CHAPTER III.
BUSH HOSPITALITY.
"There is bad news for you, sir," said George Copeland to Mr. Hammond. "There has been an accident with the spring-cart."
"What! nothing happened to Rattler?"
"No; Rattler is all right, but he took fright and dashed off the road wildly till he came against a stump, and the gentleman that was coming here has been thrown out."
"Is he hurt?" said Mrs. Hammond.
"He is dead, ma'am, quite dead. Tom Cross says he never gave a movement after he had the fall, and when Allan came up to them he was quite dead."
"Good God!" said Mr. Hammond; "how unfortunate! What a terrible business this is. Killed on the spot! What was Tom thinking of to let Rattler play such a trick? I never knew that horse shy before. It was lightning, and very near, I know, but my horse was like a lamb. I put such confidence in Rattler and in Tom."
"Tom has got a bad sprained ancle, or he would have brought his own bad news, sir," said Copeland.
"And the girl—the poor girl, is she hurt?" said Mr. Hammond.
"She may be bruised, but nothing serious, sir; but, poor thing, she takes on terribly about her father, and she has no mother either, they tell me, and not a friend or acquaintance in the colony."
"We must see to her," said Mr. Hammond; "I'll ride across directly. Be good enough to tell Smith to saddle Harkaway for me as fast as possible, Copeland; let us not lose a moment."
"No, my dear; let Smith put the horse into the dog-cart; I am going with you," said Mrs. Hammond; "I'll not keep you back a minute, but I must go."
"Well," said Mr. Hammond to himself, as his wife left the room to prepare for the journey, "women are good creatures, though unreasonable sometimes. There is my wife, so cross and suspicious about my having anything to do with this man or his little girl, without knowing much about him; and now, when she hears he is dead, poor man, she is so sorry for the poor child that she will go at this time of night to a house she never meant to enter, to fetch her home and try and comfort her. She has a soft heart if you can only get to the right side of it. But this is a bad job, a very bad job; to think of Rattler serving me so."
Not many minutes elapsed before Mr. and Mrs. Hammond were on their way to Branxholm, for Smith was expeditious, and so was the lady. She was very silent during the journey, and indeed her husband could say little, but only gave vent to his feelings now and then by a remark and a regret as to the sad accident of the day.
Mrs. Lindsay and Jessie had tried in vain to comfort the poor orphan, or to get her to take any food, but Allan had persuaded her to swallow a cup of tea, and had wheeled in his mother's easy chair for her to sit in by the side of the bed. She was not noisy in her grief, but she looked so thoroughly heart-broken and crushed that it seemed vain to talk the kindest commonplaces to her. The Lindsays were glad to see that Mrs. Hammond accompanied her husband, for that looked kind. They knew very little about the lady; she might be a very good person among her own people, but she was reckoned very high—much more so than her husband. It was with some embarrassment that Mrs. Lindsay greeted the great lady, wondering how she ought to behave to her, but she was very soon relieved from her dilemma. Mrs. Hammond gave her distinctly to understand that she had come to see the remains of the unfortunate gentleman who had been prevented by this fatal accident from fulfilling his engagement to Mr. Hammond, and also to see the child who had escaped; but that she ignored altogether the fact that she was in any way the guest or visitor of the Lindsays. She appeared quite unconscious of their presence, and spoke only to her husband, who, however, had something to say on the subject of the accident to Allan and his father, and who thanked Mrs. Lindsay very cordially for the trouble she had taken.
"I should like to see the body of this Mr. Staunton, George," said Mrs. Hammond.
"He is laid out on the bed in the spare room," said Mrs. Lindsay, "and Jessie and me have done the best we can for him, but it's no like a man dying quiet in his bed, an' the bit lassie is sitting beside him. We canna wile her away for a minute."
Mrs. Lindsay conducted Mr. and Mrs. Hammond into the room, and went out immediately, thinking that these might be fine manners, but they were not gracious manners, for the lady looked at her as if she was an intruder in her own house.
