Chapter 27

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_ CHAPTER XXVII

Elizabeth stood at the nursery window, pointing out to little Henry how the lilacs and laburnums were coming into flower in the square below, and speculating with him whether the tribe of sparrows which they had fed all the winter from the mignonette boxes on the window sill would be building nests in the tall trees of Russell Square; for she wished, with her great aversion to London, to make her nursling as far as possible "a country child."

Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. He would run about on his tottering fat legs, and he could say, "Mammy Lizzie," also, "Pa-pa," as had been carefully taught him by his conscientious nurse. At which papa had been at first excessively surprised, then gratified, and had at last taken kindly to the appellation as a matter of course.

It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott's life. At first twice a week, and then every day, he sent up for "Master Ascott" to keep him company at dessert; he then changed his dinner hour from half past six to five, because Elizabeth, with her stern sacrifice of every thing to the child's good, had suggested to him, humbly but firmly, that late hours kept little Henry too long out of his bed. He gave up his bottle of port and his after-dinner sleep, and took to making water-lilies and caterpillars out of oranges and boats out of walnut shells, for his boy's special edification. Sometimes when, at half past six, Elizabeth, punctual as clock-work, knocked at the dining room door, she heard father and son laughing together in a most jovial manner, though the decanters were in their places and the wine glasses untouched.

And even after the child disappeared, the butler declared that master usually took quietly to his newspaper, or rang for his tea, or perhaps dozed harmlessly in his chair till bedtime.

I do not allege that Peter Ascott was miraculously changed; people do not change, especially at his age; externally he was still the same pompous, overbearing, coarse man, with whom, no doubt, his son would have a tolerably sore bargain in years to come. But still the child had touched a soft corner in his heart, the one soft corner which in his youth had yielded to the beauty of Miss Selina Leaf; and the old fellow was a better fellow than he had once been. Probably, with care, he might be for the rest of his life at least manageable.

Elizabeth hoped so for his boy's sake, and little as she liked him, she tried to conquer her antipathy as much as she could. She always ways took care to treat him with extreme respect, and to bring up little Henry to do the same. And, as often happens, Mr. Ascott began gradually to comport himself in a manner deserving of respect. He ceased his oaths and his coarse language; seldom flew into a passion; and last, not least, the butler avouched that master hardly ever went to bed "muzzy" now. Toward all his domestics, and especially his son's nurse, he behaved himself more like a master and less like a tyrant; so that the establishment at Russell Square went on in a way more peaceful than had ever been known before.

There was no talk of his giving it a new mistress; he seemed to have had enough of matrimony. Of his late wife he never spoke; whether he loved her or not, whether he had regretted her or not, the love and regret were now alike ended.

Poor Selina! It was Elizabeth only, who, with a sacred sense of duty, occasionally talked to little Henry about "mamma up there"--pointing to the blank bit of blue sky over the trees of Russell Square, and hoped in time to make him understand something about her, and how she had loved him, her "baby." This love, the only beautiful emotion her life had known, was the one fragment that remained of it after her death; the one remembrance she left to her child.

Little Henry was not in the least like her, nor yet like his father. He took after some forgotten type, some past generation of either family, which reappeared in this as something new. To Elizabeth he was a perfect revelation of beauty and infantile fascination. He filled up every corner of her heart. She grew fat and flourishing, even cheerful; so cheerful that she bore with equanimity the parting with her dear Miss Hilary, who went away in glory and happiness as Mrs. Robert Lyon, to live in Liverpool, and Miss Leaf with her. Thus both Elizabeth's youthful dreams ended in nothing, and it was more than probable that for the future their lives and hers being so widely apart, she would see very little of her beloved mistresses any more. But they had done their work in her and for her; and it had borne fruit a hundred fold, and would still.

"I know you will take care of this child--he is the hope of the family," said Miss Leaf, when she was giving her last kiss to little Henry. "I could not bear to leave him, if I were not leaving him with you."

And Elizabeth had taken her charge proudly in her arms, knowing she was trusted, and in vowing to be worthy of that trust.

Another dream was likewise ended; so completely that she sometimes wondered if it was ever real, whether she had ever been a happy girl, looking forward as girls do to wifehood and motherhood; or whether she had not been always the staid middle aged person she was now, whom nobody ever suspected of any such things.

