As a natural consequence of her hard work and her midnight awakening,
Marcia overslept the next morning. Her stepmother called her sharply and
she dressed in haste, not even taking time to glance toward the new folds
of chintz that drew her thoughts closetward. She dared not say anything
about it yet. There was much to be done, and not even Kate had time for an
idle word with her. Marcia was called upon to run errands, to do odds and
ends of things, to fill in vacant places, to sew on lost buttons, to do
everything for which nobody else had time. The household had suddenly
become aware that there was now but one more intervening day between them
and the wedding.
It was not until late in the afternoon that Marcia ventured to put on her
frock. Even then she felt shy about appearing in it.
Madam Schuyler was busy in the parlor with callers, and Kate was locked in
her own room whither she had gone to rest. There was no one to notice if
Marcia should “dress up,” and it was not unlikely that she might escape
much notice even at the supper table, as everybody was so absorbed in
other things.
She lingered before her own little glass looking wistfully at herself. She
was pleased with the frock she had made and liked her appearance in it,
but yet there was something disappointing about it. It had none of the
style of her sister’s garments, newly come from the hand of the village
mantua-maker. It was girlish, and showed her slip of a form prettily in
the fashion of the day, but she felt too young. She wanted to look older.
She searched her drawer and found a bit of black velvet which she pinned
about her throat with a pin containing the miniature of her mother, then
with a second thought she drew the long braids up in loops and fastened
them about her head in older fashion. It suited her well, and the change
it made astonished her. She decided to wear them so and see if others
would notice. Surely, some day she would be a young woman, and perhaps
then she would be allowed to have a will of her own occasionally.
She drew a quick breath as she descended the stairs and found her
stepmother and the visitor just coming into the hall from the parlor.
They both involuntarily ceased their talk and looked at her in surprise.
Over Madam Schuyler’s face there came a look as if she had received a
revelation. Marcia was no longer a child, but had suddenly blossomed into
young womanhood. It was not the time she would have chosen for such an
event. There was enough going on, and Marcia was still in school. She had
no desire to steer another young soul through the various dangers and
follies that beset a pretty girl from the time she puts up her hair until
she is safely married to the right man—or the wrong one. She had just
begun to look forward with relief to having Kate well settled in life.
Kate had been a hard one to manage. She had too much will of her own and a
pretty way of always having it. She had no deep sense of reverence for
old, staid manners and customs. Many a long lecture had Madam Schuyler
delivered to Kate upon her unseemly ways. It did not please her to think
of having to go through it all so soon again, therefore upon her usually
complacent brow there came a look of dismay.
“Why!” exclaimed the visitor, “is this the bride? How tall she looks! No!
Bless me! it isn’t, is it? Yes,—Well! I’ll declare. It’s just Marsh! What
have you got on, child? How old you look!”
Marcia flushed. It was not pleasant to have her young womanhood
questioned, and in a tone so familiar and patronizing. She disliked the
name of “Marsh” exceedingly, especially upon the lips of this woman, a
sort of second cousin of her stepmother’s. She would rather have chosen
the new frock to pass under inspection of her stepmother without
witnesses, but it was too late to turn back now. She must face it.
Though Madam Schuyler’s equilibrium was a trifle disturbed, she was not
one to show it before a visitor. Instantly she recovered her balance, and
perhaps Marcia’s ordeal was less trying than if there had been no third
person present.
“That looks very well, child!” she said critically with a shade of
complacence in her voice. It is true that Marcia had gone beyond orders in
purchasing and making garments unknown to her, yet the neatness and fit
could but reflect well upon her training. It did no harm for cousin Maria
to see what a child of her training could do. It was, on the whole, a very
creditable piece of work, and Madam Schuyler grew more reconciled to it as
Marcia came down toward them.
“Make it herself?” asked cousin Maria. “Why, Marsh, you did real well. My
Matilda does all her own clothes now. It’s time you were learning. It’s a
trifle longish to what you’ve been wearing them, isn’t it? But you’ll grow
into it, I dare say. Got your hair a new way too. I thought you were Kate
when you first started down stairs. You’ll make a good-looking young lady
when you grow up; only don’t be in too much hurry. Take your girlhood
while you’ve got it, is what I always tell Matilda.”
Matilda was well on to thirty and showed no signs of taking anything else.
Madam Schuyler smoothed an imaginary pucker across the shoulders and again
pronounced the work good.
“I picked berries and got the cloth,” confessed Marcia.
Madam Schuyler smiled benevolently and patted Marcia’s cheek.
“You needn’t have done that, child. Why didn’t you come to me for money?
You needed something new, and that is a very good purchase, a little
light, perhaps, but very pretty. We’ve been so busy with Kate’s things you
have been neglected.”
