CHAPTER XX.WISTARIA.
“WHAT a fine, substantial, aristocratic-looking old place it is!”
Isabelle’s thoughts, as she moved slowly up the long driveway to the Brook mansion, were almost envious. She had come across fields to fulfil the neighborly office which Miss Joanna had begged, and she had attached little importance to Bonny’s prophecy of a “delightful surprise” awaiting her.
Indeed, what would have made Beatrice extravagantly happy would have scarcely appealed to Isabelle at all. The elder girl was fighting valiantly to “down discontent,” but so far her efforts had not been crowned with marked success. To accept the simple life which God had ordered for her was a bitter trial. She was not the first who has imagined it would “be easy to do just right if—” in some other way one could arrange one’s life.
“Why couldn’t I have been born in such a home? Why need my mother toil as she does?And Roland, Bonny, even little Bob, has to think each day how best to increase the family income; while these old people, at the very end of life, have ten thousand times more than they can use or enjoy.”
It was, indeed, a “fine old place,” rich with the accumulations of nearly a century of ownership by the same, always wealthy family. It stood “four square to all the winds that blew,” its back and front so exactly alike that it could not be said to put its “finest to the world.” On either end, immense fluted columns rose to the roof, which, extending over the wide veranda thus formed, gave protection to those who would enjoy these “out-of-door rooms.”
The east veranda looked toward the river, the west upon the tree-lined avenue which led from the road, a quarter of a mile distant, through the park to the mansion. On either side, also, were gay parterres of choicest flowers, while a “maze” of old-time box borders invited the curious to tread its quaintly constructed paths for a full mile of windings in and out, before one could emerge on the northern side, and upon a well-kept bridle-road, which led through the great forest on the bluff, down its sides to the river, the old “embankments” and the well-preserved historicreminders of a day when the Chidly Brooks “had fought and bled for freedom’s cause.”
The stables and outbuildings were well to the south of the mansion, and on that side were also the kitchen offices, which in this well-ordered establishment were as freely open to inspection as any other part of Miss Joanna’s “kingdom.”
“Ah! my dear! It is good of you to come so early! That is exactly what I like: plenty of time to do things neatly and completely.”
“But, dear Miss Brook! you are so quick and active I should think you would not ever take much time for anything! You are certainly twice as spry as I am!” responded Isabelle, surprised from her revery by the salutation of her white-haired neighbor.
“I don’t know about that! I don’t know about that! I do know that the only way of making haste which I understand is to take such thought beforehand that I rarely make one blundering movement. I have never had time, even in my long life, to ‘hurry,’ but I have managed to accomplish about all I have set out to do.”
“And I do try to ‘hurry,’ but never succeed! I am slow-motioned—a dreamer, my mother tells me; and once in a while I get so behind-hand that I put on steam and then—a smash up!”
“Give it up, my child, give it up at once. Learn to use forethought instead of haste and you’ll be thankful all your life for doing so. But, dearie me! how old lips do love to preach, and how distasteful it is to young ears to listen! No, no, my child. I do not think you are impatient. It is only that I remember so distinctly how I disliked to learn of anybody in this world—except Joanna Brook! But come in, come in. I have as many of these May roses as I think we can use. The others we will cut after these are in place. Did you ever see this earth more lovely than it is this very morning? Oh, what a God! what a loving, generous God!”
Isabelle looked up swiftly into the sweet old face before her. She was sometimes startled by these sudden outbursts of feeling on Miss Joanna’s part; a person who ordinarily never “preached,” but who seemed so full to overflowing of the love of God that her natural speech became, at times, as the speech of an alien.
“I suppose He is,” answered the girl, slowly.
Miss Brook darted a glance into the beautiful face of the girl, and opened her lips quickly; but the words she would have said she altered to the quiet remark: “If you do not know, but only ‘suppose,’ you will know some day. You wouldknow now if it were His will. But come in. Let us begin at the front parlor first.”
They ascended the steps and entered the great hall, which ran through the main floor of the house from back to front. Each entrance door stood widely open, and the outlook either way was entrancing. Isabelle forgot to be regretful for her own privations in the enjoyment of that scene.
“How lovely! This would make such a pretty picture, if one might put it on canvas. This great hall, with the curious staircase, the old-time furniture, and that big, hospitable vista beyond! May I sketch it sometime, Miss Joanna?”
“Yes, indeed! And we would feel honored. Ah! those old outside galleries,—galleries we called them, when I was young,—many’s the cotillon has been danced upon them, many the tea-party gathered there. See this table! It is a century and a half old. It is only about four feet in diameter, yet eighteen people have gathered about that bit of mahogany to drink a cup of tea, when tea was tea, my dear! These are the cups; they were my grandmother’s. See?”
The old lady stepped to a cabinet and took out a tiny cup and saucer of delicate china, thin asan egg-shell and no larger than the smaller end of one. “I often sit and muse over those old times. I can imagine the whole scene so well, and sometimes I almost find myself talking gossip with the dead-and-gone dames who drank to the success of ‘the army’ in these same bits of cups. I must show you my grandmother’s gowns and things some day, my dear; I think you would enjoy seeing them, even trying them on, if you like. Eh?”