She had been once back to her old home, to settle her mother comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to 'prentice her little brother, to see one sister married, and the other sent off to Liverpool, to be servant to Mrs. Lyon. While at Stowbury, she had heard by chance of Tom Cliffe's passing through the town as a Chartist lecturer, or something of the sort, with his pretty, showy London wife, who, when he brought her there, had looked down rather contemptuously upon the street where Tom was born.

This was all Elizabeth knew about them. They, too, had passed from her life as phases of keen joy and keener sorrow do pass, like a dream and the shadows of a dream. It may be, life itself will seem at the end to be nothing more.

But Elizabeth Hand's love story was not so to end.

One morning, the same morning when she had been pointing out the lilacs to little Henry, and now came in from the square with a branch of them in her hand, the postman gave her a letter; the handwriting of which made her start as if it had been a visitation from the dead.

"Mammy Lizzie, mammy Lizzie!" cried little Henry, plucking at her gown, but for once his nurse did not notice him. She stood on the door-step, trembling violently; at length she put the letter into her pocket, lifted the child, and got up stairs somehow. When she had settled her charge to his mid-day sleep, then, and not till then, did she take out and read the few lines, which, though written on shabby paper, and with more than one blot, were so like--yet so terribly unlike--Tom's calligraphy of old:

"DEAR ELIZABETH,--I have no right to ask any kindness of you; but if you would like to see an old friend alive, I wish you would come and see me. I have been long of asking you, lest you might fancy I wanted to get something out of you; for I'm as poor as a rat; and once lately I saw you, looking so well and well-to-do. But it was the same kind old face, and I should like to get one kind look from it before I go where I sha'n't want any kindness from any body. However, do just as you choose.

"Yours affectionately,
T. CLIFFE.

"Underneath is my address."

It was in one of those wretched nooks in Westminster, now swept away by Victoria Street and other improvements. Elizabeth happened to have read about it in one of the many charitable pamphlets, reports, etc., which were sent continually to the wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he sent down stairs to light fires with. What must not poor Tom have sunk to before he had come to live there? His letter was like a cry out of the depths, and the voice was that of her youth, her first love.

Is any woman ever deaf to that? The love may have died a natural death; many first loves do: a riper, completer, happier love may have come in its place; but there must be something unnatural about the woman and man likewise, who can ever quite forget it--the dew of their youth--the beauty of their dawn.

"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" sighed Elizabeth, "my own poor Tom!"

She forgot Esther; either from Tom's not mentioning her, or in the strong return to old times which his letter produced; forgot her for the time being as completely as if she had never existed. Even when the recollection came it made little difference. The sharp jealousy, the dislike and contempt had all calmed down: she thought she could now see Tom's wife as any other woman. Especially if, as the letter indicated, they were so very poor and miserable.

Possibly Esther had suggested writing it? Perhaps, though Tom did not, Esther did "want to get something out of her"--Elizabeth Hand, who was known to have large wages, and to be altogether a thriving person? Well, it mattered little. The one fact remained: Tom was in distress; Tom needed her; she must go.

Her only leisure time was of an evening, after Henry was in bed. The intervening hours, especially the last one, when the child was down stairs with his father, calmed her; subdued the tumult of old remembrances that came surging up and beating at the long shut door of her heart. When her boy returned, leaping and laughing, and playing all sorts of tricks as she put him to bed, she could smile too. And when kneeling beside her in his pretty white night gown, he stammered through the prayer she had thought it right to begin to teach him, though of course he was too young to understand it--the words "Thy will be done;" "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;" and lastly, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," struck home to his nurse's in most soul.

"Mammy, mammy Lizzie's 'tying."

Yes, she was crying, but it did her good. She was able to kiss her little boy, who slept like a top in five minutes: then she took off her good silk gown, and dressed herself; soberly and decently, but so that people should not suspect, in that low and dangerous neighborhood, the sovereigns that she carried in an under pocket, ready to use as occasion required. Thus equipped, without a minute's delay, she started for Tom's lodging.

It was poorer than even she expected. One attic room, bate almost as when it was built. No chimney or grate, no furniture except a box which served as both table and chair; and a heap of straw, with a blanket thrown over it. The only comfort about it was that it was clean; Tom's innate sense of refinement had abided with him to the last.

Elizabeth had time to make all these observations, for Tom was out--gone, the landlady said, to the druggist's shop, round the corner.

"He's very bad, ma'am," added the woman, civilly, probably led thereto by Elizabeth's respectable appearance, and the cab in which she had come--lest she should lose a minute's time. "Can't last long, and Lord knows who's to bury him."

