The Days of My Life: An Autobiography

“If it were not that the results of his scheming have blessed me beyond my hopes, I am afraid I should lack power to restrain myself,” he said, “and all the more because this invention could only have been to deceive you, Hester, for it could not stand a moment’s examination. I see what his abominable purpose was – to show to the world husband and wife contending with each other over this disputed inheritance. He must have trusted to your ignorance of the world – to your own truthful and open nature, which was beyond suspicion – and, good Heavens, Hester, think of it! to your hatred of me.”

To the very depths of my heart I was humiliated; it was a palpable fraud then, a trick, which could only have been tried upon a credulous fool, a woman, or a child. My last eminence sank beneath my feet; I had no longer even discrimination enough to judge between the false and the true.

“Harry,” I said faltering, “it may be only that I cannot bear you to think me so foolish: but I think indeed it might have deceived even a wiser person than I. I was prepared to think it a lie, but it looked very like truth, Harry; indeed it is difficult to consent to it that I have been so very easily deceived.”

“Ah, Hester, it all comes of our past circumstances,” said my husband, “you were deceived because you did not know my story; shall I tell it to you now?”

I said “yes,” eagerly – then my eye caught the forsaken breakfast table, the poor kettle subsided into noiseless quietness, all its cheerful boiling over. “But you have had no breakfast!” I exclaimed. How Harry laughed, how his face shone, and the tears came to his eyes! Strange that it was always some simplest word that moved him most. He threw the papers down, and caught me in his kind arms, and rejoiced over me. These common things put him in mind of what had happened to us, of the life that lay before us now, the union that began to-day.

And when I began to arrange the breakfast once more, to put the kettle on the fire, and ring for hot coffee, and arrange his neglected meal for him, he sat looking at me, not caring to do anything else, I thought – and it was strange what a pleasure I found in these housewifely matters. I believe when one comes to the very truth, when youth and its first romances are over, that there is no such pleasure for a woman as in these little domestic services, which are natural to her. How gladly and lightly I went about them! and my heart was full. I could not be content without the third little member of our family; I ran up-stairs and brought down in my arms our beautiful boy. I think we were happy enough at that moment to make up for a whole year’s trouble; and when Amy came into the room for baby, some time after, I saw her joyous, astonished glance from one to another, for Harry was dancing his son in his arms, and I was standing close by looking on, talking and clapping my hands to him. Amy did not like to be inquisitive or “unmannerly,” but in the simplicity of her heart she gave me such a wistful, questioning, delighted look when I put baby into her arms. Poor Amy! involuntarily I patted her stout shoulder with my hand as she went away, and I knew very well she went immediately to tell her tale of a new era to Alice – I saw it in her face.

And then Harry gathered up these scattered papers and drew my arm within his, and led me to the library. How strangely this room was connected with the principal events in my life! We went to the pretty recessed corner where my hours of girlish study used to be spent, and there my husband told me, for the first time, the story of his young life.

“I remember that I could once recollect my father, Hester,” he said; “but I think that is all. My mother I remember well enough; and I have the most perfect recollection of the stone in memory of Brian Southcote, to which she used to lead me; and the little grave close by, where I have seen her prostrate herself in passionate sorrow, and where my little brother, Harry Southern, lay. This little brother fills up a great part of my earliest memory. He was a blight and shadow upon my life, though I was full of vague, childish sympathy and admiration for him. He had died just before my mother’s second marriage, and when I was born I was named after him, and my mother’s greatest desire seemed to be to make me a sort of shadow of her best-beloved child. I recollect quite well her frequent exclamation: ‘Your father calls you Edgar, but you are Harry to me – always Harry to me – not my lost Harry, but, at least, his name – oh! I cannot give up his name.’ I suppose I was precocious, as lonely children are so often; and I do not think I was quite satisfied even then to be only the reflection of another. However, that time was followed by a dismal one of friendlessness and solitude. And then a sailor brother of the Savilles came by chance with his ship to Jamaica. My poor mother had been in regular correspondence with her cousin, Miss Saville, and the brother was commissioned to find me out. I came home to England with him. All that my father had left in Jamaica had got into very uncertain hands by that time; and, though the amount sounded well, it was, I am afraid, only a fabulous inheritance; and I was a very poor child, indeed, when our good Rector here, then a poor curate, took me in and gave me shelter. I owed everything to their kindness, Hester. They were humble people, and I had ‘no claim upon them,’ as people say; but they were angels of charity to me.

