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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Ellen Wood's novel, "Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles," is a compelling Victorian era tale that delves into the complexities of marriage, social norms, and personal struggles. Written in a style that is both descriptive and introspective, Wood's narrative unfolds with intricate details and emotional depth. The novel is set against the backdrop of 19th century England, offering readers a glimpse into the societal expectations and constraints of the time. Wood's rich character development and vivid imagery make this a captivating read for fans of Victorian literature. The plot twists and turns, keeping readers engaged until the very end. Ellen Wood's writing is reminiscent of other prominent Victorian authors such as Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, making "Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles" a valuable addition to the genre. Ellen Wood's own experiences as a woman in Victorian society undoubtedly influenced her portrayal of the challenges faced by her female protagonists. Her keen insight into human nature and social dynamics shines through in this thought-provoking novel. I highly recommend "Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles" to readers who enjoy immersive historical fiction with a strong emphasis on character development and social commentary. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles
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Table of Contents
Introduction
At the heart of Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles lies the bracing question of how conscience, thrift, and maternal courage can hold a household together when loss collapses income, status frays at the edges, and the watchful eyes of a close-knit community weigh every choice, pitting the ethics of respectable work against the urgencies of hunger, of children's futures against pride, and of private grief against public judgment in a provincial world where reputation is currency and compassion is never guaranteed. It is a drama of small rooms and large decisions, in which steadfast principle must learn to navigate the daily arithmetic of bread, rent, schooling, and the quiet heroism of hope.
Ellen Wood, widely known as Mrs. Henry Wood, published Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles in the early 1860s, at the height of the Victorian appetite for morally serious domestic fiction. The novel unfolds in a provincial English setting, attentive to parlor, workplace, and church rather than to London's boulevards, and it testifies to Wood's command of everyday stakes rather than sensational excess. Readers who know her through East Lynne will recognize the same steady hand with social nuance and conscience, here directed toward the grinding realities of middle-class decline. The result is a study in domestic resilience framed by the period's exacting codes of respectability.
The premise is disarmingly simple and no less gripping: a sudden bereavement leaves a once-secure family reduced in income, and Mrs. Halliburton assumes the burden of providing for her children. She chooses labor that keeps dignity intact, the kind of painstaking, underpaid work thought proper for a gentlewoman fallen on hard times. Relocation, retrenchment, and a resolve to hold fast to principle set the initial course. From there, Wood traces encounters with employers, shopkeepers, and neighbors, mapping the pressure points where kindness, suspicion, and self-interest meet. The early chapters sketch hardship without melodrama, building momentum from practical obstacles rather than overt scandal.
Wood's narration is clear, compassionate, and quietly didactic, favoring close observation of household economies over gaudy incident. The voice is omniscient but intimate, moving from kitchen table to workplace with an eye for the gestures, sums, and silences that determine a day's outcome. Dialogue is plain-spoken and brisk; authorial asides weigh conduct without vindictiveness. The pacing is steady, with crises emerging from bills due, illnesses feared, and opportunities snatched or lost. Suspense derives less from shocks than from the dawning recognition that each choice recalibrates the family's chances. Readers encounter moral testing as lived experience rather than abstract sermon.
Themes gather patiently and then resonate: the dignity of labor; the ethics of debt and obligation; children's education as a lever against narrowing prospects; the influence of religious conviction on daily duty; and the community's simultaneous capacity for charity and censure. Above all stands maternal steadfastness, rendered not as sentiment but as disciplined endurance. Wood shows how respectability can both shield and constrain, and how small kindnesses—credit extended, lessons offered, doors left ajar—reshape what seems inevitable. The novel asks where integrity ends and pride begins, and how a family can remain whole when the price of survival is constant exposure to judgment.
For contemporary readers, the book's social questions feel strikingly current. It examines economic precarity before the term existed: irregular earnings, bargaining for small advantages, and the mental toll of never quite catching up. It studies single parenthood without rhetoric, emphasizing the care work that structures every hour. It probes the moral surveillance of communities—then exercised at doorsteps and pews, now often diffused through workplaces and networks—and the way such scrutiny shapes choices. It honors mutual aid while acknowledging its limits. By insisting that character matters most when circumstances are least forgiving, Wood offers a humane counterpoint to narratives that mistake fortune for virtue.
Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles endures because it dramatizes the ordinary with uncommon gravity, reminding us that the heroism of keeping faith—financially, morally, affectionately—rarely announces itself with noise. It is a rewarding entry point to Ellen Wood's broader achievement, showing how Victorian domestic realism can generate suspense, critique, and solace without sacrificing clarity. Approached on its own terms, the novel invites slow attention to choices and consequences, to the calibrations of help given and declined, to the textures of hope under pressure. It matters now as a narrative of resilience that neither romanticizes poverty nor reduces character to circumstance.
Synopsis
Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles is a Victorian domestic novel by Ellen Wood (also known as Mrs. Henry Wood), published in the 1860s. It traces the ordeal of a conscientious mother suddenly reduced from modest security to anxious want, and the daily, practical ethics by which she tries to steer her children through it. The narrative moves carefully through household economies, social expectations, and small opportunities, showing how character is tested by circumstance. Without sensationalism, Wood uses the rhythms of provincial life to assemble a quiet but insistent conflict: how to preserve integrity and education in a world where money opens doors and scarcity closes them.
At the outset, a decent but fragile livelihood collapses when Mr. Halliburton’s health declines and income ebbs. His death leaves his widow with little beyond her principles and the responsibility of guiding her children into usefulness. She calculates expenses with severity, removes the family to cheaper rooms, and takes on work that can be done respectably at home, determined to keep them independent of debt and idleness. The tone is sober and practical: the book chronicles prices, hours, and choices, and frames maternal resolve not as sentiment but as labor. Education—moral and intellectual—becomes her chief dowry to the future.
