The Wide, Wide World

"Where do you want 'em driv?"

"Up in a closet in my room," said Ellen, speaking as softly as if she had feared her aunt was at the corner; "I want 'em to hang up dresses and things."

Mr. Van Brunt half smiled, and put up the hammer and nails on the shelf again.

"Now, I'll tell you what we'll do," said he; "you can't manage them big things. I'll put 'em up for you to-night when I come in to supper."

"But I'm afraid she won't let you," said Ellen doubtfully.

"Never you mind about that," said he; "I'll fix it. Maybe we won't ask her."

"Oh, thank you," said Ellen joyfully, her face recovering its full sunshine in answer to his smile; and, clapping her hands, she ran back to the house, while more slowly Mr. Van Brunt returned to the threshers. Ellen seized dust-pan and brush and ran up to her room, and setting about the business with right good will, she soon had her closets in beautiful order. The books, writing-desk, and work-box were then bestowed very carefully in the one; in the other her coats and dresses, neatly folded up in a pile on the floor, waiting till the nails should be driven. Then the remainder of her things were gathered up from the floor, and neatly arranged in the trunk again. Having done all this, Ellen's satisfaction was unbounded. By this time dinner was ready. As soon after dinner as she could escape from Miss Fortune's calls upon her, Ellen stole up to her room and her books, and began work in earnest. The whole afternoon was spent over sums, and verbs, and maps, and pages of history. A little before tea, as Ellen was setting the table, Mr. Van Brunt came into the kitchen with a bag on his back.

"What have you got there, Mr. Van Brunt?" said Miss Fortune.

"A bag of seed corn."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Put it up in the garret for safe keeping."

"Set it down in the corner, and I'll take it up to-morrow."

"Thank you, ma'am, – rather go myself, if it's all the same to you. You needn't be scared, I've left my shoes at the door. Miss Ellen, I believe I've got to go through your room."

Ellen was glad to run before to hide her laughter. When they reached her room, Mr. Van Brunt produced a hammer out of the bag, and taking a handful of nails from his pocket, put up a fine row of them along her closet wall; then, while she hung up her dresses, he went on to the garret, and Ellen heard him hammering there too. Presently he came down, and they returned to the kitchen.

"What's all that knocking?" said Miss Fortune.

"I've been driving some nails," said Mr. Van Brunt coolly.

"Up in the garret!"

"Yes, and in Miss Ellen's closet; she said she wanted some."

"You should ha' spoke to me about it," said Miss Fortune to Ellen. There was displeasure enough in her face; but she said no more, and the matter blew over much better than Ellen had feared.

Ellen steadily pursued her plan of studying, in spite of some discouragements.

A letter written about ten days after gave her mother an account of her endeavours and of her success. It was a despairing account. Ellen complained that she wanted help to understand, and lacked time to study; that her aunt kept her busy, and, she believed, took pleasure in breaking her off from her books; and she bitterly said her mother must expect to find an ignorant little daughter when she came home. It ended with, "Oh, if I could just see you, and kiss you, and put my arms round you, mamma, I'd be willing to die."

This letter was despatched the next morning by Mr. Van Brunt; and Ellen waited and watched with great anxiety for his return from Thirlwall in the afternoon.

CHAPTER XV

An ant dropped into the water; a wood pigeon took pity of her and threw her a little bough.

    – L'Estrange.

The afternoon was already half spent when Mr. Van Brunt's ox-cart was seen returning. Ellen was standing by the little gate that opened on the chip-yard; and with her heart beating anxiously she watched the slow-coming oxen; how slowly they came! At last they turned out of the lane and drew the cart up the ascent; and stopping beneath the apple-tree Mr. Van Brunt leisurely got down, and flinging back his whip, came to the gate. But the little face that met him there, quivering with hope and fear, made his own quite sober. "I'm really very sorry, Miss Ellen – " he began.

