BEE’S FAMILY.
A few days after Everard’s interview with Rossie, Beatrice went to New
York, where she spent the winter, returning home early in April, and
bringing with her a dark-eyed, dark-haired, elfish-looking little girl,
whom she called _Trixey_, and whose real name was Beatrice Belknap
Morton. She was the daughter of a missionary to the Feejee Islands, who
had brought his invalid wife home to America, hoping the air of the
Vermont hills might restore life and health to her worn-out, wasted
frame. Bee did not know of his return, and saw him first at a missionary
meeting which she attended with the friend at whose house she was
stopping.
“The Rev. Theodore Morton will now tell us something of his labors among
the Feejees,” the presiding clergyman said, and Bee, who was sitting far
back near the door, rose involuntarily to her feet in order to see more
distinctly the man who was just rising to address the audience, and who
stood before them, tall, erect, and perfectly self-possessed, as if
addressing a crowded New York house had been the business of his life.
Was it her Theo, whom she had sent from her to the woman in Vermont,
more willing than herself to share his toils and privations in a heathen
land. _That_ Theo had been spare and thin, with light beard and sandy
hair; this man was broad-shouldered, with well-developed physique, and
the hair, which lay in curls around his massive brow, was a rich
chestnut brown, as was the heavy beard upon his cheek. It could not be
Theo, she though, as she sank back into her seat; but the moment she
heard the deep, musical tones of the voice which had once a power to
thrill her, she knew that it was he, and listened breathlessly while he
told of his work in those islands of the sea, and by his burning
eloquence and powers of speech stirred up his hearers to greater
interest in the cause. He loved his work because it was his Master’s,
and loved the poor, benighted heathen, and he only came home because of
the sick wife and little ones, who needed change of scene and air.
Where was his wife, Bee wondered, and when the meeting was over she
drove to the house of a clergyman who she knew kept a kind of missionary
hotel, and from him learned the address of the Rev. Theodore Morton. It
was not at an uptown hotel, but at a second-rate boarding-house on
Eighth street, where rooms and board were cheap, and there, on the third
floor back, she found Mrs. Theodore Morton, the school-mistress from
Vermont, who had so offended her taste with spectacles and a brown
alpaca dress. The landlady had bidden her go directly to the room, where
she knocked at the door, and then stood listening to a sweet, childish
voice singing a lullaby to a baby. Again she knocked, and this time the
voice said “Come in,” and she went in, and found a little girl of five
years old, with black hair and eyes, and a dark, saucy, piquant face,
seated in a low rocking-chair, and holding in her short, fat arms a
pale, sickly baby of four months or thereabouts, which she was trying to
hush to sleep. Near her, in an arm-chair, sat a round, rosy-cheeked
little girl, who might have been three years old, though her height
indicated a child much younger than that. On the bed, with her face to
the wall, and apparently asleep, lay a woman, emaciated and thin, with
streaks of gray in the long, black hair floating in masses over the
pillow. Bee thought she must have made a mistake, but something in the
blue eyes of the chubby girl in the chair arrested her attention, and
she said to the elf with the baby in her arms:
“Is Mrs. Morton here,—Mrs. Theodore Morton?”
“Yes, that’s ma,—on the bed. She’s sick; she’s always sick. Tum in, but
don’t make a noise, ’cause I’se tryin’ to rock baby brother to seep,
like a good ’ittle dirl.”
“An’ I’s dood, too,” chirped the dumpling in the high chair. “I’ve
climbed up here to det out of the way, an’ not wake mamma an’ make her
head ache, an’ papa’s goin’ to bring me some tandy, he is, when he tums
from the meetin’.”
There was no mistaking that blue-eyed, fair-haired child for other than
Theodore Morton’s, and Beatrice stooped down and kissed her round, rosy
cheek, and asked:
“What is your name, little one?”
“Mamie,—Mamie Morton; but dey calls me Bunchie, ’cause I’s so fat, an’
I’s mamma’s darlin’, and was tree ’ears old next week,” was the reply;
and then Bee turned to the elf, and laying her hand on the jet-black
hair, said:
“And your name is what?”
“Trixey everybody calls me but papa, who sometimes says Bee; but that
ain’t my very name. It’s ever so long, with many B’s in it,” was the
reply, and Bee’s heart gave a great bound, as she said:
“Is it Beatrice?”
“Yes, an’ more too, Beatrice sometin’.”
“Beatrice Belknap, perhaps,” guessed the lady, and the child replied:
“That’s it, but how did you know?” and the great eyes, so very black and
inquisitive, looked wonderingly at Bee, who answered:
“I am Beatrice Belknap, the lady for whom you were named, and I’ve come
to see you. I used to know your father. Is he well?”
