MILESTONES
Georgiana would not have believed that it would be a full year before
she should have a chance to see for herself what sort of life Jeannette
and Stuart were making for themselves under the conditions which seemed
such doubtful ones. But so it turned out.
It had been before Jeannette's marriage that Georgiana found a change
coming in her own life, and the months of the summer and autumn which
followed were busy with the happy preparations for the new experience.
In January her first son was born, and she learned that even a full and
joyous partnership between two human beings is not the most complete
thing that can happen to them. When she saw her husband take the round,
little pink-blanketed bundle in his arms for the first time, and watched
his face as he explored the tiny features for signs of the future, her
heart beat high with such rich content as she had not dreamed of.
"Strange, isn't it, dear!" Craig said, when he had laid the pink bundle
back in the arms of the nurse, who bore it away to the pretty nursery
close at hand. "It's an old miracle always new, and never so wonderful
as when it comes to us for the first time--how that little life can be
neither you nor I, yet both of us in one. Big possibilities are wrapped
up in that bit of flesh and blood; it's going to be a great interest,
the watching them begin to show."
"Oh, yes!" she murmured, lying quietly with her hand beneath her cheek,
too weary and too happy for speech.
"I wonder if I dare to tell you how soon it was after I knew you that I
began to think of you as playing this part in my life," he said very
softly.
"Did you? I'm so glad." It was hardly more than a whisper.
"Are you glad? I often think a girl little dreams of how often that
vision comes to a man long before she has thought of it at all. I was
only a very young man when I began to think of it. Even when there was
no woman in my mind I used to plan what I would do for my own son when I
should have him. And when I saw you I thought--with the greatest
reverence, darling: 'If _she_ might be my son's mother!'"
He did not need the look her eyes gave him to tell him how this touched
her. When he went quietly away to leave her for the long sleep she
needed it was with the consciousness that the bond between them was
more absolute than it had ever been.
It was in the following June, on the anniversary of the marriage of the
James McKenzie Stuarts, that the Jefferson Craigs had their first
opportunity to see with their own eyes how that marriage was prospering.
Letters from Jeannette had come to Georgiana from time to time, with an
occasional postscript from Stuart, and these letters always breathed of
happiness.
"But one can't be perfectly sure from letters," Georgiana argued. "After
all the opposition and skepticism they would never own to anybody that
life didn't flow like a rose-bordered stream. But one glimpse of their
faces will tell the story. If Jeannette has a certain look I've often
seen on the faces of girls who have been married about a year I shall
guess what causes it. As for Jimps--he will be as easily read as an open
book. Jeff, you won't let anything prevent our being there for the fête
they ask us for?"
"Nothing that I can foresee and provide for," Craig promised. "I'm quite
as eager as you to discover how the transplanting of the hothouse plant
into the hardy outdoor soil of the country has worked out. There are two
results about equally probable in such cases--hardly equally probable,
either. The natural result, I should fear, would be the dwindling and
stunting of the growth, unless protected by expedients not common to
the country, and fertilized until it should be really not growing in
country soil at all."
"But the possible result?" urged Georgiana.
"The one we're hoping for in this case--though I'm not sure how close an
analogy I can draw, being no gardener--is the gradual process of
adaptation to environment, so that the plant takes on a hardier quality,
at an unavoidable sacrifice in size of bloom but with a corresponding
gain in sturdiness and ability to bear the chilling winds and the
beating sunlight of outdoors. Great size in a flower never appealed to
me anyhow. I like a blossom that stands straight and firm upon its stem,
that gives forth a clean, spicy fragrance and doesn't wilt when it has
been an hour in my buttonhole."
"That's the sort Jimps wants, I'm sure. He used to be always tucking one
of his scarlet geranium blossoms into his coat when he came over to see
me. We all think of Jeannette as the frailest sort of an orchid,
beautiful to look at but ready to wither at a touch. This letter of
invitation doesn't sound like that at all. You really think the long
drive won't hurt little son?"
"Not a bit, if you keep from getting tired or overheated yourself. We
can manage that very nicely, with Duncan to drive, Lydia to look after
the boy, and a long stop on the one night we must spend on the way. The
change will do you good, faithful young mother."
This proved quite true, and the two days' journey in the great car was
indeed an easy one for all concerned. Little Jefferson Junior, six
months' old, slept away many hours of the trip, and spent the rest
happily in his nurse's or his mother's lap, watching with big, dark eyes
the spots of colour or life on the summer landscape as it slipped
smoothly past. Georgiana had wanted to bring Father Davy, but though he
had grown considerably stronger during the past year, it had not seemed
worth while to put his endurance to so severe a test. He had not been
left forlorn, however, for the Peter Brandts had taken him to their
home, a welcome and a delighted guest. No doubt but there was a place
for David Warne in the great city, as there had been in the country
village.
On the afternoon of the second day, as they neared the old home village,
to which Georgiana had returned only once since her marriage, she found
herself noting with quickening pulse every familiar landmark.
"It seems so strange to think of my going away from such scenes for good
and all, and Jean's coming to them," she said to herself more than once.
"How little either of us would have believed it, just two short years
ago!"
When they passed the old manse she gazed at it with affectionate eyes.
"Oh, how shabby and poor it looks!" she said under her breath to Craig.
"Did it look like that when you first saw it?"
