“Let the gifts go,” I answered; “I have you.”
“My darling!” he said, “let us take a last walk through the rooms, and bid them farewell. We will fix every item in our memories, and I promise you an American home far more beautiful than this.”
I believed him. Without doubt he would keep his word. So I was comforted; and we went together into every room, recalling how we had decided on the creton and papering for one room in the Windermere woods, and for another, sitting on the grassy slope of Kendal Castle. There was some incident of our love, or home, connected with every picture, with every bronze, with every chair and table. We smiled and wept together. Yes, we both wept, and I am not ashamed of the fact. Of course it was intensely sentimental, but in that quality lay our salvation. If we could have gone through those rooms at this farewell hour, without tears and reminiscent smiles, ours would have been a hopeless case; for it is the men and women who are steeped in sentiment and religion, that do things. They are the high-hearted and hopeful, they can face every emergency, and conquer every situation. It is the materialist and the atheist, who flinch and fail, and who never succeed, because they have lost the Great Companion who alone could give permanence and value to whatever they have done.
The next morning we were up with the dawn, and after a leisurely breakfast reached the Caledonian Line in good time. Here we dismissed Kitty, and Robert stayed with me, until the train was ready to start.
“You need not be anxious about your trunk, Milly,” he said. “I will speak to the guard about it, and also about your dinner at Carlisle.” Very soon I saw him talking to that official, as if they were old friends, and the two men came to the carriage door together. Then Robert bid me good-bye, and with a bright smile promised to see me in Kendal Wednesday or Thursday. The next moment the door was locked, and the comfortable English guard cry, “All’s Right!” ran along the line until it reached the engineer, who answered it at once by starting the train.
The journey was an easy and pleasant one. I was well cared for, the children were quiet and sleepy, and I found Mother and Alethia waiting for me. About this my last visit to my home, I shall say little. A multitude of words could not reach the heart of it, and indeed we were all less disposed to talk than usual. I was exceedingly anxious. I had a fear of Robert’s mother, and while I was taking a walk the next day with Father, I told him a good deal about her. I thought he did not listen with his usual sympathy, and I asked “if he thought we had done wrong to come away without her knowledge?”
“Was it your doing, Milly?” he asked.
“Partly,” I answered. “Yes, Father, it was mainly my doing.”
“I don’t approve it, Milly,” he said. “A mother is a sacred relation. It is a kind of sacrilege to wound her feelings. You would need good reasons to excuse it.”
“We had good reasons, Father. Ask Robert when he comes tomorrow.”
“Yes, I will.” Then he gave me some personal advice, not necessary to write here, but which I hold in everlasting remembrance.
That night when all the house was asleep, and I was sitting with Mother, I told her Father’s opinion about our deceiving Robert’s mother. She was quietly angry.
“Do not mind what he said on that subject, Milly,” she said. “Your father thinks a deal more of mothers than he does of wives. Ever since we were married, he has gone into mourning about his mother on certain days, and he wanted the whole house to mourn and fast with him. I would not hear of such nonsense. We none of us knew the woman. Ann Oddy flatly refused; she was well aware I would stand by her. As for you children, I told your father plainly, you would, if you lived, have plenty of live troubles to fret you without mourning for a dead one, you knew nothing about. But all the same he never forgets certain days – you remember?”
“Yes, Mother, I remember very well.”
“I hope none of you will keep my birthday, or death day, in any such sorrowful way. Try to make happiness out of it, and if you can not, let it be forgotten.”
As we sat talking very softly at the open window of the dark room there was a knock at the door. I hoped it was Robert, and I waited breathlessly for his voice and step. But it was not Robert.
“It is a man from The King’s Arms. He has brought a letter. I think it is for you, Milly,” said Mother.
She was striking a light as she spoke, and I took the letter from her hand.
“It is from Robert,” I said. “He is at the King’s Arms. He would not disturb us so late tonight, but he will be with us after breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“That was thoughtful and kind all round,” answered Mother, and she continued, “we had better try to sleep, Milly. There are three hard days before you.” Then she suddenly turned to me, and said in a little eager way, “O Milly, I do want to go to Liverpool with you! I do want to go so much! Do you think Father will spare me?”
“Mother, dear Mother! He must spare you! I will ask him in the morning.”
In the morning Robert came in like sunshine, just as we were finishing breakfast, and in the pleasant stir of his advent, I asked Father for Mother’s company to Liverpool. “We shall be off before noon, Saturday,” I said, “and she can return to Manchester, stay with Jane over Sunday, and go to Kendal on Monday. Let her go with us, Father.”