That was enough. Ellen waited to hear no more, but turned away, the cold chill of disappointment coming over her heart. She had borne the former delays pretty well, but this was one too many, and she felt sick. She went round to the front stoop, where scarcely ever anybody came, and sitting down on the steps wept sadly and despairingly.

It might have been half-an-hour or more after, that the kitchen door slowly opened and Ellen came in. Wishing her aunt should not see her swollen eyes, she was going quietly through to her own room when Miss Fortune called her. Ellen stopped. Miss Fortune was sitting before the fire with an open letter lying in her lap and another in her hand. The latter she held out to Ellen, saying, "Here, child, come and take this."

"What is it?" said Ellen, slowly coming towards her.

"Don't you see what it is?" said Miss Fortune, still holding it out.

"But who is it from?" said Ellen.

"Your mother."

"A letter from mamma, and not to me?" said Ellen with changing colour. She took it quick from her aunt's hand. But her colour changed more as her eye fell upon the first words, "My dear Ellen," and turning the paper she saw upon the back, "Miss Ellen Montgomery." Her next look was to her aunt's face, with her eye fired and her cheek paled with anger, and when she spoke her voice was not the same.

"This is my letter," she said, trembling; "who opened it?"

Miss Fortune's conscience must have troubled her a little, for her eye wavered uneasily. Only for a second, though.

"Who opened it?" she answered; "I opened it. I should like to know who has a better right. And I shall open every one that comes, to serve you for looking so; that you may depend upon."

The look and the words and the injury together, fairly put Ellen beside herself. She dashed the letter to the ground, and livid and trembling with various feelings – rage was not the only one – she ran from her aunt's presence. She did not shed any tears now; she could not: they were absolutely burnt up by passion. She walked her room with trembling steps, clasping and wringing her hands now and then, wildly thinking what could she do to get out of this dreadful state of things, and unable to see anything but misery before her. She walked, for she could not sit down; but presently she felt that she could not breathe the air of the house; and taking her bonnet she went down, passed through the kitchen and went out. Miss Fortune asked where she was going, and bade her stay within doors, but Ellen paid no attention to her.

She stood still a moment outside the little gate. She might have stood long to look. The mellow light of an Indian summer afternoon lay upon the meadow, and the old barn and chip-yard; there was beauty in them all under its smile. Not a breath was stirring. The rays of the sun struggled through the blue haze, which hung upon the hills and softened every distant object; and the silence of nature all around was absolute, made more noticeable by the far-off voice of somebody, it might be Mr. Van Brunt, calling to his oxen, very far off, and not to be seen: the sound came softly to her ear through the stillness. "Peace" was the whisper of nature to her troubled child; but Ellen's heart was in a whirl; she could not hear the whisper. It was a relief, however, to be out of the house and in the sweet open air. Ellen breathed more freely, and pausing a moment there, and clasping her hands together once more in sorrow, she went down the road and out at the gate, and exchanging her quick, broken step for a slow measured one, she took the way towards Thirlwall. Little regarding the loveliness which that day was upon every slope and roadside, Ellen presently quitted the Thirlwall road, and half unconsciously turned into a path on the left which she had never taken before – perhaps for that reason. It was not much travelled evidently; the grass grew green on both sides, and even in the middle of the way, though here and there the track of wheels could be seen. Ellen did not care about where she was going; she only found it pleasant to walk on and get farther from home. The road or lane led towards a mountain somewhat to the northwest of Miss Fortune's; the same which Mr. Van Brunt had once named to Ellen as "the Nose." After three-quarters of an hour the road began gently to ascend the mountain, rising towards the north. About one-third of the way from the bottom Ellen came to a little footpath on the left, which allured her by its promise of prettiness, and she forsook the lane for it. The promise was abundantly fulfilled; it was a most lovely, wild, wood-way path; but withal not a little steep and rocky. Ellen began to grow weary. The lane went on towards the north; the path rather led off towards the southern edge of the mountain, rising all the while; but before she reached that Ellen came to what she thought a good resting-place, where the path opened upon a small level platform or ledge of the hill. The mountain rose steep behind her, and sank very steep immediately before her, leaving a very superb view of the open country from the north-east to the south-east. Carpeted with moss, and furnished with fallen stones and pieces of rock, this was a fine resting-place for the wayfarer, or loitering-place for the lover of nature. Ellen seated herself on one of the stones, and looked sadly and wearily towards the east, at first very careless of the exceeding beauty of what she beheld there.