Marcia smiled with pleasure and passed into the dining room wondering what
power the visitor had over her stepmother to make her pass over this
digression from her rules so sweetly,—nay, even with praise.
At supper they all rallied Marcia upon her changed appearance. Her father
jokingly said that when the bridegroom arrived he would hardly know which
sister to choose, and he looked from one comely daughter to the other with
fatherly pride. He praised Marcia for doing the work so neatly, and
inwardly admired the courage and independence that prompted her to get the
money by her own unaided efforts rather than to ask for it, and later, as
he passed through the room where she was helping to remove the dishes from
the table, he paused and handed her a crisp five-dollar note. It had
occurred to him that one daughter was getting all the good things and the
other was having nothing. There was a pleasant tenderness in his eyes, a
recognition of her rights as a young woman, that made Marcia’s heart
exceedingly light. There was something strange about the influence this
little new frock seemed to have upon people.
Even Kate had taken a new tone with her. Much of the time at supper she
had sat staring at her sister. Marcia wondered about it as she walked down
toward the gate after her work was done. Kate had never seemed so quiet.
Was she just beginning to realize that she was leaving home forever, and
was she thinking how the home would be after she had left it? How she,
Marcia, would take the place of elder sister, with only little Harriet and
the boys, their stepsister and brothers, left? Was Kate sad over the
thought of going so far away from them, or was she feeling suddenly the
responsibility of the new position she was to occupy and the duties that
would be hers? No, that could not be it, for surely that would bring a
softening of expression, a sweetness of anticipation, and Kate’s
expression had been wondering, perplexed, almost troubled. If she had not
been her own sister Marcia would have added, “hard,” but she stopped short
at that.
It was a lovely evening. The twilight was not yet over as she stepped from
the low piazza that ran the length of the house bearing another above it
on great white pillars. A drapery of wistaria in full bloom festooned
across one end and half over the front. Marcia stepped back across the
stone flagging and driveway to look up the purple clusters of graceful
fairy-like shape that embowered the house, and thought how beautiful it
would look when the wedding guests should arrive the day after the morrow.
Then she turned into the little gravel path, box-bordered, that led to the
gate. Here and there on either side luxuriant blooms of dahlias, peonies
and roses leaned over into the night and peered at her. The yard had never
looked so pretty. The flowers truly had done their best for the occasion,
and they seemed to be asking some word of commendation from her.
They nodded their dewy heads sleepily as she went on.
To-morrow the children would be coming back from Aunt Eliza’s, where they
had been sent safely out of the way for a few days, and the last things
would arrive,—and _he_ would come. Not later than three in the afternoon
he ought to arrive, Kate had said, though there was a possibility that he
might come in the morning, but Kate was not counting upon it. He was to
drive from his home to Schenectady and, leaving his own horse there to
rest, come on by coach. Then he and Kate would go back in fine style to
Schenectady in a coach and pair, with a colored coachman, and at
Schenectady take their own horse and drive on to their home, a long
beautiful ride, so thought Marcia half enviously. How beautiful it would
be! What endless delightful talks they might have about the trees and
birds and things they saw in passing only Kate did not love to talk about
such things. But then she would be with David, and he talked beautifully
about nature or anything else. Kate would learn to love it if she loved
him. Did Kate love David? Of course she must or why should she marry him?
Marcia resented the thought that Kate might have other objects in view,
such as Mary Ann Fothergill had suggested for instance. Of course Kate
would never marry any man unless she loved him. That would be a dreadful
thing to do. Love was the greatest thing in the world. Marcia looked up to
the stars, her young soul thrilling with awe and reverence for the great
mysteries of life. She wondered again if life would open sometime for her
in some such great way, and if she would ever know better than now what it
meant. Would some one come and love her? Some one whom she could love in
return with all the fervor of her nature?
She had dreamed such dreams before many times, as girls will, while lovers
and future are all in one dreamy, sweet blending of rosy tints and joyous
mystery, but never had they come to her with such vividness as that night.
Perhaps it was because the household had recognized the woman in her for
the first time that evening. Perhaps because the vision she had seen
reflected in her mirror before she left her room that afternoon had opened
the door of the future a little wider than it had ever opened before.
She stood by the gate where the syringa and lilac bushes leaned over and
arched the way, and the honeysuckle climbed about the fence in a wild
pretty way of its own and flung sweetness on the air in vivid, erratic
whiffs.
The sidewalk outside was brick, and whenever she heard footsteps coming
she stepped back into the shadow of the syringa and was hidden from view.
She was in no mood to talk with any one.
She could look out into the dusty road and see dimly the horses and
carryalls as they passed, and recognize an occasional laughing voice of
some village maiden out with her best young man for a ride. Others
strolled along the sidewalk, and fragments of talk floated back. Almost
every one had a word to say about the wedding as they neared the gate, and
if Marcia had been in another mood it would have been interesting and
gratifying to her pride. Every one had a good word for Kate, though many
disapproved of her in a general way for principle’s sake.
