Читать книгу Bessie's Fortune - Mary Jane Holmes - Страница 16

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Old Mr. Jerrold had failed rapidly within a few weeks, but as long as possible he dressed himself every day and sat in his arm-chair in the kitchen, for the front room was rarely used in winter. At one time, when Hannah saw how weak her father was growing, and knew that he must soon take to his bed, she suggested that he should occupy the south room, it was so much more sunny and cheerful than his sleeping apartment, which was always dark, and gloomy, and cheerless. But her father said no very decidedly.

"It has been a part of my punishment to keep watch in that room all these dreadful years, and I shall stay there till I die. And, Hannah, when I cannot get up any more, but must lie there all day and all night long, don't let any one in, not even Miss Grey, for it seems to me there are mirrors everywhere, and that the walls and floor have tongues, and I am getting such a coward, Hannah—such a coward, I am too old to confess it now. God has forgiven me; I am sure of that, and the world need not know what we have kept so long, you and I. How long is it, Hannah? My memory fails me, and sometimes it seems a thousand years, I have suffered so much, and then again it is but yesterday—last night. How long did you say, Hannah!

"Thirty-one years next Thanksgiving, was Hannah's reply, spoken, oh, so mournfully low.

"Thirty-one years, and you were a girl of fifteen, and your hair was so brown and glossy, just like your mother's Hannah—just like hers, and now it is so grey Poor child! I am so sorry for you, but God knows all you have borne for me, and some day you will shine as a star in His crown, while I, if I am permitted to enter the gates, must have the lowest seat."

It was the last of October when this conversation took place, and the next day but one the old man did not get up as usual, but staid in bed all that day, and the next, and the next, until it came to be understood between himself and Hannah that he would never get up again.

"Shall I send for Burton?" Hannah asked, and he replied:

"No, he does not care to come, and why trouble him sooner than necessary? He is not like you. He is grand and high, and ashamed of his old father, but he is my son, and I must see him once more. He will be up on Thanksgiving Day, and I shall live till then. Don't send for him. I cannot have him in this room—can't have anybody—don't let them in! Can no one see under the bed?"

"No, father, no one can see: no one shall come in," Hannah answered.

Then for weeks she kept her lonely watch over the half-crazed old man, who started at every sound and whispered piteously:

"Don't let them come here, Hannah. I am too old; and there is Grey—the boy—for his sake, Hannah, we will not let them come for me now!"

"No, father, they shall not come. Grey need not know," Hannah always replied, though she had secretly cherished a hope that some time in the future, when the poor old father was dead, she would tell Grey and ask his help to do what she fully meant to do when her hands, bound for thirty years, should be loosened from the chain.

She could trust Grey, could tell him everything, and feel sure that his earnest, truthful blue eyes would took just as lovingly at her as ever, and that he would comfort and help her as no one else could do.

Such was the state of affairs at the farm-house on the morning of Thanksgiving Day, when Hannah was making her preparations to go to Grey's Park for two hours or more, just to sit through the dinner and see Grey, whom she had not seen since his return from Europe.

Her father was not as well that morning. Thanksgiving was always a terrible anniversary for him, for as on that day the several members of a family meet again around the old hearth-stone, so the ghosts of the past all came back to torture him and fill him with remorse.

"How it blows," he said, as the wind shook the windows of his room, and went screaming around the corner of the house. "How it blows, and I seem to hear voices in the storm—your voice, Hannah, as it sounded thirty years ago, when you cried out so loudly, and I struck you for it, and beat old Rover, too. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, yes, father, but don't talk of it to-day; try to forget; try to think only that Grey is here, and that you will see him to-morrow."

"Grey, the boy with the big blue eyes which look so straight at you that I used sometimes to wonder if he did not see into my heart and know what I was hiding?" the old man replied. "Grey, the little boy who would sit on that bench in the woodshed, and kick the floor until I sweat at every pore with fear, and whom I would not touch till he captured my hands, and held them in his soft, warm ones, and kissed them, too, my wicked old hands, kissed by Grey's baby lips. Would he touch them now if he knew? I used to think if I lived till he was a man I would tell him; and maybe you will do it after I am dead. He is coming here to-morrow, you say, and Burton; but Burton isn't like Grey. He is proud and worldly, and a little hard, I am afraid; but the boy, tell him how I love him; try to make him understand, and when he comes to-morrow maybe he will kiss me again. It will be for the last time. I shall never see him more. But hark, what's that? Don't you hear bells? And there is the stamping of feet at the door. Go, child, quickly, and not let them in here."

Hannah, too, heard the sound and the opening of the kitchen door, and hurrying from her father's bedside, she called out, sharply:

"Who is it? Who's there?"

