MILDRED. A Novel.

CHAPTER I. THE STORM, AND WHAT IT BROUGHT.

The sultry September day was drawing to a close, and as the sun went down, a dark thunder-cloud came slowly up from the west, muttering in deep undertones, and emitting occasional gleams of lightning by way of heralding the coming storm, from which both man and beast intuitively sought shelter. Ere long the streets of Mayfield were deserted, save by the handsome carriage and span of spirited grays, which went dashing through the town toward the large house upon the hill, the residence of Judge Howell, who paid no heed to the storm, so absorbed was he in the letter which he held in his hand, and which had roused him to a state of fearful excitement. Through the gate, and up the long avenue, lined with 10giant trees of maple and beech, the horses flew, and just as the rain came down in torrents they stood panting before the door of Beechwood.

“Bring me a light! Why isn’t there one already here?” roared the Judge, as he stalked into his library, and banged the door with a crash scarcely equalled by the noise of the tempest without.

“Got up a little thunder-storm on his own account! Wonder what’s happened him now!” muttered Rachel, the colored housekeeper, as she placed a lamp upon the table, and then silently left the room.

Scarcely was she gone when, seating himself in his armchair, the Judge began to read again the letter which had so much disturbed him. It was post-marked at a little out-of-the-way place among the backwoods of Maine, and it purported to have come from a young mother, who asked him to adopt a little girl, nearly two months old.

“Her family is fully equal to your own,” the mother wrote; “and should you take my baby, you need never blush for her parentage. I have heard of you, Judge Howell. I know that you are rich, that you are comparatively alone, and there are reasons why I would rather my child should go to Beechwood than any other spot in the wide world. You need her, too,—need something to comfort your old age, for with all your money, you are far from being happy.”

“The deuce I am!” muttered the Judge. “How did the 11trollop know that, or how did she know of me, any way? I take a child to comfort my old age! Ridiculous! I’m not old,—I’m only fifty,—just in the prime of life; but I hate young ones, and I won’t have one in my house! I’m tormented enough with Rachel’s dozen, and if that madame brings hers here, I’ll——”

The remainder of the sentence was cut short by a peal of thunder, so long and loud that even the exasperated Judge was still until the roar had died away; then, resuming the subject of his remarks, he continued:

“Thanks to something, this letter has been two weeks on the road, and as she is tired of looking for an answer by this time, I sha’n’t trouble myself to write,—but what of Richard?—I have not yet seen why he is up there in New Hampshire, chasing after that Hetty, when he ought to have been home weeks ago;” and taking from his pocket another and an unopened letter, he read why his only son and heir of all his vast possessions was in New Hampshire “chasing after Hetty,” as he termed it.

Hetty Kirby was a poor relation, whom the Judge’s wife had taken into the family, and treated with the utmost kindness and consideration; on her death-bed she had committed the young girl to her husband’s care, bidding him be kind to Hetty for her sake. In Judge Howell’s crusty heart there was one soft, warm spot,—the memory of his wife and beautiful young daughter, the latter of whom died within a few months after her marriage. They 12had loved the orphan Hetty, and for their sakes, he had kept her until accident revealed to him the fact that to his son, then little more than a boy, there was no music so sweet as Hetty’s voice,—no light so bright as that which shone in Hetty’s eye.

Then the lion was roused, and he turned her from his door, while Richard was threatened with disinheritance if he dared to think again of the humble Hetty. There was no alternative but to submit, for Judge Howell’s word was law, and, with a sad farewell to what had been her home so long, Hetty went back to the low-roofed house among the granite hills, where her mother and half-imbecile grandmother were living.

Richard, too, returned to college, and from that time not a word had passed between the father and the son concerning the offending Hetty until now, when Richard wrote that she was dead, together with her grandmother,—that news of her illness had been forwarded to him, and immediately after leaving college, in July, he had hastened to New Hampshire, and staid by her until she died.

“You can curse me for it if you choose,” he said, “but it will not make the matter better. I loved Hetty Kirby: while living, I love her memory now that she is dead; and in that little grave beneath the hill I have buried my heart forever.”

The letter closed by saying that Richard would possibly 13be home that night, and he asked that the carriage might be in waiting at the depot.