Hanford Weston passed, with long, slouching gait, hands in his trousers
pockets, and a frightened, hasty, sideways glance toward the lights of the
house beyond. He would have gone in boldly to call if he had dared, and
told Marcia that he had done her bidding and now wanted a reward, but John
Middleton had joined him at the corner and he dared not make the attempt.
John would have done it in a minute if he had wished. He was brazen by
nature, but Hanford knew that he would as readily laugh at another for
doing it. Hanford shrank from a laugh more than from the cannon’s mouth,
so he slouched on, not knowing that his goddess held her breath behind a
lilac bush not three feet away, her heart beating in annoyed taps to be
again interrupted by him in her pleasant thoughts.
Merry, laughing voices mingling with many footsteps came sounding down the
street and paused beside the gate. Marcia knew the voices and again slid
behind the shrubbery that bordered all the way to the house, and not even
a gleam of her light frock was visible. They trooped in, three or four
girl friends of Kate’s and a couple of young men.
Marcia watched them pass up the box-bordered path from her shadowy
retreat, and thought how they would miss Kate, and wondered if the young
men who had been coming there so constantly to see her had no pangs of
heart that their friend and leader was about to leave them. Then she
smiled at herself in the dark. She seemed to be doing the retrospect for
Kate, taking leave of all the old friends, home, and life, in Kate’s
place. It was not her life anyway, and why should she bother herself and
sigh and feel this sadness creeping over her for some one else? Was it
that she was going to lose her sister? No, for Kate had never been much of
a companion to her. She had always put her down as a little girl and made
distinct and clear the difference in their ages. Marcia had been the
little maid to fetch and carry, the errand girl, and unselfish, devoted
slave in Kate’s life. There had been nothing protective and elder-sisterly
in her manner toward Marcia. At times Marcia had felt this keenly, but no
expression of this lack had ever crossed her lips, and afterwards her
devotion to her sister had been the greater, to in a measure compensate
for this reproachful thought.
But Marcia could not shake the sadness off. She stole in further among the
trees to think about it till the callers should go away. She felt no
desire to meet any of them.
She began again to wonder how she would feel if day after to-morrow were
her wedding day, and she were going away from home and friends and all the
scenes with which she had been familiar since babyhood. Would she mind
very much leaving them all? Father? Yes, father had been good to her, and
loved her and was proud of her in a way. But one does not lose one’s
father no matter how far one goes. A father is a father always; and Mr.
Schuyler was not a demonstrative man. Marcia felt that her father would
not miss her deeply, and she was not sure she would miss him so very much.
She had read to him a great deal and talked politics with him whenever he
had no one better by, but aside from that her life had been lived much
apart from him. Her stepmother? Yes, she would miss her as one misses a
perfect mentor and guide. She had been used to looking to her for
direction. She was thoroughly conscious that she had a will of her own and
would like a chance to exercise it, still, she knew that in many cases
without her stepmother she would be like a rudderless ship, a guideless
traveller. And she loved her stepmother too, as a young girl can love a
good woman who has been her guide and helper, even though there never has
been great tenderness between them. Yes, she would miss her stepmother,
but she would not feel so very sad over it. Harriet and the little
brothers? Oh, yes, she would miss them, they were dear little things and
devoted to her.
Then there were the neighbors, and the schoolmates, and the people of the
village. She would miss the minister,—the dear old minister and his wife.
Many a time she had gone with her arms full of flowers to the parsonage
down the street, and spent the afternoon with the minister’s wife. Her
smooth white hair under its muslin cap, and her soft wrinkled cheek were
very dear to the young girl. She had talked to this friend more freely
about her innermost thoughts than she had ever spoken to any living being.
Oh, she would miss the minister’s wife very much if she were to go away.
The names of her schoolmates came to her. Harriet Woodgate, Eliza
Buchanan, Margaret Fletcher, three girls who were her intimates. She would
miss them, of course, but how much? She could scarcely tell. Margaret
Fletcher more than the other two. Mary Ann Fothergill? She almost laughed
at the thought of anybody missing Mary Ann. John Middleton? Hanford
Weston? There was not a boy in the school she would miss for an instant,
she told herself with conviction. Not one of them realized her ideal.
There was much pairing off of boy and girl in school, but Marcia, like the
heroine of “Comin’ thro’ the Rye,” was good friends with all the boys and
intimate with none. They all counted it an honor to wait upon her, and she
cared not a farthing for any. She felt herself too young, of course, to
think of such things, but when she dreamed her day dreams the lover and
prince who figured in them bore no familiar form or feature. He was a
prince and these were only schoolboys.
