Tales and Sketches.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 52, 20 January 1872, Page 16

Tales and Sketches.

MRS HADDEN’S HISTORY. [From Alt the Year* Round.] IN FOUR CHAPTERS. —CHAPTER I. The blow fell upon me very heavily and one-and-t™*, »» of an English gentleman of good family, who had settled in New York before ray birth and died when I was si* years old, leaving my mother, Margaret, and me utterly penniless. Fortune’s father had left us a legacy of five thousand dollars apiece, and left Fortune herself to be brought up by my mother. She, Fortune I mean, was heiress to two hundred thousand dollars, while I had not a cent but what her futher had given me. It 1 e J er asked her to marry me it would be on the score of. my good birth, and the great, grea love I felt for her. , My mother is very small and timid, with a quiet voice that rarely rises above a whisper ; the prettiest woman I ever saw, but with no spirit at all, and only eighteen years older than me. We tyranised.over her when we were children, anditwasonly aslgrew into manhood that I be®an to feel a very sweet and pleasant feeling of reverence mingled with the true love 1 had always borne for her. Margaret and Fortune loved her well, I know, though we had all been accustomed to lake our own way without much reference to her. « George,’ she said one day, c you remember your father?’ ~ , . , T . ‘ Remember him ! I should think I did. A* fine, handsome, thorough English gentleman, as different to the Yankees about him as a grandee of Spain would be different to a troop of Irish Paddieß.’ . . ‘ His name was George, too, she said, Bighing. ‘ Do you want to tell me anything about my father?'’ I asked, for I knew her well enough to be sure that she was trembling all over with something she ought to say. ‘Yes,’ sho said bursting into tears ; I promised Mr Prescott to tell you when you came of age.’ This is what she had to tell me : , My father was the eldest son and heir of George Haddan, of Haddau Lodge, Essex, England. My grandfather had been married twice, and had two sons, half-brothers. As far as my mother knew, the estate, consisting of property in London, was worth about twelve thousand pounds a year. His second wife, either intentionally or otherwise, had kept up a nerpetual irritation between them, ending in a gradually-growing distrust, which, however, could not completely destroy the very strong, almost romatic, affection that existed, in spite of all adverse influence, but which was open on both sides, to extreme jealousy and impatience. ‘ George,’ said my mother, blushing crimson, ‘ I was not a grand lady ; I was not a la i y at all. I was nothing but the neice of Mrs Haddan’s maid.’ I knelt down before her, and put. my arms round her neck. Whatever she had been, she was my mother. ‘ Aunt Becket,’ she whispered, ‘ hated me. She only kept me near her to flout at me and make me miserable. I was only a very young creature ; and Mr George saw me, and fell in love witn me.’ . . ‘ And married you.’ I added kissing her dear face. ‘ Yes, yes,’ she said, hurridly, and with fresh tears ; ‘ but ho never dare tell his father he d fallen in love with Becket’s niece. She threatened to kill me when she only suspected it, and she almost frightened n?e to death. Then Mr George ran away with mo to London ; only he went home at once, and made believe to know nothing about it, and stayed there nigh upon two months, till he got his father s leave to travel for a year or two. Then he came very early one morning, and look me away to a church, where we were married without any carriages, or wedding clothes, or bridesmaids.’ I laughed, for she spoke regretfully still, though it was so long ago. All girls love finery, if they are good for anything. ‘ Don’t laugh, George,’ she sobbed ; if only had bridesmaids and carriages you’d have been George Haddan, of Haddan Lodge by this-time. You see I never knew where I was, it all being so quiet and early in the morning, and we starting off at once for Liverpool. Your father asked for a certificate, and got it; but he never showed it me, and I never thought of asking him. We came here, dear, and here we stopped.’ She seemed reluctant to go on now she had 1 brought her history to New York, and I had to coax her to continue it. , ‘Then don’t interrupt me again, George, < she said, almost peevishly. ‘ I am. going to , tell you straight on now, thought it is very disagreeable, and I never would if I bad not j promised Fortune’s father when he said he’d leave us a legacv each. We were very happy, young Mr Haddau and me especially after you < were born. He never gave me a cross word, and I tried my best to be a good wife to him. < But lie kept hankering after his father and his own place, and he’d have gone back, only he f did not dare to tell about me and you children. ' Then there came news of his brother, Mr James, making a very good match with an | heiress ; and old Mr Haddan wrote, threatening to cut off Mr George if he ever married 1 an American woman, which he swore very < solemnlv he never would do in a letter to bis | father.’ ( My mother came to a full stop here, without 1 any interruption from me, and her low voice j fell into a yet lower key when she spoke again. ‘ He put off going home to see his father till i be could not go at all. I was no more than ■ twenty-three when he died, and more like a baby myself than a mother of a boy like you. i I don’t wonder be never consulted me, but be