The news of Hetty’s death kept the Judge silent for a moment, while his heart gave one great throb as he thought of the fair-haired, blue-eyed girl, who had so often ministered to his comfort.

“Poor thing, she’s in heaven, I’m sure,” he said; “and if I was ever harsh to her, it’s too late to help it now. I always liked her well enough, but I did not like her making love to Richard. He’ll get over it, too, even if he does talk about his heart being buried in her grave. Stuff and nonsense! Just as if a boy of twenty knows where his heart is. Needn’t tell me. He’ll come to his senses after he’s been home a spell, and that reminds me that I must send the carriage for him. Here, Ruth,” he continued, as he saw a servant passing in the hall, “tell Joe not to put out the horses, or if he has, to harness up again. Richard is coming home, and he must meet him at the station.”

Ruth departed with the message and the Judge again took up the letter in which a child had been offered for his adoption. Very closely he scrutinized the handwriting, but it was not a familiar one to him. He had never seen it before, and, tearing the paper in pieces, he scattered them upon the floor.

The storm by this time had partially subsided, and he heard the carriage wheels grinding into the gravel as Joe 14drove from the house. Half an hour went by, and then the carriage returned again; but Richard was not in it, and the father sat down alone to the supper kept in waiting for his son. It was a peculiarity of the Judge to retire precisely at nine o’clock; neither friend nor foe could keep him up beyond that hour, he said; and on this evening, as on all others, the lights disappeared from his room just as the nine o’clock bell was heard in the distance. But the Judge was nervous to-night. The thunder which at intervals continued to roar, made him restless, and ten o’clock found him even more wakeful than he had been an hour before.

“What the plague ails me?” he exclaimed, tossing uneasily from side to side, “and what the deuce can that be? Rachel’s baby as I live! What is she doing with it here? If there’s anything I detest, it is a baby’s squall. Just hear that, will you?” and raising himself upon his elbow he listened intently to what was indisputably an infant wail, rising even above the storm, for it had commenced raining again, and the thunder at times was fearfully loud.

“Screech away,” said the Judge, as a cry, sharper and more prolonged, fell upon his ear; “screech away till you split your throat; but I’ll know why a Christian man, who hates children, must be driven distracted in his own house,” and stepping into the hall, he called out, at the top of his voice, “Ho, Rachel!” but no Rachel made her appearance; and a little further investigation sufficed to 15show that she had retired to the little cottage in the back yard, which, in accordance with a Southern custom, the Judge, who was a Virginian, had built for herself and her husband. Rachel was also a native of Virginia, but for many years she had lived at Beechwood, where she was now the presiding genius,—and the one servant whom the Judge trusted above all others. But she had one great fault, at which her master chafed terribly; she had nearly as many children as the fabled woman who lived in a shoe. Indeed there seemed to be no end to the little darkies who daily sunned themselves upon the velvety sward in front of their cabin door, and were nightly stowed

away in the three wide trundle-beds, which Rachel brought forth from unheard-of hiding-places, and made up near her own. If there was one thing in the world more than another which the Judge professed to hate, it was children, and when Rachel innocently asked him to name her twelfth, he answered wrathfully:

“A dozen,—the old Harry!—call it Finis,—and let it be so,—do you hear?”

“Yes, marster,” was the submissive answer, and so Finis, or Finn, for short, was the name given to the child, which the Judge fancied was so disturbing him, as, leaning over the banister, he called aloud to Rachel, “to stop that noise, and carry Finn back where he belonged.”

“She has carried him back, I do believe,” he said to himself, as he heard how still it was below, and retiring 16to his room, he tried again to sleep, succeeding so far as to fall away into a doze, from which he was aroused by a thunder-crash, which shook the massive building to its foundation, and wrung from the watch-dog, Tiger, who kept guard without, a deafening yell.

But to neither of these sounds did the Judge pay the least attention, for, mingled with them, and continuing after both had died away, was that same infant wail, tuned now to a higher, shriller note, as if the little creature were suffering from fear or bodily pain.

“Might as well try to sleep in bedlam!” exclaimed the exasperated Judge, stepping from his bed a second time, and commencing to dress himself, while his nervousness and irritability increased in proportion as the cries grew louder and more alarming.

