Mrs. Yocomb

“ As if controlled and carried forward by a hidden and malign power, she goes steadily against her surrounding influences that, like the winds of heaven, might have wafted her toward all that is good and true. Is not sweet, quaint Mrs. Yocomb her mother? Is not the genial, hearty old gentleman her father? Has she not developed among scenes that should ennoble her nature, and enrich her mind with ideality? ”

“ Yocomb no end of trouble. Did you not tell me, sir (to our host) , that on one occasion you had to hunt some one up with fish-horns, lanterns, etc.?"
"Yes, and he was from New York, too," said Mr. Yocomb.
"If I get lost, leave me to my fate. There will be one editor the less."
"Very true; but I'd rather have thee on thy paper than on my conscience. So Emily Warren, thee look after him, and show him the right and proper ways, for I am now too old to enjoy a night hunt, even with the music of fish-horns to cheer us on. I ask thee, Emily, for some of thine instead when thee comes back." ”

“ Yocomb now."
"Please do not. I never felt better in my life. You are doing me good every moment, and it's so desperately stupid lying helplessly here."
"Well, I suppose I must humor you a few moments longer," she laughed. "People, when ill, are so arbitrary. By the way, your editorial friends must think a great deal of you, or else you are valuable to them, for your chief writes to Mr. Yocomb every day about you; so do some others; and they've sent enough fruit and delicacies to be the death of an ostrich." ”

“ I believe thee can live, and grow strong and good and noble, if thee will."
"Oh, Mrs. Yocomb, how you must despise me! If you but knew how I loathe myself."
"No, I'm sorry for thee from the depths of my heart. If thee's doing thy best, I've not a word to say; but thee should know the truth. As Emily said, thee has the power either to embitter her life or to add very much to its happiness."
"Well," I said, "if I have not the strength to overcome this unmanly, contemptible weakness, I ought to die, and the sooner the better. If I'm worth life, I shall live." ”

“ I thought bitterly, "life might have brought her a heavier cross than marrying a handsome millionaire, even though considerably her senior. I'm probably a conceited fool for thinking it any very great burden at all. But how, then, can I account—? Well, well, time alone can unravel this snarl. One thing is certain: she will do nothing that she does not believe right; and after what Mrs. Yocomb said I would not dare to wish her to do wrong." ”

“ It is more probable that her feelings toward you are those of gratitude only and of deep sympathy. She is under the impression that you saved her life, and that she has unwittingly blighted yours; and, as Mrs. Yocomb said, she is so kind-hearted, so sensitive, that the thought shadows her life and robs it of zest and happiness. You cannot know that she is learning to return your love in spite of herself, simply because she is pale and somewhat sad. She would think herself, as she said, inhuman if she were happy and serene. ”

“ Ah, Richard, there are some things in life that thee hasn't learned yet, and all the books couldn't teach thee; but what I have said to thee reveals a little of my love for this old home. How I love those whom God has given me, only He knows. Well, He directed thy random steps to us one day last June, and we welcomed thee as a stranger. But thee has a different welcome to-day, Richard—a very different welcome. Thee doesn't like to hear about it; but we never forget."
"No, Richard, we never forget," Mrs. Yocomb breathed softly. ”

“ Morton," said Miss Warren, coming again to the window and laughing at my crimson face and embarrassment, "you must face that truth—there's no escaping it. Forgive me, Mr. Yocomb, for laughing over so serious a subject, but Reuben and Mr. Morton amuse me greatly. Mr. Morton already says that any tramp from New York would have done the same. By easy transition he will soon begin to insist that it was some other tramp. I now understand evolution."
"Emily Warren, thee needn't laugh at Richard Morton," said Reuben a little indignantly; "thee owes more to him than to any other man living." ”

“ Is there a more impoverished creature in the world? There is nothing left to me but bare existence and hateful memories. Oh, the lightning was dim compared with the vividness with which I've seen it all since that hateful moment last night, when the truth became evident even to Adah Yocomb. But up to that moment, even up to this hour, I hoped you pitied me—that you were watching and waiting to help me to be true and not to be false. I did not blame you greatly for your love—my own weakness made me lenient—and at first you did not know. ”