never consulted anybody else. He wrote to ! his father, telling him everything, and putting his will and our marriage certificate into his letter. He bad six thousand pounds of his own to leave, which bad been hu nothM', and that be left to me. He asked his father to forgive him, and provide for you children, if be did not make you bis heir, for old Mr Haddan could leave his estates as be pleased. He sent all these papers by the mail, just like an ordinary letter, and they were lost. ‘ Lost!’ I exclaimed. ‘ Lost!’ slie repeated, mornfully ; every one of them lost; but your father never knew it. He died quite at peace about us ; and the very next day the mail from home came in, and brought the news that his father was dsad. The letters had crossed on the sea, and neither of them knew that the other was gone. I was very glad of that, my boy. She stopped to cry again for some minutes, while I waited in impatience, but I dared not hurry her. She was very nervous, and the least symptom of annoyance frightened her. ‘ The letter was from Mr Newill, the family lawyer, and he said all the landed estates were left to Mr George, and he was to go home directly. I went directly to Mr Prescott, and he took the business off my hands. He wrote immediately to England, but of course we knew we should have to wait a little lor an answer. Then three or four mails came in with nothing for us, and he wrote again telling about vour father’s long letter, and the will, and certificate. There came after that a short sharp note from Mr Newill, denying thut George Haddan had ever been married, and asking for proofs. I hadn’t any proof except my wedding ring, which has never been off my finder ; but Mr Prescott said that would go for nothing. Then I wrote to Aunt Becket myself, and she answered, saying shameful things, and bidding me never show my face in England again. Hush, George!. Don t interrupt me. Mr Newill wrote again,‘saying Mr James was willing to settle a thousand pounds apiece on us, considering that you were Mr George’s children, on condition that we never troubled him again.’ ‘ Did you agree to it ?’ I asked, eagerly. ‘Mr Prescott would not,’ she answered. ‘ Sometimes he talked of taking me over to London to see if I could find the church where we were married, but the time never came. He made every inquiry about the mail, and nothing had happened to it. The letter ought to have reached Haddan Lodge, as it was directed. I know it was directed right, for I saw it lying on your father’s desk. Mr Pres cott said they must have got the letter all ' right, and he made me promise to tell you all about it some day. If he hadn’t I never would. George he wanted me to be his wife.’ She blushed again like a young girl, and turned her head away. ‘ You could not do that mother,’ I said. ‘No, George, no,’ she answered ; ‘ not after . being the wife of young Mr Haddan. But he \ was very kind and good, and left us all a legacy equal to to the settlement he had refused ( for us, and said Fortune was to be brought up j with you two, to show that he did not believe , any harm of me. That is all I have to tell | you.’ _ | It was enough to astonish and overwhelm me. If this were true, instead of being poor George Haddan, with no more than five thousand dollars in my possession, I was at this moment the rightful owner of twelve thousand pounds a year, with the accumulations of a long minority. But if not true, what, had I to offer Fortune? As it was, until I had established my claim I had nothing but a doubtful name. My mother said she had been afraid I should be unsettled. Unsettled! I should think I wa9. I went to look for Fortune, and hunted about for her till I found her in our old schoolroom, busy about some woman’s work. Then and there I repeated to her everything I had just heard. >

I am Fortune mentioned above. I shall tell the rest of Mrs Haddan’s history, for George makes a great trouble of writing. Nobody could ever make me believe those documents were lost. Destroyed they might be, but not lost. A packet of that size, containing ing very valuable papers, which were, however, of no value except to the Haddan family, could not have been lost by mail, the unless some special accident had befallen all mail-bags. To mail such a packet in the ordinary way was precisely such a thing as man, and man alone, could have been guilty of, especially so many years back, when the service between New York and London was not what it is now. But a will, a marriage certificate, and a lor.g letter would make a noticeable parcel. Don fc tell me it was lost.

What must we do ? Why, start for England by the very first steamer after my birthday. If 1 had only been one-and- twenty fifteen years ago I should have done it then, and traced that packet from the post-office to the hands that opened it. The search would be more difficult now, but it must be made. We must first discover, as quietly as we could, the church where Mrs Haddan was married. We must go quietly to work, and make sure of that first.

