CHAPTER XV.
drop-cap
Therewas quite a lively time in the parish for a fortnight. Papa had two marriages in Church, one of which was Annie Fellows and Mr. Hunter. Then Miss Maynard was married at home in a very exclusive and elegant manner. Fifty-five dollars for all of it. Wedding fees were mamma’s money.
“I don’t know as we need spend it just now;” she said, “I think I will lay it away against time of necessity;” smilingly.
I imagined what that meant. Days and weeks went on so fast.
Then papa’s sister came from Philadelphia to make us a visit; Aunt Margaret for whom Daisy had been named. She brought with her a piece of pretty Nainsook muslin and some laces for gifts. There were the three younger children provided with new summer dresses.
She was sweet and gracious, with that indescribable lady-like charm, and then she insisted upon helping everywhere. Altering dresses, dusting rooms, talking to papa or tying up vines and flowers in the garden—nothing came amiss to her. She petitioned that Daisy should be lent to her for the remainder of the summer. She had one son at home, but her two daughters were married and away.
Papa thought at first that it would not be possible to spare her. Mamma said that she was not prepared for so long a visit.
“Never mind that, Frances,” returned Aunt Margaret, “I will attend to what is needful. I don’t see how you get along with such a host of little ones. If Edith had not come—”
“Oh, but Edith is the crown of all;” declared Fan. “She brought rare good luck with her. So many lovely things have happened to us during the year. And now we couldn’t spare her.”
Aunt Margaret smiled. “You have been very fortunate in your children,” she said, glancing at mamma.
Miss Churchill came over with the barouche and took the elders riding. It was a lovelyafternoon late in May, and the whole world was abloom with beauty and sweetness.
She and Fanny had dropped in one day at Mrs. Ryder’s and had a charming call. Afterward Fan had whispered the secret.
“The young man is to be congratulated;” declared Miss Churchill. “She will make a pretty, cheerful wife, and that will be much to a man like Mr. Fairlie. I am glad he has been so sensible and I must see more of her before she leaves her old station. My dear, I am afraid I shall turn into a regular village gossip, I am so fond of young girls and their affairs.”
It began to be guessed at elsewhere as well, for the two went out driving now and then of an afternoon.
Allie West and Dora Hyde were over one evening and it happened to be touched upon.
“I don’t believe there is anything in it;” exclaimed Dora. “Dick Fairlie will not throw himself away in that style! Why, he could have the best in the town with that handsome place of his.”
“I am sure Jennie is quite pretty;” said Fan, “and nicely educated. She reads French and German, is well up in history and house-keeping,sings beautifully and sews in the same fashion. What better can a man want?”
“O, you know what I mean! And she is poor.”
“He has enough for both. And the Ryders are a respectable old family.”
“I know she is a favorite of yours,” returned Dora loftily, “but I never discovered anything special about her. And I do not see how she can leave her mother, I should think her duty would be there.”
Fan laughed at that.
“I shall not believe it until I hear it from a better source. Some people make so much out of a trifle of ordinary politeness.”
“Indeed I would not,” Fan continued seriously.
“There, you see Fanny doesn’t believe it;” said Allie West triumphantly.
“As if any one in her senses could!” Dora added.
After they went away Fan sat glancing out of the window thoughtfully.
“I allowed them to think what was not quite true,” she said slowly, “but I did not want the fact to leak out. Some very smart young woman might write to Kate and alarm her. It had better go on quietly.”
We missed Daisy ever so much. You would hardly think it among so many.
Then came a letter from Mr. Duncan, stating that he intended to follow it in time to keep the festival of baby’s christening. There were some business matters on which he wished to consult papa, and he was longing for a sight of the household, from least to greatest. Louis was much better. Mrs. Whitcomb was well and had utterly refused her first vacation. What did Fanny expect to do in such a case of insubordination? He was sorry he had proved so attractive, but it was more his misfortune than his fault, so she must not visit him too heavily with her displeasure.
We all had a good laugh over it. I arranged the guest-chamber in the morning, flowers and all, and in the afternoon went cantering round the parish, as Fan often expressed it. She had been smitten with such a passion for sewing, and the Churchills took up so much of her time that I had to visit for both. I was beginning to feel quite grave and staid with my eighteen and a half years. The fact of Fan’s having a real lover affected me in a rather curious fashion. It seemed as if the romance was to beginwith her and go down. It shut me out as it were; but never having counted myself in, I did not feel much disappointed. I was to be the house-daughter. Already I could see that papa had begun to depend more upon me. He brought his gloves to be mended, and used to ask me now and then to find various little matters for him. True, mamma was much occupied with Edith. I liked the growing nearer though, the tender confidence and trust.