Resettled among neighbors who see everything, the Halliburtons must navigate both pity and prejudice. Offers of charity come laced with conditions; a few friends give quiet help, while others measure worth by display. Mrs. Halliburton structures each day around lessons, stitching, and accounts, setting an example of industry that the children absorb in different ways. Wood sketches the texture of a provincial economy—shops, offices, workshops, and church life—and the informal rules that permit or block advancement. The family’s name, once merely unremarkable, begins to signify thrift and rectitude, though their plainness also provokes small slights that the mother absorbs calmly.
Work arrives first for the eldest, in a humble post that promises more fatigue than pay. The labors are routine and the temptations ordinary—small shortcuts, lax hours, easy company—but they point to a larger decision about what kind of adult he will become. Advancement requires instruction and fees the household can hardly afford; the boy’s diligence encounters the gatekeeping of class and custom. Mrs. Halliburton encourages effort without complaint, stretching resources and seeking lawful means to bridge the gap. The workplace, with its hierarchies and errors, becomes a second schoolroom where patience, accuracy, and trust slowly accumulate value.
Each child’s course complicates the picture. One shows promise in study yet feels the pull of companionship and quick rewards; another’s strength falters under lean living and long hours. Reputation, always precarious for the poor, becomes an invisible ledger to be tended daily. Wood depicts small tests—invitations to cut corners, whispers that exaggerate mistakes, chances to claim more than is due—and shows the mother answering with patient clarity. The emphasis stays on process rather than shock, underlining how narrow the margin can be between acceptance and disgrace, and how a widow’s authority must be continually asserted in a watchful world.
As time passes, the family’s persistence brings them into view of people whose decisions can alter a livelihood. Wood allows change to proceed credibly, through reputation earned, skills proved, and the slow turning of social wheels. Opportunities appear that test the same principles that sustained earlier privations: how to accept help without surrendering judgment, how to balance gratitude with self-respect, how to distinguish fair reward from favor. The town’s memory is long, and recognition arrives in indirect ways rather than through grand gestures. The result is a cautious widening of prospects, consistent with the novel’s emphasis on character over luck.
Without relying on shocks, the closing movement affirms the book’s governing concerns: that steady labor, clean accounts, and uncompromised truth can carve out dignity even within constraining systems. Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles stands as a representative Victorian study of precarious middle-class life, attentive to women’s unpaid and underpaid work, to the ethics of giving and receiving, and to the way education can act as capital. Its restraint keeps the final turns spoiler-safe while sustaining the emotional investment built from daily details. The novel endures for its clear-eyed portrayal of hardship borne without bitterness and for its belief in quiet, cumulative forms of justice.
Historical Context
Published in 1862 by Ellen Wood (widely known as Mrs. Henry Wood), Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles is set in Helstonleigh, a fictional English cathedral town that recurs across her novels. Its world is recognizably mid-Victorian: provincial streets organized around the cathedral close, guild-like trades, and a civic culture attentive to parish boundaries and charity committees. The book entered a marketplace dominated by three-volume novels and circulating libraries such as Mudie’s Select Library, institutions that favored morally edifying domestic narratives. Within this setting, Wood examines family survival, respectability, and duty, using Helstonleigh’s religious and civic institutions to ground private trials in a public moral order.
Mid-nineteenth-century England remained structured by the Church of England’s establishment, especially visible in cathedral towns where chapters, choirs, and church courts gave rhythm to civic life. Alongside Anglican authority, Evangelical revivalism within the Church and the growth of Nonconformist chapels promoted lay philanthropy, Sunday schools, and habits of self-discipline. This religious environment provided a vocabulary of conscience, providence, and duty that Victorian readers immediately recognized. Wood’s narrative draws on that framework, depicting parish visits, sermons, and church-linked charities as social arbiters. The novel’s stress on honesty, sobriety, and perseverance reflects Evangelical moral culture while quietly noting denominational tensions within a plural, devotional public sphere.
Economically, the period saw rapid industrialization, the spread of railways, and the rise of a salaried lower middle class—clerks, shopkeepers, teachers—whose respectability depended on steady wages in volatile markets. Britain’s commercial crisis of 1857 exposed how illness, a failed quarter, or a lost post could push respectable families toward insolvency. Savings banks, friendly societies, and thrift manuals proliferated, urging prudence. Wood situates her characters in this climate of precarious gentility, where household budgeting, punctual bills, and creditworthiness become moral as well as financial matters. The narrative registers the insecurity of middling life, illuminating how economic shocks reverberated through provincial households.
The social safety net most families encountered was the reformed Poor Law of 1834, which centralized relief and made the workhouse the core institution of assistance. Outdoor relief persisted unevenly, but parish aid carried stigma, and workhouses were deliberately austere. At the same time, voluntary philanthropies, visiting societies, and church almoners mediated hardship, often testing applicants’ character. Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help (1859) popularized an ethic of perseverance and self-reliance that resonated across middle-class culture. Wood’s portrayal of dignified poverty and principled resistance to degrading relief reflects these pressures, presenting charitable oversight and personal industry as twin forces shaping survival in a respectable register.
Under common-law coverture, a married woman’s property and earnings were controlled by her husband; reform would not begin until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870. Respectable paid work for middle-class women was narrowly defined, typically confined to teaching, needlework, running small schools, or serving as a governess. Widowhood could bring sudden financial precarity, with limited contractual standing and few protections beyond kin and charity. Victorian advice literature emphasized domestic economy—careful accounts, home industry, and frugality—as moral duties. Wood’s heroine operates within these constraints, illustrating how female labor and management sustained households while exposing the legal and economic vulnerabilities embedded in gendered norms.
Education in the 1840s–1860s combined older grammar and cathedral schools with expanding voluntary provision by the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society. The Ragged School movement offered basic instruction to the poor, while competitive examinations—introduced to parts of the civil service from 1855—promoted a rhetoric of merit alongside patronage. Middle-class families sought placements, apprenticeships, or scholarships that could lift sons into professions. Wood’s focus on diligent study, punctuality, and moral character mirrors Victorian schooling ideals, treating education as both discipline and ladder. The novel situates ambition within established institutions, registering hopes for advancement without presuming universal access.
