Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

Jane was searching a cupboard, and brought forth a clean green bottle, which held about half-a-pint. "This will be quite large enough, I think."

"I should think it would!" grumbled Susan, who could not be brought to look upon the giving away of her master's own peculiar property as anything but a personal grievance. "There's barely a gill of it left, and he ought to have had it himself, Miss Jane."

"Susan," she said, turning her bright face laughingly towards the woman, "it is a good thing that you went to church and saw me married, or I might think you meant to reflect upon me. How can I be 'Miss Jane,' with this ring on?"

"It's of no good my trying to remember it, ma'am. All the parish knows you are Mrs. Halliburton, fast enough; but it don't come ready to me."

Jane laughed pleasantly. "Where is Mary?" she asked.

"In the back room, going on with some of Miss Margaret's things. It's cooler, sitting there, than in this hot kitchen."

Jane carried the little bottle of beef-tea to her father, and gave it into his hand. He looked very pale, and rose from his chair slowly.

"Oh, papa, you do not seem well!" she involuntarily exclaimed. "Let me run and beat you up an egg. I will not be a minute."

"I can't wait, child. And I question if I could eat it, were it ready before me. I do not feel well, as you say."

"You ought to have taken this beef-tea yourself, papa. It was made for you."

Jane could not help laying a stress upon the word. Mr. Tait placed his hand gently upon her smoothly parted hair. "Jane, child, had I thought of myself before others throughout life, how should I have been following my Master's precepts?"

She ran down the stairs before him, opening the front door for him to pass through, that even that little exertion should be spared him. A loving, dutiful daughter was Jane; and it is probable that the thought of her worth especially crossed the mind of the rector at that moment. "God bless you, my child!" he aspirated, as he passed her.

Jane watched him across the square. Their house, though not actually in the square, commanded a view of it. Then she returned upstairs to her mother. "Papa thinks he will not lose time," she observed. "He is walking fast."

"I should call it running," responded Mrs. Tait, who had seen the speed from the window. "But, my dear, he'll do no good with that badly conducted Charity Booth."

About an hour passed away, and it was drawing towards dinner-time. Jane and Mrs. Tait were busy as ever, when Mr. Halliburton's well-known knock was heard.

"Edgar is home early this morning!" Jane exclaimed.

He came springing up the stairs, two at a time, in great haste, opened the drawing-room door, and just put in his head. Mrs. Tait, sitting with her back to the door and her face to the window, did not turn round, and consequently did not see him. Jane did; and was startled. Every vestige of colour had forsaken his face.

"Oh, Edgar! You are ill!"

"Ill! Not I," affecting to speak gaily. "I want you for a minute, Jane."

Mrs. Tait had looked round at Jane's exclamation, but Mr. Halliburton's face was then withdrawn. He was standing outside the door when Jane went out. He did not speak; but took her hand in silence and drew her into the back room, which was their own bedroom, and closed the door. Jane's face had grown as white as his.

"My darling, I did not mean to alarm you," he said, holding her to him. "I thought you had a brave heart, Jane. I thought that if I had a little unpleasant news to impart it would be best to tell you, that you may help me break it to the rest."

Jane's heart was not feeling very brave. "What is it?" she asked, scarcely able to speak the words from her ghastly lips.

"Jane," he said, tenderly and gravely, "before I say any more, you must strive for calmness."

"It is not about yourself! You are not ill?"

The question seemed superfluous. Mr. Halliburton was evidently not ill; but he was agitated. Jane was frightened and perplexed: not a glimpse of the real truth crossed her. "Tell me what it is at once, Edgar," she said, in a calmer tone. "I can bear certainty better than suspense."

"Why, yes, I think you are becoming brave already," he answered, looking straight into her eyes and smiling—which was intended to reassure her. "I must have my wife show herself a woman to-day; not a child. See what a bungler I am! I thought to tell you all quietly and smoothly, without alarming you; and see what I have done!—startled you to terror."

Jane smiled faintly. She knew all this was only the precursor of tidings that must be very ill and grievous. By a great effort she schooled herself to calmness. Mr. Halliburton continued:

"One, whom you and I love very much, has—has—met with an accident, Jane."

Her fears went straight to the right quarter at once. With that one exception by her side, there was no one she loved as she loved her father.

"Papa?"

"Yes. We must break it to Mrs. Tait."

Her heart beat wildly against his hand, and the livid hue was once more overspreading her face. But she strove urgently for calmness: he whispered to her of its necessity for her own sake.

"Edgar! is it death?"

It was death; but he would not tell her so yet. He plunged into the attendant details.

"He was hastening along with a small bottle in his hand, Jane. It contained something good for one of the sick poor, I am sure, for he was in their neighbourhood. Suddenly he was observed to fall; and the spectators raised him and took him to a doctor's. That doctor, unfortunately, was not at home, and they took him to another, so that time was lost. He was quite unconscious."

"But you do not tell me!" she wailed. "Is he dead?"

Mr. Halliburton asked himself a question—What good would be done by delaying the truth? He thought he had performed his task very badly. "Jane, Jane!" he whispered, "I can only hope to help you to bear it better than I have broken it to you."

She could not shed tears in that first awful moment: physically and mentally she leaned on him for support. "How can we tell my mother?"

It was necessary that Mrs. Tait should be told, and without delay. Even then the body was being conveyed to the house. By a curious coincidence, Mr. Halliburton had been passing the last doctor's surgery at the very moment the crowd was round its doors. Unusual business had called him there; or it was a street he did not enter once in a year. "The parson has fallen down in a fit," said some of them, recognizing and arresting him.

"The parson!" he repeated. "What! Mr. Tait?"

"Sure enough," said they. And Mr. Halliburton pressed into the surgeon's house just as the examination was over.

"The heart, no doubt, sir," said the doctor to him.

"He surely is not dead?"

"Quite dead. He must have died instantaneously."

The news had been wafted to the mob outside, and they were already taking a shutter from its hinges. "I will go on first and prepare the family," said Mr. Halliburton to them. "Give me a quarter of an hour's start, and then come on."

So that he had only a quarter of an hour for it all. His thoughts naturally turned to his wife: not simply to spare her alarm and pain, so far as he might, but he believed her, young as she was, to possess more calmness and self-control than Mrs. Tait. As he sped to the house he rehearsed his task; and might have accomplished it better but for his tell-tale face. "Jane," he whispered, "let this be your consolation ever: he was ready to go."

"Oh yes!" she answered, bursting into a storm of most distressing tears. "If any one here was ever fit for heaven, it was my dear father."

"Hark!" exclaimed Mr. Halliburton.

Some noise had arisen downstairs—a sound of voices speaking in undertones. There could be no doubt that people had come to the house with the news, and were imparting it to the two trembling servants.

"There's not a moment to be lost, Jane."