“Papa? Yes, he’s very well, but mamma,” and the child put on a very wise
and confidential look as she added in a whisper, “mamma’s _shiffless_
all the time.”
Bee could not repress a smile at this quaint form of speech, and she
asked:
“And do you take care of baby? Is there no nurse?”
“We had Leah over home,” Trixey said, “but she couldn’t come with us,
’cause we’re so poor, an’ papa has no money.”
“But he buyed me some yed soos,” Bunchie said, sticking up her little
feet, encased in a new pair of red morocco shoes, the first she had ever
had or probably seen.
How Beatrice’s heart yearned over these little ones who had known only
poverty, and how she longed to lavish upon them a part of her
superfluous wealth. There was a stir on the bed; the sleeper was waking,
and a faint voice called:
“Trixey, are you here?”
“Yes, mamma. I’ve rocked brother to seep,” Trixey said, starting up, but
holding fast to the baby as a cat holds to its kitten. “There’s a lady
here, mamma, comed to see us,” the child continued, and then Mrs. Morton
roused quickly, and turning on her side fixed her great sunken eyes
inquiringly on Beatrice, who stepped forward, and with that winning
sweetness and grace so natural to her, said:
“I doubt if you remember me, Mrs. Morton, as you only saw me once, and
that for a few moments, before the _Guide_ sailed from here six years
ago. I am an old friend of your husband’s. I met him in Paris first and
many times after in America. Perhaps you have heard him speak of Miss
Beatrice Belknap?”
“Yes, Trixey was named for you. It was kind in you to call,” Mrs. Morton
said, and now she sat upon the side of the bed and began to bind up her
long black hair, which had fallen in her neck.
“Let me do that,” Bee said, as she saw how the exertion of raising her
arms made the invalid cough; and drawing off her gloves, her white
hands, on which so many costly jewels were shining, were soon arranging
and twisting the long hair which, though mixed with gray, was very
glossy and luxuriant. “You have nice hair, and so much of it,” she said,
and Mrs. Morton replied:
“Yes, it is very heavy even yet, and is all I have left of my youth,
though I am not so very old, only thirty; but the life of a missionary’s
wife is not conducive to the retaining of one’s good looks.”
“Was it so very dreadful?” Bee asked, a little curious about the life
which might have been her own.
“Not dreadful, but hard; that is, it was very hard on me, who was never
strong, though I seemed so to strangers. I could not endure much, and
was sick all the way out, so sick that I used to wish I might die and be
buried in the sea. Then Trixey came so soon, and the care of her, and
the food, and the climate, and the manner of living there, and the
terrible homesickness! Oh, I was so homesick, at first, that I should
surely have died, if Theo had not been so good. He was always kind, and
tried to spare me every way.”
“Yes, I am sure he did,” Bee said; feeling at the same time a kind of
pity for Theo, who, for six years, had spared and been kind to this
woman, after having known and loved her, Beatrice Belknap.
There was a great difference between these two women; one, bright, gay,
sparkling, full of life and health, with wealth showing itself in every
part of her elegant dress, from the India shawl which she had thrown
across the chair, to the sable muff which had fallen on the floor; the
other, sick, tired, disheartened, old before her time; and, alas,
habited in the same brown alpaca in which she had sailed away, and which
had been so obnoxious to Beatrice. The material had been the best of the
kind, and after various turnings and fixings, had been made at last into
a kind of wrapper, which was trimmed with a part of another old brown
dress of a different shade. Nothing could be more unbecoming to that
thin, sallow face, and those dark, hollow eyes, than that dress, and
never was contrast greater between two women than that revealed by the
mirror which hung just opposite the bed where Mrs. Morton was sitting,
with Beatrice standing by her. Both looked in it together, and met each
other’s eyes, and must have thought of the same thing, for Mrs. Morton
at once changed her seat where she could not see herself, and as the
hair was put up Beatrice also sat down, and, without seeming to do so,
inspected very minutely the woman who was Theodore Morton’s wife.
