Miss Eliza eyed Arethusa over her glasses with stern displeasure. She
dropped her sewing into her lap and prepared to take the delinquent one
to task.
"Where have you been all this time? Your Aunt 'Titia's been ready and
waiting for you a half hour at least."
"Oh, Sister, not quite that long." Miss Letitia's deprecatory accents
made an attempt (and it could always be only an attempt) to stem the
tide of Miss Eliza's severity. "It's not been more than fifteen
minutes, I'm sure."
"Your aunt has been ready and waiting for you a half hour at least!"
repeated Miss Eliza, firmly. "Didn't you understand from her message
that she wanted you? And I had to call you, myself, finally."
"Well, I didn't get any message.... Timothy didn't tell me she wanted
me, so how was I to know? I came right straight away when I heard you."
"You've been quarreling with Timothy again!"
"_I have not!_"
And at Arethusa's irritable tone, Miss Asenath looked up, startled. It
was so decided a contradiction, and not one of the household ever
contradicted Miss Eliza. This gentlest one was a trifle the most
discerning of the sisters, and she wondered if any other chapters to
last night's incident had been added under the willow tree.
"Don't you speak to me in that manner, Arethusa," Miss Eliza was
surprised almost into a mildness of reproof.
"I didn't mean to be impertinent, Aunt 'Liza," faltered the culprit.
She was a wee bit frightened at her own temerity after that emphatic
contradiction had burst forth. But anger at Timothy had over-ridden
discretion, with that question concerning him and Miss Eliza's obvious
inclination to side with him; last night's events were still clear in
Arethusa's mind, and Miss Eliza had been most unfair in her viewpoint
on that occasion. There still rankled, with both aunt and niece, a
little of the bitterness then aroused.
"You are getting," remarked Miss Eliza grimly, "absolutely
incomprehensible to me. Ever since that letter came from your father,
you have been utterly demoralised. I've half a mind to...."
Miss Letitia hastily held up the dress to be slipped on. She felt it
was undoubtedly the moment, the moment sometimes called psychological,
at which to introduce a counter-irritant.
It was the dark blue silk dress that Arethusa had been sure she would
have. It was as beautifully made as all Miss Letitia's garments were,
but very plain; only lightened at throat and wrists with the simplest
white collar and cuffs. Arethusa was very grateful to Miss Letitia for
having made it. She expressed her gratitude by an all-enveloping hug
which ruffled the small portion of Miss Letitia's hair remaining
comparatively smooth until this moment. But she did wish, most
decidedly, that it was not quite so plain.
Miss Letitia smoothed the folds in the skirt and put a pin in one place
in the hem where she believed it hung a little bit long.
"Do you think," she enquired anxiously of Miss Eliza, "that it hangs
all right in other places, Sister?"
"If Arethusa would stop spinning around like a top long enough for me
to get a good look at it, I might be able to tell you something about
it," replied Miss Eliza, severely.
Arethusa straightened up like a drum major and began turning very
slowly, as slowly as it was possible and keep her balance at the same
time, and Miss Eliza viewed the lower edge of the garment critically
from all sides.
"Yes," was her crisp verdict, "I may say I think it hangs even
everywhere.... But just that one place."
Miss Letitia breathed a deep sigh of relief. Arethusa echoed the sigh.
They dreaded equally the task of hanging a skirt (when it had not hung
right at first) with Miss Eliza's accurate eyes fixed upon the
operation.
"That is a very pretty dress. Sister 'Titia," remarked Miss Asenath.
She had quite a point of vantage on her couch; all fitting processes
were visible in an entirety. "Don't you think so, Arethusa?"
Arethusa agreed with fervency.
"You'd better thank your Aunt 'Titia then," from Miss Eliza.
"She did, Sister," interposed Miss Letitia hastily. "She already did!"
"I didn't hear her."
"Well, she gave me a lovely hug, and we both know what that means,
don't we, 'Thusa dearie?"
"Hum ... ph!" from Miss Eliza.
Arethusa took the blue silk dress off very carefully and handed it back
to Miss Letitia for the finishing touches.
She stood straight and tall before them for just a moment, and tilted
back her head and yawned, stretching her round arms high above her in a
glorious relaxation.
Then she looked down at that exceedingly dark, blue silk dress with
dissatisfaction. Then she looked at Miss Letitia bending her grey head
far over it and putting in innumerable and almost invisible stitches
very carefully, just for Arethusa: her round, cherubic little mouth
puckering into happy smiles about something known only to herself as
she worked.
Arethusa's warm heart smote her.
