"SENTIMENTAL" PEOPLE
ERSKINE came up the stairs in quick leaps. "Mother!" he was calling.
"Mother! Where are you? Why, mommie!" and he had her in his arms.
"I thought I should be sure to see you the moment the carriage turned
the corner! Are you ill, mother? What is the matter?"
Was there reproach in his voice? There was something that gave back his
mother's self-command.
"It is tardiness," she said lightly. "The carriage came sooner than I
had thought it possible. O Erskine, it is good to hear your voice
again."
He kept his arms about her and was half smothering her in kisses while
he talked. Yet his tones had that note in them which held her in check.
"Irene will think this a strange welcome home, I am afraid; I had to
leave her in the hall with the maids while I came in search of you."
"We will go down at once," said his mother; and she withdrew herself
from his arms and led the way.
"She is very pretty." This was Mrs. Burnham's mental tribute to her new
daughter, as they stood together on the side porch after breakfast. It
was the morning after the arrival of the bride and groom. They had been
drawn thither by Erskine, who had walked back and forth with an arm
about each, bewailing the fact that he could not spare even one day for
his wife in her new home, but must get at once to business. In the midst
of his regretful sentence his car was heard at the crossing above, and
he had hurried away, calling back to them to take care of themselves,
and get well acquainted while he was gone.
The two ladies had each returned a gay answer, and then had watched
their opportunity to glance furtively at each other, uncertain how to
begin the formidable task set them.
Ruth Burnham had it in her heart to be almost sorry for the younger
woman, left thus without Erskine to lean upon, her only companion in
this new, strange home, a woman to whom the place had been home for a
generation. Did this give her a special advantage? Ought she to do
something to make the other woman feel at home? What should it be? What
ideas had they in common? There was Erskine, of course. It was not hard
for the mother to understand why this woman had been attracted to him.
How indeed could she help it? But what was it in her that had won him?
"She is certainly very pretty," she said again, as she studied the
shapely figure leaning meditatively against one of the porch pillars;
she was looking down into the garden gay with autumn blooms.
She was rather above medium height, with a fair skin and a wealth of
golden brown hair and eyes that were very blue. Ruth did not like her
eyes. That is, she would not have liked them if they had not belonged to
her daughter-in-law. In the solitude of her strangely solitary room, the
night before, she had fought out again one of her battles, and had
resolved anew that there should be nothing about this new daughter that
she would not like.
Certainly she was pretty; so was her dress. She was all in white; not a
touch of color anywhere. Was that her taste, or Erskine's fancy? Could
his mother make it a stepping-stone to conversation?
"You dressed for Erskine, this morning, I fancy," she said with a
winsome smile. "I presume you have already discovered how fond he is of
white?"
"Oh, yes, he has held forth to me on that subject. Some of his ideas are
absurd, but they serve me very well just now. All white answers as a
substitute for mourning, under the circumstances. I hate black, and I am
glad that Erskine did not want me to wear it."
This was the first reference that had been made to her bereavement. Mrs.
Burnham had not known how to touch it. Neither had her daughter's words
suggested what should be said. She murmured some commonplace about the
peculiar hardness of the situation.
"Yes, indeed," said the younger woman. "It was simply dreadful! Aunt
Mary had been an invalid always,--ever since I knew her, at least,--but
nobody supposed that she would ever die. She was one of the nervous
kind, you know, full of aches and pains; a fresh list each morning, and
a detailed description of each. I did get so tired of it! If it hadn't
been for Erskine, I don't know what I should have done. Poor auntie was
very fond of him, and no wonder. He bore with all her stories and her
whims like a hero. I used to tell him that he had not lived with his
mother all his life, for nothing."
"Her sudden death must have been a great shock to you."
The new mother made a distinct effort to keep her voice from sounding
cold. Something in the words or the tones of the younger woman had
jarred.
"Oh yes," she said, and sighed. "You cannot imagine what a perfectly
dreadful time it was! You know when people are always ill and always
fussing, you get used to it, and expect them to go on forever. If I had
had the least idea that she was going to die, I should have planned
differently, of course. What I should have done without Erskine, as
things turned out, it makes me shudder to think. What a queer old place
this is, isn't it? Erskine tells me that he has always lived here and
that the garden looks much as it did when he was a child. Is that so? It
seems so strange to me! I have moved about so much that I cannot imagine
how it would be to live always, anywhere. I don't believe I should like
it. The everlasting sameness, you know, would be such a bore. Don't you
find it so?"
Ruth tried to smile. "I am very much attached to the place. I came to
it, as you have, a bride; and now I am afraid I should have difficulty
in making any other place seem like home."
"Yes, that is because you are old. Poor auntie was forever sighing for
home. Nothing in all France or Italy was at all to be compared to the
delights of her room at home with four south windows and long curtains
that she had hemstitched herself."
She laughed lightly and flitted away from the subject.
"Is that an oak tree over there by the south gateway? Don't you think
oaks are ugly? They haven't the least bit of grace. I like elm trees
better than any other; every movement of their limbs is graceful. There
isn't one about the place, is there?"
"Oh, yes, indeed, the other entrance from the east is lined with them
the entire length of the carriage drive. Was your aunt compelled to
remain abroad on account of the climate? It seems sad to think that she
had to be away from her home when she missed it and mourned for it."
Ruth could not keep her thoughts from reverting to the aunt who had been
so large a part of the younger woman's life for many years and had been
so recently removed from it.
