There was quite a lively time in the parish for a fortnight. Papa had
two marriages in Church, one of which was Annie Fellows and Mr. Hunter.
Then Miss Maynard was married at home in a very exclusive and elegant
manner. Fifty-five dollars for all of it. Wedding fees were mamma’s
money.
“I don’t know as we need spend it just now;” she said, “I think I will
lay it away against time of necessity;” smilingly.
I imagined what that meant. Days and weeks went on so fast.
Then papa’s sister came from Philadelphia to make us a visit; Aunt
Margaret for whom Daisy had been named. She brought with her a piece of
pretty Nainsook muslin and some laces for gifts. There were the three
younger children provided with new summer dresses.
She was sweet and gracious, with that indescribable lady-like charm,
and then she insisted upon helping everywhere. Altering dresses,
dusting rooms, talking to papa or tying up vines and flowers in the
garden—nothing came amiss to her. She petitioned that Daisy should be
lent to her for the remainder of the summer. She had one son at home,
but her two daughters were married and away.
Papa thought at first that it would not be possible to spare her. Mamma
said that she was not prepared for so long a visit.
“Never mind that, Frances,” returned Aunt Margaret, “I will attend to
what is needful. I don’t see how you get along with such a host of
little ones. If Edith had not come—”
“Oh, but Edith is the crown of all;” declared Fan. “She brought rare
good luck with her. So many lovely things have happened to us during
the year. And now we couldn’t spare her.”
Aunt Margaret smiled. “You have been very fortunate in your children,”
she said, glancing at mamma.
Miss Churchill came over with the barouche and took the elders riding.
It was a lovely afternoon late in May, and the whole world was abloom
with beauty and sweetness.
She and Fanny had dropped in one day at Mrs. Ryder’s and had a charming
call. Afterward Fan had whispered the secret.
“The young man is to be congratulated;” declared Miss Churchill. “She
will make a pretty, cheerful wife, and that will be much to a man like
Mr. Fairlie. I am glad he has been so sensible and I must see more of
her before she leaves her old station. My dear, I am afraid I shall
turn into a regular village gossip, I am so fond of young girls and
their affairs.”
It began to be guessed at elsewhere as well, for the two went out
driving now and then of an afternoon.
Allie West and Dora Hyde were over one evening and it happened to be
touched upon.
“I don’t believe there is anything in it;” exclaimed Dora. “Dick
Fairlie will not throw himself away in that style! Why, he could have
the best in the town with that handsome place of his.”
“I am sure Jennie is quite pretty;” said Fan, “and nicely educated.
She reads French and German, is well up in history and house-keeping,
sings beautifully and sews in the same fashion. What better can a man
want?”
“O, you know what I mean! And she is poor.”
“He has enough for both. And the Ryders are a respectable old family.”
“I know she is a favorite of yours,” returned Dora loftily, “but I
never discovered anything special about her. And I do not see how she
can leave her mother, I should think her duty would be there.”
Fan laughed at that.
“I shall not believe it until I hear it from a better source. Some
people make so much out of a trifle of ordinary politeness.”
“Indeed I would not,” Fan continued seriously.
“There, you see Fanny doesn’t believe it;” said Allie West triumphantly.
“As if any one in her senses could!” Dora added.
After they went away Fan sat glancing out of the window thoughtfully.
“I allowed them to think what was not quite true,” she said slowly,
“but I did not want the fact to leak out. Some very smart young woman
might write to Kate and alarm her. It had better go on quietly.”
We missed Daisy ever so much. You would hardly think it among so many.
Then came a letter from Mr. Duncan, stating that he intended to
follow it in time to keep the festival of baby’s christening. There
were some business matters on which he wished to consult papa, and
he was longing for a sight of the household, from least to greatest.
Louis was much better. Mrs. Whitcomb was well and had utterly refused
her first vacation. What did Fanny expect to do in such a case of
insubordination? He was sorry he had proved so attractive, but it was
more his misfortune than his fault, so she must not visit him too
heavily with her displeasure.
We all had a good laugh over it. I arranged the guest-chamber in the
morning, flowers and all, and in the afternoon went cantering round
the parish, as Fan often expressed it. She had been smitten with such
a passion for sewing, and the Churchills took up so much of her time
that I had to visit for both. I was beginning to feel quite grave and
staid with my eighteen and a half years. The fact of Fan’s having a
real lover affected me in a rather curious fashion. It seemed as if the
romance was to begin with her and go down. It shut me out as it were;
but never having counted myself in, I did not feel much disappointed. I
was to be the house-daughter. Already I could see that papa had begun
to depend more upon me. He brought his gloves to be mended, and used to
ask me now and then to find various little matters for him. True, mamma
was much occupied with Edith. I liked the growing nearer though, the
tender confidence and trust.
