Written by Mary Lavinia Bray
Munsey`s Magazine, 1907
Written by her granddaughter Mary Lavinia Bray, the following story is based on the true story as related by M. Lavinia Truro Bray. It is not hard to infer that Letitia is Lavinia Truro Bray, Richard Brent is her husband Richard Bray and the cruel Sir. Hargrave is William Truro. St. D is most likely St. Day. I owe my copy of the story to Betty Bray Burry and to the Descendents of Mary Lavinia Bray who alerted me to its existance.
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Seventy years ago, a beautiful English girl stood hesitating at the entrance of a shop in St. D. The rain, which had begun in large, splashing drops, was now falling steadily, and her carriage, according to her own explicit instructions, was awaiting her at the confectioner’s, some distance away. She must be home early, in time for afternoon tea; but how would it be possible to reach the other shop without ruining her beautiful gown?
As she gazed upward in the gray, slanting rain, distress and appeal upon her face, a young man, springing apparently from nowhere, stood, hat in hand, at her side.
“May I offer you my umbrella?” he asked.
She started, blushing deeply with an acute embarrassment of modesty, which her American granddaughters have never known.
The stranger’s tone was most respectful, his manner entirely deferential; the situation was urgent; and, besides he was a very fine man – not fine as to his clothes, which were plain, almost shabby – but in person, being well-built, straight-nosed, and clear-eyed, with skin that showed as fair as a girl’s where it had not been bronzed by exposure to the sun.
Letitia fluttered in shy gratitude. “Thank you sir! But I – Could I – how could I return the umbrella?”
“Pray keep it,” he answered. “I am only in town for this afternoon, and it is not worth sending into the country.”
“Oh!” Exclaimed Letitia. “I could not think of accepting a courtesy which could cause you such inconvenience.”
She blushed more deeply, and he stammered apologetic entreaties. “If you might escort me to my carriage,” she suggested timidly.
“If I might have that honor,” he plied. And the next moments her gay skirts daintily lifted, she was setting forth under his umbrella.
The boldness of her act made Letitia dumb. It was quite a fright at herself that she hurried toward the confectioner’s shop; but when, with grave courtesy, he assisted her into the conveyance, she raised brilliant eyes toward his.
“Thank you,” she said. “I shall not forget your kindness.”
All her life she could remember his look as he answered, “I shall never forget the pleasure.” Her one furtive, backward glance thought the small window showed him watching the carriage, bareheaded, in the rain.
A few days later, as Miss Letitia with her maid was driving through St. D., he passed them on the street, bowing deeply in response to Letitia’s tiny salutation. It chanced that another day they met in the very shop whose entrance she had waited that rainy afternoon, and it was but natural that a few words of greeting should be exchanged. He did not tell her that he had come back to town, to the peril of affairs at home, haunting the streets and shops in the hope of another glimpse of her, and recognition. Nor did she acquaint him of the fact that daily she had driven through St. D., demure, but with flushing cheeks and eager eyes.
II
This was the beginning. Within a year these two had sounded for each other almost every note in the song of youthful love, cruel pain and ecstasy.
It was beyond expectation that father would consider for a moment the claims of a farmer – and port young farmer – as a suitor for her hand; they had both tried to be obedient, but the rare love, which had told them from the very first that they were for each other, would not be denied. One glorious, starry night they met for a farewell, and the next day found Letitia, daughter of Sir. Robert Hargrave, wife to Richard Brent.
They were wonderfully happy, so happy that when her fine dresses wore out, without regret Letitia replaced them with the cheapest stiff, fashioned into garments by her own hands. They never knew what it was like to have, as surplus of anything, for the farm was very small, yielding only enough for a family’s bare support, and that through unremitting toil. Richard did two men’s work upon his land, going forth at daybreak and stopping scarcely before sunset. If he had not been magnificent of physique and strengthened by buoyant love, his task would have seemed impossible.
