HARCOURT AT LONE LODGE
The profound quiet of the little vale, the soothing tinkle of the little
stream, lulled the wearied traveler into a slumber so deep and prolonged
that the sun was high above before he woke.
Then it took him a few minutes to collect his faculties and realize his
position. He looked with something like a faint content on the humble,
peaceful scene around him. He lay for a little while in a sort of
restful trance, and then suddenly remembered all that he had heard from
Martha on the previous night about his mother’s state, and he sprang out
of bed and dressed in haste, so that he might the sooner see that
beloved parent and judge for himself of her condition.
When he had hurried through his plain toilet he opened his room door and
crossed the narrow passage into the kitchen.
There he found no one present, though every preparation was completed
for his breakfast.
There was a glorious wood fire in the wide, open chimney, and bright
tin-covered dishes sitting on the stone hearth before it; a pine table
laid with a fine, white, well darned damask cloth—a vestige of better
days at Lone Lodge, like the rare and costly, but chipped and mismatched
old china that adorned it.
Harcourt understood the situation.
Martha, true to her word, had come very early in the morning, before her
mistress would be likely to wake and want her services, and finding that
her young master still slept, she had forborne to disturb him, but had
gone quietly to work to prepare his morning meal, which she had placed
before the fire to be kept hot until he should rise and require it,
while she herself hurried back to Lone Lodge to attend upon her
mistress.
Harcourt placed his breakfast on the table and sat down to it.
While he was slowly sipping his coffee he heard rapid, scuttling
footsteps tearing through the brushwood toward the cabin, and the next
moment the door was pushed open and Martha ran in.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, out of breath, and stopping short on seeing
Harcourt. “So yo’s up, young marse. Hopes yo’ had a good night’s rest,
sah.”
“The best I have had for many a day, Martha, thank you,” he replied.
“See dat now! Comin’ home, dat’s wot it is; natyve air, an’ dat. ’Scuse
me, young marse, an’ let me sit down, wiv yo’ ’mission. I’s sort o’ out
o’ breaf, yunnin’ so fas’,” panted the woman.
“Certainly, good Martha; make yourself comfortable.”
“Hopes yo’ fin’s yo’ breakfas’ good an’ yelishin’, young marse,” said
the cook, as she modestly sat down on the cricket.
“The best breakfast, as well as the best night’s rest, I have had for
many a day. Your coffee and your butter and your rolls cannot be
surpassed,” said Harcourt heartily.
“P’oud ter hear yo’ say so, sah—but,” she inquired, dubiously, and
ravenous for praise, like all her race, “anyfing de matter wid de ham or
de hominy or de sweet taters, or de fr’ed chicken?”
“Why, no. They are all delicious—perfectly delicious.”
“Moughty p’oud ter year yo’ say so, sah, moughty p’oud.”
“But, Martha, I have been longing to ask you how is your mistress? Well,
this morning, I hope, by your manner?”
“P’opper well, sah. Peert as pussy, de ole madam is.”
“You did not tell her that I had come?”
“Hi! young marse, who yo’ fink is a fool? Not me! No, sah, I didn’t tell
de ole madam, who was as’eep up yere in de log house. If I had, dere
wouldn’ been no holdin’ her back, no, sah. She’d ’a’ t’ied to walk down
herse’f.”
“My poor, dear mother! How soon now can I see her, I wonder?”
“Soon’s ebber yo’ like, sah. De ole madam hab finis’ her breakfas’—an’
doane she yeat hearty? Umph! umph! It would do yo’ good ter see her,”
said Martha, smacking her own lips in gastronomic sympathy.
Harcourt was not pleased to be told this. He had heard that abnormal
appetite often attended cases of softening of the brain.
“An’ now,” continued Martha, “she is sot down to her stockin’ an’ ball
o’ yarn, an’ she knittin’ away like a cherrybim. Yo’ can go see her
soon’s ebber yo’s done yo’ breakfas’.”
“I have done my breakfast, and I will go at once,” said Harcourt; and he
arose quickly and hurried into the bedroom to get his overcoat—the
handsome one he had worn on his defeated wedding tour, and had carefully
preserved that he might appear well dressed in the presence of his
mother.
“Wan’ me ter go long o’ yo’, young marse?” inquired Martha when he
re-entered the kitchen, ready for his walk.
“Yes; I wish you to go before me to your mistress, and tell her I am
there—close by. I do not wish to take her quite by surprise. And
besides, as a matter of imperative courtesy, I must present myself to
her kind hostess on first going to the house.”
“Sartin, young marse; dat is true. An’ ’deed, dey’s all been moughty
good to de ole madam—Lor’ knows dey has—moughty good,” said Martha, as
she wrapped her tall figure in a large black shawl and put a quilted
black silk hood on her head, for the walk with the young master. They
left the cabin together, Martha just closing the door, which had neither
lock nor bolt, only a light latch to keep it shut in windy weather, for
there were no thieves on this old plantation, and the cabin was remote
from thoroughfares.
Up the little, narrow, almost invisible footpath over the wooded hill
they went until they came in view of Lone Lodge, a large, rambling,
picturesque old farmhouse, built partly of gray stone, partly of red
bricks, and partly of wood. It consisted of three distinct houses, the
growth of generations, and was joined together after a fashion, or
rather after no fashion at all. The oldest and rudest part of the
building was also the strongest and quaintest; but the later structures
were in a good state of preservation. There were broad piazzas front and
back, both roofed over, and there were porticoes, balconies and bay
windows stuck on here and there, up and down the wall at each gable end.
