Book: Medoline Selwyn\'s Work

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Medoline Selwyn's Work.

BY MRS. J. J. COLTER.


BOSTON:
IRA BRADLEY & CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1889.




"The golden opportunity.
Is never offered twice: seize, then, the hour
When Fortune smiles and Duty points the way;
Nor shrink aside to 'scape the fear.--
Nor pause though Pleasure beckon from her bower,
But bravely bear thee onward to the goal"




CHAPTER.

I. Mrs. Blake
II. Oaklands
III. Esmerelda
IV. The Funeral
V. A New Accomplishment Learned
VI. Mr. Winthrop
VII. Examination
VIII. Mrs. Larkum
IX. An Evening Walk
X. A Helping Hand
XI. City Life
XII. New Acquaintances
XIII. Alone With His Dead
XIV. Humble Charities
XV. A Pleasant Surprise
XVI. Hope Realized
XVII. Christmas-tide
XVIII. The Christmas Tree
XIX. Three Important Letters
XX. Mrs. Le Grande
XXI. Mrs. Le Grande's Story
XXII. The Changed Heart
XXIII. The Encounter at St. Mark's
XXIV. Mrs. Le Grande's Stratagem
XXV. Beech Street Worshippers
XXVI. From The Depths
XXVII. Convalescence
XXVIII. The Sound of Marriage Bells
XXIX. The End




MEDOLINE SELWYN'S WORK.




CHAPTER I.

MRS. BLAKE.


The cars were not over-crowded, and were moving leisurely along in the
soft, midsummer twilight. At first, I had felt a trifle annoyed at my
carelessness in missing the Express by which I had been expected; but now
I quite enjoyed going in this mixed train, since I could the better
observe the country than in the swifter Express. As I drew near the end
of my journey, my pulses began to quicken with nervousness, not unmixed
with dread.

Captain Green, under whose care I had been placed when I left my home for
the last eight years, had concluded, no doubt very wisely, that I could
travel the remaining few miles through quiet county places alone. This
last one hundred and fifty miles, however, had been the most trying part
of the whole journey. My English was a trifle halting; all our teachers
spoke German as their mother tongue at the school, and the last two years
I was the only English-born pupil. Captain Green was an old East Indian
officer, like my own dead father, and very readily undertook the care of
a troublesome chit of a girl across the ocean, in memory of the strong
friendship subsisting between himself and my father, now long since
passed to other service than that of Her Gracious Majesty. The Captain
was a very silent man, and therefore not calculated to help me to a
better acquaintance of any language, while he did not encourage me to
make friends with my traveling companions. The journey had been therefore
a very quiet one to me, but I had found it delightful. I had, like most
of our species, an innate love of the sea; and the long, still hours as I
sat alone gazing out over the restless waters, have left one of the
pleasantest of all the pictures hanging in memory's halls.

As I did not wish to be taken, even by the chance traveling companions of
a few hours, for other than an English or American girl, I resolved to
speak fewest possible words to any one on the journey; and when the
conductor came for my ticket, I repressed the desire to ask him to tell
me when my own station would be reached, and merely shook my head at the
news agents who were more troublesome, if possible, than the dust and
smoke which poured in at doors and windows. Captain Green had telegraphed
my guardian the hour at which I would arrive, but I got so interested
watching the busy crowds on the streets from my hotel window that, for a
while, I forgot that I too needed a measure of their eager haste, if I
were soon to terminate this long journey over land and sea. I was
beginning to fear, at last, after the cars had been in motion some hours,
that I might have passed my station; so I concluded to have my question
carefully written down, and the next time the conductor came near me hand
it to him. I had not long to wait, and giving him the slip of paper, I
murmured "Please."

He read, and then looking at me very intently said:

"Are you a foreigner?"

"Oh, no; English," I said, blushing furiously.

"Why don't you speak then, when you want anything? That's what we're here
for."

I bowed my head quite proudly and said, "Will you please, then, answer my
question?"

"We won't be there for an hour or more. Are you not the young lady Mrs.
Flaxman is expecting?"

"I am Mr. Winthrop's ward. I do not know any Mrs. Flaxman."

"Oh, it's all the same. She lives with him; is a cousin, or something
connected with him. He is away now; left a month ago for the Pacific
coast."

He was sitting now quite comfortably in the next seat.