I could see how it would be. One by one the birdlings would fly out of
the home nest. I was an every-day useful body and would be needed to
help the others, make some ready to go and comfort those who staid.
I didn’t suppose the sweet grace and patience that glorified Miss
Oldway’s face would ever come in mine. It was such a round, funny
little face, and would get so sun-burned in summer. No one could ever
call me fair and dainty.
I laughed over it softly to myself, I was in such a merry mood. In
ten years I should be twenty-eight, getting on the “list” a wee
bit, visiting round the same as usual, carrying broths and jellies,
listening to sorrows and complaints, and by that time, perhaps, a
little better, a little nearer the Great ensample so that I could say
my say without faltering.
My basket was emptied at length. I leaned over the fence awhile and
talked with Mrs. Day, who “could not see why,” about something. Aunt
Letty Perkins came along, puffing and wheezing. She had been confined
to the house a good deal since Christmas, with the asthma, and if it
was not irreverent I should say—“Israel had had peace.”
“All well, I suppose?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I never see such folks. You don’t have a bit of sickness or trouble
like other people!”
“No,” said Mrs. Day, as if she felt personally aggrieved. “I never saw
the match to that baby, and my poor lamb in the church-yard!”
I wanted to reply that it was the care and watchfulness, the love and
tenderness that never tired. We did not suffer real heart-felt trouble,
but there were hard pinches and perplexities, many things given up that
we longed to have, hours of patient industry, self-denial and all that.
Do discontented people ever realize what steady courage and grace it
takes to make many lives look fair and sweet?
“Well, it’s out of its trouble,” pursued Aunt Letty. “You never can
tell what children are coming to. Goin’ to take boarders agen this
summer?”
That last to me. I started and colored at the impertinence. I wanted to
resent it, but I knew that would not help for an example.
“Mr. Duncan is at home and can take care of his brothers;” I replied
quietly.
“Well, they want much addition to the neighborhood. That young one was
a master-hand at mischief. I should have wanted a good deal of money to
pay me.”
“Good-night;” I said rather abruptly, “I must be going.”
“Why don’t you come in? I haven’t seen your ma in an age. Nobody drops
in when I am sick, though if I do say it myself, I’ve always been
neighborly. No one can say I ever went on the other side like the
publican.”
“Indeed they could not,” I thought to myself with a smile.
All this made me later than I expected to be. As I came up the road I
saw Fanny and Mr. Duncan walking slowly to meet me.
Something dreadful flashed into my mind at that moment and made my
face scarlet. I remembered that in my talk with Louis I had spoken of
the probability of Stephen’s marrying Fanny. What if he had repeated
that bit of idle gossip? Stuart would have done so from pure love of
teasing.
“Why, Rose, how you have hurried! You are as red as your reddest
namesake. Do stop and cool off a moment, child!”
That from Fanny did not make me any paler. I felt the contrast very
keenly. She tall and elegant, with her graceful self-possession, and I
such a little budget! I don’t know why I should have cared just at that
moment, but I felt mortified enough to cry.
Mr. Duncan put out his hand. I just touched the tips of his fingers.
“I am glad to see you.” Then he looked me all over with those strange
eyes of his that could be so dark and piercing.
“Isn’t it late?” I asked. “I am sure supper must be ready. Please
excuse me,” and I hurried on.
They turned as well. I rushed up-stairs, bathed my face and gave my
hair a brush. Then I went to the glass a moment to pull it out. No, I
was not a beauty. If Mr. Duncan had _not_ come to-day! He could spend
Sunday without starting as early as Friday afternoon!
When I went down they were all gathered around the table. He glanced up
sharply again, and I was foolish enough to blush.
Not an unnecessary word did I utter. I had a constricted feeling about
my throat and tongue and could not tell what was the matter with me, I
believe I felt cross. I was glad to go to the study afterward and give
papa the messages that had been sent for him.
Nelly called me to see about a skirt she was letting down. Tim and Lily
put themselves to bed now, and I had only to go in and pick up their
clothes. Fanny and Mr. Duncan were singing in the parlor, but I did
not go down until I heard mamma’s voice. They were talking about Mrs.
Whitcomb.
He had found her so admirable. Lady-like and refined, yet not weak;
clear-eyed and resolute, yet without any hardness.
