Hildegarde's Home

He nodded in delight, colouring with pleasure.

"She is just the person."

"Of course she is; but will she?"

"Of course she will. I am sure of it. Your uncle shall come to tea some evening, and you shall stay at home. I will go away to write letters, and then – oh, you see, Jack, no one can resist mamma."

"What a good fellow you are, Hildegarde! Oh, I beg your pardon!"

"Never mind!" cried Hildegarde merrily. "I did climb the tree, you know. And now, come along. I must take my beauty, my love, my moonlight rapture, up to his death."

CHAPTER X

BONNY SIR HUGH

Meanwhile Hildegarde had not lost sight of little Hugh Allen, the one link of interest which connected her with The Poplars. He, too, had been won by Mrs. Grahame's smile, and had learned the way to Braeside; and the more they saw of him, the more Hildegarde and her mother felt that he was a very remarkable little boy.

Much of the time he seemed to be lost in dreams, wrapped in a cloud of silent thought; and, again, from this cloud would flash out the quaintest sayings, sudden outbursts of passionate feeling, which were startling to quiet, every-day people. When he had been walking with Mrs. Grahame, as he was fond of doing (sneaking out by the back gate from his prison-place, as he called it, and making a détour to reach the road where she most often walked), and when she said, "Now, dear, it is time to say good-by, and go home," he would throw himself on his knees, and hold up his clasped hands, crying, "How can I leave thee?" in a manner which positively embarrassed her.

Now it happened one day that Hugh was sitting with Merlin beside the brook that flowed at the foot of the Ladies' Garden. Hildegarde had told him to come through the garden and wait for her, and it was his first visit to the lovely, silent place. The child went dreaming along between the high box hedges, stopping occasionally to look about him and to exchange confidences with his dog. Merlin seemed to feel the influence of the place, and went along quietly, with bent head and drooping tail. When the murmur of the hidden streamlet first fell upon his ear, "It is like the fishpools of Heshbon," said the boy dreamily. "Isn't it, Merlin? I never understood before." Merlin put his cool black nose in his master's hand, and gave a little sympathetic shake.

And now the pair were sitting on a bank of moss, looking down into the dark, clear water, which moved so swiftly yet so silently, with only a faint sound, which somehow seemed no louder than when they were at a distance.

"Do you see that dark round place where it is deep, Merlin?" said the child. "Do you think that under there lives a fair woman with green hair, who takes a person by the hand, and kisses him, and pulls him down? Do you think that, Merlin?" But Merlin sneezed, and shook his head, and evidently thought nothing of the kind. "Then do you think about fishes?" the boy went on. "Dark little fishes, with gleaming eyes, who are sad because they cannot speak. I wish I knew your thoughts, Merlin."

"Wuff!" said Merlin, in his voice of welcome, raising his head, and becoming instantly a living image of cheerfulness. Hugh looked, and there was his Purple Maid, all bright and shining, standing among the green trees, and smiling at him. The child's face flushed with such vivid light that the place seemed brighter. He held out his arms with a passionate gesture that would have been theatrical if it had not been so real, but remained silent.

"Dear!" said Hildegarde. "How quiet you are, you and Merlin! I could not tell whether it was your voice or the brook, talking." The boy and dog made room for her between them, and she sat down. "Aren't you going to speak to me, Hugh?" she continued, as he still said nothing.

"I spoke to myself," said the boy. "When I saw you stand there, angelic, in the green, 'Blessed heart of woman!' I said to myself. Do you like the sound of that?"

"My bonny Sir Hugh!" said Hildegarde, laying her hand caressingly on the red-gold hair. "I do like the sound of it. And do you like this place? I want you to care for it as I do."

The boy nodded. "It is the place of dead people," he said. "We are too alive to be here."

"I call it the Ladies' Garden," said Hildegarde softly. "Fair, sweet ladies lived here once, and loved it. They used to sit here, Hugh, and wander up and down the green paths, and fill the place with sweet, gentle words. I don't believe they sang; Hester may have sung, perhaps."

"Were they fair as the moon, clear as the sun?" asked the child.

"Where did you find those sweet words, Sir Hugh?"

"In the Bible. 'Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners.' And 'thy neck is a tower of ivory.' Were they terrible, do you think?"

"Oh, no! they were very gentle, I think, very soft and mild, like folds of old soft cashmere; only Hester was blithe and gay, and she died, Hugh, when she was just my age. Think of it! to die so young and go away out of all the sunshine."