"You needn't have any more anxiety about the stopping places," he
continued, very cordially; "I will look after you, and see that you
get safely home, if there's no one there to meet you. Most likely they
expected you by the morning's Express." Then he inquired about my
luggage, examining my checks and keeping up a running stream of
conversation which I seemed compelled to answer. After the rigid
exclusion of my school life, where we were taught to regard all sorts of
men with a measure of wholesome dread, I scarce knew whether to be proud
of my courage in being able to sit there, with such outward calmness, or
ashamed of my boldness. If I could only have consulted one of the
teachers just for a moment it would have been such a relief; but
presently the train stopped, when he left my side, his seat to be
immediately occupied by an elderly woman with a huge covered basket.
After considerable difficulty she got herself and basket bestowed to her
satisfaction just before the cars got in motion. She moved uneasily on
the seat, looking around on all sides a trifle nervously, and then
in an awed whisper said to me, "Don't the cars go all to smash
sometimes?"

"Not many times," I tried to say reassuringly.

"I wan't never in 'em afore, and wouldn't be now, only my son Dan'el's
wife's took oncommon bad, and he thinks I can cure her."

She remained quiet a while, and then somewhat reassured began to grow
curious about her traveling companions.

"Have you cum fur?" she asked.

I explained that I had come a good many miles.

"All alone?"

"Only from New York."

"Going fur?"

"To Cavendish."

"Did you say Cavendish?"

"Yes."

"Be you a furriner?"

"No, I am English;" I felt my color rising as I answered.

"Well, you speak sort o' queer, but my old man was English, too, a
Norfolk man, and blest if I could understand quarter he said for ever so
long after we got keeping company. I used to say yes to everything I
didn't understand when we was alone, for fear he might be popping the
question; but laws, I knew well enough when he did ask."

She fell into an apparently pleasant reverie, but soon returned to the
actualities of life.

"You're not married, surely."

I answered in the negative with fewest possible words.

"Got a young man, though, I'll warrant; such a likely girl."

"I do not understand what you mean," I answered with considerable
dignity, glad to let her know that her own English was not perfect.

"You must have been riz in a queer place not to know what likely is. Why,
it's good-looking; and anybody knows you're that. But I suppose you
didn't have much eddication, they mostly don't in England; my man didn't
know even his letters; but I have pretty good book larnin' and so we got
on all right," she continued, with a retrospective look on her not
unkindly face.

"Who might your folks be in Cavendish?" she asked, after a few moments of
welcome silence.

"I have no relatives there," I answered, I am afraid, rather
ungraciously.

"Going as governess or nurse girl to some of the aristocracy there? You
don't look as if you ever did much housework, though."

"I am going to Mr. Winthrop's."

"Deu tell! Why, I lived with his mother myself, when I was a widder
first."

Then she relapsed into another eloquent pause of silence, while possibly
in her dim way she was reflecting how history repeats itself. But coming
back to reality again, and scanning me more closely than ever, she asked,
"Are you going there to work?"

My patience was getting exhausted, and it is possible there was a trace
of petulance in my voice as I said, "No, I am Mr. Winthrop's ward."

"Deu tell! What is that?"

"He is my guardian."

"Why, he is a young man for that. I thought they got elderly men."

"My father held the same relation to him."

She was some time taking in the idea, but she said at last, "Oh, I see."

I took a book from my satchel and began reading; but she did not long
permit me to enjoy it; her next remark, however, riveted my attention.

"I wonder if your name isn't Selwyn."

"Yes."

"Deary me, then I have seen your pa and ma long ago at Oaklands; that's
the Winthrop's place."

"Please tell me about them. I never saw them after I was ten years old. I
was sent from India, and then they died."

I spoke with a slight hesitancy, having first to translate my sentences,
as I still thought, in German.

"Well, I wan't much acquainted with 'em. Housemaids ain't in general on
friendly terms with the quality, but your ma was so kind to us servants,
I've always remembered her. Mrs. Winthrop sot a sight by her."

"What was that?" I asked, much mystified.

"Oh, she liked them better'n most."

"Do you recollect their appearance?"

"Yes; your father was a soldier-like, handsome looking man, very tall and
pretty stern. Your ma minded me of a flower, she was so delicate. They
wan't long married then, but my, they was fond of each other! Your father
just worshipped her. I heard Mrs. Winthrop say he had a hard time to get
her. Your ma's folks didn't want her to marry a soldier. She was an only
child, and they lived in England. The Winthrops were English, too, as
well as your father."

