One of the most agitating parts of this whole affair was the actual
traveling that must be done by Arethusa in order to reach her father.
Miss Eliza's first idea was to find out if anyone in the County would
be making a trip to the City this fall and to place her niece under
that person's protection; provided that person was of the
irreproachable character she deemed requisite before being entrusted
with such a charge.
Miss Letitia then ventured to mention, most timidly, the State Fair,
which was held in Lewisburg every September. Some one of the county's
agricultural population would most surely be going there then.
Perhaps Timothy, answered Miss Eliza, graciously conceding Miss Letitia
a stroke of real mentality in her suggestion. If he was planning to
attend, it would be just the thing; the girl could go with him. She was
sorry she had not broached the subject at supper.
But Arethusa vehemently opposed this idea. She would not go a single
step with Timothy. And why could she not go alone, anyway? She was
quite large enough, and she was all of eighteen this summer.
This very radical departure from the established order of things raised
a storm of protest immediately from Miss Letitia and Miss Eliza; Miss
Eliza especially. Such was not to be considered for a moment! An
absolutely unprotected female traveling alone! And a young female at
that!
"No," said Miss Eliza, firmly.
If the worst came to the worst, and it could not possibly be managed
any other way, she would go with Arethusa herself, rather than have her
make that four hour trip totally unattended; at which presented
alternative Arethusa's mobile face clouded over most completely. This
was a much worse prospect than Timothy.
Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia suggested and counter-suggested, and then
rejected everything. No one idea seemed altogether to suit.
Now all this commotion over the trip and Arethusa's making it alone was
really not so uncalled-for when one realized all the circumstances.
She had never been on a railroad train; never having spent longer than
a portion of a day away from the Farm in all of her eighteen years, nor
slept, even for one night, under any other roof.
The family did their shopping in "Blue Spring," five miles away down
the Pike, only by courtesy a town. It was a "town" of six hundred
inhabitants, including babes in arms and counting very carefully. On
two most memorable occasions Arethusa had visited the county-seat,
twelve miles farther on, on the same Pike (for Blue Spring had
preempted a portion of the State road as its Main street); and these
were occasions truly never to be forgotten. For there ran the railroad,
through the heart of the town; there were electric lights and paved
streets; the little place in its aping of a city gave her glimpses of a
world of fascinating bustle and confusion. To Arethusa, the county-seat
seemed bewilderingly active and alive.
But Miss Eliza was not much of a believer in going to town, and she
considered it a waste of time to drive about merely to be driving. The
old-fashioned surrey, with its dark green felt upholstery, and its
flapping curtains, was rarely taken out of the barn without a distinct
objective point in view. Church and prayer-meeting at the tiny frame
house of worship on the Pike were the principal dissipations of this
"household of women." Though Arethusa had often rebelled inwardly at
these arbitrary decisions which so limited her excursions abroad,
outward rebellion would have done her no good; Miss Eliza was firm and
ruled her little kingdom with a rod of iron.
Under cover of the discussion between Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia, Miss
Asenath was having a few ideas of her own on other subjects.
"Why," she asked Arethusa, in her soft voice, "why do you dislike
Timothy so much, dear?"
"Dislike Timothy, Aunt 'Senath!" Arethusa's eyes opened wide in
surprise, "Why, I don't, at all! I like him just lots!"
"Then why," continued Miss Asenath, smiling just a little, "do you
quarrel with him so?"
"I don't quarrel with him, Aunt 'Senath, dear.... Not.... Not much...."
added for the sake of honesty, after thought.
"I thought you all had rather a bad time at supper."
"Oh, that," Arethusa tossed her head, "that was all Timothy's fault.
He's.... He's just awful sometimes. He makes me so mad I could
just...." both hands clenched, "and he had on father's clothes!"
"I see. But he's worn them before, dear."
"I know he has, Aunt 'Senath, and every time he does, it makes me just
as mad. He.... He doesn't belong in Father's clothes! They don't suit
him at all!"
Miss Asenath was silent.
'Way deep down in her heart was a Wish; but it was a Wish she had
never expressed to anyone because she was wise, and she knew that
wishes expressed were often not granted.
Timothy and Arethusa were nearer and dearer to her than any two people
in the world. Timothy was his grandfather over again, name and all, she
sometimes thought.