“ Yocomb," I said at last, "it must be you who creates this atmosphere of perfect peace and restfulness. The past is forgotten, the future a blank, and I see only your serene face. A subdued light seems to come from it, as from the shaded lamp."
"Thee is weak and fanciful, Richard. The doctor said thee must be quiet."
"I wish it were possible to obey the doctor forever, and that this exquisite rest and oblivion could last, I am like a ship becalmed on a summer sea in a summer night. Mind and body are both motionless." ”

“ Charles Jacomb's assiduous, earnest, uncomplaining labour in that big parish had at the very outset won for him her great regard. He did not understand how he was destroying her childlike faith in him by his saturnine little jokes.
'Mr. Jacomb,' said Nan, timidly, 'I should be so greatly obliged to you if you could find out something more for me about those sisterhoods. They must do a great deal of good. And their dress is such a protection; they can go anywhere without fear of rudeness or insult. ”

“ Miss Moy, the Captain and his friend, talked horses at one end of the table, and Rosamond faltered her woman’s horror for the rights of her sex, increased by this supposed instance.
When the ladies rose at dessert, Mrs. Duncombe summoned him: “Come, Rector!—come, Professor! you’re not to sit over your wine.”
“We rise so far above the ordinary level of manhood!” said Julius, obediently rising.
“Once for all, Mr. Charnock,” said Mrs. Duncombe, turning on him with flashing eyes and her Elizabethan majesty, “if you come prepared to scoff, we can have nothing to do with you.” ”

“ Tallboys would not change with you, Gussie,” said Captain Duncombe. “I’d back her any day—”
“What odds will you take, Captain—”
But Mrs. Duncombe broke in. “Bless me, if there aren’t those little dogs of mine! Lena Vivian does spoil them. Send them home, for pity’s sake, Bob.”
“Poor little kids, they are doing no harm.”
“We shall have them tumbling in, and no end of a row! I can’t stand a swarm of children after me, and they are making a perfect victim of Lena. Send them home, Bob, or I shall have to do it.” ”

“ Shall I write to George Gould, or will you, mother?”
“Oh dear,” sighed Caroline, “I think Mr. Wakefield is the fittest person, if it signifies enough to have it done at all.”
“Signifies!” cried Jock. “To have that rascal loafing about! I wouldn’t be trampled upon while the life is in me!”
“I don’t like worrying Mr. Gould. It is not his fault, except for having married such a wife, poor man.”
“Having been married by her, you mean,” said Bobus. “Mark me, she means to get that fellow married to that poor child, as sure as fate.”
“Impossible, Bobus! His age!” ”

“ Before he left the room, however, Lady Oglethorpe took care to present to him his god-daughter, Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford, and very low was the girl’s obeisance before him, but with far more fright and shyness than before the sweet-faced Queen.
“Oh ay!” he said, “I remember honest Will Woodford. He did good service at Southwold. I wish he had left a son like him. Have you a brother, young mistress?”
“No, please your Majesty, I am an only child.”
“More’s the pity,” he said kindly, and with a smile brightening his heavy features. “’Tis too good a breed to die out. You are Catholic?” ”

“ Do you know, I am rather sorry we are not poorer? I hoped we should have to live in a very small way, and that I should have to work like you—for mother.”
“Not like us, for pity’s sake, Infanta!” cried Jock. “We have had enough of that. The great use of you is to look after mother; and keep her from galloping the life out of herself, and this chap from worrying it out of her.”
“Jock!” cried Armine, indignantly. ”

“ Eugene came to her like Ichabod to Phinehas’ wife, and she was soon gone from us,” said Betty, wiping away a tear.
“Leaving us a dear sister to be a mother to us,” said Aurelia, raising her sweet face for a kiss.
Harriet pondered a little, and said, “My Lady is not at enmity with us, since my father keeps the house and agency.”
“We should be reduced to poverty indeed without them,” said Betty; “and Sir Jovian, an upright honourable man, the only person whom my Lady truly respected, insisted on his continuance. ”

“ It required a lively imagination to devise situations for the stalls; but Mrs. Duncombe valiantly tripped about, instructing her attendant carpenter with little assistance except from the well-experienced Miss Strangeways. The other ladies had enough to do in keeping their plumage unsoiled. Lady Tyrrell kept on a little peninsula of encaustic tile, Cecil hopped across bird-like and unsoiled, Miss Slater held her carmelite high and dry, but poor Miss Fuller’s pale blue and drab, trailing at every step, became constantly more blended! ”

