Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

Jane smiled faintly. She knew all this was only the precursor of tidings that must be very ill and grievous. By a great effort she schooled herself to calmness. Mr. Halliburton continued:

"One, whom you and I love very much, has—has—met with an accident, Jane."

Her fears went straight to the right quarter at once. With that one exception by her side, there was no one she loved as she loved her father.

"Papa?"

"Yes. We must break it to Mrs. Tait."

Her heart beat wildly against his hand, and the livid hue was once more overspreading her face. But she strove urgently for calmness: he whispered to her of its necessity for her own sake.

"Edgar! is it death?"

It was death; but he would not tell her so yet. He plunged into the attendant details.

"He was hastening along with a small bottle in his hand, Jane. It contained something good for one of the sick poor, I am sure, for he was in their neighbourhood. Suddenly he was observed to fall; and the spectators raised him and took him to a doctor's. That doctor, unfortunately, was not at home, and they took him to another, so that time was lost. He was quite unconscious."

"But you do not tell me!" she wailed. "Is he dead?"

Mr. Halliburton asked himself a question—What good would be done by delaying the truth? He thought he had performed his task very badly. "Jane, Jane!" he whispered, "I can only hope to help you to bear it better than I have broken it to you."

She could not shed tears in that first awful moment: physically and mentally she leaned on him for support. "How can we tell my mother?"

It was necessary that Mrs. Tait should be told, and without delay. Even then the body was being conveyed to the house. By a curious coincidence, Mr. Halliburton had been passing the last doctor's surgery at the very moment the crowd was round its doors. Unusual business had called him there; or it was a street he did not enter once in a year. "The parson has fallen down in a fit," said some of them, recognizing and arresting him.

"The parson!" he repeated. "What! Mr. Tait?"

"Sure enough," said they. And Mr. Halliburton pressed into the surgeon's house just as the examination was over.

"The heart, no doubt, sir," said the doctor to him.

"He surely is not dead?"

"Quite dead. He must have died instantaneously."

The news had been wafted to the mob outside, and they were already taking a shutter from its hinges. "I will go on first and prepare the family," said Mr. Halliburton to them. "Give me a quarter of an hour's start, and then come on."

So that he had only a quarter of an hour for it all. His thoughts naturally turned to his wife: not simply to spare her alarm and pain, so far as he might, but he believed her, young as she was, to possess more calmness and self-control than Mrs. Tait. As he sped to the house he rehearsed his task; and might have accomplished it better but for his tell-tale face. "Jane," he whispered, "let this be your consolation ever: he was ready to go."

"Oh yes!" she answered, bursting into a storm of most distressing tears. "If any one here was ever fit for heaven, it was my dear father."

"Hark!" exclaimed Mr. Halliburton.

Some noise had arisen downstairs—a sound of voices speaking in undertones. There could be no doubt that people had come to the house with the news, and were imparting it to the two trembling servants.

"There's not a moment to be lost, Jane."

How Jane dried her eyes and suppressed all temporary sign of grief and emotion, she could not tell. A sense of duty was strong within her, and she knew that the most imperative duty of the present moment was the support and solace of her mother. She and her husband entered the drawing-room together, and Mrs. Tait turned with a smile to Mr. Halliburton.

"What secrets have you and Jane been talking together?" Then, catching sight of Jane's white and quivering lips, she broke into a cry of agony. "Jane! what has happened? What have you both come to tell me?"

The tears poured from Jane's fair young face as she clasped her mother fondly to her, tenderly whispering: "Dearest mamma, you must lean upon us now! We will all love you and take care of you as we have never yet done."

CHAPTER IV.

NEW PLANS

The post-mortem examination established beyond doubt the fact that the Rev. Francis Tait's death was caused by heart disease. In the earlier period of his life it had been suspected that he was subject to it, but of late years unfavourable symptoms had not shown themselves.

With him died of course almost all his means; and his family, if not left utterly destitute, had little to boast in the way of wealth. Mrs. Tait enjoyed, and had for some time enjoyed, an annuity of fifty pounds a year; but it would cease at her death, whenever that event should take place. What was she to do with her children? Many a bereaved widow, far worse off than Mrs. Tait, has to ask the same perplexing question every day. Mrs. Tait's children were partially off her hands. Jane had her husband; Francis was earning his own living as an under-master in a school; with Margaret ten pounds a year must be paid; and there was still Robert.