She was well educated,—and she was well born, too, being the daughter,
and granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of clergymen, while on her
mother’s side she came from merchants and lawyers, and very far back
boasted a lieutenant-governor. But she lacked that softness, and
delicacy, and refinement of manner which was Bee’s great charm. She had
angles and points, and was painfully frank and outspoken, and never
practiced a deception in her life, or kept back anything she thought she
ought to say, or flinched from any duty. In short, she was New England
to the back-bone, and showed it in everything. Vermont, or rather the
little town of Bronson, where she was born, was placarded all over her,
just as Paris and New York were written all over Bee, and she rejoiced
in it and was proud of her birthplace. Beatrice’s presence there was
evidently a trouble and an embarrassment. When Theodore Morton went to
her and asked her to be his wife he had told her frankly that he had
loved another and been refused, and she had accepted him, and asked no
question about her rival. On board the ship in the harbor she had been
so occupied with her own personal friends who were there to say good-by,
that, though introduced to Miss Belknap, she had paid no attention to
her, or noticed her in any way. When her first child was born, ten
months after her marriage, she had wished to name it Sarah, for her
mother, but her husband said to her: “I would like to call it Beatrice
Belknap, if you do not mind.”
She did mind, for she knew now that Beatrice Belknap was her husband’s
first choice, but she held it every wife’s duty to obey her husband so
far as it was right, and as there was nothing wrong in this proposition
she consented without a word, and the baby was named for Beatrice, but
familiarly called Trixey, as that pet name suited her better. Of the
Beatrice over the sea Theodore never spoke, and his wife never
questioned him, and so she knew nothing of her until she woke from sleep
and found her there in all her fresh beauty and bright plumage, which
seemed so out of place in that humble room. Of course she was
embarrassed and confused, but she would not apologize, except as she
spoke of the life of privation they had led in that heathen land.
“And yet there was much to make me happy,” she said. “I knew we were
doing God’s work,—which somebody must do,—and when some poor creatures
blessed us for coming to tell them the story of Jesus, I was so glad
that I had gone to them, and my trials seemed as nothing. And then,
there was Theo, always the same good, true husband to me.” She said this
a little defiantly, as if to assure Beatrice that the heart, which once
might have beaten for her, was now wholly loyal to another.
And Bee accepted it sweetly, but had her own opinion on the subject
still.
“Yes, the Mr. Morton I used to know could never be anything but kind to
one he loved well enough to make his wife,” she said; and then, by way
of turning the conversation from Theodore to something else, she asked:
“Were you sick all the time you were there?”
“Yes, most of the time. My children were born so fast,—four in five
years. I lost a noble boy between Mamie and baby Eddie; that almost
killed me, and I’ve never been the same since. There is consumption in
our family far back, and I fear I have inherited it. My cough is
terrible at times, but I hope much from Vermont air and Vermont nursing.
Oh, I have longed so for the old home at the foot of the mountain, for
some water from the well, for mother, and to lie on her bed as I used to
when I was a child, and had the sick-headache.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she said this, and she leaned wearily back
in her chair, while Bee involuntarily laid her soft, warm hand upon the
thin, wasted one where the wedding-ring sat so loosely. Just then the
door opened and Theodore Morton came in, the same Beatrice had heard at
the missionary meeting, the same with whom she had strolled through the
Kentucky woods and on the shore of Quinsigamond Pond. He knew her at
once, but nothing in his face or voice betrayed any consciousness of the
past, if he felt it. He met her naturally and cordially, said he was
very glad to see her, that it was kind in her to find them out, and then
passed on to his sick wife, on whose head he laid his hand caressingly,
asking if it ached as hard as ever, or if she was feeling a little
better.
“You look better certainly,” he said, regarding her curiously, not
knowing that the improvement was owing to the artistic way in which
Beatrice had knotted up the heavy hair, which showed at the sides and
added apparent breadth to the thin, narrow face.
What a noble-looking man he was, and how well he appeared, as if he had
associated with kings and queens instead of the poor heathen, and what a
change his presence made in that dingy back room, which, with him in it,
had at once an atmosphere of home and domestic happiness. He had been
there but a few moments at the most, but in that time he had smoothed
his wife’s hair, and called her Mollie, the pet name she liked, and made
her smile, had tossed Bunchie in the air and stuffed her fat hands with
candy, had kissed little Trixey, and given her a new picture-book, and
taken the baby from her and was walking with it up and down the room to
hush its wailing cry. And between times he talked to Beatrice, naturally
and easily, asking for the people he used to know in Rothsay, and if she
was living there now; then, stopping suddenly, he said:
“I beg your pardon for taking it for granted you were Miss Belknap
still. Are you married? You used to be a sad flirt.”
He said the last playfully, and the two looked at each other an instant,
and their eyes dropped suddenly as if alarmed at what they saw.
“I am Bee Belknap still, and as great a flirt as ever,” Bee replied; and
then the Rev. Theo did a most remarkable thing; he turned to his wife,
and said:
“Mollie, dear, do you know I was once foolish enough to ask this gay
bird to go with me to the Feegees, and she had the good sense to refuse.