A moment’s thought flashed through Isabelle’s brain. Here were artistic possibilities open to her that the city could not have furnished, and her discontent vanished entirely. “I should be very grateful, dear Miss Brook! It would be a treasure-trove to me! But sometime, after I have worked very, very faithfully to do better things than I ever have accomplished, will you sit to me for a sketch? It sounds like the greatest presumption, yet would you?”
“Would I? Would I not? I should be delighted! Make a trial right away, to-morrow if you can. I should love to give a new picture of myself to Chidly. The last one I had painted was when I was middle-aged, in ‘my prime’ some flatterers said, ‘neither hay nor grass,’Isaid. I had outgrown the dimples of youth andI had not acquired the finish of age. I’m in my prime now, I fancy, as near as I ever shall be until God sends Azrael to lay the touch of perfect peace upon my restless lips.”
“There was no answer, and Miss Joanna turnedabout swiftly.”
She led the way without another word into the wide eastern drawing-room, and threw open the shutters to let in the morning sunshine.
“Here you are, my child, free to do exactly as you please. Make the rooms as pretty as you can, and I begin with this first, because it is chief. You can call for one of the men to cut as many flowers as you like. The bushes and trees are loaded with blossoms now. And, oh! here is something you will like, at least I hope so. A gift from the daughter of a dear old friend, herself as noble a woman as ever drew breath though she couldn’t help be that, with such a mother! The girl—dear me! she’s fifty, if a day, but a girl to me always!—this girl is manager of one of the art rooms in the city, and she brought me this for a birthday gift from there. Isn’t it pretty?”
There was no answer, and Miss Joanna turned about swiftly. She was a woman who liked others to share her enthusiasms.
Isabelle was straining with clasped hands and parted lips, gazing amazedly upon a threefoldscreen shielding the hearthplace. The panels bore each a female figure, but the central one was that which had engrossed the young artist’s attention to the exclusion of the others; and its design was a golden-haired child in a delicate drapery of heliotrope tint reaching upward to pull the bunches of wistaria blooms from a vine wreathed above her head. The scheme of the coloring, even to the framing of the screen, was of heliotrope and gold, and the effect was of indescribable light and joy.
“Ah! I see you like it! We think it is beautiful, beautiful! and my friend says that though they do not know the artist’s name now, the Art Directors will make every effort to hunt her up and help her on; for I suppose it must be a woman, since this is a Women’s Society.”
Still Isabelle did not speak, her words seemed utterly to have deserted her; but there was one at hand who was never at a loss for language, and with a rush and whirl Beatrice came waltzing into the great room, her eyes dancing as gayly as her feet, and her lips bubbling over with laughter.
“Oh! I couldn’t stand it any longer! I thought I should just burst with impatience, so I told Mr. Brook he would have to excuse me a minute, whether or no, and here I am! Now,Miss Isabelle Beckwith, what have you to say for yourself? Didn’t I have a surprise for you, and isn’t it just too glorious to be true?”
“I—I can’t believe it! Even yet!”
“Well, I should like to know what has come over you two children!” exclaimed Miss Joanna, utterly at sea for an explanation of this odd behavior.
Bonny stopped dancing, went up to her sister, threw her arms impulsively about Isabelle’s neck, and kissed her heartily. Then she asked, “Shall I tell her, or will you, dear?”
Belle blushed a little, but her eyes shone with pride as she turned toward Miss Brook. “Since I have heard your opinion of the panel when you did not know who painted it, I suppose I may tell you that your words made me very proud. That ‘Wistaria’ is my own work.”
“My goodness! Is it possible! And to think that I never dreamed it! Yet why should I? The only signature anywhere about the picture is a blade of grass in one corner.”
“Yes,” laughed Isabelle, now as gay as she had been speechless before, “that was the only one I dared use. I am such a mere beginner in art, that I feel as if I really know nothing yet! Only I feel it within me—strong, strong, strong!—thatI shall sometime be able to put a little of myself, my dreams and ambitions, into visible form! Oh! I am so grateful and so humble. I am ready now, dear Miss Joanna, to say with you, ‘God is so loving, so generous!’”
There was silence in the room for a moment, during which Bonny’s dark eyes filled with an unwonted moisture; and rather than “sprinkle down the occasion” she stole quietly away and to her own duty in that big study, where natural history and she had such a tussle daily to understand each other, but where a growing friendship had been established between them under the wise instruction of Philipse Chidly Brook, Esquire.
Beatrice’s departure broke the spell, and Miss Joanna moved swiftly forward and clasped the trembling, success-humbled Isabelle in her kindly arms. “Ah! my dear, if you can take your good fortune in such guise, all things will be possible to you. I envy you; yes, even if it is wicked! The feeling in your heart at this moment must be so exquisite! To be conscious of one’s own power to transcribe a little of this wonderful beauty all about us so that other eyes may read its secret too, and to be assured that the dear God is approving by helping one as He has helpedyou now, must be happiness indeed! My darling, I congratulate you with all my heart!”