“A year or two after I came to England, the attorney brother came down from London to visit them. He was not then what he is now: he was unscrupulous, and not very respectable, perhaps, but he had a good deal of acuteness, and was prudent enough to restrain his evil appetites. In mere idleness, at first, he began investigating who I belonged to, as he called it. There had been a rumor in the family that my poor mother had made a great match; and Saville soon discovered what his simple relatives never could have discovered – who Brian Southcote was, and what his heir was entitled to. My father had been a man of foolish benevolence. He had taken no precautions for me; done nothing that he could help; so that it required no small research, and perseverance, and industry, to get proofs of my identity together. I always disliked the man, but I was indebted to him; and during the whole time of my minority he restricted my means greatly. Then, when I came of age, I pensioned him; but he has not been satisfied with this: he has gradually fallen in character and habits into the miserable reprobate, who is nothing but disgrace to his kind kindred who will not disown him. I have been obliged to resist his exactions again and again; and after he threatened me, of course my honor was concerned, and I could not permit myself to be bullied into further concessions. These letters, you see, are addressed to Miss Saville. Are you able to go to the Rectory with me, Hester, and hear her account of her cousin’s children? and we will see this man together. The facts are very simple, plausible as this fiction is; but Harry Southern was five or six years old before my father’s marriage: did not that occur to you, my timid wife?”

“Yes – yes,” I said eagerly; “a great many things occurred to me. I felt almost sure that the first of these letters referred to an older child than the others; but I had no clue – nothing to guide me; and the thought that it might be true was enough to make me miserable. I am quite able: I promised to let him know what I would do. Come, come; let us go at once, Harry.”

He smiled at my eagerness now; but went first to his desk, unlocked it, and a concealed drawer in it, and drew from thence a little bundle of papers. One was a certificate of his parents’ marriage, the other of the birth of Harry Edgar Southcote; and the others corroborative documents. I returned them to him hastily. I was almost offended. “Why do you offer me these?” I said, impatiently; “is your word not enough for me?” “You must consider what is enough for law and the world, Hester,” said my husband; “enough to secure to our boy an unblemished name – he is the principal person to be considered in this argument; though there is no fear of his inheritance between us, we must take care to establish his perfect right to be called Southcote. My family pride is all of your teaching – but I have caught it fully now. Shall you get ready, then? Ah, Hester, is all this nightmare that is past only a dream?”

“Only a dream, Harry, only a dream!” I cried, as we stood together hand in hand; so much a dream that I scarcely could suppose now how it had been with us yesterday – and when at last I left him to get my bonnet, I ran upstairs almost with a lighter foot than Flora’s; the cloud was gone – gone – absolutely gone; and instead of being sceptical of my own happiness, it was the misery now that I was sceptical of – I could scarcely believe it, scarcely understand how I could have defied and rejected all these blessings of Providence so long.

When I went into my room, Alice was there, looking excited, heated, full of anxiety and trouble. How hastily she tied the ribbons of baby’s cloak, and sent Amy away with him! How impatient she looked while I bent over him, and kissed the sweet face which brightened every day into more beautiful intelligence! Then she waited to know what I wanted, and when I told her what it was, she came behind me, arranging my cloak upon my shoulders with tremulous hands – and I caught a glimpse of her wistful agitated face looking at me in the glass, trying to read in my eyes what had happened to me. As she did this, I turned round upon her suddenly, and looked full in her face; she faltered, retired a little, and I saw was almost crying with extreme agitation and anxiety. I took both her hands and drew her very close to me.

“Alice, can you believe it?” said I; “God has cured me by great blessings, and not by great calamities, as you once feared He would. It is all over – it is all over, there will never be any more misery in this house. Have you been praying for it, Alice? Is it through you?”

“Oh, my darling, my precious child!” cried Alice, suddenly clasping me in her arms as if I had been a child indeed; “it’s through His mercy! I’d be glad to die now!”

“Hush, hush, hush! there would be little joy then,” said I, when I was able to draw myself from her arms, “we are all to be very happy now, Alice, like a fairy tale.”

“Like them that love God,” said Alice solemnly.

