“This is your Aunt Clarinda!”
There was challenge in the severely spoken pronoun Aunt Hortense used. It
seemed to Marcia that she wished to remind her that all her old life and
relations were passed away, and she had nothing now but David’s,
especially David’s relatives. She shrank from lifting her eyes, expecting
to find the third aunt, who was older, as much sourer and sharper in
proportion to the other two, but she controlled herself and lifted her
flower face to meet a gentle, meek, old face set in soft white frills of a
cap, with white ribbons flying, and though the old lady leaned upon a
crutch she managed to give the impression that she had fairly flown in her
gladness to welcome her new niece. There was the lighting of a repressed
nature let free in her kind old face as she looked with true pleasure upon
the lovely young one, and Marcia felt herself folded in truly loving arms
in an embrace which her own passionate, much repressed, loving nature
returned with heartiness. At last she had found a friend!
She felt it every time she spoke, more and more. They walked out into the
garden almost immediately, and Aunt Clarinda insisted upon hobbling along
by Marcia’s side, though her sisters both protested that it would be too
hard for her that warm afternoon. Every time that Marcia spoke she felt
the kind old eyes upon her, and she knew that at least one of the aunts
was satisfied with her as a wife for David, for her eyes would travel from
David to Marcia and back again to David, and when they met Marcia’s there
was not a shade of disparagement in them.
It was rather a tiresome walk through a tiresome old garden, laid out in
the ways of the past generation, and bordered with much funereal box. The
sisters, Amelia and Hortense, took the new member of the family,
conscientiously, through every path, and faithfully told how each spot was
associated with some happening in the family history. Occasionally there
was a solemn pause for the purpose of properly impressing the new member
of the house, and Amelia wiped her eyes with her carefully folded
handkerchief. Marcia felt extremely like laughing. She was sure that if
Kate had been obliged to pass through this ordeal she would have giggled
out at once and said some shockingly funny thing that would have horrified
the aunts beyond forgiveness. The thought of this nerved her to keep a
sober face. She wondered what David thought of it all, but when she looked
at him she wondered no longer, for David stood as one waiting for a
certain ceremony to be over, a ceremony which he knew to be inevitable,
but which was wholly and familiarly uninteresting. He did not even see how
it must strike the girl who was going through it all for him, for David’s
thoughts were out on the flood-tide of sorrow, drifting against the rocks
of the might-have-been.
They went in to tea presently, just when the garden was growing loveliest
with a tinge of the setting sun, and Marcia longed to run up and down the
little paths like a child and call to them all to catch her if they could.
The house was dark and stately and gloomy.
“You are coming up to my room for a few minutes after supper,” whispered
Aunt Clarinda encouragingly as they passed into the dark hall. The supper
table was alight with a fine old silver candelabra whose many wavering
lights cast a solemn, grotesque shadow on the different faces.
Beside her plate the young bride saw an ostentatious plate of puffy soda
biscuits, and involuntarily her eyes searched the table for the bread
plate.
Aunt Clarinda almost immediately pounced upon the bread plate and passed
it with a smile to Marcia, and as Marcia with an answering smile took a
generous slice she heard the other two aunts exclaim in chorus, “Oh, don’t
pass her the bread, Clarinda; take it away sister, quick! She does not
like salt-rising! It is unpleasant to her!”
Then with blazing cheeks the girl protested that she wished to keep the
bread, that they were mistaken, she had not said it was obnoxious to her,
but had merely given them her stepmother’s opinion when they asked. They
must excuse her for her seeming rudeness, for she had not intended to hurt
them. She presumed salt-rising bread was very nice; it looked beautiful.
This was a long speech for shy Marcia to make before so many strangers,
but David’s wondering, troubled eyes were upon her, questioning what it
all might mean, and she felt she could do anything to save David from more
suffering or annoyance of any kind.
