IN THE SUMMER.
Trixey did not thrive well in her new home, though everything which
human ingenuity could devise was done to make her happy and contented.
But in spite of everything Trixey could not quite overcome her
homesickness. Many times a day she disappeared from sight and was gone a
long time, and when she came back there was a mysterious redness about
her eyes, which she said, by way of explanation, were “kind of sore, she
dessed. Maybe she had got some dust in ’em.”
This went on for weeks, until at last, in a fit of remorse lest she had
been guilty of a lie, the conscientious child burst out:
“’Tain’t dust, ’tain’t sore that makes ’em red; it’s wantin’ to see
papa, and mamma, and Bunchie, and baby brudder. Was it a lie, and is I a
naughty dirl to make breve it was dust?”
Then Bee felt that it would be wrong to keep her any longer, and wrote
to Mrs. Morton to that effect.
Mrs. Morton and Bunchie were still in Bronson, but Theo was supplying a
vacant pulpit in Boston, and only saw his wife once in two or three
weeks. There was room in the parsonage now for homesick Trixey, for the
sickly baby had died suddenly with cholera infantum, and the same letter
which carried the news to Beatrice asked that Trixey might be sent to
Vermont.
“Send her by express,” Mrs. Morton wrote, “or will you bring her
yourself? We shall be so glad to see you, though we cannot offer you a
bed here, we are so full, but there is a good country hotel near us, and
Cousin Julia Hayden, whom you met in New York, wishes me to say that she
will be very glad to entertain you at her own house. I hope you will
come, for though our acquaintance is so recent, you seem to me like a
friend of years, and I feel that the sight of you may do me good, now
that my heart is so sore with the loss of my baby.”
“I’ll go,” Bee said, as she finished reading the letter, deciding all
the more readily on account of a little incident which had occurred the
night before, and which filled her with alarm for both Everard and
Rosamond.
They had walked together to Elm Park, and sat with her for an hour or
more on the piazza, where the full moon was shining brightly. This time
there had been no shawl to adjust, for the early June night was warm and
balmy, but there was a slight dampness in the air, and Everard’s
solicitude lest Rosamond should take cold or contract a sore throat was
noticeable in the extreme. Two or three times he pulled the fleecy cloud
of Berlin wool about her neck, and asked if she were quite comfortable,
and once he let his hand rest on her shoulder for some minutes, while he
sat looking at her with an expression on his face which Josephine might
have resented had she seen it. And Bee, with her strong sense of right
and wrong, resented it for her, or rather for Rosamond, whom she would
not see sacrificed without a protest. So when they arose to go home, she
led Everard away from Rossie, and when sure she could not be heard, said
to him, earnestly:
“Pardon me, Everard, but you are altogether too solicitous about
Rosamond’s health. Let her take care of herself. She is capable of doing
it, and, remember, there are bounds you must not pass, or suffer her to
approach. It would be very cruel to her.”
“Yes, I know,” he answered, coloring deeply as he spoke. “You need not
fear for Rossie. She is my sister, nothing more; and even if I were
disposed to make her something else, do you suppose I can ever forget
the past?”
He spoke bitterly, and showed plainly how gladly he would free himself,
if possible, from the bond which held him, and which was growing daily
more and more hateful to him.
As far as she could see them in the moonlight Beatrice watched Everard
and Rossie as they walked slowly down the avenue which led to the
street, and when they were out of sight she said to herself: “He ought
to acknowledge his marriage, and he must, even if he does not take his
wife, which might be the better thing to do. There must be good in
her,—something to build upon, if under the right influence, with
somebody to encourage and stimulate her to do her best. I wish I knew
her,—wish I dared face her in her own home, and judge what kind of
person she is.”
This was Bee’s thought the night before she read Mrs. Morton’s letter
inviting her to Bronson, and when she read it the thought resolved
itself into a fixed purpose, the first step of which was to take Trixey
to her mother. Poor little Trixey, who turned so white, but did not at
first shed a tear, when told of her baby brother’s death. Half an hour
later, however, Beatrice found her in the garden, with her face in the
grass, sobbing as if her heart would break for the dead brother, of whom
she said to Bee, “I wouldn’t feel so bad to have him with Jesus, only I
shaked him once hard, when he was so cross and heavy, and I was so
tired, and he wouldn’t go to sleep. I’se so sorry. Will God let me go to
Heaven some day and see him, and tell him I’se sorry?”
As well as she could, Beatrice comforted and reassured the weeping
child, whose conscientiousness and sweet faith and trust in God were
leading her into ways she had only known in theory, but which were
beginning to be very pleasant to her feet, as she learned each day some
new lesson from the trusting child.