Wouldn’t she have cut a fine figure out there with all her finery and
fashion?”
“Yes, I know,” Mollie said faintly, while Bee rejoined, laughingly: “You
ought to be very thankful that I preferred fashion to Feegees; such a
life as I should have led you.”
“You would have died,” Mollie rejoined, and the conversation on that
subject ceased.
Theo had set things right for them all by his plain and playful allusion
to the past, which, from that allusion, would be supposed to have no
part in his present life, and to have left no mark upon him. He seemed
very happy with his children, and very kind to his wife, who was a
different creature with his strong, mesmeric influence near her.
“I believe she’d be passably good-looking if she were decently dressed.
She has good hair, not bad features, and rather fine eyes; but where are
the glasses, she surely wore them away?” Beatrice thought, and at last
she ventured to say: “Excuse me, Mrs. Morton, but did you not wear
glasses on shipboard six years ago?”
“Yes,” was the reply, “my eyes were weak from over-study, trying to
master the language, and I was obliged to wear glasses for a time. I
laid them off after Trixey was born. Theo never liked me in them.”
As the short March afternoon was wearing to a close Beatrice soon rose
to go, after first asking how long the Mortons intended to remain in the
city.
“We have written to mother to know if she can receive us,” Mrs. Morton
said, “and shall go as soon as we get her answer. I am afraid we shall
crowd and worry her too much, for the house is small, and she and father
are old and poor, and may not want us all.”
“Never mind, Mollie,” Theo said, “don’t kill the bear till you see it;”
then, turning to Beatrice, he added, not complaining, but laughingly,
“Mollie has a great way of borrowing trouble, while I wait till it
comes.”
“It’s my poor health; my nerves; I can’t help it,” the invalid said,
with a quiver in her voice and about her lips.
“Of course you can’t, Mollie,” and again the broad, warm hand was placed
upon Mollie’s head by way of reassurance.
Theo went with Bee to her carriage, and handed her in, and told her to
come again, and said he would call on her, and was not one whit more
demonstrative when alone with her than he was up in that back room with
his nervous wife looking on. But Bee did not quite believe he was
perfectly happy. How could he be with _Mollie_.
And yet she was very sorry for Mollie, who, she was sure, was a much
better woman than herself, and the next day, which was very fine, she
drove again to No.—— Eighth street, and invited the sick woman to ride.
“The coupé is close, and I brought an extra shawl to keep you nice and
warm,” she said, as she threw over Mrs. Morton’s shoulders her
second-best India shawl, which covered up the black delaine, trimmed
with half-worn silk, which Mollie wore.
It was her best, Bee knew, for little Trix had said, exultingly, “Ma’s
got on her bestest down to day.”
“Yes, my best, and almost my all,” Mrs. Morton said, “but I have money
for a new one; some English ladies give it me, and told me to get a
black silk. I’ve never had one in my life: would you mind going with me
somewhere and helping me pick it out: you are a so much better judge of
silk than I am?”
Bee flinched a little inwardly as she looked at the dowdy woman, in her
queer, old-fashioned bonnet, and thought of the fashionable ladies, her
friends, who were sure to be shopping at this hour, and who always spied
her out and pounced upon her. But she shut her teeth together hard, bade
the coachman drive to Arnold’s, resolved to beard the elegant man at the
silk counter, who was always so obsequious to Miss Belknap, the heiress
and belle. Everybody was out that day, and Bee met at least half a dozen
friends before she reached the silk counter, where she found her man,
bland, attentive, and eager to serve her.
“Black silk,” she said, and he showed her at once samples varying in
price from eight to ten dollars a yard.
“Oh, dear, no! something cheaper, much cheaper,” Mrs. Morton gasped; and
then the clerk knew that the faded, countrified-looking woman whom he
had not at all considered as belonging to Miss Belknap, was the real
customer, and his face changed its expression at once as he put back his
high-priced silks with an injured air, and said: “You will find what you
want farther down. We have nothing cheap here.”
“I think you have,” Beatrice said to him. “Show me something at four
dollars a yard.”
“Certainly,” and again the clerk was all smiles and attention, and began
to exhibit his goods, while Mrs. Morton whispered nervously, “But, Miss
Belknap, you don’t understand. I’ve only forty dollars; I cannot afford
it.”
“I can,” Beatrice replied. “I have more money than I can spend. Let me
give you the dress. I’ll take it as a great favor, and you can use the
forty dollars for something else.”