He nodded, smiling. "Just like that. But the moment the door opened the
first time I knew its shabbiness was just a blind to mislead the
traveler, who might otherwise stop and try to steal the treasure that it
held."
Her eyes were searching next for the chimney tops that should mark the
other home for which they were bound. How often had she looked at those
chimney tops, because they told her where was her best friend during
those solitary days that were already so far past. A moment more and
Georgiana's first exclamation of surprise broke from her lips. There
were to be many before the day was done.
"Look! All those ugly little buildings at the back are gone, and the
house stands all by itself at the top of the slope. Isn't that an
improvement? It's freshly painted, too; how that clear white brings out
the beauty of the old house! It used to be such a dingy slate! I always
knew it was a pleasant place, but I didn't fully appreciate it. The lawn
is as trim as can be, and there's a border of shrubs and flowers all
along the drive. How little real change to make so much! That's Jean, I
know. Oh, and there's Jean herself, running down the steps! She sees
us!"
"Is that really Jeannette Crofton?" Craig doubted. "Yes--for a fact!
Well, well!"
They might easily doubt the evidence of their eyes, for the slim figure
they had known so well had rounded until it showed softly blooming
curves, and colouring which put to blush the cosmetics which the society
girl had not altogether eschewed, though it had been long before the
less sophisticated cousin had found this out. No need for rouge or
powder now, for nature had laid on the lovely face her own unrivalled
tints of rose overlying the soft browns of summer tan.
"Oh, you darlings, to come and bring the baby! Do let me look at
him--the blessed thing! Isn't he a beauty?--but, of course, how could he
help it? Jimps! O Jimps! Here they are!"
Thus cried Jeannette out of sheer exuberance, though the fact of the
arrival was obvious enough, and James Stuart was already dashing across
the lawn from the opposite direction.
As she looked at her cousin, Georgiana's first impression was the one
she had hardly dared hope for, that of Jeannette's entire content and
well-being. Not only was the physical improvement noteworthy but a
certain worn and worldly look had vanished--one which had not affected
her beauty and had been discernible only to the closely observing eye,
but which had been there none the less and was gone now.
This change grew more and more apparent as Georgiana continued to regard
her young hostess. From the moment the party first entered the
wide-thrown front door, it was easy to discover that both Stuart and his
wife were eager as two children for the approval of their guests. Such
approval was not long in appearing.
"How pleasant--how charming!" cried Georgiana, as her quick eye took in
attractive effect after effect. "Oh, you clever things, to do it like
this! How absolutely in keeping it all is, and how quiet, yet how
beautiful!"
"She's done it," vowed James Stuart proudly. "I was a duffer at it till
she showed me what she was after. I wanted to buy brocaded silk
furniture, like that in her home--while my money held out. But she would
have nothing but this sort of thing. Homelike, isn't it?"
It was the word which described it, if one qualified the term by making
it apply only to homes built on foundations of good taste and
suitability to environment. As she looked about her Georgiana saw
everywhere evidences of the use of abundant means, and she realized that
Jeannette had been clever indeed to supply so much without impressing
Stuart with the undoubted fact that she had contributed more than he to
the final result.
The whole effect of the house's interior was one of well-chosen but
unostentatious comfort, and the materials and furnishings used were all
so nicely adapted to their setting that only to more discerning eyes
than those of the Stuarts' neighbours would they have expressed unusual
resources of supply.
"It's an achievement!" Craig declared.
His enlightened gaze traveled from one point to another of the long,
low-ceilinged living-room, sunny with new windows, and with walls and
hangings of soft browns and golden yellows. He noted that Jeannette had
had the good sense to make use of the old furniture the house possessed
wherever it was fit for preservation, and that she had dignified the
walls by retaining certain dim old portraits, done in fading oils, of
Stuart's ancestors. Everywhere could be seen similar interesting
blending of the new and the old, though it was often difficult to tell
which was which.
The elder Stuarts were living in a wing of the house, that being the
portion where they had spent their lives, making little use of the
upright and the corresponding wing, which were now turned over to the
son and his wife. Since the elder people wisely preferred this
semi-independence, the younger were able to be much by themselves,
Stuart explained, though always near and ready to lend a hand at any
hour. Since the stalwart son could not be entirely spared by the
somewhat feeble old couple, the arrangement seemed an admirable one,
and thus far it had worked very well.
"Jean's such a dear with them," Stuart said covertly to Georgiana,
leading her aside for a moment to look at a curious old buffet which had
been long in the family. "They adore her, and she really seems very fond
of them. Of course they have old Eliza to look after them, as they have
had for so long; but we ask them in to dinner every few days, and often
have them sitting by the fire with us here on cool evenings. The funny
part, though, is when Mother Crofton comes. She can't get over it, or
get used to it; she sits and looks at Jean as if she were an actress in
a play, and by and by would take off her make-up and be herself again."
"I wonder how far that is from the real truth," thought Georgiana to
herself, as she watched the young mistress of the place with fascinated
eyes.
Certainly if Jeannette were acting it was very skilfully done. As she
led her guests about the house, and then established them on the lawn,
beneath the great elms which furnished a grateful shade at this
afternoon hour over nearly the whole expanse, she seemed the embodiment
of health and happiness.
By and by, when the Crofton car arrived, bearing Uncle Thomas and Aunt
Olivia, with Rosalie and Chester following a few moments later in
Chester's roadster, Jeannette grew fairly radiant.