"He is greatly changed from when I saw him," said Mr. Hammond.
"Yes, changed, no doubt," said Mrs. Hammond. "These sudden accidents, I suppose, do change people." She looked at him attentively, and then turned to the child and gave a slight involuntary start when she met the beseeching expression of the sad eyes. "How like," said she, half aloud, "what a likeness!"
"I do no see any likeness at all," said Mr. Hammond. "My dear," continued he, taking Amy's hand kindly, "we are very sorry, very sorry indeed. But you know that your poor papa has gone where there is neither trouble, nor pain, nor sickness, and you must try to be comforted. And your mamma is dead, too?" and he looked at her black frock.
"Yes, a year ago," sobbed the child. "And now I have nobody, nobody. Oh! I cannot live to bear it."
"Yes, my dear, you must live, and there are happy days for you yet. You must come home with us. You know our house was the house your papa was taking you to."
"Home without papa! There is no home anywhere for me. Don't ask me to leave him while he is here, for you know I cannot do it."
"She is quite right," said Mrs. Hammond coldly. "You must not think of taking her from the good people here till after the inquest and the funeral." At the word funeral Amy's tears burst out afresh. She would soon not even have her father's body to be near her.
"My dear Amy—I think your poor papa called you Amy," said Mr. Hammond, "I suppose you have no friends in the colony but ourselves. But though I will do all I can for you, it is only right that your relations at home should be written to."
"I have no relations to write to," said Amy.
"No relations?" said Mrs. Hammond.
"None that care for me. I have a half-brother and sister, but—but——"
"But you have quarrelled with them," said Mr. Hammond.
"I never saw them," said Amy.
"Are they not rich" asked Mrs. Hammond.
"Yes, but I know nothing about them, and they know nothing about me."
"But if they are rich, they ought to be made to know about you," said Mr. Hammond; "certainly they ought."
"And have you no uncles, nor aunts, nor grandparents?" asked Mrs. Hammond.
It was very trying to the child in her grief to be questioned in this way by strangers. "I wish you would not speak about it," said she. "It used to be papa, and mamma, and me, and that was enough. Then it was papa and me, and now it is only me. I have one aunt, but I never saw her but once."
"Your half-brother and sister live with their father's relatives, I suppose," said Mrs Hammond.
"Yes," said Amy.
"Had your mother never any letters from them?"
"No, I don't think so," said the child, growing still more distressed. Mr. Hammond interposed. He whispered something in his wife's ear and received a sort of assent. Mrs. Hammond looked for a few seconds at the dead man and the living daughter with a cold scrutiny that might have convinced her husband that in this instance they had not got to the soft side of her heart. Amy felt the gaze unspeakably painful. At first, when Mrs. Hammond entered the room, the dress, the air, the voice of a lady had given her some hope that she might throw herself into her arms and weep out her tears there, but she soon found out that plain Mrs. Lindsay, or Jessie with her kind tearful face, or Allan with his glistening blue eyes, were more sympathising friends and safer confidants than this handsome, well-dressed, ladylike woman, and she felt a shrinking repugnance to Mr. Hammond's reiterated proposal to take her home with him, if not to-night, at some early day.
After a quarter of an hour spent in a very constrained and uncomfortable manner in the chamber of death, Mrs. Hammond and her husband went again into the family sitting-room. Without apparently looking at anything, Mrs. Hammond's eye took in everything and everybody in the room, from the gaudy paper of the walls, and the tastelessly arranged common-looking ornaments on the chimney-piece, and the unharmonious colouring of curtains and carpet, to Jessie's freckles and Mrs. Lindsay's cap.