The child looked at her with strange eyes. "Why do you be sad?" he said. "Don't you know about your Mother dear Jerusalem?"

"A little," said Hildegarde. "Tell me what you are thinking, Sir Hugh."

"It is greener there," said the child, "and brighter. Don't you know, blessed heart? 'Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers as nowhere else are seen.' And more coloured words. Don't you love coloured words?" The girl laid her hand on his lightly, but said nothing, and he went on as if in a dream.

"'Thy houses are of ivory,Thy windows crystal clear,Thy streets are laid with beaten gold —There angels do appear.'

"Two of them are papa and mamma," he added after a pause. "Do you think they mind waiting for me very much? At first I wanted to go to them – oh, so badly! because those people are devils, and I would rather die; but now I have you, Purple Maid, and your mother is like balm dropping in the valley, and I don't mind waiting, if only I thought they didn't mind it too much." He looked up wistfully, and Hildegarde bent to kiss him.

"How long is it, dear?" she asked softly.

"A year now, a very long year, only I had Merlin. And Uncle Loftus took me out of charity, he said; but mamma said I was to go to Aunt Martha, so that makes me feel wrong, even if I wanted to stay with them, and it is the pains of hell to me."

"Aunt Martha?" asked Hildegarde, willing to ask more, yet dreading to rouse the boy's scriptural eloquence on the subject of his relatives at The Poplars.

Hugh nodded. "Mamma's aunt," he said. "She lives somewhere, not far from here, but I don't know where; and Uncle Loftus won't tell me, or let me see her, 'cause she is a menial. What is a menial, dearly beloved?"

"Did your uncle say that to you?" Hildegarde asked, waiving the question.

"He said it at me!" was the reply. "At my back, but I heard it. She was a menial, and he wasn't going to have folks saying that his aunt was housekeeper to a stuck-up old bear, just because she was a fool and had no proper spirit. And the others said 'hush!' and I went away, and now they won't let me speak about her."

"Housekeeper to a – why!" began Hildegarde; and then she was silent, and smoothed the child's hair thoughtfully. An old bear! that was what Mr. Loftus had vulgarly called Colonel Ferrers. Could it be possible that – Jack had told her about dear, good Mrs. Beadle, who had been nurse to his father and uncle, and who was so devoted to them all, and such a superior woman. She had been meaning to go to see her the next time she was at Roseholme. Was there a mystery here? was Mrs. Beadle the plump and comfortable skeleton in the Loftus closet? She must ask Jack.

As she mused thus, the child had fallen a-dreaming again, and they both sat for some time silent, with the soft falling of the water in their ears, and all the dim, shadowy beauty of the place filling their hearts with vague delight.

Presently, "Beloved," said Hugh (he wavered between this and "Purple Maid" as names for Hildegarde, wholly ignoring her own name), "Beloved, there is an angel near me. Did you know it?"

"There might well be angels in this place," said Hildegarde, looking at the boy, whose wide blue eyes wore a far-away, spiritual look.

"I don't mean just here in this spot. I mean floating through the air at night. I hear him, almost every night, playing on his harp of gold."

"Dear Hugh, tell me a little more clearly."

"Sometimes the moon shines in at my window and wakes me up, you know. Then I get up and look out, for it is so like heaven, only silver instead of gold; and then – then I hear the angel play."

"What does it sound like?"

"Sometimes like a voice, sometimes like birds. And then it sobs and cries, and dies away, and then it sounds out again, like 'blow up the trumpet in the new moon,' and goes up, up, up, oh, so high! Do you think that is when the angel goes up to the gate, and then is sorry for people here, and comes back again? I have thought of that."

"My bonny Sir Hugh!" said Hildegarde gently. "Would you care less about the lovely music if it was not really made by an angel? if it was a person like you and me, who had the power and the love to make such beautiful sounds?"

The child's face lightened. "Was it you?" he said in an awe-struck voice.

"Not I, dear, but my cousin, my cousin Jack, who plays the violin most beautifully, Hugh. He practises every night, up in the garret at Roseholme, because – only think! his uncle does not like to hear him."

"The ostrich gentleman!" cried Hugh, bursting into merry laughter. "Is it the ostrich gentleman?"

Hildegarde tried to look grave, with moderate success. "My cousin is tall," she said, "but you must not call names, little lad!"

"Never any more will I call him it," cried Hugh, "if he is really the angel. But he does look like one. Must we go?" he asked wistfully, as Hildegarde rose, and held out her hand to him.

