In these latter years Ann Edwards regarded her son Jerome with pride
and admiration, and yet with a measure of disapproval. In spite of
her fierce independence, a lifetime of poverty and struggle against
the material odds of life had given a sordid taint to her character.
She would give to the utmost out of her penury, though more from
pride than benevolence; but when it came to labor without hire, that
she did not understand.
"I 'ain't got anything to say against your watchin' with sick folks,
an' nursin' of 'em, if you've got the spare time an' strength," she
said to Jerome; "but if you do doctorin' for nothin' nobody 'll think
anything of it. Folks 'll jest ride a free horse to death, an' talk
about him all the time they're doin' of it. You might just as well be
paid for your work as folks that go ridin' round in sulkies chargin'
a dollar a visit. You want to get the mortgage paid up."
"It is almost paid up now, you know, mother," Jerome replied.
"How?" cried his mother, sharply. "By nippin' an' tuckin' an'
pinchin', an' Elmira goin' without things that girls of her age ought
to have."
"I don't complain, mother," said Elmira, with a sweet, bright glance
at her brother, as she gave a nervous jerk of her slender arm and
drew the waxed thread through the shoe she was binding.
"You'd ought to complain, if you don't," returned her mother. Then
she added, with an air of severe mystery, "It might make a difference
in your whole life if you did have more; sometimes it does with
girls."
Jerome did not say anything, but he looked in a troubled way from his
sister to his mother and back again. Elmira blushed hotly, and he
could not understand why.
It was very early in a spring morning, not an hour after dawn, but
they had eaten breakfast and were hurrying to finish closing and
binding a lot of shoes for Jerome to take to his uncle's for
finishing. They all worked smartly, and nothing more was said, but
Ann Edwards had an air of having conclusively established the subject
rather than dropped it. Jerome kept stealing troubled glances at his
sister's pretty face. Elmira was a mystery to him, which was not
strange, since he had not yet learned the letters of the heart of any
girl; but she was somewhat of a mystery to her mother as well.
Elmira was then twenty-two, but she was very small, and looked no
more than sixteen. She had the dreams and questioning wonder of
extreme youth in her face, and something beyond that even, which was
more like the wide-eye brooding and introspection of babyhood.
As one looking at an infant will speculate as to what it is thinking
about, so Ann often regarded her daughter Elmira, sitting sewing with
fine nervous energy which was her very own, but with bright eyes
fixed on thoughts beyond her ken. "What you thinkin' about, Elmira?"
she would question sharply; but the girl would only start and color,
and look at her as if she were half awake, and murmur that she did
not know. Very likely she did not; often one cannot remember dreams
when suddenly recalled from them; though Elmira had one dream which
was the reality of her life, and in which she lived most truly, but
which she would always have denied, even to her own mother, to guard
its sacredness.
When the shoes were done Jerome loaded himself with them, and,
watching his chance, beckoned his sister slyly to follow him as he
went out. Standing in the sweet spring sunlight in the door-yard, he
questioned her. "What did mother mean, Elmira?" he said.
"Nothing," she replied, blushing shyly.
"What is it you want, Elmira?"
"Nothing. I don't want anything, Jerome."
"Do you want--a new silk dress or anything?"
"A new silk dress? No." Elmira's manner, when fairly aroused and
speaking, was full of vivacity, in curious contrast to her dreaming
attitude at other times.
"I tell you what 'tis, Elmira," said Jerome, soberly. "I want you to
have all you need. I don't know what mother meant, but I want you to
have things like other girls. I wish you wouldn't put any more of
your earnings in towards the mortgage. I can manage that alone, with
what I'm earning now. I can pay it up inside of two years now. I told
you in the first of it you needn't do anything towards that."
"I wasn't going to earn money and not do my part."
"Well, take your earnings now and buy things for yourself. There's no
reason why you shouldn't. I can earn enough for all the rest. There's
no need of mother's working so hard, either. I can't charge for
mixing up doses of herbs, as she wants me to, for I don't do it for
anybody that isn't too poor to pay the doctor, but I earn enough
besides, so neither of you need to work your fingers to the bone or
go without everything. I'll give you some money. Get yourself a blue
silk with roses on it; seems to me I saw one in meeting last Sunday."
Elmira laughed out with a sweet ring. Her black hair was tossing in
the spring wind, her whole face showed variations and under-meanings
of youthful bloom and brightness in the spring light.