He did other work, too – not man’s work; for his bride had never been taught the homely tasks of a woman in her present station, and try as she might and did, such a matter as even simplest cooking remained a problem to her. If she baked a pudding, it was likely to turn out watery at the top and burned at the bottom; she never learned proper savoring; and to make bread was impossible. So, many a laugh they had together while he kneaded dough to be set before even her. There was never any rough work that he let his beloved do, and Letitia’s hands remained almost as white and soft as in her girlhood days.
One accomplishment she had, fitted for a poor man’s wife, and that was the skilled use of the needle. Many children came to them, handsome, sturdy, little ones, and their garments were marvels of sewing – clean, whit e materials embroidered elaborately or trimmed with lace of their mother’s making. By their clothing and good manners, hers might have been taken for children of some fine lady.
Years went by, Every additional mouth to feed brought increased responsibility and care to Richard Brent but so great was his joy in wife and little ones that for each opportunity of doing for them, being a devout man, he thanked God.
It happened one fine day in May while Letitia was sitting among the roses and flowering shrubbery before their cottage, watching her rosy-cheeked children tumbling together in play, that an imposing vehicle came to a stop before the place and a lady alighted.
“What a charming spot!” Letitia heard the newcomer exclaim, as she stepped gracefully through the gap in the hedge of briar-roses, which served for a gateway and walked down the path.
Letitia rose to receive her, clasping her youngest child to her breast.
“My good woman,” the visitor began graciously, can you oblige me with a glass –: she cried out, “Letitia!”
The young mother would have flung herself upon her sister’s bosom, but the manifest pride of the latter, who, like the rest of the family, had so utterly cut off interest in and connection with the girl at her marriage as not even to inquire the exact place of her abode, froze Letitia’s impulse as quickly as it had spring.
The sister glanced about the place and laughed. Letitia flushed and was silent.
“So this is where you live!” she exclaimed. “Charming, rustic place! What a picture you make with the children, to be sure! All yours, I presume?”
Letitia bowed, her eyes filling suddenly with tears, which she would not allow to fall.
“Well, this is even lower than we had supposed you were.” She glanced through the open door of the cottage. “To think! Not even a carpet on the floor; and altogether I fancy you have no more than four rooms. And such a gown – when you used to have such different things! My poor sister!” she said. “But I suppose it is foolish to expend pity upon you as you are undoubtedly very happy.”
“I am very happy, thank you,” said Letitia firmly, and speaking to one of the little ones who was clinging in her skirts and peeking shyly at the elegant figure of the visitor: “Go, my dear, and get a cup of water for the lady.”
The child obeyed. The lady sipped the water, murmured thanks, and in a moment was in her equipage rolling in stately fashion down the road.
As the carriage passed out of sight, Letitia sank upon the wooden bench beneath the rose-bushes, heedless of her children’s eager questioning, a pang in her heart that had never been felt before.
III
As he came toward their home that evening, Richard missed the usual caroling of his wife’s voice. There was an unusual silence, too, at the evening meal, badly cooked as it generally was, but set forth upon a snowy table; yet he forbore to ask any questions until the little ones, with evening hymn and prayer, had been put to bed. Then he led her out to the bench in the garden.
It was a beautiful night, sweet with the scent of breathing flowers, starlit and still, except for the distant singing of a night-bird. It was sweet to her, too, to have his arm around her head upon his shoulder; but unrest was stirring in her bosom, and she did not relax to the tenderness of protecting love.
“What has gone wrong, Letitia?” he inquired gently. “Why is my dear one troubled?”
“Nothing,” she answered with a deep-drawn sigh.
“But something is the matter,” he persisted “Tell me what is on your mind – whatever it may be.”
He pressed her to his side, and was chilled to the very heart by a faint resistance. He sat bolt upright, fear in his eyes but mastery in his voice.
“Speak to me Letitia,” he commanded.