It was my turn now to fall into a reverie at the strangeness of
circumstances, thus causing me to meet this plain, old body, and learning
from her incidents about my own dead parents I might otherwise never have
known; besides she told it in such a realistic way that, in some
mysterious fashion, like mind reading, I seemed to see it all myself
through her clear eyes.

"Have you many brothers and sisters?"

"My mother had four children; but the others died in infancy."

"You look rugged as most young ladies."

"Do you mean healthy?"

"Well, yes; you have a clear complexion and rosy cheeks."

"They were extremely careful of our health at the school where I have
been for the last eight years. That was the reason my father sent me
there. He had heard how remarkably healthy their pupils were."

"'Twan't in this country, or you'd speak more nateral like."

"No, it was in Brussels."

"Oh, yes; in England, I suppose."

"No, on the continent of Europe; a city in Belgium, the capital."

"And you've talked a furrin tongue, then."

"Yes, several; but the German is the only one I speak quite correctly."

"Bless your heart, you'll soon talk fast enough in English. Your voice is
very sweet; it minds me of your ma's. And it 'pears to me you speak
better already."

I was beaming on the good woman now.

"Will you remain long in Cavendish?" I ventured on a question or two
myself.

"It'll depend on Dan'el's wife. He wants me to come and live with 'em,
but I hain't much hankering for darters-in-law, and I reckon we'd be
better friends furder apart. However I'll stay till she gets well; it
costs so for hired girls."

"May I come and see you?" I asked.

"Bless your dear heart, I'll be proud to have you come."

"Will you please tell me your name and what street you live on?"

"Oh, the streets don't amount to much in Cavendish. My name is Betsy
Blake; just inquire for Dan'el Blake on the Mill Road; he works in
Belcher's steam mill. Laws, how quick the time has gone! I thought for
sure I'd be amost scart to death; and I've hardly once thought of getting
smashed since I sot down here first; and now we're just into Cavendish."

I glanced through the window, and my heart throbbed joyously; for there,
stretching so far away I could see no further shore, lay the beautiful
ocean. No matter now what might be my home in this strange, new country.
With my passion for the sea, and it so near, I could not be utterly
desolate. To sit on these cliffs, reddening now in the sunset and watch
the outgoing tide, sending imaginary messages on the departing waves to
far-off shores, would surely, to some extent, deaden the sense of utter
isolation from the world of childhood and youth. Mrs. Blake shook my hand
warmly, repeating again the invitation to visit her at Daniel's, while
she gathered up her huge basket and started for the door with the cars
still in motion. I sat watching from the window the groups of people
waiting for the incoming train as we stopped at the station. A few
carriages were there, but none of them had come for Mrs. Blake. A strong
limbed man, with a dejected face, relieved her of the basket and then
hurried away, she rapidly following. I felt sorry for them, and was
speculating what news Daniel had brought of his sick wife, quite
forgetting for the time that I too had need to be astir. The conductor,
however, soon reminded me of the fact as he announced briskly that a
carriage was in waiting for me.

"They will send down bye-and-bye for your luggage; it's only a one-seated
affair outside."

I followed him to the carriage; a bright faced young fellow was holding a
spirited horse; from his bearing I instantly set him down as something
more than a servant.

"Here, Flaxman, is your charge," the conductor remarked, as he assisted
me into the carriage.

"Miss Selwyn, I presume," the young man said, politely, as he
disentangled one hand from the reins to grasp mine. The horse started off
on a biasing canter, much to my amusement.

"You are not afraid, I hope," my companion said, a trifle anxiously.

"Not afraid, but amused; your horse goes so oddly; but I am not
accustomed to their ways." I added, fearing my remark might give offence.

"Faery and I are very good friends, and understand each other thoroughly;
but strangers usually get alarmed."

My knowledge of quadrupeds was so limited I thought it safest to remain
silent.

Presently we passed the Blakes, I longed to relieve Daniel of his heavy
basket; for even he seemed to stagger beneath its weight.

"I was speaking with that woman on the train. She comes to attend her
son's wife, who is sick."

"Oh, the Blakes, then. She won't have much to do, Dan's wife died to-day;
poor beggar, he looks heartbroken."

"Your wife may be dead some day; then you will know how dreadfully he
feels," I said, hotly. The flippant tone in face of such sorrow
distressed me. He gave me a merry look as he said: "There are always
plenty left to replace the lost ones. A wife is far easier got than a
horse; one like Faery, for instance."