We were all very fond of Mrs Haddan, but she was one of the meekest of women —the very feeblest reed of a women I ever knew. To think of her small body and soul having guarded such a secret as this from us all these years drove me nearly frantic. She was very little, with a low, plaintive vo’ice and frightened manner. Her face was small, with a pretty complexion and large, brown, forlorn eyes, glistening with, tears as readily at a spot on her new bonnet strings as at the death of a friend. It was very difficult to move her, for she was one of those creatures that root deeply, take and are as hard to pluck up as tangle-grass. She told us weeping‘that her Aunt Beoket had warned her never to show her face in England again ; and she assured us over and over again, with great solemnity, that she could not recog-

nise the church where she had been married, and she did not remember in the least which part of London it was in. Perhaps it had been a chapel she suggested, and what should we do then? I knew better. I felt certain that any woman with a grain of sense, and with eyes in her head, would tell the place where she was married when see saw it again. But there—Mrs Haddan had been nothing but an English baby of seventeen instead of an intelligent American woman of that age. I say nothing about our voyage. Mrs Haddan, as might have been expected of a woman with positively no strength of mind, was very sick all the way, and wept and moaned during every interval when she could weep and moan. Margaret waited upon her mother while George and I walked miles and miles of the deck, planning what we should do. What we did upon landing was to go straight on by express to London. It was night when we reached it; and even I could not expect Mrs Haddan to recognise our church in the dark. But the next° day, and for many days following, we hired a carriage and drove up and down the streets, till we were nearly crazy. This was how we went on: at the outside view of any church, or of hny building at all approaching an ecclesiastical stylo of architecture, Mrs Haddan would ask faintly that the carriage might be drawn up in front of it. Then she leaned through the window, with her veil drooping all on one side, to take a close survey of it. Unless George discovered that it was not a church, her survey invariably ended in her supposing that perhaps that ! might be the very place. After experiencing oreat difficulties in getting the keys, and when once we were inside the church, Mrs Hadden clasped George’s arm with both hands, and paced modestly up the middle aisle to the altar. There she stood for a minute or two with’downcast eyes and blushing face, as if waiting for the voice of the priest, and then she would look up to him in tears : ‘ George, dear,’ she murmured, Ido believe I think I have a sensation that this is the VC George and a rushed to the vestry, and if the registers for twenty-two years back were still there, we searched eagerly through the year of her marriage 5 but all to no avail. Ones we came to a church in course of demolition—a new street coming that way. The roof was half off, and the pews and pulpit gone. She felt the same sensation there, and I gave it up. ... < Perhaps, my dear,’ she said, when we returned to the carriage. ‘it may have been a chapel Young Mr Haddan was a very peculiar man ; and his mother’s relations were some of them Dissenters. , . We answered nothing, but drove back to the llbtel, where she went to bed with a nervous headache. < George,’ I said, as soon as we were alone, ‘this is°of no use at all. Mrs Haddan will never know the place. We must try something else.’ ... . ‘What else, Fortune? he asked despond-

1 ‘Let us talk it over quietly,’ I said ;* my I dear George, vou fell quite persuaded in your j own mind that your father did marry your mother ?’ .... ... The blood rushed up into his face, and Ins teeth fastened sharply into his under lip. I do not know what he was going to say, for I stopped him by putting mv arm round his neck, as I had done hundreds of times when we were children ; though I had quite left it off of late. , . {T , ‘ Hush, George,’ I whispered in bis ear. It was only Fortune that said it, but there will be scores of people to ask the same question. You will always bo the same. Don t be angry with me .’ . < Jjq answered, in a smothered voice, ‘no Fortune ; but if any man said it ’ George clenched his fists, and struck his own knee “with it savagely, in a manner which startled mo. ...... ‘ George,’ I said, ‘ depend upon it if the certificate is destroyed the register js destroyed, Would anybody in their senses imagine that your mother would not know where she was m£^ ? suppose not,’ he answered, more despondently than before. ‘ They are rich, and you are poor, 1 said, looking steadily into his face ; you will be very poor if we fail.’ • I am a man,’ he replied, lifting up his head ■with new energy, ‘ I can make my own way. It is not that.’ • ... I knew what it was'well enough. At least I fancied I knew what it was. Yet when I came to think of it I could not be so sure, I never felt so strangely in my whole life, never. Instead of reading his heart like an open book it was all closed against me: ‘ You will be always the same to me, 1 said, falteringly. . He sighed, and leaving his seat beside me, he wandered restlessly to the window, and looked out into the street below with a cloudy face. I watched him with the full light upon his features, revealing every change of expression, yet I could not make out what he was thinking about. . T ‘ I’ll spend every cent of my money before 1 give it up,’ he said. ‘ And mine,’ I added. , T His face changed, but be shook lus head. I kept Bilence for a minute or two, dreading to say what I had to say j but it had to be done. ‘Come back, George,’ I said, and stand opposite to me, just so.’ He did as I bade him, and stood looking down upon me with troubled eyes. ‘Now,’ I said, putting up my hands to my cheeks, which, were burning, ‘ will you answer me a simple question frankly, yes or no. * To be sure, Fortune,’ he replied. ‘ Well, then,’ I went on, speaking very fast, ‘ perhaps I am only a vain, conceited girl, but I have fancied sometimes you cared more for me than a sister. Do you ?’ < Yes/ he answered. •