There were tears in Mrs. Morton’s eyes, and her face was very white, as
she said:
“No, no; that’s too much from you, a stranger. Theo would not like it.”
“I’ll make it right with Theo. I’m not a stranger to him,” Bee answered,
and so the silk was bought, and velvet to trim it with, and then they
moved to another part of the store for something for the children, and
met a whole regiment of ladies, Mrs. Gen. Stuckup with Mrs. Sniffe, who
were delighted to see Bee, but looked askance at her companion,
wondering if it was some poor relation of whom they had never heard, and
commiserating Bee, who must feel so mortified.
She was not mortified one whit now, though she had been at the start,
but she despised herself thoroughly for it and was very attentive to her
companion, and when Mrs. Sniffe, who was frightfully envious of her, and
never failed to sting her if she could do it, asked her in an aside,
with a roll of her eyes; “Who is that frump of a woman, and how came she
fastened to you?” she answered, readily, “It is Mrs. Theodore Morton,
wife of a returned missionary, whose name you must have seen if you ever
read the papers. He is very highly esteemed by the board as a Christian
and a gentleman. Some connection of Gov. Morton, of Massachusetts, I
believe.”
“Oh, yes, and you are doing missionary work in your own way, I see. It’s
quite like you,” Mrs. Sniffe said, as she passed on to the laces and
left Bee and Mrs. Morton to themselves.
“That woman made fun of me and called me a frump,” Mrs. Morton
falteringly said, with a quivering lip, but fire in her eye, as she
looked after the retreating bundle of velvet, and silk, and ostrich
feathers.
“Never mind. You don’t care for her. They say she used to work in the
factory at Lowell, and married a man old enough to be her father, but he
had a million, and died, and left it to her, and now she is Mrs. Sniffe,
and leads a certain class of simpletons,” Bee replied, and so Mrs.
Morton was reconciled to Mrs. Sniffe’s snub, and more than reconciled to
her husband’s first love when she saw how kind and generous she was,
spending her money so freely, and doing it all as if it were a great
favor to herself rather than an act of charity to the poor woman, who
returned to her boarding-house laden with more dry-goods for herself and
children than she had seen during the entire period of her married life.
It was two days before Beatrice went again to her family on Eighth
street, and then she found Mrs. Morton alone, and very much depressed,
on account of a letter that morning received from her father.
As she gave Beatrice the letter to read, I will give it to my readers.
It was as follows:
“MY BELOVED DAUGHTER:—Many thanks be to God for having brought you
safely to America, and given us to believe that we shall see your face
again and that of the little ones, our grandchildren. I cannot tell
you how glad we are, your mother, and myself, and Aunt Nancy, too,
though I think she dreads the litter and the grease-spots the children
are sure to make, her life has been so quiet, you know. For myself, I
long to see the bairns and hear their young voices. It will make me
young again, though the years are bearing me down now so fast.
Sixty-eight is nigh on to three score and ten, our allotted time.
“And now about your coming here for the summer. Of course you are
welcome as the blossoms of May, but I should be keeping back something
if I did not tell you just the situation of things in the old
parsonage. Your mother is down with nervous prostration, and has been
for months, and as she is very weak I occupy a separate room from
hers. Your Aunt Nancy has another, and that only leaves your own old
room for you and Theodore and the three children. Of course, I don’t
count that place over the woodshed, where we can have a bed for a girl
or a boy. You cannot have three children in your room even when your
husband is away, it is so small, and Nancy would as soon have a
woodchuck in with her as a child; so at first it was a question how to
dispose of you. But Providence provided, as He always does. Your
mother and I made it a subject of prayer, asking in our blind way that
God would incline Nancy either to change rooms, or to have a little
cot set up in hers, and feeling confident He would hear the prayer of
faith. He did hear and answer, but in His own way, which was not ours.
He did not soften your Aunt Nancy, but he sent your cousin Julia to us
to say that she would gladly take _one_ of the little girls for a
while. You know she is rich and has no children, and it will be a nice
home for the child, and Nancy says, ‘Let her have the one that will be
likely to fill our house the fullest and make the most _to do_,’
whatever that may be.
“And now, having stated the case as it is, we shall be glad to see you
any day, only on Nancy’s account you may as well let us know, as
everything will have to be scoured with soap and sand. I hear her now
at the kitchen table, which somebody has spilt a drop of milk on.
“Your mother joins me in love, and prays for you.
“Affectionately your father,
“CYRUS BROWN.”
“What a nice letter, and what a good old man he must be,” Beatrice said,
as she finished reading.
