“That's not the queerest part,” Ada went on. “She told me as confidently
as could be that he is still in love with her.”
“Ada,” said I, “Elizabeth Talbert must be daft! Does she think that all
the men in the world are in love with her--at her age? First Mrs. Temple
making such a rumpus, and now this--”
“At first I thought just as you do,” Ada said, helplessly. “Of course
there can't be anything in it--and yet--I'm sure I don't understand the
situation at all. You know Harry left quite unexpectedly--soon after
Elizabeth came; he didn't write for a week--and then to her, and Peggy's
only had one short note from him--”
I can see through a hole in a millstone as well as any one, and a light
dawned on me.
“You can depend upon it, Ada,” I said, “Aunt Elizabeth has been making
trouble! I don't know what she's been up to, but she's been up to
something! I wondered why she had been having such a contented look
lately--and now I know.”
“Oh, mother, I can't believe that!” Ada protested. “I thought
Elizabeth was a little vain and silly, and, though everything is so
incomprehensible, I don't believe for a moment that Aunt Elizabeth would
do anything to hurt Peggy.”
My Ada is a truly good woman--so good that it is almost impossible for
her to believe ill of any one, and she was profoundly shocked at what I
suggested.
“I don't think in the beginning Elizabeth intended to hurt Peggy,” I
answered her, gently, “but when you've lived as long in the world as I
have you'll realize to what lengths a woman will go to show the world
she's still young. Just look at it for yourself. Everything was going
smoothly until Elizabeth came. Now it's not. Elizabeth has told you
she's had goings-on with Harry Goward. I don't see, Ada, how you can be
so blind as not to be willing to look the truth in the face. If it's
not Elizabeth's fault, whose is it? I don't suppose you believe Henry
Goward's dying for love of Aunt Elizabeth when he can look at Peggy! Oh,
I'd like to hear his side of the story! For you may be sure that there
is one!”
“Mother,” said Ada, “if I believed Elizabeth had done anything to mar
that child's happiness--”
She stopped for fear, I suppose, of what she might be led to say. “We
mustn't judge before we know,” she finished. But I knew by the look
on her face that, if Aunt Elizabeth has made trouble, Ada will never
forgive her.
“What does Cyrus say to all this?” I asked, by way of diversion.
“Oh, I haven't told Cyrus anything about it. I didn't intend to tell any
one--about Aunt Elizabeth's part in it. I think Cyrus is a little uneasy
himself, but he's been so busy lately--”
“Well,” I said, “_I_ think Cyrus ought to be told! And you're the one to
do it. Don't let's judge, to be sure, before we know everything, but I
think Cyrus ought to know the mischief his sister is making! Elizabeth
simply makes a convenience of this house. It's her basis of departure
to pack her trunk from, that's all your home means to her. She's never
lifted a finger to be useful beyond rearranging the furniture in a
different way from what you'd arranged it. She acts exactly as if she
were a young lady boarder. She's nothing whatever to do in this world
except make trouble for others. I think Cyrus should know, and then if
he prefers his sister's convenience to his wife's happiness, well and
good!” It's not often I speak out, but now and then things happen which
I can't very well keep silent about. It did me good to ease my mind
about Elizabeth Talbert for once.
Ada only said, “Elizabeth and I have always been such good friends, and
she's so fond of Peggy.”
Ada doesn't realize that with some women vanity is stronger than
loyalty. She kissed me. “It's done me good to talk to you, mother,” she
said, “because now it doesn't seem, when I put it outside myself, that
there's very much of anything to worry about.”
Ada has always been like that--she seems to get rid of her troubles just
by telling them. Now she had passed her riddle on to me, and I could not
keep Peggy and her affairs from my mind. I tried to tell myself that it
would be better for every one to find out now than later if Henry Goward
was not worthy to be Peggy's husband. But, oh, for all their sakes, how
I hoped this cloud, whatever it was, would blow over! I have a very good
constitution and I know how to take care of it, but when several more
days passed without Peggy's hearing from Henry again I gave way, but I
tried to keep up on Ada's account. I began to see how much this young
man's honor and faithfulness meant to Peggy, and I took long excursions
back into the past to remember how I felt at her age. Mail-time was the
difficult time for all three of us. Before the postman came Peggy would
brighten up; not that she was drooping at any time, only I knew how
tensely she waited, because Ada and I waited with her. When the man
came, and again no letters, Peggy held up her head bravely as could be,
but I could see, all the same, how the light had gone out. The worst of
it was, everybody knew about it. It would have been twice as easy
for the child if she could have borne it alone, but Elizabeth Talbert
watched the mail like a cat, and even manoeuvred to try and get the
letters before Peggy, while Alice went around with her nose in the air,
and I heard Maria saying to Ada:
“What's all this about Harry Goward's not writing?”