It was near the latter part of June, the season of roses, and pinks, and
water lilies in New England, when she at last took Trixey to the old
brown house under the shadow of the apple trees, where the mountain air
was filled with perfume from the flowers blossoming on the borders by
the door, and where Bunchie played in the soft summer sunshine under the
snow-ball tree by the well. It was such a plain, but pleasant old house,
with the rafters overhead showing in the kitchen, and the great box-like
beams in the corners of the room,—for the old house claimed to have seen
a hundred years, and to have heard the guns of the Revolution. But it
was very cheerful and home-like, and neat as soap and sand and Aunt
Nancy’s hands could make it. Aunt Nancy was the first to welcome Miss
Belknap, looking a little askance at her style and manners, and
wondering how they could ever entertain so fine a lady even for a few
hours. Mrs. Morton was sick with a headache, and Mrs. Brown was still
down with nervous prostration, having stoutly resisted all Mrs. Julia
Hayden’s advice about making an effort, and hints which sometimes
amounted to assertions that she could get up if she liked, and would
diet on oatmeal and barley. In her last letter to Mrs. Morton, Beatrice
had declined Mrs. Hayden’s offer, and said she should feel more
independent at the hotel for the short time she should remain in
Bronson, but within half an hour after her arrival at the parsonage,
Mrs. Hayden was there also, in her handsome carriage, drawn by her
shining black horses, and driven by a shining black coachman, in gloves
and brass buttons, and she insisted so hard upon Beatrice stopping with
her, that the latter finally accepted the invitation, but said she would
remain for the day where she was and see if she could not be of some
comfort and help to Mrs. Morton, who seemed better from the moment she
came and laid her soft hands on her head.
“Nothing can help her or her mother, either, unless they make an
effort,” Mrs. Hayden said, with a toss of her head, and a flash of her
black eyes. “Spleeny and notional both of them as they can be; call it
nervous, if you like; what’s nervousness but fidgets? I was never
nervous; but if I’d give up every time the weather changes, or I felt a
little weak, I might have prostration, too. There’s Harry, my husband,
would have died long ago if I had not kept him up just by my own energy
and will. I make him sleep with the windows open, and he takes a cold
bath every morning at six o’clock, and eats oatmeal for his breakfast,
with a cup of hot water instead of coffee or tea.”
“And does he thrive on that diet? Is he well and strong?” Bee asked, and
Mrs. Hayden replied:
“Well and strong? No: he could not be that in the nature of things, he
comes from a sickly stock; but he keeps about, which is better than
lying in bed and moping all the time.”
How strong and full of life Mrs. Hayden was, and so unsympathetic that
Beatrice did not wonder Mrs. Morton shivered and shrank away even from
the touch of her large, powerful hands.
“I am sometimes wicked enough to wish she might be sick herself, or at
least nervous, so as to know how it feels,” Mrs. Morton said, after her
cousin had gone. “She thinks I can do as she does, and the thing is
impossible. My health is destroyed, and I sometimes fear I shall never
be well again.”
She had failed since Beatrice saw her, and her eyes looked so large and
glassy as she lay upon the pillow, and her cough was so constant and
irritating, that to talk of effort and oatmeal to her seemed
preposterous and cruel. What she needed was rest, and nursing, and care,
and change of thought and occupation, and these she could not have in
their fullest extent at the parsonage, with poverty and a sick mother,
and bustling, irritable Aunt Nancy to act as counter influences. She
must be taken entirely away, and amused, and nursed, and petted, and
Beatrice began to see the first step of that vague plan formed in
Rothsay, and which she meant to carry out.
For a day or two she staid in Bronson, sleeping and eating in Mrs.
Hayden’s grand house, and feeling all her sympathies enlisted for
shriveled-up Mr. Hayden, who in the morning came shivering to the table
from his cold bath, and swallowed his oatmeal and hot water dutifully,
but with an expression on his thin, sallow face which showed how his
stomach rebelled against it and craved the juicy steak and fragrant
coffee with which his blooming wife regaled herself, because she was
strong and could bear it. Once Bee ventured to suggest that steak and
beef-tea might be a more nutritious diet even for a dyspeptic than
oatmeal and barley, varied with dry toast and baked apples; but Mrs.
