AFTER FOUR YEARS.
“Silently as the spring-time
Its crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees, on all the hills,
Open their thousand leaves”—
So, silently fled the next four years, and I come now to the glorious
day when summer was everywhere, from the perfume of the new-mown hay on
the lawn to the golden flecks of sunshine on the river, and the musical
hum of happy animal life heard on every side.
I had been an invalid for a long time, and had mingled but little with
the outer world. With the affairs at Schuyler Hill, however, I was
pretty well acquainted, for Edith and I were great friends now. At first
she had stood aloof from me, but when she heard of my illness, she came
at once, and, with kind words and many delicate attentions, made my life
far happier than it could have been without her. After the little grave
was made under the evergreen and Gertie went away, she came to me
oftener, and, during the long rides which we took together in her pretty
phaeton, she told me much of her life at Schuyler Hill. A very happy
life it had been for the most part, though it had its dark side, as what
life has not? Miss Rossiter had been a trouble while she stayed, and,
even after she was gone, her influence was felt in Julia’s fitful moods
and peculiar temper after the receipt of the letters, in which allusions
were always made to “that woman who has usurped your poor dear mother’s
place.”
And still Miss Rossiter came every summer to the Hill, and stayed a
month or six weeks, and took upon herself such insufferable airs that
Edith was glad when she was gone, and made the day of her departure a
sort of jubilee.
Julia was now nearly twenty-two, and very handsome it was thought,
though her beauty was of that dark, bold, dashing style which I did not
admire. Emma, with her paleness and light brown hair, suited me better;
for there was a sweet, gentle expression in her face, while in grace of
manner and form she far excelled her haughty sister, who patronized her
generally.
Since their coming out neither of the young ladies had been much at
home, and we missed the style, and dash, and city airs which they used
to bring us, and had only Rosamond Barton and Mrs. Schuyler to admire
and copy,—except, indeed, on the rare occasions when Gertie was allowed
to pass her vacations in Hampstead. I say _allowed_, for the colonel
managed so adroitly that she never came to Schuyler Hill when Godfrey
was there or expected, but spent her vacations elsewhere in happy
ignorance of the real reason for her banishment.
And so we did not see her often in our quiet town; but when we had her
with us it was a season of rejoicing, and we made the most of it. How I
used to wait and listen for the rapid step and the clear, ringing voice,
which always set my heart throbbing, and did me so much good. I did not
wonder that everybody loved her, from old Mrs. Vandeusenhisen in the
Hollow, to Tom Barton on the Ridge, and when the former brought me fresh
eggs for my breakfast, and told me with a beaming face that “her young
lady came home last night looking handsomer than ever,” I knew she meant
Gertie Westbrooke; and when Tom Barton looked in and said, with a falter
in his voice, “She went this morning,” I knew that he meant Gertie, too,
and pitied him for the hope he was cherishing, and which I was sure
would never be fulfilled.
Since the memorable day when Mary Rogers spoke so boldly for the child
whom she would not have compromised by so much as a breath of gossip,
Tom Barton had kept his promise, and guarded the little girl as
carefully as if she had been his sister, until she ceased to be a little
girl, and he saw her in all the bright loveliness of sixteen, and then
Tom went down before her charms, and asked her to quit school, and be
his wife, and live with him at the Ridge, and snub Miss Julia Schuyler
as she had been snubbed by her.
“No, Mr. Barton, I cannot be your wife. No girl would be that, if she
loved you ever so much,” Gertie had answered, fearlessly, while Tom
blushed painfully, and knew just what she meant, and swore he would
reform, and not look so much like a walking beer-barrel.
And he did try to reform, and took the pledge, and broke it in three
weeks, and had the delirium tremens, and saw all manner of snakes
twisting themselves around Gertie Westbrooke, on whom he called
piteously in his agony. Then he took the pledge again, and kept it, and
gradually the high color left his face, and his figure began to assume a
better shape, and his clothes were not so tight, and he came to see me
so often that the meddlesome ones in town wondered if old Ettie
Armstrong could be foolish enough to think that boy wanted anything of
her!
“Why, she is forty at least,” good Mrs. Smithers said, averring that she
knew, because the day I was born their bees swarmed, and her husband
broke his neck trying to saw off the limb where they had settled.
Of course such evidence was unanswerable, but as I knew just how old I
was, and why Tom Barton visited me so often, I did not care to
contradict the story of the bees, and I let Tom Barton come whenever he
pleased to talk of his “best girl,” as he called her, and to keep him
from the “Golden Eagle,” the low tavern where he had slipped so often.