The merry chatter of the young people in the house floated through the
open windows, and Marcia could hear her sister’s voice above them all.
Chameleon-like she was all gaiety and laughter now, since her gravity at
supper.
They were coming out the front door and down the walk. Kate was with them.
Marcia could catch glimpses of the girls’ white frocks as they came
nearer. She saw that her sister was walking with Captain Leavenworth. He
was a handsome young man who made a fine appearance in his uniform. He and
Kate had been intimate for two years, and it might have been more than
friendship had not Kate’s father interfered between them. He did not think
so well of the handsome young captain as did either his daughter Kate or
the United States Navy who had given him his position. Squire Schuyler
required deep integrity and strength of moral character in the man who
aspired to be his son-in-law. The captain did not number much of either
among his virtues.
There had been a short, sharp contest which had ended in the departure of
young Leavenworth from the town some three years before, and the temporary
plunging of Kate Schuyler into a season of tears and pouting. But it had
not been long before her gay laughter was ringing again, and her father
thought she had forgotten. About that time David Spafford had appeared and
promptly fallen in love with the beautiful girl, and the Schuyler mind was
relieved. So it came about that, upon the reappearance of the handsome
young captain wearing the insignia of his first honors, the Squire
received him graciously. He even felt that he might be more lenient about
his moral character, and told himself that perhaps he was not so bad after
all, he must have something in him or the United States government would
not have seen fit to honor him. It was easier to think so, now Kate was
safe.
Marcia watched her sister and the captain go laughing down to the gate,
and out into the street. She wondered that Kate could care to go out
to-night when it was to be almost her last evening at home; wondered, too,
that Kate would walk with Captain Leavenworth when she belonged to David
now. She might have managed it to go with one of the girls. But that was
Kate’s way. Kate’s ways were not Marcia’s ways.
Marcia wondered if she would miss Kate, and was obliged to acknowledge to
herself that in many ways her sister’s absence would be a relief to her.
While she recognized the power of her sister’s beauty and will over her,
she felt oppressed sometimes by the strain she was under to please, and
wearied of the constant, half-fretful, half playful fault-finding.
The gay footsteps and voices died away down the village street, and Marcia
ventured forth from her retreat. The moon was just rising and came up a
glorious burnished disk, silhouetting her face as she stood a moment
listening to the stirring of a bird among the branches. It was her will
to-night to be alone and let her fancies wander where they would. The
beauty and the mystery of a wedding was upon her, touching all her deeper
feelings, and she wished to dream it out and wonder over it. Again it came
to her what if the day after the morrow were her wedding day and she stood
alone thinking about it. She would not have gone off down the street with
a lot of giggling girls nor walked with another young man. She would have
stood here, or down by the gate—and she moved on toward her favorite arch
of lilac and syringa—yes, down by the gate in the darkness looking out and
thinking how it would be when he should come. She felt sure if it had been
herself who expected David she would have begun to watch for him a week
before the time he had set for coming, heralding it again and again to her
heart in joyous thrills of happiness, for who knew but he might come
sooner and surprise her? She would have rejoiced that to-night she was
alone, and would have excused herself from everything else to come down
there in the stillness and watch for him, and think how it would be when
he would really get there. She would hear his step echoing down the street
and would recognize it as his. She would lean far over the gate to listen
and watch, and it would come nearer and nearer, and her heart would beat
faster and faster, and her breath come quicker, until he was at last by
her side, his beautiful surprise for her in his eyes. But now, if David
should really try to surprise Kate by coming that way to-night he would
not find her waiting nor thinking of him at all, but off with Captain
Leavenworth.
With a passing pity for David she went back to her own dream. With one
elbow on the gate and her cheek in her hand she thought it all over. The
delayed evening coach rumbled up to the tavern not far away and halted.
Real footsteps came up the street, but Marcia did not notice them only as
they made more vivid her thoughts.
Her dream went on and the steps drew nearer until suddenly they halted and
some one appeared out of the shadow. Her heart stood still, for form and
face in the darkness seemed unreal, and the dreams had been most vivid.
Then with tender masterfulness two strong arms were flung about her and
her face was drawn close to his across the vine-twined gate until her lips
touched his. One long clinging kiss of tenderness he gave her and held her
head close against his breast for just a moment while he murmured: “My
darling! My precious, precious Kate, I have you at last!”
The spell was broken! Marcia’s dream was shattered. Her mind awoke. With a
scream she sprang from him, horror and a wild but holy joy mingling with
her perplexity. She put her hand upon her heart, marvelling over the
sweetness that lingered upon her lips, trying to recover her senses as she
faced the eager lover who opened the little gate and came quickly toward
her, as yet unaware that it was not Kate to whom he had been talking.