CHAPTER XXXVI.AFTER FOUR YEARS.
“Silently as the spring-timeIts crown of verdure weaves,And all the trees, on all the hills,Open their thousand leaves”—
“Silently as the spring-timeIts crown of verdure weaves,And all the trees, on all the hills,Open their thousand leaves”—
“Silently as the spring-timeIts crown of verdure weaves,And all the trees, on all the hills,Open their thousand leaves”—
“Silently as the spring-time
Its crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees, on all the hills,
Open their thousand leaves”—
So, silently fled the next four years, and I come now to the glorious day when summer was everywhere, from the perfume of the new-mown hay on the lawn to the golden flecks of sunshine on the river, and the musical hum of happy animal life heard on every side.
I had been an invalid for a long time, and had mingled but little with the outer world. With the affairs at Schuyler Hill, however, I was pretty well acquainted, for Edith and I were great friends now. At first she had stood aloof from me, but when she heard of my illness, she came at once, and, with kind words and many delicate attentions, made my life far happier than it could have been without her. After the little grave was made under the evergreen and Gertie went away, she came to me oftener, and, during the long rides which we took together in her pretty phaeton, she told me much of her life at Schuyler Hill. A very happy life it had been for the most part, though it had its dark side, as what life has not? Miss Rossiter had been a trouble while she stayed, and, even after she was gone, her influence was felt in Julia’s fitful moods and peculiar temper after the receipt of the letters, in which allusions were always made to “that woman who has usurped your poor dear mother’s place.”
And still Miss Rossiter came every summer to the Hill, and stayed a month or six weeks, and took upon herself such insufferable airs that Edith was glad when she was gone, and made the day of her departure a sort of jubilee.
Julia was now nearly twenty-two, and very handsome it was thought, though her beauty was of that dark, bold, dashing style which I did not admire. Emma, with her paleness and light brown hair, suited me better; for there was a sweet, gentle expression in her face, while in grace of manner and form she far excelled her haughty sister, who patronized her generally.
Since their coming out neither of the young ladies had been much at home, and we missed the style, and dash, and city airs which they used to bring us, and had only Rosamond Barton and Mrs. Schuyler to admire and copy,—except, indeed, on the rare occasions when Gertie was allowed to pass her vacations in Hampstead. I sayallowed, for the colonel managed so adroitly that she never came to Schuyler Hill when Godfrey was there or expected, but spent her vacations elsewhere in happy ignorance of the real reason for her banishment.
And so we did not see her often in our quiet town; but when we had her with us it was a season of rejoicing, and we made the most of it. How I used to wait and listen for the rapid step and the clear, ringing voice, which always set my heart throbbing, and did me so much good. I did not wonder that everybody loved her, from old Mrs. Vandeusenhisen in the Hollow, to Tom Barton on the Ridge, and when the former brought me fresh eggs for my breakfast, and told me with a beaming face that “her young lady came home last night looking handsomer than ever,” I knew she meant Gertie Westbrooke; and when Tom Barton looked in and said, with a falter in his voice, “She went this morning,” I knew that he meant Gertie, too, and pitied him for the hope he was cherishing, and which I was sure would never be fulfilled.
Since the memorable day when Mary Rogers spoke so boldly for the child whom she would not have compromised by so much as a breath of gossip, Tom Barton had kept his promise, and guarded the little girl as carefully as if she had been hissister, until she ceased to be a little girl, and he saw her in all the bright loveliness of sixteen, and then Tom went down before her charms, and asked her to quit school, and be his wife, and live with him at the Ridge, and snub Miss Julia Schuyler as she had been snubbed by her.
“No, Mr. Barton, I cannot be your wife. No girl would be that, if she loved you ever so much,” Gertie had answered, fearlessly, while Tom blushed painfully, and knew just what she meant, and swore he would reform, and not look so much like a walking beer-barrel.
And he did try to reform, and took the pledge, and broke it in three weeks, and had the delirium tremens, and saw all manner of snakes twisting themselves around Gertie Westbrooke, on whom he called piteously in his agony. Then he took the pledge again, and kept it, and gradually the high color left his face, and his figure began to assume a better shape, and his clothes were not so tight, and he came to see me so often that the meddlesome ones in town wondered if old Ettie Armstrong could be foolish enough to think that boy wanted anything of her!
“Why, she is forty at least,” good Mrs. Smithers said, averring that she knew, because the day I was born their bees swarmed, and her husband broke his neck trying to saw off the limb where they had settled.
Of course such evidence was unanswerable, but as I knew just how old I was, and why Tom Barton visited me so often, I did not care to contradict the story of the bees, and I let Tom Barton come whenever he pleased to talk of his “best girl,” as he called her, and to keep him from the “Golden Eagle,” the low tavern where he had slipped so often.
