Hope Mills by Amanda Minnie Douglas (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📕

disdaining every aid? His startled eyes questioned the doctor.

"Yes," was the reply: "she has been too much alone. She has brooded over these things until she has become morbid and imbittered. The curse of fashionable life is, that it provides a woman with no resources against a dark day, no wisdom, no faith in any thing outside of herself. And then we wonder at insanity! A thousand times better that the body should be racked with pain, if so be that the soul is purified in passing through these fires. It may be her salvation."


CHAPTER XX.

THE morning's mail brought to Darcy the letter he had hardly dared expect. It was brief but cordial. Would he come to New York, and the matter could be arranged to his satisfaction? "He had not been very eager to ask favors."

"We'll weather through, Winston!" he cried joyfully. "I must go to New York. Miss McLeod has sent."

Then he ran off home, and arrayed himself in spotless linen and immaculate cuffs, complained a little that Jane Morgan should be away, and begged his mother to ask in some of the pretty, friendly girls living in the next house, if he should not be home to supper. There was a late train that he would be quite sure of, if the business detained him until night. Then he kissed her tenderly: she was still a little shaken from her last night's vigil.

He went around by Maverick's office, though it took him out of his way; but he must hear some word of Miss Lawrence.

"She is very ill, and will be for some time to come; but I am wonderfully interested in the case. It's a brain-fever. The girl is a study in herself. She has the force and power, and capability of both suffering and endurance, that would answer for half a dozen souls; but it has come pretty nearly to a wreck. Did you ever know much about her?"

"No. I once spent an evening with Miss Barry when she was there," and Jack flushed. "It was before Mr. Lawrence died. They used to be great friends, you know."

"And it ended like most women's friendships, eh?" with a peculiar light in his eyes as he spoke.

"No: it broke off in the middle; regards have a trick of doing that when they're not ended, you know. Sylvie is very generous: she would go there to-day if she were needed."

"Would she? She may be before it is all over."

"Go down and tell her, Maverick, when you are in that direction."

Maverick nodded.

Darcy was just in time to catch his train. There had been quite a fall of snow from midnight to dawn, and the trees were glittering with thousands of diamond-sparks and patches of fleecy ermine. The winding roads were white; the cottages and the fence-posts were hooded; and the snow caught all the tints of sun and shadowy lights, reflecting them back like a mirror. His heart was so light as they whirled along, he smiled, and could hardly forbear shouting at a group of boys who were snow-balling by the roadside.

He met Miss McLeod at Mr. Hildreth's. They had the private office to themselves; and he related the mishaps of the past three months, showed her the actual figures, and admitted that times seemed really harder than last year. There was such a horrible shrinkage everywhere! Still there must be some trade presently,--it always had been so in the history of the world.

"I think you deserve a great deal of credit for having pulled through so far on your limited capital," said she. "Some of the business-men I meet, think this will prove the hardest year in our history. It will winnow the chaff from the wheat pretty well."

"If it does not winnow us all into chaff," returned the young fellow, with a touch of grim humor.

"We shall come back to smaller profits and greater industry. The world will not be able to play at being ladies and gentlemen, and perhaps a little wholesome work will not be a bad discipline."

Then she wanted to know what amount would be likely to tide him over for the next six months. He said he did not desire to exceed ten thousand dollars. She would make it twelve, however. After the notes were duly signed, she took him to her bank, and introduced him. As he had some other parties to see, she drove him about in her carriage, and insisted upon taking him home with her presently.

What an elegant old lady she was in her sables and velvets, and her royal air! her eyes bright with spirit and energy, her cheeks a little pink with the crisp air, glad sunshine, and perhaps her own hearty, wholesome mood. Occasionally she leaned out and nodded to some friend; and once her carriage drew up to the sidewalk as she summoned a fine, portly-looking gentleman to her.

"Mr. Throckmorton," she said, with gracious dignity, "I want to introduce my young friend Mr. Darcy, of Hope Mills, Yerbury, to you. If you can serve him in any business-way, I shall be glad to have you."

The gentleman bowed, and held out his hand, with cordial fine breeding.

"Hope Mills! It belonged to my friend Lawrence, did it not,--David Lawrence?"

"Until his death, yes."

"Sad misfortune, that. He ought to have retired years before. There was some villany in his manager, was there not? It is difficult to find a purely honest man nowadays; but I do believe Lawrence was one. We dealt with him a great many years, but toward the last there was some dissatisfaction,--goods not coming quite up to samples."

