Henry Wood - Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

"Jane," he said, tenderly and gravely, "before I say any more, you must strive for calmness."

"It is not about yourself! You are not ill?"

The question seemed superfluous. Mr. Halliburton was evidently not ill; but he was agitated. Jane was frightened and perplexed: not a glimpse of the real truth crossed her. "Tell me what it is at once, Edgar," she said, in a calmer tone. "I can bear certainty better than suspense."

"Why, yes, I think you are becoming brave already," he answered, looking straight into her eyes and smiling—which was intended to reassure her. "I must have my wife show herself a woman to-day; not a child. See what a bungler I am! I thought to tell you all quietly and smoothly, without alarming you; and see what I have done!—startled you to terror."

Jane smiled faintly. She knew all this was only the precursor of tidings that must be very ill and grievous. By a great effort she schooled herself to calmness. Mr. Halliburton continued:

"One, whom you and I love very much, has—has—met with an accident, Jane."

Her fears went straight to the right quarter at once. With that one exception by her side, there was no one she loved as she loved her father.

"Papa?"

"Yes. We must break it to Mrs. Tait."

Her heart beat wildly against his hand, and the livid hue was once more overspreading her face. But she strove urgently for calmness: he whispered to her of its necessity for her own sake.

"Edgar! is it death?"

It was death; but he would not tell her so yet. He plunged into the attendant details.

"He was hastening along with a small bottle in his hand, Jane. It contained something good for one of the sick poor, I am sure, for he was in their neighbourhood. Suddenly he was observed to fall; and the spectators raised him and took him to a doctor's. That doctor, unfortunately, was not at home, and they took him to another, so that time was lost. He was quite unconscious."

"But you do not tell me!" she wailed. "Is he dead?"

Mr. Halliburton asked himself a question—What good would be done by delaying the truth? He thought he had performed his task very badly. "Jane, Jane!" he whispered, "I can only hope to help you to bear it better than I have broken it to you."

She could not shed tears in that first awful moment: physically and mentally she leaned on him for support. " How can we tell my mother?"

It was necessary that Mrs. Tait should be told, and without delay. Even then the body was being conveyed to the house. By a curious coincidence, Mr. Halliburton had been passing the last doctor's surgery at the very moment the crowd was round its doors. Unusual business had called him there; or it was a street he did not enter once in a year. "The parson has fallen down in a fit," said some of them, recognizing and arresting him.

"The parson!" he repeated. "What! Mr. Tait?"

"Sure enough," said they. And Mr. Halliburton pressed into the surgeon's house just as the examination was over.

"The heart, no doubt, sir," said the doctor to him.

"He surely is not dead?"

"Quite dead. He must have died instantaneously."

The news had been wafted to the mob outside, and they were already taking a shutter from its hinges. "I will go on first and prepare the family," said Mr. Halliburton to them. "Give me a quarter of an hour's start, and then come on."

So that he had only a quarter of an hour for it all. His thoughts naturally turned to his wife: not simply to spare her alarm and pain, so far as he might, but he believed her, young as she was, to possess more calmness and self-control than Mrs. Tait. As he sped to the house he rehearsed his task; and might have accomplished it better but for his tell-tale face. "Jane," he whispered, "let this be your consolation ever: he was ready to go."

"Oh yes!" she answered, bursting into a storm of most distressing tears. "If any one here was ever fit for heaven, it was my dear father."

"Hark!" exclaimed Mr. Halliburton.

Some noise had arisen downstairs—a sound of voices speaking in undertones. There could be no doubt that people had come to the house with the news, and were imparting it to the two trembling servants.

"There's not a moment to be lost, Jane."

How Jane dried her eyes and suppressed all temporary sign of grief and emotion, she could not tell. A sense of duty was strong within her, and she knew that the most imperative duty of the present moment was the support and solace of her mother. She and her husband entered the drawing-room together, and Mrs. Tait turned with a smile to Mr. Halliburton.

"What secrets have you and Jane been talking together?" Then, catching sight of Jane's white and quivering lips, she broke into a cry of agony. "Jane! what has happened? What have you both come to tell me?"

The tears poured from Jane's fair young face as she clasped her mother fondly to her, tenderly whispering: "Dearest mamma, you must lean upon us now! We will all love you and take care of you as we have never yet done."

The post-mortem examination established beyond doubt the fact that the Rev. Francis Tait's death was caused by heart disease. In the earlier period of his life it had been suspected that he was subject to it, but of late years unfavourable symptoms had not shown themselves.

With him died of course almost all his means; and his family, if not left utterly destitute, had little to boast in the way of wealth. Mrs. Tait enjoyed, and had for some time enjoyed, an annuity of fifty pounds a year; but it would cease at her death, whenever that event should take place. What was she to do with her children? Many a bereaved widow, far worse off than Mrs. Tait, has to ask the same perplexing question every day. Mrs. Tait's children were partially off her hands. Jane had her husband; Francis was earning his own living as an under-master in a school; with Margaret ten pounds a year must be paid; and there was still Robert.

The death had occurred in July. By October they must be away from the house. "You will be at no loss for a home, Mrs. Tait," Mr. Halliburton took an opportunity of kindly saying to her. "You must allow me and Jane to welcome you to ours."

"Yes, Edgar," was Mrs. Tait's unhesitating reply; "it will be the best plan. The furniture in this house will do for yours, and you shall have it, and you must take me and my small means into it—an incumbrance to you. I have pondered it all over, and I do not see anything else that can be done."

"I have no right whatever to your furniture," he replied, "and Jane has no more right to it than have your other children. The furniture shall be put into my house if you please; but you must either allow me to pay you for it, or it shall remain your own, to be removed again at any time you may please."

A house was looked for and taken. The furniture was valued, and Mr. Halliburton bought it—a fourth part of the sum Mrs. Tait positively refusing to take, for she declared that so much belonged to Jane. Then they quitted the old house of many years, and moved into the new one: Mr. and Mrs. Halliburton, Mrs. Tait, Robert, and the two servants.

"Will it be prudent for you, my dear, to retain both the servants?" Mrs. Tait asked of her daughter.

Jane blushed vividly. "We could do with one at present, mamma; but the time will be coming that I shall require two. And Susan and Mary are both so good that I do not care to part with them. You are used to them, too."

"Ah, child! I know that in all your plans and schemes you and Edgar think first of my comfort. Do you know what I was thinking of last night as I lay in bed?"

"What, mamma?"

"When Mr. Halliburton first spoke of wanting you, I and your poor papa felt inclined to hesitate, thinking you might have made a better match. But, my dear, I was wondering last night what we should have done in this crisis but for him."