Then in a miserable little voice, she pored out to him the foolish disturbance of her soul.
“My sister came today. Think of it! My sister! She did not me until she had come almost to the very door, asking for a glass of water. I do not know how she chanced to driving this way. And, Richard, she exclaimed upon my poverty and scorned my dress and looked coldly upon my children. She is married to a rich man. I do not care for myself; but hers will have everything that parents can desire to give to their children and what will become of mine? They will have a pittance to live upon, a bare existence in this wretched little cottage, sneered by their own cousins. I almost wish that they had never been born!”
Her husband was shocked to the uttermost, stunned.
“Letitia!”
“Oh yes!” she exclaimed with a burst of tears. “It does not seem dreadful to you, for this is what you were brought up to; but I have been different. I would have my children such as we were at home, growing up to be ladies and gentlemen, not scrambling about bare floors and learning to dig in the field. When I was nine years of age I had lessons in music. What can I teach little Elizabeth? In a hundred years we could not buy a harp or a pianoforte.”
“I am not complaining of my lot,” she continued. “I choose and am satisfied; but seeing my sister’s condition today roused me from my blindness. For myself I do not care; but it is a lasting shame to me that I have brought children into such poverty.”
That which he had dreaded in the first years of their marriage had now come, long after he had ceased to give it thought as a possibility. He spoke very slowly, painfully.
“We, perhaps, do not need to be so poor. I could do better away from here. But I loved this land, and would not give thought to going away. For two hundred years we have tilled it, father and son. I thought that you loved it, too.”
His voice failed, but she was silent.
This bench my great-grandfather made. This cottage was built by his great-grandfather. Every blade of grass in the ground is dear to me, being mine. I had thought you were contented here, even though we have so little.”
“It is enough for two,” she said cruelly. “But I am weary of struggling for so many.”
IV
He was thinking rapidly, striving to be a man in the face of this bitter blow! “I have been the happiest man in the world, ” he said to himself, for eleven years. God has been good to me. I will not complain to Him now.”
“If you could only make money,” she said: “If you could only do something besides cultivating this miserable bit of land, we might have a better house and give our children education and position that would fit them for anything – Why! I have not felt between my fingers a piece of silk in eleven years.”
She was crying quite tempestuously now, and he did not seek to comfort her. He leaned back on the seat and gazed at the tranquil stars.
“I have been a fool,” he said, to think that I could keep you contented here. As to the children, it is enough for any child to have an honest father and a good mother, to be brought up in healthful simplicity in the clean country and in the righteous fear of God. Such a child who cannot make his way in the world is none of mine. But since you long for silken dresses” – his voice, which had become hard, grew suddenly very kind – and also for a harp, and perhaps other fine things – these things you shall have. I am man enough to get them for you.”
“But – you will have to go away, Richard!” her voice faltered.
He had an instant longing that she would not let him go, but answered: “How can I make money here?”
She hesitated, then said, with a consciousness that her words were partly false: “It is for the children. If it were not for their sake I would not let you go.”
He laughed, saying nothing, and she was stung into further defense.
“My sister!” she cried childishly. “I will not have laugh at me and mine.”
“She shall laugh for another reason,” he replied almost roughly. “The time will come – and within a few years – when your finery and your children shall outshine hers. My purpose in life has been love. It shall be money.”
“Come into the house, Letitia,” he ended abruptly. “It is getting late.”
Within a week necessary preparations had been made, and Richard was ready to leave. At the last moment she had it in her heart to bid him to stay, but visions of luxury flitting through her brain, and a new dignity in his manner, made it easier to let him go.
The days were maddeningly long and empty until a letter at the end of the week brought relief. His uncle had gladly received him; he was doing well; at the end of the month he would send money and put money in the bank. It was a matter for great regret that he had not taken the opportunity when they were first married. In eleven years they might have had quite a comfortable fortune.
