth she had, if thrown back among the class from which it was drawn, could have sufficed to remedy the evils under which they groaned, she was quite capable of stripping herself to her last shilling for the purpose; but he knew better, and he taught her to know better too; and having convinced himself that her best chance of happiness, as well as her best opportunity of doing good, would be in yielding to the affection which “her boy and girl” had inspired, he promised to assist her projected removal, by seeing that the orders she left, respecting her property, were faithfully executed; and, about eight months after the death of Mrs. Armstrong, the heiress left her parks and gardens, her splendid mansion and all its gorgeous appurtenances, to attend the orphan boy to London.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 208