“She is always in bloom, I believe. The winter, and the desert, and the
bare, bristling hill-tops may be a short distance off, but just around
her it is spring.”
“There everlasting spring abides,
And never withering flowers;”—
Fan murmured softly.
“That is just it. She has had some troubles, also.”
“Indeed she has,” returned mamma, “Losses, deaths and trials. But now
she has gone out of her own life. Her perceptions are so quick, tender
and unerring. She seems to discern from afar off the needs and wants of
human souls and ministers gently to your own thought, not hers.”
“What is it, Mrs. Endicott?”
Mamma answered with a smile and said it all. She often talked with the
expressions of her face in that sweet instantaneous manner, explaining
a subject better than many words would have done.
“I begin to believe that religion _has_ something in it. There is a
point beyond natural amiability.”
“Have you been doubting?”
He blushed and laughed in an embarrassed, school-boy fashion.
“I don’t know that I have exactly doubted, but I have not believed in
any vital way. Still I considered myself a Christian gentleman until
very recently.”
“And what then?”
“I found myself a proud and honorable gentleman instead, who abhorred
meanness, falsehood, dishonesty and the whole catalogue of those sins
because they were blots and stains, hideous in my sight. I had no
patience with them in that they never tempted me. I liked my life to
be pure and just, but it was for myself alone. I did not think of what
God might require; the higher aim. After all, it is _His_ relation with
every human soul, His holding out the faith and love and atonement to
us, made for us so long ago in His great wisdom, and which is for us
whether we take it or not. But we want to try _our_ wisdom first.”
“That leads to the trouble and the clashing. We so often set up our
own will and when we are buffeted about take it as a sort of direct
martyrdom, when it is only a natural result of an ordinary cause. We
sometimes cry out—‘Why has God sent this upon me?’ when we bring the
trials upon ourselves.”
“Yes. Then we have to go back. We find the plans and specifications and
the materials all right, left on the highway, while we used stones and
timber of our own, changed the plan according to our liking. We have
to take out a good deal of work in this life.”
“And we learn by degrees to be careful, to come to Him, to ask first of
all—‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’”
“And learning to follow it, is the great lesson.”
He turned his head a trifle and lapsed into deep thought. Fan glanced
over at me in a peculiar manner as if she triumphed in what he said,
and it was only proving a well established point. She puzzled me.
Why, when she liked him so well herself, was there not the deeper and
farther-reaching sympathy of love? He was really nobler than Winthrop
Ogden.
We did not have any confidence until late Saturday afternoon. Fan was
writing a letter in her room and mamma had gone to visit some sick
people. I had Edith fenced off in a corner of the porch and was amusing
her while I sewed a little.
He came and studied me curiously. That was what I did not like. If I
had been as pretty as Fan, or if my hair were any other color!
“You have not asked me a word about your friend. Have you lost interest
in him now that he is delivered over to my keeping?”
I understood whom he meant.
“Why, we have all talked—I have heard—” and I paused in surprise, for a
tiny frown came in his brow.
“But the work was so much yours.”
“You exaggerate it, Mr. Duncan.”
I might have spoken coldly. Somehow I could not let myself be praised
in his words, and with his eyes upon me.
“Are you so used to good deeds that you consider this nothing?”
I flushed and felt a lump rising in my throat.
“I would have done it for any one.”
“I believe you, Miss Endicott. Louis is not so admirable that he should
be singled out.”
“He is—you don’t do him justice;” I said almost ready to cry.
“I did _not_ I will admit, but I am trying to now. Will you not accept
my penitence and my sincere desire to be tender as well as just?”
“I know you mean to do the very best. I think you will.”
“Thank you. I am afraid you consider us all rather heathenish. I have
only recently come to understand the full duty that I owe my brothers.
I had left them in my uncle’s hands, quite satisfied, and believing
that boys came up, somehow. _I_ had no great trouble.”
“Because you were stronger. And Louis’ health and temperament are so
different.”
“I have learned that I could not make him come to me, so I have gone to
him.”
“He did come—”
“Yes; that was not the point I referred to, however. It is in the
matter of confidence. He is so very reserved, so sensitive, so
_touchy_, to use a common phrase. At a word he draws into his shell and
keeps silence.”
“I found that out last summer,” I said with a smile.
“How did you manage?”
“I don’t know,” I answered looking over at the distant hills. “It just
came, I think. When he wouldn’t talk on any subject I let it drop.”
“Ah, wise little one, there may be a secret, in that. I fancy that I
have a failing in my desire to convince people. I want them to see the
right.”