"My name is Norval, on the Grampian hills," was replied, in the well-remembered voice of Grey, who continued, merrily, as he approached her: "And you, dear Aunt Hannah, you are the dame with the wonderful name which forward and backward still reads the same."

He did not attempt to waltz with her, as he had done with Lucy; he had tried it once, but she went the wrong way, and he told her there was no more dance in her than in the kitchen tongs. So now he only wound his arms around her and kissed her many times, and when she sat down in a chair, he stood over her and smoothed her hair and thought how gray it had grown within the year. He had no suspicion that there was any secret sorrow weighing upon her, but he knew that her life was a hard one, owing to the peculiarities of his grandfather, and now as he looked at her, he felt a great pity for her, and there was a lump in his throat, as he stooped to kiss her again and said:

"Poor auntie, you look so tired and pale. Is grandpa so very sick, and more troublesome than usual?"

Hannah had not cried in years. Indeed it was the effort of her life to keep her tears back, but now, at the sound of Grey's sympathetic voice and the touch of his fresh, warm lips upon her own, she broke down entirely, and for a few moments sobbed as if her heart would break, while Grey in great concern, knelt down before her, and tried to comfort her.

"What is it, auntie?" he said. "Is it because you are so lonely, and are afraid grandpa will die? I'll take care of you then, and we will go to Europe together, and you shall ride on a mule and cross the Mer-de-Glace. I used to think when I was over there how we would some day go together, and I would show you everything."

At the mention of Europe, Hannah's tears ceased, and commanding her voice, she said, abruptly:

"Did you go to Wales?"

"Yes, we went there first. Don't you remember?"

Without answering that question, Hannah continued:

"Did you go to Carnarvon?"

"Carnarvon! I guess we did. We spent a whole day at the old castle, and went all over it, and into the room where the first Prince of Wales was born. It isn't much bigger than our bath-room. But I tell you those old ruins are grand;" and with all a boy's enthusiasm over his first trip to Europe, Grey launched out into a graphic description of what, he had seen and done, repeating everything ridiculous in order to make his Aunt Hannah laugh.

"You ought to have heard father try to talk French," he said. "It was enough to kill one with laughing. He bought a little book and would study some phrase, and then fire it off at the waiters, screaming at the top of his voice, as if that would make them understand better; and once it was too funny. We were in a shop in Lucerne, and father wanted to know the price of something, so he held it up before a little dapper man with blue eyes and yellow hair, and said, 'Com-bi-on'—that's the way he pronounced it—'com-bi-on;' but the man didn't com-bi-on worth a cent, and only stared at him as if he thought him a lunatic. Then father tried again, and yelled as loud as he could, 'Pree—pree! how much-ee, much-ee?' Then there was a glimmer of a smile on the man's face, and when father, wholly out of patience, roared out, 'Damnation, are you a fool?' he replied, 'No, but I'm a Yankee like yourself, and the price of the carving is twenty-five francs;' and, sure enough, he was a chap from Maine. After that father always asked them first if they parlez-vous-ed English. Mother got on better, because she knew more of the language, and always gave a twist to the words which made them sound Frenchy; but she was afraid to talk much, for fear she'd make a mistake and Miss Grundy would laugh at her. She is awfully afraid of Miss Grundy, especially if the genus homo happens to be English. But I did not care. I wanted to learn, and I studied in the railway car, and at the table, and in bed, and had a teacher when we staid long enough in a place, and then I plunged in, mistake or no mistake, and talked to everybody. I used to sit on the box with the driver when we drove, so as to talk to him, and you have no idea what a lot you pick up that way, or how glad they are to help you; and now, though I do not suppose I always use good grammar or get the right accent, I can parlez with the best of them, and can speak German, too, a little. I think I have improved some; don't you, auntie."

Of course she did, and she told him so, and smiled fondly upon the bright, handsome boy, knowing that in what he said of himself there was neither conceit nor vanity, but a frankness and openness which she liked to see in him.

"And now for grandpa," he suddenly exclaimed, "he will think I am never coming."

And before she could stop him he had entered the low, dark room, where, on the bed, pushed close to the side-wall near the woodshed, and just where it had stood for thirty years, the old man lay, or rather sat, for he was bolstered upright, with chair and pillows behind him, his long white hair parted in the middle and combed behind his ears, and his arms folded across his bosom.

At Grey's abrupt entrance he started, and his face flushed for a moment, but when he saw who it was, the look of fear gave way to one of joy, and his pale face lighted up with gladness as he welcomed the eager boy, who told him first how sorry he was to find him so sick, and then what a grand time he had in Europe.