Belle looked up with glistening eyes. Where was now the envy that had tormented her soul as she had approached that house but a few moments before? Gone utterly. For ten times the wealth and pride of all the Brooks who ever lived in those stately old rooms she would not have given up one iota of the pure joy which now thrilled her heart.
“Dear lady, a bit of a while ago it was I who was envious. Now I wouldn’t change places with you for the world! But, dear me! how horrid that sounds!”
“No, no, no. Let it stand! You are like a young queen who has known all along that her blood was royal, but whom the world has not acknowledged. Now you are free to enter into your kingdom. In the name of the people, welcome! See to it, crowned one, that you always, as now, reverence your high estate!”
Miss Joanna kissed the girl gently on her white brow, then moved quietly away; and Isabelle looked after her wonderingly. “I did not dream that she had all that romance and fine feeling in her alert, practical nature! Well, I shall know a new Miss Joanna now, and love herdearly, dearly! But I came over here to work, not to dream; and though I am so glad I can hardly keep still, I will do, exactly as Motherkin would bid me, ‘the task that lies nearest the best that I can.’”
Certainly no rooms were ever arranged with more loving delicacy of touch and judgment than were these old parlors for Miss Brook’s dinner-party; and when all was finished and Isabelle free at length to go home, she approached her old friend with something of timidity in her air.
“Miss Joanna, may I speak with you a moment?”
“An hour, if you will. It would take all that to express my pleasure in everything, yourself included, if I were to try to put it into words.”
“Then will you understand me exactly, when I say, something, maybe queer—”
“My dear, we have taken a peep each into the other’s soul this morning. I am certain there will be no misunderstanding. You may say all you wish.”
But even wise Miss Brook was not wholly prepared for what was forthcoming, though secretly rejoiced at it.
“Well, you see, all of us, except myself, have some way of earning money; there does notseem to be anything especial I can do, unless— This arranging your rooms has put an idea into my head. Do you think some of the other rich families about here, the ‘summer folks’ and all, would give me an opportunity to help them get ready for their social gatherings, as I have done for you? I want, this is what you must certainly understand, I want to always fix your things if you will let me, because it is the only way I can show— No, that isn’t it! Because I love you! You have from the first seemed to like me, and I have been so glad of it. Bonny is so bright, and Roland so manly and good, and little Bob so—”
“The least said about little Bob the better!” cried the old lady, smiling so brightly that Isabelle was quite reassured. “We all love the little scamp who teases the patience out of us a dozen times a day.”
“But for these other people, if I—who do understand the value of beautiful things, even if I don’t own them—could take care of their bric-à-brac, put their apartments in order after the maids have done their sweepings, and as I imagine few servants are trained to do, at a small price per hour, I should be very glad to do it.”
Miss Brook put on her spectacles and lookedfixedly at her young neighbor. “My dear, they said you were the proud one of the family.”
“So I am.”
“And yet you realize what you are asking?”
“Perfectly. It will be putting myself in a servant’s place.”
“I fancied you were even a little ashamed to have your brother drive the ‘Parcel Express.’”
“I was ashamed of everything.”
“Well!”
“Now I am only ashamed of myself, ashamed of the ignoble shame I felt then.”
“But the artist in you? Will you not be coining money by that talent soon?”
“I think not. Those who do the best work are the least appreciated for a while. It has been so in so many lives of real artists. No, indeed, I am not dazzled by the sale of one panel! ‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer.’ And if I can earn money in some other way, I can—I can keep my soul clean. I need never earn ‘pot-boilers’ by a desecration of what little power I possess, but I can always keep that channel to expand in. Does that sound very presumptuous and conceited in me?”
“It sounds as I wish thousands of other workers felt. We should have truer pictures,finer statues, loftier literature, if the greed for money were kept out of the question. You are right. Roland is right. If he is a poet, he will not be debarred his privilege to sing because he ploughs the field or drives the ‘Parcel Express.’ If you are an artist, you will work out your beautiful conception none the less because you have to live in industry, not idleness. My child, I shall always call upon you to help me gratuitously; but you shall help my neighbors at the rate of thirty cents an hour! Do I understand you, think?”
Isabelle gave a quick, warm embrace to the kind creature beside her, and, her task being done, escaped before she betrayed herself into any more sentiment.
It was a very different girl who bounded homewards over the sun-dried grass than she who had moved wearily, almost despondently, along the regular paths a few hours before, and her heart rejoiced at sight of her mother’s face watching for her from the kitchen door.
“Ah! the dear Motherkin! I can hardly wait to tell her. She will be as glad, almost more glad than I!”
But what is that? At first sight of her daughter’s form approaching The Lindens, Mrs. Beckwithhad hurried forward, waving a strip of paper above her head. She seemed quite as excited and eager as Isabelle herself; and as soon as they had come within hailing distance, two shouts crossed each other on the sun-lighted air.
“My daughter, good news, good news! A check—for you!”
“Oh, Motherkin! I was never so happy in my life!”