I bowed my head; these words overpowered me. Was it He who had guided me through all those dark and wilful ways? He who had filled me with the fruit of my own doings; given me my own will, till I knew what a miserable inheritance that was? He who had saved my baby; at whose feet I had prostrated myself, vowing to sacrifice the sin which I regarded in my heart? I bent my head into my hands and wept. I think every tear was a thanksgiving, for they relieved my heart.

That rectory lane! how dull it used to be – how full of beautiful life it was to-day. We did not look much as if we were going about a serious piece of business – we were so occupied and absorbed with ourselves – and it never once occurred to me what should be said to Saville till we were entering at the rectory gate. On the road my husband told me – a very strange coincidence too – that the stranger who accompanied him last night, and for whom he had left a message, had sought him out about the lost West Indian property, which still might be recovered. When we came at last to the rectory, I asked, “What will you say to Saville, Harry?” But there was no time to answer my question. Miss Saville met us in the hall – she looked disturbed, alarmed, anxious – she knew our visit must have some reference to my yesterday’s conference with her brother, and she was very anxious for him. I ran to her eagerly, took her hand, and kissed her. I was very little given to this species of affectionateness, and she was completely taken by surprise. “Mrs. Southcote, my dear, what is it?” she said, sinking down upon one of the stiff hall chairs, and doing what she could to keep herself from crying. “Hester never knew before how much I owed to you,” said Harry, coming to my help, for indeed I was nothing loth to cry too! “Come, dear friend, we want your kind assistance. Where is the Rector – and Richard – but, Miss Saville, let us first speak to you.”

She led the way into a little housekeeping parlor, which was her own special sanctuary, and there sat down trembling to hear what we had to say. Then Harry told her the entire story; she was grievously distressed. She could not bear to blame her brother, yet the way in which he had taken advantage of her, wounded her to the heart. “My letters!” she said faintly. “Dear boy, dear Harry, you don’t think I ever meant to do harm to you? He made me give him poor Maria’s letters to amuse him, he said – he’s got them all – can they do you any harm? can they? Tell me! – for he’s got them all.”

“They can do me no harm – they have done me the greatest good,” said Harry, “they have restored to me my wife; but I must see him in your presence, and have this matter set at rest. He must be mad to think of injuring me by such an expedient as this.”

“Hush! I sometimes think,” said Miss Saville, under her breath, “that it is telling on his mind – I do, indeed. He raves of nights; and whatever William and I can say, he won’t give up that dreadful drinking; he’ll kill himself, Harry dear – that’s what he’ll do – and such a man as he was once – oh! such a man as he might have been!”

And tears of love and anguish – love, most undeserved, most long-suffering – fell slowly and bitterly from this good woman’s eyes. I had scorned her once, but I felt very poor and mean beside her now.

When she had sufficiently composed herself, she took us into another room, and left us to bring her brothers. The Rector came immediately, the other refused. Miss Saville returned in great distress to say, that he would not come – that he refused to see us – that I had broken faith with him.

“We must go to him, then,” said my husband, steadily; “the Rector will give you his arm, Hester. Do not be nervous, Miss Saville – this must be settled – but he shall be spared, be sure. Come, lean upon me – my kind, old friend, can you not trust me?”

“Oh, yes, yes!” she said, but her distress was so great and evident, that I scarcely could bear it. We went in this solemn order – the Rector, in great perturbation, giving me his arm, but looking afraid of me, to the study. Saville was sitting smoking by the fire; he started up, and dashed his cigar to the ground as we entered: he turned fiercely round upon us like a wild beast at bay, and asked, with an oath, what was the meaning of this? – was he never to be left alone?

“Yes, in half-an-hour,” said my husband; “but first I must speak to you. Saville, you have been a very good friend to me – I acknowledge it; you know I have always been glad to say as much. What motive could you have to tell this false story – this story you know so well to be false – to my wife?”

“Motive? – I had motive enough, you may be sure,” answered Saville, shortly – “that is my concern – it is yours to prove the story false, as you call it – false! What do you know about it? – there’s not a man qualified to speak on the subject but me.”

“Oh! Richard! Richard!” cried Miss Saville; “poor Maria’s letters – was that the use you wanted to make of them? But you know very well it is not true. William and I know it is not true; and, to tell it to his wife! – oh, for shame, for shame!”

“Give me back the papers,” said the man, hoarsely, holding out his hand to me.

I was surprised to see Harry take them out at once and hand them to him. I would have kept possession of them, for they were still important and dangerous to me.

