CHAPTER V.PHIL INTERVIEWS HIS GRANDMOTHER.
After leaving Mr. Beresford Phil concluded, before going home, to call on his grandmother and ask if she had ever heard of a granddaughter in France. The house of grandma Ferguson, as she was now universally called, was the same low, old-fashioned brown building under the poplar trees where she had sold gingerbread and beer in the days when Paul Rossiter and Fred Hetherton came wooing her two daughters, Mary and Margaret. In her youth grandma Ferguson had been a tall, slender, well-formed girl, with a face which always won a second glance from every one who saw it. In fact, it was her pretty face which attracted honest John Ferguson when he was looking for some one to be a mother to his little girl. Margaret Martin was her real name, but everybody called her Peggy, and everybody liked her, she was so thoroughly kind-hearted and good-natured, and ready to sacrifice herself in every and any cause. But her family was against her. Her father was coarse and low, and a drunkard, and her brothers were coarser and lower still, and the most notorious fighters in town, while her mother was a shiftless, gossipy, jealous woman, who would rather receive charity at any time than work, and who always grumbled at the charity when given. But against Peggy’sreputation not a whisper had ever been breathed. She was loud-talking, boisterous, and ignorant, and a Martin but perfectly honest, straightforward, and trusty, and from the day John Ferguson, the thrifty stonemason took her to his home to look after his house and child her fortune was made, for in less than six months she became his wife. As Mrs. John Ferguson she was somewhat different from Peggy Martin, and tried, not without success, to lower her voice and soften her manners; but her frightful grammar remained unchanged, and her slang was noted for its originality and force. But she was a good mother, and wife, and neighbor, and after her father and mother died, and her fighting brothers emigrated to California, she shook the Martin dust from her skirts and mounted several rounds higher on the ladder of respectability. But she did not get into society until some years after the Rossiters were established in the great house on the Knoll. Her faithful John was under the sod, and the beer sign gone from the window of the low brown house where she lived in comfort and ease, with a colored servant Axie, who was very serviceable to her indulgent mistress, making her bread, and pies, and caps, and frequently correcting her grammar, for Axie knew more of books than Mrs. Peggy.
To Mrs. Rossiter Grandma Ferguson was a care and sometimes a trouble: to the young ladies, Ethel and Grace, she was an annoyance and a mortification, both from her manners and her showy style of dress, while to Phil, who did not care in the least how she talked or how she dressed, she was a source of amusement, and he frequently spent hours in her neat, quiet sitting-room, or out on the shaded back porch where he found her on the evening of his return from Hetherton Place. With increasing years Grandma Ferguson had lost the slight, willowy figure of her girlhood, and had reached a size when she refused to be weighed. So saucy Phil set herdown at two hundred and fifty, and laughed at her form, which he said he could not encircle with both his long arms. All delicacy of feature and complexion had departed, and with her round red face and three chins she might well have passed for some fat old English or German dowager, especially when attired in her royal purple moire antique, which she always called hermoreywith a long heavy gold chain around her neck, and her best lace cap with mountains of pink bows upon it. Mrs. Ferguson was fond of dress, and as purple and pink were her favorite colors, she sometimes presented a rather grotesque appearance. But on the night when Phil sought her, she had laid aside all superfluities and her silvery hair shone smooth and glossy in the soft moonlight, while her plain calico wrapper looked cool and comfortable and partially concealed her rotund form.
“For the massy’s sake,” she said, as Phil’s tall figure bent under the door-way and came swiftly to her side, “what brung you here so late, and why hain’t you come afore? I was round to your Aunt Lyddy Ann’s this afternoon, and she told me you was to home, so I made a strawb’ry short-cake for tea, hopin’ you’d happen in. There’s a piece cold in the buttry now if you want it.”
Phil declined the short-cake, and sitting down by his grandmother told her of Mr. Hetherton’s letter, and asked if she had ever heard of a daughter.
Mrs. Ferguson was a good deal startled and surprised, or, as she expressed it afterward to Reinette herself, “she was that beat that a feller might have knocked her down with a straw.” That there was somewhere in the world a child of her beautiful young daughter who died so far away, was a great shock to her, and, for an instant, she stared blankly at Phil, as if not quite comprehending him. Then she began:
“Fred Hetherton coming back after so many years, and bringin’ a darter with him! My Maggie’s girl!That’s very strange, and makes me think of what your gran’ther said afore he died. Seems as if he had second sight or somethin’, which ain’t to be wondered at when you remember that he was born with a vail over his face, and could allus tell things. He said that, in some way, Maggie would come back to me, and she is comin’: but it’s queer I never hearn of a baby when Maggie died. Still, it’s like that sneak of a Fred Hetherton to keep it from us. We wasn’t good enough to know there was a child. But, thank the Lord, there’s as much Ferguson in her as Hetherton, and he can’t help that. I never could abide him, even when he came skulkin’ after Maggie, and whistlin’ for her to come out. At fust I was afraid he didn’t mean fair with her, and I told him if he harmed a hair of her head I’d shoot him as I would a dog. There’s fight, you know, in the Martins!”
And the old lady’s eyes blazed with all the fire of her two scape-grace brothers, once the prize-fighters of the country.