The roofs of the buildings were of different heights and shapes—the old
colonial house had a high, peaked roof, with dormer windows; the middle
edifice, built just after the close of the Revolutionary War, had a hip
roof, with two rows of tiny windows; while the third building had a
Mansard, with its beautiful lights and trimmings.
Opening on the front piazza there were three doors, leading into the
three divisions of the triune house.
Harcourt went up to the central door and knocked, while Martha scuttled
around to the rear to warn her mistress of her son’s near presence.
After some little delay the door was opened by Margaret Wynthrop.
“Oh! Mr. Harcourt! How do you do? I am very glad to see you! Mrs.
Harcourt will be overjoyed,” she said cordially.
“I am here to thank you for your great goodness to my dear mother,
though mere thanks, however earnest and heartfelt, are but a poor return
for such goodness,” said the young man, with much emotion.
“Oh, indeed!” earnestly responded the girl, “it has been a real
satisfaction to us all to be permitted to alleviate in some degree the
troubles of this lady. But pray come in.”
He followed into the old familiar hall, with its broad horsehair sofa
and straight-backed chairs and frescoed pictures above them, with its
oaken doors on either side, and its well-worn staircase in the center.
“There is no fire in the big parlor. Come in here,” she said, and she
opened a door on the left leading into the family sitting-room, where
Mrs. Wynthrop and her second daughter, Elizabeth, were seated at work.
The elder lady was cutting and basting on a lapboard. The younger one
was thumping away at a sewing machine.
Both arose and left their seats to welcome the visitor.
“We are very happy to see you, Mr. Harcourt. This is my daughter Betty.
I think you have never met her before. Betty, dear, this is Mrs.
Harcourt’s son,” said Mrs. Wynthrop, cordially shaking hands with the
visitor, and presenting him to her younger daughter.
The young man bowed to the young girl, who seemed in face and form only
a fairer and more delicate repetition of her mother and elder sister.
“Take this armchair in the chimney corner, Mr. Harcourt,” said Margaret.
“But take off your overcoat first. Frankly, you are not looking in good
health. You must be careful of yourself at this season of the year, when
the changes are so sudden.
Harcourt thanked his counselor, and obeyed her.
When he was seated he again expressed his warm gratitude to Mrs.
Wynthrop for her kindness to his aged and infirm mother.
Mrs. Wynthrop, in turn, assured him of the pleasure she and all her
family had taken in doing all that they had been able to do for Mrs.
Harcourt.
“And the house is so large. We have so much space. Why, you know, of
course, that we have three distinct garrets, one over each part of this
threefold house. The two largest I had made into bedrooms for the boys.
They made four rooms. The smaller—which, by the way, is large enough in
all conscience—I keep for our lumber room.”
“Our ‘chamber of desolation,’ I call it, Mr. Harcourt,” said Betty.
“Every house must have its ‘chamber of desolation,’” added Mrs.
Wynthrop, “but really, I think the empty rooms are the most desolate of
all. They are like bodies without souls. And now that my three youngest
girls are at school at Northampton, two of the younger lads at college,
and two of the elder boys have gone into the dry goods business in
Washington city, the old house is more than half unoccupied.”
“I proposed to mamma to take summer boarders this season,” said Margaret
with a light laugh.
And in this seeming jest the girl had a serious and benevolent purpose.
She felt how necessary it was that the aged gentlewoman should remain in
peaceable possession of her room and her illusions; and she knew enough
of the morbid pride and sensitiveness of the family to feel that young
Harcourt could never bend his spirit to leave his infirm mother a
dependent on their hospitality; and also that he—judging them by
himself—would hesitate to propose to pay board for her, lest he should
give offense.
Feeling and knowing all this, the kind-hearted and practical girl
prepared his way with a jest.
Without suspecting her humane purpose, he followed immediately where she
wished to lead, and said, still with some faltering:
“I wish—oh! I do wish—it would be such a blessing to my dear mother—that
you would take her as a permanent boarder.”
“Mrs. Harcourt is most welcome to us. She will always be welcome, either
as a visitor or boarder, whichever you please, and just as long as she
likes. She is so happy here in her old home,” said Mrs. Wynthrop
pleasantly.
“Yes, she is very happy here in her old home, and in the delusion that
it has never ceased to be her home,” said Harcourt.
“And it would be a great pity to disturb her in that delusion,” added
the lady.
“Ah! I understand you, madam, and I thank you more than words can
convey. So long as I live——”
Whatever the young man was going to add was cut short by a rap, followed
by the entrance of Martha, who dropped her old-fashioned courtesy, and
said:
“’Scuse me, ladies, but de ole madam is gettin’ mons’ous unpatient to
see de young marster.”
“Go to your mother at once, Mr. Harcourt. We can talk afterward. Of
course, you must make this your home while you stay in the neighborhood.
No, not a word of objection now, but go,” said Mrs. Wynthrop with
authority.
Harcourt bowed, and obeyed.
Martha preceded him across the broad hall, into a large front parlor,
and through this to a rear door communicating with what was now called
the parlor bedchamber, though formerly it had been only known as
“mother’s room.”
Martha paused, with her hand on the knob of the lock, and said:
“Now, young marse, yo’ mus’n’t show no s’prise at nuffin de ole madam
say, nor likewise conterdic’ her.”
With these words, she opened the door.