BREAKING UP.
Mr. Dillwyn went away. Things returned to their normal condition at
Shampuashuh, saving that for a while there was a great deal of talk
about the Santa Clans doings and the principal actor in them, and no
end of speculations as to his inducements and purposes to be served in
taking so much trouble. For Shampuashuh people were shrewd, and did not
believe, any more than King Lear, that anything could come of nothing.
That he was _not_ moved by general benevolence, poured out upon the
school of the white church, was generally agreed. "What's we to him?"
asked pertinently one of the old ladies; and vain efforts were made to
ascertain Mr. Dillwyn's denomination. "For all I kin make out, he
hain't got none," was the declaration of another matron. "I don't
b'lieve he's no better than he should be." Which was ungrateful, and
hardly justified Miss Charity's prognostications of enduring fame; by
which, of course, she meant good fame. Few had seen Mr. Dillwyn
undisguised, so that they could give a report of him; but Mrs. Marx
assured them he was "a real personable man; nice and plain, and takin'
no airs. She liked him first-rate."
"Who's he after? Not one o' your gals?"
"Mercy, no! He, indeed! He's one of the high-flyers; he won't come to
Shampuashuh to look for a wife. 'Seems to me he's made o' money; and
he's been everywhere; he's fished for crocodiles in the Nile, and eaten
his luncheon at the top of the Pyramids of Egypt, and sailed to the
North Pole to be sure of cool lemonade in summer. _He_ won't marry in
Shampuashuh."
"What brings him here, then?"
"The spirit of restlessness, I should say. Those people that have been
everywhere, you may notice, can't stay nowhere. I always knew there was
fools in the world, but I _didn't_ know there was so many of 'em as
there be. He ain't no fool neither, some ways; and that makes him a
bigger fool in the end; only I don't know why the fools should have all
the money."
And so, after a little, the talk about this theme died out, and things
settled down, not without some of the reaction Mr. Dillwyn had
predicted; but they settled down, and all was as before in Shampuashuh.
Mr. Dillwyn did not come again to make a visit, or Mrs. Marx's aroused
vigilance would have found some ground for suspicion. There did come
numerous presents of game and fruit from him, but they were sent to
Mrs. Barclay, and could not be objected against, although they came in
such quantities that the whole household had to combine to dispose of
them. What would Philip do next?--Mrs. Barclay queried. As he had said,
he could not go on with repeated visits to the house. Madge and Lois
would not hear of being tempted to New York, paint the picture as
bright as she would. Things were not ripe for any decided step on Mr.
Dillwyn's part, and how should they become so? Mrs. Barclay could not
see the way. She did for Philip what she could by writing to him,
whether for his good or his harm she could not decide. She feared the
latter. She told him, however, of the sweet, quiet life she was
leading; of the reading she was doing with the two girls, and the whole
family; of the progress Lois and Madge were making in singing and
drawing and in various branches of study; of the walks in the fresh
sea-breezes, and the cosy evenings with wood fires and the lamp; and
she told him how they enjoyed his game, and what a comfort the oranges
were to Mrs. Armadale.
This lasted through January, and then there came a change. Mrs.
Armadale was ill. There was no more question of visits, or of studies;
and all sorts of enjoyments and occupations gave place to the one
absorbing interest of watching and waiting upon the sick one. And then,
that ceased too. Mrs. Armadale had caught cold, she had not strength to
throw off disease; it took violent form, and in a few days ran its
course. Very suddenly the little family found itself without its head.
There was nothing to grieve for, but their own loss. The long, weary
earth-journey was done, and the traveller had taken up her abode where
there is
"The rest begun,
That Christ hath for his people won."
She had gone triumphantly. "Through God we shall do valiantly"--being
her last--uttered words. Her children took them as a legacy, and felt
rich. But they looked at her empty chair, and counted themselves poorer
than ever before. Mrs. Barclay saw that the mourning was deep. Yet,
with the reserved strength of New England natures, it made no noise,
and scarce any show.
Mrs. Barclay lived much alone those first days. She would gladly have
talked to somebody; she wanted to know about the affairs of the little
family, but saw no one to talk to. Until, two or three days after the
funeral, coming home one afternoon from a walk in the cold, she found
her fire had died out; and she went into the next room to warm herself.
There she saw none of the usual inmates. Mrs. Armadale's chair stood on
one side the fire, unoccupied, and on the other side stood uncle Tim
Hotchkiss.
"How do you do, Mr. Hotchkiss? May I come and warm myself? I have been
out, and I am half-frozen."
"I guess you're welcome to most anything in this house, ma'am,--and
fire we wouldn't grudge to anybody. Sit down, ma'am;" and he set a
chair for her. "It's pretty tight weather."
"We had nothing like this last winter," said Mrs. Barclay, shivering.
"We expect to hev one or two snaps in the course of the winter," said
Mr. Hotchkiss. "Shampuashuh ain't what you call a cold place; but we
expect to see them two snaps. It comes seasonable this time. I'd
rayther hev it now than in March. My sister--that's gone,--she could
always tell you how the weather was goin' to be. I've never seen no one
like her for that."