“ I picked it out, and the elder one told me it was Ducky Duncombe, or some such word. Its little boots had holes in them, mother; its legs were purple, and there was a fine smart foreign woman flirting round the corner with young Hornblower.”
“Boys with long red hair, and Highland dresses?” exclaimed Rosamond. “Yes, the same we saw with Miss Vivian!”
“Exactly!” said Frank, eagerly. “She is quite a mother to those poor little wretches; they watch for her at the Sirenwood gate, and she walks with them. The boy’s cry was not for mother or nurse, but for Lena!” ”

“ She felt as if he were in the prison and she reproaching him, and cried out—“O sir, forgive me. I forgot; I did not say it on purpose.”
“No, my child, it was Mary speaking by your voice. No, Mary, I shall never come out. It will never be paid.”
She shook with fright as Jumbo touched her, saying, “Missee, go; mas’r bear no more;” but, as she rose to go away, a sweet impulse made her pause and say, “It is paid, He paid. You know Who did—in his own Blood.”
Jumbo drew her away almost by force, and when outside, exclaimed, “Missee never speak of blood or kill to mas’r—he not bear it. ”

“ It's all arranged. How did you think he looked, Edith? I do hope he won't lose that brown colour by not going back to sea; it suits him; I don't like pastey-faced men. Now, Mr. Jacomb isn't pastey-faced, although he is a clergyman. By-the-way, what has become of Nan?'
Nan had been quite forgotten. Perhaps she was dressing early, or looking after the dinner-table; at all events, it was time for the other sisters to go and get ready also.
Punctual to the moment, Captain King arrived at the door, and entered, and went upstairs. ”

“ Duncombe, I did not know you were returned.”
“I came back on the first news of your flare-up,” said the newcomer. “I only came down this morning. I would not have missed this meeting for anything. It is a true woman’s question. A fair muster, I see,” looking round with her eye-glass, and bowing to several on the platform, especially to Raymond, who returned the bow rather stiffly.
“Ah! let me introduce you,” said Lady Tyrrell. “Mrs. Raymond Charnock Poynsett.” ”

“ Mrs. Duncombe and Miss Slater undertook the first start and preliminary arrangements, then each would take her half day in rotation. Lady Tyrrell and her sister undertook two, Cecil two more, and others were found to fill up the vacant space. The chairman moved a vote of thanks to the lady for her suggestion, which she acknowledged by a gracious bow, not without triumph; and the meeting broke up.
Some one asked after Captain Duncombe as she descended into private life. “There’s a wonderful filly that absorbs all his attention. All Wil’sbro’ might burn as long as Dark Hag thrives! ”

“ Kendal was with Maria.
‘Ah! that is kind,’ she said; ‘but he must tell her not to think of me. I am an old woman, good for nothing but to be put out of the way, and she has gone through quite enough! You will not let her give it up! Tell her I have not many more years to live, and anything is good enough for me.’
‘That would hardly comfort her,’ said Albinia, affectionately; ‘but indeed, dear grandmamma, I hope we shall convince her that we can do something to supply her place.’
‘Ah! my dear, you are very kind, but nobody can be like a daughter! ”

“ Poynsett.
“I don’t,” said Frank, boyishly.
“Because you’ve no wife to take you in hand,” retorted Jenny.
“For my part,” said Mrs. Poynsett, “I can’t see what women want. I have always had as many rights as I could exercise.”
“Ah! but we are not all ladies of the manor,” said Jenny, “nor do we all drive coaches.”
“I observe,” said Cecil, with dignity, “that there is supposed to be a license to laugh at Mrs. Duncombe and whatever she does.”
“She would do better to mind her children,” said Frank.
“Children! Has she children?” broke in Anne and Rosamond, both at once. ”

“ Jobson eyed her seriously.
"No, mother, no," he replied. "All I've done is to find out that you're right, as you always 'ave been. A man in my persition has got no right to dress as if he kept a stall on the kerb. It ain't fair to the gals, or to young Bert. I don't want 'em to be ashamed of their father."
"They wouldn't be that," said Mrs. Jobson. ”