With that sentence knelling in her ears, Elizabeth waited till she heard the short cough and the hard breathing of some one toiling heavily up the stair. Tom, Tom himself. But oh, so altered! with every bit of youth gone out of him; with death written on every line of his haggard face, the death he had once prognosticated with a sentimental pleasure, but which now had come upon him in all its ghastly reality.

He was in the last stage of consumption. The disease was latent in his family, Elizabeth knew: she had known it when she belonged to him, and fondly thought that, as his wife, her incessant care might save him from it; but nothing could save him now.

"Who's that?" said he, in his own sharp, fretful voice.

"Me, Tom. But don't speak. Sit down till your cough's over."

Tom grasped her hand as she stood by him, but he made no further demonstration, nor used any expression of gratitude. He seemed far too ill. Sick people are always absorbed in the sad present; they seldom trouble themselves much about the past. Only there was something in the way Tom clung to her hand, helplessly, imploringly, that moved the inmost heart of Elizabeth.

"I'm very bad, you see. This cough; oh, it shakes me dreadfully; especially of nights."

"Have you any doctor?"

"The druggist close by, or rather, the druggist's shopman. He's a very kind young fellow, from our county, I fancy, for he asked me once if I wasn't a Stowbury man; and ever since he has doctored me for nothing, and given me a shilling too, now and then, when I've been a'most clemmed to death in the winter."

"Oh, Tom, why didn't you write to me before. Have you actually wanted food?"

"Yes, many a time. I've been out of work this twelvemonth."

"But Esther?"

"Who?" screamed Tom.

"Your wife?"

"My wife? I've got none? She spent every thing till I fell ill, and then she met a fellow with lots of money. Curse her!"

The fury with which he spoke shook him all over, and sent him into another violent fit of coughing, out of which he revived by degrees, but in a state of such complete exhaustion that Elizabeth hazarded no more questions. He must evidently be dealt with exactly like a child.

She made up her mind in her own silent way, as indeed she had done ever since she came into the room.

"Lie down, Tom, and keep yourself quiet for a little. I'll be back as soon as I can--back with something to do you good. You won't object."

"No, no; you can do any thing you like with me. You always could."

Elizabeth groped her way down stairs strangely calm and self-possessed. There was need. Tom, dying, had come to her as his sole support and consolation--throwing himself helplessly upon her, never doubting either her will or her power to help him. Neither must fail. The inexplicable woman's strength, sometimes found in the very gentlest, quietest, and apparently the weakest character, nerved her now.

She went up and down, street after street, looking for lodgings, till the evening darkened, and the Abbey towers rose grimly against the summer sky. Then she crossed over Westminster Bridge, and in a little street on the Surrey side she found what she wanted--a decent room, half sitting, half bedroom, with what looked like a decent landlady. There was no time to make many inquiries; any thing was better than to leave Tom an other night where he was.

She paid a week's rent in advance; bought firing and provisions; every thing she could think of to make him comfortable; and then she went to fetch him in a cab.

The sick man offered no resistance; indeed, he hardly seemed to know what she was doing with him. She discovered the cause of this half insensibility when, in making a bundle of his few clothes, she found a package labeled "opium."

"Don't take it from me," he said pitifully, "it's the only comfort I have."

But when he found himself in the cheerful room, with the fire blazing and the tea laid out, he woke up like a person out of a bad dream.

"Oh, Elizabeth, I'm so comfortable!"

Elizabeth could have wept.

Whether the wholesome food and drink revived him, or whether it was one of the sudden flashes of life that often occur in consumptive patients, but he seemed really better, and began to talk, telling Elizabeth about his long illness, and saying over again how very kind the druggist's young man had been to him.

"I'm sure he's a gentleman, though he has come down in the world; for, as he says, 'misery makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows, and takes the nonsense out of him.' I think so too, and if ever I get better, I don't mean to go about the country speaking against born gentlefolks any more. They're much of a muchness with ourselves--bad and good; a little of all sorts; the same flesh and blood as we are. Aren't they, Elizabeth?"

"I suppose so."

"And there's another thing I mean to do. I mean to try and be good like you. Many a night, when I've lain on that straw, and thought I was dying, I've remembered you and all the things you used to say to me. You are a good woman; there never was a better."

Elizabeth smiled, a faint rather sad smile. For, as she was washing up the tea things, she had noticed Tom's voice grow feebler, and his features sharper and more wan.

"I'm very tired," he said. "I'm afraid to go to bed, I get such wretched nights; but I think, if I lay down in my clothes, I could go to sleep."