I could see how it would be. One by one the birdlings would fly out of the home nest. I was an every-day useful body and would be needed to help the others, make some ready to go and comfort those who staid. I didn’t suppose the sweet grace and patience that glorified Miss Oldway’s face would ever come in mine. It was such a round, funny little face, and would get so sun-burned in summer. No one could ever call me fair and dainty.
I laughed over it softly to myself, I was in such a merry mood. In ten years I should be twenty-eight, getting on the “list” a wee bit, visiting round the same as usual, carrying broths and jellies, listening to sorrows and complaints, and by that time, perhaps, a little better, alittle nearer the Great ensample so that I could say my say without faltering.
My basket was emptied at length. I leaned over the fence awhile and talked with Mrs. Day, who “could not see why,” about something. Aunt Letty Perkins came along, puffing and wheezing. She had been confined to the house a good deal since Christmas, with the asthma, and if it was not irreverent I should say—“Israel had had peace.”
“All well, I suppose?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I never see such folks. You don’t have a bit of sickness or trouble like other people!”
“No,” said Mrs. Day, as if she felt personally aggrieved. “I never saw the match to that baby, and my poor lamb in the church-yard!”
I wanted to reply that it was the care and watchfulness, the love and tenderness that never tired. We did not suffer real heart-felt trouble, but there were hard pinches and perplexities, many things given up that we longed to have, hours of patient industry, self-denial and all that. Do discontented people ever realize what steady courage and grace it takes to make many lives look fair and sweet?
“Well, it’s out of its trouble,” pursued Aunt Letty. “You never can tell what children are coming to. Goin’ to take boarders agen this summer?”
That last to me. I started and colored at the impertinence. I wanted to resent it, but I knew that would not help for an example.
“Mr. Duncan is at home and can take care of his brothers;” I replied quietly.
“Well, they want much addition to the neighborhood. That young one was a master-hand at mischief. I should have wanted a good deal of money to pay me.”
“Good-night;” I said rather abruptly, “I must be going.”
“Why don’t you come in? I haven’t seen your ma in an age. Nobody drops in when I am sick, though if I do say it myself, I’ve always been neighborly. No one can say I ever went on the other side like the publican.”
“Indeed they could not,” I thought to myself with a smile.
All this made me later than I expected to be. As I came up the road I saw Fanny and Mr. Duncan walking slowly to meet me.
Something dreadful flashed into my mind atthat moment and made my face scarlet. I remembered that in my talk with Louis I had spoken of the probability of Stephen’s marrying Fanny. What if he had repeated that bit of idle gossip? Stuart would have done so from pure love of teasing.
“Why, Rose, how you have hurried! You are as red as your reddest namesake. Do stop and cool off a moment, child!”
That from Fanny did not make me any paler. I felt the contrast very keenly. She tall and elegant, with her graceful self-possession, and I such a little budget! I don’t know why I should have cared just at that moment, but I felt mortified enough to cry.
Mr. Duncan put out his hand. I just touched the tips of his fingers.
“I am glad to see you.” Then he looked me all over with those strange eyes of his that could be so dark and piercing.
“Isn’t it late?” I asked. “I am sure supper must be ready. Please excuse me,” and I hurried on.
They turned as well. I rushed up-stairs, bathed my face and gave my hair a brush. Then I went to the glass a moment to pull it out. No,I was not a beauty. If Mr. Duncan hadnotcome to-day! He could spend Sunday without starting as early as Friday afternoon!
When I went down they were all gathered around the table. He glanced up sharply again, and I was foolish enough to blush.
Not an unnecessary word did I utter. I had a constricted feeling about my throat and tongue and could not tell what was the matter with me, I believe I felt cross. I was glad to go to the study afterward and give papa the messages that had been sent for him.
Nelly called me to see about a skirt she was letting down. Tim and Lily put themselves to bed now, and I had only to go in and pick up their clothes. Fanny and Mr. Duncan were singing in the parlor, but I did not go down until I heard mamma’s voice. They were talking about Mrs. Whitcomb.
He had found her so admirable. Lady-like and refined, yet not weak; clear-eyed and resolute, yet without any hardness.
