Esther

I was quite excited by all these arrangements; but an interview with Deborah soon cooled my ardor.

Allan and Jumbles had gone out with Uncle Geoffrey, and I was sitting at the window looking over the lawn and the mulberry tree, when a sudden tap at the door startled me from my reverie. Of course it was Deborah; no one else"s knuckles sounded as though they were iron. Deborah was a tall, angular woman, very spare and erect of figure, with a severe cast of countenance, and heavy black curls pinned up under her net cap; her print dresses were always starched until they crackled, and on Sunday her black silk dress rustled as I never heard any silk dress rustle before.

"Yes, Deborah, what is it?" I asked, half-frightened; for surely my hour had come. Deborah was standing so very erect, with the basket of keys in her hands, and her mouth drawn down at the corners.

"Master said this morning," began Deborah, grimly, "as how there was a new family coming to live here, and that I was to go to Miss Esther for orders. Five-and-twenty years have I cooked master"s dinners for him, and received his orders, and never had a word of complaint from his lips, and now he is putting a mistress over me and Martha."

"Oh, Deborah," I faltered, and then I came to a full stop; for was it not trying to a woman of her age and disposition, used to Uncle Geoffrey"s bachelor ways, to have a houseful of young people turned on her hands? She and Martha would have to work harder, and they were both getting old. I felt so much for her that the tears came into my eyes, and my voice trembled.

"It is hard!" I burst out; "it is very hard for you and Martha to have your quiet life disturbed. But how could we help coming here, when we had no home and no money, and Uncle Geoffrey was so generous?

And then there was Dot and mother so ailing." And at the thought of all our helplessness, and Uncle Geoffrey"s goodness a great tear rolled down my cheek. It was very babyish and undignified; but, after all, no a.s.sumption of womanliness would have helped me so much.

Deborah"s grim mouth relaxed; under her severe exterior, and with her sharp tongue, there beat a very kind heart, and Dot was her weak point.

"Well, well, crying won"t help the pot to boil, Miss Esther!" she said, brusquely enough; but I could see she was coming round. "Master was always that kind-hearted that he would have sheltered the whole parish if he could. I am not blaming him, though it goes hard with Martha and me, who have led peaceable, orderly lives, and never had a mistress or thought of one since Miss Blake died, and the master took up thoughts of single blessedness in earnest."

"What sort of woman was Miss Blake?" I asked, eagerly, forgetting my few troubled tears at the thought of Uncle Geoffrey"s one romance.

The romance of middle-aged people always came with a faint, far-away odor to us young ones, like some old garment laid up in rose-leaves or lavender, which must needs be of quaint fashion and material, but doubtless precious in the eyes of the wearer.

"Woman!" returned Deborah, with an angry snort; "she was a lady, if there ever was one. We don"t see her sort every day, I can tell you that, Miss Esther; a pretty-spoken, dainty creature, with long fair curls, that one longed to twine round one"s fingers."

"She was pretty, then?" I hazarded more timidly.

"Pretty! she was downright beautiful. Miss Carrie reminds me of her sometimes, but she is not near so handsome as poor Miss Rose. She used to come here sometimes with her mother, and she and master would sit under that mulberry tree. I can see her now walking over the gra.s.s in her white gown, with some apple blossoms in her hand, talking and laughing with him. It was a sad day when she lay in the fever, and did not know him, for all his calling to her "Rose! Rose!"

I was with her when she died, and I thought he would never hold up his head again."

"Poor Uncle Geoffrey! But he is cheerful and contented now."

"But there, I must not stand gossiping," continued Deborah, interrupting herself. "I have only brought you the keys, and wish to know what preserve you and Mr. Allan might favor for tea."

But here I caught hold, not of the key-basket, but of the hard, work-worn hand that held it.

"Oh, Deborah! do be good to us!" I broke out: "we will trouble you and Martha as little as possible, and we are all going to put our shoulders to the wheel and help ourselves; and we have no home but this, and no one to take care of us but Uncle Geoffrey."