I shut my mouth firmly and turned my head away to watch the white sails
idly mirrored, in the still waters, I knew he was furtively watching me,
and this alone held back my tears, as I thought of poor Blake's desolate
hearthstone, as well as my own heart's loneliness in this wide continent
of strangers.

"Mr. Winthrop regretted being away when you arrived, but he expected us
to be kind to you; so we must not quarrel first thing." My companion
said, with entire change of tone.

"I quarrel pretty easily," I stammered, "my temper is very abrupt."

"Most of us have quick tempers; but, I think, you, at least, have a
generous one."

Then I recollected abrupt was not a very suitable word to couple with
temper. Taken altogether, I found this drive home with Faery and her
master anything but enjoyable.




CHAPTER II.

OAKLANDS.


Faery's head was turned at last from the wide, dusty street into an
imposing gateway, which lead through an avenue bordered thickly with
evergreens mostly pine and hemlock. "These trees look a trifle hot in
summer; but they are a capital protection in a winter's storm, I assure
you," my companion said with an apologetic air.

I could think of no suitable reply; so merely said, "yes."

"It's a tradition among their acquaintances that the Winthrops believe in
getting the very best possible good out of everything."

"Have they succeeded?"

"Better than the generality of folks; but they have come pretty near
extinction, at least on this side the water. Mr. Winthrop is the last of
his race."

"Has he no children?"

"He is a bachelor."

"But he may have children and a wife some day."

"You will probably be his heir, if he does not marry, I believe he is
your heir by your father's will, in case you die without heirs."

I laughed merrily. "He will outlive me probably. What good would his
money do me if I were old, or maybe dead?"

"Your children might enjoy it."

I wondered was it customary in this country to speculate on such remote
possibilities, but said nothing. We soon reached the house, which stood
on ground elevated to command a magnificent view of the sea, the distant
headlands, and a wide stretch of hill and dale. The house itself reminded
me more of old world buildings than any I had yet seen in America; and,
on the spot, I took a fancy to it, and felt that here I could easily
cultivate the home feeling, without which I should still be a wanderer on
the earth. Mrs. Flaxman was standing to receive me as I ascended the
granite steps that led to the main entrance. The great stone house had
wings at either end while deep breaks in the heavy masonry of the walls
occurred at regular intervals, and heavy pillars of granite made a
massive background for this fair, slight woman as I looked at her.

"I will commit Miss Selwyn to your care, mother, while I take a little
longer drive with Faery," my companion said, graciously.

"I will accept your trust with a great deal of pleasure, Hubert," she
said, receiving me with a cordiality that warmed my heart. "You are very
welcome home. At least, I hope you will feel at home here."

"I have no other, now that I have left school," I said, gravely.

"Young ladies do not often waste much sentiment on their boarding-school
home, so I think we shall succeed in making you content here with us at
Oaklands."

"I have always been accustomed to find my own sources of content. We were
left at school to amuse ourselves or not, as we willed."

"But I hope we shall not be so indifferent to your pleasure. Mr. Winthrop
is not much of a society man, but we still see a good many visitors."

The main entrance of the house was finer than anything I had remembered
to have seen, and at first I felt quite oppressed by the grandeur of my
surroundings; but when Mrs. Flaxman had conducted me to my own room, its
dainty furnishings and appointments made it appear to me, after the plain
accommodations of the school, a perfect bower for any maiden. I went to
one of the deep windows and looked out over the splendid stretch of land
and sea scape spread before me. Drawing a long sigh of perfect content, I
exclaimed: "I know I shall be happy here. How could I help it, with such
pictures to look at?"

"If you admire the scenery so much at first, what will your sensations be
when you have grown intimate with its beauty? Nature enters into our
humanity like human acquaintances."

"What do you mean?" I asked, much mystified.

"There are some places like some people--the more we study them the more
they are admired, we are continually discovering hidden beauties. But you
must study nature closely, at all hours and seasons, to discover her
subtle charms."

"Won't you teach me what you have learned?"

"If I can do so I shall be glad; but I think we must each study her for
ourselves. She has no text books that I have ever seen."

"I wonder do we all see things alike? Does that sea, now a sheet of rose
and amethyst, and the sky that seems another part of the same, and the
green trees, and hills, and rocks, look to you as they do to me?"

