Arethusa stood on top of the stile a moment or two and surveyed the old
House with eyes that saw none too clearly anything that was before
them, before she climbed down; yet she had no real need to actually see
it, she knew it all, in every well-loved detail, so well.
It stood there, facing the West, and hugging the earth with that
curious appearance of having grown in its place like some sort of solid
plant, the green blinds every one swung hospitably open. The January
sun was far down in the afternoon sky, and its golden light was
reflected in every small and shining square of the square-paned front
windows, to make each twinkling pane seem to be smiling a welcome.
And it was all just as neat and precise as ever, although in winter
garb instead of that of summer. For the clematis vine over the front
porch was a matted heap of dead tendrils (they had died for the season
in an orderly way, however) and the little garden at one end of the
House was all covered over with straw for the cold weather, and queer
little miniature straw stacks were bound around all the rose bushes.
Miss Eliza's roses were never known to die during the winter. Only the
honeysuckle vine retained its greenness. All the dead leaves had been
raked out of the yard, and although the trees stood as gaunt and bare
as any other trees at this time of the year, they did not seem naked
like other trees. They leaned protectingly towards the house, and they
seemed to welcome Arethusa too.
Through the lower windows with their looped white curtains, Arethusa
caught a glimpse of the flickering of the sitting-room fire, that fire
which warmed Miss Asenath. After all, as dear as Ross and Elinor had
proved to be, and as much as she truly loved them, this was Home, as
Timothy and Miss Eliza had declared. And how good it was to see it all
once more. She had never really known before just how much it meant to
her!
Miss Eliza had met her at the station and had scolded her vigorously
(scolding sometimes meant that Miss Eliza was trying to control her
feelings) nearly all of the six miles from Vandalia, because Arethusa
looked so badly, in Miss Eliza's opinion.
"I knew no earthly good would come of it," she said, with a satisfied,
I-told-you-so air. "You've come back home sick, after gallivanting
around in the city, for me to nurse. And my hands full as they are! I
knew just exactly how it would be!"
But Arethusa did not mind this scolding. It was really so much a part
of the Home atmosphere that she even rather welcomed it. And she needed
a scolding, she felt, so she might as well have it for one thing as for
another. This was a mere bagatelle to what Miss Eliza would say if she
knew What had happened at the January Cotillion!
Arethusa received her tirade with such unusual meekness that Miss
Eliza was alarmed immediately, and convinced that the girl _was_
actually sick.
While the returned wanderer stood on the stile, gazing at the House,
the front door flew open and Miss Letitia bustled out, arms
outstretched. She almost ran to meet Arethusa. She could not move very
fast with such a fat little figure as hers, but she moved faster than
she had moved for some years past. And Arethusa dropped every single
thing she held and flew down the walk and met Miss Letitia before she
was really fairly started.
"Oh, Aunt 'Titia, Aunt 'Titia!"
"There, there," crooned Miss Letitia. "My! My! But we're all glad to
get you back! Sister 'Senath's done absolutely nothing but watch the
clock ever since we got your father's telegram you were coming. Why,
Dearie!" For Arethusa was crying openly on Miss Letitia's comfortable
shoulder.
"Arethusa isn't well," remarked Miss Eliza, coming up behind them with
most of the dropped belongings; "she must go to bed just as soon as she
gets inside the house."
Arethusa lifted her head. "I don't want to go to bed, Aunt 'Liza. I'm
not a bit sick."
"Well, do stop carrying on like such a ninny, then!"
But underneath all the sharpness of word and tone of this speech, her
niece could somehow read that Miss Eliza was glad to have her back
also.
And as for Miss Asenath....
She fairly trembled as she lay on the couch and waited for Arethusa to
come to her. She wore the rose-colored birthday gift, but it was not
the rose of the shawl that had reflected that faint pink flush to each
frail cheek. And it was with all the rush of the old Arethusa across
the floor that the girl greeted her dearest of the aunts, and her
strong young arms clasped the tiny old lady close to her warm heart in
the old loving way. But this Arethusa's eyes were dewy and her voice
held a hint of tears; and they were tears which wise Miss Asenath knew
almost immediately came not from the mere gladness at being home, after
she bade Arethusa stand off so that she might look at her. Miss
Asenath, however, said nothing to anybody about her knowledge.