“Yes,” Mrs. Morton answered, hesitatingly; “it is nice, and he is good,
and mother, too; but the idea of losing one of the children is dreadful
to me. There is always some thorn in my rose. I have thought so much of
going back to the old house under the apple trees, and having my little
ones with me; and now you see what he says,—one must go to Cousin Julia
Hayden.”
In Mrs. Morton’s roses there would always be thorns, fancied or real,
but Bee did not tell her so; she merely asked: “Who is Mrs. Hayden? Is
she fond of children? Will she be kind to them?”
“She is my cousin on mother’s side,” Mrs. Morton said. “She is the great
woman of Bronson, and the richest, and lives in the grandest house. She
never had any children of her own, and I do not think her very fond of
them. She would be kind in a certain way, but very exacting. She does
not understand them. She used to teach school, and was very strict,
indeed. She could not make allowances for the difference between herself
and little folks. She is Aunt Nancy’s own niece.”
“And who is Aunt Nancy?” Bee asked, and Mrs. Morton replied, “Mother’s
old maid sister, Nancy Phillips, who has always lived with us. She is
the neatest, most particular person you ever saw; and because she is
strong and willing, and mother is feeble, she has run the house so long
that she thinks it is her own, and orders father as if he were a dog.
But she has many excellent traits, and they could not live without her.
She was always kind to me, and I’d rather trust my children with her
than with Cousin Julia Hayden. It is very hard, and makes me so
nervous.”
“Yes, I can fancy it all,” Bee said; and then, recurring to the letter,
she added: “You are to give up the one which will fill the house the
fullest and make the most noise. Now, which is that?”
Instantly the eyes of both went over to the window, where Trixey was
combing and brushing Bunchie’s hair, pulling and snarling it awfully,
and talking all the time as fast as her tongue could fly. Yes, there was
no mistake. Little Trix would fill the house the fullest and make the
greatest _to do_, and Mrs. Hayden would never understand her, or make
allowance for her busy, active ways; and Beatrice wanted her for
herself, and said at last to Mrs. Morton: “Will you let me have Trixey,
for as long a time as Mrs. Hayden would keep her? I know I can make her
happy. You can trust her with me.”
Mrs. Morton was sure of that. During the few days she had known Miss
Belknap she had received from her too many kindnesses to think of her as
other than a friend, and one to be trusted. At first, she had looked a
little suspiciously upon the elegant woman who had been Theo’s first
choice, and who was so unlike herself, and she had more than once
thought, “How could he have chosen me after knowing her?” She did not
say “love me,” for she had been morally sure that when she became
Theodore Morton’s wife there was not much love on his side at least. She
had loved him for years, and been picked out for his wife since she was
a little girl. His father and grandfather had been clergymen, and he had
been her father’s pupil when the Rev. Mr. Brown taught a small school
for boys, by way of ekeing out his salary. Theo had said then he meant
to be a missionary, and she had said she meant to be one, too, and wise
ones predicted that they might go together. But the young man wandered
very far away from quiet Bronson, and its staid, old-fashioned people,
and went to Europe, and fell in with Bee Belknap, and forgot the plain,
angular Mary Brown, in the home under the apple trees, who had mended
his clothes, and studied Latin and Greek, and talked enthusiastically of
a missionary’s life as the happiest and best a man could choose. He had
never quite believed it possible that a bright, gay creature like Bee,
with hundreds of thousands at her command, would go with him to those
islands in the far-off Pacific, but he nevertheless asked her the
question, and her answer, given tearfully and sadly, and rather as a
refusal of the Feejees than of himself, scattered the sweetest dream of
his life, and with a new-made grave in his heart he went back to Bronson
on a matter of business he had with Mr. Brown. That he should take a
wife with him seemed a necessity, and as Mary was ready, and more than
willing, and he cared little now who it was, so that she was good and
true and pure, he married her with no love in his heart for her, only a
great respect, and a registered vow that she should receive from him
everything but love, and if it were possible, should never feel the
absence of that. And she had not, for he had kept his vow religiously,
and only when he gave the name to Trixey had she experienced a little
prick of jealousy, and felt curious with regard to the original
Beatrice. If he did not choose to tell her of the lady she would not
ask, and so knew nothing till she met her in New York, and was dazzled
and bewildered, and troubled, and a very little annoyed at first, and
finally won by the sparkling, brilliant woman who had done so much for
her, and who now stood offering to take Trixey off her hands and save
her from Mrs. Hayden. She knew she could trust her, and that Trix would
be safe with her, but she shrank from parting with the helpful, motherly
child, who did so much for her and the baby, and she hesitated in her
answer, and said at last she would see what Theodore would say.