Illness was a common disruptor of Victorian family fortunes. Before germ theory gained acceptance, treatments were limited and expensive, and chronic diseases such as tuberculosis were widespread. Public health reform gathered momentum with the 1848 Public Health Act and subsequent sanitary measures, yet enforcement varied, especially outside large cities. Charitable dispensaries and subscribers’ hospitals offered relief but often required recommendations. Wood’s narrative reflects these realities: sickness can swiftly destabilize income, and recovery depends on networks, thrift, and local institutions. By tracing the moral claims illness makes on a community, the novel engages contemporary debates about health, responsibility, and organized care.
Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles belongs to a mid-Victorian domestic fiction tradition that ran alongside the era’s “sensation” boom. After East Lynne (1861) made Wood famous, her reputation for moral, accessible storytelling suited circulating-library expectations and family readerships. Critics and reformers alike used such novels to model virtues of thrift, probity, and benevolence without glamorizing vice. Within that consensus, Wood offers a measured critique of complacent prosperity and perfunctory charity, urging practical sympathy and fair dealing in provincial society. The result is a narrative that mirrors its age’s institutions and ideals while probing how quickly respectability can fray—and what communal duties follow.
Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles
PART THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
THE CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER.
In a very populous district of London, somewhat north of Temple Bar[1], there stood, many years ago, a low, ancient church amidst other churches—for you know that London abounds in them. The doors of this church were partially open one dark evening in December, and a faint, glimmering light might be observed inside by the passers-by.
It was known well enough what was going on within, and why the light was there[1q]. The rector was giving away the weekly bread. Years ago a benevolent person had left a certain sum to be spent in twenty weekly loaves, to be given to twenty poor widows at the discretion of the minister. Certain curious provisos were attached to the bequest. One was that the bread should not be less than two days old, and should have been deposited in the church at least twenty-four hours before distribution. Another, that each recipient must attend in person. Failing personal attendance, no matter how unavoidable her absence, she lost the loaf: no friend might receive it for her, neither might it be sent to her. In that case, the minister was enjoined to bestow it upon "any stranger widow who might present herself, even as should seem expedient to him:" the word "stranger" being, of course, used in contra-distinction to the twenty poor widows who were on the books as the charity's recipients. Four times a year, one shilling to each widow was added to the loaf of bread.
A loaf of bread is not very much. To us, sheltered in our abundant homes, it seems as nothing. But, to many a one, toiling and starving in this same city of London, a loaf may be almost the turning-point between death and life. The poor existed in those days as they exist in these: as they always will exist: therefore it was no matter of surprise that a crowd of widow women, most of them aged, all in poverty, should gather round the church doors when the bread was being given out, each hoping that, of the twenty poor widows, some one might fail to appear, and the clerk would come to the door and call out her own particular name as the fortunate substitute. On the days when the shilling was added to the loaf, this waiting and hoping crowd would be increased four-fold.
Thursday was the afternoon for the distribution. And on the day we are now writing about, the rector entered the church at the usual hour: four o'clock. He had to make his way through an unusual number of outsiders; for this was one of the shilling days. He knew them all personally; was familiar with their names and homes; for the Rev. Francis Tait was a hard-working clergyman. And hard-working clergymen were more rare in those days than they are in these.
Of Scottish birth, but chiefly reared in England, he had taken orders at the usual age, and become curate[3] in a London parish, where the work was heavy and the stipend small. Not that the duties attached to the church itself were onerous; but it was a parish filled with poor. Those familiar with such parishes know what this means, when the minister is sympathising and conscientious. For twenty years he remained a curate, toiling in patience, cheerfully hoping. Twenty years! It seems little to write; but to live it is a great deal; and Francis Tait, in spite of his hopefulness, sometimes found it so. Then promotion came. The living of this little church that you now see open was bestowed upon him. A poor living as compared with some others; and a poor parish, speaking of the social condition of its inhabitants. But the living seemed wealth compared with what he had earned as a curate; and as to his flock being chiefly composed of the poor, he had not been accustomed to anything else. Then the Rev. Francis Tait married; and another twenty years went by.
He stood in the church this evening; the loaves resting on the shelf overhead, against the door of the vestry, all near the entrance. A flaring tallow candle[2] stood on the small table between him and the widows who clustered opposite. He was sixty-five years old now; a spare man of middle height, with a clear, pale skin, an intelligent countenance, and a thoughtful, fine grey eye. He had a pleasant word, a kind inquiry for all, as he put the shilling into their hands; the lame old clerk at the same time handing over the loaf of bread.
"Are you all here to-night?" he asked, as the distribution went on.
"No, sir," was the answer from several who spoke at once. "Betty King's away."
"What is the matter with her?"
"The rheumaticks have laid hold on her, sir. She couldn't get here nohow. She's in her bed."
"I must go and see her," said he. "What, are you here again, Martha?" he continued, as a little deformed woman stepped from behind the rest, where she had been hidden. "I am glad to see you."
"Six blessed weeks this day, and I've not been able to come!" exclaimed the woman. "But I'm restored wonderful."
The distribution was approaching its close, when the rector spoke to his clerk. "Call in Eliza Turner."
The clerk placed on the table the four or five remaining loaves, that each woman might help herself during his absence, and went out to the door.
"'Liza Turner, his reverence has called for you."
A sigh of delight from Eliza Turner, and a groan of disappointment from those surrounding her, greeted the clerk in answer. He took no notice—he often heard it—but turned and limped into the church again. Eliza Turner followed; and another woman slipped in after Eliza Turner.
"Now, Widow Booth," cried the clerk, sharply, perceiving the intrusion, "what business have you here? You know it's again the rules."