It was good to be at home again, Arethusa felt; good to snuggle down in
that old place of hers on the couch and hold Miss Asenath's hand just
as she used to; good to watch Miss Letitia's placidity throned in her
straight-backed chair and to see her fingers flying as usual and the
heap of work in her lap; good even to listen to Miss Eliza's scolding
tongue; and good to see Mandy when she waddled in from the kitchen to
see "Arethusie" and to state with positiveness that the city did not
agree with her at all. But with all of this glow of feeling over
getting Home, there was really something wrong, something lacking about
it; something Arethusa dimly sensed, but could not exactly define.
After awhile Miss Eliza gave her the clue to it, when she imparted the
news that Timothy had gone over to Hawesville to a dance.
"Timothy's getting mighty giddy," she added, with great disapproval in
voice and manner. "He just gads from one dance to another, all over the
county, and he's taken to calling on the town girls. That little visit
he made to you in the city had a very bad effect on him, too."
And then with a very little thought, Arethusa knew just what was wrong
with her home-coming. It was Timothy.
Timothy, who had always been a part of things for her ever since she
could remember, was not there to greet her. Timothy had gone off to a
dance and let her come home alone. Timothy, who had always said that he
cared more about Arethusa than anyone else in the world, had not seemed
to care about her coming back to the Farm. Not in the older, happier
days would he have done such a thing as this. And it was well
calculated to hurt when she was already so miserable. But then maybe he
had not known she was to come; her decision had been so sudden. This
might explain.
"Did Timothy know I was coming home to-day?" she asked after a bit,
rather timidly.
Miss Eliza snorted. "He most certainly did. I telephoned him myself,
this morning, to let him know. That's how I happen to know where he is!
You did something to Timothy, Arethusa, when he was in the City to see
you. He hasn't been a bit the same since he came home. Gallivanting
around with those flip hussies in town! His mother's real worried about
him. And he just's running himself thin!"
She would have pursued the subject further, had not Miss Asenath, with
gentle diplomacy, interrupted such pursuit. She did not feel as if she
could listen to Miss Eliza and Arethusa wrangle over Timothy when the
child had just barely got home, after being away so long.
But Arethusa would not have wrangled. She could not have wrangled with
Miss Eliza over anything in the world, much less Timothy. She wondered
who those girls in town were that he was going to see; Timothy had
always declared very emphatically his dislike of the town girls. But
she wondered to herself, without asking anybody any questions.
Miss Eliza's sharp eyes watched her niece. She noticed those unusual
dark circles under Arethusa's eyes, circles which most certainly were
not there when the girl went away; and this strange quietness with
which she had come back to them Miss Eliza did not like a bit. The
tongue of the Arethusa of three months ago would have gone like a bell
clapper under circumstances such as these. And Miss Eliza, who for all
her sharp manner and her scolding tongue, loved her niece in her own
way as much as either Miss Asenath or Miss Letitia, suddenly wished
that she had not let Arethusa make her visit to Lewisburg. She left the
sitting-room abruptly and bustled out to the back door to find Blish,
whom she scolded most vigorously, much to his astonishment and
consternation, for he could not remember a thing he had done or left
undone within the last twenty-four hours, since the last scolding, to
be scolded for.
Mandy had prepared such a supper for the Arethusa come back to them as
not even that much vaunted feast of the prodigal son, for all its
fatted calf, could equal. All of Arethusa's favorite dishes were on the
table, and it had been set with the company china. Then Mandy and Blish
and Nathan, also, came in a group to the door of the dining-room and
peeped in with good-natured dark faces stretched wide in brilliant
smiling, just to see her eat a few mouthfuls. They were so glad to have
her back at the Farm.
Arethusa choked up several times with all the homely kindnesses she
received. These dear people who loved her so, how much sweeter they
were to her than she at all deserved!
Immediately after supper, Miss Eliza made her niece go to bed. And
Arethusa went with such meekness and so altogether unprotesting, that
Miss Eliza trotted along up to her room with her, and felt anxiously of
her forehead for fever. She was quite positive now that the girl was
sick! She bustled around and helped Arethusa undress. She tucked her
tightly into the little wooden bed with its turned posts which had
always been Arethusa's very own, covering her clear up to her chin with
the blue and white squared "counterpin" Miss Letitia had made as a
surprise for Arethusa when she should come home. Then Miss Eliza blew
out the lamp, efficiently with one blow as always, bade Arethusa
peremptorily to go right straight to sleep, and left her. But very
unexpectedly, she came back after shutting the door, and trotted
briskly across the dark room to give Arethusa a quick little peck on
one cheek, which was Miss Eliza's only way of kissing, and to tell her
very gruffly that she was awfully glad Arethusa was at home again, and
she certainly hoped that she'd have sense enough to stay. Then she once
more bade her niece to go straight to sleep and once more departed.
But Arethusa could not go to sleep. She threw back the carefully tucked
in covers and got up out of bed, draping the new "counterpin" around
her shoulders, and paddled, bare-footed, over to that window of her
room which looked in the direction of Timothy's house. It was velvety
black over on that horizon, but Arethusa could find the place where the
house ought to be. It was a very beautiful night, cold and clear and
starry. Arethusa put her head down on the window-sill and gazed up at
the stars. There were millions of them, and they all seemed to be
winking straight down at her just as sympathetically as possible. She
had always loved stars.
As she watched them, a sort of mist began obscuring them from her, and
so she brushed at her eyes to wipe it away, but it only seemed to keep
on growing to be more decided as a mist; and then it dissolved itself
into tears which fell thick and fast, hot tears which splashed on the
window-sill ... all because of Timothy's treatment of her on this
home-coming afternoon. Arethusa felt as if Timothy's friendship were
lost to her forever. Shamed and humiliated by Mr. Bennet, it had
remained for life in its cruelty to add this last blow. For unless his
feeling for her was absolutely changed, he would never have treated her
like this. Arethusa knew Timothy too well.
He had read Mr. Bennet correctly, she remembered now, thinking about
her best friend; or about the one who had always, till so recently,
been her best friend. He had called Mr. Bennet a "four-flusher." Would
that she had not been so blinded in her infatuation as not to heed this
warning! She could recall a great many times when Timothy had been
proved right in his deductions, which surely ought to have made her
place more value on the one concerning Mr. Bennet than she had.
Arethusa felt, just then, as if she would even rather that Miss Eliza
should know of that Episode at the January Cotillion than that Timothy
should know about it. Timothy's good opinion of her, suddenly, seemed
to Arethusa to possess a great charm.
After awhile she crept back into bed, her teeth chattering with the
cold, and cried herself to sleep.
In the days which followed Arethusa was kept very busy telling her
aunts all that she had done and seen in those three months she had been
away from them. And early in the next week, Elinor packed all of the
pretty evening frocks which Arethusa, for various scruples, had left
hanging in the closet of the green and white room in Lewisburg and sent
them down to the Farm, thinking that Arethusa had forgotten them, and
might like to have them. There was the Green Frock, and the one like
tinted autumn leaves, and the White Dress of her Very Own Party, and
many others besides, all reminders of evenings with Mr. Bennet. But
even so, Arethusa was glad to see them. She had not realized that she
loved them so dearly, until she saw them again. It was just as it had
been with the people at the Farm. She spread all the gay beauty of the
contents of that box out in the sitting room, and tried them all on,
pirouetting and turning and making vivid for the three old ladies who
listened to her the parties to which she had worn them.
Miss Letitia was loud in her outspoken admiration of every single
frock; her simple heart could not decide which one she liked best, and
her seamstress instinct marveled at the wonder of their making. Miss
Asenath was more quiet in her approval, but her eyes sparkled at the
brightness of their various colors all around her. Miss Eliza was
noncommittal, though it was very evident that she found much to
displease. When Arethusa tried on the Green Frock which she so dearly
loved, she openly expressed her displeasure.
"Did your stepmother," and if ever her rigid little body had signified
disapproval of anything it did then, in every line, "did your
stepmother permit you to go around dressed like that?"
"All the girls wear dresses like this," replied Arethusa, defensively.
"Then--," began Miss Eliza, with decision, but she snapped her lips
together just like a trap and did not finish.
Arethusa, with cheeks that flamed, put away the Green Dress, hung in
the darkest corner of the high old walnut wardrobe in her room. The
exhibition of the box of clothes ceased abruptly for the time being,
and Arethusa fled far away from any chance of Miss Eliza's questions.
