 | CHAPTER III.
WHAT THEY DID AT MILLBANK. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
WHAT THEY DID AT MILLBANK.
OH! Roger, this is a sorry coming home,” Mrs. Walter
Scott had said when Roger first appeared in view; and
taking a step forward, she kissed him quite affectionately,
and even ran her white fingers through his moist hair in a
pitying kind of way.
She could afford to be gracious to the boy whom she had
wronged, but when Frank threw the bomb-shell at her feet with
regard to the mysterious bundle under Hester's shawl, she drew
back quickly, and demanded of her young brother-in-law what
it meant. She looked very grand, and tall, and white in her
mourning robes, and Roger quaked as he had never done before
in her presence, and half wished he had left the innocent baby
to the tender mercies of the conductor and the poor-house.
But this was only while he stood damp and uncomfortable in
the chilly hall, with the cold rain beating in upon him. The
moment he entered the warm parlor, where the fire was blazing
in the grate and the light from the wax candles shone upon the
familiar furniture, he felt a sense of comfort and reassurance
creeping over him, and unconscious to himself a feeling of the
master came with the sense of comfort, and made him less afraid
of the queenly-looking woman standing by the mantel, and
waiting for his story. He was at home, — his own home, —
where he had a right to keep a hundred deserted children if
he liked. This was what Hester had said in referring to Mrs.
Walter Scott, and it recurred to Roger now with a deeper meaning
than he had given it at that time. He had a right, and Mrs.
Walter Scott, though she might properly suggest and advise,
could not take that right from him. And the story which he
told her was colored with this feeling of doing as he thought
best; and shrewd Mrs. Walter Scott detected it at once, and
her large black eyes had in them a gleam of scorn not altogether
how the morrow would materially change his views with regard
to many things. She had not seen Roger in nearly a year and
a half, and in that time he had grown taller and stouter and
more manly than the boy of twelve, whom she remembered in
roundabouts. He wore roundabouts still, and his collar was
turned down and tied with a simple black ribbon, and he was
only fourteen; but a well-grown boy for that age, with a curve
about his lip and a look in his eyes, which told that the man
within him was beginning to develop, and warned her that she
had a stronger foe to deal with than she had anticipated; so
she restrained herself, and was very calm and lady-like and collected
as she asked him what he proposed doing with the child
whom he had so unwisely brought to Millbank.
Roger had some vague idea of a nurse with a frilled cap, and
a nursery with toys scattered over the floor, and a crib with
lace curtains over it, and a baby-head making a dent in the
pillow, and a baby voice cooing him a welcome when he came
in, and a baby-cart, sent from New York, and a fancy blanket
with it. Indeed, this pleasant picture of something he had seen
in St. Louis, in one of the handsome houses where he occasionally
visited, had more than once presented itself to his mind as
forming a part of the future, but he would not for the world
have let Mrs. Walter Scott into that sanctuary. That cold,
proud-faced woman confronting him so calmly had nothing in
common with his ideals, and so he merely replied:
“She can be taken care of without much trouble. Hester
is not too old. She made me a capital nurse.”
It was of no use to reason with him, and Mrs. Walter Scott
did not try. She merely said:
“It was a very foolish thing to do, and no one but you would
have done it. You will think better of it after a little, and get
the child off your hands. You were greatly shocked, of course,
at the dreadful news?”
It was the very first allusion anybody had made to the cause
of Roger's being there. The baby had absorbed every one's
by all save Roger. He had through all been conscious
of a heavy load of pain, a feeling of loss; and as he drove up
to the house he had looked sadly toward the windows of the
room where he had oftenest seen his father. He did not know
that he was there now; he did not know where he was; and
when Mrs. Walter Scott referred to him so abruptly, he answered
with a quivering lip: “Where is father? Did they lay
him in his own room?”
“Yes, you'll find him looking very natural, — almost as if he
were alive; but I would not see him to-night. You are too tired.
You must be hungry, too. You have had no supper. What
can Hester be doing?”
Mrs. Walter Scott was in a very kind mood now, and volunteered
to go herself to the kitchen to see why Roger's supper
was not forthcoming. But in this she was forestalled by Ruey,
who came to say that supper was waiting in the dining-room,
whither Roger went, followed by his sister-in-law, who poured
his tea and spread him slices of bread and butter, with plenty
of raspberry jam. And Roger relished the bread and jam with
a boy's keen appetite, and thought it was nicer to be at Millbank
than in the poor clergyman's box of a house at St. Louis,
and then, with a great sigh, thought of the white-haired old
man, who used to welcome him home and pat him so kindly
on his head and call him “Roger-boy.” The white-haired man
was gone forever now, and with a growing sense of loneliness
and loss, Roger finished his supper and went to the kitchen,
where Baby lay sleeping upon the settee which Hester had
drawn to the fire, while Frank sat on a little stool, keeping
watch over her. He had indorsed the Baby from the first, and
when Hester gruffly bade him “keep out from under foot,”
he had meekly brought up the stool and seated himself demurely
between the settee and the oven door, where he was
entirely out of the way.