At last, however, Gertie’s education was finished, and she came home to stay, and the colonel welcomed her kindly, and thought how beautiful she was, and felt his blood stir a little when she raised herself on tiptoe and kissed him as a matter of course. Julia never did that and Emma but seldom, while Edith kept most of her kisses now for the two-year-old boy Arthur, so that the cold, reserved man was not much used tokisses of late, and felt the touch of Gertie’s lips for hours, and caught himself contrasting her with Alice Creighton, whom he had last seen so elaborately dressed with powder on her face and every hair seeming to stand on end. But thirty thousand a year covers many defects, and Alice was still the colonel’s ideal of a daughter-in-law when he welcomed Gertie home.
She had been there three months, and on the June morning of which I write I was going up to call upon her for the first time since her return. I found her in the garden, in her big sun-hat and heavy gloves, cutting and arranging flowers with which to decorate the house, for a party of young people was coming from New York that day, and everything and everybody was in a great state of expectancy. During the last year and a half Robert Macpherson had been in Europe looking after his inheritance, which by the death of some one had come indisputably to him at last. Several times he had written to Godfrey urging him to cross the ocean with his sisters and Miss Creighton, and visit him in his Highland home; and as nothing could please the young ladies better, the party had sailed for Europe in time to keep the Easter festival atGlenthorpe, Robert’s handsome country-seat. But they had now returned to New York, and Robert Macpherson was with them, and for a week or more they had been stopping with Miss Rossiter and waiting for Rosamond Barton, who was to accompany them to Hampstead. It was two years since Godfrey was graduated, and since that time he had been studying his profession in the city until he went with his sisters for a short vacation to Europe.
“Only think, I have not seen Godfrey for more than four years, and have almost forgotten how he looks,” Gertie said, after welcoming me to the garden, and telling me of the expected guests. “It is queer that I have not seen him, but he never happened to be home when I was,” she continued, as she gathered up the bouquets and went with me to the house, where she began to distribute the flowers, putting the most, I noticed, in Godfrey’s room, and seeming more interested in that than in all the others.
Edith was in her nursery, and when Gertie’s decorations werecompleted and she came and stood by her, I was struck as I had been more than once before by their resemblance to each other.
They certainly might have been sisters, though Gertie was in her sweet spring-time and Edith in the fulness of her summer. Time had dealt lightly with her, and she looked scarcely older than when she came a bride to Schuyler Hill. She was very happy, too, though I saw she dreaded the coming of the young people from New York. But not for herself. She had reached a height where neither Alice’s haughtiness, nor Julia’s arrogance, nor Miss Rossiter’s insolence, could touch her. She was only anxious for Gertie, who might be treated coldly, if not rudely, by some of the party. And when she remembered the fear which had for so many years influenced every act of her husband toward Gertie, and, looking at the beautiful girl, remembered what Godfrey was, she trembled, notwithstanding the piece of news which she had heard the previous night, and which she communicated to me, with Gertie sitting in the deep window fanning herself with her garden hat, and rubbing the scratch she had received among the roses.
“By the way,” Edith said, “the colonel had a letter from Godfrey last night, and it seems the engagement he has so long desired has at last come about.”
“Whose engagement?” I asked.
“Godfrey’s and Miss Creighton’s.”
“I supposed that was settled long ago.”
“It was by the parents, but not by the parties most interested. Godfrey has never manifested any great degree of fervor, and has rather made light of it, I think; but it is done now, and they will be married as soon as he gets his profession, possibly sooner. The colonel is greatly rejoiced.”
I glanced at Gertie, still rubbing and blowing the scratch on her hand, but if the news of Godfrey’s approaching marriage produced any effect upon her it was not visible. Her bright color was just as bright and her blue eyes just as placid in their expression, unless, indeed, there was a little wonder in them as she looked up quickly and said:
“A newly engaged couple,—won’t that be nice? How do you suppose Mr. Godfrey will act as an engaged man? I always think of him as a boy, and still he must be twenty-four.”
And yet in her heart there was a shadow of regret that Godfrey should be wasted upon Alice Creighton, who never liked her, and who might make Godfrey dislike her, too.
“She shall not do that,” she thought, when alone in her own room she was reflecting upon the news which had dimmed somewhat the brightness of the day. “I’ll be so kind and good to her that she cannot help liking me, and so I’ll gain her friendship instead of losing Godfrey’s.”
With this end in view, she transferred a part of the flowers from Godfrey’s room to that of hisfiancée, where she rearranged the furniture, and into which she brought her own handsome reading chair, Edith’s gift on her last birthday. Remembering Alice’s indolent, lounging habits, and how much she was addicted to what Godfrey called “lying around loose,” she knew the chair would just suit the languid little lady, and placed it by the window where the finest view of the river was to be had. Later in the day she dressed herself for the evening and wore her prettiest white muslin, with the fluted ruffles and ribbons of blue, and then went down to the piazza where the colonel and Edith were waiting for their guests.