The death had occurred in July. By October they must be away from the house. "You will be at no loss for a home, Mrs. Tait," Mr. Halliburton took an opportunity of kindly saying to her. "You must allow me and Jane to welcome you to ours."

"Yes, Edgar," was Mrs. Tait's unhesitating reply; "it will be the best plan. The furniture in this house will do for yours, and you shall have it, and you must take me and my small means into it—an incumbrance to you. I have pondered it all over, and I do not see anything else that can be done."

"I have no right whatever to your furniture," he replied, "and Jane has no more right to it than have your other children. The furniture shall be put into my house if you please; but you must either allow me to pay you for it, or it shall remain your own, to be removed again at any time you may please."

A house was looked for and taken. The furniture was valued, and Mr. Halliburton bought it—a fourth part of the sum Mrs. Tait positively refusing to take, for she declared that so much belonged to Jane. Then they quitted the old house of many years, and moved into the new one: Mr. and Mrs. Halliburton, Mrs. Tait, Robert, and the two servants.

"Will it be prudent for you, my dear, to retain both the servants?" Mrs. Tait asked of her daughter.

Jane blushed vividly. "We could do with one at present, mamma; but the time will be coming that I shall require two. And Susan and Mary are both so good that I do not care to part with them. You are used to them, too."

"Ah, child! I know that in all your plans and schemes you and Edgar think first of my comfort. Do you know what I was thinking of last night as I lay in bed?"

"What, mamma?"

"When Mr. Halliburton first spoke of wanting you, I and your poor papa felt inclined to hesitate, thinking you might have made a better match. But, my dear, I was wondering last night what we should have done in this crisis but for him."

"Yes," said Jane, gently. "Things that appear untoward at the time frequently turn out afterwards to have been the very best that could have happened. God directs all things, you know, mamma."

A contention arose respecting Robert, some weeks after they had been in their new house—or it may be better to call it a discussion. Robert had never taken very kindly to what he called book-learning. Mr. Tait's wish had been that both his sons should enter the Church. Robert had never openly opposed this wish, and for the calling itself he had a liking; but particularly disliked the study and application necessary to fit him for it. Silent while his father lived, he was so no longer; but took every opportunity of urging the point upon his mother. He was still attending Dr. Percy's school daily.

"You know, mother," dropping down one day in a chair, close to his mother and Jane, and catching up one leg to nurse—rather a favourite action of his—"I shall never earn salt at it."

"Salt at what, Robert?" asked Mrs. Tait.

"Why, at these rubbishing classics. I shall never make a tutor, as Mr. Halliburton and Francis do; and what on earth's to become of me? As to any chance of my being a parson, of course that's over: where's the money to come from?"

"What is to become of you, then?" cried Mrs. Tait. "I'm sure I don't know."

"Besides," went on Robert, lowering his voice, and calling up the most effectual argument he could think of, "I ought to be doing something for myself. I am living here upon Mr. Halliburton."

"He is delighted to have you, Robert," interrupted Jane, quickly. "Mamma pays–"

"Be quiet, Mrs. Jane! What sort of a wife do you call yourself, pray, to go against your husband's interests in that manner? I heard you preaching up to the charity children the other day about its being sinful to waste time."

"Well?" said Jane.

"Well! what's waste of time for other people is not waste of time for me, I suppose?" went on Robert.

"You are not wasting your time, Robert."

"I am. And if you had the sense people give you credit for, Madam Jane, you'd see it. I shall never, I say, earn my salt at teaching; and—just tell me yourself whether there seems any chance now that I shall enter the Church."

"At present I do not see that there is," confessed Jane.

"There! Then is it waste of time, or not, my continuing to study for a career which I can never enter upon?"

"But what else can you do, Robert?" interposed Mrs. Tait. "You cannot idle your time away at home, or be running about the streets all day."

"No," said Robert, "better stop at school for ever than do that. I want to see the world, mother."

"You—want—to—see—the—world!" echoed Mrs. Tait, bringing out the words slowly in her astonishment, whilst Jane looked up from her work, and fixed her eyes upon her brother.

"It's only natural that I should," said Robert, with equanimity. "I have an invitation to go down into Yorkshire."

"What to do?" cried Mrs. Tait.

"Oh, lots of things. They keep hunters, and–"

"Why, you were never on horseback in your life, Robert," laughed Jane. "You would come back with your neck broken."

