Our life at Rudder Grange seemed to be in no way materially changed by
my becoming a vestryman. The cow gave about as much milk as before, and
the hens laid the usual number of eggs. Euphemia went to church with a
little more of an air, perhaps, but as the wardens were never absent,
and I was never, therefore, called upon to assist in taking up the
collection, her sense of my position was not inordinately manifested.
For a year or two, indeed, there was no radical change in anything about
Rudder Grange, except in Pomona. In her there was a change. She grew up.
She performed this feat quite suddenly. She was a young girl when she
first came to us, and we had never considered her as anything else, when
one evening she had a young man to see her. Then we knew she had grown
up.
We made no objections to her visitors,--she had several, from time to
time,--“for,” said Euphemia, “suppose my parents had objected to your
visits.” I could not consider the mere possibility of anything like
this, and we gave Pomona all the ordinary opportunities for entertaining
her visitors. To tell the truth, I think we gave her more than the
ordinary opportunities. I know that Euphemia would wait on herself to
almost any extent, rather than call upon Pomona, when the latter was
entertaining an evening visitor in the kitchen or on the back porch.
“Suppose my mother,” she once remarked, in answer to a mild remonstrance
from me in regard to a circumstance of this nature,--“suppose my mother
had rushed into our presence when we were plighting our vows, and had
told me to go down into the cellar and crack ice!”
It was of no use to talk to Euphemia on such subjects; she always had an
answer ready.
“You don't want Pomona to go off and be married, do you?” I asked, one
day as she was putting up some new muslin curtains in the kitchen. “You
seem to be helping her to do this all you can, and yet I don't know
where on earth you will get another girl who will suit you so well.”
“I don't know, either,” replied Euphemia, with a tack in her mouth, “and
I'm sure I don't want her to go. But neither do I want winter to come,
or to have to wear spectacles; but I suppose both of these things will
happen, whether I like it or not.”
For some time after this Pomona had very little company, and we began to
think that there was no danger of any present matrimonial engagement on
her part,--a thought which was very gratifying to us, although we
did not wish in any way to interfere with her prospects,--when, one
afternoon, she quietly went up into the village and was married.
Her husband was a tall young fellow, a son of a farmer in the county,
who had occasionally been to see her, but whom she must have frequently
met on her “afternoons out.”
When Pomona came home and told us this news we were certainly well
surprised.
“What on earth are we to do for a girl?” cried Euphemia.
“You're to have me till you can get another one,” said Pomona quietly.
“I hope you don't think I'd go 'way, and leave you without anybody.”
“But a wife ought to go to her husband,” said Euphemia, “especially so
recent a bride. Why didn't you let me know all about it? I would have
helped to fit you out. We would have given you the nicest kind of a
little wedding.”
“I know that,” said Pomona; “you're jus' good enough. But I didn't want
to put you to all that trouble--right in preserving-time too. An' he
wanted it quiet, for he's awful backward about shows. An' as I'm to
go to live with his folks,--at least in a little house on the farm,--I
might as well stay here as anywhere, even if I didn't want to, for I
can't go there till after frost.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“The chills and fever,” said she. “They have it awful down in that
valley. Why, he had a chill while we was bein' married, right at the
bridal altar.”
“You don't say so!” exclaimed Euphemia. “How dreadful!”
“Yes, indeed,” said Pomona. “He must 'a' forgot it was his chill-day,
and he didn't take his quinine, and so it come on him jus' as he was
apromisin' to love an' pertect. But he stuck it out, at the minister's
house, and walked home by his-self to finish his chill.”
“And you didn't go with him?” cried Euphemia, indignantly.
“He said, no. It was better thus. He felt it weren't the right thing
to mingle the agur with his marriage vows. He promised to take sixteen
grains to-morrow, and so I came away. He'll be all right in a month or
so, an' then we'll go an' keep house. You see it aint likely I could
help him any by goin' there an' gettin' it myself.”
“Pomona,” said Euphemia, “this is dreadful. You ought to go and take a
bridal tour and get him rid of those fearful chills.”
“I never thought of that,” said Pomona, her face lighting up
wonderfully.
Now that Euphemia had fallen upon this happy idea, she never dropped
it until she had made all the necessary plans, and had put them into
execution. In the course of a week she had engaged another servant, and
had started Pomona and her husband off on a bridal-tour, stipulating
nothing but that they should take plenty of quinine in their trunk.
It was about three weeks after this, and Euphemia and I were sitting on
our front steps,--I had come home early, and we had been potting some
of the tenderest plants,--when Pomona walked in at the gate. She looked
well, and had on a very bright new dress. Euphemia noticed this the
moment she came in. We welcomed her warmly, for we felt a great interest
in this girl, who had grown up in our family and under our care.
“Have you had your bridal trip?” asked Euphemia.
“Oh yes!” said Pomona. “It's all over an' done with, an' we're settled
in our house.”
“Well, sit right down here on the steps and tell us all about it,” said
Euphemia, in a glow of delightful expectancy, and Pomona, nothing loth,
sat down and told her tale.
