Phœbe was sent to open the register in the blue room, and as soon as
it was warm I went up with them, leading Faith by the hand. I am unused
to children, and she kept stepping on my dress, and spinning around and
tipping over, in the most astonishing manner. It strikingly reminded me
of a top at the last gasp. Her mother observed that she was tired and
sleepy. Phœbe was waiting around awkwardly up stairs, with fresh
towels on her arm. Aunt Winifred turned and held out her hand.
“Well, Phœbe, I am glad to see you. This is Phœbe, I am sure? You
have altered with everything else since I was here before. You keep
bright and well, I hope, and take good care of Miss Mary?”
It was a simple enough thing, to be sure, her taking the trouble to
notice the old servant with whom she had scarcely ever exchanged a
half-dozen words; but I liked it. I liked the way, too, in which it was
done. It reminded me of Roy’s fine, well-bred manner towards his
inferiors,--always cordial, yet always appropriate; I have heard that
our mother had much the same.
I tried to make things look as pleasant as I could down stairs, while
they were making ready for tea. The grate was raked up a little, a
bright supper-cloth laid on the table, and the curtains drawn. Phœbe
mixed a hasty cake of some sort, and brought out the heavier pieces of
silver,--tea-pot, &c., which I do not use when I am alone, because it is
so much trouble to take care of them, and because I like the little
Wedgwood set that Roy had for his chocolate.
“How pleasant!” said Aunt Winifred, as she sat down with Faith in a high
chair beside her. Phœbe had a great hunt up garret for that chair; it
has been stowed away there since it and I parted company. “How pleasant
everything is here! I believe in bright dining-rooms. There is an
indescribable dinginess to most that I have seen, which tends to
anything but thankfulness. Homesick, Faith? No; that’s right. I don’t
think we shall be homesick at Cousin Mary’s.”
If she had not said that, the probabilities are that they would have
been, for I have fallen quite out of the way of active housekeeping,
and have almost forgotten how to entertain a friend. But I do not want
her good opinion wasted, and mean they shall have a good time if I can
make it for them.
It was a little hard at first to see her opposite me at the table; it
was Roy’s place.
While she was sitting there in the light, with the dust and weariness of
travel brushed away a little, I was able to make up my mind what this
aunt of mine looks like.
She is young, then, to begin with, and I find it necessary to reiterate
the fact, in order to get it into my stupid brain. The cape and
spectacles, the little old woman’s shawl and invalid’s walk, for which I
had prepared myself, persist in hovering before my bewildered eyes,
ready to drop down on her at a moment’s notice. Just thirty-five she is
by her own showing; older than I, to be sure; but as we passed in front
of the mirror together, once to-night, I could not see half that
difference between us. The peace of her face and the pain of mine
contrast sharply, and give me an old, worn look, beside her. After all,
though, to one who had seen much of life, hers would be the true
maturity perhaps,--the maturity of repose. A look in her eyes once or
twice gave me the impression that she thinks me rather young, though she
is far too wise and delicate to show it. I don’t like to be treated like
a girl. I mean to find out what she does think.
My eyes have been on her face the whole evening, and I believe it is the
sweetest face--woman’s face--that I have ever seen. Yet she is far from
being a beautiful woman. It is difficult to say what makes the
impression; scarcely any feature is accurate, yet the _tout ensemble_
seems to have no fault. Her hair, which must have been bright bronze
once, has grown gray--quite gray--before its time. I really do not know
of what color her eyes are; blue, perhaps, most frequently, but they
change with every word that she speaks; when quiet, they have a curious,
far-away look, and a steady, lambent light shines through them. Her
mouth is well cut and delicate, yet you do not so much notice that as
its expression. It looks as if it held a happy secret, with which,
however near one may come to her, one can never intermeddle. Yet there
are lines about it and on her forehead, which are proof plain enough
that she has not always floated on summer seas. She yet wears her
widow’s black, but relieves it pleasantly by white at the throat and
wrists. Take her altogether, I like to look at her.
Faith is a round, rolling, rollicking little piece of mischief, with
three years and a half of experience in this very happy world. She has
black eyes and a pretty chin, funny little pink hands all covered with
dimples, and a dimple in one cheek besides. She has tipped over two
tumblers of water, scratched herself all over playing with the cat, and
set her apron on fire already since she has been here. I stand in some
awe of her; but, after I have become initiated, I think that we shall be
very good friends.
“Of all names in the catalogue,” I said to her mother, when she came
down into the parlor after putting her to bed, “Faith seems to be about
the _most_ inappropriate for this solid-bodied, twinkling little bairn
of yours, with her pretty red cheeks, and such an appetite for supper!”
“Yes,” she said, laughing, “there is nothing _spirituelle_ about Faith.
But she means just that to me. I could not call her anything else. Her
father gave her the name.” Her face changed, but did not sadden; a
quietness crept into it and into her voice, but that was all.
“I will tell you about it sometime,--perhaps,” she added, rising and
standing by the fire. “Faith looks like him.” Her eyes assumed their
distant look, “like the eyes of those who see the dead,” and gazed
away,--so far away, into the fire, that I felt that she would not be
listening to anything that I might say, and therefore said nothing.
We spent the evening chatting cosily. After the fire had died down in
the grate (I had Phœbe light a pine-knot there, because I noticed
that Aunt Winifred fancied the blaze in the dining-room), we drew up our
chairs into the corner by the register, and roasted away to our hearts’
content. A very bad habit, to sit over the register, and Aunt Winifred
says she shall undertake to break me of it. We talked about everything
under the sun,--uncles, aunts, cousins, Kansas and Connecticut, the
surrenders and the assassination, books, pictures, music, and Faith,--O,
and Phœbe and the cat. Aunt Winifred talks well, and does not gossip
nor exhaust her resources; one feels always that she has material in
reserve on any subject that is worth talking about.
For one thing I thank her with all my heart: she never spoke of Roy.
Upon reflection, I find that I have really passed a pleasant evening.
* * * * *
She knocked at my door just now, after I had written the last sentence,
and had put away the book for the night. Thinking that it was Phœbe,
I called, “Come in,” and did not turn. She had come to the bureau where
I stood unbraiding my hair, and touched my arm, before I saw who it was.
She had on a crimson dressing-gown of warm flannel, and her hair hung
down on her shoulders. Although so gray, her hair is massive yet, and
coils finely when she is dressed.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I thought you would not be in bed,
and I came in to say,--let me sit somewhere else at the breakfast-table,
if you like. I saw that I had taken ‘the vacant place.’ Good night, my
dear.”
It was such a little thing! I wonder how many people would have noticed
it or taken the trouble to speak of it. The quick perception, the
unusual delicacy,--these too are like Roy.
I almost wish that she had stayed a little longer. I almost think that I
could bear to have her speak to me about him.
Faith, in the next room, seems to have wakened from a frightened dream,
and I can hear their voices through the wall. Her mother is soothing and
singing to her in the broken words of some old lullaby with which
Phœbe used to sing Roy and me to sleep, years and years ago. The
unfamiliar, home-like sound is pleasant in the silent house. Phœbe,
on her way to bed, is stopping on the garret-stairs to listen to it.
Even the cat comes mewing up to the door, and purring as I have not
heard the creature purr since the old Sunday-night singing, hushed so
long ago.