"Yes, dear, I am going to the village, you know. I thought we would come this way because I wanted you to see the Ladies' Garden. Now we must go across the meadow, and round by the back of Roseholme to find the road again."

They crossed the brook by some mossy stepping-stones, and climbed the dark slope on the further side, thick-set with ferns and dusky hemlock-trees. Then came the wall, and then the sudden break into the sunny meadow. Hugh threw off his grave mood with the shadow, and danced and leaped in the sunshine.

"Shall I run with Merlin?" he asked. "You have never seen us run, Beloved!"

Hildegarde nodded, and with a shout and a bark the two were off. A pretty sight they were! the boy's golden head bobbing up and down in full energy of running, the dog bounding beside him with long, graceful leaps. They breasted the long, low hill, then swept round in a wide circle, and came rushing past Hildegarde, breathless and radiant. This was more than our heroine could bear. With a merry "Hark, follow!" she started in pursuit, and was soon running abreast of the others, with head thrown back, eyes sparkling, cheeks glowing.

"Hurrah!" cried Hugh.

"Hurrah it is!" echoed the Purple Maid.

"Wow, wow!" panted Merlin, ecstatically.

As the chase swept round the hill the second time, two gentlemen came out of the woods, and paused in amazement at the sight. Hildegarde's long hair had come down, and was flying in the wind; her two companions were frantic with delight, and bobbed and leaped, shouting, beside her. So bright was the sunshine, so vivid in colour, so full of life the three runners, they seemed actually to flash as they moved.

"Harry Monmouth!" cried Colonel Ferrers. "Here is a girl who knows how to run. Look at that action! It's poetry, sir! it's rhythm and metre and melody.

"'Nor lighter does the swallow skimAlong the smooth lake's airy rim.'

After her, Master Milksop, and let me see what your long legs can do!"

Jack Ferrers needed no second bidding, and though his running was not graceful, being rather a hurling himself forward, as if he were catapult and missile in one, he got over the ground with great rapidity, and caught his cousin up as she came flying round the meadow for the third time. Hildegarde stopped short, in great confusion.

"Jack!" she faltered, panting. "How – where did you come from? You must have started up out of the earth."

Turning to capture her flying tresses, she caught sight of Colonel Ferrers, and her confusion was redoubled.

"Oh!" she cried, the crimson mounting from her cheeks to her forehead, bathing her in a fiery tide. "Oh! how could you? He – he will be sure I am a tomboy now."

"Nothing of the kind, my fair Atalanta!" exclaimed the Colonel, who had the ears of a fox. He advanced, beaming, and flourishing his stick. "Nothing of the kind!" he repeated. "He is delighted, on the contrary, to see a young creature who can make the free movements of nature with nature's grace and activity. Harry Monmouth! Miss Hildegarde, I wish I were twenty years younger, and I would challenge you to a race myself!"

CHAPTER XI

A CALL AND A CONSPIRACY

"And you really seriously intend passing the winter here?" asked Miss Leonie Loftus.

This young lady had come to make a parting call at Braeside. It was near the end of August, and three months of country life were all that she could possibly endure, and she was going with her mother to Long Branch, and thence to Saratoga.

"You really mean it?" she repeated, looking incredulous.

"Assuredly!" replied Hildegarde, smiling. "Winter and summer, and winter again, Miss Loftus. This is our home now, and we have become attached to it even in these few months."

"Oh, you look at it in a sentimental light," said Miss Loftus, with a disagreeable smile. "The domestic hearth, and that sort of thing. Rather old-fashioned, isn't it, Miss Grahame?"

"Possibly; I have never thought of it as a matter of fashion," was the quiet reply.

"And how do you expect to kill time in your wilderness?" was the next question.

"Kill him?" Hildegarde laughed. "We never can catch him, even for a moment, Miss Loftus. He flies faster at Braeside than even in New York. I sometimes think there are only two days in the week, Monday and Saturday."

"I hear you have a sewing-school in the village. I suppose that will take up some time."

"I hope so! The children seem interested, and it is a great pleasure to me. Then, too, I expect to join some of Miss Wayland's classes in the fall, and that will keep me busy, of course."

"Miss Wayland, over in Dorset? Why, it is three miles off."

"And even if so? I hear it is a delightful school, and Miss Wayland herself is very lovely. Do you know her?"