“You see,” said she, untying her bonnet strings, to give an easier
movement to her chin, “we didn't say where we was goin' when we started
out, for the truth was we didn't know. We couldn't afford to take no big
trip, and yet we wanted to do the thing up jus' as right as we could,
seein' as you had set your heart on it, an' as we had, too, for that
matter. Niagery Fall was what I wanted, but he said that it cost so much
to see the sights there that he hadn't money to spare to take us there
an' pay for all the sight-seein', too. We might go, he said, without
seein' the sights, or, if there was any way of seein' the sights without
goin', that might do, but he couldn't do both. So we give that up, and
after thinkin' a good deal, we agreed to go to some other falls, which
might come cheaper, an' may-be be jus' as good to begin on. So we
thought of Passaic Falls, up to Paterson, an' we went there, an' took a
room at a little hotel, an' walked over to the falls. But they wasn't
no good, after all, for there wasn't no water runnin' over em. There
was rocks and precipicers, an' direful depths, and everything for a good
falls, except water, and that was all bein' used at the mills. 'Well,
Miguel,' says I, 'this is about as nice a place for a falls as ever I
see,' but--”
“Miguel!” cried Euphemia. “Is that your husband's name?”
“Well, no,” said Pomona, “it isn't. His given name is Jonas, but I hated
to call him Jonas, an' on a bridal trip, too. He might jus' as well have
had a more romantic-er name, if his parents had 'a' thought of it. So
I determined I'd give him a better one, while we was on our journey,
anyhow, an' I changed his name to Miguel, which was the name of a
Spanish count. He wanted me to call him Jiguel, because, he said, that
would have a kind of a floating smell of his old name, but I didn't
never do it. Well, neither of us didn't care to stay about no dry falls,
so we went back to the hotel and got our supper, and begun to wonder
what we should do next day. He said we'd better put it off and dream
about it, and make up our minds nex' mornin', which I agreed to, an',
that evenin', as we was sittin' in our room I asked Miguel to tell me
the story of his life. He said, at first, it hadn't none, but when I
seemed a kinder put out at this, he told me I mustn't mind, an' he would
reveal the whole. So he told me this story:
“'My grandfather,' said he, 'was a rich and powerful Portugee, a-livin'
on the island of Jamaica. He had heaps o' slaves, an' owned a black
brigantine, that he sailed in on secret voyages, an', when he come
back, the decks an' the gunnels was often bloody, but nobody knew why or
wherefore. He was a big man with black hair an' very violent. He could
never have kept no help, if he hadn't owned 'em, but he was so rich,
that people respected him, in spite of all his crimes. My grandmother
was a native o' the Isle o' Wight. She was a frail an' tender woman,
with yeller hair, and deep blue eyes, an' gentle, an' soft, an' good to
the poor. She used to take baskits of vittles aroun' to sick folks, an'
set down on the side o' their beds an' read “The Shepherd o' Salisbury
Plains” to 'em. She hardly ever speaked above her breath, an' always
wore white gowns with a silk kerchief a-folded placidly aroun' her
neck.' 'Them was awful different kind o' people,' I says to him, 'I
wonder how they ever come to be married.' 'They never was married,' says
he. 'Never married!' I hollers, a-jumpin' up from my chair, 'and you sit
there carmly an' look me in the eye.' 'Yes,' says he, 'they was never
married. They never met; one was my mother's father, and the other one
my father's mother. 'Twas well they did not wed.' 'I should think so,'
said I, 'an' now, what's the good of tellin' me a thing like that?'
“'It's about as near the mark as most of the stories of people's lives,
I reckon,' says he, 'an' besides I'd only jus' begun it.'
“'Well, I don't want no more,' says I, an' I jus' tell this story of his
to show what kind of stories he told about that time. He said they was
pleasant fictions, but I told him that if he didn't look out he'd hear
'em called by a good deal of a worse kind of a name than that. The nex'
mornin' he asked me what was my dream, an' I told him I didn't have
exactly no dream about it, but my idea was to have somethin' real
romantic for the rest of our bridal days.
“'Well,' says he, 'what would you like? I had a dream, but it wasn't no
ways romantic, and I'll jus' fall in with whatever you'd like best.'
“'All right,' says I, 'an' the most romantic-est thing that I can
think of is for us to make-believe for the rest of this trip. We can
make-believe we're anything we please, an' if we think so in real
earnest it will be pretty much the same thing as if we really was. We
aint likely to have no chance ag'in of being jus' what we've a mind to,
an' so let's try it now.'
“'What would you have a mind to be?' says he.
“'Well,' says I, 'let's be an earl an' a earl-ess.'
“'Earl-ess'? says he, 'there's no such a person.'
“'Why, yes there is, of course,' I says to him. 'What's a she-earl if
she isn't a earl-ess?'
“'Well, I don't know,' says he, 'never havin' lived with any of 'em, but
we'll let it go at that. An' how do you want to work the thing out?'