The Green Dress had been her attire that Fatal Night of the January
Cotillion.
Timothy took his time about coming over to see Arethusa, although, had
she but known it, it required every bit of self-control he possessed to
stay away. He had wanted to rush right over that first afternoon, but
his heart was mighty sore still, and he was taking the only way he knew
to make Arethusa understand that he did not care in the least how much
she gazed adoringly at that very objectionable Mr. Bennet.
She did not see it just exactly that way, however, and as the days went
by and she watched for him and he did not come, she put her own
construction upon his behavior, and it was right along the line of her
conclusions in regard to him that night when she had gazed up at the
stars, thinking of him.
But he strolled over, late one afternoon quite formally, just as if he,
who had half lived at the Farm all of his life, was making a polite and
necessary social call upon its inmates.
Miss Eliza gave him a most vigorous tongue-lashing--before he was quite
seated she began it--for going to dances. She considered him headed
straight for destruction and had had no opportunity to tell him so. She
had seen him but once since he came back from that visit to Arethusa.
"Arethusa dances; ask her to tell you what it's like," he said, most
ungraciously.
It was a horrid trick, altogether unworthy of him; but then Timothy was
young and things were going hard with him these days. And Miss Eliza's
tongue was very sharp; it cut.
So Miss Eliza immediately attacked Arethusa.
"Timothy's of course mistaken. I imagined you'd be going to places
where other people did such things, that probably couldn't be helped in
a city, but I know you wouldn't so far forget all I've tried to teach
you as to indulge in it yourself. It's just public hugging, that's all
it is, dancing nowadays!"
"But she did," put in Timothy. "I saw her."
"I can answer for myself, thank you, Timothy Jarvis!" Arethusa said
this with a bit of her old asperity. "Yes, I danced, Aunt 'Liza; Father
and Mother let me and they didn't think anything was wrong with it."
"Well, I must say! This beats anything I ever heard! I'm not surprised
at Ross Worthington, for he was always a bit free in his ideas; but his
wife certainly ought to know better than to allow a young girl to take
part in such goings on! I must say! I must say!" Miss Eliza's glasses
left her nose entirely in her excitement. "What else did you do in the
City that you haven't told us about?"
And then ... Arethusa, to the great amazement of everybody, suddenly
burst into tears and ran out of the room.
"What on earth ails the child?" inquired Miss Letitia, anxiously.
"She's not the least bit like herself!"
"She needs a tonic," answered Miss Eliza decidedly. "I'll see that she
begins it, tomorrow. All that carrying-on in the City! Ross Worthington
ought to've been ashamed of himself to set by and allow it!" She shut
her mouth very grimly. "I'll see to it that she doesn't go there soon
again!"
"But he's her father, Sister," interposed Miss Asenath softly; "you
must remember that."
"He's her father, 'Senath, and I can't dispute it. But he's an awful
unnatural one, the way _I_ look at things! And I reckon, when you
get right down to it, Arethusa's just as much my child as she is
anybody's, seeing how I've taken care of her ever since she was born
and had all the trouble of raising her. And if _I_ know it, she
shan't go to Lewisburg again and come home like this, all worn out!
_I just won't have it!_"
And it was not hard for everyone in the room, Timothy included, to
realize that Arethusa's future visits to her father would be few and
far between, if there were any.
But Miss Asenath, alone of all of them who loved her, dimly guessed at
Arethusa's real trouble. And she tried in every way she could to make
her tell, for Arethusa had written Miss Asenath pages and pages of
rhapsody of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet. But the girl veered away from
such a subject, however adroitly introduced, just like a scared rabbit.
So after a little while, Miss Asenath gave up her attempt to find out
definitely, and contented herself with showing Arethusa that no matter
what it was that was troubling her, Aunt 'Senath loved her as much as
ever. And her niece clung to the tenderness of this unfailing love as a
drowning man clings to a straw; it was the most that was left to her,
with the loss of Timothy's comradeship. She took that tonic Miss Eliza
procured for her with meek obedience, although it might seem as if Miss
Eliza had hunted until she had found the bitterest and nastiest that
she could find. But Arethusa only grew paler and thinner than ever; she
lost her appetite also, in spite of the tonic. Ere long, Miss Asenath's
intuition told her something else. It was Timothy causing this, she
believed, and not something that had happened in the City.