"No!" said Miss Loftus, who had been "dying" as she would have put it, to get into Miss Wayland's school three years before. "A country boarding-school isn't my idea of education."

"Oh!" said Hildegarde civilly. "But to go back for a moment, Miss Loftus. Your speaking of the children reminds me to ask you, is little Hugh going with you to Long Branch?"

Miss Loftus coloured. "Oh, dear, no!" she replied. "A child at such places, you know, is out of the question. He is to be sent to school. He is going next week."

"But – pardon me! are not all schools in vacation now?"

"I believe so! But these people – the Miss Hardhacks – are willing to take him now, and keep him."

"Poor little lad!" murmured Hildegarde, regardless of the fact that it was none of her business. "Will he not be very lonely?"

"Beggars must not be choosers, Miss Grahame!" was the reply, with another unamiable smile. Miss Loftus really would not have smiled at all, if she had known how she looked.

No sooner was the visitor gone, than Hildegarde flew up to her mother with the news. The Loftuses were going away; they were going to send Hugh to school. What was to be done? He could not go! He should not go.

She was greatly excited, but Mrs. Grahame's quiet voice and words restored her composure. "'Can't' and 'shan't' never won a battle!" said that lady. "We must think and plan."

Hildegarde had lately discovered, beyond peradventure, from some chance words let fall by little Hugh, that his mother had been the sister of Mr. Loftus; and she felt no doubt in her own mind that good Mrs. Beadle was aunt to both. The sister had been a school teacher, had married a man of some education, who died during the second year of their marriage, leaving her alone, in a Western town, with her little baby. She had struggled on, not wishing to be a burden either on her rich brother (who had not approved her marriage) or her aunt, who had nothing but her savings and her comfortable berth at Roseholme. At length, consumption laying its deadly hand on her, she sent for her brother, and begged him to take the boy to their good aunt, who, she knew, would care for him as her own. "But he didn't!" said Hugh. "He did not do that. He said he would make a man of me, but I don't believe he could make a very good one, do you, Beloved?"

Now the question was, how to bring about a meeting between the boy and his great-aunt, if great-aunt she were.

No child was allowed to enter the sacred precincts of Roseholme, for Colonel Ferrers regarded children, and especially boys, as the fountain-head of all mischief, flower-breaking, bird-nesting, turf-destroying. His own nephew had had to wait eighteen years for an invitation. How could it be possible to introduce little Hugh, a boy and a stranger, into the charmed garden?

If "Mammina" could only take him! No one could resist her mother, Hildegarde thought; certainly not Colonel Ferrers, who admired her so much. But this dear mother had sprained her ankle a week before, slipping on a mossy stone in the garden, and was only now beginning to get about, using a crutched stick.

Mrs. Grahame and Hildegarde put their heads together, and talked long and earnestly. Then they sent for Jack, and took counsel with him; and a plan was made for the first act of what Hildegarde called the Drama of the Conspirators.

A day or two after, when Mrs. Beadle drove to the town of Whitfield, some miles off, on her weekly marketing trip, it was Jack Ferrers, instead of Giuseppe, the faithful manservant, who held the reins and drove the yellow wagon with the stout brown cob. He wanted to buy some things, he said: a necktie, and some chocolate, and – oh, lots of things; and Mrs. Beadle was only too glad of his company. The good housekeeper was dressed, like Villikins' Dinah, in gorgeous array, her cashmere shawl being of the finest scarlet, her gown of a brilliant blue, while her bonnet nodded with blue and yellow cornflowers. Not a tradesman in Whitfield but came smiling to his door when he saw Mrs. Beadle's yellow cart; for she was a good customer, and wanted everything of the best for her Colonel. When they at last turned Chow-chow's head homeward, the wagon was nearly filled with brown-paper parcels, and Jack's pockets bulged out in all directions. As they drove along the pleasant road, fringed with oaks and beeches, Jack broke silence with, "Biddy, did you ever have any children?"

"Bless me, Master Jack, how you startled me!" cried Mrs. Beadle, who was deep in a problem of jelly and roly-poly pudding. "No, dear! no jelly – I should say, no chick nor child had I ever. I wasn't good enough, I suppose."

"Nonsense. Biddy!" said Jack. "But you must have had some relations; some – nieces or nephews, or something of that sort."

Mrs. Beadle sighed, and fell straightway into the trap.

"I had, dear! I had, indeed, once upon a time. But they're no good to me now, and never will be."

She sighed again.

"How no good to you?" queried this artful Jack.

