The Legacy
Eight years had passed over the head of Florence Heriton since the sudden death of her beloved mother, and the gay, happy child of fifteen was transformed into the thoughtful, beautiful woman.
Florence had more than fulfilled the promise of her early girlhood. The slim figure had expanded into well-rounded proportions, and if the rosy color and arch expression of her features had departed, they were replaced by a softened sweetness and delicacy even more charming.
Mrs. Heriton’s worst misgivings had been realized. The priory had passed into other hands. By slow degrees the rest of her husband’s property had been dissipated in vain attempts to rebuild his fortunes by wild speculations. Friends had grown weary of dissuading and advising, and had given up a connection which only exposed them to urgent entreaties for loans to be repaid on the success of such and such an enterprise.
Only Florence clung more closely than ever to the father whom she loved and pitied; and, fancying that her mother’s death had been in some measure the cause of his insatiable restlessness, she tried in every conceivable way to minister to his comfort, and to wile him from those thoughts of achieving riches which tormented him.
As they grew poorer they had been compelled to economize more and more, and they were now occupying lodgings in a very quiet part of Brompton.
There was no thoroughfare through this street, which ended in a mews, so it was indeed very quiet and very dull. From her sitting-room window Florence had listlessly watched the opposite neighbors till she knew them all and was familiar with their habits—the half-pay major and his shrewish wife; the invalid lady with her large family of boisterous children, and the three old maids who were patterns of propriety and stiffness to every one in the street. But her eye always rested longest on two young females, daily governesses, who with commendable punctuality went to and fro every day. How she envied them—how she longed to take up her books, too, and toil with the proud satisfaction of knowing that her meed would be the glittering coins of which she so often felt an absolute need.
But Mr. Heriton was prouder than in the days of his prosperity. He was always dreaming of retrieving the past by some stroke of good luck, and he insisted that his heiress should do nothing that would degrade him. A hint that she was anxious to make some use of her accomplishments threw him into such a fit of passion that his frightened daughter never dared repeat it. But it was a weary life for one so young. Without a piano—a luxury she had long ago been forced to deny herself—without books, save those she had read till she wearied of them—forbidden to walk out because it was indecorous for Miss Heriton to be seen without an attendant—the days went by as slowly and sadly as Mariana’s in the moated grange.
Mr. Heriton—dressed with punctilious care—always sallied forth after he had breakfasted, and did not return until evening, when Florence was expected to be ready to receive him with smiles. He never asked how she had spent the long interval; nor did he seem to guess how often it was passed in weeping over the pages of her one great treasure—a little journal her mother had kept, and which she jealously guarded from every eye, for was not the last entry about Frank Dormer?—that dear, kind, gentle Frank, more thought of, more loved and regretted now than even in the first days of his absence. Mrs. Heriton’s feeble hand had traced these words only a few hours before she died:
“Thursday, May, 18—.—Mr. Dormer left us yesterday for India. Even as I imagined, he loves my darling, and hopes to return some day rich enough to wed her. Heaven bless and prosper him! For he is a good young man, and it comforts and strengthens me to think that there is some one in this wide world who will protect her when I am gone. Perhaps I am too romantic in hoping this, but so pure a love will surely outlast the sad changes which I am compelled to dread. My poor Richard—my poor little Florence!”
And here the writer had suddenly ceased, as if her fears overcame her. But when Florence grew very sad she would take out her mother’s journal, ponder over this last page, and, with hope lighting up her eye and a soft blush o’erspreading her delicate cheek, whisper to herself: “It will be all right when Frank comes back to me; I shall never know sorrow more when he is here!”
Still, as the years sped on and he returned not, the deferred hope became an additional sorrow. He had written to Mr. Heriton twice after the tidings of Mrs. Heriton’s death had reached him, and each time the packet had contained a voluminous inclosure for Florence. But these letters were tossed into the fire half read, with such fierce execrations at the writer’s insolence that she dared not ask the nature of their contents.
At the close of a day in November, when the evening was setting in with a misting rain, the dinner hour had almost passed without Mr. Heriton making his appearance. Florence had shaken up the pillows of his easy-chair, coaxed the fire into a bright blaze, and rectified all the omissions of the slatternly servant—who complained bitterly of the airs miss’ pa gave himself if the tablecloth wasn’t quite straight, or the knives dull—and had then gone backward and forward to the window many times to watch for his coming.