"I must see his reverence," murmured the woman, pressing on—a meek, half-starved woman; and she pushed her way into the vestry, and told her pitiful tale.
"I'm worse off than Widow Turner," she moaned piteously, not in tones of complaint, but of entreaty. "She has a daughter in service as helps her; but me, I've my poor unfortunate daughter lying in my place weak with fever, sick with hunger! Oh, sir, couldn't you give the bounty this time to me? I've not had a bit or drop in my mouth since morning; and then it was but a taste o' bread and a drain o' tea, that a neighbour give me out o' charity."
It was absolutely necessary to discountenance these personal applications. The rector's rule was, never to give the spare bounty to those who applied for it: otherwise the distribution might have become a weekly scene of squabbling and confusion. He handed the shilling and bread to Eliza Turner; and when she had followed the other women out, he turned to the Widow Booth, who was sobbing against the wall; speaking kindly to her.
"You should not have come in, Mrs. Booth. You know that I do not allow it."
"But I'm starving, sir," was the answer. "I thought maybe as you'd divide it between me and Widow Turner. Sixpence for her, sixpence for me, and the loaf halved."
"I have no power to divide the gifts: to do so would be against the terms of the bequest. How is it you are so badly off this week? Has your work failed?"
"I couldn't do it, sir, with my sick one to attend to. And I've a gathering come on my thimble finger, and that has hindered me. I took ninepence the day before yesterday, sir, but last night it was every farthing of it gone."
"I will come round and see you by-and-by," said the clergyman.
She lifted her eyes yearningly. "Oh, sir! if you could but give me something for a morsel of bread now! I'd be grateful for a penny loaf."
"Mrs. Booth, you know that to give here would be altogether against my rule," he replied with unmistakable firmness. "Neither am I pleased when any of you attempt to ask it. Go home quietly: I have said that I will come to you by-and-by."
The woman thanked him and went out. Had anything been needed to prove the necessity of the rule, it would have been the eagerness with which the crowd of women gathered round her. Not one of them had gone away. "Had she got anything?" To reply that she had something, would have sent the whole crowd flocking in to beg in turn of the rector.
Widow Booth shook her head. "No, no. I knowed it before. He never will. He says he'll come round."
They dispersed; some in one direction, some in another. The rector blew out the candle, and he and the clerk came forth; and the church was closed for the distribution of bread until that day week. Mr. Tait took the keys himself to carry them home: they were kept at his house. Formerly the clerk had carried them there; but since he had become old and lame, Mr. Tait would not give him the trouble.
It was a fine night overhead, but the streets were sloppy; and the clergyman put his foot unavoidably in many a puddle. The streets through which his road lay were imperfectly lighted. The residence apportioned to the rector of this parish was adjoining a well-known square, fashionable in that day. It was a very good house, with a handsome outward appearance. If you judged by it, you would have said the living must be worth five hundred a year at least. It was not worth anything like that; and the parish treated their pastor liberally in according him so good a residence. A quarter of an hour's walk from the church brought Mr. Tait to it.
Until recently, a gentleman had shared this house with Mr. Tait and his family. The curate of a neighbouring parish, the Rev. John Acton, had been glad to live with them as a friend, admitted to their society and their table. It was a little help: and but for that, Mr. and Mrs. Tait would scarcely have thought themselves justified in keeping two servants, for the educational expenses of their children ran away with a large portion of their income. But Mr. Acton had now been removed to a distance, and they hoped to receive some one or other in his place.
On this evening, as Mr. Tait was picking his way through the puddles, the usual sitting-room of his house presented a cheerful appearance, ready to receive him. It was on the ground floor, looking upon the street, large and lofty, and bright with firelight. Two candles, not yet lighted, stood on the table behind the tea-tray, but the glow of the fire was sufficient for all the work that was being done in the room.
It was no work at all: but play. A young lady was quietly whirling round the room with a dancing step—quietly, because her feet and movements were gentle; and the tune she was humming, and to which she kept time, was carolled in an undertone. She was moving thus in the happy innocence of heart and youth. A graceful girl of middle height; one whom it gladdened the eye to look upon. Not for her beauty, for she had no very great beauty to boast of; but it was one of those countenances that win their own way to favour. A fair, gentle face, openly candid, with the same earnest, honest grey eye that so pleased you in Francis Tait, and brown hair. She was that gentleman's eldest child, and looked about eighteen. In reality she was a year older, but her face and dress were both youthful. She wore a violet silk frock, made with a low body and short sleeves: girls did not keep their pretty necks and arms covered up then. By daylight the dress would have appeared old, but it looked very well by candle-light.
The sound of the latch-key in the front door brought her dancing to an end. She knew who it was—no inmate of that house possessed a latch-key except its master—and she turned to the fire to light the candles.
Mr. Tait came into the room, removing neither overcoat nor hat. "Have you made tea, Jane?"
"No, papa; it has only just struck five."
"Then I think I'll go out again first. I have to call on one or two of the women, and it will be all one wetting. My feet are soaked already"—looking down at his buckled shoes and black gaiters. "You can get my slippers warmed, Jane. But"—the thought apparently striking him—"would your mamma care to wait?"
"Mamma had a cup of tea half an hour ago," replied Jane. "She said it might do her good; if she could get some sleep after it, she might be able to come down for a little before bedtime. The tea can be made whenever you like, papa. There's only Francis at home, and he and I could wait until ten, if you pleased."
"I'll go at once, then. Not until ten, Miss Jane, but until six, or about that time. Betty King is ill, but does not live far off. And I must step in to the Widow Booth's."
"Papa," cried Jane as he was turning away, "I forgot to tell you. Francis says he thinks he knows of a gentleman who would like to come here in Mr. Acton's place."
"Ah! who is it?" asked the rector.
"One of the masters at the school. Here's Francis coming down. He only went up to wash his hands."
