Part 12 (1/2)
”Hannah, is this right? She is my wife; she promised to obey me, and she defies me--I ask you is this right?”
”Yes, Mr. Brudenell. When she is your acknowledged wife, in your house, then she will obey and never 'defy' you, as you call it; but now it is quite different; she has not the s.h.i.+eld of your name, and she must take care of her own self-respect until you relieve her of the charge,” said the elder sister gravely.
”Hannah, you are a terrible duenna! You would be an acquisition to some crabbed old Spaniard who had a beautiful young wife to look after! Now I want you to tell me how on earth my burning up that old loom and wheel, and putting a little comfortable furniture in this room, and paying you sufficient to support you both, can possibly hurt her self-respect?”
demanded Herman.
”It will do more than that! it will hurt her character, Mr. Brudenell; and that should be as dear to you as to herself.”
”It is! it is the dearest thing in life to me! But how should what I propose to do hurt either her self-respect or her character? You have not told me that yet!”
”This way, Mr. Brudenell! If we were to accept your offers, our neighbors would talk of us.”
”Neighbors! why, Hannah, what neighbors have you? In all the months that I have been coming here, I have not chanced to meet a single soul!”
”No, you have not. And if you had, once in a way, met anyone here, they would have taken you to be a mere pa.s.ser-by resting yourself in our hut; but if you were to make us as comfortable as you wish, why the very first chance visitor to the hut who would see that the loom and the spinning-wheel and old furniture were gone, and were replaced by the fine carpet, curtains, chairs, and sofa that you wish to give us, would go away and tell the wonder. And people would say: 'Where did Hannah Worth get these things?' or, 'How do they live?' or, 'Who supports those girls?' and so on. Now, Mr. Brudenell, those are questions I will not have asked about myself and my sister, and that you ought not to wish to have asked about your wife!”
”Hannah, you are quite right! You always are! And yet it distresses me to see you living and working as you do.”
”We are inured to it, Mr. Brudenell.”
”But it will not be for long, Hannah. Very soon my mother and sisters go to take possession of their new house in Was.h.i.+ngton. When they have left Brudenell I will announce our marriage and bring you and your sister home.”
”Not me, Mr. Brudenell! I have said before that in marrying Nora you did not marry all her poor relatives. I have told you that I will not share the splendors of Nora's destiny. No one shall have reason to say of me, as they would say if I went home with you, that I had connived at the young heir's secret marriage with my sister for the sake of securing a luxurious home for myself. No, Mr. Brudenell, Nora is beautiful, and it is not unnatural that she should have made a high match; and the world will soon forgive her for it and forget her humble origin. But I am a plain, rude, hard-working woman; am engaged to a man as poor, as rugged, and toil-worn as myself. We would be strangely out of place in your mansion, subjected to the comments of your friends. We will never intrude there. I shall remain here at my weaving until the time comes, if it ever should come, when Reuben and myself may marry, and then, if possible, we will go to the West, to better ourselves in a better country.”
”Well, Hannah, well, if such be your final determination, you will allow me at least to do something towards expediting your marriage. I can advance such a sum to Reuben Gray as will enable him to marry, and take you and all his own brothers and sisters to the rich lands of the West, where, instead of being enc.u.mbrances, they will be great helps to him; for there is to be found much work for every pair of hands, young or old, male or female,” said the young man, not displeased, perhaps, to provide for his wife's poor relations at a distance from which they would not be likely ever to enter his sphere.
Hannah reflected for a moment and then said:
”I thank you very much for that offer, Mr. Brudenell. It was the wisest and kindest, both for yourself and us, that you could have made. And I think that if we could see our way through repaying the advance, we would gratefully accept it.”
”Never trouble yourself about the repayment! Talk to Gray, and then, when my mother has gone, send him up to talk to me,” said Herman.
To all this Nora said nothing. She sat silently, with her head resting upon her hand, and a heavy weight at her heart, such as she always felt when their future was spoken of. To her inner vision a heavy cloud that would not disperse always rested on that future.
Thus the matter rested for the present.
Herman continued his daily visits to the sisters, and longed impatiently for the time when he should feel free to acknowledge his beautiful young peasant-wife and place her at the head of his princely establishment.
These daily visits of the young heir to the poor sisters attracted no general attention. The hut on the hill was so remote from any road or any dwelling-house that few persons pa.s.sed near it, and fewer still entered its door.
It was near the middle of December, when Mrs. Brudenell was busy with her last preparations for her removal, that the first rumor of Herman's visits to the hut reached her.
She was in the housekeeper's room, superintending in person the selection of certain choice pots of domestic sweetmeats from the family stores to be taken to the town-house, when Mrs. Spicer, who was attending her, said:
”If you please, ma'am, there's Jem Morris been waiting in the kitchen all the morning to see you.”
”Ah! What does he want? A job, I suppose. Well, tell him to come in here,” said the lady carelessly, as she scrutinized the label upon a jar of red currant jelly.
The housekeeper left the room to obey, and returned ushering in an individual who, as he performs an important part in this history, deserves some special notice.
He was a mulatto, between forty-five and fifty years of age, of medium size, and regular features, with a quant.i.ty of woolly hair and beard that hung down upon his breast. He was neatly dressed in the gray homespun cloth of the country, and entered with a smiling countenance and respectful manner. Upon the whole he was rather a good-looking and pleasing darky. He was a character, too, in his way. He possessed a fair amount of intellect, and a considerable fund of general information. He had contrived, somehow or other, to read and write; and he would read everything he could lay his hands on, from the Bible to the almanac. He had formed his own opinions upon most of the subjects that interest society, and he expressed them freely. He kept himself well posted up in the politics of the day, and was ready to discuss them with anyone who would enter into the debate.