"Now, Mr. Hammond," said Hugh Lindsay, "I'm thinking there maun be an inquest the morn, and we'll have Dr. Burton's evidence as to the cause of his death. As for the funeral, will you have it at your place or at ours? or as it's like he belonged to your church, there will be a long journey before ye can get to what ye call consecrated ground. There's a bonnie bit of land at the end of the garden, where our Patrick is laid, and where we all mean to lie beside him when our appointed time comes, that if the bit lassie had no objection, he might be laid there, for it's thirty miles and mair to St, Bartholomew's as I think ye call it."
"Nothing could be better, George, than this arrangement," said Mrs. Hammond, "and the expense of the funeral of course we will bear, as it is not likely this unfortunate man had much money."
"Very little of that, I am thinking," said Mr. Lindsay, "but what is to be done about the poor lassie?"
"Oh! of course," said Mr. Hammond, "we must—"
"I could not think of taking her home with us till I know more about her," said Mrs. Hammond, interrupting her husband, "and at present she cannot bear to leave the body, as is very natural. Her friends must be written to, and she will in time be sent to them, but in the meantime I should like to see what sort of temper and principles she has before I brought her to stay with Madeline and Clara; they are such impressible girls, as you know."
"But my dear," said Mr. Hammond, "you must have had this poor Amy if this unfortunate gentleman had lived. I engaged expressly that she was to have her home with us, and to be the companion of our girls."
"You engaged very rashly, as I told you; and besides, if the child had her father with her, the case would be very different."
"She looks very sweet-tempered, and I know she is a most intelligent child," said the astonished Mr. Hammond, who could not conceive any cause for his wife's unreasonable prejudice against one who had particularly attracted his liking.
"'Deed does she," said Mrs. Lindsay, Whose warm Scotch blood fired up at the grudging way in which Mrs. Hammond spoke about the bereaved and desolate orphan. "If you think it a burden to have the charge, I'm sure she's heartily welcome to bide at Branxholm till she can hear from her friends in England, and for longer too. The pot that boils' for eight may weel boil for nine, and the Almighty has prospered us, so that we would never miss the orphan's meal of meat, or her bits of claes. I thought she was owre genty for the like of us, but if so be as she'd be satisfied to take up her dwelling with us, there's none of us that would think twice of the burden or the trouble. And I dare say the lassie might take up to be of some service in the house. We're no to send the bairn that has by sic a sudden and awsome providence been brought to our door, to sic a place as the Destitute Asylum."
"Don't speak of such a thing as the Destitute Asylum," said Mrs. Hammond, with a curious expression on her face that her husband could not read. "There may be some insurance money or something coming that would defray the girl's passage to England."
"Insurance? That might be forfeited by a man's going abroad," said Mr. Hammond. "I know he is poor, for he told me so, and he was particularly anxious about this child, that he might continue her education himself, because she was not provided for."
"Well," said Hugh Lindsay, "as the good wife says, the bairn is welcome to stop at Branxholm, if ye dinna think she has mair claims on ye, for it was on your business and in your employment, as one may say, that her father came to his end."
"True enough," said Mrs. Hammond, taking the words out of her husband's mouth, "we should be bound to make you some compensation if you were good enough to keep the child. It is neither the expense nor the trouble that I think of, but I am so careful of my children, that I must know whom they associate with. But we would pay a reasonable board."
"That's fair enough," said Hugh Lindsay.
"But the good man will not take a penny from you for the bairn," said Mrs. Lindsay hastily. "We keep nae boarding-school; if we did, we would not need to send our ain sae far from us. We dinna wan to be paid for common Christian charity. Our bairns are no owre find to associate wi' the daughter of a gentleman that ye all thought fit to give instructions to your sons. If ye hae na the heart to offer a home to the orphan, please God she'll find one here, and we'll look for nae compensation at your hands."