"'Twas Lucina Merritt wore the blue silk with roses on it; it rustled
against your knee when she passed our pew," she cried. "She is just
home from her young ladies' school, and she's as pretty as a picture.
I guess you saw more than the silk dress, Jerome Edwards."
With that Elmira blushed, and dropped her eyes in a curious sensitive
fashion, as if she had spoken to herself instead of her brother, who
looked at her quite gravely and coolly.
"I saw nothing but the silk," he said, "and I thought it would become
you, Elmira."
"I am too dark for blue," replied Elmira, fairly blushing for her own
blushes. At that time Elmira was as a shy child to her own emotions,
and Jerome's were all sleeping. He had truly seen nothing but the
sweep of that lovely rose-strewn silk, and never even glanced at the
fair wearer.
"Why not have a red silk, then?" he asked, soberly.
"I can't expect to have things like Squire Merritt's daughter,"
returned Elmira. "I don't want a new silk dress; I am going to have a
real pretty one made out of mother's wedding silk; she's had it laid
by all these years, and she says I may have it. It's as good as new.
I'm going over to Granby this morning to get it cut. When Imogen and
Sarah Lawson came over last week they told me about a mantua-maker
there who will cut it beautifully for a shilling."
"Mother don't want to give up her wedding-dress."
"Women always have their wedding-dresses made over for their
daughters," Elmira said, gravely.
"What color is it?"
"A real pretty green, with a little sheeny figure in it; and I am
going to have a new ribbon on my bonnet."
"It's 'most ten miles to Granby; hadn't I better get a team and take
you over?" said Jerome.
"No; it's a beautiful morning, and it will do me good to walk. I
shall go to Imogen and Sarah's and rest, and have a bite of something
before I come back too. I may not be home very early. You'd better
run along, Jerome, and I've got to get ready."
Jerome gave his burden of shoes a hitch of final adjustment. "Well,"
said he, "I'd just as lief take you over, if you say so."
"I don't want to be taken over. I want to take myself over," laughed
Elmira, and ran into the house before a flurry of wind.
That morning the wind was quite high, and though it was soft and
warm, was hard to breast on a ten-mile stretch. Elmira's strength was
mostly of nerve, and she had little staying power of muscle. Before
she had walked three miles on the road to Granby she felt as if she
were wading deeper and deeper against a mightier current of spring;
the scent of the young blossoms suffocated her with sweet heaviness;
the birds' songs rang wearily in her ears. She sat down on the stone
wall to rest a few moments, panting softly. She laid her parcel of
silk on the wall beside her and folded her hands in her lap. The day
was so warm she had put on, for the first time that spring, her pink
muslin gown, which had served her for a matter of eight seasons, and
showed in stripes of brighter color around the skirt where the tucks
had been let out to accommodate her growth. Her pink skirts fluttered
around her as she sat there, smiling straight ahead out of the pink
scoop of a sunbonnet like her dress, with a curious sweet directness,
as if she saw some one whom she loved--as, indeed, she did. Elmira,
full of the innocent selfishness of youth, saw such a fair vision of
her own self clad in her mother's wedding silk, with loving and
approving eyes upon her, that she could but smile.
Elmira rested a few minutes, then gathered up her parcel and started
again on her way. She reached the place in the road where the brook
willows border it on either side, and on the east side the brook,
which is a river in earliest spring, flows with broken gurgles over a
stony bed, and slackened her pace, thinking she would walk leisurely
there, for the young willows screened the sun like green veils of
gossamer, and the wind did not press her back so hard, and then she
heard the trot, trot of a horse's feet behind her.
She did not look around, but walked more closely to the side of the
road and the splendid east file of willows. The trot, trot of the
horse's feet came nearer and nearer, and finally paused alongside of
her; then a man's voice, half timid, half gayly daring, called,
"Good-day, Miss Elmira Edwards!"
With that Elmira gave a great start, though not wholly of surprise;
for the imagination of a maid can, at the stimulus of a horse's feet,
encompass nearly all realities within her dreams. Then she looked up,
and Doctor Prescott's son Lawrence was bending over from his saddle
and smiling into her pink face in her pink sunbonnet.
"Good-day," she returned, softly, and courtesied with a dip of her
pink skirts into a white foam of little way-side weedy flowers, and
then held her pink sun-bonnet slanted downward, and would not look
again into the young man's eager face.
"It is a full year since I have seen you, and not a glimpse of your
face did I get this time, and yet I knew, the minute I came in sight
of you, who it was," said he, gayly; still, there was a loving and
wistful intonation in his voice.