Elizabeth helped him to the small pallet, shook his pillow, and covered him up as if he had been a child.

"You're very good to me," he said, and looked up at her--Tom's bright, fond look of years ago. But it passed away in a moment, and he closed his eyes, saying he was so terribly tired.

"Then I'll bid you good-by, for I ought to have been at home by now. You'll take care of yourself, Tom, and I'll come and see you again the very first hour I can be spared. And if you want me you'll send to me at once? You know where?"

"I will," said Tom. "Its the same house, isn't it, in Russell Square?"

"Yes." And they were both silent.

After a minute, Tom asked, in a troubled voice.

"Have you forgiven me?"

"Yes, Tom, quite."

"Won't you give me one kiss, Elizabeth?"

She turned away. She did not mean to be hard, but somehow she could not kiss Esther's husband.

"Ah, well; it's all the same! good-by!"

"Good-by, Tom."

But as she stood at the door, and looked back at him lying with his eyes shut, and as white as if he were dead, Elizabeth's heart melted. He was her Tom, her own Tom, of whom she had been so fond, so proud; whose future she had joyfully anticipated long before she thought of herself as mixed up with it; and he was dying, dying at four-and-twenty; passing away to the other world, where, perhaps, she might meet him yet, with no cruel Esther between.

"Tom," she said, and knelt beside him, "Tom, I didn't mean to vex you. I'll try to be as good as a sister to you. I'll never forsake you as long as you live."

"I know you never will."

"Good-by, then for to-night."

And she did kiss him, mouth to mouth, quietly and tenderly. She was so glad of it afterward.

It was late enough when she reached Russell Square; but nobody ever questioned the proceedings of Mrs. Hand, who was a privileged person. She crept in beside her little Henry, and as the child turned in his sleep and put his arms about her neck, she clasped him tight, and thought there was still something to live for in this weary world.

All night she thought over what best could be done for Tom. Though she never deceived herself for a moment as to his state, still she thought, with care and proper nursing, he might live a few months. Especially if she could get him into the Consumption Hospital, newly started in Chelsea, of which she was aware Mr. Ascott--who dearly loved to see his name in a charity list--was one of the governors.

There was no time to be lost; she determined to speak to her master at once.

The time she chose was when she brought down little Henry, who was now always expected to appear, and say, "Dood morning, papa," before Mr. Ascott went into the city.

As they stood, the boy laughing in his father's face, and the father beaming all over with delight, the bitter, almost fierce thought, smote Elizabeth, Why should Peter Ascott be standing there fat and flourishing, and poor Tom dying? It made her bold to ask the only favor she ever had asked of the master whom she did not care for, and to whom she had done her duty simply as duty, without, until lately, one fragment of respect.

"Sir, if you please, might I speak with you a minute before you go out?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Hand. Any thing about Master Henry? Or perhaps yourself? You want more wages? Very well. I shall be glad, in any reasonable way, to show my satisfaction at the manner in which you bring up my son."

"Thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, curtseying. "But it is not that."

And in the briefest language she could find she explained what it was.

Mr. Ascott knitted his brows and looked important. He never scattered his benefits with a silent hand, and he dearly liked to create difficulties, if only to show how he could smooth them down.

"To get a patient admitted at the Consumption Hospital, is, you should be aware, no easy matter, until the building at Queen's Elm is complete. But I flatter myself I have influence. I have subscribed a deal of money. Possibly the person may be got in in time. Who did you say he was?"

"Thomas Cliffe. He married one of the servants here, Esther--"

"Oh, don't trouble yourself about the name; I shouldn't recollect it. The housekeeper might. Why didn't his wife apply to the housekeeper?"

The careless question seemed hardly to expect an answer, and Elizabeth gave none. She could not bear to make public Tom's misery and Esther's shame.

"And you say he is a Stowbury man? That is certainly a claim. I always feel bound, somewhat as a member of Parliament might be, to do my best for any one belonging to my native town. So be satisfied, Mrs. Hand; consider the thing settled."

And he was going away; but time being of such great moment, Elizabeth ventured to detain him till he had written the letter of recommendation, and found out what days the application for admission could be received. He did it very patiently, and even took out his purse and laid a sovereign on the top of the letter.

"I suppose the man is poor; you can use this for his benefit."

"There is no need, thank you, Sir," said Elizabeth, putting it gently aside. She could not bear that Tom should accept any body's money but her own.