Miss Asenath had not resented it when that first Timothy Jarvis had
married. It had hurt her a little, naturally, when she had first heard
of it; but her loving heart had very soon understood. An active man
could not be expected to view those months before that terrible fall as
did she, pinned always to the one spot. There were long hours of both
day and night in which she had naught to do but to lie still and
remember the joy of those months. And nothing could ever take that away
from her, she told herself: it was hers for always, and it was a great
deal. So she had clung to her miniature and her memories and sent for
him to wish him happiness; and she had wished it with her whole soul
from the bottom of her heart. She had loved his sons and daughters when
they came, but even more than they, she loved this grandson and
namesake, Timothy.
And to see Timothy and Arethusa pick up the threads of her love-story
where she had laid them down would almost have compensated Miss Asenath
for living all these years with only memories.
Miss Asenath laid her hand on the locket at her throat, and fell to
dreaming.
"Timothy," said Arethusa, half to herself, "Timothy and I get along
just beautifully sometimes ... when he behaves. But he knows all the
things I hate, and I think he does them just for spite to see me get
mad. He says he likes to see me get mad, and I ... just like a goose,
go right straight ahead and get mad for him. But I'll fix Timothy
Jarvis yet for to-night! Just let him wait! If he thinks I'm going to
let him ride all over me like that, he's mightily mistaken! Timothy
Jarvis!!" with a most scornful emphasis, her voice rising.
Miss Asenath was conscious, although her thoughts were so very far
away, of the vindictiveness of this ending, and smiled; Miss Eliza,
catching Timothy's name through the sound of her own conversation,
asked sharply:--
"What did you say about Timothy, Arethusa?"
Miss Eliza had a Wish also, but her Wish was quite often expressed; she
had other ideas than Miss Asenath. She kept Arethusa fully cognizant of
what her heart most earnestly desired.
"Nothing very much, Aunt 'Liza."
"Yes, you did. I heard you. Arethusa," Miss Eliza straightened her
glasses and attacked directly, "the way you treated Timothy at the
supper-table ... all through the meal.... It's beyond my comprehension
how you can! But he was a gentleman through the whole thing, I must
say, a perfect gentleman. Which ought to make you more than ever
ashamed of yourself. Sometimes I'm forced to think that all the
training your Aunt 'Titia and I and your Aunt 'Senath have given you
has gone for naught. To treat a guest in your own home the way you did
Timothy! I was scandalised!! Simply scandalized! But I must say that
Timothy behaved like a gentleman."
It was what Timothy would have termed "dirt mean" of Miss Eliza to add
this extra chapter to the thorough scolding for the afternoon which she
had given Arethusa such a short while before. But Timothy was Miss
Eliza's most vulnerable spot; one of her few weaknesses.
"He always does," muttered Arethusa, "according to you. But you don't
hear anything he says, he's too smart!"
"What's that?" Miss Eliza looked quite ready for battle.
"Nothing, Aunt 'Liza."
"There was something. You said something about Timothy, Arethusa, for I
heard you ... again. That habit of yours of answering 'nothing,' when I
ask you to repeat what you have said, is decidedly disrespectful."
Miss Eliza reached around for a copy of the _Christian Observer_ which
was lying on the sitting room table (the most secular reading she ever
did were the stories and articles in its pages) and settled her shiny
glasses firmly on the bridge of her nose. Then she drew the lamp
nearer and turned it up just a trifle, preparing to enjoy a long
discussion of the burning of Servetus which she had been saving for
several weeks to read when she would have time to do so uninterrupted.
It was signed "Calvinist," and Miss Eliza had the feeling that she was
going to agree with every word of it.
Then as a parting shot, as she rattled the pages open:
"You must conduct yourself more like a lady with Timothy, Arethusa, or
I'm very much afraid he won't want to marry you."
"Won't want to marry me!" Arethusa sprang hotly from her seat on the
couch. "It's me that don't want to marry Timothy!"
"You do not know what you are saying," very coldly and decidedly from
Miss Eliza. "Of course you want to. It is fitting in every way, most
fitting. He is the right age, the families have known each other
always, and the lands adjoin."
This with Miss Eliza was the clinching argument. The Jarvis Farm was on
both sides of the Pike, but on one side it enclosed the Redfield Farm
north and west and south, and went nearly to town. The "V" lot,
especially, seemed to Miss Eliza to be in a position that made
annexation desirable. The marriage of Timothy and Arethusa would make
one Farm of the two, and straighten all those irregular boundaries.
When so made, it would be by far the largest individual piece of
property in the County. For to Arethusa, as the sole descendant of the
Redfields, would go some day all the land of their owning, and to
Timothy had already been left the home Farm of his grandfather, because
of his name.