"I have been to the top of Rigi, and old Pilatus and Vesuvius, and Flegere, and crossed the Mer-de-Glace and Tete Noir, and the Simplon, and they are all here on my Alpenstock; look, see! but no, you cannot, it is so dark! I'll raise the curtain."

And Grey hastened to the window, while his grandfather cried out in alarm:

"Stop, Grey, stop. I'll call your Aunt Hannah! Hannah, come here!"

She was at his side in an instant, bending over him while he whispered:

"Is it safe? Can he see nothing, sure?"

"Nothing, father, nothing," was the reply, and thus reassured the old man took the Alpenstock, which had done such good service, and looked at the queer names burned upon it, lingering longest upon the first one,

"Grey Jerrold, Boston, Mass., 18—."

Very rapidly Grey talked of his travels, and the wonders beyond the sea.

"But, after all, America is best," he said, "and I am glad I am an American. Boston is the place to be born in. Don't you think so, grandpa?"

"Yes, yes. Did you go to Wales? To Carnarvon?" the old man said, so abruptly that Grey stopped short and stared at him blankly.

His Aunt Hannah had asked the same question. Could it be they were more interested in Carnarvon than in Mont Blanc and Vesuvius? If so, he would confine himself to Carnarvon, and he began again to describe the old castle, and the birth-room of the first Prince of Wales. Then his grandfather interrupted him by asking:

"Did you hear of any family there by the name of Rogers?"

"Rogers? No. Why? Did you ever know any one by that name who lived in Carnarvon?" Grey asked, and his grandfather replied:

"Yes, a great many years ago, longer than you can remember. Joel Rogers, that was the name, and he had a sister, Elizabeth. You did not hear of her?"

"Father, father; you are talking too much; you are getting excited and tired," Hannah interposed in some alarm, but her father replied:

"No. I'm not afraid of Grey, now that I see his face again; it's a face to be trusted. Grey would not harm his old grandfather. Would you, boy?" and the childish old man began to cry piteously, while Grey looked inquiringly at his aunt, and touched his forehead meaningly, as much as to say:

"I know, I understand; a little out of his head."

She let him think so, and laying his hand on his grandfather's hair, Grey said:

"Don't cry; of course I would not harm you, the best grandpa in all the world."

"No, no, Grey; the worst, the worst; and yet it does me good to know you love and respect me, and you always will when I am dead and gone, won't you, even if you should ever know how bad I was, and you may sometime, for it is impressed on me this morning that in some way you will help Hannah out of it. You two, and no more. Poor Hannah. She has suffered so much for my sake. Be good to her, Grey, when I am gone; be good to Hannah. Poor Hannah."

"Yes, grandpa, I will," Grey said, in a tearful voice, as he involuntarily wound his arms around the woman he was to be good to. "I will always care for Aunt Hannah, and love her above all women. Don't you worry about that. She shall live with me when I am a man, and we will go to Europe together."

"Yes, to Carnarvon, perhaps," Mr. Jerrold interposed, and then said, suddenly: "Do you remember the day you caught and kissed my old hands, and did me so much good? Would you mind kissing them again?—this one; it burns so and aches!" and he raised his thin, right hand, winch Grey took in his own, and kissed reverently and lovingly, saying as he did so:

"Poor, tired hand, which has done so much hard work, but never a bad act."

"Oh, oh! My boy, my boy, you hurt me!" grandpa cried, as he snatched his hand from Grey, who looked at him wonderingly and said:

"I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. Is your hand sore?"

"Sore? Yes, sorer than you know or guess; so sore that it aches down to my very heart."

"Come, Grey, I think it is time we were off. Father is getting tired and excited. You will see him again to-morrow," Hannah said, and her father rejoined:

"To-morrow! Who knows? To-day is all we can call our own, and I will bless my boy to-day. Kneel down, Grey, and let me put both hands on your head."

With a feeling of awe Grey knelt beside the bed, while his grandfather laid his hands on his head and said:

"May God bless my boy Grey, and make him a good man—not like me, the chief of sinners, but Christlike and pure, so that he may one day reach the eternal home where I hope to meet him, through the merits of the blood of Jesus, which cleanseth from all sin—all sin, even mine. God bless my boy!"

It seemed like a funeral, and Grey's eyes were full of tears as he rose from his knees and said:

"Good-by, grandpa. We must go now, but I will come again to-morrow, and stay all day and all the next, for I do not go back to Andover till Monday, and next summer I will spend all my vacation with you. Good-by;" and stooping, he kissed the white forehead and quivering lips, around which a smile of peace was setting.

Then, he left the room, never dreaming that it was good-by forever.

Once in the open air, with his Aunt Hannah by his side, the cloud which in the sick-room had settled upon him lifted, and he talked and laughed merrily as they drove swiftly toward Grey's Park where dinner was waiting for them.