"It is our new mathematical master, sir," cried Francis Tait, a youth of eighteen, who was being brought up to the Church. "I overheard him ask Dr. Percy if he could recommend him to a comfortable house where he might board, and make one of the family: so I told him perhaps you might receive him here. He said he'd come down and see you."
Mr. Tait paused. "Would he be a desirable inmate, think you, Francis? Is he a gentleman?"
"Quite a gentleman, I am sure," replied Francis. "And we all like what little we have seen of him. His name's Halliburton."
"Is he in Orders?"
"No. He intends to be, I think."
"Well, of course I can say nothing about it, one way or the other," concluded Mr. Tait, as he went out.
Jane stood before the fire in thought, her fingers unconsciously smoothing the parting of the glossy brown hair on her well-shaped head as she looked at it in the pier-glass. To say that she never did such a thing in vanity would be wrong; no pretty girl ever lived but was conscious of her good looks. Jane, however, was neither thinking of herself nor of vanity just then. She took a very practical part in home duties: with her mother, a practical part amidst her father's poor: and at this moment her thoughts were running on the additional work it might bring her, should this gentleman come to reside with them.
"What did you say his name was, Francis?" she suddenly asked of her brother.
"Whose?"
"That gentleman's. The new master at your school."
"Halliburton. I don't know his Christian name."
"I wonder," mused Jane aloud, "whether he will wear out his stockings as Mr. Acton did? There was always a dreadful amount of darning to be done to his. Is he an old guy, Francis?"
"Isn't he!" responded Francis Tait. "Don't faint when you see some one come in old and fat, with green rims to his spectacles. I don't say he's quite old enough to be papa's father, but——"
"Why! he must be eighty then, at least!" uttered Jane, in dismay. "How could you propose it to him? We should not care to have any one older than Mr. Acton."
"Acton! that young chicken!" contemptuously rejoined Francis. "Put him by the side of Mr. Halliburton! Acton was barely fifty."
"He was forty-eight, I think," said Jane. "Oh, dear! how I should like to have gone with Margaret and Robert this evening!" she exclaimed, forgetting the passing topic in another.
"They were not polite enough to invite me," said Francis. "I shall pay the old lady out."
Jane laughed. "You are growing too old now, Francis, to be admitted to a young ladies' breaking-up party. Mrs. Chilham said so to mamma——"
Jane's words were interrupted by a knock at the front door, apparently that of a visitor. "Jane!" cried her brother, in some trepidation, "I should not wonder if it's Mr. Halliburton! He did not say when he should come!"
Another minute, and one of the servants ushered a gentleman into the room. It was not an old guy, however, as Jane saw at a glance with a distinct feeling of relief. A tall, gentlemanlike man of five or six and twenty, with thin aquiline features, dark eyes, and a clear, fresh complexion. A handsome man, very prepossessing.
"You see I have soon availed myself of your permission to call," said he, in pleasant tones, as he took Francis Tait's hand, and glanced towards Jane with a slight bow.
"My sister Jane, sir," said Francis. "Jane, this is Mr. Halliburton."
Jane for once lost her self-possession. So surprised was she—in fact perplexed, for she did not know whether Francis was playing a trick upon her now, or whether he had previously played it; in short, whether this was, or was not, Mr. Halliburton—that she could only look from one to the other. "Are you Mr. Halliburton?" she said, in her straightforward simplicity.
"I am Mr. Halliburton," he answered, bending to her politely. "Can I have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Tait?"
"Will you take a seat?" said Jane. "Papa is out, but I do not think he will be very long."
"Where did he go to—do you know, Jane?" cried Francis, who was smothering a laugh.
"To Betty King's; and to Widow Booth's. He may have been going elsewhere also. I think he was."
"At any rate, I'll just run there and see. Jane, you can tell Mr. Halliburton all about it whilst I am away. Explain to him exactly how he will be here, and how we live. And then you can decide for yourself, sir," concluded Francis.
To splash through the wet streets to Betty King's or elsewhere was an expedition rather agreeable to Francis, in his eagerness; otherwise there was no particular necessity for his going.
"I am sorry mamma is not up," said Jane. "She suffers from occasional sick-headaches, and they generally keep her in bed for the day. I will give you any information in my power."
"Your brother Francis thought—that it might not be disagreeable to Mr. Tait to receive a stranger into his family," said Mr. Halliburton, speaking with some hesitation. But the young lady before him looked so lady-like, the house altogether seemed so well appointed, that he almost doubted whether the proposal would not offend her.
"We wish to receive some one," said Jane. "The house is sufficiently large to do so, and papa would like it for the sake of society: as well as that it would help in our housekeeping," she added, in her candour. "A friend of papa's was with us—I cannot remember precisely how many years, but he came when I was a little girl. It was the Rev. Mr. Acton. He left us last October."
"I feel sure that I should like it very much: and I should think myself fortunate if Mr. Tait would admit me," spoke the visitor.
Jane remembered the suggestion of Francis, and deemed it her duty to speak a little to Mr. Halliburton of "how he would be there," as it had been expressed. She might have done so without the suggestion, for she could not be otherwise than straightforward and open.
"We live very plainly," she observed. "A simple joint of meat one day; cold, with a pudding, the next."
"I should consider myself fortunate to get the pudding," replied Mr. Halliburton, smiling. "I have been tossed about a good deal of late years, Miss Tait, and have not come in for too much comfort. Just now I am in very uncomfortable lodgings."
"I dare say papa would like to have you," said Jane, frankly, with a sort of relief. She had thought he looked one who might be fastidious.
"I have neither father nor mother, brother nor sister," he resumed. "In fact, I may say that I am without relatives; for almost the only one I have has discarded me. I often think how rich those people must be who possess close connections and a happy home," he added, turning his bright glance upon her.
Jane dropped her work, which she had taken up. "I don't know what I should do without all my dear relatives," she exclaimed.
"Are you a large family?"