"I shall never marry Timothy," said Arethusa, "Never! If the land was
plaited in and out, I never would!"
Miss Eliza put the _Christian Observer_ down in her lap; her glasses
slipped to the end of her nose.
"Why?"
"Oh, Sister, don't!"
Miss Letitia gazed distressfully from Miss Eliza to Arethusa, and then
back to Miss Eliza again. Her round, good-natured little face was all
drawn up and distorted with worry, just as it always was when war
threatened, even remotely, between Miss Eliza and Arethusa. And these
bouts concerning the girl's marriage to Timothy occurred so often
without any advantage to either side.
"Because I shan't."
"That's no reason. You must have some sort of a reason. You can have no
really valid objection to Timothy, Arethusa. He is quite handsome, and
very likeable. _I_ am devoted to him, myself."
Miss Asenath felt quite like answering for Arethusa that this last
statement was most irrelevant, but she refrained. There was really no
use in adding the slightest fuel to flames already sufficiently high.
"You speak of the land being plaited in and out," continued Miss Eliza,
looking sternly over her glasses. "That was a most foolish remark. Such
a thing could never be, and you know it. I do not want you to marry
Timothy for his land, of course. I merely mention its situation as next
to what will some day be your own as making the alliance just that much
more desirable. For heaven knows what will happen to the Farm when you
do get it, if you haven't some sensible man to take care of it for you!
But there are other things about Timothy that would make him a husband
any girl could be proud of. There are plenty of them in this very
County would jump at the chance you've had."
"They're very welcome to him!"
Arethusa thought it best not to say this too loud, but unfortunately
Miss Eliza heard.
"I'm ashamed of you, Arethusa, if you're not ashamed of yourself. It's
throwing away the opportunity of a life-time. I wish I was young, and
in your shoes. Have you refused him lately?"
No answer from Arethusa. She picked at the soft blue fleece of Miss
Asenath's comfort until she had collected quite a little pile of down,
which she made into a ball and put as carefully to one side as if she
intended it for some future use. Miss Asenath watched her
sympathetically. If it would have done the slightest good she would
have entered the breach, but when Miss Eliza reached the stage of her
argument of pointblank questions, it meant pursuit to the bitter end.
Miss Letitia was not so wise. She had made three attempts to catch the
loop of the same stitch in her crocheting, and failed each time, in her
excitement. This was a most unusual performance for her. Her crochet
needle poised in mid-air.
"Sister," she pleaded, "please. I wouldn't ask the child such a
personal question, if I were you. Please!"
"Please what, 'Titia?" Miss Eliza was distracted for the fraction of a
moment to Miss Letitia. "Why do you sit there saying, 'Please,' in that
silly way? I will ask my niece Arethusa anything I wish. When I was
young we were supposed to answer all the questions of our elders,
personal or not, as you call them. Arethusa!"
When Miss Eliza spoke of "my niece Arethusa," it meant business. The
poor niece turned desperately, and just in time to receive the
broadside of a still more emphatic, "Arethusa!"
"Yes, I have, Aunt 'Liza. Timothy has asked me to marry him every
summer since I was five years old, and in between times too, and I've
said, 'No,' every single time. And if he keeps on asking me until I'm
five hundred years old, I'll still keep on saying, 'no!' I shall never,
never, marry Timothy!"
She left her refuge of the couch and started toward the door.
"I did not hear you asking permission to leave the room, Arethusa, and
I do wish you would not exaggerate so violently. It is simply telling
falsehoods. You told two in that one sentence. You know perfectly well
Timothy hasn't been asking you to marry him since he was nine--a child
of that age doesn't think of marriage. And you also know just as well
as I do that you'll not live to be five hundred, it's absurd to make
such statements. Come back here, Arethusa? Now what is your real reason
for acting this way whenever I speak to you of Timothy. I want to know?
You know just how your Aunt 'Titia and I and your Aunt 'Senath feel
about it. Why do you persist in going against our wishes?"
Arethusa gazed wildly around the room. She seemed to hunt on walls and
floor an answer to the uncompromisingly plain question. Close to the
door she was poised like some wild bird arrested in its flight. One
glance that included Miss Asenath and Miss Letitia absolved them both
from participation in the scheme so clear to Miss Eliza's heart.
"I don't love Timothy," she said, at last, desperately.
"Nonsense!"
"But I don't!"
"Bah!... Love!" Miss Eliza was thoroughly disgusted. "What do you want
to be so mawkish and sentimental for? Just like your father! You like
Timothy, don't you? Then that's quite enough."