"Not yet, my child. When you have studied them as long, and have the
memories of years clustering around each well-remembered spot, they may
look the same to you as they now do to me; but not till then," she added,
I fancied a little sadly.

"Probably I shall enjoy this exquisite view better without the memories;
they usually hold a sting."

"That depends on the way we use life. To live as God wills, leaves no
sting for after thought."

"Not if death comes and takes our loved ones? How alone I am in the world
because of him."

"There are far sadder experiences than yours. Death is not always our
worst enemy; we may have a death in life, compared with which Death
itself is an angel of light."

"Oh, what a strange, sad thing life is at the best! Is it worth being
born and suffering so much for all the joy we find?"

"No, indeed, if this life were all; but it is only the faint dawn of a
brighter, grander existence, more worthy the gift of a God."

"But we must die to get to that fuller, higher life;" I said, suddenly
remembering poor Blake's dead wife.

She smiled compassionately.

"It is hard convincing you young people that even death may be a tender
friend, a welcome messenger. But we won't talk in this strain any longer,
I scarce know why we drifted into it. I want your first impressions of
home to be joyous, for they are apt to haunt us long after we make the
discovery that they were not correct."

"I wonder if you are not something of a philosopher? I never heard any
one talk just like you."

"Certainly not anything so formidable, and learned as that. I am only a
plain little woman, with no special mission except to make those around
me happy."

"That is a very beautiful mission, and I am sure you meet with success,
which is not the fate of every one with a career."

"Ah, if you begin praising me I must leave; but first let me tell you
dinner will be served at six. Mr. Winthrop is a great student, and is
already, for so young a man, a very successful author; and he likes
dinner late so as to have all the longer time for hard work. The evenings
he takes for light reading and rest."

I must confess I was beginning to get afraid of my guardian. I expected
to find him in manners and appearance something like our school
professors, with a tendency to criticise my slender literary
acquirements.

However I proceeded with my toilet quite cheerfully, and was rather glad
than sorry that I had found him absent from Oaklands; but after I left my
room and wandered out into the dim, spacious hall and down the long
stairway, the heavy, old-fashioned splendors of the house chilled me. How
could I occupy myself happily through the coming years in this great,
gloomy house? I vaguely wondered, while life stretched out before my
imagination, in long and tiresome perspective.

With no school duties to occupy my time, my knowledge of amusements,
needlework, or any other of the softer feminine accomplishments,
exceedingly limited, I was suddenly confronted with the problem how I was
to fill up the days and years with any degree of satisfaction. Hitherto
every thought had been strained eagerly towards this home coming. After
that fancy was a blank. Now I had got here, what then? I had been a
fairly industrious pupil and graduated with commendable success; but it
had been a tradition at our school that once away from its confinement,
text-books and the weariness of study were at an end. I went out on the
lawn, and was standing, a trifle homesick for the companionship of the
merry crowd of schoolmates, when a side glance revealed to me an immense
garden, such as I had often seen, but not near enough to sufficiently
enjoy. I soon forgot my lonely fancies as I strayed admiringly through
the well kept walks, amid beds of old-fashioned sweet smelling flowers,
which now-a-days are for the most part relegated to the humble cottages;
but farther on I discovered the rarer plants of many climes, some of them
old acquaintances, but others utter strangers, only so far as I could
remember some of them from my lessons in botany. Still stretching beyond
on the hill side I saw the vegetable and fruit gardens. Huge strawberry
beds attracted me, the ripe fruit I found tempting; but feeling still a
stranger, the old weakness that comes down to us from Mother Eve to reach
forth and pluck, was restrained. "What a perfect Eden it is!" I could not
help exclaiming, though no ears save the birds, and multitudinous insects
existences, were within reach of my voice, and probably for the latter,
any sound I could make would be as unheard by them as the music of the
spheres must be to me until another body, with finer intuitions to catch
such harmonies, shall be provided. Ere the dinner bell rang I found a new
wonderland of beauty reaching away beyond me. To watch from early spring
till winter's icy breath destroyed them, these multiplied varieties of
vegetable life gradually passing through all their beautiful changes of
bud and blossom, and ripened seed or fruit would be a training in some
respects, equalling that of the schools. What higher lessons in botany I
might take, day by day exploring the secrets of plant life! I went back
to the house in a happier mood than I had left it. At the dinner table I
expressed, no doubt with amusing enthusiasm, my gladness at this garden
of delight.

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