CHAPTER XIII.
GOLD BROUGHT TO THE PROOF.
THE story told by George, however gratifying to my feelings as a needle, did not prevent me from dwelling a good deal on the troubles of his parents, and wondering if any letter had arrived from Bristol. I seldom saw Mr. Ellerslie in the drawing-room, where I was kept, till he returned from business late in the afternoon. This day, when he entered the apartment with his wife, he looked gloomy and anxious as ever.
“There is a late post; we may hear to-night,” the lady said. He muttered something, I could not make out what.
Mr. Ellerslie was very irritable that evening; he could scarcely bear the children near him at all. Eddy made a vain attempt to repeat to him the fairy’s song, of which the rhyme had caught the child’s fancy. He and his sister were soon sent up to the nursery; but George, as being older and more quiet, was suffered to remain behind.
Mrs. Ellerslie, with forced cheerfulness, did all that she could to make the heavy time pass pleasantly. She carefully avoided rousing her husband’s temper, and when, without reason, his peevishness broke forth, she bore it without a murmur or complaint, and kept down the tears which struggled to rise. I saw plainly that iron is not the only thing liable to a speck of rust, nor broken-pointed scissors the only articles formed to cut and divide.
Mrs. Ellerslie took up a book, a very amusing volume it was, and read till her voice grew hoarse and faint.
“May I read a little, mother?” said George; “it is good practice for me, you know.”
She placed the book in his hand; but it soon became evident that George was not accustomed to read aloud. He never varied his tone, missed the short words and mispronounced the long, and certainly made a very poor figure as a reader.
“How you drawl! it is a penance to hear you!” cried his father.
“Shall I take the book now?” said Mrs. Ellerslie faintly.
George was flushed. I could see that he felt his father’s taunt. I believe that he would gladly have given up the reading; but his mother’s feeble tone seemed to touch his heart, and still retaining his hold of the volume, he said, “If you please, I would rather try a little longer; I will try to read better, if you will let me.”
“There’s the post!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellerslie, with a start, as the double rap was suddenly heard.
George saw that his mother was anxious: he sprang out of the room in a moment.
Mr. Ellerslie rose, as if too impatient to be able to sit still; his wife clasped her trembling hands; but neither of them uttered a word till George returned with a letter.
“The Bristol post-mark!” muttered Mr. Ellerslie, as he broke the seal.
“George, my son,” said the lady, “go to the dining-room for a few minutes. You can take the book with you, if you like.”
George instantly obeyed, without speaking; and Mrs. Ellerslie fixed her blue eyes, with a look of intense anxiety, on the changing countenance of her husband.
“There—read it,” he exclaimed, when he had finished perusing the letter; “what do you say, Eliza, to that?” and he threw himself again on his chair.
“He writes kindly of George,” said the mother, after looking over the first page of the letter,—“‘I was much pleased with what I saw of your boy last year,—I don’t forget that he is my namesake.’” The poor mother’s face brightened up.
“Read on,” said her husband abruptly.
“It does not seem that he declines to assist you,” said the lady, still anxiously endeavouring to make out the crabbed handwriting before her; “on the contrary,” he writes, ‘I shall have a large sum at your disposal, such as I think will remove every difficulty.’”
“There’s an if to that. Read on a little farther.”
“Oh, Edward!” exclaimed the lady, almost dropping the letter, “can he ask us to give up our boy—our dear son?”
“He offers to adopt him as his own.”
“My George! oh! no, no, no!—we can never, never consent to that!”
“Why, you see, Eliza,” said her husband, speaking rapidly, “if I have not assistance now, all will be ruin—I shall have no means of supporting my family. Perhaps this is the best thing for George himself—”
“I can hardly think it,” said the mother, with a look of intense pain. “Hardcastle gives us to understand that the separation from our boy must be ‘complete—final’—these are his very words—that ‘George must not look to two fathers or two homes—’”
“Hardcastle dislikes me,” muttered Mr. Ellerslie to himself.
“And even if we could bear to part,” continued his wife, with something like a stifled sob, “Hardcastle is not one to whom our boy could look up with the affection—the reverence—” she stopped for a moment, as if to swallow down her tears. “Hardcastle has temper, he is strange, eccentric. Our George would be wretched with him. Oh no! it cannot be!” she added with energy; “it would be like sacrificing—selling our child!”
