Hannah/Chapter 17

There is a picture familiar to many, for it was in the Great Exhibition of 1851, and few stopped to look at it without tears—"The Last Look of Home," by Ford Madox Browne. Merely a bit of a ship's side—one of those emigrant ships such as are constantly seen at Liverpool, or other ports whence they sail—with its long rows of dangling cabbages, and its utter confusion of cargo and passengers. There, indifferent to all, and intently gazing on the receding shore, sit two persons—undoubtedly a man and his wife—emigrants—and bidding adieu to home forever. The man is quite broken down; but the woman, sad as she looks, has hope and courage in her face. Why not? In one hand she firmly clasps her husband's—the other supports her sleeping babe. She is not disconsolate, for she carries her "home" with her.

In the picture the man is—not at all like Bernard, certainly, but the woman is exceedingly like Hannah—in expression at least—as she sat on the deck of the French steamer, taking her last look of dear old England, with its white cliffs glimmering in the moonlight—fainter and fainter every minute—across the long reach of Southampton Water.

Bernard sat beside her—but he too was very silent. He meant to go back again as soon as he had seen her and Rosie and Grace safely landed at Havre; but he knew that to Hannah this farewell of her native land was, in all human probability, a farewell "for good."

Ay—for good—in the fullest sense; and she believed it—-believed that they were both doing right, and that God's ​blessing would follow them wherever they went; yet she could not choose but be a little sad, until she felt the touch of the small, soft hand which now, as ever, was continuously creeping into Tannie's. Then she was content. If it had been God's will to give her no future of her own at all, she could have rested happily in that of the child and the child's father.

It happened to be a most beautiful night for crossing—the sea calm as glass, and the air mild as summer, though it was in the beginning of November. Hannah could not bear to go below, but with Rosie and Grace occupied one of those pleasant cabius upon deck—sheltered on three sides, open on the fourth. There, wrapped in countless rugs and shawls, Rosie being in an ecstasy at the idea of going to bed in her clothes, "all under the tars" ("s" was still an impossible first consonant to the baby tongue), she settled down for the night, with her child in her arms, and her faithful servant at her feet.

Sir Bernard made them all as comfortable and as warm as he could—kissed his child, and Hannah too, in Grace's presence. For he had himself informed the nurse how matters stood, and told her that in his house she should have a home for life, in a country where marriages such as hers were considered honorable, natural, and right. Then he bade them all good-night, and went to the cabin below.

Hannah could not sleep; but she rested quiet and happy. Even happiness could not make her physically strong; but she left all her days to come in God's hands—to be many or few, as he thought best. The others fell sound asleep, one at her bosom, the other at her feet; but she lay wide awake, listening to the lap-lap of the water against the boat, and watching the night sky, so thick with stars. At length the moon came too, and looked in upon them like a sweet, calm face, resembling a dead face in its unchangeable peace; so much so, that when Hannah dropped at last into a confused doze, she dreamed it was the face of her sister Rosa smiling down out of heaven upon them all.

When she woke it was no longer moonlight, but day​light—at least day-break; for she could discern the dark outline of the man at the wheel, the only person on deck. The boat seemed to be passing, swiftly and silently, as a phantom ship through a phantom ocean: she hardly knew whether she was awake or asleep, dead or alive, till she felt the soft breathing of the child in her arms, and, with a passion of joy, remembered all.

A few minutes after, Hannah, raising her head as high as she could without disturbing Rosie, saw a sight which she never saw before, and never in all her life may see again, but will remember to the end of her days.

Just where sea and sky met was a long, broad line of most brilliant amber, gradually widening and widening, as the sun lifted himself out of the water and shot his rays, in the form of a crown, right up into the still dark zenith. Then, as he climbed higher, every floating cloud—and the horizon seemed full of them—became of a brilliant rose-hue, until the whole heaven blazed with color and light. In the midst of it all, dim as a dream, but with all these lovely tints flitting over it, Hannah saw, far in the distance, the line of the French shore.

It was her welcome to her new country and new life—the life which was truly like being born again into another world. She accepted the omen, and, clasping her child to her bosom, closed her eyes and praised God.

******

All this happened long ago, and Monsieur and Madame de la Rivière have never returned to England. They still inhabit the Château de Saint Roque, beloved and honored far and wide in the land of their adoption, and finding, after all, that the human heart beats much alike, whether with French blood or English, and that there is something wonderfully noble and lovable about that fine old Norman race which (as Madame Arthenay long delighted in impressing upon her dear neighbors, and upon the many English friends who visited them in their pleasant foreign home) once came over and conquered, and civilized, us rude Saxons and Britons.

​Whether the master and mistress of Saint Roque will ever return to England, or whether little Austin, the eldest of their three sons—Rosie is still the only daughter—will ever become not only the heir of their French estates and name, but one day Sir Austin Rivers of the Moat House, remains to be proved. At any rate, they mourn little after that old home, being so thoroughly happy in their new one—as those deserve to be who have sacrificed for one another almost every thing except what they felt to be right. But they are happy—and what more can they or any one desire?