GOING AND STAYING.
MARION waked in the morning with a general impression that something
very delightful had happened, but it was some minutes before she could
disentangle her recollections. At last, however, it came to her. She
was really going away, going to begin the world anew as she had wished.
She was going where she would have a chance to show what she could do,
and where she would not be looked down upon, and treated like a baby,
as she was now.
As she lay and looked round her pretty little room with its
old-fashioned furniture almost black with age, the carved cabinet which
did duty as a bureau, the looking-glass with its queer frame of black
wood and tarnished gilding, the muslin-covered toilet-table which
Aunt Baby had dressed up in one of her own old flowered dresses as a
surprise for Marion's birthday, she wondered how it would seem to wake
in a new place.
"Of course I shall go to work and make my room as pretty as I can.
I mean to begin some mats and tidies and a scrap-bag, and have some
glasses for flowers. I mean to ask Aunt Baby to let me have father's
pictures and hang them up—at least some of them. Perhaps some day I
shall have a fine house and picture galleries of my own, and then dear
father's works shall be appreciated at last. Of course poor dear Aunt
Baby could not be expected to see anything in them."
Then returning to her room: "I shall have my Bible and books of course,
and when the little boys come in to see me, as I shall let them when
they are very good, I shall read to them and tell them Bible stories.
Perhaps I shall get them to have family worship after a while."
Marion lay indulging in these delightful visions till the striking
clock warned her that it was time to get up. She had resolved on being
very kind and amiable to everybody, so as to leave none but pleasant
remembrances behind her. Especially she would be very considerate
to Aunt Baby. After all, she had meant to be kind, and had been so
according to her lights. As Christian said, the idea of her own
superiority was firmly fixed in Marion's mind, especially of her
superiority to her own family.
"I suppose Marie must have some new clothes," said Hector McGregor at
breakfast. "We must not let her go among her new friends with nothing
to wear."
"I don't think you need take any trouble about that, grandfather," said
Marion, "I dare say father—I mean Mr. Van Alstine—will provide all that
is necessary."
"I dare say Ezra will do what is right, my dear, but I should not like
you to begin by asking him for something to wear," said Miss Baby.
"Aunt Christian has to go to T— for two or three days. We will just
look over your things and see what is needed, and she will buy it for
us."
The clothes were looked over, and it was decided that Marion should
have a new black silk, a muslin and some other articles of minor
importance.
"Don't you mean to send for your summer shawl, Aunt Baby?" asked
Marion. "You won't have another so good a chance."
"No, dear; I don't think I shall buy a summer shawl just at present,"
answered Aunt Baby, quietly. "My old one will do very well for some
time yet."
"Well, I wonder how you can bear to wear that old snuff-coloured Canton
crape that is as well-known as the meeting-house," said Marion.
And it was not till some hours afterward that she suspected that the
price of Aunt Baby's new summer shawl had gone into her black silk. It
was not that Marion meant to be ungrateful so much as that she did not
think. Her heart was never—
"At leisure from itself"
to consider the claims and feelings of others.
"Aunt Baby, I wish you would let me have the key of the east garret,"
said Marion next day after doctor and Mrs. Campbell had gone; "I want
to look at father's pictures."
Miss Baby hesitated.
"Marie dear, I don't think I would touch them if I were you. I don't
think you will find any pleasure in them."
"I can tell better when I see them," said Marion, loftily. "I think
I have a right to the things which belonged to him, and whatever his
faults were, he was my father."
"True, my dear. I would have you respect his memory, and for that very
reason I would let the dead rest. However, take ell own way, lassie,"
she added, as Marion made a gesture of impatience. "Here is the key.
Bring it back when you have done with it."
"I suppose I can have some of the pictures to take with me," said
Marion; "and the rest can stay here till I have a house of my own."
"Oh yes, they can stay; never fear."
Marion ran up to the east garret, as it was called, and opened the
stiff and seldom-used door. The place was not so much a garret as a
little chamber in the roof, with a large dormer window a good deal
darkened first by dust and cobwebs and secondly by an old green curtain.
Marion went down for a broom, with which she brushed away the cobwebs.
She rolled up the curtain, threw open the window, and then looked
eagerly about her.
A quantity of rather thin new-looking books were piled on the floor
in one corner. In another were a number of large unframed canvases
leaning against the wall. Marion eagerly seized upon two and turned
them round. Her heart sank at the first glance, but she resolutely
wiped the dust from their faces and placed them in the most favourable
light and sat down on an old chair to look at them. Alas for her dreams
of picture galleries and posthumous fame for her poor father! One of
the pictures represented a broad pewter-coloured river running down the
middle of the canvas at a very steep angle. On one verdigris-coloured
bank was a large red church, which seemed on the point of slipping
out of the picture. On the other, exactly opposite, was a large red
house similarly endangered. A cow which, judging from the rest of the
picture, must have been about sixty feet long, was standing lengthwise
in the pewter river, to which if turned across she would have made a
convenient bridge. The other picture was worse if possible than the
first.