"Nor for some other things," said Mrs. Barclay. "It is a sad change to
feel her place empty."
"Ay," said uncle Tim, with a glance at the unused chair,--"it's the
difference between full and empty. 'I went out full, and the Lord has
brought me back empty', Ruth's mother-in-law said."
"Who is Ruth?" Mrs. Barclay asked, a little bewildered, and willing to
change the subject; for she noticed a suppressed quiver in the hard
features. "Do I know her?"
"I mean Ruth the Moabitess. Of course you know her. She was a poor
heathen thing, but she got all right at last. It was her mother-in-law
that was bitter. Well--troubles hadn't ought to make us bitter. I guess
there's allays somethin' wrong when they do."
"Hard to help it, sometimes," said Mrs. Barclay.
"She wouldn't ha' let you say that," said the old man, indicating
sufficiently by his accent of whom he was speaking. "There warn't no
bitterness in her; and she had seen trouble enough! She's out o' it
now."
"What will the girls do? Stay on and keep the house here just as they
have done?"
"Well, I don' know," said Mr. Hotchkiss, evidently glad to welcome a
business question, and now taking a chair himself. "Mrs. Marx and me,
we've ben arguin' that question out, and it ain't decided. There's one
big house here, and there's another where Mrs. Marx lives; and there's
one little family, and here's another little family. It's expensive to
scatter over so much ground. They had ought to come to Mrs. Marx, or
she had ought to move in here, and then the other house could be
rented. That's how the thing looks to me. It's expensive for five
people to take two big houses to live in. I know, the girls have got
you now; but they might not keep you allays; and we must look at things
as they be."
"I must leave them in the spring," said Mrs. Barclay hastily.
"In the spring, must ye!"
"Must," she repeated. "I would like to stay here the rest of my life;
but circumstances are imperative. I must go in the spring."
"Then I think that settles it," said Mr. Hotchkiss. "I'm glad to know
it. That is! of course I'm sorry ye're goin'; the girls be very fond of
you."
"And I of them," said Mrs. Barclay; "but I must go."
After that, she waited for the chance of a talk with Lois. She waited
not long. The household had hardly settled down into regular ways again
after the disturbance of sickness and death, when Lois came one evening
at twilight into Mrs. Barclay's room. She sat down, at first was
silent, and then burst into tears. Mrs. Barclay let her alone, knowing
that for her just now the tears were good. And the woman who had seen
so much heavier life-storms, looked on almost with a feeling of envy at
the weeping which gave so simple and frank expression to grief. Until
this feeling was overcome by another, and she begged Lois to weep no
more.
"I do not mean it--I did not mean it," said Lois, drying her eyes. "It
is ungrateful of me; for we have so much to be thankful for. I am so
glad for grandmother!"--Yet somehow the tears went on falling.
"Glad?"--repeated Mrs. Barclay doubtfully. "You mean, because she is
out of her suffering."
"She did not suffer much. It is not that. I am so glad to think she has
got home!"
"I suppose," said Mrs. Barclay in a constrained voice, "to such a
person as your grandmother, death has no fear. Yet life seems to me
more desirable."
"She has entered into life!" said Lois. "She is where she wanted to be,
and with what she loved best. And I am very, very glad! even though I
do cry."
"How can you speak with such certain'ty, Lois? I know, in such a case
as that of your grandmother, there could be no fear; and yet I do not
see how you can speak as if you knew where she is, and with whom."
"Only because the Bible tells us," said Lois, smiling even through wet
eyes. "Not the _place;_ it does not tell us the place; but with Christ.
That they are; and that is all we want to know.
'Beyond the sighing and the weeping.'
--It makes me gladder than ever I can tell you, to think of it."
"Then what are those tears for, my dear?"
"It's the turning over a leaf," said Lois sadly, "and that is always
sorrowful. And I have lost--uncle Tim says," she broke off suddenly,
"he says,--can it be?--he says you say you must go from us in the
spring?"
"That is turning over another leaf," said Mrs. Barclay.
"But is it true?"
"Absolutely true. Circumstances make it imperative. It is not my wish.
I would like to stay here with you all my life."
"I wish you could. I half hoped you would," said Lois wistfully.
"But I cannot, my dear. I cannot."
"Then that is another thing over," said Lois. "What a good time it has
been, this year and a half you have been with us! how much worth to
Madge and me! But won't you come back again?"
"I fear not. You will not miss me so much; you will all keep house
together, Mr. Hotchkiss tells me."
"_I_ shall not be here," said Lois.
"Where will you be?" Mrs. Barclay started.
"I don't know; but it will be best for me to do something to help
along. I think I shall take a school somewhere. I think I can get one."
"A _school_, my dear? Why should you do such a thing?"
"To help along," said Lois. "You know, we have not much to live on here
at home. I should make one less here, and I should be earning a little
besides."
"Very little, Lois!"
"Very little will do."
"But you do a great deal now towards the family support. What will
become of your garden?"
"Uncle Tim can take care of that. Besides, Mrs. Barclay, even if I
could stay at home, I think I ought not. I ought to be doing
something--be of some use in the world. I am not needed here, now dear
grandmother is gone; and there must be some other place where I am
needed."