At her first spare moment she wrote him a long letter explaining what she had done, and appointing the next day but one, the earliest possible, for taking him out to Chelsea herself. If he objected to the plan, he was to write and say so; but she urged him as strongly as she could not to let slip this opportunity of obtaining good nursing and first rate medical care.

Many times during the day the thought of Tom alone in his one room--comfortable though it was, and though she had begged the landlady to see that he wanted nothing--came across her with a sudden pang. His face, feebly lifted up from the pillow, with its last affectionate smile, the sound of his cough as she stood listening outside on the stair head, haunted her all through that sunshiny June day; and, mingled with it, came ghostly visions of that other day in June--her happy Whitsun holiday--her first and her last.

No letter coming from Tom on the appointed morning, she left Master Henry in the charge of the house-maid, who was very fond of him--as indeed he bade fair to be spoiled by the whole establishment at Russell Square--and went down to Westminster.

There was a long day before her, so she took a minute's breathing space on Westminster Bridge, and watched the great current of London life ebbing and flowing--life on the river and life on the shore; every body so busy and active and bright.

"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" she sighed, and wondered whether his ruined life would ever come to any happy ending, except death.

She hurried on, and soon found the street where she had taken his lodging. At the corner of it was, as is too usual in London streets, a public house, about which more than the usual number of disreputable idlers were hanging. There were also one or two policemen, who were ordering the little crowd to give way to a group of twelve men, coming out.

"What is that?" asked Elizabeth.

"Coroner's inquest; jury proceeding to view the body."

Elizabeth, who had never come into contact with any thing of the sort, stood aside with a sense of awe, to let the little procession pass, and then followed up the street.

It stopped; oh no! not at that door! But it was; there was no mistaking the number, nor the drawn-down blind in the upper room--Tom's room.

"Who is dead?" she asked, in a whisper that made the policeman stare.

"Oh! nobody particular; a young man, found dead in his bed; supposed to be a case of consumption; verdict will probably be, 'Died by the visitation of God!' "

Ay, that familiar phrase, our English law's solemn recognition of our national religious feeling, was true. God had "visited" poor Tom; he suffered no more.

Elizabeth leaned against the door-way, and saw the twelve jurymen go up stairs with a clatter of feet, and come down again, one after the other, less noisily, and some of them looking grave. Nobody took any notice of her, until the lodging house mistress appeared.

"Oh, here she is, gentlemen. This is the young woman as saw him last alive. She'll give her evidence. She'll tell you I'm not a bit to blame."

And pulling Elizabeth after her, the landlady burst into a torrent of explanation; how she had done her very best for the poor fellow; how she listened at his door several times during the first day, and heard him cough, that is, she thought she had, but toward night all was so very quiet; and there having come a letter by post, she thought she would take it up to him.

"And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, I found him lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone."

"Let me pass; I'm a doctor," said somebody behind; a young man, very shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He pushed aside the landlady and Elizabeth, till he saw the latter's face.

"Give that young woman a chair and a glass of water, will you?" he called out; and his authoritative manner impressed the jurymen, who gathered around him, ready and eager to hear any thing he could say.

He gave his name as John Smith, druggist's assistant; said that the young man who lodged up stairs, whose death he had only just heard of, had been his patient for some months, and was in the last stage of consumption. He had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly natural causes, as he explained in such technical language as completely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them accordingly. They quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public house, where, after a brief consultation, they delivered their verdict, as the astute policeman had foretold, "Died by the visitation of God;" took pipes and brandy all round at the bar, and then adjourned to their several homes, gratified at having done their duty to their country.

Meantime, Elizabeth crept up stairs. Nobody hindered or followed her; nobody cared any thing for the solitary dead.

There he lay--poor Tom! almost as she had left him; the counterpane was hardly disturbed, the candle she had placed on the chair had burned down to a bit of wick, which still lay in the socket. Nobody had touched him, or any thing about him, as, in all cases of "Found dead," English law exacts.

Whether he had died soon after she quitted him that night, or whether he had lingered through the long hours of darkness, or of day-light following, alive and conscious perhaps, yet too weak to call any one, even had there been any one he cared to call--when, or how, the spirit had passed away unto Him who gave it, were mysteries that could never be known.

But it was all over now; he lay at rest with the death smile on his face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at him, could not, dared not weep.

"My poor Tom, my own dear Tom," was all she thought, and knew that he was all her own now; that she had loved him through every thing, and loved him to the end. _

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