DEVELOPMENT.
"Sits the wind in that corner?"
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
"For courage mounteth with occasion."
KING JOHN.
The lassitude that comes with spring had told upon Mr. Gartney. He had
dyspepsia, too; and now and then came home early from the counting room
with a headache that sent him to his bed. Dr. Gracie dropped in,
friendly-wise, of an evening--said little that was strictly
professional--but held his hand a second longer, perhaps, than he would
have done for a mere greeting, and looked rather scrutinizingly at him
when Mr. Gartney's eyes were turned another way. Frequently he made some
slight suggestion of a journey, or other summer change.
"You must urge it, if you can, Mrs. Gartney," he said, privately, to the
wife. "I don't quite like his looks. Get him away from business, at
_almost any_ sacrifice," he came to add, at last.
"At _every_ sacrifice?" asked Mrs. Gartney, anxious and perplexed.
"Business is nearly all, you know."
"Life is more--reason is more," answered the doctor, gravely.
And the wife went about her daily task with a secret heaviness at her
heart.
"Father," said Faith, one evening, after she had read to him the paper
while he lay resting upon the sofa, "if you had money enough to live on,
how long would it take you to wind up your business?"
"It's pretty nearly wound up now! But what's the use of asking such a
question?"
"Because," said Faith, timidly, "I've got a little plan in my head, if
you'll only listen to it."
"Well, Faithie, I'll listen. What is it?"
And then Faith spoke it all out, at once.
"That you should give up all your business, father, and let this house,
and go to Cross Corners, and live at the farm."
Mr. Gartney started to his elbow. But a sudden pain that leaped in his
temples sent him back again. For a minute or so, he did not speak at
all. Then he said:
"Do you know what you are talking of, daughter?"
"Yes, father; I've been thinking it over a good while--since the night
we wrote down these things."
And she drew from her pocket the memorandum of stocks and dividends.
"You see you have six hundred and fifty dollars a year from these, and
this house would be six hundred more, and mother says she can manage on
that, in the country, if I will help her."
Mr. Gartney shaded his eyes with his hand. Not wholly, perhaps, to
shield them from the light.
"You're a good girl, Faithie," said he, presently; and there was
assuredly a little tremble in his voice.
"And so, you and your mother have talked it over, together?"
"Yes; often, lately. And she said I had better ask you myself, if I
wished it. She is perfectly willing. She thinks it would be good."
"Faithie," said her father, "you make me feel, more than ever, how much
I _ought_ to do for you!"
"You ought to get well and strong, father--that is all!" replied Faith,
with a quiver in her own voice.
Mr. Gartney sighed.
"I'm no more than a mere useless block of wood!"
"We shall just have to set you up, and make an idol of you, then!" cried
Faith, cheerily, with tears on her eyelashes, that she winked off.
There had been a ring at the bell while they were speaking; and now Mrs.
Gartney entered, followed by Dr. Gracie.
"Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor, after the usual greetings, and a
prolonged look at Mr. Gartney's flushed face, "what have you done to
your father?"
"I've been reading the paper," answered Faith, quietly, "and talking a
little."
"Mother!" said Mr. Gartney, catching his wife's hand, as she came round
to find a seat near him, "are you really in the plot, too?"
"I'm glad there is a plot," said the doctor, quickly, glancing round
with a keen inquiry. "It's time!"
"Wait till you hear it," said Mr. Gartney. "Are you in a hurry to lose
your patient?"
"Depends upon _how_!" replied the doctor, touching the truth in a jest.
"This is how. Here's a little jade who has the conceit and audacity to
propose to me to wind up my business (as if she understood the whole
process!), and let my house, and go to my farm at Cross Corners. What do
you think of that?"
"I think it would be the most sensible thing you ever did in your life!"
"Just exactly what Aunt Henderson said!" cried Faith, exultant.
"Aunt Faith, too! The conspiracy thickens! How long has all this been
discussing?" continued Mr. Gartney, fairly roused, and springing,
despite the doctor's request, to a sitting position, throwing off, as he
did so, the afghan Faith had laid over his feet.
"There hasn't been much discussion," said Faith. "Only when I went out
to Kinnicutt I got auntie to show me the house; and I asked her how she
thought it would be if we were to do such a thing, and she said just
what Dr. Gracie has said now. And, father, you _don't_ know how
beautiful it is there!"
"So you really want to go? and it isn't drumsticks?" queried the doctor,
turning round to Faith.
"Some drumsticks are very nice," said Faith.
"Gartney!" said Dr. Gracie, "you'd better mind what this girl of yours
says. She's worth attending to."
The wedge had been entered, and Faith's hand had driven it.