"My dear, somebody will want you to keep house for him, some of these
days."
Lois shook her head. "I do not think of it," she said. "I do not think
it is very likely; that is, anybody _I_ should want. But if it were
true," she added, looking up and smiling, "that has nothing to do with
present duty."
"My dear, I cannot bear to think of your going into such drudgery!"
"Drudgery?" said Lois. "I do not know,--perhaps I should not find it
so. But I may as well do it as somebody else."
"You are fit for something better."
"There is nothing better, and there is nothing happier," said Lois,
rising, "than to do what God gives us to do. I should not be unhappy,
Mrs. Barclay. It wouldn't be just like these days we have passed
together, I suppose;--these days have been a garden of flowers."
And what have they all amounted to? thought Mrs. Barclay when she was
left alone. Have I done any good--or only harm--by acceding to that mad
proposition of Philip's? Some good, surely; these two girls have grown
and changed, mentally, at a great rate of progress; they are educated,
cultivated, informed, refined, to a degree that I would never have
thought a year and a half could do. Even so! _have_ I done them good?
They are lifted quite out of the level of their surroundings; and to be
lifted so, means sometimes a barren living alone. Yet I will not think
that; it is better to rise in the scale of being, if ever one can,
whatever comes of it; what one is in oneself is of more importance than
one's relations to the world around. But Philip?--I have helped him
nourish this fancy--and it is not a fancy now--it is the man's whole
life. Heigh ho! I begin to think he was right, and that it is very
difficult to know what is doing good and what isn't. I must write to
Philip--
So she did, at once. She told him of the contemplated changes in the
family arrangements; of Lois's plan for teaching a district school; and
declared that she herself must now leave Shampuashuh. She had done what
she came for, whether for good or for ill. It was done; and she could
no longer continue living there on Mr. Dillwyn's bounty. _Now_ it would
be mere bounty, if she stayed where she was; until now she might say
she had been doing his work. His work was done now, her part of it; the
rest he must finish for himself. Mrs. Barclay would leave Shampuashuh
in April.
This letter would bring matters to a point, she thought, if anything
could; she much expected to see Mr. Dillwyn himself appear again before
March was over. He did not come, however; he wrote a short answer to
Mrs. Barclay, saying that he was sorry for her resolve, and would
combat it if he could; but felt that he had not the power. She must
satisfy her fastidious notions of independence, and he could only thank
her to the last day of his life for what she had already done for him;
service which thanks could never repay. He sent this letter, but said
nothing of coming; and he did not come.
Later, Mrs. Barclay wrote again. The household changes were just about
to be made; she herself had but a week or two more in Shampuashuh; and
Lois, against all expectation, had found opportunity immediately to try
her vocation for teaching. The lady placed over a school in a remote
little village had suddenly died; and the trustees of the school had
considered favourably Lois's application. She was going in a day or two
to undertake the charge of a score or two of boys and girls, of all
ages, in a wild and rough part of the country; where even the
accommodations for her own personal comfort, Mrs. Barclay feared, would
be of the plainest.
To this letter also she received an answer, though after a little
interval. Mr. Dillwyn wrote, he regretted Lois's determination;
regretted that she thought it necessary; but appreciated the
straightforward, unflinching sense of duty which never consulted with
ease or selfishness. He himself was going, he added, on business, for a
time, to the north; that is, not Massachusetts, but Canada. He would
therefore not see Mrs. Barclay until after a considerable interval.
Mrs. Barclay did not know what to make of this letter. Had Philip given
up his fancy? It was not like him. Men are fickle, it is true; but
fickle in his friendships she had never known Mr. Dillwyn to be. Yet
this letter said nothing of love, or hope, or fear; it was cool,
friendly, business-like. Mrs. Barclay nevertheless did not know how to
believe in the business. _He_ have business! What business? She had
always known him as an easy, graceful, pleasure-taker; finding his
pleasure in no evil ways, indeed; kept from that by early associations,
or by his own refined tastes and sense of honour; but never living to
anything but pleasure. His property was ample and unencumbered; even
the care of that was not difficult, and did not require much of his
time. And now, just when he ought to put in his claim for Lois, if he
was ever going to make it; just when she was set loose from her old
ties and marking out a new and hard way of life for herself, he ought
to come; and he was going on business to Canada! Mrs. Barclay was
excessively disgusted and disappointed. She had not, indeed, all along
seen how Philip's wooing could issue successfully, if it ever came to
the point of wooing; the elements were too discordant, and principles
too obstinate; and yet she had worked on in hope, vague and doubtful,
but still hope, thinking highly herself of Mr. Dillwyn's pretensions
and powers of persuasion, and knowing that in human nature at large all
principle and all discordance are apt to come to a signal defeat when
Love takes the field. But now there seemed to be no question of wooing;
Love was not on hand, where his power was wanted; the friends were all
scattered one from another--Lois going to the drudgery of teaching
rough boys and girls, she herself to the seclusion of some quiet
seaside retreat, and Mr. Dillwyn--to hunt bears?--in Canada.