Mr. Hammond was naturally a liberal and kind man, and he had never felt so small in his life as he did on this occasion. Mrs. Lindsay's warmth and indignation he felt to be well deserved, and he was surprised that it did not kindle some more generous feeling in the heart of his wife. He had never known Mrs. Hammond behave so very strangely. He knew her to be a woman tenacious of her position, prudent in money matters, and careful in engaging in anything involving expense or trouble, without well weighing beforehand whether she could carry it out properly; but her meanness, her coldness, her discourtesy to his poor orphan and to this worthy family were not characteristic of her. His own opinion of Amy Staunton was so favourable, he was so convinced that she would be a valuable companion to his indulged and sometimes overbearing girls, that he was disappointed as well as greatly mortified at his wife's prejudice. He knew her prejudices to be things that there was no chance of reasoning away; it was a good thing that she had not many of them. He had a great reverence for his wife, who in all great matters governed him, his children, and his household with a generally comfortable but occasionally inconvenient sway. She saved Mr. Hammond a great deal of trouble by her decided views and her managing ways; she was generally very attentive to his personal comforts and indulgent to his tastes, so he knew he must submit to be thwarted now and then. But to be evidently thwarted by the wife of his bosom before the family of the Lindsays, to be outdone in liberality on ground especially his own, was humiliating. If Hugh Lindsay's wife was rather hasty in forestalling her husband's more cautious proffers, she took the right ground, and her husband acquiesced in her views more cheerfully than Mr. Hammond could submit to the low position occupied by his wife.
The matter, however, was settled; the inquest was to be held on the morrow, and the orphan was to remain at Branxholm.
"Somebody must write to the friends, though," said Mr. Lindsay. "I would be better for you, that's a lady and a scholar, to write to them than for the like of us."
"As I have not taken the girl, or any responsibility with regard to her," said Mrs. Hammond, "the communication certainly ought not to come from me. Your son or daughter could surely write a simple statement of facts. And your son having been present at, or near, the time of the accident, is the most fit person to give information as to this very sad affair."
Allan's face had changed colour many times during the conversation which he had listened to. It had glowed at his mother's warmth but very lately, but another tinge passed over it at the proposal that he should write to the friends of a scholar and an author.
"Indeed Allan's no very clever with the pen, though there's nothing on the farm or the station that he's backward with; and as for contriving, there never was his match seen, but his hands have been aye so full of work that there's been no time for learning. I'm sure Isabel and Phemie will never be the lassies that Jessie has been to me, nor will Jamie or Hughie ever fill Allan's shoes, but the younger ones are getting the lair. But surely the lassie is old enough to write to her friends herself, and nae doot has the skill, so ye needna be at the fash of writing neither, Mrs. Hammond," said Mrs. Lindsay.
Mrs. Hammond was not accustomed to be looked on with scorn. It is probable that she did not even go to say good-bye to the girl, but Mr. Hammond could not leave without having another look at the orphan. He wanted to say that he was glad she had met with some kind friends in the Lindsays, and to advise her to try to be happy with them, but the words stuck in his throat. He felt it was a very different kind of society from what she had been accustomed to, and he felt that he had no right to offer any advice. He might do something for her yet if he only could bring Mrs. Hammond to reason, so he only said good night and left her.
When the Hammonds had driven off in the moonlight, Mrs. Lindsay broke forth—
"Well, if I ever in my life saw such an upsetting, cold-blooded, hard-hearted woman! Is that what they all call manners? I dare say she was feared that if she was civil we might claim acquaintance with her. Visit her indeed! I'd rather die on the high road than beg at her house for a bit of bread."
"You're hasty, good wife," said Mr. Lindsay, "I'll no deny that her ways are most aggravating, and most uncivil, and the way she turned up her nose at that bit lassie as no fit to come in contact with her girls was far from Christian charity, but it was fair enough to offer to pay us for the keep of the lassie. No that I'd demean myself by taking it any more than you would. We have enough for ourselves, and a thought to spare besides. And as you say we'll never miss it."
"I think mother was quite right to be angry," said Allan. "If she had not spoken I am sure I would, and if you had felt it a burden, I would have worked double that you need not take a penny from the Hammonds. But this young lady has been brought up differently from us, and I doubt she will find us very strange in our ways."