“She is always in bloom, I believe. The winter, and the desert, and the bare, bristling hill-tops may be a short distance off, but just around her it is spring.”
“There everlasting spring abides,And never withering flowers;”—
“There everlasting spring abides,And never withering flowers;”—
“There everlasting spring abides,And never withering flowers;”—
“There everlasting spring abides,
And never withering flowers;”—
Fan murmured softly.
“That is just it. She has had some troubles, also.”
“Indeed she has,” returned mamma, “Losses, deaths and trials. But now she has gone out of her own life. Her perceptions are so quick, tender and unerring. She seems to discern from afar off the needs and wants of human souls and ministers gently to your own thought, not hers.”
“What is it, Mrs. Endicott?”
Mamma answered with a smile and said it all. She often talked with the expressions of her face in that sweet instantaneous manner, explaining a subject better than many words would have done.
“I begin to believe that religionhassomething in it. There is a point beyond natural amiability.”
“Have you been doubting?”
He blushed and laughed in an embarrassed, school-boy fashion.
“I don’t know that I have exactly doubted, but I have not believed in any vital way. Still I considered myself a Christian gentleman until very recently.”
“And what then?”
“I found myself a proud and honorable gentleman instead, who abhorred meanness, falsehood, dishonesty and the whole catalogue of those sins because they were blots and stains, hideous in my sight. I had no patience with them in that they never tempted me. I liked my life to be pure and just, but it was for myself alone. I did not think of what God might require; the higher aim. After all, it isHisrelation with every human soul, His holding out the faith and love and atonement to us, made for us so long ago in His great wisdom, and which is for us whether we take it or not. But we want to tryourwisdom first.”
“That leads to the trouble and the clashing. We so often set up our own will and when we are buffeted about take it as a sort of direct martyrdom, when it is only a natural result of an ordinary cause. We sometimes cry out—‘Why has God sent this upon me?’ when we bring the trials upon ourselves.”
“Yes. Then we have to go back. We find the plans and specifications and the materials all right, left on the highway, while we used stones and timber of our own, changed the plan accordingto our liking. We have to take out a good deal of work in this life.”
“And we learn by degrees to be careful, to come to Him, to ask first of all—‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’”
“And learning to follow it, is the great lesson.”
He turned his head a trifle and lapsed into deep thought. Fan glanced over at me in a peculiar manner as if she triumphed in what he said, and it was only proving a well established point. She puzzled me. Why, when she liked him so well herself, was there not the deeper and farther-reaching sympathy of love? He was really nobler than Winthrop Ogden.
We did not have any confidence until late Saturday afternoon. Fan was writing a letter in her room and mamma had gone to visit some sick people. I had Edith fenced off in a corner of the porch and was amusing her while I sewed a little.
He came and studied me curiously. That was what I did not like. If I had been as pretty as Fan, or if my hair were any other color!
“You have not asked me a word about your friend. Have you lost interest in him now that he is delivered over to my keeping?”
I understood whom he meant.
“Why, we have all talked—I have heard—” and I paused in surprise, for a tiny frown came in his brow.
“But the work was so much yours.”
“You exaggerate it, Mr. Duncan.”
I might have spoken coldly. Somehow I could not let myself be praised in his words, and with his eyes upon me.
“Are you so used to good deeds that you consider this nothing?”
I flushed and felt a lump rising in my throat.
“I would have done it for any one.”
“I believe you, Miss Endicott. Louis is not so admirable that he should be singled out.”
“He is—you don’t do him justice;” I said almost ready to cry.
“I didnotI will admit, but I am trying to now. Will you not accept my penitence and my sincere desire to be tender as well as just?”
“I know you mean to do the very best. I think you will.”
“Thank you. I am afraid you consider us all rather heathenish. I have only recently come to understand the full duty that I owe my brothers. I had left them in my uncle’s hands,quite satisfied, and believing that boys came up, somehow.Ihad no great trouble.”
“Because you were stronger. And Louis’ health and temperament are so different.”
“I have learned that I could not make him come to me, so I have gone to him.”
“He did come—”
“Yes; that was not the point I referred to, however. It is in the matter of confidence. He is so very reserved, so sensitive, sotouchy, to use a common phrase. At a word he draws into his shell and keeps silence.”
“I found that out last summer,” I said with a smile.
“How did you manage?”
“I don’t know,” I answered looking over at the distant hills. “It just came, I think. When he wouldn’t talk on any subject I let it drop.”