“It is easier seen than confessed, sometimes.”
“True. And Louis has a giant of pride. If he is hurt he will not stop
to explain. If you misunderstand, he will not set you right. You have
to grope your way along in perplexity. Yet I think we are coming a
little nearer to each other, through you.”
“And Mrs. Whitcomb. She has a way of uniting people, of healing
differences.”
“I am doubly fortunate in having her. Otherwise I must have
borrowed—your mother.”
I smiled a little at this. It made me think of the Churchills borrowing
Fan. Isn’t it so the world over? The sweetness and brightness of other
lives comes into ours, sometimes the darkness and sorrow. We rarely
stand alone.
“I believe I like frank, open natures the best;” he went on. “And
cheerfulness. A great outgiving like the world and the sunshine.”
“But when one has been in a cave a long while the light dazzles. Some
people do not want to take in but a little at a time, and perhaps we
hurt them by thrusting so much into their very souls.”
“Yes,” he answered, “When a man is starving you do not feast him at
once. I must remember that.”
Edith began to worry. I took her up in my arms and hushed her softly.
Mr. Duncan was not looking at me, but a strange, tender light came
into his face, a half smile that brought the dawn to my mind by way of
comparison. He seemed to pay no attention to me for many minutes, but
just to be occupied with his own reflections. I rose to take Edith in,
as she evinced unmistakable symptoms of hunger.
He put his arm over her and partly over my shoulder.
“I cannot let you go without an acknowledgement,” he began hurriedly.
“I should like to tell you _just_ how Louis came back. There was a
manliness in his penitence that has given me a great deal of hope.
Yet I know that he did not come out of actual love for me. If we ever
_could_ reach that state, but I must wait patiently. I have thought
so little of him all these years, except to look after his personal
comfort, that I must not complain if I reap weeds instead of flowers.
You were brave and strong in your advice to him, and God above knows
how deeply and sincerely I thank you. Your note to me was wisdom
itself. Only—”
There was a peculiar wistfulness in his face that somehow gave him a
little look of Louis.
“Only what?” If there was any fault to find let us have it out now.
“If you _could_ have trusted me unreservedly. Do you think I am so very
stern and rigid and unforgiving?”
“I was afraid you might—I did not know—” and I stopped, distressed and
blushing.
“Will you have a little more faith in me?”
He uttered the words slowly.
“I know you desire to do what is best.”
He looked a trifle disappointed, I thought, but I went in with Edith
and left him standing there.
After all I had not done anything very wonderful that there should be
such a fuss and thanks and all that bother. It annoyed me. I could not
carry triumphs gracefully as Fan did, sit in the centre and have an
admiring audience around me.
One part of the visit proved an unalloyed delight, and that was papa’s
enjoyment of it. He and Mr. Duncan fitted, if you can understand the
term. It was almost like father and son. Plans were talked over, the
boys’ future discussed, and in Stephen’s newer experience there was
a great charm. Like the young man who came to Christ, he had kept
the commandments from his youth up, he had been truth and integrity
itself, but the one greater thing had come to him now. It crowned
his manliness. He did not speak of it in a shame-faced way, as if it
was something to be kept on one side of his life and rather in the
background, but he set it in the very midst. A rare, almost boyish
humility was discernable in his conversations with papa. I liked so
much better to listen than to have him talk to me.
“I am afraid I shall grow proud in my old days,” said papa a few
evenings afterward. “Such first fruits as Mr. Duncan and Miss Churchill
seem a whole harvest. I shall never be discouraged again.”
Indeed, Miss Churchill had become the Lady Bountiful of the parish. I
do not mean simply among the poor. The rich need the gospel of charity
and loving kindness as well. They were meeting together, being incited
to good works, losing the narrow feelings and prejudices.
Fan and I had a lovely episode this summer. Just at the beginning
of the hot weather Miss Lucy had a spell of feeling very weak and
miserable.
“She must have a change,” declared good old Doctor Hawley. “She has
been among the mountains so long that she has worn them out. Take her
away to the sea-side.”
“I can’t go,” said Miss Lucy in faint protest. “I do not like strange
faces nor places, and the worry and bustle will consume what little
strength I have.”
“You will wear out this old strength and get some new. You are tired
to death of this, though you are so set in your way that you will not
confess it. I know what is best for you! Miss Esther, if you want to
keep Christmas with her, take her away now.”
Then he thumped his cane resolutely on the floor, a way he had when he
was very much in earnest.
When it came to that something must be done.