David said little. He seemed to perceive that there had been an unpleasant
prelude to this, and perhaps knew from former experience that the best way
to do was to change the subject. He launched into a detailed account of
their wedding journey. Marcia on her part was grateful to him, for when
she took the first brave bite into the very puffy, very white slice of
bread she had taken, she perceived that it was much worse than that which
had been baked for their homecoming, and not only justified all her
stepmother’s execrations, but in addition it was sour. For an instant,
perceiving down the horoscope of time whole calendars full of such suppers
with the aunts, and this bread, her soul shuddered and shrank. Could she
ever learn to like it? Impossible! Could she ever tolerate it? Could she?
She doubted. Then she swallowed bravely and perceived that the impossible
had been accomplished once. It could be again, but she must go slowly else
she might have to eat two slices instead of one. David was kind. He had
roused himself to help his helper. Perhaps something in her girlish beauty
and helplessness, helpless here for his sake, appealed to him. At least
his eyes sought hers often with a tender interest to see if she were
comfortable, and once, when Aunt Amelia asked if they stopped nowhere for
rest on their journey, his eyes sought Marcia’s with a twinkling reminder
of their roadside nap, and he answered, “Once, Aunt Amelia. No, it was not
a regular inn. It was quieter than that. Not many people stopping there.”
Marcia’s merry laugh almost bubbled forth, but she suppressed it just in
time, horrified to think what Aunt Hortense would say, but somehow after
David had said that her heart felt a trifle lighter and she took a big
bite from the salt-rising and smiled as she swallowed it. There were worse
things in the world, after all, than salt-rising, and, when one could
smother it in Aunt Amelia’s peach preserves, it was quite bearable.
Aunt Clarinda slipped her off to her own room after supper, and left the
other two sisters with their beloved idol, David. In their stately parlor
lighted with many candles in honor of the occasion, they sat and talked in
low tones with him, their voices suggesting condolence with his misfortune
of having married out of the family, and disapproval with the married
state in general. Poor souls! How their hard, loving hearts would have
been wrung could they but have known the true state of the case! And,
strange anomaly, how much deeper would have been their antagonism toward
poor, self-sacrificing, loving Marcia! Just because she had dared to think
herself fit for David, belonging as she did to her renegade sister Kate.
But they did not know, and for this fact David was profoundly thankful.
Those were not the days of rapid transit, of telegraph and telephone, nor
even of much letter writing, else the story would probably have reached
the aunts even before the bride and bridegroom arrived at home. As it was,
David had some hope of keeping the tragedy of his life from the ears of
his aunts forever. Patiently he answered their questions concerning the
wedding, questions that were intended to bring out facts showing whether
David had received his due amount of respect, and whether the family he
had so greatly honored felt the burden of that honor sufficiently.
Upstairs in a quaint old-fashioned room Aunt Clarinda was taking Marcia’s
face in her two wrinkled hands and looking lovingly into her eyes; then
she kissed her on each rosy cheek and said:
“Dear child! You look just as I did when I was young. You wouldn’t think
it from me now, would you? But it’s true. I might not have grown to be
such a dried-up old thing if I had had somebody like David. I’m so glad
you’ve got David. He’ll take good care of you. He’s a dear boy. He’s
always been good to me. But you mustn’t let the others crush those roses
out of your cheeks. They crushed mine out. They wouldn’t let me have my
life the way I wanted it, and the pink in my cheeks all went back into my
heart and burst it a good many years ago. But they can’t spoil your life,
for you’ve got David and that’s worth everything.”
Then she kissed her on the lips and cheeks and eyes and let her go. But
that one moment had given Marcia a glimpse into another life-story and put
her in touch forever with Aunt Clarinda, setting athrob the chord of
loving sympathy.
When they came into the parlor the other two aunts looked up with a quick,
suspicious glance from one to the other and then fastened disapproving
eyes upon Marcia. They rather resented it that she was so pretty. Hannah
had been their favorite, and Hannah was beautiful in their eyes. They
wanted no other to outshine her. Albeit they would be proud enough before
their neighbors to have it said that their nephew’s wife was beautiful.