“If we refuse Hardcastle’s offer,” said her husband, “we offend him for ever; and you know the consequences, Eliza.”
She sat with her hand pressed over her eyes, while Mr. Ellerslie continued to speak,
“He can afford George advantages, comforts, which it would not be in our power to bestow. I am not certain whether, all selfish motives set aside, the boy would not be happier at Bristol than here.”
“Let us consult George himself,” said the unhappy mother. “On a question which concerns the welfare of his whole life, we at least should know what are the poor child’s feelings.”
“I have no objection,” replied the father, walking to the door; “but you must command yourself, Eliza. This is weak, foolish—not what I expected from you. We must think calmly, and decide firmly, and not give way to emotions which injure ourselves and can do good to none.—George!” he called out, after opening the door, while his wife, after one look of anguish, such as I never can forget, sat quiet and submissive on the sofa, like one whose spirit is broken and crushed.
“Did you call me, father?” said George, as he entered with his light step and cheerful glance.
“Yes; I wish to speak to you, my boy. You remember your visit to Bristol last summer?”
“That I do!” replied the school-boy with a meaning smile; “I know that I was precious glad when it was over!”
“You had nothing to complain of—Mr. Hardcastle was kind?”
“Well, kind after his fashion,” said George, with a little hesitation. “I did not mean to say anything against him. But what with the smoke and the dirt, and the noise of the great manufactory close by, and the ways of the house—not one bit like ours—I know that I felt like a bird in a cage, and was heartily glad when I was set free!”
“I knew it!” murmured the mother; but I believe that no one overheard her but myself.
Mr. Ellerslie knitted his brow. “Hardcastle wishes you to go to him,” he said.
“Not another visit, I hope?” exclaimed George with animation; “you do not know how much I should hate it.”
“Not for a visit—he would have you for good and all.”
“But he won’t get me!” cried the school-boy with playful confidence. “I would not change my own dear home for that smoky prison, no, not for all England—and Ireland to boot!”
“He shall not go!—oh, Edward, he cannot go!” exclaimed the mother, rising and throwing her arms round her son, and pressing him convulsively to her heart. “I would sooner starve than send him away!”
George was startled and alarmed at the sight of her agitation, and looked anxiously at his father for an explanation of an emotion which he could not understand.
“It is as well that he should know all,” said Mr. Ellerslie; “let the boy decide for himself.—George, driven by circumstances which I need not explain, I have asked a favour of Mr. Hardcastle, on which the comfort, the independence, I may say the very living, of this family depend. This is his answer; read it.” He pushed the letter across the table to George.
All the healthy glow in the boy’s cheek faded away as he slowly made out the closely-written scrawl. His father folded his arms, and fixed his gaze sternly on the carpet; but his mother watched him with glistening eyes. George stopped more than once as he read, as if to make sure that he rightly understood, and repeated the words “final and complete separation” as he might have done a sentence of death. When he had finished he laid down the letter, and turning towards the sofa, said, in a low, agitated tone, “Mother, what would you wish me to do?”
She buried her face in her hands.
“Do not further distress your mother,” said Mr. Ellerslie, rising with emotion. “I leave the question in your own hands, George; I will never dispose of you without your own consent:” and as he spoke I thought that the hand which he laid on the shoulder of his first-born trembled.
George had evident difficulty in speaking. He could scarcely command his voice. I expected him to break down every moment; but he manfully struggled with his feelings.
“I should like one night, dear father, to think over it, before I make up my mind. Mr. Hardcastle says in his postscript”—he took up the letter and read—“‘As business takes me to London, I shall arrive almost as soon as my letter, and will see you on Saturday morning;’ so, doubtless, he will be here to-morrow. May I wait till the morning before I give you my answer?”
“Certainly,” replied Mr. Ellerslie, with a heavy sigh. “You had better retire to rest now; it is late. I shall wait at home to-morrow to see Hardcastle when he calls. You will tell me your wishes in the morning. George, my dear boy, good-night.”
He pressed his son for a moment closely to his breast, and then himself rapidly quitted the room. George sprang to the side of his mother.
“Mother—darling mother!” his arms were around her, his head buried on her bosom.
“Oh, George, my heart will break—will break! I cannot part with you!—I can never consent!”
“We will think, we will reflect over it, mother.”
“And pray—oh, my child! we will pray!”