They talked it over—Miss Churchill and her brother, then Miss Churchill
and mamma. And this came out of it all, as if we were to be in the
midst of everything.
They would go to Martha’s Vineyard. In earlier years they had spent
whole summers there. And she and Miss Lucy wanted us. We had seen so
little outside of our own home, that the change would do us good. There
was the great sea, the islands all about, and a new world, so to speak.
“I don’t know how to get both of them ready,” mamma exclaimed in a
hopeless puzzle.
“You are thinking of the dresses—but we are not going to be
fashionable. Some nice light worsted goods for traveling, and beyond
that there is nothing as pretty as white. We shall have a cottage to
ourselves and our meals sent in. Then I intend to take Martha, who is
an excellent laundress, so the dresses will be no trouble. Kenton is
counting on the pleasure, and you must not refuse.”
“It is a great—favor,” said mamma timidly.
“I don’t want you to think of it in that light. Kenton and I are
getting along in years, and Lucy will not last forever. We might as
well take and give a little pleasure. It is just as if a sister asked
you.”
And it actually came about. We had new gray dresses trimmed with bands
of pongee; Fan’s a shade lighter and mine two or three shades darker
than the material. When they were all finished they had cost but
twenty-three dollars. Our spring straw hats were retrimmed, our gloves
and ribbons and boots looked over.
“One trunk will hold our modest wardrobe,” declared Fan. “I often think
of the Vicar of Wakefield and the many devices the girls resorted to.
It is rather funny to be poor, after all! You are not so much worried
and fidgeted and dissatisfied. You take the best you can get, and
you _know_ you cannot do any better. So you enjoy the tour or the
journey or whatever it is, because you are altogether outside of your
troublesome self.”
“But you will be—very well off—some day,” I said with bashful
hesitation.
“I don’t think of that, any more. Until the very day of my marriage
my life is _here_. What papa can give me will always be infinitely
precious to me. We will have all the happiness out of our poverty that
we can.”
“Yes,” I answered.
“And I know just how Miss Churchill is giving us this. So far as
the money goes she will never feel it. We will afford her pleasure,
satisfaction and delight in return, which will make it quite an even
thing.”
We remained three weeks and it was enchanting. The great ocean with its
ceaseless surges and swells, its floods of molten gold at sunset, the
showers and one tremendous storm, the walks and rides on the sands, the
short sails hither and thither, the quaint cottages, the strange people
from almost everywhere, some of whom we soon became acquainted with,
the newness and the variety was splendid! We enjoyed every moment.
Sometimes I felt quite wild indeed, as if I could race along the sea
sands and shout with the wildest of the birds.
The last week was the crowning point. Winthrop came and Miss Churchill
took us to Newport for one night and two days. There was elegance and
fashion at the hotel to be sure, but Fan in her pretty white over-dress
and the bloom of her fresh, sweet youth, attracted many a glance of
admiration on the one side, and almost envy from some of the worn and
faded women. It was a bit of Arabian Nights’ Entertainment brought into
our own lives.
Miss Lucy did improve ever so much. She could not bathe to be sure, but
the pungent air revived and strengthened her. We were all so bright and
happy, so full of fun and whims and oddities. There is a fascinating
queerness about almost every person when the true self comes out and
you forget that any one is watching you.
It was so delightful that we came home with almost a sigh, until we
reached the familiar places. It was the first time that we had ever
been so long away from mamma, and when we thought of that our hearts
were full to overflowing.
There was Mrs. Whitcomb in the midst helping to keep house, filling up
our vacant places.
“You need not think you are the only ones who can have a holiday!” she
exclaimed laughingly.
Oh, the blessedness of being right among the accustomed faces, to be
kissed and kissed again, to be pulled about hither and yon, to be shown
this and that, “which was not so when you went away;” the atmosphere of
home-living and thinking, which is so different from railroad cars and
hotels, or even other people’s cottages.
“But the sea still sings in my ears,” I said to Fan as I laid my head
on my pillow.
“And to-morrow morning it will be robins or swallows ‘twittering’ under
the eaves. What a great, grand thing it is to live and be happy! Rose,
if people could realize the satisfying joy they put in the lives of
others when they share their pleasures I think the whole world would
go at it. It would be giving and receiving all round the wide earth.”
Are we thankful enough for happiness, I wonder? For that is something
a little apart from life, one of the things not surely promised, like
the peace of God. Should there not be a special thanksgiving for
every blessed day, for the breath of fragrance, the pleasantness of
sunshine, and the subtle essence of delight that wafts itself across
our sky—tender human love?