autumn soon lapsed into winter: christmas came and went, bringing, not ascott, as they hoped and he had promised, but a very serious evil in the shape of sundry bills of his, which, he confessed in a most piteous letter to his aunt hilary, were absolutely unpayable out of his godfather's allowance. they were not large—or would not have seemed so to rich people—and they were for no more blamable luxuries than horse hire, and a dinner or two to friends out in the country; but they looked serious to a household which rarely was more than five pounds beforehand with the world.
he had begged aunt hilary to keep his secret, but that was evidently impossible; so on the day the school accounts were being written out and sent in, and their amount anxiously reckoned, she laid before her sisters the lad's letter, full of penitence and promises: "i will be careful—i will indeed—if you will help me out this once, dear aunt hilary; and don't think too ill of me. i have done nothing wicked. and you don't know london; you don't know, with a lot of young fellows about one, how very hard it is to say no."
at that unlucky postscript the misses leaf sorrowfully exchanged looks. little the lad thought about it; but these few words were the very sharpest pang ascott had ever given to his aunts.
"what's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh." "like father like son." "the sins of the parents shall be visited on the children." so runs many a proverb: so confirms the unerring decree of a just god, who would not be a just god did he allow himself to break his own righteous laws for the government of the universe; did he falsify the requirements of his own holy and pure being, by permitting any other wages for sin than death. and though, through his mercy, sin forsaken escapes sin's penalty, and every human being has it in his own power to modify, if not to conquer, any hereditary moral as well as physical disease, thereby avoiding the doom and alleviating the curse, still the original law remains in force, and ought to remain, an example and a warning. as true as that every individual sin that a man commits breeds multitudes more, is it that every individual sin may transmit his own peculiar type of weakness or wickedness to a whole race, disappearing in one generation, re-appearing in another, exactly the same as physical peculiarities do, requiring the utmost caution of education to counteract the terrible tendencies of nature—the "something in the blood" which is so difficult to eradicate: which may even make the third and fourth generation execrate the memory of him or her who was its origin.
the long life-curse of henry leaf the elder, and henry leaf the younger, had been—the women of the family well knew—that they were men who "couldn't say no." so keenly were the three sisters alive to this fault—it could hardly be called a crime, and yet in its consequences it was so—so sickening the terror of it which their own wretched experience had implanted in their minds, that during ascott's childhood and youth his very fractiousness and roughness, his little selfishness, and his persistence in his own will against theirs, had been hailed by his aunts as a good omen that he would grow up "so unlike his poor father."
if the two unhappy henry leafs—father and son—could have come out of their graves that night and beheld these three women, daughters and sisters, sitting with ascott's letter on the table, planning how the household's small expenses could be contracted, its still smaller luxuries relinquished, in order that the boy might honorably pay for pleasures he might so easily have done without! if they could have seen the weight of apprehension which then sank like a stone on these long-tried hearts, never to be afterward removed: lightened sometimes, but always—however ascott might promise and amend—always there! on such a discovery, surely, these two "poor ghosts" would have fled away moaning, wishing they had died childless, or that during their mortal lives any amount of self restraint and self compulsion had purged from their natures the accursed thing; the sin which had worked itself out in sorrow upon every one belonging to them, years after their own heads were laid in the quiet dust.
"we must do it," was the conclusion the misses leaf unanimously came to; even selina; who with all her faults, had a fair share of good feeling and of that close clinging to kindred which is found in fallen households, or households whom the sacred bond of common poverty, has drawn together in a way that large, well-to-do home circles can never quite understand.
"we must not let the boy remain in debt; it would be such a disgrace to the family."
"it is not the remaining in debt, but the incurring of it, which is the real disgrace to ascott and the family."
"hush hilary," said johanna, pointing to the opening door; but it was too late.
elizabeth, coming suddenly in—or else the ladies had been so engrossed with their conversation that they had not noticed her—had evidently heard every word of the last sentence. her conscious face showed it; more especially the bright scarlet which covered both her cheeks when miss leaf said "hush!" she stood, apparently irresolute as to whether she should run away again; and then her native honesty got the upper hand, and she advanced into the room.
"if you please, missis, i didn't mean to—but i've heard—"
"what have you heard; that is, how much?"
"just what miss hilary said. don't be afeared. i shan't tell. i never chatter about the family. mother told me not."