After a chilling pause in which David was wondering anew at Marcia’s
beauty, Aunt Hortense asked, as though it were an omission from the former
examination, “Did you ever make a shirt?”
“Oh, plenty of them!” said Marcia, with a merry laugh, so relieved that
she fairly bubbled. “I think I could make a shirt with my eyes shut.”
Aunt Clarinda beamed on her with delight. A shirt was something she had
never succeeded in making right. It was one of the things which her
sisters had against her that she could not make good shirts. Any one who
could not make a shirt was deficient. Clarinda was deficient. She could
not make a shirt. Meekly had she tried year after year. Humbly had she
ripped out gusset and seam and band, having put them on upside down or
inside out. Never could she learn the ins and outs of a shirt. But her old
heart trembled with delight that the new girl, who was going to take the
place in her heart of her old dead self and live out all the beautiful
things which had been lost to her, had mastered this one great
accomplishment in which she had failed so supremely.
But Aunt Hortense was not pleased. True, it was one of the seven virtues
in her mind which a young wife should possess, and she had carefully
instructed Hannah Heath for a number of years back, while Hannah bungled
out a couple for her father occasionally, but Aunt Hortense had been sure
that if Hannah ever became David’s wife she might still have the honor of
making most of David’s shirts. That had been her happy task ever since
David had worn a shirt, and she hoped to hold the position of shirt-maker
to David until she left this mortal clay. Therefore Aunt Hortense was not
pleased, even though David’s wife was not lacking, and, too, even though
she foreheard herself telling her neighbors next day how many shirts
David’s wife had made.
“Well, David will not need any for some time,” she said grimly. “I made
him a dozen just before he was married.”
Marcia reflected that it seemed to be impossible to make any headway into
the good graces of either Aunt Hortense or Aunt Amelia. Aunt Amelia then
took her turn at a question.
“Hortense,” said she, and there was an ominous inflection in the word as
if the question were portentous, “have you asked our new niece by what
name she desires us to call her?”
“I have not,” said Miss Hortense solemnly, “but I intend to do so
immediately,” and then both pairs of steely eyes were leveled at the girl.
Marcia suddenly was face to face with a question she had not considered,
and David started upright from his position on the hair-cloth sofa. But if
a thunderbolt had fallen from heaven and rendered him utterly unconscious
David would not have been more helpless than he was for the time being.
Marcia saw the mingled pain and perplexity in David’s face, and her own
courage gathered itself to brave it out in some way. The color flew to her
cheeks, and rose slowly in David’s, through heavy veins that swelled in
his neck till he could feel their pulsation against his stock, but his
smooth shaven lips were white. He felt that a moment had come which he
could not bear to face.
Then with a hesitation that was but pardonable, and with a shy sweet look,
Marcia answered; and though her voice trembled just the least bit, her
true, dear eyes looked into the battalion of steel ones bravely.
“I would like you to call me Marcia, if you please.”
“Marcia!” Miss Hortense snipped the word out as if with scissors of
surprise.
But there was a distinct relaxation about Miss Amelia’s mouth. She heaved
a relieved sigh. Marcia was so much better than Kate, so much more
classical, so much more to be compared with Hannah, for instance.
“Well, I’m glad!” she allowed herself to remark. “David has been calling
you ‘Kate’ till it made me sick, such a frivolous name and no sense in it
either. Marcia sounds quite sensible. I suppose Katharine is your middle
name. Do you spell it with a K or a C?”
But the knocker sounded on the street door and Marcia was spared the
torture of a reply. She dared not look at David’s face, for she knew there
must be pain and mortification mingling there, and she hoped that the
trying subject would not come up again for discussion.
The guests began to arrive. Old Mrs. Heath and her daughter-in-law and
grand-daughter came first.
