OAKLANDS.
Faery's head was turned at last from the wide, dusty street into an
imposing gateway, which lead through an avenue bordered thickly with
evergreens mostly pine and hemlock. "These trees look a trifle hot in
summer; but they are a capital protection in a winter's storm, I assure
you," my companion said with an apologetic air.
I could think of no suitable reply; so merely said, "yes."
"It's a tradition among their acquaintances that the Winthrops believe in
getting the very best possible good out of everything."
"Have they succeeded?"
"Better than the generality of folks; but they have come pretty near
extinction, at least on this side the water. Mr. Winthrop is the last of
his race."
"Has he no children?"
"He is a bachelor."
"But he may have children and a wife some day."
"You will probably be his heir, if he does not marry, I believe he is
your heir by your father's will, in case you die without heirs."
I laughed merrily. "He will outlive me probably. What good would his
money do me if I were old, or maybe dead?"
"Your children might enjoy it."
I wondered was it customary in this country to speculate on such remote
possibilities, but said nothing. We soon reached the house, which stood
on ground elevated to command a magnificent view of the sea, the distant
headlands, and a wide stretch of hill and dale. The house itself reminded
me more of old world buildings than any I had yet seen in America; and,
on the spot, I took a fancy to it, and felt that here I could easily
cultivate the home feeling, without which I should still be a wanderer on
the earth. Mrs. Flaxman was standing to receive me as I ascended the
granite steps that led to the main entrance. The great stone house had
wings at either end while deep breaks in the heavy masonry of the walls
occurred at regular intervals, and heavy pillars of granite made a
massive background for this fair, slight woman as I looked at her.
"I will commit Miss Selwyn to your care, mother, while I take a little
longer drive with Faery," my companion said, graciously.
"I will accept your trust with a great deal of pleasure, Hubert," she
said, receiving me with a cordiality that warmed my heart. "You are very
welcome home. At least, I hope you will feel at home here."
"I have no other, now that I have left school," I said, gravely.
"Young ladies do not often waste much sentiment on their boarding-school
home, so I think we shall succeed in making you content here with us at
Oaklands."
"I have always been accustomed to find my own sources of content. We were
left at school to amuse ourselves or not, as we willed."
"But I hope we shall not be so indifferent to your pleasure. Mr. Winthrop
is not much of a society man, but we still see a good many visitors."
The main entrance of the house was finer than anything I had remembered
to have seen, and at first I felt quite oppressed by the grandeur of my
surroundings; but when Mrs. Flaxman had conducted me to my own room, its
dainty furnishings and appointments made it appear to me, after the plain
accommodations of the school, a perfect bower for any maiden. I went to
one of the deep windows and looked out over the splendid stretch of land
and sea scape spread before me. Drawing a long sigh of perfect content, I
exclaimed: "I know I shall be happy here. How could I help it, with such
pictures to look at?"
"If you admire the scenery so much at first, what will your sensations be
when you have grown intimate with its beauty? Nature enters into our
humanity like human acquaintances."
"What do you mean?" I asked, much mystified.
"There are some places like some people--the more we study them the more
they are admired, we are continually discovering hidden beauties. But you
must study nature closely, at all hours and seasons, to discover her
subtle charms."
"Won't you teach me what you have learned?"
"If I can do so I shall be glad; but I think we must each study her for
ourselves. She has no text books that I have ever seen."
"I wonder do we all see things alike? Does that sea, now a sheet of rose
and amethyst, and the sky that seems another part of the same, and the
green trees, and hills, and rocks, look to you as they do to me?"
"Not yet, my child. When you have studied them as long, and have the
memories of years clustering around each well-remembered spot, they may
look the same to you as they now do to me; but not till then," she added,
I fancied a little sadly.
"Probably I shall enjoy this exquisite view better without the memories;
they usually hold a sting."
"That depends on the way we use life. To live as God wills, leaves no
sting for after thought."
"Not if death comes and takes our loved ones? How alone I am in the world
because of him."
"There are far sadder experiences than yours. Death is not always our
worst enemy; we may have a death in life, compared with which Death
itself is an angel of light."
"Oh, what a strange, sad thing life is at the best! Is it worth being
born and suffering so much for all the joy we find?"
"No, indeed, if this life were all; but it is only the faint dawn of a
brighter, grander existence, more worthy the gift of a God."
"But we must die to get to that fuller, higher life;" I said, suddenly
remembering poor Blake's dead wife.
She smiled compassionately.
"It is hard convincing you young people that even death may be a tender
friend, a welcome messenger. But we won't talk in this strain any longer,
I scarce know why we drifted into it. I want your first impressions of
home to be joyous, for they are apt to haunt us long after we make the
discovery that they were not correct."
"I wonder if you are not something of a philosopher? I never heard any
one talk just like you."
"Certainly not anything so formidable, and learned as that. I am only a
plain little woman, with no special mission except to make those around
me happy."
"That is a very beautiful mission, and I am sure you meet with success,
which is not the fate of every one with a career."
"Ah, if you begin praising me I must leave; but first let me tell you
dinner will be served at six. Mr. Winthrop is a great student, and is
already, for so young a man, a very successful author; and he likes
dinner late so as to have all the longer time for hard work. The evenings
he takes for light reading and rest."
