“One less to suffer and to starve,” thought Nea.
Maurice’s wistful eyes greeted her when she opened the door, but she only shook her head and said nothing; what had she to say? She gave her half-frozen infant into a neighbor’s care, and then sat down and drew Maurice’s face to her bosom, still speechless in that awful apathy.
And there she sat hour after hour, till he died peacefully in her arms, and his last words were, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.”
* * * * * *
When she had ceased to wish for them, friends came around her in her trouble, and ministered to her wants.
Kind faces followed Maurice to his last resting-place, and saved him from a pauper’s grave.
The widow and her children were clothed in decent mourning, and placed in comfortable lodgings.
Nea never roused from her silent apathy, never looked at them or thanked them.
Their kindness had come too late for her, she said to herself, and it was not until long afterward that she knew that she owed all this consideration to the family of their kind old friend Mr. Dobson, secretly aided by the purse of her cousin Beatrice Huntingdon, who dare not come in person to see her. But by and by they spoke very firmly and kindly to her. They pointed to her children—they had placed her boy at an excellent school—and told her that for their sakes she must live and work. If she brooded longer in that sullen despair she would die or go mad; and they brought her baby to her, and watched its feeble arms trying to clasp her neck; saw the widow’s passionate tears rain on its innocent face—the tears that saved the poor hot brain—and knew she was saved; and by and by, when they thought she had regained her strength, they asked her gently what she could do. Alas! she had suffered her fine talents to rust. They had nothing but impoverished material to use; but at last they found her a situation with two maiden ladies just setting up a school in the neighborhood, and here she gave daily lessons.
And so, as the years went on, things became a little brighter.
Nea found her work interesting, her little daughter Fern accompanied her to the school, and she taught her with her other pupils.
Presently the day’s labor became light to her, and she could look forward to the evening when her son, fetching her on his way from school, would escort her home—a humble home it was true; but when she looked at her boy’s handsome face, and Fern’s innocent beauty, and felt her little one’s caresses, as she climbed up into her lap, the widow owned that her lot had its compensations.
But the crowning trial was yet to come; the last drop of concentrated bitterness.
Not long after Maurice’s death, Mr. Huntingdon made his first overture of reconciliation through his lawyer.
His niece, Beatrice, had died suddenly, and her boy was fretting sadly for his mother.
Some one had pointed out to Mr. Huntingdon one day a dark-eyed handsome boy in deep mourning, looking at the riders in Rotten Row, and had told him that it was his grandson, Percy Trafford.
Mr. Huntingdon had said nothing at the time, but the boy’s face and noble bearing haunted him, he was so like his mother, when as a child she had played about the rooms at Belgrave House. Perhaps, stifle it as he might, the sobbing voice of his daughter rang in his ears, “Come home with your own Nea, father;” and in spite of his pride his conscience was beginning to torment him.
Nea smiled scornfully when she listened to the lawyer’s overtures. Mr. Huntingdon was willing to condone the past with regard to her son Percy. He would take the boy, educate him, and provide for him most liberally, though she must understand that his nephew, Erle, would be his heir; still on every other point the boys should have equal advantages.
“And Belgrave House, the home where my boy is to live, will be closed to his mother?” asked Nea, still with that delicate scorn on her face.
The lawyer looked uncomfortable.
“I have no instructions on that point, Mrs. Trafford; I was simply to guarantee that he should be allowed to see you from time to time, as you and he might wish it.”
“I can not entertain the proposal for a moment,” she returned, decidedly; but at his strong remonstrance she at last consented that when her boy was a little older, the matter should be laid before him; but no doubt as to his choice crossed her mind. Percy had always been an affectionate child; nothing would induce him to give up his mother.
But she became less confident as the days went on; Percy grew a little selfish and headstrong, he wanted a man’s will to dominate him; his narrow, confined life and the restraints that their poverty enforced on them made him discontented. One day he encountered the lawyer who had spoken to his mother—he was going to her again, with a letter that Mr. Huntingdon had written to his daughter—and as he looked at Percy, who was standing idly on the door-step, he put his hand on his shoulder, and bade him show him the way.
Nea turned very pale as she read the letter. It was very curt and business-like; it repeated the offer he had before made with regard to her son Percy, only adding that for the boy’s future prospects it would be well not to refuse his terms. This was the letter that, after a moment’s hesitation, Nea placed in her boy’s hands.
“Well, mother,” he exclaimed, and his eyes sparkled with eagerness and excitement, “I call that splendid; I shall be a rich man one of these days, and then you will see what I shall do for you, and Fern, and Fluff.”
“Do you mean that you wish to leave us, Percy, and to live in your grandfather’s house?” she returned, trying to speak calmly. “You know what I have told you—you were old enough to understand what your father suffered? and—and,” with a curious faintness creeping over her “you see for yourself there is no mention of me in that letter. Belgrave House is closed to your mother.”
“Yes, I know, and it is an awful shame, but never mind, mother, I shall come and see you very often;” and then when the lawyer had left them to talk it over, he dilated with boyish eagerness on the advantage to them all if he accepted his grandfather’s offer. His mother would be saved the expense of his education, she would not have to work so hard; he would be rich himself, and would be able to help them. But at this point she stopped him.
“Understand once for all, Percy,” she said with a sternness that he had never seen in her, “that the advantage will be solely for yourself; neither I nor your sisters will ever accept help that comes from Belgrave House; your riches will be nothing to me, my son. Think again, before you give up your mother.”
He would never give her up, he said, with a rough boyish caress; he should see her often—often, and it was wicked, wrong to talk about refusing his help; he would talk to his grandfather and make him ashamed of himself—indeed there was no end to the glowing plans he made. Nea’s heart sickened as she heard him, she knew his boyish selfishness and restlessness were leading him astray, and some of the bitterest tears she ever shed were shed that night.
But from that day she ceased to plead with him, and before many weeks were over Percy had left his mother’s humble home, and after a short stay at Belgrave House, was on his way to Eton with his cousin Erle Huntingdon.
Percy never owned in his secret heart that he had done a mean thing in giving up his mother for the splendors of Belgrave House, that the thought that her son was living in the home that was closed to her was adding gall