CHAPTER XXXI.AFTER THE FUNERAL.
Had there been a train back to New York that afternoon Wilford would most certainly have suggested going; but as there was none he passed the time as well as he could, finding Bell a great help to him, but wondering that she could assimilate so readily with such people, declaring herself in love with the farm-house, and saying she should like to remain there for weeks, if the days were all as sunny as this, the dahlias as gorgeously bright, and the peaches by the well as delicious and ripe. To these the city girl took readily, visiting them the last thing before retiring, while Wilford found her there when he arose next morning, her dress and slippers nearly spoiled with the heavy dew, and her hands full of the fresh fruit which Aunt Betsy knocked from the tree with a quilting rod;herdress pinned around her waist, and disclosing a petticoat scrupulously clean, but patched and mended with so many different patterns and colors that the original ground was lost, and none could tell whether it had been red or black, buff or blue. Between Aunt Betsy and Bell the most amicable feeling had existed ever since the older lady had told the younger how all the summer long she had been drying fruit, “thimble-berries, blue-bries, and huckle-berries” for the soldiers, and how she was now drying peaches for Willard Buxton—once their hired man. These she should tie up in asalt bag, and put in the next box sent by the society of which she seemed to be head and front, “kind of fust directress” she said, and Bell was interested at once, for among the soldiers down by the Potomac was one who carried with him the whole of Bell Cameron’s heart; and who for a few days had tarried at just such a dwelling as the farm-house, writing back to her so pleasant descriptions of it, with its fresh grass and shadowy trees, that she had longed to be there too. So it was through this halo of romance andlove that Bell looked at the farm-house and its occupants, preferring good Aunt Betsy because she seemed the most interested in the soldiers, working as soon as breakfast was over upon the peaches, and kindly furnishing her best check apron, together with pan and knife for Bell, who offered her assistance, notwithstanding Wilford’s warning that the fruit would stain her hands, and his advice that she had better be putting up her things for going home.
“She was not going that day,” she said, point blank, and as Katy too had asked to stay a little longer, Wilford was compelled to yield, and taking his hat sauntered off toward Linwood; while Katy went listlessly into the kitchen, where Bell Cameron sat, her tongue moving much faster than her hands, which pared so slowly and cut away so much of the juicy pulp, besides making so frequent journeys to her mouth, that Aunt Betsy looked in alarm at the rapidly disappearing fruit, wishing to herself that “Miss Camern had not ’listed.”
ButMiss Camernhad enlisted, and so had Bob, or rather he had gone to his duty, and as she worked, she repeated to Helen the particulars of his going, telling how, when the war first broke out, and Sumter was bombarded, Bob, who, from long association with Southern men at West Point, had imbibed many of their ideas, was very sympathetic with the rebelling States, gaining the cognomen of a secessionist, and once actually thinking of casting in his lot with that side rather than the other. But a little incident saved him, she said. The remembrance of a queer old lady whom he met in the cars, and who, at parting held her wrinkled hand above his head in benediction, charging him not to go against the flag, and promising her prayers for his safety if found on the side of the Union.
“I wish you could hear Bob tell the story, the funny part I mean,” she continued, narrating as well as she could the particulars of Lieutenant Bob’s meeting with Aunt Betsy, who, as the story progressed and she recognized herself in the queer old Yankee woman, who shook hands with the conductor and was going to law about a sheep-pasture, dropped her head lower and lower over her panof peaches, while a scarlet flush spread itself all over her thin face, but changed to a grayish white as Bell concluded with “Bob says the memory of that hand lifted above his head haunted him day and night, during the period of his uncertainty, and was at last the means of saving him from treachery to his country.”
“Thank God!” came involuntarily from Aunt Betsy’s quivering lips, and, looking up, Bell saw the great tears running down her cheeks, tears which she wiped away with her arm, while she said faintly, “That old woman, who made a fool of herself in the cars, wasme!”
“You, Miss Barlow, you!” Bell exclaimed, forgetting in her astonishment to carry to her mouth the luscious half peach she had intended for that purpose, and dropping it untasted into the pan, while Katy, who had been listening with considerable interest, came quickly forward saying, “You, Aunt Betsy! when were you in New York, and why did I never know it?”
It could not be kept back and, unmindful of Bell, Helen explained to Katy as well as she could the circumstances of Aunt Betsy’s visit to New York the previous winter.
“And she never let me know it, or come to see me, because—because—” Katy hesitated, and looked at Bell, who said, pertly, “Because Will is so abominably proud, and would have made such a fuss. Don’t spoil a story for relation’s sake, I beg,” and the young lady laughed good-humoredly, restoring peace to all save Katy, whose face wore a troubled look, and who soon stole away to her mother, whom she questioned further with regard to a circumstance which seemed so mysterious to her.
“Miss Barlow,” Bell said, when Katy was gone, “you will forgive me for repeating that story as I did. Of course I had no idea it was you of whom I was talking.”