She swooped down upon Miss Letitia and hugged her with violence to make
up for that moment of inward dissatisfaction with Miss Letitia's loving
work. Miss Letitia's glasses were knocked off in the sudden swoop and
fell into her lap. She looked most surprised at this unexpected
proceeding, though highly gratified, as she retrieved the glasses. Had
she asked Miss Asenath about it, Miss Asenath could probably have told
her just what had been passing through Arethusa's mind. Miss Asenath
had been watching Arethusa. She was never tired of watching her, in
every smallest thing the girl did, with loving eyes that took keen
delight in her youth and life and vivid coloring.
Arethusa gazed around at the many garments in various stages that were
strewn about the room; every single one of them was hers. All the plain
white cotton under-things, one or two of them with puffings or a bit of
"thread" lace whipped around their edges, as a concession to the
unusualness of this occasion; the few simple shirtwaists, trimmed with
neat tucking; the "medium lisle" stockings Miss Eliza was marking in
pairs after a method of her own invention; the plain dark suit that
Miss Letitia had completed only that morning, and which Miss Asenath's
frail fingers were even at this moment engaged in further finishing
with a braid-binding all around the skirt to save the hem; the new hat
which Arethusa had tried on for them with the finished suit to see how
well they went together, and which was lying now on top of the piano;
and the silk dress in Miss Letitia's lap: it was all hers. But there
was nothing frivolous in the array, nothing at all light in color, save
perhaps the underclothes and the shirtwaists; there was not one purely
decorative or "frilly" garment such as the heart of girlhood loves. It
was a wardrobe, without doubt, entirely of Miss Eliza's choosing.
"Aunt 'Liza," Arethusa knelt down by that lady's chair and put her
glowing face very close to her aunt's; her tone was most wheedling.
"Aunt 'Liza, is there any of my money left?"
"There is," declared Miss Eliza, with satisfaction. "There is. I've
saved your step-mother quite a tidy bit of what she sent. It's too bad
if Ross has married a woman with extravagant tastes just like his own;
too bad! But it would seem as if he had. All that money for just one
girl! Put your dress on again, child, you oughtn't to sit around that
way. Yes, you're going to have quite a sum to take back to your
step-mother."
Arethusa wished that Miss Eliza would not say "step-mother" with just
such an emphasis. It made her seem so undesirable a relative to have
acquired, Miss Eliza's way of saying the name. And Arethusa did not
choose to think of Elinor as anything undesirable. She was nothing that
was not perfect. She was certainly nothing that deserved to be
distinguished by such a term of reproach as that "step-mother."
Practising saying "Mother" very softly to herself, Arethusa had come to
regard Elinor that way, without the sign of a "step."
She ignored the injunction to put on her dress and leaned coaxingly
nearer to Miss Eliza, whose habitually stern expression softened
involuntarily. But how could she help it, with that glowing face
wheedling so close to her own? Miss Eliza, after all, was not wood or
iron.
"Then please, Aunt 'Liza, let me have another dress?"
"What do you want with another dress, 'Thusa?" Miss Eliza sounded
almost indulgent. "This silk one makes three new ones, counting your
suit."
"I know," Arethusa said, a trifle apologetically, as if she knew it
_was_ a strange request. "I know, but I want a Party Dress. I want,"
and she hurried on with the expression of her want in desperate haste
lest she be stopped before she had finished, "I want a Green Dress?"
"A green dress! Mercy on us! With your hair! Why, Arethusa
Worthington!" Miss Eliza was plainly horrified.
But Arethusa Worthington nodded, most hopefully.
"Nonsense! A person with hair as red as yours can't wear green! Of all
wild ideas!"
"I think she might look lovely in a soft shade of green," put in Miss
Asenath's sweet voice. "And so why can't she have a green party dress,
Sister? If she wants one and there's plenty of money left?"
Then Arethusa looked still more hopefully at Miss Eliza, for sometimes
Miss Asenath's gentle vote prevailed; but this time it was not so to
be. Miss Eliza bit off her thread with as much decision as ever Atropos
dares use in cutting hers.
"You always did care a lot too much about color, 'Senath," she said,
though not in the least unkindly; no one was ever unkind to Miss
Asenath, "and Arethusa is just like you. But as for getting her a green
dress to wear with that red head of hers, why it would be a waste, and
a perfectly sinful waste, of money, because I know her step-mother
wouldn't let her wear it. She would think _I_ was crazy besides."
Both Arethusa and Miss Asenath were quite inclined to disagree with
her. Miss Asenath was wise enough to know that she could say nothing
further to change the decision; and she communicated to Arethusa, with
a shake of her head, that she was not to attempt it, either ... for
the latter's mouth had plainly opened for speech. Be it said to her
everlasting credit, that she struggled hard with this disappointment,
and turned away to put on her dress without any other plea.