"I don"t know but I will make some girdle cakes for tea," returned Deborah, in the most imperturbable voice; and she turned herself round abruptly, and walked out of the room without another word. But I was quite well satisfied and triumphant. When Deborah baked girdle cakes, she meant the warmest of welcomes, and no end of honor to Uncle Geoffrey"s guests.

"Humph! girdle cakes!" observed Uncle Geoffrey, with a smile, as he regarded them. "Deb is in a first-rate humor, then. You have played your cards well, old lady," and his eyes twinkled merrily.

I went into the kitchen after tea, and had another long talk with Deborah. Dear old kitchen! How many happy hours we children had spent in it! It was very low and dark, and its two windows looked out on the stable-yard; but in the evening, when the fire burned clear and the blinds were drawn, it was a pleasant place. Deborah and Martha used to sit in the brown Windsor chairs knitting, with Puff, the great tabby cat, beside them, and the firelight would play on the red brick floor and snug crimson curtains.

Deborah and I had a grand talk that night. She was a trifle obstinate and dogmatical, but we got on fairly well. To do her justice, her chief care seemed to be that her master should not be interfered with in any of his ways. "He will work harder than ever,"

she groaned, "now there are all these mouths to feed. He and Jumbles will be fairly worn out."

But our talk contented me. I had enlisted Deborah"s sympathies on our side. I felt the battle was over. I was only a "bit thing" as Deborah herself called me, and I was tolerably tired when I went up to my room that night.

Not that I felt inclined for sleep. Oh dear no! I just dragged the big easy-chair to the window, and sat there listening to the patter of summer rain on the leaves.

It was very dark, for the moon had hidden her face; but through the cool dampness there crept a delicious fragrance of wet jasmine and lilies. I wanted to have a good "think;" not to sit down and take myself to pieces. Oh no, that was Carrie"s way. Such introspection bored me and did me little good, for it only made me think more of myself and less of the Master; but I wanted to review the past fortnight, and look the future in the face. Foolish Esther! As though we can look at a veiled face. Only the past and the present is ours; the future is hidden with G.o.d.

Yes, a fortnight ago I was a merry, heedless schoolgirl, with no responsibilities and few duties, except that laborious one of self-improvement, which must go on, under some form or other, until we die. And now, on my shrinking shoulders lay the weight of a woman"s work. I was to teach others, when I knew so little myself; it was I who was to have the largest share of home administration--I, who was so faulty, so imperfect.

Then I remembered a sentence Carrie had once read to me out of one of her innumerable books, and which had struck me very greatly at the time.

"Happy should I think myself," said St. Francis de Sales, "if I could rid myself of my imperfections but one quarter of an hour previous to my death."

Well, if a saint could say that, why should I lose heart thinking about my faults? What was the good of stirring up muddy water to try and see one"s own miserable reflection, when one could look up into the serene blue of Divine Providence? If I had faults--and, alas! how many they were--I must try to remedy them; if I slipped, I must pray for strength to rise again.

Courage, Esther! "Little by little," as Uncle Geoffrey says; "small beginnings make great endings." And when I had cheered myself with these words I went tranquilly to bed.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FLITTING.

So the old Combe Manor days were over, and with them the girlhood of Esther Cameron.

Ah me! it was sad to say good-by to the dear old home of our childhood; to go round to our haunts, one by one, and look our last at every cherished nook and corner; to bid farewell to our four-footed pets, Dapple and Cherry and Brindle, and the dear little spotted calves; to caress our favorite pigeons for the last time, and to feed the greedy old turkey-c.o.c.k, who had been the terror of our younger days. It was well, perhaps, that we were too busy for a prolonged leave-taking. Fred had gone to London, and his handsome lugubrious face no longer overlooked us as we packed books and china.

Carrie and mother and Dot were cozily established in the little sea-side lodging, and only Allan, Jack, and I sat down to our meals in the dismantled rooms.