Theodore approved the plan heartily, if Trixey must go somewhere to be
out of the sick grandmother’s and Aunt Nancy’s way. But now there arose
trouble in an unexpected quarter. Trixey herself demurred. She loved the
pretty lady, and was interested to hear about the dolls and dresses, and
the cats and kittens, and pretty little tea-set and table, and wash-tub,
and flat-iron, which should all be hers in that new home in Ohio. The
wash-tub, and flat-iron, and tea-set made her waver a little, till she
glanced at Bunchie, when, with quivering lip, she said:
“What good to have ever so many sings, and Bunchie not with me to see me
use the flat-iron and was-tub, and sit at the other end of the table
when I makes the tea?”
This was the ground she took. Bunchie would not be there to share her
happiness, and she did not swerve from it until her father appealed to
her sense of right, and told her the real reason why she should go.
Grandpa’s house was very small, and he was poor. Grandma was sick, and
Aunt Nancy could not have so many children round.
“But I could help her lots. I’d rock baby brudder to seep, and wipe the
dishes ever so many times, and be so good and still as Bunchie,” pleaded
the little girl; but she was persuaded at last to go because it was
right, and God would love her if she did, and take care of Bunchie and
baby brother, and in the summer she should come and see them in the old
home; and so it was quite settled that Trixey was to go with Beatrice,
who felt more and more the wisdom of the decision when that very
afternoon she met Mrs. Hayden herself in Mrs. Morton’s room, and had an
opportunity of judging what manner of person she was, and what Trixey’s
chance for happiness would have been with her.
She was a tall, large, finely-formed woman, with great black eyes, bushy
eyebrows, and a growth of hair about her wide mouth which gave her a
more masculine appearance even than did her figure and size. She spoke
loudly and decidedly, as one used to her own way, as well as to dictate
the way of others. Her dress was very rich and showy, but not
_New-Yorkey_ a bit, Bee decided, after a rapid survey of the lady, who
scrutinized her as closely, and decided that she _was_ New-Yorkey, and
wondered who her dressmaker was. To faded, plain Mrs. Morton she was
very patronizing and frank, and told her that what she wanted was fresh
air, and cold baths, and oatmeal to bring her up again, while her
mother, who had been sick so long, needed effort and energy. She could
get up if she only thought so. Nervous prostration was not a disease; it
was a fancy, which, if indulged in, would end in one’s being bed-ridden.
“I’ve made it a rule to guard against nervousness in every form, and
what is the result? I have never been sick a day in my life, and have no
idea how it feels to have the headache, or the toothache, or the
backache, or, in fact, any ache, and that is the way it should be.”
She looked the woman never to have an ache or pain, or if she had, to
strangle it at once, and Beatrice shrank from her involuntarily as from
an Amazon, while poor, sick Mrs. Morton colored scarlet, and roused in
defense of her own ailments, which Mrs. Hayden seemed to think she could
help.
“Just because you’ve never been sick, Julia,” she said, “you cannot
understand it in others, but you go out a missionary once, and have four
children in six years, and be as poor as poor can be, and you might know
something of aches and pains, and have some weaknesses which cold baths
and oatmeal could not cure.”
“I would not go out as a missionary, and I would not have the four
children in six years; so you see it is not a supposable case,” Mrs.
Hayden retorted, and then Bee hated her, and was doubly glad that little
Trix was not to fall into her hands.
Mrs. Hayden herself was not sorry. She had made the offer from a sense
of duty, for she was high up in everything of that kind, and performed
her duties rigidly, from dieting her husband, a weak, feeble man, on
oatmeal and pearl barley, to telling her neighbors their faults, and how
they could amend them. She did not like children, and it had cost her
something to make up her mind to have one in her house; but she had made
the offer, and meant to stand by it if it should be accepted. Finding it
convenient just then to visit New York, she had called upon her poor
relations to learn the result of her offer, and when told what it was
she expressed no regret, but asked many question about Miss Belknap, who
seemed to her to be crazy to think of taking Trixey. Suddenly there
flashed upon her the recollection of a rumor heard years ago, and, in
her usual brusque way, she asked:
“Is she the girl to whom Theo was once engaged, and who jilted him?”
“They never were engaged, but he liked her,” Mrs. Morton answered
faintly, while a throb of neuralgic pain shot through her head, and a
bright red spot burned on her cheeks.