Eleven years! Letitia put the letter down with a sickening feeling. If it had been eleven years ago, that might have been fine; but if in eleven years to come – No, not even then; these years past she could not wish had been spent anywhere else; nowhere else could they have had such perfection of happiness.
The children were beginning to fret for father. What had become of the kind parent who played with them as no one else ever could, whose stern voice in correction struck the small soul with awe, and whose laughter betokened such merriment and fun? They plied their mother with questions. Individually, and in little groups they cried. Sometimes they made her frantic, and she spoke to them in sharp tones that had been foreign to their ears, at which they cried more pathetically.
The letter came, cheerful and promising. The children questioned less, but grew wistful, stopping often in the midst of play to climb a hillock overlooking the road and watch for the coming of father. Egbert, their precocious one, who even at his tender years loved his studies with his father, silently pined.
More mystification and grief fell upon the children when mother embraced one and all, with fervent kisses bidding them all to be good and obey Elizabeth, the eldest, and Mrs. Kenton, would come in to look after them until she returned. And then, clad in her “second best,” a bag thrown over her arm and an umbrella in hand, she walked away and soon dwindled into a speck on the same road that had swallowed father.
V
It was about forty miles to Falmouth. Only a few shillings had been left at home when her husband went away, and the end of the month had not quite come; but what were forty miles when love waited at the end of the journey?
All day Letitia walked. The sunshine was hot, but trees cast cool shadows over most of the way and she made no stop of more than a dew minutes until nightfall when, as she planned, she came to a wayside inn. In the morning her feet were still weary and her limbs somewhat stiffened, but she was used to long walking and climbing over the countryside, and after a simple breakfast resumed her travel eager-hearted.
When the sun was setting on the second day, steadfast but weary, Letitia entered Falmouth, inquired the way to a certain address, and thither benter her steps, not so elastic as they had been the day before.
“What a mean little place! She exclaimed to herself, as the lodging house to which she had been directed came into view; and the conviction that he was living cheaply in order to save money for her gave her a bitter twinge. What a difference between this and the clean cottage with the acres of green grass and fertile meadow, which she had called wretched!
As they went to summon Richard Brent, she hastily brushed the dust off her shoes, wiped her face with a kerchief whose daintiness did not correspond with the plainness – almost coarseness – of her dress, and smoothed her hair.
Her husband appeared, speechless with amazement, and led her into his room. Even in her confusion of mind, she noted that it was barren and not over clean.
‘The children are crying for you.” She began bravely, though her eyes shone with tears. “They are breaking my heart with pleading for their father.”
He looked at her with a strange sternness and her courage almost failed.
“It is not only the children, Richard,’ she said. “I cannot live apart from you.”
“I am doing five times as well as before,” he said slowly. “Some day we shall all be rich in Falmouth.”
“I would not live in Falmouth,’ she exclaimed passionately. I love the little farm as you are living here, and we cannot be separated while you are preparing a place for us. Richard, we will stay on the land that has been the home of your people for so many generations!”
He looked away frowning. ‘But the silken dresses,” he said, “and the harp for Elizabeth, and humbling of your sister -”
She quailed utterly at a terrible thought. Had love of money beset her husband to the death of love for her! Could it be? Letitia sank into one chair. Richard lost to her! Could it be? What an awful curse upon her wicked discontent!
He turned toward her, the light of sudden question in his eyes.
“Where did you get the means to come Letitia? I left next to nothing, and” – he seemed bewildered – “surely I have not yet sent money.”
“I had no money,” she faltered, “so I walked.”
He clasped her in his arms, forgetting all the obstinacy of pride and wounded love.
“Letitia, God bless you! Have you wanted me at home?”
“Wanted you?” she raised her head, no longer ashamed to let him see the flowing tears. Wanted you, my husband? All I care for in the world is that you shall come home.”
They rode back to St. D, and it was a group of happy, shouting children who discovered them like a troop of hungry little wild animals.
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