Marion had a correct eye and some knowledge of drawing, but these were
hardly required to show that the pictures were the most wretched daubs
imaginable. She hastily pushed them back into their original position,
and was about to close the window when her eye fell on the books. They
might be better, and she took one and opened it at random. The volume
was prettily printed on nice paper, and must have cost a good deal. The
first poem she lighted on was called "The Rose," and read as follows:
"The rose is a beautiful flower,
It holds up its elegant head
Above all the rest in the bower,
And gives a sweet scent when it's dead.
"A beautiful blue is the violet,
Round and white is the snowball,
But, love, when you send me a bouquet,
Oh, let a sweet rose crown them all!"
and so on for many verses. This elegant poem was a fair sample of the
contents of the volume.
Marion threw it down and burst into very pardonable tears of
mortification and disgust. Her visions of vindicating the reputation
of her dead father were among the least selfish and narrow of her
many day-dreams, and it was indeed very hard to have them so rudely
dispelled.
"Marie dear, don't cry," said a gentle voice, and Aunt Baby's hand was
laid on her head.
"Oh, Aunt Baby, I wish I had taken your advice," sobbed Marion, laying
her head on her aunt's shoulder as the latter knelt beside her. "I wish
I had never looked at the things. They ought not to have been kept.
They ought to be burned up."
"My dear, I have said that to myself a great many times, but it isn't
a very easy matter to burn up two or three hundred bound volumes all
at once. I might have used them for kindling, but I had a kind of
tenderness for the poor things after all. Your father thought them so
fine, it seemed almost cruel to treat them in that way. So I e'en piled
them all up here, and left them to the mice."
"But they are such—such horrible trash," said Marion, picking up the
volume she had dropped. "They are not even good grammar. Just see here:
"'Oh, what an impulsive truant love thou art!
Thou first subdues then inspirates the heart!'
"I don't see how he ever got any one to publish them!"
"He could not get any one to publish them, and wasted a great deal of
money in printing them himself: I don't want to blame him now that he
is away, but you can see what a distress and mortification it was to
all of us, especially as your poor mother's little portion and earnings
were all wasted in such undertakings, and she actually suffered. From
what I have learned since, I have very little doubt that the death
of Eiley's first child was caused by its mother's want of the common
necessaries of life, while its father was refusing work which would
have supported his family, to paint pictures and write poems such as
these."
"But my mother never would have thought anything of this rubbish," said
Marion. "She must have known better."
"Of course she did. That was not one of the least of her many troubles.
But if she ever said a word, her husband talked of the trials of genius
and bemoaned his hard fate in being yoked to such an uncongenial mate,
the doited haverel," said Aunt Baby in sudden impatience. "My dear, I
beg your pardon, I ought not to speak so of your father before you.
There, let us put the books and pictures away and close the door on
them."
"I mean to ask Uncle Alick to burn them all up some time when he is
burning a log heap," said Marion.
"That is a very good notion. I never thought of it," said Aunt Baby.
"There, don't cry any more. I never meant you should see these things,
for I knew they would vex you."
"She is just as good as she can be," said Marion to herself as she went
to her room to wash her hands and brush the dust from her dress. "I
won't do a single thing to tease her as long as I stay, and I will help
her all I can. It was very good of her to give up her new shawl, and it
isn't her fault if she doesn't understand me."
And then Marion blushed as she remembered how her father had considered
himself a misunderstood genius. "I wonder if I am like him," she
thought. "Aunt Baby must have remembered him ever so many times when I
talked of being misunderstood. I will never do it again, I know that."
The lesson she had received was not lost upon Marion. She certainly was
far more modest and amiable than usual during the remainder of her stay
at home. She took her share of the household work without grumbling,
and tried to anticipate her aunt and to save her steps. She even made a
resolution to forego the society of the heiress of the McGregors, and
kept it for at least forty-eight hours. She read her Bible punctually,
and spent more time than usual in prayer.
But she did not go to the root of the matter. She had not learned
to call by their right names the great faults of her character, her
self-consciousness, conceit and habitual contempt for those about her.
She did not see these things in the light of sins to be prayed and
striven against. She knew that people considered her self-conceited,
but that was only because "they did not understand her."
Consequently, it was not long before her day-dreams resumed their
sway. She was once more the model daughter and sister who was to bring
order out of chaos and elegance and refinement out of vulgarity. Her
very religious exercises ministered to her delusion. With her vigorous
imagination, it was not difficult for her to work herself up into a
state of exalted feeling, and she found pleasure in so doing. She took
this feeling as an evidence that she was truly converted. She applied
to her daily conduct none of those Scripture tests which seem given
especially to guard against such delusions as hers.
"If ye love me, keep my commandments."
"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth
me."
"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above."