She was far more a lady, in her brown alpaca dressing-gown, than was
this blunt women in her velvet and silk; and so Beatrice thought when
she came in immediately after her identity with Theo’s first love had
been proved. Mrs. Hayden never acknowledged any person her superior, but
she saw at a glance that Miss Belknap was _somebody_, and an _important_
somebody, too, and thought to stamp herself as somebody, by talking of
her house, and grounds, and servants, and the watering-places she
frequented, and the people she had met. She was now stopping on Madison
avenue with Mrs. Sniffe, who was Mr. Hayden’s cousin; probably Miss
Belknap knew Mrs. Sniffe, or at least had heard of her. She attended Dr.
Adams’ church, and was quite a leader there.
“_Do_ you know her?” she asked squarely; and Bee replied:
“Yes, I have some acquaintance with Mrs. Sniffe. I meet her occasionally
at parties.”
Something in the tone made Mrs. Hayden look suspiciously at Beatrice, as
she wondered whether it was Mrs. Sniffe who was only to be met at
general parties, or Miss Belknap herself; while Mrs. Morton felt
emboldened to say:
“Mrs. Sniffe,—that’s the woman we met at Arnold’s who called me a frump.
Maybe she forgets that she once worked in the factory at Lowell.”
She had fired her heavy gun, and felt better for it, inasmuch as she had
hit the enemy, who reddened, as she replied:
“I believe she was there for a short time, but honest labor does not
hurt a person in this country.”
Then she talked of Mrs. Sniffe’s grandeur and style, until Bee was tired
of it and arose to go, promising to call next day and decide when to
take Trixey. Mrs. Hayden followed her into the hall, and, begging her
pardon, asked who made the dress she was wearing.
“Mademoiselle Verwest made it and sent it to me. Her address is No.——,
Rue St. Honoré, Paris,” Bee replied.
And, somewhat discomfited, Mrs. Hayden bowed her thanks, and returned to
her cousin, whom she badgered about her weak nerves, and want of energy,
until the poor woman burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping, and
cried herself sick.
Beatrice found her in bed next day, and as the little room seemed so
close and full of children, she carried Trixey away with her to her
friend’s house, and for a day or two devoted herself wholly to the
child, who was kept in such a state of surprise and bewilderment that
she did not once cry for the mother down on Eighth street. Beatrice
bought her a doll nearly as large as herself, and bought her a kitchen,
with wash-tub and stove, and a China tea-set and table, and beautiful
dresses for herself, and then whisked her off to the train before she
had time to recover from the excitement of so many wonderful things. Mr.
Morton was at the depot, but Trixey did not see him. It was thought
better that she should not, so he looked his farewell from a distance,
but said good-by to Beatrice, and held her hand closely pressed in his
own, as he said:
“God bless you, Bee, for all you have done for us. We never can forget
it. Good-by. You will, of course, write to Mollie as soon as you get
home.”
“Yes, certainly,” Beatrice said, hating herself because the name Mollie
as spoken by Theo grated on her nerves, and seemed in some way a wrong
to herself.
Bee knew such feelings were foolish, and as often as they rose within
her, she took Trix in her lap and kissed her, and talked to her of the
mother they were leaving so far behind, and whose eyes looked at her
through the child’s, save that Trixey’s were larger, and more weird in
their expression.
It was late in the afternoon when they reached Rothsay, and were driven
to Elm Park. Bee had telegraphed to Aunt Rachel that she was coming with
a little girl, so everything was in readiness for them, and Trixey was
made much of, and talked to and looked at, until she began to nod in her
chair, and was taken up to bed.
That evening Everard came up to Elm Park with Rosamond. They had just
heard of Bee’s return, and hastened at once to see her. Everard was
looking about the same as when Beatrice saw him last, except that he was
perhaps a little thinner. He was working pretty hard, he said, and
earning some money, but his dress did not indicate anything like
reckless expenditure upon himself, and Beatrice felt sure that Josephine
was drawing heavily upon him.
He was now quite at home at the Forrest House, and was there nearly
every evening, and Beatrice felt something like a throb of fear when she
saw his eyes resting upon Rossie, as if loth to leave the fresh young
face, which had grown so bright and attractive during the last few
months. She was growing very pretty, and her figure looked graceful and
womanly when at last she arose to go, and stood while Everard folded her
shawl around her, drawing it close up about her neck so as to shield her
throat, which was a little sore. Something in that shawl adjustment and
the length of time it took sent another thrill through Bee’s nerves, and
the moment they were gone she went to her room, where Trixey lay
sleeping, and bending over the child, wondered if in all lives things
got as terribly mixed as they were in hers and Everard’s.