"Oh, I suppose she could have lived at home. In fact she was worse after
leaving it, or thought she was; I didn't see any great difference. It
was a lonesome, poky old house where she lived. Older than this, and
awfully dreary in winter. I couldn't have stayed there a winter, after I
once got away, to have saved her life. It was back in the country, you
know, two miles from town; think of it! I hate the country. Little
cities like this one are bad enough, but the country! Deliver me from
ever having to live in it again. I thought I should die when I was there
as a girl.
"Is Erskine very much attached to this place, do you suppose, or has he
stayed here just for your sake? I should think it would be much better
for him to live where his business is. Think how much of his time is
consumed in going back and forth! and then, too, it is so disagreeable
for him to never be within call when one wants him."
"As to the length of time it takes to go back and forth, that is no more
than is taken by those who live in the best residence portions of the
large city; we have rapid transit, and all the business men who can
afford to do so, keep their homes out here. Erskine has never known any
other home than this, and it would be strange indeed if he were not
attached to it. Of course it is associated with his father as no other
place can ever be."
This time it was not possible for the elder lady to keep her voice from
sounding cold and constrained. The thought of Erskine in any other home
than this one that had been improved from time to time and made
beautiful, always with his interests in view, had not so much as
occurred to her. She recoiled from the mere suggestion, and also from
the easy and careless manner in which it was made.
The young woman's manner was still careless.
"Oh, of course; but young people do not feel such attachments much; it
isn't natural. We talk a great deal about sentimental youth, but I think
it is the old who are sentimental, don't you? Auntie was an illustration
of that. She had the greatest quantity of old duds that she carried
about with her wherever she went, just because they were keepsakes,
souvenirs, and all that sort of thing. They were of no real value, you
know, the most of them, and some were mere rubbish. I had the greatest
time when we were packing to go abroad; she wanted to lug ever so much
of that stuff with her! I just had to set my foot down that it couldn't
be done; and it was fortunate that I did, as things turned out. We had a
horrid time getting packed; if Erskine had had all that rubbish to see
to with the rest, I don't know what would have become of him. I don't
believe he has sentimental notions; he is too sensible. He ought to be
in the city; that is the place for a man to rise; and you want him to
rise, don't you? Aren't you ambitious for him? I am. I want him to stand
at the very head of his profession. I tell him that if he doesn't, it
will not be for lack of brains, but on account of a morbid conscience.
Don't you think he is inclined to be over-conscientious, sometimes? What
an odd, old-fashioned plant that is beyond the rose arbor; it looks like
a weed."
She had a curious fashion of mixing the important and the trivial in a
single sentence. The mother, whose nerves quivered with her desire to
answer that remark about over-conscientiousness, restrained herself and
explained the plant that looked like a weed.
"It is a very choice variety of begonia and has a lovely blossom in its
season. It is the first thing that Erskine planted quite by himself. He
was a tiny boy then, with yellow curls."
The mother's voice trembled. A vision of her boy in his childish beauty,
in the long-ago days when he was all her own, came back to her, bringing
with it a strange new pang.
The wife laughed carelessly.
"And you have kept it all these years, ugly as it is, on that account? I
told you it was old people who were sentimental."
Mrs. Burnham turned abruptly away, murmuring something about household
duties. She went to the kitchen and gave the cook some directions that
she did not need; then went swiftly to her room and closed and locked
her door. Then she passed through to her sitting room, the door of which
was opposite her son's, and stood always open, inviting his entrance,
and closed and locked it. She had a feeling that she must be alone. More
alone than closed and locked doors would make her. She must shut out
something that had come in unawares and taken hold of her life. But
could she shut it out, or get away from it?
"I must pray," she said aloud, clasping both hands over her throbbing
forehead. "I must pray a great deal. I am not alone; God is with me; and
nothing dreadful has happened, or is about to happen. There is nothing
and there must be nothing but peace and joy in our home. I must be quiet
and sensible and not sentimental. Oh, I must not be sentimental at all!"
She laughed a little over that word--the kind of laugh that does not
help one; but it was followed immediately by tears, and they relieved a
little of the strain.
Then she went to her knees; and when she arose, was quiet and ready for
life. The thought came to her that it was well that she was acquainted
with God and did not have to seek him at this time as one unknown. He
had kept his everlasting arms underneath her through trying years,
certainly she could trust him now.
She went out at once in search of her daughter, intending to propose a
drive; but Ellen met her in the hall with a message.
"I was to tell you, ma'am, that young Mrs. Burnham has gone to lie down
and doesn't want to be disturbed. She doesn't want to be awakened even
for luncheon; she says she has been on a steady strain for weeks, and
has a lot of sleeping to make up; she shouldn't wonder if she slept all
day."
"Very well, Ellen, we will keep the house quiet and let her rest as long
as she will."
The mother's voice was quietness itself, yet, despite that phrase "young
Mrs. Burnham," which, some way, jarred, her heart was filled with
compunction. Had the poor young wife, a stranger in a strange home, shut
herself up to sleep, or to cry? She had been through nerve-straining
experiences so recently; death and marriage coming into one short week;
and now, a new home, and Erskine away for the day, and no one within
sight or sound whom she had ever seen before. Would it be any wonder if
the tears wanted to come? Could not her new mother have helped her
through this first strange day? Why had she not put tender arms about
her and kissed her, and called her "daughter," and said how glad she was
to have a daughter? That was what she had meant to do. This morning when
she came from her night vigil, she had almost the words on her lips that
she meant to say as soon as they two were alone. She had meant the words
in their fulness; so at least she believed. They had come to her in
answer to her cry for help. What had kept her from saying them?
Even while she asked herself the question, a faint weary smile hovered
about her lips.
Had she done so, would she have been thought "sentimental?"