The plan was taken into consideration. Of course, such a change could
not be made without some pondering; but when almost the continual
thought of a family is concentrated upon a single subject, a good deal
of pondering and deciding can be done in three weeks. At the end of that
time an advertisement appeared in the leading Mishaumok papers, offering
the house in Hickory Street to be let; and Mrs. Gartney and Faith were
busy packing boxes to go to Kinnicutt.
Only a passing shade had been flung on the project which seemed to
brighten into sunshine, otherwise, the more they looked at it, when Mrs.
Gartney suddenly said, after a long "talking over," the second evening
after the proposal had been first broached:
"But what will Saidie say?"
Now Saidie--whom before it has been unnecessary to mention--was Faith's
elder sister, traveling at this moment in Europe, with a wealthy elder
sister of Mrs. Gartney.
"I never thought of Saidie," cried Faith.
Saidie was pretty sure not to like Kinnicutt. A young lady, educated at
a fashionable New York school--petted by an aunt who found nobody else
to pet, and who had money enough to have petted a whole asylum of
orphans--who had shone in London and Paris for two seasons past--was not
exceedingly likely to discover all the possible delights that Faith had
done, under the elms and chestnuts at Cross Corners.
But this could make no practical difference.
"She wouldn't like Hickory Street any better," said Faith, "if we
couldn't have parties or new furniture any more. And she's only a
visitor, at the best. Aunt Etherege will be sure to have her in New
York, or traveling about, ten months out of twelve. She can come to us
in June and October. I guess she'll like strawberries and cream,
and--whatever comes at the other season, besides red leaves."
Now this was kind, sisterly consideration of Faith, however little so it
seems, set down. It was very certain that no more acceptable provision
could be made for Saidie Gartney in the family plan, than to leave her
out, except where the strawberries and cream were concerned. In return,
she wrote gay, entertaining letters home to her mother and young sister,
and sent pretty French, or Florentine, or Roman ornaments for them to
wear. Some persons are content to go through life with such exchange of
sympathies as this.
By and by, Faith being in her own room, took out from her letter box the
last missive from abroad. There was something in this which vexed Faith,
and yet stirred her a little, obscurely.
All things are fair in love, war, and--story books! So, though she would
never have shown the words to you or me, we will peep over her shoulder,
and share them, "_en rapport_."
"And Paul Rushleigh, it seems, is as much as ever in Hickory Street!
Well--my little Faithie might make a far worse '_parti_' than that! Tell
papa I think he may be satisfied there!"
Faith would have cut off her little finger, rather than have had her
father dream that such a thing had been put into her head! But
unfortunately it was there, now, and could not be helped. She could
only--sitting there in her chamber window with the blood tingling to the
hair upon her temples, as if from every neighboring window of the
clustering houses about her, eyes could overlook and read what she was
reading now--"wish that Saidie would not write such things as that!"
For all that, it was one pleasant thing Faith would have to lose in
leaving Mishaumok. It was very agreeable to have him dropping in, with
his gay college gossip; and to dance the "German" with the nicest
partner in the Monday class; and to carry the flowers he so often sent
her. Had she done things greater than she knew in shutting her eyes
resolutely to all her city associations and enjoyments, and urging, for
her father's sake, this exodus in the desert?
Only that means were actually wanting to continue on as they were, and
that health must at any rate be first striven for as a condition to the
future enlargement of means, her father and mother, in their thought for
what their child hardly considered for herself, would surely have been
more difficult to persuade. They hoped that a summer's rest might enable
Mr. Gartney to undertake again some sort of lucrative business, after
business should have revived from its present prostration; and that a
year or two, perhaps, of economizing in the country, might make it
possible for them to return, if they chose, to the house in Hickory
Street.
There were leave takings to be gone through--questions to be answered,
and reasons to be given; for Mrs. Gartney, the polite wishes of her
visiting friends that "Mr. Gartney's health might allow them to return
to the city in the winter," with the wonder, unexpressed, whether this
were to be a final breakdown of the family, or not; and for Faith, the
horror and extravagant lamentations of her young _coterie_, at her
coming occultation--or setting, rather, out of their sky.
Paul Rushleigh demanded eagerly if there weren't any sober old minister
out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank.
Everybody promised to come as far as Kinnicutt "some time" to see them;
the good-bys were all said at last; the city cook had departed, and a
woman had been taken in her place who "had no objections to the country";
and on one of the last bright days of May they skimmed, steam-sped, over
the intervening country between the brick-and-stone-encrusted hills of
Mishaumok and the fair meadow reaches of Kinnicutt; and so disappeared
out of the places that had known them so long, and could yet, alas! do
so exceedingly well without them.
By the first of June nobody in the great city remembered, or remembered
very seriously to regard, the little gap that had been made in its
midst.