I must confess I was beginning to get afraid of my guardian. I expected
to find him in manners and appearance something like our school
professors, with a tendency to criticise my slender literary
acquirements.
However I proceeded with my toilet quite cheerfully, and was rather glad
than sorry that I had found him absent from Oaklands; but after I left my
room and wandered out into the dim, spacious hall and down the long
stairway, the heavy, old-fashioned splendors of the house chilled me. How
could I occupy myself happily through the coming years in this great,
gloomy house? I vaguely wondered, while life stretched out before my
imagination, in long and tiresome perspective.
With no school duties to occupy my time, my knowledge of amusements,
needlework, or any other of the softer feminine accomplishments,
exceedingly limited, I was suddenly confronted with the problem how I was
to fill up the days and years with any degree of satisfaction. Hitherto
every thought had been strained eagerly towards this home coming. After
that fancy was a blank. Now I had got here, what then? I had been a
fairly industrious pupil and graduated with commendable success; but it
had been a tradition at our school that once away from its confinement,
text-books and the weariness of study were at an end. I went out on the
lawn, and was standing, a trifle homesick for the companionship of the
merry crowd of schoolmates, when a side glance revealed to me an immense
garden, such as I had often seen, but not near enough to sufficiently
enjoy. I soon forgot my lonely fancies as I strayed admiringly through
the well kept walks, amid beds of old-fashioned sweet smelling flowers,
which now-a-days are for the most part relegated to the humble cottages;
but farther on I discovered the rarer plants of many climes, some of them
old acquaintances, but others utter strangers, only so far as I could
remember some of them from my lessons in botany. Still stretching beyond
on the hill side I saw the vegetable and fruit gardens. Huge strawberry
beds attracted me, the ripe fruit I found tempting; but feeling still a
stranger, the old weakness that comes down to us from Mother Eve to reach
forth and pluck, was restrained. "What a perfect Eden it is!" I could not
help exclaiming, though no ears save the birds, and multitudinous insects
existences, were within reach of my voice, and probably for the latter,
any sound I could make would be as unheard by them as the music of the
spheres must be to me until another body, with finer intuitions to catch
such harmonies, shall be provided. Ere the dinner bell rang I found a new
wonderland of beauty reaching away beyond me. To watch from early spring
till winter's icy breath destroyed them, these multiplied varieties of
vegetable life gradually passing through all their beautiful changes of
bud and blossom, and ripened seed or fruit would be a training in some
respects, equalling that of the schools. What higher lessons in botany I
might take, day by day exploring the secrets of plant life! I went back
to the house in a happier mood than I had left it. At the dinner table I
expressed, no doubt with amusing enthusiasm, my gladness at this garden
of delight.
"You should become a practical botanist, Miss Selwyn. But then your heart
might prove too tender to tear your pets to pieces in order to find out
their secrets."
"I did not know my heart was specially tender."
"I only judged so from your sympathy for the Blakes. Only think, mother,
Miss Selwyn was prophesying the time when I should be mourning over a
departed wife."
"You must not mind Hubert, Miss Selwyn. He is a sad tease, as we all find
to our sorrow. He has not had brothers or sisters since his childhood to
teach him gentleness."
"Only children are apt to be not very agreeable companions. We had some
unpleasant specimens at school."
"That is too hard on both of us, Miss Selwyn," he said; "but I must prove
to you that I, at least, am a beautiful exception to the general rule."
For the first time I looked up at him closely, and was struck with the
handsome merry face.
"With a very little effort you could make yourself very agreeable, I am
sure," I said, with all seriousness.
Even Mrs. Flaxman could not conceal her amusement at my remark.
"It is so refreshing to meet with such a frank young lady," Hubert said,
with downcast eyes. I had a suspicion he was laughing at me. Presently he
glanced at me, when I found the fun in his eyes contagious, and, though
at my own expense, indulged in a hearty laugh.
"I wish you would tell me when I make myself ridiculous. I do not
understand boys' natures. I scarce remember to have spoken a dozen
consecutive sentences to one in my life. All our Professors were more or
less gray, and they every one wore spectacles."
"They must been an interesting lot," Hubert said, with a lack of his
usual animation. When I was longer with him I discovered that the open
space in his armor was to be regarded a boy.
"But, no doubt they were all young and mischievous once. The soberest
horse in Belgium frisked around its mother in its colthood, no doubt."
"You will see plenty of poor horses in America," Mrs. Flaxman said.
"Faery is by no means a typical horse."
"Faery's master loves her. That makes a world of difference with the
ownership of other things than horses."
"Really, Miss Selwyn, you can moralize on every subject, I believe, with
equal ease."
"He is making fun of me again, I presume," I said, turning to Mrs.
Flaxman. "When I talk a longer time with you English-speaking people, I
shall not be so open to ridicule. Some day, Mr. Hubert, I may meet you in
Germany, and then I shall be able to retaliate."
"Before that time comes you will be generous enough to return good for
evil."
"And when shall you get your punishment then?"
"Maybe never. I find a good many evil-doers get off scot free in this
world."
"But there are other worlds than this, my son," his mother said, with
such sweet seriousness that our badinage ceased for that evening.