Bell was very earnest, and her eyes looked pleadingly upon Aunt Betsy, who answered her back, “There’s nothing to forgive. You only told the truth. I did make an old fool of myself, but if I helped that boy to a right decision, my journey did some good, and I ain’t sorry now if I did go to the play-house. I confessed that to the sewing circle, and Mrs. Deacon Bannister ain’t seemed the same towards me since, but I don’t care. I beat her onthe election to first directress of the Soldier’s Aid. She didn’t run half as well as me. That chap—you call Bob—is he anything to you. Is he your beau?”
It was Bell’s turn now to blush and then grow white, while Helen, lightly touching the superb diamond on her first finger, said, “That indicates as much. When did it happen, Bell?”
Mrs. Cameron had said they were not a family to bruit their affairs abroad, and if so, Bell was not like her family, for she answered frankly, “Just before he went away. It’s a splendid diamond, isn’t it?” and she held it up for Helen to inspect.
The basket was empty by this time, and as Aunt Betsy went to fill it from the trees, Bell and Helen were left alone, and the former continued in a low, sad tone, “I’ve been so sorry sometimes that I did not tell Bob Ilovedhim, when he wished me to so much.”
“Not tell him you loved him! How then could you tell him yes, as it appears you did?” Helen asked, and Bell answered, “I could not well help that; it came so sudden and he begged so hard, saying my promise would make him a better man, a better soldier and all that. It was the very night before he went, and so I said that out ofpityandpatriotismI would give the promise, and I did, but it seemed too much for a woman to tell a man all at once that she loved him, and I wouldn’t do it, but I’ve been sorry since; oh, so sorry, during the two days when we heard nothing from him after that dreadful battle at Bull Run. We knew he was in it, and I thought I should die until his telegram came saying he was safe. I did sit down then and commence a letter, confessing all, but I tore it up, and he don’t know now just how I feel.”
“And do you really love him?” Helen asked, puzzled by this strange girl, who laughingly held up her soft, white hand, stained and blackened with the juice of the fruit she had been paring, and said, “Do you suppose I would spoil my hands like that, and incurma chère mamma’sdispleasure, if Bob were not in the army and I did not care for him? And now allow me to catechise you. Did Mark Ray ever propose and you refuse him?”
“Never!” and Helen’s face grew crimson, while Bellcontinued: “That is funny. Half our circle think so, though how the impression was first given I do not know. Mother told me, but would not tell where she received her information. I heard of it again in a few days, and have reason to believe that Mrs. Banker knows it too, and feels a little uncomfortable that her son should be refused when she considers him worthy of the Empress herself.”
Helen was very white, as she asked, “And how with Mark and Juno?”
“Oh, there is nothing between them,” Bell replied. “Mark has scarcely called on us since he returned from Washington with his regiment. You are certain you never cared for him?”
This was so abrupt, and Bell’s eyes were so searching that Helen grew giddy for a moment, and grasped the back of the chair, as she replied: “I did not say I never cared for him. I said he never proposed; and that is true; he never did.”
“And if he had?” Bell continued, never taking her eyes from Helen, who, had she been less agitated, would have denied Bell’s right to question her so closely. Now, however, she answered blindly, “I do not know. I cannot tell. I thought him engaged to Juno.”
“Well, if that is not the rarest case of cross-purposes that I ever knew,” Bell said, wiping her hands upon Aunt Betsy’s apron, and preparing to attack the piled up basket just brought in.
Farther conversation was impossible, and, with her mind in a perfect tempest of thought, Helen went away, trying to decide what it was best for her to do. Some one had spread the report thatshehad refused Mark Ray, telling of the refusal of course, or how else could it have been known? and this accounted for Mrs. Banker’s long continued silence. Since Helen’s return to Silverton Mrs. Banker had written two or three kind, friendly letters, which did her so much good; but these had suddenly ceased, and Helen’s last remained unanswered. She saw the reason now, every nerve quivering with pain as she imagined what Mrs. Banker must think of one who could make a refusal public, or what was tenfold worse, pretend to an offer she never received. “She must despiseme, and Mark Ray, too, if he has heard of it,” she said, resolving one moment to ask Bell to explain to Mrs. Banker, and then changing her mind and concluding to let matters take their course, inasmuch as interference from her might be construed by the mother into undue interest in the son. “Perhaps Bell will do it without my asking,” she thought, and this hope did much toward keeping her spirits up on that last day of Katy’s stay at home, for she was going back in the morning.
They did not see Marian Hazelton again, and Katy wondered at it, deciding that in some things Marian was very peculiar, while Wilford and Bell were disappointed, as both had a desire to meet and converse with one who had been so like a second mother to the little dead Genevra. Wilford spoke of his child now as Genevra, but to Katy it was Baby still; and, with choking sobs and passionate tears, she bade good-bye to the little mound underneath which it was lying, and then went back to New York.