Hester still looked very much disturbed and aggrieved, and
when she met Roger on his way to the kitchen, she passed him
back to the kitchen, was in a very different mood from the one
who had met Roger a short time before. This change had
been wrought by a few words spoken to her by Mrs. Walter
Scott, who sat over the fire in the dining-room when Hester
entered it, and who began to talk of the baby which “that
foolish boy had brought home.”
“I should suppose he would have known better; but then,
Mrs. Floyd, you must be aware of the fact that in some things
Roger is rather weak and a little like his mother, who proved
pretty effectually how vacillating she was, and how easily influenced.”
Hester's straight, square back grew a trifle squarer and
straighter, and Baby's cause began to gain ground, for Hester
deemed it a religious duty to oppose whatever Mrs. Walter
Scott approved. So if the lady was for sending the Baby away
from Millbank, she was for keeping it there. Still she made
no comments, but busied herself with putting away the sugar
and cream and pot of jam, into which Roger had made such
inroads.
Seeing her auditor was not disposed to talk, Mrs. Walter
Scott continued:
“You have more influence with Roger than any one else,
and I trust you will use that influence in the right direction; for
supposing everything were so arranged that he could keep the
child at Millbank, the trouble would fall on you, and it is too
much to ask of a woman of your age.”
Hester was not sensitive on the point of age, but to have
Mrs. Walter Scott speak of her as if she were in her dotage was
more than she could bear, and she answered tartly, —
“I am only fifty-two. I reckon I am not past bringin' up a
child. I ain't quite got softenin' of the brain, and if master
Roger has a mind to keep the poor forsaken critter, it ain't for
them who isn't his betters to go agin it. The owner of Millbank
can do as he has a mind, and Roger is the master now,
you know.”
With this speech Hester whisked out of the room, casting a
glance backward to see the effect of her parting shot on Mrs.
Walter Scott. Perhaps it was the reflection of the fire or her
scarlet shawl which cast such a glow on the lady's white cheek,
and perhaps it was what Hester said; but aside from the
rosy flush there was no change in her countenance, unless it
were an expression of benevolent pity for people who were so
deluded as Mrs. Floyd and Roger. “Wait till to-morrow and
you may change your opinion,” trembled on Mrs. Walter Scott's
lips, but to say that would be to betray her knowledge of what
she meant should appear as great a surprise to herself as
to any one. So she wrapped her shawl more closely around
her, and leaned back languidly in her chair, while Hester went
up the back stairs to an old chest filled with linen, and redolent
with the faint perfume of sprigs of lavender and cedar, rose-leaves
and geraniums, which were scattered promiscuously
among the yellow garments. That chest was a sacred place
to Hester, for it held poor Jessie's linen, the dainty garments
trimmed with lace, and tucks and ruffles and puffs, which the
old Squire had bidden Hester put out of his sight, and which
she had folded away in the big old chest, watering them with
her tears, and kissing the tiny slippers which had been found
just where Jessie left them. The remainder of Jessie's wardrobe
was in the bureau in the Squire's own room, — the white
satin dress and pearls which she wore in the picture, — the
expensive veil, the orange wreath which had crowned her golden
hair at the bridal, and many other costly things which the old
man had heaped upon his darling, were all there under lock and
key. But Hester kept the oaken chest, and under Jessie's
clothes were sundry baby garments which Hester had laid
away as mementos of the happy days when Roger was a
baby, and his beautiful mother the pride of Millbank and the
belle of Belvidere.
“If that child only stays one night, she must have a night-gown
to sleep in,” she said, as with a kind of awe she turned
which Roger had worn.
Selecting the plainest and coarsest of them all, she closed the
chest and went down stairs to the kitchen, where both the boys
were bending over the settee and talking to the Baby. There
was a softness in her manner now, something really motherly,
as she took the little one, and began to undress it, with Roger
and Frank looking curiously on.
“Dirty as the rot,” was her comment, as she saw the marks
of car-dust and smoke cinders on the fat neck and arms and
hands. “She or'to have a bath, and she must, too. Here,
Ruey, bring me some warm water, and fetch the biggest foot-tub,
and a piece of castile soap, and a crash-towel, and you
boys, go out of here, both of you. I'll see that the youngster
is taken care of.”
Roger knew from the tone of her voice that Baby was safe
with her, and he left the kitchen with his spirits so much lightened
that he began to hum a popular air he had heard in the
streets in St. Louis.
“Oh, Roger, singin', with grandpa dead,” Frank exclaimed;
and then Roger remembered the white, stiffened form upstairs,
and thought himself a hardened wretch that he could for a
moment have so forgotten his loss as to sing a negro melody.
“I did not mean any disrespect to father,” he said softly to
Frank, and without going back to the parlor, he stole up to his
own room, and kneeling by his bedside, said the familiar prayer
commencing with “Our Father,” and then cried himself to
sleep with thinking of the dead father, who could never speak
to him again.
| CHAPTER III.
WHAT THEY DID AT MILLBANK. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward | |