CHAPTER X.AT AIKENSIDE.
It was a long, tiresome ride for grandpa, from Honedale to Aikenside, and he accepted thankfully the doctor’s offer to take Maddy there himself. With this arrangement Maddy was well pleased, as it would thus afford her the opportunity she had so much desired, of talking with the doctor about his bill, and asking him to wait until she had earned enough to pay it.
To the aged couple, parting for the first time with their darling, the day was very sad; but they would not intrude their grief upon the young girl looking so eagerly forward to the new life opening before her; only grandpa’s voice faltered a little when, in the morning prayer, he commended his child to God, asking that she might be kept from temptation, and that the new sights and scenes to which she was going might not beget in her a love of the world’s vanities, or a disgust for her old home; but that she mightcome back to it the same loving, happy child as she was then, and never be ashamed of the parents to whom she was so dear. There was an answering sob from the chair where Maddy knelt, and after the devotions were ended, she wound her arm around her grandfather’s neck, and parting his silvery locks, said to him earnestly:
“Grandpa, do you think I could ever be ashamed of you and grandma?”
“I hope not, darling; it would break our hearts; but finery and things is mighty apt to set folks up, and after you’ve walked a spell on them velvet carpets, you’ll no doubt think your feet make a big noise on our bare kitchen floor.”
“That may be, but I shan’t be ashamed ofyou. No, not if I were Mrs. Guy Remington herself.” And Maddy emphasized her words with a kiss, as she thought how nice it would be, provided she were a widow, to be Mrs. Guy Remington, and have her grandparents live at Aikenside with her.
“But, pshaw! I’ll never be Mrs. Anybody; and if I am, I’ll have to have a husband, which would be such a bother!” was her next mental comment, as, leaving her grandfather, she went to help her grandmother with the breakfast dishes, wondering when she wouldwipe those blue cups again, and how she should probably feel when she did.
Quickly the morning passed, and just as the clock struck two the doctor’s buggy appeared over the hill. Up to this moment Maddy had only been happy in anticipation; but when, with her shawl and bonnet on, she stood waiting while the doctor fastened her little trunk, and when she saw a tear on the wrinkled faces of both her grandparents, her fortitude gave way; and mid a storm of sobs she said her good-byes and received her grandfather’s blessing.
It was very pleasant that afternoon, for the summer breeze was blowing cool across the fields, where the laborers were busy; and with the elasticity of youth, Maddy’s tears stopped flowing, but not until the dear old home had disappeared, and she was some distance on the road to Aikenside.
“I wonder how I shall like Mrs. Remington and Mr. Guy?” was the first remark she made.
“You’ll not see them immediately. They left this morning for Saratoga,” the doctor replied.
“Left! Mr. Guy gone?” Maddy repeated, in a disappointed tone.
“Are you very sorry?” the doctor asked, and Maddy replied:
“I did want to see him once; you know I never have.”
It would be such a surprise to find that Guy was no other than the terrible inspector, that he would not undeceive her, the doctor thought; and so he relapsed into a thoughtful mood, from which Maddy roused him by broaching the subject of the unpaid bill, asking if he’d please not trouble grandpa, but wait until she could pay it.
“Perhaps it’s wrong asking it when you were so good, but if you will only take me for payment,” and Maddy’s soft brown eyes were lifted to his face.
“Yes, Maddy, I’ll takeyoufor payment,” the doctor said, smiling, half seriously, as his eyes rested fondly upon her.
Maddy did not understand him, but began to calculate out loud how long it would take to earn the money. She’d heard people say that the doctor charged a dollar a visit to Honedale, and he’d been so many, many times, that it would take a great many weeks to pay him; besides, there was the debt to Mr. Guy. She wanted to help pay that, but did not see how she could, unless he waited too. Did the doctor think he would? It seemed terrible to the doctor that one so young as Maddy should be harassed withthe payment of debts, and he felt a most intense desire for the right to shield her from all such care, but he must not speak of it then. She was too young, and he would rather she should remain a little longer an artless child, confiding all her troubles to him as if he had been her brother.
“There’s Aikenside,” he said at last, and it was not long before they passed through the gate, guarded by the great bronze lions, and struck into the graveled road leading to the house.
“It’s grander, finer, than I ever dreamed. Oh! if I could some time have just such a home! and, doctor, look! What does make that water go up in the air so? Is it what they call a fountain?”
In her excitement Maddy had risen, and with one band resting on the doctor’s shoulder, was looking round her eagerly. Guy Remington would have laughed, and been gratified, too, could he have heard the enthusiastic praises heaped upon his home by the little school-girl as she drove up to his door. But Guy was away in the dusty cars, and only Jessie stood on the piazza to receive her teacher. There were warm words of welcome, kisses and hugs; and then Jessie led her friend to the chamber she was to occupy.
“Mother wanted you to sleep the other side of thehouse, but brother Guy said no, you should have a pleasant room; and when Guy says a thing, it’s so. It’s nice in here, and close to me. See, I’m right here,” and Jessie opened a door leading directly to her own sleeping-room. “Here’s one trunk,” she continued, as a servant brought up and set down, a little contemptuously, the small hair-cloth box containing Maddy’s wardrobe. “Here’s one: where’s the rest?” and she was flying after Tom, when Muddy stopped her, saying:
“I have but one;—that’s all.”
“Only that little, teenty thing? How funny! Why, mamma carried three most as big as my bed to Saratoga. You can’t have many dresses. What are you going to wear to dinner?”
“I’ve been to dinner.” And Maddy looked up in some surprise.
“You have! We never have it till five, when Guy is at home; but now they are gone, Mrs. Noah says we will have it at one, as folks ought to do. To-day I coaxed her to wait till you came, and the table is all set out so nicely for two. Can you carve, and do you like green turtle soup?”
Maddy was bewildered, but managed to reply that she could not carve, that she never saw any greenturtle soup, and that she supposed she should wear to dinner the dress she had on.
“Why, we always change, even Mrs. Noah,” Jessie exclaimed, bending over the open trunk, and examining its contents.
Two calicoes, a blue muslin, a gingham, and a delaine, beside the one she had on—that was the sum total of Maddy’s wardrobe, and Jessie glanced at it a little ruefully as Maddy carefully shook out the nicely-folded dresses and laid them upon the bed. Here Mrs. Noah was heard calling Jessie, who ran away, leaving Maddy alone for a moment.
Maddy had seen the look Jessie gave the dresses, and for the first time there dawned upon her mind the possibility that her plain apparel, and ignorance of the ways of Aikenside, might be to her the cause of much mortification.
“And grandma said they were so nice, too, and did them up so carefully,” she said, her lip beginning to quiver, and her eyes filling with tears, thoughts of home came rushing over her.
She could not force them back, and laying her head upon the top of the despised hair trunk, she sobbed aloud. Guy Remington’s private room was in the hall, and as the doctor knew a book was to havebeen left there for him, he took the liberty of getting it; passing Maddy’s door he heard the low sound of weeping, and looking in, saw her where she sat or rather knelt upon the floor.
“Homesick so soon?” he said, advancing to her side, and then, amid a torrent of tears, the whole came out.
Maddy never could do as they did there, and everybody would laugh at her so for an awkward thing; she never knew that folks ate dinner at five instead of twelve—she should surely starve to death; she couldn’tcarve—she couldnoteatmud-turtlesoup, and she did not know which dress to wear for dinner—would the doctor tell her? There they were, and she pointed to the bed, only five, and she knew Jessie thought it so mean.
Such was the substance of Maddy’s passionate outpouring of her griefs to the highly-perplexed doctor, who, after quieting her somewhat, ascertained that the greatest present trouble was the deciding what dress was suitable to the occasion. The doctor had never made dress his study, but as it happened he liked blue, and so suggested it, as the one most likely to be becoming.
“That!” and Maddy looked confounded. “Whygrandma never lets me wear that, except Sunday; that’s my very best dress.”
“Poor child; I’m not sure it was right for you to come here where the life is so different from the quiet, unpretentious one you have led,” the doctor thought, but he merely said, “it’s my impression they wear their best dresses here all the time.”
“But what shall I do when that’s worn out! Oh, dear, dear, I wish I had not come!” and another impetuous fit of weeping ensued, in the midst of which Jessie came back, greatly disturbed on Maddy’s account, and asking, eagerly, what was the matter.
Very adroitly the doctor managed to draw Jessie aside, while as well as he was able he gave her a few hints with regard to her intercourse with Maddy, and Jessie, who seemed intuitively to understand him, went back to the weeping girl, soothing her much as a little mother would have soothed her child. They would have such nice times, when Maddy got used to their ways, which would not take long, and nobody would laugh at her, she said, when Maddy expressed her fears on that point. “You are too pretty even if you do make mistakes!” and then she went into ecstacies over the blue muslin, which was becoming to Maddy and greatly enhanced her girlish beauty. The tear-stainswere all washed away, Jessie using very freely her mother’seau-de-cologne, and making Maddy’s cheeks very red with rubbing, the nut-brown hair was brushed until it shone like satin, a little narrow band of black velvet ribbon was pinned about Maddy’s neck, and then she was ready for that terrible ordeal, her first dinner at Aikenside. The doctor was going to stay, and this revived her somewhat.
“You must come to the housekeeper’s room and see her first,” Jessie said, and with a beating heart and brain bewildered by the elegant furniture which met her at every turn, Maddy followed to where the dreaded Mrs. Noah, in rustling black silk and a thread lace collar, sat sewing, and greatly enjoying the leisure she had in her master’s absence.
Mrs. Noah knew who Maddy was, and remembered that the old man had said she would not disgrace a drawing-room as fine as that at Aikenside. She had discovered, too, that Mrs. Agnes was opposed to her coming, and that only Guy’s determined will had brought her there; and this, if nothing else, had disposed her to feel kindly toward the little governess. She had supposed her rather pretty, but was not prepared to find her what she was. Maddy’s was a singular type of beauty—a beauty untarnished by anyselfish, uncharitable, or suspicious feeling. Clear and truthful as a mirror, her brown eyes looked into Mrs. Noah’s, while her low courtesy, so full of deference, found its way straight to that motherly heart.
“I am glad to see you, Miss Clyde,” she said; “very glad.”
Maddy’s lip quivered a little and her voice shook as she replied:
“Please call me Maddy. They do at home, and I sha’n’t be quite so—so——”
She could not say “homesick,” lest she should break out again into a fit of crying, but Mrs. Noah understood her, and remembering her own experience when first she went from home, she involuntarily stooped to kiss the pure, white forehead of the girl, who henceforth was sure of one champion, at least, at Aikenside.
The dinner was a success, so far as Maddy was concerned. Not a single mistake did she make, though her cheeks burned painfully as she felt the eyes of the polite waiter fixed so often upon her face, and fancied he might be laughing at her. But he was not, and thanks to the kind-hearted Guy, he thought of her only with respect, as one who was his superior and must be treated accordingly. Knowing how differenteverything was at Aikenside from that to which she had been accustomed, Guy, with the thoughtfulness natural to him, had taken the precaution of speaking to each of the servants concerning Miss Clyde, Jessie’s teacher. As he could not be there himself when she first came, it would devolve upon them more or less to make it pleasant for her by kind, civil attentions, he said, hinting at the dire displeasure sure to fall on any one who should be guilty of a misdemeanor in that direction. To Paul, the coachman, he had been particular in his charges, telling him who Maddy was, and arguing that from the insolence once given to the grandfather the offender was bound to be more polite to the grandchild. The carriage was to be at her and Jessie’s command, and Paul was never to refuse a reasonable request to drive the young ladies when and where they wished to go, while a pretty little black pony, recently broken to the saddle for Agnes, was to be at Miss Clyde’s service, if she chose to have it. As Guy’s slightest wish was always obeyed, Maddy’s chances for happiness were not small, notwithstanding that she felt so desolate and lonely when the doctor left her, and watched him with a swelling heart until he was lost to view in the deepening twilight.
Feeling that she must be homesick, Mrs. Noah suggested that she try the fine piano in the little music room.
“Maybe you can’t play, but you can drum ‘Days of Absence,’ as most girls do,” and opening the piano she bade Maddy “thump as long as she liked.”
Music was a delight to Maddy, who coveted nothing so much as a knowledge of it, and sitting down upon the stool, she touched the soft-toned instrument, ascertaining by her ear several sweet chords, and greatly astonishing Jessie, who wondered at her skill. Twice each week a teacher came up from Devonshire to give lessons to Jessie, but as yet she could only play one scale and a few simple bars. These she attempted to teach to Maddy, who caught at them so quickly and executed them so well that Jessie was delighted. Maddy ought to take lessons, she said, and some time during the next day she took to Mrs. Noah a letter which she had written to Guy. After going into ecstasies over Maddy, saying she was the nicest kind of a girl, that she prayed in the morning as well as at night, and looked so sweet in blue, she asked if she couldn’t take music lessons too, advancing many reasons why she should, one of whichwas that she could play now a great deal better than herself.
It was several days before an answer came to this letter, and when it did it brought Guy’s consent for Maddy to take lessons, together with a note for Mr. Simons, requesting him to consider Miss Clyde his pupil on the same terms as Jessie.
Though greatly pleased with Aikenside, and greatly attached to Jessie, Maddy had had many hours of loneliness when her heart was back in the humble cottage where she knew they were missing her so much, but now a new world was suddenly opened before her, and the homesickness all disappeared. It had been arranged with Mrs. Noah, by Agnes, that Jessie should only study for two hours each day, consequently Maddy had nearly all the time to herself, and she improved it well, making so rapid progress that Simons looked on amazed, declaring her case to be without a parallel, while Jessie was left far behind. Indeed, after a short time Maddy might have been her teacher, and was of much service to her in practicing her lessons.
Meanwhile, the doctor came often to Aikenside, praising Maddy’s progress in music, and though he did not know a single note, compelling himself to listenwhile with childish satisfaction she played him her last lesson. She was very happy now at Aikenside, where all were so kind to her, and half wished that the family would always remain as it was then, that Agnes and Guy would not come home, for with their coming she felt there would be a change. It was nearly time now to expect them. Indeed, Guy had written on one Saturday, that they should probably be home the next, and during the ensuing week Aikenside presented that most uncomfortable phase of a house being cleaned. Everything must be in order for Mr. Guy, Mrs. Noah said, taking more pains with his rooms than with the remaining portion of the building. Guy was her idol; nothing was too good for him, few things quite good enough, and she said so much in his praise that Maddy began to shrink from meeting him. What would he think of her? Perhaps he might not notice her in the least, and that would be terrible. But, no, a man as kind as he had shown himself to her, would at least pay her some attention, and so at last she began to anticipate his coming home, wondering what their first meeting would be, what she should say tohim, and what he would think ofher.