He held them in his hands a moment as if undecided, and then tossed them on the table, where they fluttered about like scraps of useless paper, as they were. “I thought you had a serpent in your house,” he said, looking at Harry – “I owed her a grudge as well as you; but if you are in league, I had as well give up the contest. I’ll tell you what – give me cash enough to take me somewhere – America – Australia – I don’t care where it is. I don’t want to see one of you again, and you’ll be rid of me.”

Miss Saville started as if about to speak, but restrained herself – glanced at her better brother, and closed her eyes, growing very pale; bad as he was, she could not bear the thought of an everlasting parting – he was her brother still.

“I will do this,” said Harry, quietly, “but it must not be done so that your perverse ingenuity can make it look like a bribe. Will you come to Cottiswoode to-morrow? the Rector will come with you – come as a man should come who dares look other men in the face – on my part, I will have a friend fit to cope with you, and settle this business once and for ever; – do you consent?”

He did not speak for a moment – he was hemmed in and saw no way of escape; he searched about with his cunning eyes in the vacant air, but saw no expedient. “I consent!” he said, sullenly, “anything for peace. Leave me alone, for heaven’s sake – there, there, Martha, take your remonstrances away!”

We left him so – and Harry did not even take the trouble of gathering up these pieces of paper. “They are quite harmless, Hester,” he said to me with a smile when I spoke of them, and I was obliged to be satisfied with that.

Then we went into Miss Saville’s little parlor again – the Rector and she were consulting anxiously together. The Rector was sadly clouded and cast down – he was a good man, but he was weaker than his sister.

“Yes, it is much better I should go,” she said; “I will go with Richard. Mr. Southcote – Harry! – if you are to have a stranger present let me come instead of the Rector – it might be awkward for William – he might meet the gentleman again; and consider he is a clergyman, and must not do anything unbecoming his station. I will come with poor Richard – it will do as well, will it not?”

“Quite as well,” said my husband; “better indeed, except that it will grieve you.”

“It will not grieve me so much as it would grieve William,” she said quickly; and that point was settled.

“Dear Miss Saville, it is through me this distress has come upon you,” I said, as she went out with us to the door. I looked up to her anxiously, now that I had come to esteem her so much. I was afraid she must think very little of me.

“My dear, it will be all settled through you,” said Miss Saville, “and that will be a blessing – I am glad it has come to this – very glad in my spirit, though it’s hard to the flesh. William will have peace at last!”

She went in abruptly as we left the door; she could not keep her composure any longer. With a woman’s sympathetic instinct, I knew she was gone away with her burden, to try if she could lighten it by tears.

“Harry,” I said gravely, when we went away, “she is not young nor pretty, nor clever, nor interesting – people don’t love her even when they only see her as I used to do. What has such a woman to reward her for the neglects and slights that are her portion now?”

“Patience and hope here, nothing more, Hester,” said Harry, “not even William loves her as she loves him – nothing but hope and patience – poor Martha! – and in the world to come, life everlasting. That is enough for her.”

Enough for any one, surely, surely! but God had made a difference between her life and ours.

ANOTHER DAY

IT was little Harry’s birth-day.

He was standing before me in the little fanciful dress of blue velvet which Alice and Amy, no less than myself, thought so particularly becoming to his beautiful complexion, and in which he had already made a grand appearance, and stood at full length in a wonderful gilt frame, upon the wall of the dining-room down-stairs, for the admiration of all the visitors at Cottiswoode, and the instruction of future ages. I was seated in the nursery proper, a large room, which communicated with my dressing-room, with “something else” upon my knee – something which was a maze of fine muslin, of lace, and embroidery, almost richer, if that were possible, than Harry’s baby robes had been – and of which the only legible token of humanity was a pair of blue eyes shining through the maze of the pretty veil; blue eyes, the “sweetest eyes that e’er were seen” to my husband and to me.

I had been so very anxious about this little one – so overwhelmed with superstitious awe and terror lest this should be the fated second boy, the inheritor of that weird and ghostly jewel; but I was suffering Harry now to turn round and round upon my finger the hereditary diamond. Thus far, at least, the spell was broken. The blue eyes belonged to a little girl – a little Helen Ennerdale, a sweet representative of her whose sweet and peaceful face was always with me. I feared my ring no longer. I had even placed it sportively on baby’s little finger, and promised Alice in the lightness of my heart that this was the woman, the Southcote born, from whose finger this pledge of family misfortune was to fall.