"We are six. Papa and mamma, and four children. I am the eldest, and Margaret is the youngest; Francis and Robert are between us. It is breaking-up night at Margaret's school, and she has gone to it with Robert," continued Jane, never doubting but the stranger must take as much interest in "breaking-up nights" as she did. "I was to have gone; but mamma has been unusually ill to-day."
"Were you disappointed?"
Jane bent her head while she confessed the fact, as though feeling it a confession to be ashamed of. "It would not have been kind to leave mamma," she added, "and I dare say some other pleasure will arise soon. Mamma is asleep now."
"What a charming girl!" thought Mr. Halliburton to himself. "How I wish she was my sister!"
"Margaret is to be a governess," observed Jane, "and is being educated for it. She has great talent for music, and also for drawing; it is not often the two are united. Her tastes lie quite that way—anything clever; and as papa has no money to give us, it was well to make her a governess."
"And you?" said Mr. Halliburton. The question might have been thought an impertinent one by many, but he spoke it only in his deep interest, and Jane Tait was of too ingenuous a disposition not to answer it as openly.
"I am not to be a governess. I am to stay at home with mamma and help her. There is plenty to do. Margaret cannot bear domestic duties, or sewing either. Dancing excepted, I have not learnt a single accomplishment—unless you call French an accomplishment."
"I am sure you have been well educated!" involuntarily spoke Mr. Halliburton.
"Yes; in all things solid," replied Jane. "Papa has taken care of that. He still directs my reading. I know a good bit—of—Latin"—she added, bringing out the concluding words with hesitation, as one who repents his sentence—"though I do not like to confess it to you."
"Why do you not?"
"Because I think girls who know Latin are laughed at. I did not regularly learn it, but I used to be in the room when papa or Mr. Acton was teaching Francis and Robert, and I picked it up unconsciously. Mr. Acton often took Francis; he had more time on his hands than papa. Francis is to be a clergyman."
"Miss Jane," said a servant, entering the room, "Mrs. Tait is awake, and wishes to see you."
Jane left Mr. Halliburton with a word of apology, and almost immediately after Mr. Tait came in. He was a little taken to when he saw the stranger. His imagination had run, if not upon an "old guy" in spectacles, certainly upon some steady, sober, middle-aged mathematical master. Would it be well to admit this young, good-looking man to his house.
If Jane Tait had been candid in her revelations to Mr. Halliburton, that gentleman, in his turn, was not less candid to her father. He, Edgar Halliburton, was the only child of a country clergyman, the Rev. William Halliburton, who had died when Edgar was sixteen, leaving nothing behind him. Edgar—he had previously lost his mother—found a home with his late mother's brother, a gentleman named Cooper, who resided in Birmingham. Mr. Cooper was a man in extensive wholesale business, and wished Edgar to go into his counting-house. Edgar declined. His father had lived long enough to form his tastes: his greatest wish had been to see him enter the Church; and the wish had become Edgar's own. Mr. Cooper thought there was nothing in the world like business: and looked upon that most sacred of all callings, God's ministry, only in the light of a profession. He had carved out his own career, step by step, attaining wealth and importance, and wished his nephew to do the same. "Which is best, lad?" he coarsely asked: "To rule as a merchant prince, or starve and toil as a curate? I'm not quite a merchant prince yet, but you may be." "It was my father's wish," pleaded Edgar in answer, "and it is my own. I cannot give it up, sir." The dispute ran high—not in words, but in obstinacy. Edgar would not yield, and at length Mr. Cooper discarded him. He turned him out of doors: told him that, if he must become a parson, he might get some one else to pay his expenses at Oxford, for he never would. Edgar Halliburton proceeded to London, and obtained employment as an usher in a school, teaching classics and mathematics. From that he became a private teacher, and had so earned his living up to the present time: but he had never succeeded in getting to college. And Mr. Tait, before they had talked together five minutes, was charmed with his visitor, and invited him to take tea with him, which Jane came down to make.
"Has your uncle never softened towards you?" Mr. Tait inquired.
"Never. I have addressed several letters to him, but they have been returned to me."
"He has no family, you say. You ought—in justice, you ought to inherit some of his wealth. Has he other relatives?"
"He has one standing to him in the same relationship as I—my Cousin Julia. It is not likely that I shall ever inherit a shilling of it, sir. I do not expect it."
"Right," said Mr. Tait, nodding his head approvingly. "There's no work so thriftless as that of waiting for legacies. Wearying, too. I was a poor curate, Mr. Halliburton, for twenty years—indeed, so far as being poor goes, I am not much else now—but let that pass. I had a relative who possessed money, and who had neither kith nor kin nearer to her than I was. For the best part of those twenty years I was giving covert hopes to that money; and when she died, and NOTHING was left to me, I found out how foolish and wasteful my hopes had been. I tell my children to trust to their own honest exertions, but never to trust to other people's money. Allow me to urge the same upon you."
Mr. Halliburton's lips and eyes alike smiled, as he looked gratefully at the rector, a man so much older than himself. "I never think of it," he earnestly said. "It appears, for me, to be as thoroughly lost as though it did not exist. I should not have mentioned it, sir, but that I consider it right you should know all particulars respecting me; if, as I hope, you will admit me to your home."
"I think we should get on very well together," frankly acknowledged Mr. Tait, forgetting the prudent ideas which had crossed his mind.
"I am sure we should, sir," warmly replied Edgar Halliburton. And the bargain was made.
CHAPTER II.
THE SHADOW BECOMES SUBSTANCE.
And yet it had perhaps been well that those prudent ideas had been allowed to obtain weight. Mr. Halliburton took up his abode with the Taits; and, the more they saw of him, the more they liked him. In which liking Jane must be included.
It was a possible shadow of the future, the effects the step would bring forth, which had whispered determent to Mr. Tait: a very brief shadow, which had crossed his mind imperfectly, and flitted away again. Where two young and attractive beings are thrown into daily companionship, the result too frequently is that a mutual regard arises, stronger than any other regard can ever be in this world. This result arrived here.