"But I couldn't marry anybody I didn't love." The persecuted one edged
a little bit of a way nearer to the door.
"You don't know any thing about it," declared Miss Eliza, flatly. "What
you call love is just pure silly!"
"Well," Arethusa despairingly presented her final bit of reasoning, "I
hate Timothy! I think it's the very ugliest name I ever heard. I could
never be happy married to anybody called 'Timothy'."
Miss Eliza sniffed. The girl was getting more and more foolish! "That
certainly means nothing!"
"I always thought 'Timothy' was a good name," came softly from Miss
Asenath. "I always liked 'Timothy' very much myself."
Arethusa melted suddenly. She remembered.
How could she have been so cruel as to say such a thing and hurt dear
Aunt 'Senath's feelings? With a rush she was across the room and both
strong young arms had clasped the frail figure of the best-loved aunt
closely to her.
"Oh, Aunt 'Senath, Aunt 'Senath!" she sobbed, wildly penitent. "I was a
beast! I didn't think! Your Timothy was a lovely name!"
It sounded a trifle illogical and inconsistent, but Miss Asenath seemed
to understand perfectly. She whispered her forgiveness to the weeping
Arethusa, who could only squeeze her and murmur incoherent avowals of
her lack of intent to be unkind. To be unkind to Aunt 'Titia was bad
enough, but to be unkind to Aunt 'Senath! It was the last word in
perfidy.
"It all depends on what we think of the person, what we may think of
the name, Arethusa, dear," said Miss Asenath. "I know you didn't mean
it."
And Arethusa wept some more, scalding tears of still another sort of
penitence: Aunt 'Senath was such a darling! The back of Miss Asenath's
woolly white wrapper was rapidly getting damper and damper.
Such scenes as the one just past generally ended in just this way, with
Arethusa's tears; and the tears nearly always cleared the air. Miss
Eliza took up the _Christian Observer_ once more, and Miss Letitia
resumed her rosy crocheting, after raveling out almost a whole row
which she had put in as wrong as was possible.
"If I were you, Arethusa," remarked Miss Eliza drily, after awhile,
looking up from her magazine to bend her sharp glance on the pair on
the sofa, "I would not crush my aunt into jelly in order to show her
your sorrow at being so thoughtless and unfeeling. And you will make
her quite ill; very likely it will bring on one of her bad headaches,
if you carry on much longer that way."
Miss Asenath's headaches were periods of much anxiety for all the
family, with the great suffering they brought the gentle invalid.
Arethusa drew away from the couch abruptly. She felt suddenly
overwhelmed with her inability ever to do the right thing; a feeling
which Miss Eliza was quite often successful in arousing in her niece.
Miss Asenath offered her own cobwebby handkerchief to dry Arethusa's
reddened eyes. Then she asked Miss Eliza if she would not be good
enough to read aloud to them for awhile. Miss Asenath had some of the
makings of a diplomat.
None of the roomful of women would really listen, for Miss Letitia
would be far too intent on counting stitches, and Miss Asenath would
dream, and to Arethusa, Miss Eliza's choice of reading matter was
anything but interesting; but Miss Eliza herself would be made
beatific. She considered herself somewhat gifted as an elocutionist;
during her course at the old Freeport Seminary, now so long ago, she
had had the most lady-like of instruction. She prided herself on her
ability to put "expression" into her reading. Thus would amiability be
especially restored in her quarter, and poor, persecuted Arethusa might
have a little while in which to attain some degree of calmness once
more.
So Miss Asenath patted the place at her side invitingly. Arethusa
cuddled up very close; Miss Eliza went back to the beginning of her
article, having read a paragraph or two; and peace began to reign with
the very first word of the reading aloud.
When Miss Eliza's voice, with all the proper inflections, had followed
the various whys and wherefores of the death of Servetus to a
triumphant conclusion, she was a different person. All the sharpness
aroused by Arethusa's seeming scorn of Timothy had disappeared. She was
even ready to say, when her niece stooped to kiss her good-night, that
she was sorry if she had made her unhappy in her manner of discussing
Timothy, and Timothy's matrimonial possibilities; and this was a very
great concession for Miss Eliza.
"But you are making a great big mistake, Arethusa," she could not help
adding, "every way, in not taking Timothy while you can."
Yet it was amiably said, and did not cause the slightest excitement.
Which goes but to prove more surely that Miss Asenath seemed to have
missed her calling.