Hannah’s features were handsome and she knew exactly how to manage her
shapely hands with their long white fingers. The soft delicate
undersleeves fell away from arms white and well moulded, and she carried
her height gracefully. Her hair was elaborately stowed upon the top of her
head in many puffs, ending in little ringlets carelessly and coquettishly
straying over temple, or ears, or gracefully curved neck. She wore a frock
of green, and its color sent a pang through the bride’s heart to realize
that perhaps it had been worn with an unkindly purpose. Nevertheless
Hannah Heath was beautiful and fascinated Marcia. She resolved to try to
think the best of her, and to make her a friend if possible. Why, after
all, should she be to blame for wanting David? Was he not a man to be
admired and desired? It was unwomanly, of course, that she had let it be
known, but perhaps her relatives were more to blame than herself. At least
Marcia made up her mind to try and like her.
Hannah’s frock was of silk, not a common material in those days, soft and
shimmery and green enough to take away the heart from anything blue that
was ever made, but Hannah was stately and her skin as white as the lily
she resembled, in her bright leaf green.
Hannah chose to be effusive and condescending to the bride, giving the
impression that she and David had been like brother and sister all their
lives and that she might have been his choice if she had chosen, but as
she had not chosen, she was glad that David had found some one wherewith
to console himself. She did not say all this in so many words, but Marcia
found that impression left after the evening was over.
With sweet dignity Marcia received her introductions, given in Miss
Amelia’s most commanding tone, “Our niece, Marcia!”
“Marshy! Marshy!” the bride heard old Mrs. Heath murmur to Miss Spafford.
“Why, I thought ’twas to be Kate!”
“Her name is Marcia,” said Miss Amelia in a most satisfied tone; “you must
have misunderstood.”
Marcia caught a look in Miss Heath’s eyes, alert, keen, questioning, which
flashed all over her like something searching and bright but not friendly.
She felt a painful shyness stealing over her and wished that David were by
her side. She looked across the room at him. His face had recovered its
usual calmness, though he looked pale. He was talking on his favorite
theme with old Mr. Heath: the newly invented steam engine and its
possibilities. He had forgotten everything else for the time, and his face
lighted with animation as he tried to answer William Heath’s arguments
against it.
“Have you read what the Boston _Courier_ said, David? ’Long in June it was
I think,” Marcia heard Mr. Heath ask. Indeed his voice was so large that
it filled the room, and for the moment Marcia had been left to herself
while some new people were being ushered in. “It says, David, that ‘the
project of a railroad from Bawston to Albany is impracticable as everybody
knows who knows the simplest rule of arithmetic, and the expense would be
little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts;
and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows would be as
useless as a railroad from Bawston to the moon.’ There, David, what do ye
think o’ that?” and William Heath slapped David on the knee with his
broad, fat fist and laughed heartily, as though he had him in a tight
corner.
Marcia would have given a good deal to slip in beside David on the sofa
and listen to the discussion. She wanted with all her heart to know how he
would answer this man who could be so insufferably wise, but there was
other work for her, and her attention was brought back to her own
uncomfortable part by Hannah Heath’s voice:
“Come right ovah heah, Mistah Skinnah, if you want to meet the bride. You
must speak verra nice to me or I sha’n’t introduce you at all.”
A tall lanky man with stiff sandy hair and a rubicund complexion was
making his way around the room. He had a small mouth puckered a little as
if he might be going to whistle, and his chin had the look of having been
pushed back out of the way, a stiff fuzz of sandy whiskers made a hedge
down either cheek, and but for that he was clean shaven. The skin over his
high cheek bones was stretched smooth and tight as if it were a trifle too
close a fit for the genial cushion beneath. He did not look brilliant, and
he certainly was not handsome, but there was an inoffensive desire to
please about him. He was introduced as Mr. Lemuel Skinner. He bowed low
over Marcia’s hand, said a few embarrassed, stiff sentences and turned to
Hannah Heath with relief. It was evident that Hannah was in his eyes a
great and shining light, to which he fluttered as naturally as does the
moth to the candle. But Hannah did not scruple to singe his wings whenever
she chose. Perhaps she knew, no matter how badly he was burned he would
only flutter back again whenever she scintillated. She had turned her back
upon him now, and left him to Marcia’s tender mercies. Hannah was engaged
in talking to a younger man. “Harry Temple, from New York,” Lemuel
explained to Marcia.