At last, however, Gertie’s education was finished, and she came home to
stay, and the colonel welcomed her kindly, and thought how beautiful she
was, and felt his blood stir a little when she raised herself on tiptoe
and kissed him as a matter of course. Julia never did that and Emma but
seldom, while Edith kept most of her kisses now for the two-year-old boy
Arthur, so that the cold, reserved man was not much used to kisses of
late, and felt the touch of Gertie’s lips for hours, and caught himself
contrasting her with Alice Creighton, whom he had last seen so
elaborately dressed with powder on her face and every hair seeming to
stand on end. But thirty thousand a year covers many defects, and Alice
was still the colonel’s ideal of a daughter-in-law when he welcomed
Gertie home.
She had been there three months, and on the June morning of which I
write I was going up to call upon her for the first time since her
return. I found her in the garden, in her big sun-hat and heavy gloves,
cutting and arranging flowers with which to decorate the house, for a
party of young people was coming from New York that day, and everything
and everybody was in a great state of expectancy. During the last year
and a half Robert Macpherson had been in Europe looking after his
inheritance, which by the death of some one had come indisputably to him
at last. Several times he had written to Godfrey urging him to cross the
ocean with his sisters and Miss Creighton, and visit him in his Highland
home; and as nothing could please the young ladies better, the party had
sailed for Europe in time to keep the Easter festival at _Glenthorpe_,
Robert’s handsome country-seat. But they had now returned to New York,
and Robert Macpherson was with them, and for a week or more they had
been stopping with Miss Rossiter and waiting for Rosamond Barton, who
was to accompany them to Hampstead. It was two years since Godfrey was
graduated, and since that time he had been studying his profession in
the city until he went with his sisters for a short vacation to Europe.
“Only think, I have not seen Godfrey for more than four years, and have
almost forgotten how he looks,” Gertie said, after welcoming me to the
garden, and telling me of the expected guests. “It is queer that I have
not seen him, but he never happened to be home when I was,” she
continued, as she gathered up the bouquets and went with me to the
house, where she began to distribute the flowers, putting the most, I
noticed, in Godfrey’s room, and seeming more interested in that than in
all the others.
Edith was in her nursery, and when Gertie’s decorations were completed
and she came and stood by her, I was struck as I had been more than once
before by their resemblance to each other.
They certainly might have been sisters, though Gertie was in her sweet
spring-time and Edith in the fulness of her summer. Time had dealt
lightly with her, and she looked scarcely older than when she came a
bride to Schuyler Hill. She was very happy, too, though I saw she
dreaded the coming of the young people from New York. But not for
herself. She had reached a height where neither Alice’s haughtiness, nor
Julia’s arrogance, nor Miss Rossiter’s insolence, could touch her. She
was only anxious for Gertie, who might be treated coldly, if not rudely,
by some of the party. And when she remembered the fear which had for so
many years influenced every act of her husband toward Gertie, and,
looking at the beautiful girl, remembered what Godfrey was, she
trembled, notwithstanding the piece of news which she had heard the
previous night, and which she communicated to me, with Gertie sitting in
the deep window fanning herself with her garden hat, and rubbing the
scratch she had received among the roses.
“By the way,” Edith said, “the colonel had a letter from Godfrey last
night, and it seems the engagement he has so long desired has at last
come about.”
“Whose engagement?” I asked.
“Godfrey’s and Miss Creighton’s.”
“I supposed that was settled long ago.”
“It was by the parents, but not by the parties most interested. Godfrey
has never manifested any great degree of fervor, and has rather made
light of it, I think; but it is done now, and they will be married as
soon as he gets his profession, possibly sooner. The colonel is greatly
rejoiced.”
I glanced at Gertie, still rubbing and blowing the scratch on her hand,
but if the news of Godfrey’s approaching marriage produced any effect
upon her it was not visible. Her bright color was just as bright and her
blue eyes just as placid in their expression, unless, indeed, there was
a little wonder in them as she looked up quickly and said:
“A newly engaged couple,—won’t that be nice? How do you suppose Mr.
Godfrey will act as an engaged man? I always think of him as a boy, and
still he must be twenty-four.”
And yet in her heart there was a shadow of regret that Godfrey should be
wasted upon Alice Creighton, who never liked her, and who might make
Godfrey dislike her, too.
“She shall not do that,” she thought, when alone in her own room she was
reflecting upon the news which had dimmed somewhat the brightness of the
day. “I’ll be so kind and good to her that she cannot help liking me,
and so I’ll gain her friendship instead of losing Godfrey’s.”
With this end in view, she transferred a part of the flowers from
Godfrey’s room to that of his _fiancée_, where she rearranged the
furniture, and into which she brought her own handsome reading chair,
Edith’s gift on her last birthday. Remembering Alice’s indolent,
lounging habits, and how much she was addicted to what Godfrey called
“lying around loose,” she knew the chair would just suit the languid
little lady, and placed it by the window where the finest view of the
river was to be had. Later in the day she dressed herself for the
evening and wore her prettiest white muslin, with the fluted ruffles and
ribbons of blue, and then went down to the piazza where the colonel and
Edith were waiting for their guests.