“'This way,' says I. 'You, Miguel--'
“'Jiguel,' says he.
“'The earl,' says I, not mindin' his interruption, 'an' me, your noble
earl-ess, will go to some good place or other--it don't matter much jus'
where, and whatever house we live in we'll call our castle an' we'll
consider it's got draw-bridges an' portcullises an' moats an' secrit
dungeons, an' we'll remember our noble ancesters, an' behave accordin'.
An' the people we meet we can make into counts and dukes and princes,
without their knowin' anything about it; an' we can think our clothes is
silk an' satin an' velwet, all covered with dimuns an' precious stones,
jus' as well as not.'
“'Jus' as well,' says he.
“'An' then,' I went on, 'we can go an' have chi-VAL-rous adventures,--or
make believe we're havin' 'em,--an' build up a atmosphere of
romanticness aroun' us that'll carry us back--'
“'To ole Virginny,' says he.
“'No,' says I, 'for thousands of years, or at least enough back for the
times of tournaments and chi-VAL-ry.'
“'An' so your idea is that we make believe all these things, an' don't
pay for none of 'em, is it?' says he.
“'Yes,' says I; 'an' you, Miguel--'
“'Jiguel,' says he.
“'Can ask me, if you don't know what chi-VAL-ric or romantic thing you
ought to do or to say so as to feel yourself truly an' reely a earl, for
I've read a lot about these people, an' know jus' what ought to be did.'
“Well, he set himself down an' thought a while, an' then he says, 'All
right. We'll do that, an' we'll begin to-morrow mornin', for I've got
a little business to do in the city which wouldn't be exactly the right
thing for me to stoop to after I'm a earl, so I'll go in an' do it while
I'm a common person, an' come back this afternoon, an you can walk about
an' look at the dry falls, an' amuse yourself gen'rally, till I come
back.'
“'All right,' says I, an' off he goes.
“He come back afore dark, an' the nex' mornin' we got ready to start
off.
“'Have you any particular place to go?' says he.
“'No,' says I, 'one place is as likely to be as good as another for our
style o' thing. If it don't suit, we can imagine it does.'
“'That'll do,' says he, an' we had our trunk sent to the station, and
walked ourselves. When we got there, he says to me,
“Which number will you have, five or seven?'
“'Either one will suit me, Earl Miguel,' says I.
“'Jiguel,' says he, 'an' we'll make it seven. An' now I'll go an' look
at the time-table, an' we'll buy tickets for the seventh station from
here. The seventh station,' says he, comin' back, 'is Pokus. We'll go to
Pokus.'
“So when the train come we got in, an' got out at Pokus. It was a pretty
sort of a place, out in the country, with the houses scattered a long
ways apart, like stingy chicken-feed.
“'Let's walk down this road,' says he, 'till we come to a good house for
a castle, an' then we can ask 'em to take us to board, an' if they wont
do it we'll go to the next, an' so on.'
“'All right,' says I, glad enough to see how pat he entered into the
thing.
“We walked a good ways, an' passed some little houses that neither of us
thought would do, without more imaginin' than would pay, till we came to
a pretty big house near the river, which struck our fancy in a minute.
It was a stone house, an' it had trees aroun' it, there was a garden
with a wall, an' things seemed to suit first-rate, so we made up our
minds right off that we'd try this place.
“'You wait here under this tree,' says he, 'an' I'll go an' ask 'em if
they'll take us to board for a while.'
“So I waits, an' he goes up to the gate, an' pretty soon he comes out
an' says, 'All right, they'll take us, an' they'll send a man with a
wheelbarrer to the station for our trunk.' So in we goes. The man was
a country-like lookin' man, an' his wife was a very pleasant woman. The
house wasn't furnished very fine, but we didn't care for that, an'
they gave us a big room that had rafters instid of a ceilin', an' a big
fire-place, an' that, I said, was jus' exac'ly what we wanted. The room
was almos' like a donjon itself, which he said he reckoned had once
been a kitchin, but I told him that a earl hadn't nothin' to do with
kitchins, an' that this was a tapestry chamber, an' I'd tell him all
about the strange figgers on the embroidered hangin's, when the shadders
begun to fall.
“It rained a little that afternoon, an' we stayed in our room, an' hung
our clothes an' things about on nails an' hooks, an' made believe
they was armor an' ancient trophies an' portraits of a long line of
ancesters. I did most of the make-believin' but he agreed to ev'rything.
The man who kep' the house's wife brought us our supper about dark,
because she said she thought we might like to have it together cozy, an'
so we did, an' was glad enough of it; an' after supper we sat before the
fire-place, where we made-believe the flames was a-roarin' an' cracklin'
an' a-lightin' up the bright places on the armor a-hangin' aroun', while
the storm--which we made-believe--was a-ragin' an' whirlin' outside. I
told him a long story about a lord an' a lady, which was two or three
stories I had read, run together, an' we had a splendid time. It all
seemed real real to me.”