"Our ways are weel enough," said Mrs Lindsay. "If we are na fine, at least we're kind-hearted and honest, and I count the conduct of thae visitors we've just had as far frae kind, and somewhat beside being honest. It makes one sick of the very name of gentlefolk to see sic goings on. If these are the sort of ways the lassie has learnt, the sooner she forgets them, all the better."
"Oh! mother, that is not what I mean," said Allan.
"But it's what I mean, Allan, and rough as we are, she must just put up with us and be thankful, at least till she can better herself," said Mrs. Lindsay. "If Phemie and Isabel had been a home, no doubt it would be more cheerful for her, for she's but a bairn compared to you and Jessie, but we'll do our best. You maun take her to your room, Jessie, and let her sleep in the little green bed. I would na put her in a room by hersel, for it would be eerie with a corpse lying in the house."
It needed all Jessie's persuasion to induce Amy to leave her father's body for the night, and indeed a little of Mrs. Lindsy's authority in addition. She submitted to go to bed and let Jessie put out the light, but the kind-hearted girl was distressed to hear the heavy sobs every time she woke, which showed that poor Amy could not sleep for her grief. She would not allow the orphan to get up when she herself did, and carefully darkened the room in hopes she might sleep a little in the cool of the morning, but when she crept as quietly as she could to the door about breakfast time, she found Amy ready dressed in the worn black frock, and led her into the large kitchen, where the family had assembled for breakfast. Although Branxholm possessed some good rooms, it was convenient to take breakfast and dinner in the kitchen, and the old custom had been kept up when here was little necessity for it. Amy timidly went up to Mrs. Lindsey, shook hands with her, and said good morning, and then went to the master of the house with the same salutation. The ceremony was new to him, and at first he thought she meant to go away.
"Ye're no to leave us, my dear," said he. "Ye behove to bide at Branxholm for a bit. We're no going to part with you on a sudden. That is no the way we entertain strangers in the bush."
When Amy took the seat beside Allan which was left vacant for her, and wished him good morning without meeting with the expected response, she began to fear that she had made some blunder. "Have I done anything wrong" said she in a low voice; "are you not pleased with me?"
"Oh aye, pleased enough," said Mrs. Lindsay, whose quick ear no whisper could escape, "But we are na used to thae fashions. They seem to me to be just an off-put of time. Sit down, my dear, and have your breakfast. I hope we'll find something that you can eat, for not a bit passed your mouth that I saw yestere'en."
The large violet-coloured eyes filled with tears. There was no father now to wish good morning to, no morning kiss to receive from him. She was among strangers in a strange land, who had strange and unknown ways.
Allan knew what she was thinking of, and felt for her. He half-whispered to her, "Don't think us unkind because we don't understand the fashions you were brought up to. As you come to know us better, you will find out that we wish each other well without saying much about it. Now have a cup of tea from Jessie, or will I make it for you as I did last night? or, as you are just off the ship maybe you will like milk best."
"There's some grand kirn milk," said Mrs. Lindsay, "for Jessie made the butter this morning when you were sleeping or should have been. Maybe you would like that best."