Hayden _knew_. She had read up on _stomachs_, and _nerves_, and
_digestion_, and knew every symptom of dyspepsia, and its cause, and
what it needed, and how a person ought to feel; and her husband
submitted quietly, and said, “Julie was right,” and grew thinner, and
paler, and weaker every day with cold baths and starvation; but he kept
the respect of his wife because he _tried_ to be well, and that was a
great thing to do, for in his estimation she was a wonderful woman, and
represented the wisdom of the world.
On the third day Beatrice left Bronson, to look, she said, for some
quiet, pleasant nook, where she could spend a few weeks during the hot
weather. She found such a place in Holburton, whither she came one warm
July afternoon, when the town was at its best. It was not an unheard-of
thing for city people to pass a few weeks in Holburton during the hot
weather, and no one was surprised when Miss Belknap registered her name
on the hotel books, and said she was looking for some quiet and
reasonable boarding-house for an invalid with two children. Several were
recommended to her, and with the list in her hand she started out to
reconnoiter.
Mrs. Roxie Fleming was the fourth name on her paper, but she went there
first, and was pleased with the place at once, because it looked so cool
and inviting under the wealth of hop vines which covered one side of it.
The day was warm, and Mrs. Fleming, in her clean purple calico gown, sat
sewing on the door-steps, while a woman with a deep pasteboard bonnet on
her head, concealing her face from view, was sweeping the grass in the
back yard. But she turned as she heard the gate open, and seeing
Beatrice, came forward until she saw her mother; then she withdrew,
leaving Mrs. Fleming to confer with the stranger.
She had rooms to let, she said; did the lady wish them for herself? and
she looked curiously at Beatrice, who was so different from the boarders
who usually came to her, for her rooms were low and scantily furnished,
and not at all like the apartments city people desired.
Miss Belknap wanted board for herself and a friend with two children;
two sleeping-rooms and a parlor would do nicely for them all, and she
was willing to pay whatever it was worth.
Mrs. Fleming readily guessed that money was no consideration with the
lady, and as it was of much importance to her, she decided to ask the
highest possible price at first, and then fall if necessary. After a
moment, during which she seemed to be thinking, she said:
“I don’t know but I can accommodate you with three rooms, though I do
not often rent an extra parlor, and if I do so now my daughter Josephine
must give up the room she occupies when she is here.”
“Then she is not at home?” Beatrice said, feeling that she must know
that fact before she engaged board, where the only attraction was
Josephine who, she found, had only gone for a week or so to Oak Bluffs,
with a party of friends, and was expected daily.
The price named for the three rooms, though high for Holburton, did not
seem unreasonable to Beatrice, and the bargain was closed with the
understanding that Beatrice was to take immediate possession.
“It will be a change for Mrs. Morton; a relief to Aunt Nancy; a possible
benefit to Everard, and an amusement to me,” Beatrice thought, as she
hurried back to Bronson, where she found the Rev. Theodore himself,
handsomer, more elegant in appearance, because better dressed, than when
she saw him last, and very glad to see her, as an old friend who was
kind to his wife and children.
To the Holburton plan he listened approvingly. It would do Mollie good,
he said, for two sick people in one house were quite too many for the
comfort of either. But Mollie demurred; she could not sleep in new
places unless everything were right, and she presumed there were swarms
of crickets and tree-toads, and possibly bull-frogs, there among the
mountains, to make the night hideous.
It would be impossible to portray the scorn and disgust which blazed in
the black eyes of Mrs. Julia Hayden, who was present, when Mollie
uttered her protest against Holburton.
“Crickets, and tree-toads, and bull-frogs, indeed! She’d like to see the
bull-frog which could keep her awake, even if it sat on her pillow and
croaked in her ear; it was all nonsense, such fidgets. Just use your
will and a little common sense, and you will sleep through everything.”
This was Mrs. Hayden’s theory, which made Mollie cry and Beatrice angry,
and Theodore laugh. He had to stand between them all, and keep them from
quarreling, and he did it admirably, and smoothed everything so nicely,
and made the trip to Holburton seem so desirable, that Mollie began to
want to go, especially as he assured her he could well afford it, as the
church in Boston paid him liberally, and had just given him a hundred
dollars to do with as he liked. Beatrice had intended to meet the
expenses herself, but could not press the matter without hurting more
than she did good. It was just possible that Mrs. Hayden might follow
them with her husband, if good rooms and board could be found for her,
for she had taken a great liking to Miss Belknap, who stood even higher
in her estimation than Mrs. Sniffe, and whose acquaintance she readily
saw would do her more real good in a social point of view. So it was
finally arranged that Mollie and the children should go to Holburton for
the summer, and word to that effect was forwarded to Mrs. Fleming, with
instructions to have the rooms in readiness by the middle of July.