l, ‘ Then how foolish we both are,’ I said, be* h tween laughing and crying ; ‘we have only to d get married, and then you will have plenty of d money to set about establishing your rights, n ‘ No, n6,’ ansvierid George, and putting both I his arms round me in a very agreeable way, e * that would never do. Suppose we fail alto* • gether. No : when I am George Haddan, of t Haddan Lodge, then I will ask you to be my ■ wife, but never before. I have nothing to offer you till then.’ 9 * And then I won’t have you,’ I said, draw--1 ing his arms closer round me —‘ I won’t indeed, > George. lam just going to take a solemn vow.* 1 There is no need to Bay what we talked of 1 for the next hour, but when we were through 5 with that subject, which continued to turn up . again at all sort of odd moments, we turned 1 back to our original discussion. ! Among my father’s letters we had found a ! very kind one from Mr Newill, the family ' lawyer, written privately to my father about ! Mrs Haddau and her children. Though he > did not in any way acknowledge the marriage, * lie said as George Haddan’s elieif friend, he was deeply interested in his children, and he ! urged my father to accept some provision from !■ him for them. We determined to see this man, acting with profound caution, and if we 1 found him to be anything like his letter, to tell him our whole story unreservedly. We ' took Mrs Haddan with us, and obtained a private-interview with him. He was particu* larly struck with George’s likeness to his father and in five minutes Mrs Haddan was giving him a tearful account of her runaway marriage with young Mr Haddan, and of her utter ignorance of the place. I could see that Mr Newill did not place implicit reliance upon her statements. ‘ You are the neice of Mrs Haddan s maid, whose name was Becket ?’ be observed. ‘ Yes, sir,’ she answered sobbing. ‘ Then she must have left her service before old Mrs Haddan’s death,’ he said. ‘I saw the. maid several times just then, and her name was certainly not Becket. ‘ Aunt Becket wrote to mo from Haddan Lodge,’ she answered, ‘and the letter came by the same mail as youi’3 for Mr Prescott. It was such a dreadful letter that I burnt it, for fear of anybody ever seeing it.’ ‘ And you have no proofs ?’ he said. ‘ Nothing except my ring,’ she replied, pulling off her glove, and showing him a very thin, worn circle of gold embedded in her finger. George took her hand in his, and kissed it tenderly, and I felt the tears come even into my eyes. _ ‘ Who would recoive that packet tor old Mr Haddan, and open it after liis death ?’ I asked, going direct to the point they all seemed to avoid. Mr Newill turned and fixed a very sharp pair of eyes upon me. ‘Either his wife or son, he answered, shortly. „„ _ , . ‘ His wife was only Mr George s stepmother,’ I said, * and her son was the next heir.’ Mr Newill was silent a minute or two. _ ‘lf I could think what you are thinking,’ lie said, ‘ there would be no mystery about it though it would be no easier to prove that than the other. But I don’t tlnnk it. Mr James was an honorable than, and his mother a thorough lady.’ ‘ But there were twelve thousand pounds a year to lose,’ I observed. Mr Newill looked at me. a second time sharply, and I returned his gaze steadily. Why should any man daunt me ? * Let us hear your opinion, young lady, he 8ai ‘ d f am Fortune Prescott,’ I answered, stung a little by his manner, ‘ and my opinion is this. The packet reached Haddan Lodge safely. It fell of course, into the bauds of Mr James, or old Mrs Haddan. In either case the temptation would be the same. Mr George Haddan s marriage had been so well kept a secret, _ that nobody had suspected it. He had married a very young girl—a dependantof the house with no friends to look after her. Here was the certificate of the marriage ; and, at any rate, it would be quite safe to wait and see what other proofs could be produced. Whoever had the packet waited, and in time my father’s letter followed it. You saw that letter ?’ ‘ Yes,’ said Mr Newill; •it was addressed to Mr James, and he brought it at once to me.’ ‘You considered it, of course, an unfounded claim,’ I went on, ‘ and you wrote back demanding proofs. Mr father told you what Mr George Haddan had done, and that no other proofs were in existence on the other side ot the Atlantic. You offered a provision for Mr George Haddan’s children, which my father and their mother refused. Then fifteen years passed on, and everybody believed the matter done with.’ . ~ .. ‘We did. I had forgotten it almost, said Mr Newill. ~. _ .. •, , T ‘ But it is not done with, I continued ; 1 am a rich woman, and if George gives it up, I never will while there is a chance. The only question in my mind is whether the documents ivere destroyed. The safest way would be to destroy them at once ; and if so they would try to get possession of the original register. Could there be any motive for preserving them ?’ . r Mr Newill lost himself m thought for a few minutes, after which he looked first at George, whose face was intensely anxious, and then a me. I was regarding him dauntlessly, and he smiled when his eye met mine. * «I must speak to you alone, he said, leading the way into an inner room.