The Poor Clare | Page 3

had been nursed in Ireland by the very woman who lifted her in
her arms, and welcomed her to her husband's home in Lancashire.

Excepting for the short period of her own married life, Bridget
Fitzgerald had never left her nursling. Her marriage--to one above her
in rank--had been unhappy. Her husband had died, and left her in even
greater poverty than that in which she was when he had first met with
her. She had one child, the beautiful daughter who came riding on the
waggon-load of furniture that was brought to the Manor-house.
Madame Starkey had taken her again into her service when she became
a widow. She and her daughter had followed "the mistress" in all her
fortunes; they had lived at St. Germains and at Antwerp, and were now
come to her home in Lancashire. As soon as Bridget had arrived there,
the Squire gave her a cottage of her own, and took more pains in
furnishing it for her than he did in anything else out of his own house.
It was only nominally her residence. She was constantly up at the great
house; indeed, it was but a short cut across the woods from her own
home to the home of her nursling. Her daughter Mary, in like manner,
moved from one house to the other at her own will. Madam loved both
mother and child dearly. They had great influence over her, and,
through her, over her husband. Whatever Bridget or Mary willed was
sure to come to pass. They were not disliked; for, though wild and
passionate, they were also generous by nature. But the other servants
were afraid of them, as being in secret the ruling spirits of the
household. The Squire had lost his interest in all secular things; Madam
was gentle, affectionate, and yielding. Both husband and wife were
tenderly attached to each other and to their boy; but they grew more
and more to shun the trouble of decision on any point; and hence it was
that Bridget could exert such despotic power. But if everyone else
yielded to her "magic of a superior mind," her daughter not
unfrequently rebelled. She and her mother were too much alike to agree.
There were wild quarrels between them, and wilder reconciliations.
There were times when, in the heat of passion, they could have stabbed
each other. At all other times they both--Bridget especially--would
have willingly laid down their lives for one another. Bridget's love for
her child lay very deep--deeper than that daughter ever knew; or I
should think she would never have wearied of home as she did, and
prayed her mistress to obtain for her some situation--as waiting
maid--beyond the seas, in that more cheerful continental life, among
the scenes of which so many of her happiest years had been spent. She

thought, as youth thinks, that life would last for ever, and that two or
three years were but a small portion of it to pass away from her mother,
whose only child she was. Bridget thought differently, but was too
proud ever to show what she felt. If her child wished to leave her,
why--she should go. But people said Bridget became ten years older in
the course of two months at this time. She took it that Mary wanted to
leave her. The truth was, that Mary wanted for a time to leave the place,
and to seek some change, and would thankfully have taken her mother
with her. Indeed when Madam Starkey had gotten her a situation with
some grand lady abroad, and the time drew near for her to go, it was
Mary who clung to her mother with passionate embrace, and, with
floods of tears, declared that she would never leave her; and it was
Bridget, who at last loosened her arms, and, grave and tearless herself,
bade her keep her word, and go forth into the wide world. Sobbing
aloud, and looking back continually, Mary went away. Bridget was still
as death, scarcely drawing her breath, or closing her stony eyes; till at
last she turned back into her cottage, and heaved a ponderous old settle
against the door. There she sat, motionless, over the gray ashes of her
extinguished fire, deaf to Madam's sweet voice, as she begged leave to
enter and comfort her nurse. Deaf, stony, and motionless, she sat for
more than twenty hours; till, for the third time, Madam came across the
snowy path from the great house, carrying with her a young spaniel,
which had been Mary's pet up at the hall; and which had not ceased all
night long to seek for its absent mistress, and to whine and moan after
her. With tears Madam told this story, through the closed door--tears
excited by the terrible look