Striking a light and frowning wrathfully at the sour, tired-looking visage reflected by the mirror, he descended the stairs and entered the kitchen, where everything was in perfect order, even to the kindlings laid upon the hearth for the morning fire. The cries, too, were fainter there and could scarcely be heard at all, but as he retraced his steps and came again into the lower hall, he heard them distinctly, and also Tiger’s howl. Guided by the sound, he kept on his way until he reached the front door, when a thought flashed upon him which rendered him for an instant powerless to act. What if that Maine woman, tired of waiting for an answer to her letter, had 17taken some other way of accomplishing her purpose? What if he should find a baby on his steps! “But I sha’n’t,” he said, decidedly; “I won’t, and if I do, I’ll kick it into the street, or something,” and emboldened by this resolution he unlocked the door, and shading the lamp with his hand, peered cautiously out into the darkness.

With a cry of delight Tiger sprang forward, nearly upsetting his master, who staggered back a pace or two, and then, recovering himself, advanced again toward the open door.

“There’s nothing here,” he said, thrusting his head out into the rain, which was dropping fast through the thick vine leaves which overhung the lattice of the portico.

As if to disprove this assertion, the heavens for an instant blazed with light, and showed him where a small white object lay in a willow basket beneath the seat built on either side of the door. He knew it was not Finn, for the tiny fingers which grasped the basket edge were white and pure as wax, while the little dimples about the joints involuntarily carried him back to a time when just such a baby hand as this had patted his bearded cheek or pulled his long black hair. Perhaps it was the remembrance of that hand, now cold in death, which prompted him to a nearer survey of the contents of the basket, and setting down his lamp, he stooped to draw it forth, while Tiger stood by trembling with joy that his vigils were ended, and that human aid had come at last to the helpless creature 18he had guarded with the faithfulness peculiar to his race.

It was a fair, round face which met the judge’s view as he removed the flannel blanket, and the bright, pretty eyes which looked up into his were full of tears. But the Judge hardened his heart, and though he did not kick the baby into the rain, he felt strongly tempted so to do, and glancing toward the cornfield not far away, where he fancied the mother might be watching the result, he screamed:

“Come here, you madame, and take the brat away, for I sha’n’t touch it, you may depend upon that.”

Having thus relieved his mind, he was about to re-enter the house, when, as if divining his intention, Tiger planted his huge form in the doorway, and effectually kept him back.

“Be quiet, Tiger, be quiet,” said the Judge, stroking his shaggy mane; but Tiger refused to move, until at last, as if seized by a sudden instinct, he darted toward the basket, which he took in his mouth, and carried into the hall.

“It sha’n’t be said a brute is more humane than myself,” thought the Judge, and leaving the dog and the baby together, he stalked across the yard, and, pounding on Rachel’s door, bade her come to the house at once.

But a few moments elapsed ere Rachel stood in the hall, her eyes protruding like harvest apples when she 19saw the basket and the baby it contained. The twelve young Van Brunts sleeping in their three trundle-beds, had enlarged her motherly heart, just as the Judge’s lonely condition had shrivelled his, and kneeling down she took the wee thing in her arms, called it a “little honey,” and then, woman-like, examined its dress, which was of the finest material, and trimmed with costly lace.

“It’s none of your low-flung truck,” she said. “The edgin’ on its slip cost a heap, and its petticoats is all worked with floss.”

“Petticoats be hanged!” roared the Judge. “Who cares for worked petticoats? The question is, what are we to do with it?”

“Do with it?” repeated Rachel, hugging it closer to her bosom. “Keep it, in course. ’Pears like it seems mighty nigh to me,” and she gave it another squeeze, this time uttering a faint outcry, for a sharp point of something had penetrated through the thin folds of her gingham dress. “Thar’s somethin’ fastened to ’t,” she said, and removing the blanket, she saw a bit of paper pinned to the infant’s waist. “This may ’splain the matter,” she continued, passing it to the Judge, who read, in the same handwriting of the letter: “God prosper you, Judge Howell, in proportion as you are kind to my baby, whom I have called Mildred.”