For miles and miles, on every side but the west, lay stretched before her a beautifully broken country. The November haze hung over it now like a thin veil, giving great sweetness and softness to the scene. Far in the distance a range of low hills showed like a misty cloud; near by, at the mountain's foot, the fields and farm-houses and roads lay a pictured map. About a mile and a half to the south rose the mountain where Nancy Vawse lived, craggy and bare; but the leafless trees and stern, jagged rocks were wrapped in the haze; and through this the sun, now near the setting, threw his mellowing rays, touching every slope and ridge with a rich, warm glow.

Poor Ellen did not heed the picturesque effect of all this, yet the sweet influences of nature reached her, and softened while they increased her sorrow. She felt her own heart sadly out of tune with the peace and loveliness of all she saw. Her eye sought those distant hills – how very far off they were? and yet all that wide tract of country was but a little piece of what lay between her and her mother. Her eye sought those hills – but her mind overpassed them and went far beyond, over many such a tract, till it reached the loved one at last. But oh! how much between! "I cannot reach her! – she cannot reach me!" thought poor Ellen. Her eyes had been filling and dropping tears for some time, but now came the rush of the pent-up storm, and the floods of grief were kept back no longer.

When once fairly excited Ellen's passions were always extreme. During the former peaceful and happy part of her life the occasions of such excitement had been very rare. Of late, unhappily, they had occurred much oftener. Many were the bitter fits of tears she had known within a few weeks. But now it seemed as if all the scattered causes of sorrow that had wrought those tears were gathered together and pressing upon her at once; and that the burden would crush her to the earth. To the earth it brought her literally. She slid from her seat at first, and embracing the stone on which she had sat, she leaned her head there; but presently in her agony quitting her hold of that, she cast herself down upon the moss, lying at full length upon the cold ground, which seemed to her childish fancy the best friend she had left. But Ellen was wrought up to the last pitch of grief and passion. Tears brought no relief. Convulsive weeping only exhausted her. In the extremity of her distress and despair, and in that lonely place, out of hearing of every one, she sobbed aloud, and even screamed, for almost the first time in her life; and these fits of violence were succeeded by exhaustion, during which she ceased to shed tears and lay quite still, drawing only long, sobbing sighs now and then.

How long Ellen had lain there, or how long this would have gone on before her strength had been quite worn out, no one can tell. In one of these fits of forced quiet, when she lay as still as the rocks around her, she heard a voice close by say, "What is the matter, my child?"

The silver sweetness of the tone came singularly upon the tempest in Ellen's mind. She got up hastily, and brushing away the tears from her dimmed eyes, she saw a young lady standing there, and a face, whose sweetness well matched the voice, looking upon her with grave concern. She stood motionless and silent.

"What is the matter, my dear?"

The tone found Ellen's heart, and brought the water to her eyes again, though with a difference. She covered her face with her hands. But gentle hands were placed upon hers and drew them away; and the lady, sitting down on Ellen's stone, took her in her arms; and Ellen hid her face in the bosom of a better friend than the cold earth had been like to prove her. But the change overcame her; and the soft whisper, "Don't cry any more," made it impossible to stop crying. Nothing further was said for some time; the lady waited till Ellen grew calmer. When she saw her able to answer, she said gently —

"What does all this mean, my child? What troubles you? Tell me, and I think we can find a way to mend matters."

Ellen answered the tone of voice with a faint smile, but the words with another gush of tears.

"You are Ellen Montgomery, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I thought so. This isn't the first time I have seen you; I have seen you once before."