"Your Aunt 'Titia and I," continued Miss Eliza, (she had not seen this
bit of by-play) "had about decided to get you a white dress. We thought
that if it weren't of too sheer material, you might wear it to
entertainments there in the city--because I suppose you'll be invited
to some--even if it is cold weather, without having to take off your
underwear, which is always dangerous in winter."
"I don't want an old, thick, white dress...." began Arethusa,
rebelliously, but a chorus of "Arethusas" interrupted her.
It was very gentle from Miss Asenath; very plaintive from Miss Letitia,
who was dreading another tilt; and very, very stern from Miss Eliza,
who added, "If your Aunt 'Titia is good enough to make you a white
dress, you ought to be very grateful, instead of acting as you do! I
doubt the wisdom of your having one at all, myself, I must say. A white
dress in the winter-time! When I was a girl, I would have thought that
a great deal to have!"
But Arethusa failed to be properly impressed. Her dislike of the idea
of the white dress showed so plainly in her ever-changing face, that
Miss Asenath silently held out her hand and Arethusa flew to that
haven, her couch.
"I wouldn't worry, dear, about my dress," whispered Miss Asenath. She
sometimes just could not help consoling the girl, even if it was in
direct opposition to Miss Eliza, when things seemed to be too
thoroughly disappointing. "You know your Aunt 'Titia will make it just
as pretty as she possibly can. I think green is lovely with red hair,
myself, even though Sister 'Liza doesn't seem to, but white is lovely
with it also. And your mother may get you some other things, very
probably; don't you remember that it said 'immediate needs' in the
letter? And if that means what I imagine it does, you may find yourself
with two party dresses when you thought you were only going to have
one. And," ended Miss Asenath, smiling, "she may feel about colors just
as you and I do. I think somehow she will!"
Arethusa smiled back. It was a pleasing prospect held out by Aunt
'Senath, so she took heart and hope immediately.
Miss Eliza bent her glasses upon the two conspirators on the sofa.
"Don't you be telling Arethusa she would look nice in green, 'Senath,
because you know very well she wouldn't. In _my_ day," this severely
directed at Arethusa herself, "so much wasn't done for girls that they
forgot how to be grateful. Nowadays, they want the whole earth and a
ring around it, into the bargain. The more you give 'em, the more they
want. A green dress for Arethusa! Who on earth would have thought of
such a thing but you! If your hair wasn't quite so red, you wouldn't
be so limited in your choice of colors. A green dress! That's Ross
Worthington all over again. Wild ideas; nothing like anybody sensible
would think of ever having or doing! A green dress with your fiery red
hair!"
Arethusa could not help but feel that this apostrophe to her hair was
going rather far. Miss Letitia and Miss Asenath had much the same
feeling. But Miss Letitia dared only look her sympathy, and Miss
Asenath felt it best to express hers by one of her loving little pats.
Then Miss Eliza happened to glance at the tall marble clock. She
immediately put her work down. "You may finish these stockings,
Arethusa, if you think you can keep your mind on it long enough. But
just as I was doing them though; mind! It's time for me to go show
Blish about fixing that sore place on the black cow's back. He was to
be up at four."
With Miss Eliza's departure harmony reigned supreme, and Arethusa's
tongue loosened. Over the marking of her stockings, she chattered
happily to Miss Asenath and Miss Letitia. Very often, when Miss Eliza
was present, her rather dry reception of her niece's enthusiastic
presentation of ideas had a somewhat quenching effect upon the real
flow of conversation.
"Did you leave Timothy down at the Branch?" queried Miss Asenath, after
awhile.
"Oh, I reckon he went on home," Arethusa answered carelessly.
She could be thus casual in her answers to Miss Asenath, for with her
no subject had pursuit unto a bitter end.
Miss Letitia finished the hem of the blue dress and laid the garment
carefully over the back of a chair. Then she reached over and took
Arethusa's pile of stockings away from her.
"Suppose, dearie," she suggested, "you practise a bit now. You don't
play that piece yet as well as you ought, and your father used to be a
great lover of music. He will want to hear you play."
Arethusa rose obediently and went to the piano; twirled the squeaking
stool to a lower height, and settled herself, elbows properly rigid and
head upright. Miss Letitia was her music teacher.
In fact, all of her education, domestic and academic and purely
ornamental, as Miss Eliza termed the music, had been gained at home.