“Mildred!” repeated the judge, “Mildred be——”

He did not finish the sentence, for he seemed to hear 20far back in the past a voice much like his own, saying aloud:

“I, Jacob, take thee, Mildred, to be my wedded wife.”

The Mildred taken then in that shadowy old church had been for years a loving, faithful wife, and another Mildred, too, with starry eyes and nut-brown hair had flitted through his halls, calling him her father. The Maine woman must surely have known of this when she gave her offspring the only name in the world which could possibly have touched the Judge’s heart. With a perplexed expression upon his face, he stood rubbing his hands together, while Rachel launched forth into a stream of baby-talk, like that with which she was wont to edify her twelve young blackbirds.

“For Heaven’s sake, stop that! You fairly turn my stomach,” said the Judge, as she added the finishing touch by calling the child “a pessus ’ittle darlin’ dumplin’!” “You women are precious big fools with babies!”

“Wasn’t Miss Milly just as silly as any on us?” asked Rachel, who knew his weak point; “and if she was here to-night, instead of over Jordan, don’t you believe she’d take the little critter as her own?”

“That’s nothing to do with it,” returned the Judge. “The question is, how shall we dispose of it—to-night, I mean, for in the morning I shall see about its being taken to the poor-house.”

“The poor-house!” repeated Rachel. “Ain’t it writ 21on that paper, ‘The Lord sarve you and yourn as you sarve her and hern’? Thar’s a warnin’ in that which I shall mind ef you don’t. The baby ain’t a-goin’ to the poor-house. I’ll take it myself first. A hen don’t scratch no harder for thirteen than she does for twelve, and though Joe ain’t no kind o’ count, I can manage somehow. Shall I consider it mine?”

“Yes, till morning,” answered the Judge, who really had no definite idea as to what he intended doing with the helpless creature thus forced upon him against his will.

He abhorred children,—he would not for anything have one abiding in his house, and especially this one of so doubtful parentage; still he was not quite inclined to cast it off, and he wished there was some one with whom to advise. Then, as he remembered the expected coming of his son, he thought, “Richard will tell me what to do!” and feeling somewhat relieved he returned to his chamber, while Rachel hurried off to her cabin, where, in a few words, she explained the matter to Joe, who, being naturally of a lazy temperament, was altogether too sleepy to manifest emotion of any kind, and was soon snoring as loudly as ever.

In his rude pine cradle little Finn was sleeping, and once Rachel thought to lay the stranger baby with him; but proud as she was of her color and of her youngest born, too, she felt that there was a dividing line over 22which she must not pass, so Finn was finally removed to the pillow of his sire, the cradle re-arranged, and the baby carefully lain to rest.

Meantime, on his bedstead of rosewood, Judge Howell tried again to sleep, but all in vain were his attempts to woo the wayward goddess, and he lay awake until the moon, struggling through the broken clouds, shone upon the floor. Then, in the distance, he heard the whistle of the night express, and knew it was past midnight.

“I wish that Maine woman had been drowned in Passamaquoddy Bay!” said he, rolling his pillow into a ball and beating it with his fist. “Yes, I do, for I’ll be hanged if I want to be bothered this way! Hark! I do believe she’s prowling round the house yet,” he continued, as he thought he caught the sound of a footstep upon the gravelled walk.

He was not mistaken in the sound, and he was about getting up for the third and, as he swore to himself, the last time, when a loud ring of the bell, and a well-known voice, calling: “Father! father! let me in,” told him that not the Maine woman, but his son Richard, had come. Hastening down the stairs, he unlocked the door, and Richard Howell stepped into the hall, his boots bespattered with mud, his clothes wet with the heavy rain, and his face looking haggard and pale by the dim light of the lamp his father carried in his hand.

23“Why, Dick!” exclaimed the Judge, “what ails you? You are as white as a ghost.”

“I am tired and sick,” was Richard’s reply. “I’ve scarcely slept for several weeks.”

“Been watching with Hetty, I dare say,” thought the Judge; but he merely said: “Why didn’t you come at seven, as you wrote you would?”

“I couldn’t conveniently,” Richard replied: “and, as I was anxious to get here as soon as possible, I took the night express, and have walked from the depot. But what is that?” he continued, as he entered the sitting-room, and saw the willow basket standing near the door.