"We try to do our business on the square, Mr. Throckmorton," returned Jack, with a proud curve of the lips that was almost a smile, and illumined his face. "If any thing is not exactly as represented, we shall make it good; but we try never to have occasion to do that. We should be glad to have you test our honesty and skill."

"Thank you,--I will, I will;" and, touching his hat to Miss McLeod, they parted.

"If men were as generous as you!" cried Jack, with enthusiastic candor, "how splendid a place this world would be for business! Did you ever have a jealous thought in all your life?"

She laughed brightly. "I have had nearly all the things I wanted," she answered, with tender solemnity. "There would have been little excuse. Mr. Darcy, we do not always realize how hard life is to some; and, where everybody's man's hand is against one, it is natural for him to be against every man."

Their four-o'clock meal was an elegant little dinner. They were quite alone, which pleased Jack. She questioned him about Maverick, his practice, his friends, and wondered if he ever meant to marry. Jack said laughingly no one in Yerbury dared to make fascinating eyes at him.

Did she care so much for Maverick? Surely these two ought to be together, yet what would _he_ do without his trusty comrade?

They veered round to the mills presently, and discussed honesty. Jack admitted that Mr. Throckmorton and other customers had a right to complain. There had been a deal of cheap wool used, and many poor workmen employed, during Eastman's last year or two.

"Mr. Darcy," she began energetically, "why do you not think up something new? We import pretty material for ladies' wear, that could as well be made here, for we women are growing sensible enough to believe something beside silk admissible. And though men may cling to superannuated coats, with an affection most commendable in hard times, I never heard of a woman being attached to an old gown."

"I never thought of it," he admitted frankly.

"That is what you were put in the world for,--to think," and she smiled with quaint humor. "Invent something. I'll take a sample to every store to match, and lift my brows in surprise when clerks confess they have not seen it. Give it a pretty name, of course."

"That is worth considering, surely;" and his eyes sparkled. "Hope Mills ought presently to be the grandest place in the country, you take so much interest in it," and his whole face expressed his admiration.

"I do hope to see you a successful manufacturer, Mr. Darcy; and, woman-like, I want the scheme to succeed. I should like to see even a small party of men trained to honesty and fair play. And, if I lose my money, it is no worse than a downfall in stocks."

"I shall do my best now and ever," he answered heartily.

They parted with much warm gratitude on the honest fellow's side. He took the evening train for home; and his mother had a good cup of tea awaiting him, along with her smile. He related his grand good luck, and there were not two happier people in all Yerbury. When the bank found he had an account at New York, and a good backer, they were extremely affable again.

Jack broached the new idea to Winston and Cameron.

"To be sure," admitted Winston. "Some one will do it presently, and we might get the lead. Darcy, your old lady is a trump, and always carries the honors. There will have to be some new processes: see here, talk to Ben Hay about it; he's made two or three improvements, and has some brains. Gad! It'll be quite jolly to have a new line of goods. Get the ladies on your side, and you're all right!"

He had not a spare moment until after his late supper, when he told his mother he must run over to the Lawrences, and stop a moment at the doctor's, though he had despatched the good news to him in the morning.

He found matters worse than he had feared. There had been an alarming change in Miss Lawrence. Martha ushered him through the hall to the library, where Fred was sitting. The two clasped hands, and then sat down together. A hard, dry sob seemed to tear its way up from Fred's very soul.

"Jack," he cried in a strained, despairing tone, "could I have done any thing to save her? I have been engrossed with my own affairs, my own dreams of advancement. I wanted to have money again, but it was for her sake and my mother's," with a lingering tremulous intonation. "She has been too solitary, she has brooded over every thing. But she would not go out, or see any company; and somehow it was our misfortune to grow up without any warm, vital interest in each other. When I was a boy I used to like it at your house, because your father and mother took such a real delight in you. It is the pith of life. Poor father--he was very proud of me, he gave his life for our pleasure and grandeur and reckless extravagance, yet all the later years we were well-nigh strangers. Why can't people get nearer to each other, Jack, or is it only given to the very few? Does the greedy world swallow up every sentiment, every bit of tenderness, and make a mock of it?"

"No, no! Nothing can quite kill it, thank God! You and I have proved that. It may be smothered under dust and rubbish, and frozen with neglect, but the germ will revive,--just as the brown woolly ball evolves the fine delicate fern-leaf that it has held in its heart through winter storms, you know. Don't blame yourself. Every soul has to fight its