"I do wish you'd be quiet, Jane!" returned Robert, reddening. "I am talking to mamma, not to you. Winchcombe has invited me to spend the Christmas holidays with him down at his father's place in Yorkshire. And, mother, I want to go; and I want you to promise that I shall not return to school when the holidays are over. I will do anything else that you choose to put me to. I'll learn to be a man of business, or I'll go into an office, or I'd be apprenticed to a doctor—anything you like, rather than stop at these everlasting school-books. I am sick of them."

"Robert, you take my breath away!" uttered Mrs. Tait. "I have no interest anywhere. I could not get you into any of these places."

"I dare say Mr. Halliburton could. He knows lots of people. Jane, you talk to him: he'll do anything for you."

There ensued, I say, much discussion about

Robert. But it is not with Robert Tait that our story has to do; and only a few words need be given to him here and there. It appeared to them all that it would be inexpedient for him to continue at school; both with regard to his own wishes and to his prospects. He was allowed to pay the visit with his schoolfellow, and (as he came back with neck unbroken) Mr. Halliburton succeeded in placing him in a large wholesale warehouse. Robert appeared to like it very much at first, and always came home to spend Sunday with them.

"He may rise in time to be one of the first mercantile men in London," observed Mr. Halliburton to his wife; "one of our merchant-princes, as my uncle used to say by me, if only–"

"If what? Why do you hesitate?" she asked.

"If he will only persevere, I was going to say. But, Jane, I fear perseverance is a quality that Robert does not possess."

Of course all that had to be proved. It lay in the future.

CHAPTER V.

MARGARET

From two to three years passed away, and the Midsummer holidays were approaching. Margaret was expected as usual for them, and Jane, delighted to receive her, went about her glad preparations. Margaret would not return to the school, in which she had been a paid teacher for the last year; but was to enter a family as governess. For one efficient, well-educated, accomplished governess to be met with in those days, scores may be counted now—or who profess to be so; and Margaret Tait, though barely nineteen, anticipated a salary of seventy or eighty guineas a year.

A warm, bright day in June, that on which Mr. Halliburton went to receive Margaret. The coach brought her to its resting-place, the "Bull and Mouth," in St. Martin's-le-Grand, and Mr. Halliburton reached the inn as St. Paul's clock was striking midday. One minute more, and the coach drove in.

There she was, inside; a tall, fine girl, with a handsome face: a face full of resolution and energy. Margaret Tait had her good qualities, and she had also her faults: a great one, speaking of the latter, was self-will. She opened the door herself and leaped out before any one could help her, all joy and delight.

"And what about your boxes, Margaret?" questioned Mr. Halliburton, after a few words of greeting. "Have they come this time or not?"

Margaret laughed. "Yes, they really have. I have not lost them on the road, as I did at Christmas. You will never forget to tell me of that, I am sure! But it was more the guard's fault than mine."

A few minutes, and Mr. Halliburton, Margaret, and the boxes were lumbering along in one of the old glass coaches.

"And now tell me about every one," said Margaret. "How is dear mamma?"

"She is quite well. We are all well. Jane's famous."

"And my precious little Willy?"

"Oh," said Mr. Halliburton, quaintly, "he is a great deal too troublesome for anything to be the matter with him. I tell Jane she will have to begin the whipping system soon."

"And much Jane will attend to you! Is it a pretty baby?"

Mr. Halliburton raised his eyebrows. "Jane thinks so. I wonder she has not had its likeness taken."

"Is it christened?" continued Margaret.

"It is baptized. Jane would not have the christening until you were at home."

"And its name?"

"Jane."

"What a shame! Jane promised me it should be Margaret. Why did she decide upon her own name?"

"I decided upon it," said Mr. Halliburton. "Yours can wait until the next, Margaret."

Margaret laughed. "And how are you getting on?"

"Very well. I have every hour of the day occupied."

"I don't think you are looking well," rejoined Margaret. "You look thin and fagged."

"I am always thin, and mine is a fagging profession. Sometimes I feel terribly weary. But I am pretty well upon the whole, Margaret."

"Will Francis be at home these holidays?"

"No. He passes them at a gentleman's house in Norfolk—tutor to his sons. Francis is thoroughly industrious and persevering."

"A contrast to poor Robert, I suppose?"

"Well—yes; in that sense."