And it was Timothy.
He was as top-loftical and as haughty as possible. He made his visits
to the Farm of a scarcity and brevity that brought them near to being
no visits at all. Such times as he did condescend to come over to see
them, he spent the moments telling of all those gay affairs of which he
was a part and which Arethusa did not attend, with a brave show of
worldliness that deceived them all except Miss Asenath. Miss Eliza
shook her head over him. She did not like this change in Timothy.
Arethusa alternated between a desire to slap him for his suddenly
acquired society veneer which had such power to irritate her, and a
desire to weep the bitterest and most scalding tears for the
completeness of his defection. She could not help wondering, sometimes,
if he had, by any most uncanny chance, heard of that Episode at the
January Cotillion; and knew that Mr. Bennet had Kissed her and that she
had believed that he wanted to marry her and he had Not. The Thought
made her writhe in agony under the new blue and white "counter-pin."
Rather would she have died a thousand deaths than to have Timothy know
of that Disgrace!
For he had been to the City twice since she had come home, with his
other gadding about; flying trips--"on business," it is true he had
said they were--yet he might have heard of it. All Lewisburg might be
ringing with it. Such would undoubtedly explain quite satisfactorily
his present scorn of her. He did not seem in the least anxious to marry
her now.
Timothy, however, no matter what Arethusa thought concerning him and
his gayety and his neglect of her, was having the hardest of hard
times. If Arethusa cried herself to sleep at night, and he did not,
being masculine and not much given to taking a refuge in tears, he
suffered none the less keenly. It seemed to Timothy that he would
never, as long as he lived, forget Arethusa's lovely face as she danced
with Mr. Bennet that night of her New Year's Party. Every single time
he saw her now, it seemed to bring before him the picture she was that
night; wearing Mr. Bennet's flowers (he was quite sure that he knew now
just who had sent her those flowers) and with that wonderful shine in
her eyes just for Mr. Bennet. But he was determined that she should not
know that it made any difference to him.
Poor Timothy!
He loved Arethusa more than he ever had, with all the wealth of love
his clean young heart had in its power to give, now that he thought her
unattainable and with all her own affection given to another man. And
this same heart that loved her so ached and ached over Arethusa's
paleness and thinness; but he accepted Miss Eliza's explanation as the
literal one, that the winter in Lewisburg had been too much for her,
and that all she needed was a tonic. Had Timothy talked a little to
Miss Asenath, as in the old and far happier days, he might have formed
very different conclusions. Yet he would have bitten out his tongue
rather than have mentioned Mr. Bennet's hated name, even to gentle Miss
Asenath, who never failed to understand all that troubled.
So Timothy and Arethusa played at their cross purposes all through the
spring.
For the winter had sped itself away somehow and before anyone was
really aware of its coming, spring had slipped upon all of them. The
days grew warm once more and Arethusa might once again take her books
back to the congenial solitude of Miss Asenath's Woods, where, with a
thick, woolly carriage rug spread on the ground under the hollow tree,
she lay for long hours and read or dreamed. Miss Eliza absolutely
refused to countenance any sitting or lying on the damp earth of spring
without that rug beneath her, in Arethusa's present state of seeming
ill-health; but she made no objections to as many hours spent in the
woodland as Arethusa pleased, only provided the rug was there too.
Timothy was very busy, as all farmers needs must be in the spring. The
garden had to be got in, and the fields plowed and planted. He did not
have nearly so much time for gadding, and Miss Eliza was pleased. She
told him she was every chance she had to do so.
Timothy looked much older, Miss Asenath thought. He had a great deal
more dignity, and his blue eyes seemed to have acquired depth. There
were stern little lines in his face that had never been there before;
just as if the boy Timothy had given place to the man. Miss Asenath
loved these evidences of his growing.
But often, when he made his rare and formal visits to the Farm of an
evening and he and Arethusa sat so decorously in front of the
sitting-room fire with the family, she watched him then a trifle sadly.
Miss Asenath believed that she would almost be glad to hear him and
Arethusa quarrel once more.
"Poor children!" she said to herself one night. "I wonder when they're
going to even begin realising how much time they're wasting! All these
precious days are slipping by and nothing can ever bring them back!"
And then, with her frail hands clasped on the locket at her throat,
Miss Asenath fell to dreaming.