Marion never thought of applying any such tests as these. She pleased
herself with dreams of influencing her unknown father and brothers,
of establishing Sunday schools among an all but heathen population
of workmen and their families, even of persuading her father and
brother-in-law to build a church; but all the time it was Marion
McGregor who was to have the honour. Not that she said this in so
many words, but it was at the bottom of all her schemes. She was not
undeceived when she forgot her Sunday school lesson in her ideal class,
lost the whole church service, sermon and all, in dreaming over the
church she meant to build, and spent the time devoted to her private
devotions in the same way.
The circumstances of Marion's journey were all arranged. She was to
travel with Doctor and Mrs. Campbell to New York. The doctor would put
her on the train for the nearest station to Hemlock Valley, under the
care of the conductor, and she would have no changes after that; her
stepfather or one of the boys would meet her at the station, and take
her home.
The day before her departure arrived, and Marion had been down to the
village to say some good-byes and make some last little purchases. She
was not in quite as good spirits as she had been. After all, it was
a serious thing to leave her friends who had brought her up, and the
place which had always been her home, and go away among strangers. She
began to appreciate the love which had always surround her, and to have
some few stirrings of conscience as to the way she had received and
recompensed that love. Her grandfather, vigorous as he was, had long
passed the usual term of human life, and Marion felt that she might
very probably never see him again.
"I wish I had not seemed so glad to go," thought Marion; "they will all
think I am very unfeeling. Here are Kitty and Therese coming; I wonder
if they have been up to our house. I wish I was going to Paris like
Therese, instead of into the woods, though after all I suppose she will
be only a servant."
"We have been up to see you," said Kitty, when they met; "I suppose you
will be going to-morrow."
"Yes, by the early express; but I shall not get home till night
to-morrow, Uncle Duncan says. And you?"
"We go to New York in two weeks, but we shall not sail for some time,"
answered Kitty. "Only think, Marion, Therese is not going after all.
Isn't it too bad?"
"Not going!" exclaimed Marion; "Why, I thought it was all settled."
"So it was, but it has been unsettled again," said Therese; "that is
the way with things in this world, you know."
"But how?"
"Well, Grandmother Duval is very feeble; she has no relation but me
in the world, that she knows of. She isn't fit to stay alone, and she
doesn't like having a stranger; so there seems a clear call for me to
stay."
"But what does Mrs. Tremaine say?"
"She thinks I am right, and so does Mrs. Parmalee, and I am sure I am,"
answered Therese. "Grand-mère Duval has always been the kindest of the
kind to me, and now it is my turn to do something for her."
"Well, I think she is very mean and selfish to require such a
sacrifice," said Marion, with her usual want of consideration; "she
ought to be willing to give up something for your sake, and not expect
you to sacrifice such advantages for improving yourself."
"I suppose the best way of improving one's self is by doing one's
duty," said Therese with some animation. "If you knew my grandmother,
Marion, you would never think of calling her selfish. She never asked
me to stay. But I know it will be a great comfort to her, and indeed
I don't see how she could do without me. She is very much changed and
broken since—since I was sick. She is unfit to be alone, and there is
nobody else to stay with her. She did all she could for me, and, as I
said, now it is my turn to do for her."
"But were you not dreadfully disappointed?" asked Marion, with an
uncomfortable feeling that these words might somehow apply to herself.
"Why yes, I was, there is no denying it," answered Therese, winking
her long lashes pretty hard, but smiling brightly at the same time.
"However, it is not an unmixed disappointment after all. I am going to
step into your shoes, Marion. Miss Tilly has given me her scholarship
in the Crocker school."
"Why, what has Miss Tilly to do with it, and how does she come to have
a scholarship?" asked Marion.
"Because her name is Crocker," answered Kitty. "There is a great
deal in a name sometimes. Cousin Tilly is one of the two remaining
descendants of old Mr. Crocker who founded and endowed the school
before the Revolution. She is his great-granddaughter, and, as such,
has the right of nominating two pupils to the school whenever there
are vacancies. I have one scholarship, and I have lent it to Mary
Parmalee's cousin for the present. The other has been vacant some time,
and Cousin Tilly has given it to Therese."
"Well, I'm sure she is welcome to it for me, and I wish her joy of it,"
said Marion; "I know you all think Miss Oliver perfection, but I never
could see her merit, though she does very well for a little place like
this."
"Mamma thinks Miss Oliver is one of the best teachers she ever knew
anywhere," said Kitty.
"She never understood me," replied Marion; "but as she is obliged to
teach for a living, it is a good thing that somebody wants her."
"I hope somebody will want me when I am educated," said Therese. "Well,
Kitty, we ought to be going. Good-bye, Marion; I hope you will have a
pleasant journey."
"I wonder if Aunt Baby thinks I ought to stay at home and help her?"
thought Marion as she went on her way homeward. "I suppose she has
really done a good deal more for me than Therese's grandmother for her."
But these thoughts were not agreeable, and Marion returned to her
day-dreams.
The next morning she set out on her journey.