The young man, Harry Temple, had large lazy eyes and heavy dark hair.
There was a discontented look in his face, and a looseness about the set
of his lips that Marcia did not like, although she had to admit that he
was handsome. Something about him reminded her of Captain Leavenworth, and
she instinctively shrank from him. But Harry Temple had no mind to talk to
any one but Marcia that evening, and he presently so managed it that he
and she were ensconced in a corner of the room away from others. Marcia
felt perturbed. She did not feel flattered by the man’s attentions, and
she wanted to be at the other end of the room listening to the
conversation.
She listened as intently as she might between sentences, and her keen ears
could catch a word or two of what David was saying. After all, it was not
so much the new railroad project that she cared about, though that was
strange and interesting enough, but she wanted to watch and listen to
David.
Harry Temple said a great many pretty things to Marcia. She did not half
hear some of them at first, but after a time she began to realize that she
must have made a good impression, and the pretty flush in her cheeks grew
deeper. She did little talking. Mr. Temple did it all. He told her of New
York. He asked if she were not dreadfully bored with this little town and
its doings, and bewailed her lot when he learned that she had not had much
experience there. Then he asked if she had ever been to New York and began
to tell of some of its attractions. Among other things he mentioned some
concerts, and immediately Marcia was all attention. Her dark eyes glowed
and her speaking face gave eager response to his words. Seeing he had
interested her at last, he kept on, for he was possessor of a glib tongue,
and what he did not know he could fabricate without the slightest
compunction. He had been about the world and gathered up superficial
knowledge enough to help him do this admirably, therefore he was able to
use a few musical terms, and to bring before Marcia’s vivid imagination
the scene of the performance of Handel’s great “Creation” given in Boston,
and of certain musical events that were to be attempted soon in New York.
He admitted that he could play a little upon the harpsichord, and, when he
learned that Marcia could play also and that she was the possessor of a
piano, one of the latest improved makes, he managed to invite himself to
play upon it. Marcia found to her dismay that she actually seemed to have
invited him to come some afternoon when her husband was away. She had only
said politely that she would like to hear him play sometime, and expressed
her great delight in music, and he had done the rest, but in her
inexperience somehow it had happened and she did not know what to do.
It troubled her a good deal, and she turned again toward the other end of
the room, where the attention of most of the company was riveted upon the
group who were discussing the railroad, its pros and cons. David was the
centre of that group.
“Let us go over and hear what they are saying,” she said, turning to her
companion eagerly.
“Oh, it is all stupid politics and arguments about that ridiculous
fairy-tale of a railroad scheme. You would not enjoy it,” answered the
young man disappointedly. He saw in Marcia a beautiful young soul, the
only one who had really attracted him since he had left New York, and he
wished to become intimate enough with her to enjoy himself.
It mattered not to him that she was married to another man. He felt secure
in his own attractions. He had ever been able to while away the time with
whom he chose, why should a simple village maiden resist him? And this was
an unusual one, the contour of her head was like a Greek statue.
Nevertheless he was obliged to stroll after her. Once she had spoken. She
had suddenly become aware that they had been in their corner together a
long time, and that Aunt Amelia’s cold eyes were fastened upon her in
disapproval.
“The farmers would be ruined, man alive!” Mr. Heath was saying. “Why, all
the horses would have to be killed, because they would be wholly useless
if this new fandango came in, and then where would be a market for the
wheat and oats?”
“Yes, an’ I’ve heard some say the hens wouldn’t lay, on account of the
noise,” ventured Lemuel Skinner in his high voice. “And think of the fires
from the sparks of the engine. I tell you it would be dangerous.” He
looked over at Hannah triumphantly, but Hannah was endeavoring to signal
Harry Temple to her side and did not see nor hear.
“I tell you,” put in Mr. Heath’s heavy voice again, “I tell you, Dave, it
can’t be done. It’s impractical. Why, no car could advance against the
wind.”