“Ah, wise little one, there may be a secret, in that. I fancy that I have a failing in my desire to convince people. I want them to see the right.”
“It is easier seen than confessed, sometimes.”
“True. And Louis has a giant of pride. If he is hurt he will not stop to explain. If you misunderstand, he will not set you right. Youhave to grope your way along in perplexity. Yet I think we are coming a little nearer to each other, through you.”
“And Mrs. Whitcomb. She has a way of uniting people, of healing differences.”
“I am doubly fortunate in having her. Otherwise I must have borrowed—your mother.”
I smiled a little at this. It made me think of the Churchills borrowing Fan. Isn’t it so the world over? The sweetness and brightness of other lives comes into ours, sometimes the darkness and sorrow. We rarely stand alone.
“I believe I like frank, open natures the best;” he went on. “And cheerfulness. A great outgiving like the world and the sunshine.”
“But when one has been in a cave a long while the light dazzles. Some people do not want to take in but a little at a time, and perhaps we hurt them by thrusting so much into their very souls.”
“Yes,” he answered, “When a man is starving you do not feast him at once. I must remember that.”
Edith began to worry. I took her up in my arms and hushed her softly.
Mr. Duncan was not looking at me, but astrange, tender light came into his face, a half smile that brought the dawn to my mind by way of comparison. He seemed to pay no attention to me for many minutes, but just to be occupied with his own reflections. I rose to take Edith in, as she evinced unmistakable symptoms of hunger.
He put his arm over her and partly over my shoulder.
“I cannot let you go without an acknowledgement,” he began hurriedly. “I should like to tell youjusthow Louis came back. There was a manliness in his penitence that has given me a great deal of hope. Yet I know that he did not come out of actual love for me. If we evercouldreach that state, but I must wait patiently. I have thought so little of him all these years, except to look after his personal comfort, that I must not complain if I reap weeds instead of flowers. You were brave and strong in your advice to him, and God above knows how deeply and sincerely I thank you. Your note to me was wisdom itself. Only—”
There was a peculiar wistfulness in his face that somehow gave him a little look of Louis.
“Only what?” If there was any fault to find let us have it out now.
“If youcouldhave trusted me unreservedly. Do you think I am so very stern and rigid and unforgiving?”
“I was afraid you might—I did not know—” and I stopped, distressed and blushing.
“Will you have a little more faith in me?”
He uttered the words slowly.
“I know you desire to do what is best.”
He looked a trifle disappointed, I thought, but I went in with Edith and left him standing there.
After all I had not done anything very wonderful that there should be such a fuss and thanks and all that bother. It annoyed me. I could not carry triumphs gracefully as Fan did, sit in the centre and have an admiring audience around me.
One part of the visit proved an unalloyed delight, and that was papa’s enjoyment of it. He and Mr. Duncan fitted, if you can understand the term. It was almost like father and son. Plans were talked over, the boys’ future discussed, and in Stephen’s newer experience there was a great charm. Like the young man who came to Christ, he had kept the commandments from his youth up, he had been truthand integrity itself, but the one greater thing had come to him now. It crowned his manliness. He did not speak of it in a shame-faced way, as if it was something to be kept on one side of his life and rather in the background, but he set it in the very midst. A rare, almost boyish humility was discernable in his conversations with papa. I liked so much better to listen than to have him talk to me.
“I am afraid I shall grow proud in my old days,” said papa a few evenings afterward. “Such first fruits as Mr. Duncan and Miss Churchill seem a whole harvest. I shall never be discouraged again.”
Indeed, Miss Churchill had become the Lady Bountiful of the parish. I do not mean simply among the poor. The rich need the gospel of charity and loving kindness as well. They were meeting together, being incited to good works, losing the narrow feelings and prejudices.
Fan and I had a lovely episode this summer. Just at the beginning of the hot weather Miss Lucy had a spell of feeling very weak and miserable.
“She must have a change,” declared good old Doctor Hawley. “She has been among themountains so long that she has worn them out. Take her away to the sea-side.”
“I can’t go,” said Miss Lucy in faint protest. “I do not like strange faces nor places, and the worry and bustle will consume what little strength I have.”
“You will wear out this old strength and get some new. You are tired to death of this, though you are so set in your way that you will not confess it. I know what is best for you! Miss Esther, if you want to keep Christmas with her, take her away now.”
Then he thumped his cane resolutely on the floor, a way he had when he was very much in earnest.