“What were the particulars of the marriage and her death? I’ve heard, of course, but did not pay much attention, as I knew nothing of Reinette,” said Phil; and Mrs. Ferguson replied:
“’Twas a runaway match, for old Mr. Hetherton rode such a high hoss that Fred was most afraid of his life, and so they run away—the more fools they—and he took her to Europe, and that’s the last I ever seen of her, or hearn of her either, as you may say. It’s true she writ sometimes, but her letters was short, and not satisfyin’ at all—seemed as if she was afraid to tell us she was lonesome for us at home, or wanted to see us. She had a new blue silk gown, and cassimere shawl, and string of pearls, and a waitin’-maid, and she said a good deal about them, but nothin’ of Fred, after a spell, whether he was kind or not. He never writ, nor took no more notice of us than if we was dogs, till there came a letter from him sayin’ she had died suddenly at Romeand was buried in the Protestant grave-yard. He was in Switzerland then, I believe, skylarkin’ round, for he was always a great rambler, and we didn’t know jestly where to direct letters; but your mother writ and writ to the old place in Paris, and never got no answer, and at last she gin it up. When old man Hetherton died, Fred had to write about business, but never a word to us.”
“It’s very singular he did not tell you about the little girl,” suggested Phil; and Mrs. Ferguson replied:
“No ’tain’t. He wouldn’t of let us know if there had been a hundred babies. He’d be more likely to keep whist, for fear we’d lay some claim to her, and we as good as he any day, if he wasn’t quite so rich. Why, there never was a likelier gal than your mother, even when she closed boots for a livin’; and there ain’t a grander lady now in the land than she is.”
“I don’t know about the grand,” said Phil, “but I know there is not a better woman in the world than my mother, or a handsomer either, when she’s dressed in her velvet, and laces, and diamonds. I wish you could see her once.”
“I wish to gracious I could,” returned Mrs. Ferguson. “Why don’t she never put on her best clothes here and let us see ’em once, and not allus wear them plain black silks, and browns, and grays?”
“Merrivale is hardly the place for velvets and diamonds,” said Phil. “There is seldom any occasion for them, and mother does not think it good taste to make a display.”
“No, I s’pose not,” grandma replied; “but mabby Rennet will take me with her to Washington, or Saratoga, or the sea-side, and then I can see it all. And they needn’t be ashamed of me nuther. There’s my purplemorey, and upon a pinch I can have another new silk. Rennet will find her granny has clothes!”
Phil did not usually wince at anything his grandmothersaid, but now a cold sweat broke out a over him as he thought of her at the sea-side arrayed in herpurple morey, which made her look fatter and coarser than ever, with the bright pink ribbons or blue feather in her cap. What would Reinette say to such a figure, and what would Reinette think of her any way? He was accustomed to her; he knew all the good there was in her; but Reinette, with her French ideas, was different, and he found himself seeing with Reinette’s eyes and hearing with Reinette’s ears, and blushing with shame for the good old lady, who went on talking about her new granddaughter, whom she sometimes calledRennet, and sometimesRunnet, but never by her right name.
At last Phil could bear it no longer, and said:
“Grandma, isn’t it just as easy to say Reinette as Rennet? Do you know what a rennet is?”
“No, what is it?” she asked, and he replied:
“It is what farmers put in milk to make cheese curd.”
“Bless the boy!” and Mrs. Ferguson laughed till the tears rolled down her fat cheeks. “Bless the boy, that’srunnet; as if I didn’t knowrunnet—I, that lived with a farmer three summers, and made cheese every day.”
“No matter; it is spelledrennet, and I do not believe my cousin would care to be called that. We want to please her, you know,” said Phil, and his grandmother replied:
“To be sure we do, and we must make quite a time when she fust lands here. Your mother and the gals will come home, of course.”
“Perhaps so. I shall write them about it,” said Phil, and his grandmother continued: “We must get up a percession to meet her, in your father’s carriage, and a hired hack, and our best clothes. I’ll see Lyddy Ann to-morrow about fixin’ me somethin’ to wear. Now Ithink on’t, Lyddy Ann talks of sellin’ out her business—so she told me this afternoon. Did you know it?”
“I knew some one had written her on the subject, but not that she had decided to sell,” was Phil’s reply, and his grandmother said:
“She hain’t, exactly; but Anny’s puttin’ her up to it, thinkin’ she’ll be thought more on if her mother is not a dressmaker, and that sign is out of the winder. Silly critter! She gets that from the Rices, and they was nothin’ extra—I know ’em root and branch. I tell you I’m as much thought on as if I hadn’t sold gingerbread and beer; but Anny says I’m only noticed on account of the Rossiters—that folks dassent slight Miss Rossiter’s mother, and mabby that’s so.”
How dreadful her conversation was to Phil, who wondered if she had always talked in this way, and if nothing could be done to tone her down a little before Reinette came. Nothing, he finally decided, and then proceeded to tell her what changes Mr. Beresford contemplated making at Hetherton Place, and what Mr. Hetherton had written of his daughter’s tastes with reference to cats, and asked if she could help him there.
“That’s the Martin blood in her,” said Mrs. Ferguson. “We are desput fond of cats, but I can’t let her have old Blue, who has lived with me this ten years, but there’s Speckle, with three as lovely Malta kittens as you ever see. They torment me most to death killin’ chickens and tearing up the flower-beds. Rennet can have them and welcome.”
It wasRennetagain, and Phil let it pass, feeling that to change an old lady like his grandmother was as impossible as to change the order of the seasons, and hoping his cousin would have sense enough to overlook the grammar, and the slang, and prize her for the genuine good there was in her. As it was now getting very late Phil at last said good-night and walked toward homethinking constantly of Reinette, wondering how he should like her, and wondering more how she would like him.