"No, I thank you, I should prefer tea to anything," said Amy, who looked round the breakfast-table, which was spread with liberal though somewhat inelegant profusion. There were fried bacon and eggs, and mutton chops, and boiled eggs, and cold corned beef, with fresh butter and beautifully white home-made bread and soda-scones, which Mrs. Lindsay herself had made as a treat for the stranger. Jessie Lindsay presided over a large half-gallon tin teapot, with a handle in front as an auxiliary to the handle in common use. The best china was never taken into use in the kitchen, and the earthenware was of various shapes and patterns, for there was a great deal of breakage, and commonware could not be matched, so that the cups and saucers were of three different patterns, the plates of another, the butter served up in a saucer, and the chops displayed in a tin dish. Jessie was liberal in her administration of a plentiful supply of new milk, with a jug of cream for her father and Allan and the stranger, and also dealt out the sugar with a bountiful hand. The fire was at her back, which was not comfortable in such hot weather, but Allan had arranged a screen, so that it protected her. The fountain, filled with boiling water to replenish the vast teapot, bubbled on the fire, and the frying-pan which stood on the hob was occasionally visited by a large gray cat, who was as often driven away by Mrs. Lindsay, while three dogs stood round the table, and ate the bones which were thrown to them from time to time. One would think that this was a great breakfast to set before a small family, but it was not only the four Lindsays and their young guest who were assembled to eat it. At the lower end of the table sat the servants of the household. George Copeland, a good-looking Englishman, who had gone to Mr. Hammond's on the previous evening; Pat Murphy, who had been sent for the doctor, but had found him absent on a long journey to a distant patient; and Donald McClure, a thickset highland shepherd very recently imported from the North country. There were besides Tom Cross, who, with his leg well bandaged up, ate a good meal off a colonial sofa which stood at one end of the kitchen, and two travellers looking for work, who had got lodgings for the night and a morning meal before setting out again on their quest. All but our poor orphan brought heavy appetites with them; but Mrs. Lindsay's hospitable entreaties and offers of anything and every thing on the table could not induce Amy to eat more than would feed a mavis. Allan went out and fetched a few bunches of ripe grapes, a dozen of rosy peaches, and a little basket of figs from the garden. "Perhaps you could eat some of these," said he. "They are all cool, for the sun has not been on them; try something more than that poor cup of tea."
"Thir 'ill be the figs that's spoke of in Scripture," sid Donald McClure. "A' the figs that e'er I saw in the city of Glasgow was sauted wi' sugar, but thir's the green figs I'se warrant, and they grow in the garden here. It's a wonderful country this."
"Taste them, Donald," said Allan, and he handed him the basket. But the taste of figs to a novice is generally disappointing, and Donald expressed his opinion that though the green figs might make a good plaster for King Hezekiah, them that was sauted with sugar was better to the taste, and could not be induced to try another.
"We have got some olives in the garden at your service, Donald," said Hugh Lindsay. "That's another Scripture fruit, ye ken. Oil that makes a man's face to shine comes from the Olive."
"Na, na," said Donald, "I'll try nae experiments in things I'm not acquaint wi'. The apples and pears I ken weel, and as for the grapes they're just a sort of grozets, but I have nae broo o' figs and olives an' what ye ca' pomegranates; though there's Scripture warrant they were good enough for Hebrews, that's na reason why they should agree wi' Christians."
"I suppose the figs are as new to you," said Allan, addressing Amy, "and I suppose you do not like them."
"Oh! I like them very much, but I cannot eat anything. I used to eat figs in Madeira," said Amy.
"Did you stop there on the voyage?" asked Allan.
"No; I was there two years ago for some time," said Amy.
"They make first-rate wine there," said Hugh Lindsay; "did you see the vineyards or how the wine was made?"
"I saw the vineyards, but I don't know anything about the making of wine. It was two years ago. I was a little girl then."
"And ye're no very big now," said Mrs. Lindsay, "but the good man thinks everybody, big and little, should be as much taken up about flocks and herds, and land and crops, and vines and wine-making as he is himself. But if you're no going to eat any more we'd better clear away the breakfast, and let us all get to our work, for it's a busy day for more reasons than one."
It was altogether a strange scene to Amy. She had been brought up in comparative poverty, but it had been poverty accompanied by elegance and refinement. This rough plenty, this mixing up of masters and servants, these homely jokes and strong provincial accents, were all as different from her guarded and secluded life as the only child of cultivated and literary people, as could well be imagined. She must take her old place in the spare room; that was the only place for her. She rose to go, but a voice from the sofa interrupted her.