When it came to that something must be done.
They talked it over—Miss Churchill and her brother, then Miss Churchill and mamma. And this came out of it all, as if we were to be in the midst of everything.
They would go to Martha’s Vineyard. In earlier years they had spent whole summers there. And she and Miss Lucy wanted us. We had seen so little outside of our own home, that the change would do us good. There wasthe great sea, the islands all about, and a new world, so to speak.
“I don’t know how to get both of them ready,” mamma exclaimed in a hopeless puzzle.
“You are thinking of the dresses—but we are not going to be fashionable. Some nice light worsted goods for traveling, and beyond that there is nothing as pretty as white. We shall have a cottage to ourselves and our meals sent in. Then I intend to take Martha, who is an excellent laundress, so the dresses will be no trouble. Kenton is counting on the pleasure, and you must not refuse.”
“It is a great—favor,” said mamma timidly.
“I don’t want you to think of it in that light. Kenton and I are getting along in years, and Lucy will not last forever. We might as well take and give a little pleasure. It is just as if a sister asked you.”
And it actually came about. We had new gray dresses trimmed with bands of pongee; Fan’s a shade lighter and mine two or three shades darker than the material. When they were all finished they had cost but twenty-three dollars. Our spring straw hats were retrimmed, our gloves and ribbons and boots looked over.
“One trunk will hold our modest wardrobe,” declared Fan. “I often think of the Vicar of Wakefield and the many devices the girls resorted to. It is rather funny to be poor, after all! You are not so much worried and fidgeted and dissatisfied. You take the best you can get, and youknowyou cannot do any better. So you enjoy the tour or the journey or whatever it is, because you are altogether outside of your troublesome self.”
“But you will be—very well off—some day,” I said with bashful hesitation.
“I don’t think of that, any more. Until the very day of my marriage my life ishere. What papa can give me will always be infinitely precious to me. We will have all the happiness out of our poverty that we can.”
“Yes,” I answered.
“And I know just how Miss Churchill is giving us this. So far as the money goes she will never feel it. We will afford her pleasure, satisfaction and delight in return, which will make it quite an even thing.”
We remained three weeks and it was enchanting. The great ocean with its ceaseless surges and swells, its floods of molten gold at sunset,the showers and one tremendous storm, the walks and rides on the sands, the short sails hither and thither, the quaint cottages, the strange people from almost everywhere, some of whom we soon became acquainted with, the newness and the variety was splendid! We enjoyed every moment. Sometimes I felt quite wild indeed, as if I could race along the sea sands and shout with the wildest of the birds.
The last week was the crowning point. Winthrop came and Miss Churchill took us to Newport for one night and two days. There was elegance and fashion at the hotel to be sure, but Fan in her pretty white over-dress and the bloom of her fresh, sweet youth, attracted many a glance of admiration on the one side, and almost envy from some of the worn and faded women. It was a bit of Arabian Nights’ Entertainment brought into our own lives.
Miss Lucy did improve ever so much. She could not bathe to be sure, but the pungent air revived and strengthened her. We were all so bright and happy, so full of fun and whims and oddities. There is a fascinating queerness about almost every person when the true self comes out and you forget that any one is watching you.
It was so delightful that we came home with almost a sigh, until we reached the familiar places. It was the first time that we had ever been so long away from mamma, and when we thought of that our hearts were full to overflowing.
There was Mrs. Whitcomb in the midst helping to keep house, filling up our vacant places.
“You need not think you are the only ones who can have a holiday!” she exclaimed laughingly.
Oh, the blessedness of being right among the accustomed faces, to be kissed and kissed again, to be pulled about hither and yon, to be shown this and that, “which was not so when you went away;” the atmosphere of home-living and thinking, which is so different from railroad cars and hotels, or even other people’s cottages.
“But the sea still sings in my ears,” I said to Fan as I laid my head on my pillow.
“And to-morrow morning it will be robins or swallows ‘twittering’ under the eaves. What a great, grand thing it is to live and be happy! Rose, if people could realize the satisfying joy they put in the lives of others when they share their pleasures I think the whole world wouldgo at it. It would be giving and receiving all round the wide earth.”
Are we thankful enough for happiness, I wonder? For that is something a little apart from life, one of the things not surely promised, like the peace of God. Should there not be a special thanksgiving for every blessed day, for the breath of fragrance, the pleasantness of sunshine, and the subtle essence of delight that wafts itself across our sky—tender human love?