"There has been some trouble about Robert, has there not?" asked Margaret, her tone becoming grave. "Did he not get discharged?"

"He received notice of discharge. But I saw the principals and begged him on again. I would not talk about it to him if I were you, Margaret. He is sensitive upon the point. Robert's intentions are good, but his disposition is fickle. He has grown tired of his work and idles his time away; no house of business will put up with that."

The coach arrived at Mr. Halliburton's. Margaret rushed out of it, giving no one time to assist her, as she had done out of the other coach at the "Bull and Mouth." There was a great deal of impetuosity in Margaret Tait's character. She was quite a contrast to Jane—as she had just remarked there was a contrast between Francis and Robert upon other points—to sensible, lady-like, self-possessed Jane, who came forward so calmly to greet her, a glad depth of affection in her quiet eyes.

A boisterous embrace to her mother, a boisterous embrace to Jane, all in haste, and then Margaret caught up a little gentleman of some two years old, or more, who was standing holding on to Jane's dress, his great grey eyes, honest, loving, intelligent as were his mother's, cast up in a broad stare at Margaret.

"You naughty Willy! Have you forgotten Aunt Margaret? Oh, you darling child! Who's this?"

She carried the boy up to the end of the room, where stood their old servant Mary, nursing an infant of two months old. The baby had great grey eyes also, and they likewise were bent on noisy Margaret. "Oh, Willy, she is prettier than you! I won't nurse you any more. Mary, I'll shake hands with you presently. I must take that enchanting baby first."

Dropping discarded Willy upon the ground, snatching the baby from Mary's arms, Margaret kissed its pretty face until she made it cry. Jane came to the rescue.

"You don't understand babies, Margaret. Let Mary take her again. Come upstairs to your room, and make yourself ready for dinner. I think you must be hungry."

"So hungry that I shall frighten you. Of course, with the thought of coming home, I could not touch breakfast. I hope you have something especially nice!"

"Your favourite dinner," said Jane, smiling. "Loin of veal and broccoli."

"How thoughtful you are, Jane!" Margaret could not help exclaiming.

"Margaret, my dear," called out her mother, as she was leaving the room with Jane.

Margaret looked back. "What, mamma?"

"I hope you will not continue to go on with these children as you have begun; otherwise we shall have a quiet house turned into a noisy one."

"Is it a quiet house?" said Margaret, laughing.

"As if any house would not be quiet, regulated by Jane!" replied Mrs. Tait. And Margaret, laughing still, followed her sister.

It is curious to remark how differently things sometimes turn out from what we intended. Had any one asked Mrs. Tait, the day that Margaret came home, what Margaret's future career was to be, she had wondered at the question. "A governess, certainly," would have been her answer; and she would have thought that no power, humanly speaking, could prevent it. And yet, Margaret Tait, as it proved, never did become a governess.

The holidays were drawing to an end, and a very desirable situation, as was believed, had been found for Margaret by Mr. Halliburton, the negotiations for which were nearly completed. Mr. Halliburton gave private lessons in sundry well-connected families, and thus enabled to hear where ladies were required as governesses, he had recommended Margaret. The recommendation was favourably received, and a day was appointed for Margaret to make a personal visit at the town house of the people in question, when she would most probably be engaged.

On the previous evening at twilight Mr. Halliburton came home from one of his numerous engagements. Jane was alone. Mrs. Tait, not very well, had retired to rest early, and Margaret was out with Robert. In this, a leisure season of the year, Robert had most of his evenings to himself, after eight o'clock. He generally came home, and he and Margaret would go out together. Mr. Halliburton sat down at one of the windows in silence.

Jane went up to him, laying her hand affectionately on his shoulder. "You are very tired, Edgar?"

He did not reply: only drew her hand between his, and kept it there.

"You shall have supper at once," said Jane, glancing at the tray which stood ready on the table. "I am sure you must want it. And it is not right to indulge Margaret every night by waiting for her."

"Scarcely, when she does not come in until ten or half-past," said Mr. Halliburton. "Jane," he added confidentially, "do you think it well that Margaret should be out so frequently in an evening?"

"She is with Robert."

"She may not always be with Robert alone."

Jane felt her face flush. She knew her husband; knew that he was not one to speak unless he had some reason for doing so. "Edgar! why do you say this? Do you know anything? Have you seen Margaret?"