Instruction in the "principal branches," again Miss Eliza's name, had
been received mostly from Miss Asenath. Geography she had taught her
niece with the aid of the same faded globe that had fixed the shape of
the world and the location of its hemispheres and continents and
principal countries in her own mind. If the boundaries of any of those
countries had changed since the globe was made; if new land had been
discovered; if any hitherto obscure cities had sprung into size and
prominence during the sixty years or more that the globe had stood in
the corner of the square hall: it had made no sort of difference in the
geography lessons. Arethusa had learned history, from ancient history
books with almost obliterated names on the fly-leaves. But it had been
rather a biased version of the period connected with the Civil War
which she had learned, for Miss Eliza was very bitter about those years
of her country's existence. Her only brother, and her twin, had been
killed fighting for the Confederacy. Miss Eliza seemed to be unable to
believe that he had been killed in battle, however, for she always
spoke of him as "murdered" by the Yankees. So Arethusa's ideas of
events connected with this time was hardly very favorably inclined
towards the Northern side. Miss Asenath was very shaky in arithmetic;
therefore, her pupil had not got into higher mathematics. She had
paused in her figuring somewhere about the beginning of long division,
but even where she had paused she could not be said to be very steadily
fixed.
The musical part of this education belonged to just about the same date
as the part which Miss Asenath had supervised. For all the pieces
Arethusa had learned "by heart," which was the only way to learn music
properly so as to be able to give pleasure to others, were pieces which
Miss Letitia herself had practised with painstaking care for expression
over fifty years ago. Both musicians were quite proficient in mazurkas
and polkas and old-fashioned reels and ballads, and let us not forget
to mention variations of every conceivable variety, for Miss Letitia
possessed a whole book of variations, and it was quite a thick book.
Just at present, Arethusa was busily engaged in committing to memory
"The Babbling Brook."
But her brook did not babble just precisely as Miss Letitia's did.
There was something far more fantastic and wild about the runs the
younger musician made on the tinkling square piano; runs which Miss
Letitia considered were not at all in keeping with the character of the
music she was playing. Effort had been expended by both to bring
Arethusa's brook to the state of really flowing as a brook should flow;
but it seemed so far to be hopeless.
Arethusa played it through once and Miss Letitia kept time for her with
a threaded needle.
"No, dearie," she shook her head, "you don't get it at all. You play
just a bit too fast sometimes, and not quite fast enough others."
So it was played all over again from the beginning by the pupil; but
still it was no better. Miss Letitia looked troubled.
"I just don't see how I can make you do it differently."
Miss Asenath liked Arethusa's way of playing this particular piece and
she did not want it changed.
"Perhaps," she suggested gently, "the child is tired. It's been a very
hot day, and it's very hard to do anything just right on such a day. It
seems to take all the life out of one."
Miss Letitia agreed. "It does so. Well, she can learn it the right way
before she leaves. There's plenty of time still."
"Play something else for us, dear," said Miss Asenath. "Play some of
the ballads."
Arethusa turned again to the piano and filled the room with the soft
sounds of "Auld Robin Gray" and "The Low-backed Car" and "Annie
Laurie."
Under cover of the music Timothy slipped in and found a chair close to
Miss Asenath. He had been spending a very miserable time down by the
Branch. And he would never have come near the house had he not heard
the piano, for Timothy loved music intensely and he could never resist
following its sound. If Arethusa was still angry with him, he had no
intention of bothering her again; he only wanted to be allowed to
listen.
Miss Eliza came back to the sitting-room and settled once more to her
sewing. Miss Asenath closed her eyes and gave herself over to dreaming.
It was her book of ballads, and she had used to, long ago, play them
softly in just such twilights for another Timothy. Miss Letitia's busy
fingers worked away and her head nodded time.
The late summer evening with its myriads of sounds and that feeling of
restless settling down for the night that it always seems to have in
the country, slowly deepened into darkness and Arethusa still played
on. Perhaps her execution was not of the best and her fingering may
have been questionable; but she seemed to feel some of the real spirit
of the quaint old tunes she played and she put a soft expression into
them that was far more to her circle of listeners than brilliant
execution or perfect fingering. None of them could have found the
smallest fault: the music spoke to each one of them in that way each
one most wanted.
So she played on softly until Mandy came, announcing supper.
Timothy must stay, Miss Eliza insisted. But Timothy declined, even
though Arethusa, with rather strange cordiality considering what she
had said at the Branch, joined her voice to Miss Eliza's. The music had
spoken to Arethusa herself, to soften. Timothy's mood, however, was not
inclined for conversation on general topics, and at Miss Eliza's
supper-table one nearly always conversed on general topics.