Read Ebook: Bessie's Fortune: A Novel by Holmes Mary Jane

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Ebook has 2722 lines and 177793 words, and 55 pages

"I know that. Yes, but just now I cannot pray, and I am so desolate."

The burden was pressing more heavily than ever, and Hannah's face grew whiter, and her eyes larger, and sadder, and brighter as the days went by, and there was nothing left of baby but a rattle-box with which he had played, and the cradle in which he had slept. This last she carried to her room up stairs and made it the shrine over which her prayers were said, not twice or thrice, but many times a day, for Hannah had early learned to take every care, great and small, to God, knowing that peace would come at last, though it might tarry long.

Geraldine sent her a black silk dress, and a white Paisley shawl in token of her gratitude for all she had done for the baby. She also wrote her a letter telling of the grand christening they had had, and of the handsome robe from Paris which baby had worn at the ceremony.

"We have called him Grey," Geraldine wrote, "and perhaps, he will visit you again next summer," but it was not until Grey was two years old, that he went once more to the farm-house and staid for several months, while his parents were in Europe.

What a summer that was for Hannah, and how swiftly the days went by, while the burden pressed so lightly that sometimes she forgot it for hours at a time, and only remembered it when she saw how persistently her father shrank from the advances of the little boy, who, utterly ignoring his apparent indifference, pursued him constantly, plying him with questions, and sometimes regarding him curiously, as if wondering at his silence.

One day, when the old man was sitting in his arm-chair under the apple trees in the yard, Grey came up to him, with his straw hat hanging down his back, his blue eyes shining like stars, and all over his face that sweet smile which made him so beautiful. Folding his little white hands together upon his grandfather's knee, he stood a moment gazing fixedly into the sad face, which never relaxed a muscle, though every nerve of the wretched man was strung to its utmost tension and quivering with pain. The searching blue eyes of the boy troubled him, for it seemed as if they pierced to the depths of his soul and saw what was there.

"Da-da," Grey said at last. "Take me, peese; I'se tired."

Oh, how the old man longed to snatch the child to his bosom and cover his face with the kisses he had so hungered to give him, but in his morbid state of mind he dared not, lest he should contaminate him, so he restrained himself with a mighty effort, and replied:

"No, Grey, no; I cannot take you. I am tired, too."

"Is you sick?" was Grey's next question, to which his grandfather replied:

"No, I am not sick," while he clasped both his hands tightly over his head out of reach of the baby fingers, which sometimes tried to touch them.

"Is you sorry, then?" Grey continued, and the grandfather replied:

"Yes, child, very, very sorry."

There was the sound of a sob in the old man's voice, and Grey's blue eyes opened wider as they looked wistfully at the lips trembling with emotion.

"Has you been a naughty boy?" he said; and, with a sound like a moan, Grandpa Jerrold replied:

"Yes, yes, very, very naughty. God grant you may never know how naughty."

"Then why don't Auntie Hannah sut oo up in 'e bed'oom?" Grey asked, with the utmost gravity, for, in his mind, naughtiness and being shut up in his aunt's bedroom, the only punishment ever inflicted upon him, were closely connected with each other.

Almost any one would have smiled at this remark, but Grandpa Jerrold did not. On the contrary there came into his eyes a look of horror as he exclaimed:

"Shut me in the bedroom! That would be dreadful indeed."

Then, springing up, he hurried away into the field and disappeared behind a ledge of rocks, where, unseen by any eye save that of God, he wept more bitterly than he had ever done before.

"Why, oh, why," he cried, "must this innocent baby's questions torture me so? and why can I never take him in my arms or lay my hands upon him lest they should leave a stain?"

Then holding up before him his hard, toil-worn hands, he tried to recall what it was he had heard or read of another than himself who tried to rid his hands of the foul spot and could not.

"Only the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," he whispered to himself, while his lips moved spasmodically with the prayer habitual to them; four words only, "Forgive me, Lord, forgive."

It had always been a strong desire with Grey to be led around the premises by his grandfather, who had steadily resisted all advances of that kind, until with a child's quick intuition, Grey seemed to understand that his grandfather's hands were something he must not touch.