To escape it all I took to my room, coming down only for meals. I
couldn't eat a thing, and Cyrus noticed it--it is queer how observant
men are about some things and how unobservant about others. He didn't
tell me what he was going to do, but in the afternoon Dr. Denbigh came
to see me. That's the way they do--I'm liable to have the doctor sent in
to look me over any time, whether I want him or not. Dr. Denbigh is an
excellent friend and a good doctor, but at my time of life I should be
lacking in intelligence if I didn't understand my constitution better
than any doctor can. They seem to think that there's more virtue in a
pill or a powder because a doctor gives it to one than because one's
common-sense tells one to take it. That afternoon I didn't need him any
more than a squirrel needs a pocket, and I told him so. He laughed, and
then grew serious.
“You're not looking as well as you did, Mrs. Evarts,” he said, “and
Talbert told me that you had all the preliminary symptoms of one of your
attacks and wanted me to 'nip it in the bud,' he said.”
“Dr. Denbigh,” said I, “if the matter with me could be cured by the
things you know, there are other people in this house who need your
attention more than I.” I wanted to add that if Cyrus would always be
as far-sighted as he has been about me there wouldn't be anything the
matter to-day, but I held my tongue.
“I see you're worried about something,” the doctor said, very kindly.
“Mental anxiety pulls you down quicker than anything.”
Then as he sat chatting with me so kind and good--there's something
about Dr. Denbigh that makes me think of my own father, although he is
young enough to be my son--I told him the whole thing, all except Aunt
Elizabeth's share in it. I merely told him that Henry Goward had written
to her and not to Peggy.
I felt very much better. He took what I told him seriously, and yet
not in the tragic way we did. He has a way of listening that is very
comforting.
“It seems absurd, I know, for an old woman like me to get upset just
because her grandchild does not get letters from her sweetheart,” I told
him. “But you see, doctor, no one suffers alone in a family like ours.
An event like this is like a wave that disturbs the whole surface of the
water. Every one of us feels anything that happens, each in his separate
way. Why, I can't be sick without its causing inconvenience to Billy.”
And it is true; people in this world are bound up together in an
extraordinary fashion; and I wondered if Henry Goward's mother was
unhappy too, and was wondering what it was Peggy had done to her boy,
for she, of course, will think whatever happens is Peggy's fault. The
engagement of these two young people has been like a stone thrown into a
pond, and it takes only a very little pebble to ruffle the water farther
than one would believe it possible.
After the doctor left, Ada came to sit with me. We were sewing quietly
when I heard voices in the hall. I heard Peggy say, “I want you to tell
mother.” Then Billy growled:
“I don't see what you're making such a kick for. I wouldn't have told
you if I'd known you'd be so silly.”
And I heard Peggy say again:
“I want you to tell mother.” Her tone was perfectly even, but it sounded
like Cyrus when he is angry. They both came in. Peggy was flushed, and
her lips were pressed firmly together. She looked older than I have ever
seen her.
“What's the matter?” Ada asked them.
“Tell her,” Peggy commanded. Billy didn't know what it all was about.
“Why, I just said I wondered what Aunt Elizabeth was telegraphing Harry
Goward about, and now she drags me in here and makes a fuss,” he said,
in an aggrieved tone.
“He was over at Whitman playing around the telegraph-office--he had
driven over on the express-wagon--and when Aunt Elizabeth drove up he
hid because he didn't want her to see him. Then he heard the operator
read the address aloud,” Peggy explained, evenly.
“Is this so?” Ada asked.
“Sure,” Billy answered, disgustedly, and made off as fast as he could.
“Now,” said Peggy, “I want to know why Harry wrote to Aunt Elizabeth,
and why she telegraphed him--over there where no one could see her!” She
stood up very straight. “I think I ought to know,” she said, gently.
“Yes, dear,” Ada answered, “I think you ought.”