“They told Columbus he couldn’t sail around the earth, but he did it!”
There was sudden stillness in the room, for it was Marcia’s clear, grave
voice that had answered Mr. Heath’s excited tones, and she had not known
she was going to speak aloud. It came before she realized it. She had been
used to speak her mind sometimes with her father, but seldom when there
were others by, and now she was covered with confusion to think what she
had done. The aunts, Amelia and Hortense, were shocked. It was so
unladylike. A woman should not speak on such subjects. She should be
silent and leave such topics to her husband.
“Deah me, she’s strong minded, isn’t she?” giggled Hannah Heath to Lemuel,
who had taken the signals to himself and come to her side.
“Quite so, quite so!” murmured Lemuel, his lips looking puffier and more
cherry-fied than ever and his chin flattened itself back till he looked
like a frustrated old hen who did not understand the perplexities of life
and was clucking to find out, after having been startled half out of its
senses.
But Marcia was not wholly without consolation, for David had flashed a
look of approval at her and had made room for her to sit down by his side
on the sofa. It was almost like belonging to him for a minute or two.
Marcia felt her heart glow with something new and pleasant.
Mr. William Heath drew his heavy grey brows together and looked at her
grimly over his spectacles, poking his bristly under-lip out in
astonishment, bewildered that he should have been answered by a gentle,
pretty woman, all frills and sparkle like his own daughter. He had been
wont to look upon a woman as something like a kitten,—that is, a young
woman,—and suddenly the kitten had lifted a velvet paw and struck him
squarely in the face. He had felt there were claws in the blow, too, for
there had been a truth behind her words that set the room a mocking him.
“Well, Dave, you’ve got your wife well trained already!” he laughed,
concluding it was best to put a smiling front upon the defeat. “She knows
just when to come in and help when your side’s getting weak!”
They served cake and raspberry vinegar then, and a little while after
everybody went home. It was later than the hours usually kept in the
village, and the lights in most of the houses were out, or burning dimly
in upper stories. The voices of the guests sounded subdued in the misty
waning moonlight air. Marcia could hear Hannah Heath’s voice ahead
giggling affectedly to Harry Temple and Lemuel Skinner, as they walked one
on either side of her, while her father and mother and grandmother came
more slowly.
David drew Marcia’s hand within his arm and walked with her quietly down
the street, making their steps hushed instinctively that they might so
seem more removed from the others. They were both tired with the unusual
excitement and the strain they had been through, and each was glad of the
silence of the other.
But when they reached their own doorstep David said: “You spoke well,
child. You must have thought about these things.”
Marcia felt a sob rising in a tide of joy into her throat. Then he was not
angry with her, and he did not disapprove as the two aunts had done. Aunt
Clarinda had kissed her good-night and murmured, “You are a bright little
girl, Marcia, and you will make a good wife for David. You will come soon
to see me, won’t you?” and that had made her glad, but these words of
David’s were so good and so unexpected that Marcia could hardly hide her
happy tears.
“I was afraid I had been forward,” murmured Marcia in the shadow of the
front stoop.
“Not at all, child, I like to hear a woman speak her mind,—that is,
allowing she has any mind to speak. That can’t be said of all women.
There’s Hannah Heath, for instance. I don’t believe she would know a
railroad project from an essay on ancient art.”
After that the house seemed a pleasant place aglow as they entered it, and
Marcia went up to her rest with a lighter heart.
But the child knew not that she had made a great impression that night
upon all who saw her as being beautiful and wise.
The aunts would not express it even to each other,—for they felt in duty
bound to discountenance her boldness in speaking out before the men and
making herself so prominent, joining in their discussions,—but each in
spite of her convictions felt a deep satisfaction that their neighbors had
seen what a beautiful and bright wife David had selected. They even felt
triumphant over their favorite Hannah, and thought secretly that Marcia
compared well with her in every way, but they would not have told this
even to themselves, no, not for worlds.
So the kindly gossipy town slept, and the young bride became a part of its
daily life.