"I saw her a quarter of an hour ago–"

"With Robert?" interrupted Jane, more impulsively than she was in the habit of speaking.

"Robert was by her side. But she was walking arm in arm with Mr. Murray."

Jane did not much like the information. This Mr. Murray was in the same house as Robert, holding a better position. Robert had occasionally brought him home, and he had taken tea with them. Mrs. Halliburton felt surprised at Margaret: it appeared, to her well-regulated mind, very like a clandestine proceeding. What would she have said, or thought, had she known that Margaret and Mr. Murray were in the habit of thus walking together constantly? Robert's being with them afforded no sufficient excuse.

Later they saw Margaret coming home with Robert alone. He left her at the door as usual, and then hastened away to his own home. Jane said nothing then, but she went to Margaret's room that evening.

"Oh, Edgar has been bringing home tales, has he?" was Margaret's answer, when the ice was broken; and her defiant tone brought Jane hardly knew what of dismay to her ear. "I saw him staring at us."

"Margaret!" gasped Jane, "what can have come to you? You are completely changed; you—you seem to speak no longer as a lady."

"Then why do you provoke me, Jane? Is it high treason to take a gentleman's arm, my brother being with me?"

"It is not right to do it in secret, Margaret. If you go out ostensibly to walk with Robert–"

"Jane, I will not listen," Margaret said, with flashing eyes. "Because you are Mrs. Halliburton, you assume a right to lecture me. I have committed no grievous wrong. When I do commit it, you may take your turn then."

"Oh, Margaret! why will you misjudge me?" asked Jane, her voice full of pain. "I speak to you in love, not in anger; I would not speak at all but for your good. If the Chevasneys were to hear of this, they might think you an unsuitable mistress for their children."

"Compose yourself," said Margaret, scoffingly. Never had she shown such a temper, so undesirable a disposition, as on this night; and Jane might well look at her in amazement, and hint that she was "changed." "I shall be found sufficiently suitable by the Chevasney family—when I consent to enter it."

Her tone was strangely significant, and Jane Halliburton's heart beat. "What do you imply, Margaret?" she inquired. "You appear to have some peculiar meaning."

Margaret, who had been standing before the glass all this time twisting her hair round her fingers, turned and looked her sister full in the face. "Jane, I'll tell you, if you will undertake to make things straight for me with mamma. I am not going to the Chevasneys—or anywhere else—as governess."

"Yes,"—said Jane faintly, for she had a presentiment of what was coming.

"I am going to be married instead."

"Oh, Margaret!"

"There is nothing to groan about," retorted Margaret. "Mr. Murray is coming to speak to mamma to-morrow, and if any of you have anything to say against him, you can say it to his face. He is a very respectable man, and has a good income; where's the objection to him?"

Jane could not say. Personally, she did not very much like Mr. Murray; and certain fond visions had pictured a higher destiny for handsome, accomplished Margaret. "I hope and trust you will be happy, if you do marry him, Margaret!" was all she said.

"I hope I shall. I must take my chance of that, as others do. Jane, I beg your pardon for my crossness, but you put me out of temper."

As others do. Ay! it was all a lottery. And Margaret Tait entered upon her hastily-chosen married life, knowing that it was so.

CHAPTER VI.

IN SAVILE-ROW

Several years went on; and years rarely go on without bringing changes with them. Jane had now four children. William, the eldest, was close upon thirteen; Edgar, the youngest, going on for nine; Jane and Frank were between them. Mrs. Tait was dead: and Francis Tait was the Reverend Francis Tait. By dint of hard work and perseverance, he had succeeded in qualifying for Orders, and was half starving upon a London curacy, as his father had done for so many years before him. In saying "half starving," I don't mean that he had not bread and cheese to eat; but when a clergyman's stipend is under a hundred a year, the expression "half starving" is justifiable. He hungers after many things that he is unable to obtain, and he cannot maintain his position as a gentleman. Francis Tait hungered. Over one want, especially, he hungered with an intensely ravenous hunger; and that was, the gratification of his taste for literature. The books he coveted to read were expensive; impossibilities to him; he could not purchase them, and libraries were then scarce. Had Francis Tait not been gifted with very great conscientiousness, he would have joined teaching with his ministry. But the wants of his parish required all his time; and he had inherited that large share of the monitor, conscience, from his father. "I suppose I shall have a living some time," he would think to himself: "when I am growing an old man, probably, as he was when he gained his."