It was hard work trying to keep cheerful, when Allan left off whistling, as he hammered at the heavy cases, and when Jack was discovered sobbing in odd corners, with Smudge in her arms--of course Smudge would accompany us to Milnthorpe; no one could imagine Jack without her favorite sable attendant, and then Dot was devoted to him. Jack used to come to us with piteous pleadings to take first one and then another of her pets; now it was the lame chicken she had nursed in a little basket by the kitchen fire, then a pair of guinea pigs that belonged to Dot, and some carrier pigeons that they specially fancied; after that, she was bent on the removal of a young family of hedgehogs, and some kittens that had been discovered in the hay-loft, belonging to the stable cat.

We made a compromise at last, and entrusted to her care Carrie"s tame canaries, and a cage of dormice that belonged to Dot, in whose fate Smudge look a vast amount of interest, though he never ventured to look at the canaries. The care of these interesting captives was consolatory to Jack, though she rained tears over them in secret, and was overheard by Allan telling them between her sobs that "they were all going to live in a little pokey house, without chickens or cows, or anything that would make life pleasant, and that she and they must never expect to be happy again." Ah, well! the longest day must have an end, and by-and-by the evening came when we turned away from dear old Combe Manor forever.

It was far more cheerful work fitting up the new rooms at Milnthorpe, with Deborah"s strong arms to help, and Uncle Geoffrey standing by to encourage our efforts; even Jack plucked up heart then, and hung up the canaries, and hid away the dormice out of Smudge"s and Jumbles" reach, and consented to stretch her long legs in our behalf. Allan and I thought we had done wonders when all was finished, and even Deborah gave an approving word.

"I think mother and Carrie will be pleased," I said, as I put some finishing touches to the tea-table on the evening we expected them.

Allan had gone to the station to meet them, and only Uncle Geoffrey was my auditor. There was a great bowl of roses on the table, great crimson-hearted, delicious roses, and a basket of nectarines, that some patient had sent to Uncle Geoffrey. The parlors looked very pretty and snug; we had arranged our books on the shelves, and had hung up two or three choice engravings, and there was the gleam of purple and gold china from the dark oak cabinet, and by the garden window there were mother"s little blue couch and her table and workbox, and Carrie"s davenport, and an inviting easy-chair. The new curtains looked so well, too. No wonder Uncle Geoffrey declared that he did not recognize his old room.

"I am sure they will be pleased," I repeated, as I moved the old-fashioned gla.s.s dish full of our delicious Combe Manor honey; but Uncle Geoffrey did not answer; he was listening to some wheels in the distance.

"There they are," he said, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his felt wide-awake. "Don"t expect your mother to notice much to-night, Esther; poor thing, this is a sad coming home to her."

I need not have worked so hard; that was my first thought when I saw mother"s face as she entered the room. She was trembling like a leaf, and her face was all puckered and drawn, as I kissed her; but Uncle Geoffrey would not let her sit down or look at anything.

"No, no, you shall not make efforts for us to-night," he said, patting her as though she were a child. "Take your mother upstairs, children, and let her have quiet! do you hear, nothing but quiet to-night." And then Allan drew her arm through his.

I cried shame on myself for a selfish, disappointed pang, as I followed them. Of course Uncle Geoffrey was right and wise, as he always was, and I was still more ashamed of myself when I entered the room and found mother crying as though her heart would break, and clinging to Allan.

"Oh, children, children! how can I live without your father?" she exclaimed, hysterically. Well, it was wise of Allan, for he let that pa.s.s and never said a word; he only helped me remove the heavy widow"s bonnet and cloak, and moved the big chintz couch nearer to the window, and then he told me to be quick and bring her some tea; and when I returned he was sitting by her, fanning and talking to her in his pleasant boyish way; and though the tears were still flowing down her pale cheeks she sobbed less convulsively.

"You have both been so good, and worked so hard, and I cannot thank you," she whispered, taking my hand, as I stood near her.

"Esther does not want to be thanked," returned Allan, st.u.r.dily. "Now you will take your tea, won"t you, mother? and by-and-by one of the girls shall come and sit with you."

"Are we to go down and leave her?" I observed, dubiously, as Allan rose from his seat.

"Yes, go, both of you, I shall be better alone; Allan knows that,"