That afternoon, however, as Mr. Jerrold was walking on the green sward by the kitchen door, with his head bent down and his hands clasped behind him, Grey stole noiselessly up to him, and grasping the right hand in both his own, held it fast, while he jumped up and down as he called out to Hannah, who was standing near:

"I'se dot it, I'se dot it--dada's han', an' I sal keep it, too, and tiss it hard, like dat," and the baby's lips were pressed upon the rough hand, which lay helpless and subdued in the two small palms holding it so tight.

It was like the casting out of an evil spirit, and Granpa Jerrold felt half his burden rolling away beneath that caress. There was a healing power in the touch of Grey's lips, and the stain, if stain there were upon the wrinkled hand, was kissed away, and the pain and remorse were not so great after that.

Grey had conquered and was free to do what he pleased with the old man, who became his very slave, going wherever Grey liked, whether up the steep hill-side in the rear of the house or down upon the pond near by, where the white lilies grew and where there was a little boat in which the old man and the child spent hours together, during the long summer afternoons.

In the large woodshed opposite the well, and very near the window of Granpa Jerrold's bedroom, a rude bench had been placed for the use of pails and washbasins, but Grey had early appropriated this to himself and persisted in keeping his playthings there, in spite of all his grandfather's remonstrances to the contrary. If his toys were removed twenty times a day to some other locality, twenty times a day he brought them back, and arranging them upon the bench sat down by them defiantly, kicking vigorously against the side of the house in token of his victory, and wholly unconscious that every thud of his little heels sent a stab to his grandfather's heart.

What if he should kick through the clapboards? What if the floor should cave in? Such were the questions which tortured the half crazed man, as he wiped the perspiration from his face and wondered at the perversity of the boy in selecting that spot of all others, where he must play and sit and kick as only a healthy, active child can do.

But after the day when Grey succeeded in capturing his hands, Granpa Jerrold ceased to interfere with the play-house, and the boy was left in peace upon the bench, though his grandfather often sat near and watched him anxiously, and always seemed relieved when the child tired of that particular spot and wandered elsewhere in quest of amusement.

There was, however, one place in the house which Grey never sought to penetrate, and that was his grandfather's bedroom. It is true he had never been allowed to enter it, for one of Hannah's first lessons was that her father did not like children in his room. Ordinarily this would have made no difference with Grey, who had a way of going where he pleased; but the gloomy appearance of the room where the curtains were always down did not attract him, and he would only go as far as the door and look in, saying to his aunt:

"Bears in there! Grey not go."

And Hannah let him believe in the bears, and breathed more freely when he came away from the door, though she frequently whispered to herself.

"Some time Grey will know, for I must tell him, and he will help me."

This fancy that Grey was to lift the cloud which overshadowed her, was a consolation to Hannah, and helped to make life endurable, when at last his parents returned from Europe, and he went to his home in Boston. After that Grey spent some portion of every summer at the farm-house growing more and more fond of his Aunt Hannah, notwithstanding her quiet manner and the severe plainness of her personal appearance so different from his mother and his Aunt Lucy Grey. His Aunt Hannah always wore a calico dress, or something equally as plain and inexpensive, and her hands were rough and hard with toil, for she never had any one to help her. She could not afford it, she said, and that was always her excuse for the self-denials she practiced. And still Grey knew that she sometimes had money, for he had seen his father give her gold in exchange for bills, and he once asked her why she did not use it for her comfort. There was a look of deep pain in her eyes, and her voice was sadder than its wont, as she replied:

"I cannot touch that money. It is not mine; it would be stealing, to take a penny of it."

Grey saw the question troubled his Aunt Hannah, and so he said no more on the subject, but thought that when he was a man, and had means of his own, he would improve and beautify the old farm-house, which, though scrupulously neat and clean, was in its furnishing plain in the extreme. Not a superfluous article, except what had been sent from Boston, had been bought since he could remember, and the carpet, and chairs, and curtains in the best room had been there ever since his father was a boy. And still Grey loved the place better than Grey's Park, where he was always a welcome guest, and where his Aunt Lucy petted him, if possible, more than did his Aunt Hannah.