A twelvemonth[4] passed over from the time of Mr. Halliburton's entrance—how swiftly for him and for Jane Tait they alone could tell. Not a word had been spoken to her by Mr. Halliburton that he might not have spoken to her mother or her sister Margaret; not a look on Jane's part had been given by which he could infer that he was more to her than the rest of the world. And yet both were inwardly conscious of the feelings of the other; and when the twelvemonth had gone by it had seemed to them but a span, for the love they bore each other.
One evening in December Jane stood in the dining-room waiting to make tea just as she had so waited that former evening. For any outward signs, you might have thought that not a single hour had elapsed since their first introduction—that it was the same evening as of old. It was sloppy outside, it was bright within. The candles stood on the table unlighted, the fire blazed, the tea-tray was placed, and only Jane was there. Mrs. Tait was upstairs with one of her frequent sick-headaches, Margaret was with her, and the others had not come in.
Jane stood in a reverie—her elbow resting on the mantel-piece, and the blaze from the fire flickering on her gentle face. She was fond of these few minutes of idleness on a winter's evening, between the twilight hour and lighting the candles.
The clock in the kitchen struck five. It did not arouse her: she heard it in a mechanical sort of manner, without taking note of it. Scarcely had the sound of the last stroke died away when there was a knock at the front door.
That aroused her—for she knew it. She knew the footsteps that came in when it was answered, and a rich damask arose to her cheeks, and the pulses of her heart went on a little quicker than they had been going before.
She took her elbow from the mantel-piece, and sat down quietly on a chair. No need to look who entered. Some one, taller by far than any in that house, came up to the fire, and bent to warm his hands over the blaze.
"It is a cold night, Jane. We shall have a severe frost."
"Yes," she answered; "the water in the barrel is already freezing over."
"How is your mamma now?"
"Better, thank you. Margaret has gone up to help her to dress. She is coming down to tea."
Mr. Halliburton remained silent a minute, and then turned to Jane, his face glowing with satisfaction. "I have had a piece of preferment offered me to-day."
"Have you?" she eagerly said. "What is it?"
"Dr. Percy proposes that, from January, I shall take the Greek classes as well as the mathematics, and he doubles my salary. Of course I shall have to give closer attendance, but I can readily do that. My time is not fully employed."
"I am very glad," said Jane.
"So am I," he answered. "Taking all my sources of income together, I shall now be earning two hundred and eighty-three pounds a year."
Jane laughed. "Have you been reckoning it up?"
"Ay; I had a motive in doing so."
His tone was peculiar, and it caused her to look at him, but her eyelids drooped under his gaze. He drew nearer, and laid his hand gently on her shoulder, bending down before her to speak.
"Jane, you have not mistaken me. I feel that you have read what has been in my heart, what have been my intentions, as surely as though I had spoken. It is not a great income, but it is sufficient, if you can think it so. May I speak to Mr. Tait?"
What Jane would have contrived to answer she never knew, but at that moment her mother's step was heard approaching. All she did was to glance shyly up at Mr. Halliburton, and he bent his head lower and kissed her. Then he walked rapidly to the door and opened it for Mrs. Tait—a pale, refined, delicate-looking lady, wrapped in a shawl. These violent headaches, from which she so frequently suffered, did not affect her permanent health, but on the days she suffered she would be utterly prostrated. Mr. Halliburton gave her his arm, and led her to a seat by the fire, his voice low and tender, his manner sympathizing. "I am already better," she said to him, "and shall be much better after tea. Sometimes I am tempted to envy those who do not know what a sick-headache is."
"They may know other maladies as painful, dear Mrs. Tait."
"Ay, indeed. None of us can expect to be free from pain of one sort or another in this world."
"Shall I make the tea, mamma?" asked Jane.
"Yes, dear; I shall be glad of it, and your papa is sure to be in soon. There he is!" she added, as the latch-key was heard in the door. "The boys are late this evening."
The rector came in, and, ere the evening was over, the news was broken to him by Mr. Halliburton. He wanted Jane.
It was the imperfect, uncertain shadow of twelve months ago become substance. It had been a shadow of the future only, you understand—not a shadow of evil. To Mr. Halliburton, personally, the rector had no objection—he had learned to love, esteem, and respect him—but it is a serious thing to give away a child.
"The income is very small to marry upon," he observed. "It is also uncertain."
"Not uncertain, sir, so long as I am blessed with health and strength. And I have no reason to fear that these will fail."
"I thought you were bent on taking Orders."
Mr. Halliburton's cheek slightly flushed. "It is a prospect I have fondly cherished," he said; "but its difficulties alarm me. The cost of the University is great; and were I to wait until I had saved sufficient money to go to college, I should be obliged, in a great degree, to give up my present means of living. Who would employ a tutor who must frequently be away for weeks? I should lose my connection, and perhaps never regain it. A good teaching connection is more easily lost than won."
"True," observed Mr. Tait.
"Once in Orders, I might remain for years a poor curate. I should most likely do so. I have neither interest nor influence. Sir, in that case Jane and I might be obliged to wait for years: perhaps go down to our graves waiting."
The Rev. Francis Tait threw back his thoughts. How he had waited; how he was not able to marry until years were advancing upon him; how in four years now he should have attained threescore years and ten—the term allotted to the life of man—whilst his children were still growing up around him! No! never, never would he counsel another to wait as he had been obliged to wait.
"I have not yet given up hope of eventually entering the Church," continued Mr. Halliburton; "though it must be accomplished, if at all, slowly and patiently. I think I may be able to keep one term, or perhaps two terms yearly, without damage to my teaching. I shall try to do so; try to find the necessary means and time. My marriage will make no difference to that, sir."
Many might have suggested to Edgar Halliburton that he might keep his terms first and marry afterwards. Mr. Tait did not: possibly the idea did not occur to him. If it occurred to Edgar Halliburton himself, he drove it from him. It would have delayed his marriage to an indefinite number of years; and he loved Jane too well to do that willingly. "I shall still get much better preferment in teaching than that which I now hold," he urged aloud to the rector. "It is not so very small to begin upon, sir, and Jane is willing to risk it."