"you owe a great deal, elizabeth, to your good mother. now go away."
"and another time." said miss selina, "knock at the door."
this was elizabeth's first initiation into what many a servant has to share—the secret burden of the family. after that day, though they did not actually confide in her, her mistresses used no effort to conceal that they had cares; that the domestic economies must, this winter, be especially studied; there must be no extra fires, no candles left burning to waste; and once a week or so, a few butterless breakfasts or meatless dinners must be partaken of cheerfully, in both parlor and kitchen. the misses leaf never stinted their servant in any thing in which they did not stint themselves.
strange to say, in spite of miss selina's prophecies, the girl's respectful conduct did not abate: on the contrary, it seemed to increase. the nearer she was lifted to her mistress's level, the more her mind grew, so that she could better understand her mistresses cares, and the deeper her consciousness of the only thing which gives one human being any real authority over another—personal character.
therefore, though the family means were narrowed, and the family luxuries few, elizabeth cheerfully put up with all; she even felt a sort of pride in wasting nothing and in making the best of every thing, as the others did. perhaps, it may be said she was an exceptional servant; and yet i would not do her class the wrong to believe so-i would rather believe that there are many such among it; many good, honest, faithful girls, who only need good mistresses unto whom to be honest and faithful, and they would be no less so than elizabeth hand.
the months went by—heavy and anxious months; for the school gradually dwindled away, and ascott's letter—now almost the only connection his aunts had with the outer world, for poverty necessarily diminished even their small stowbury society—became more and more unsatisfactory; and the want of information in them was not supplied by those other letters which had once kept johanna's heart easy concerning the boy.
mr. lyon had written once before sailing, nay, after sailing, for he had sent it home by the pilot from the english channel; then there was, of course, silence. october, november, december, january, february, march—how often did hilary count the months, and wonder how soon a letter would come, whether a letter ever would come again. and sometimes—the sharp present stinging her with its small daily pains, the future looking dark before her and them all—she felt so forlorn, so forsaken, that but for a certain tiny well-spring of hope, which rarely dries up till long after three-and twenty, she could have sat down and sighed, "my good days are done."
rich people break their hearts much sooner than poor people; that is, they more easily get into that morbid state which is glorified by the term, "a broken heart." poor people can not afford it. their constant labor "physics pain." their few and narrow pleasures seldom pall. holy poverty! black as its dark side is, it has its bright side too, that is, when it is honest, fearless, free from selfishness. wastefulness, and bickerings; above all, free from the terror of debt.
"we'll starve, we'll go into the work house rather than we'll go into debt!" cried hilary once, in a passion of tears, when she was in sore want of a shawl, and selina urged her to get it, and wait till she could pay for it. "yes; the work house! it would be less shame to be honorably indebted to the laws of the land than to be meanly indebted, under false pretences, to any individual in it".
and when, in payment for some accidental lessons, she got next month enough money to buy a shawl, and a bonnet, too—nay, by great ingenuity, another bonnet for johanna—hilary could have danced and sang—sang, in the gladness and relief of her heart, the glorious euthanasia of poverty.
but these things happened only occasionally; the daily life was hard still; ay, very hard, even though at last came the letter from "foreign parts;" and following it, at regular intervals, other letters. they were full of facts rather than feelings—simple, straightforward; worth little as literary compositions; school-master and learned man as he was, there was nothing literary or poetical about mr. lyon; but what he wrote was like what he spoke, the accurate reflection of his own clear, original mind and honest, tender heart.
his letters gave none the less comfort because, nominally, they were addressed to johanna. this might have been from some crotchet of over-reserve, delicacy, or honor—the same which made him part from her for years with no other word than 'you must trust me, hilary;' but whatever it was she respected it, and she did trust him. and whether johanna answered his letters or not, month by month they unfailingly came, keeping her completely informed of all his proceedings, and letting out, as epistles written from over the seas often do, much more of himself and his character than he was probably aware that he betrayed.
and hilary, whose sole experience of mankind had been the scarcely remembered father, the too well remembered brother, and the anxiously watched nephew, thanked god that there seemed to be one man in the world whom a woman could lean her heart upon, and not feel the support break like a reed beneath her—one man whom she could entirely believe in, and safely and sacredly trust.