"Oh, 'tis a long story, dear, and you wouldn't care for it at all. You would? Well! well! there's no harm that I know of in speaking of it. I've nothing to be ashamed of. I had a niece, Master Jack, and a dearer one never was, nor married to a finer young man. But they went out West, and he died, and left her with a baby. I wrote again and again, begging her to come home, but she was doing well, she said, and felt to stay, and had friends there, and all. Oh, dear! and last year – a year ago it is now, she died." Mrs. Beadle drew out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. "She died, my dear; and – I didn't ought to speak of this, Master Jack, it do upset me so – I don't know where the child is to this day."

"Her child?" asked Jack, with a guilty consciousness of his ears being red.

"My own dear niece Martha's child!" repeated the good woman sorrowfully. "A boy it was, as should be seven years old by this time. I've wrote, and I've wrote, but no answer could I get. And whether he is dead, too, or whether his father's people have him, or what, is darkness to me."

"The brute!" exclaimed Jack Ferrers vehemently. "The cold-hearted, odious brute!"

"What is it, my dear?" cried Mrs. Beadle, drying her tears, and looking with alarm at the pony. "His tail over the reins, is it? Well, he will do that, but 'tis only play. He means no harm."

"Oh, I know!" cried Jack in confusion. "I didn't mean – that is – and is that all the relatives you have, Biddy?"

"Why, boys do love questions, don't they?" the good woman said. "I have a nephew living, Master Jack; and if you guessed from now till Sunday week, you never would guess his name."

"Solomon Grundy" rose to Jack's lips, he could not in the least tell why. He did his best to look unconscious, but it was perhaps fortunate that Mrs. Beadle was so absorbed in her own troubled thoughts that she did not look at him.

"Who is it?" he asked. "Do tell me. Biddy! Is it any one I ever heard of?"

"Hush, my dear! don't tell a soul that I mentioned it. I am not one to force myself on them as has got up in the world, and think honest service a disgrace. It's Ephraim Loftus!"

"Not Mr. Loftus at the Poplars?"

"Mr. Loftus at the Poplars! The very same. My own sister's son, and little credit he is to either of us. Don't ask me how he made his money, for I don't know, and don't want to know. When he was a little boy, his pockets were always full of pennies that he got from the other boys, trading and the like, and nobody had a kindness for him, though they loved Martha. Not a soul in the village but loved Martha, and would do anything for her. So when Ephraim was fourteen or so, he went away to New York, and we never heard anything more till he came back three or four years ago, a rich man, and built that great house, and lived there summers. I've never seen him but once; I don't go out, only just in the back garden, except when I drive to town. And that once he looked me all over, as if I was a waxwork in a glass case, and never stopped nor spoke a word. That's Ephraim Loftus! He needn't have been afraid of my troubling him or his, I can tell him. I wouldn't demean myself." Mrs. Beadle's face was red, and her voice trembled with angry pride.

"And – " Jack wished Hildegarde were speaking instead of himself; she would know what to say, and he felt entirely at a loss. "Do you – do you suppose he knows anything about – about his sister's little boy?"

Mrs. Beadle looked as if some one had struck her a blow. "Ephraim Loftus!" she cried. "If I thought that, Master Jack, I'd – I'd – why, what's the matter, sir?" For Jack had risen in his seat, and was waving the whip wildly round his head.

"It's my cousin," he said. "Don't you see her coming?"

"Oh, the dear young lady! yes, to be sure. Walking this way, isn't she? Never mind me. Master Jack!" said the good woman, striving for composure. "I was upset by what you said, that's all. It gave me a thought – who is the little boy with Miss Grahame, dear?"

"He? oh – he's a boy," said Jack, rather incoherently. "His name is Hugh. Good-morning, Hildegarde! Hallo, Hugh! how are you?"

"Good-morning!" cried Hildegarde, as the wagon drew up beside her. "Good-morning, Mrs. Beadle. Isn't it a lovely day? Will the pony stand, Jack?"

"Like a rock!" and Jack, obeying the hint, leaped to the ground.

Mrs. Beadle had turned very pale. She was gazing fixedly at Hugh, who returned the look with wide blue eyes, shining with some strong emotion.

"Dear Mrs. Beadle," said Hildegarde gently, taking the housekeeper's hand in hers as she leant against the wagon, "this is a very dear little friend of mine, whom I want you to know. His name is Hugh; Hugh Allen; and he is staying with his uncle, Mr. Loftus."