"I will not part you and Jane," said Mr. Tait, warmly. "If you have made up your minds to share life and its cares together, you shall do so. Still, I cannot say that I think your prospects golden."
"Prospects that appear to have no gold at all in them sometimes turn out very brightly, sir."
"I can give Jane nothing, you know."
"I have never cast a thought to it, sir; have never imagined she would have a shilling," replied Mr. Halliburton, his face flushing with eagerness. "It is Jane herself I want; not money."
"Beyond a twenty-pound note which I may give her to put into her purse on her wedding morning, that she may not leave my house absolutely penniless, she will have nothing," cried the rector, in his straightforward manner. "Far from saving, I and her mother have been hardly able to make both ends meet at the end of the year. I might have saved a few pounds yearly, had I chosen to do so; but you know what this parish is; and the reflection has always been upon me: how would my Master look upon my putting by small sums of money, when many of those over whom I am placed were literally starving for bread? I have given what I could; but I have not saved for my children."
"You have done well, sir."
Mr. Tait sought his daughter. "Jane," he began—"Nay, child, do not tremble so! There is no need for trembling, or for tears, either: you have done nothing to displease me. Jane, I like Edgar Halliburton; I like him much. There is no one to whom I would rather give you. But I do not like his prospects. Teaching is very precarious."
Jane raised her timid eyes. "Precarious for him, papa? For one learned and clever as he!"
"It is badly paid. See how he toils—and he will have to toil more when the new year comes in—and only to earn two or three hundred a year!—in round numbers."
Tears gathered in Jane's eyes. Toil as he did, badly paid as he might be, she would rather have him than any other in the world, though that other might have revelled in thousands. The rector read somewhat of this in her downcast face.
"My dear, the consideration lies with you. If you choose to venture upon it, you shall have my consent, and I know you will have your mother's, for she thinks Edgar Halliburton has not his equal in the world. But it may bring you many troubles."
"Papa, I am not afraid. If troubles come, they—you—told us only last night——"
"What, child?"
"That troubles, regarded rightly, only lead us nearer to God," whispered Jane, simply and timidly.
"Right, child. And trouble must come before that great truth can be realized. Consider the question well, Jane—whether it may not be better to wait—and give your answer to-morrow. I shall tell Mr. Halliburton not to ask for it to-night. As you decide, so shall it be."
Need you be told what Jane's decision was? Two hundred and eighty-three pounds a year seems a large sum to an inexperienced girl; quite sufficient to purchase everything that might be wanted for a fireside.
And so she became Jane Halliburton.
CHAPTER III.
THE REV. FRANCIS TAIT.
A hot afternoon in July. Jane Halliburton was in the drawing-room with her mother, both sewing busily. It was a large room, with three windows, more pleasant than the dining-room beneath, and they were fond of sitting in it in summer. Jane had been married some three or four months now, but looked the same young, simple, placid girl that she ever did; and, but for the wedding-ring upon her finger, no stranger would have supposed her to be a wife.
An excellent arrangement had been arrived at—that she and her husband should remain inmates of Mr. Tait's house; at any rate, for the present. When plans were being discussed, before making the necessary arrangements for the marriage, and Mr. Halliburton was spending all his superfluous minutes hunting for a suitable house near to the old home, and not too dear, Francis Tait had given utterance to a remark—"I wonder who we shall get here in Mr. Halliburton's place, if papa takes any one else?" and Margaret, looking up from her drawing, had added, "Why can't Mr. Halliburton and Jane stay on with us? It would be so much pleasanter."
It was the first time the idea had been presented in any shape to the rector, and it seemed to go straight to his wishes. He put down a book he was reading, and spoke impulsively. "It would be the best thing; the very best thing! Would you like it, Halliburton?"
"I should, sir; very much. But it is Jane who must be consulted, not me."
Jane, her pretty cheeks covered with blushes, looked up and said she should like it also; she had thought of it, but had not liked to mention it, either to her mother or to Mr. Halliburton. "I have been quite troubled to think what mamma and the house will do without me," she added, ingenuously.
"Let Jane alone for thinking and planning, when difficulties are in the way," laughed Margaret. "My opinion is that we shall never get another pudding, or papa have his black silk Sunday hose darned, if Jane goes from us."
Mrs. Tait burst into tears. Like Margaret she was a bad manager, and had mourned over Jane's departure, secretly believing she should be half worried to death. "Oh! Jane, dear, say you'll remain!" she cried. "It will be such a relief to me! Margaret's of no earthly use, and everything will fall on my shoulders. Edgar, I hope you will remain with us! It will be pleasant for all. You know the house is sufficiently large."
And remain they did. The wedding took place at Easter, and Mr. Halliburton took Jane all the way to Dover to see the sea—a long way in those days—and kept her there for a week. And then they came back again, Jane to her old home duties, just as though she were Jane Tait still, and Mr. Halliburton to his teaching.
It was July now and hot weather; and Mrs. Tait and Jane were sewing in the drawing-room. They were working for Margaret. Mr. Halliburton, through some of his teaching connections, had obtained an excellent situation for Margaret in a first-rate school. Margaret was to enter as resident pupil, and receive every advantage towards the completion of her own education; in return for which she was to teach the younger pupils music, and pay ten pounds a year. Such an arrangement was almost unknown then, though it has been common enough since, and Mr. and Mrs. Tait thought of it very highly. Margaret Tait was only sixteen; but, as if in contrast to Jane, who looked younger than her actual years, Margaret looked older. In appearance, in manners, and also in advancement, Margaret might have been eighteen.
She was to enter the school, which was near Harrow, in another week, at the termination of the holidays, and Mrs. Tait and Jane had their hands full, getting her things ready.