And sweet Lucy Grey, in her trailing dress of rich, black silk, with ruffles of soft lace at her throat and wrists, and costly diamonds on her white fingers, made a picture perfectly harmonious with Grey's natural taste and ideas of a lady. She was lovely as are the pictures of Murillo's Madonnas, and Grey, who knew her story, reverenced her as something saintly and pure above any woman he had ever known. And here, perhaps, as well as elsewhere, we may very briefly tell her story, in order that the reader may better understand her character.

LUCY.

She was five years older than her sister Geraldine, and between the two there had been a brother--Robert, or Robin, as he was familiarly called--a little blue-eyed, golden-haired boy, with a face always wreathed in smiles, and a mouth which seemed made to kiss and be kissed in return. He was three years younger than Lucy, who, having been petted so long as the only child, looked somewhat askance at the brother who had come to interfere with her, and as he grew older, and developed that wonderful beauty and winning sweetness for which he was so remarkable, the demon of jealousy took possession of the little girl, who felt at times as if she hated him for the beauty she envied so much.

"Oh, I wish he was blind!" she once said, in anger, when his soft blue eyes had been extolled in her hearing and compared with her own, which were black as midnight and bright as the wintry stars.

And, as if in answer to her wish, an accident occurred not long after, which darkened forever the eyes which had caused her so much annoyance. Just how it happened no one knew. The two children had been playing in the dining-room, when a great crash was heard, and a wild cry, and Robin was found upon the floor screaming with agony, while near him lay a broken cup, which had contained a quantity of red pepper, which the housemaid had left upon the sideboard until ready to replenish the caster. Lucy was crying, too, with pain, for the fiery powder was in her eyes, also. But she had not received as much as Robin, who from that hour, never again saw the light of day.

There were weeks of fearful suffering when the little hands were tied to keep them from the eyes which the poor baby, who was only two years and a half old, said, "Bite Robin so bad," and which, when at last the pain had ceased, and the inflammation subsided, were found to be hopelessly blind.

Slowly the lids unclosed, and the sightless eyes turned upward toward the white face above them, and then Lucy saw there was no hope; the beautiful blue she had so envied in her wicked moods, was burned out, leaving only a blood-shot, whitish mass which would never again in this world see her or any other object.

"No, shister," the little boy said, "I tan't see 'oo now. It 'marts some yet, but bime by I see 'oo. Don't ty;" and the little hand was raised and groped to find the bowed head of the girl weeping in such agony beside him.

"What for 'oo ty so? I see 'oo bime by," he persisted, as Lucy made no reply, but wept on until her strength was exhausted and she was taken from the room in a state of unconsciousness, which resulted in a low nervous fever, from which she did not recover until Robbie was as well as he ever would be, and his voice was heard again through the house in baby laughter, for he had not yet learned what it was to be blind and helpless.

Lucy had said, when questioned with regard to the accident, that she had climbed up in a chair to get some sugar for herself and Robin from the bowl on the shelf of the sideboard, that she saw the cup of pepper and took it up to see what it was, and let it drop from her hand, directly into the face of Robin, who was looking up at her. Thus she was answerable for his blindness, and she grew suddenly old beyond her years, and devoted herself to her brother, with a solicitude and care marvelous in one so young, for she was not yet six years old.

"I must be his eyes always as long as I live," she said, and she seldom left his side or allowed another to care for him in the least.

He slept in a little cot near hers. She undressed him at night, and dressed him in the morning and gave him his breakfast, always selecting the daintiest bits for him and giving him the larger share of everything. Together they wandered in the park, she leading him by the hand and telling him where they were, or carrying him in her arms, when the way was rough, and then, when she put him down, always kissing him tenderly, while on her face there was a look of sadness pitiful to see in one so young.

When she was seven years old, and Robin four, her mother, who had been an invalid, ever since the birth of Geraldine, died, and that made Lucy's burden still heavier to bear. They told her, her mother would not live till night, and with a look on her face, such as a martyr might wear when going to the stake, Lucy put Robin from her, and going to her mother's room, asked to be left alone with her.

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