Father was easily entreated, and then Mother was as excited as a little child. She wanted new strings to her best bonnet, fresh laces for her gray bombazine dress, and there was a button off her best gloves. So in these and kindred duties for the children, the day passed. We smiled and made believe we were pleasantly occupied, but Father knew, and I knew, it was the last day we should ever spend together. The heart-breaking pathos of those three words —the last day, lay underneath all our pleasant words and smiles. We were really dying to each other every hour of that last day. In after years when the fire of life has cooled down, we wonder why we felt so keenly, and how we endured it!
Fortunately the strain was in a measure lifted early the next morning. We were to leave at nine o’clock and every one was busy dressing or breakfasting. When the carriage was at the door, and I had kissed my sisters, I looked around for Father. “He is in his room,” said Alethia, and as she spoke, I heard him walking about. I went to him, and when he saw me enter, he knew the parting moment had come. He stood still and stretched out his arms, and I clung to him whispering “Father! My Father! I must go!”
Tenderly he stooped and kissed me, saying, “Dear, my dear! My Milly! I know not where you are going, and Robert could not tell me. But this I know, wherever your lot may be cast, ‘your bread shall be given, and your water sure.’”
Then Mother called us, and we went down together. Mother and the children were in the carriage. Robert was waiting for me. Without a word Father kissed us both, and the carriage went hurriedly away but I watched as far as I could, the white lifted head, and eager eyes of the dear soul I was never to see again in this world. He lived about nine years after our parting, and died as he wished to die – “on a Sabbath morning, when the bells are ringing for church.” Perhaps he had some primitive idea of the glory of the Church Celestial, and some hope that he might serve in it. Only to be a doorkeeper in His House, would be heaven to his adoring love.
“O Strong Soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? In some far shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the Word
Of the Spirit, in whom thou didst live.”
…
We reached Manchester in the afternoon, and Robert went to see some old business friends to bid them good-bye, while Mother, I, and the children were thankful to lie down and sleep a little for we expected Jane to dinner, and I was anxious to have a pleasant evening with her. I had not seen her since her marriage, and I wondered what change it had made.
She was the same quiet, authoritative woman I remembered so well, and it being a warm evening she was dressed in a lilac muslin, which was very becoming to her. Her plentiful pale brown hair was neatly arranged; I am sure there was not one hair out of its proper place. I was glad she was not changed; above all I relished the rather advisory manner of “eldest sister” which she still retained. I would have been disappointed if Jane had not found something to counsel, or censure, or warn me about. She looked into my face with the kindest blue eyes, and remarked,
“You are still very pretty, Amelia, and quite young in appearance, too; almost too girlish for a married woman.”
I laughed a little and asked, “Did you expect marriage to make me ugly and old, Jane?”
“I have known it to do so.”
“Not in your case, any more than in mine,” I answered. “You are handsomer than I ever saw you.”
“Yes, I dare say that is so. I was worn out when I married. Poor Father’s affliction is most trying on those who have to witness it, and assist him.”
“Alas!” I said, “Mother feels it much. She will not live long, unless she has some help.”
“Father will have no one but Mother near him. Men are selfish always, and particularly selfish when they are sick. Their wives have to be Providence to them. I pity you, Amelia.”
“What for, Jane?”
“Of course it is to please your husband you are going to America. You never would have thought of such a piece of folly.”
“When I was six years old, I thought of going to India and China and many other places.”
“As a missionary. That makes all the difference. If I understood Mother, you and Mr. Barr are going to America, in order to make more money; leaving a Christian land, to live among pagans for a little money. I do not think that is a justifiable cause, Amelia.”
“But Jane, we are not going among pagans. The United States is a Christian country, and – ”
“Oh, I have read the missionary reports! In the big cities, like New York, I suppose the people are Christianized, but on what they call the frontier, I am told there are few churches. Will you go to the frontier?”
“I think so.”
“Well, dear, do not lose your assurance. Among Indians, negroes, cowboys, and atheists of all kinds, hold fast your assurance. Let all see that you are a child of God.”
“You need not fear for me, Jane. I will be good, or at least try to be so.”
Then Mother and Robert came into the parlor together, and a servant followed them with dinner. Robert was in high spirits. He had spent three or four happy hours among old business friends. Jane looked at him with evident pleasure and he drew her out in her best vein, which was a kind of humorous criticism; she gave him personally its first clever shafts. We had a cheerful meal, and I wondered how Mother and I could laugh, when these were probably – and as time proved – our last hours together. Ah! I have learned since then, how often women laugh when care or poverty or cruel pain, fiercer than the Spartan fox, is gnawing their trembling, suffering hearts.
I do not remember whether Jane’s husband or any of her three children were with her. If they were, I have totally forgotten them, which under the circumstances is very likely. When it was time for her to go, I went with her to the dressing-room, and as she was tying her bonnet, she said approvingly, “I like your husband, Amelia, but I fear he is just a little ‘gay.’ Is he not?”