"Small compliment to me," returned Elmira, with a pretty spirit,
though she kept her pink bonnet slanted, "to know me by a gown and
bonnet I have had eight years."
"But 'twas _your_ gown and bonnet," said the young man, and Elmira
trembled and took an uneven step, though she strove to walk in a
dignified manner beside Lawrence Prescott on his bay mare. The mare
was a spirited creature, and he had hard work to rein her into a
walk. "Let me take your bundle," he said.
"It is not heavy," said she, but yielded it to him.
Lawrence Prescott was small and slight, but held himself in the
saddle with a stately air. He was physically like his father, but his
mother's smile parted his fine-cut lips, and her expression was in
his blue eyes.
Upham people had not seen much of Lawrence since he was a child, for
he had been away at a preparatory school before entering college, and
many of his vacations had not been spent at home. Now he was come
home to study medicine with his father and prepare to follow in his
footsteps of life. The general opinion was that he would never be as
smart. Many there were, even of those who had come in sore measure
under Doctor Seth Prescott's autocratic thumb, who held in dismay the
prospect of the transference of his sway to his son.
"Guess you'll see how this town will go down when the old doctor's
gone and the young one's here in his place," they said. It is the
people who make tyranny possible.
"How far are you going?" asked Lawrence, of Elmira flitting along
beside his dancing mare.
"Oh, a little way," said she, evasively.
"How far?" There was something of his father's insistence in
Lawrence's voice.
"To Granby," replied Elmira then, and tried to speak on
unconcernedly. She was ashamed to let him know how far she had
planned to walk because of her poverty.
"Granby!" cried Lawrence, with a whistle of astonishment; "why, that
is seven miles farther! You are not going to walk to Granby and back
to day?"
"I like to walk," said Elmira, timidly.
"Why, but it is a warm day, and you are breathing short now."
Lawrence pulled the mare up with a sharp whoa. "Now I'll tell you
what I'll do," he said. "You sit down here on that stone and rest,
and I'll ride back home and put the mare into the chaise, and I'll
drive you over there."
"No, thank you; I'd rather walk," said Elmira, all touched to bliss
by his solicitude, but resolved in her pride of poor maidenhood that
she would not profit by it.
"Let him go back and get the chaise, and have all the town talking
because Lawrence Prescott caught me walking ten miles to get a dress
cut? I guess I won't!" she told herself.
"You are just the same as ever; you would never let anybody do
anything for you unless you paid them for it," said Lawrence, half
angrily. Then he added, bending low towards her, "But you would pay
me, measure pressed down and running over, by going with me--you know
that, Elmira."
Elmira lost her step again, and her voice trembled a little, though
she strove to speak sharply. "I like to walk," said she.
"And I tell you you're all tired out now," said Lawrence. "I can see
you pant for breath. Don't you know, I am going to be a doctor, like
father? Let me go back, and you wait here."
Elmira shook her pink bonnet decidedly.
"Well, then," said Lawrence, "I tell you what you must do." He
slipped off the mare as he spoke. "Now," he said, and there was real
authority in his voice, "you've got to ride. It's a man's saddle, and
you won't sit so very secure, but I'll lead the mare, and you'll be
safe enough."
Elmira shrank back. "Oh, I can't," said she.
"Yes, you can. Whoa, Betty. She's gentle enough, for all she's
nervous, and she's used to a lady's riding her. The daughter of the
man who sold her to father used to scour the country on her. Come,
put your foot in my hand and jump up!"
"What would people say?"
"There isn't a house for a good mile, and I'll let you get down
before you reach it if you want to; but I don't see what harm it
would be if the whole town saw us. Come." Lawrence smiled with
gentle importunity at her, and held his hand, and Elmira could not
help putting her little foot in it and springing to the bay mare's
back in obedience to his bidding.
Elmira, fluttering like a pink flower on the back of the bay mare,
who really ambled along gently enough with Lawrence's hand on her
bridle, journeyed for the next mile as one in a happy dream. She was
actually incredulous of the reality of it all. She was half afraid
that the jolt of the bay mare would wake her from slumber; she kept
her eyes closed in the recesses of her sun-bonnet. Here was Lawrence
Prescott, about whom she had dreamed ever since she was a child, come
home, grown up and grand, grander than any young man in town, grand
as a prince, and not forgetting her, knowing her at a glance, even
when her face was hidden, and making her ride lest she get
over-tired. She had scarcely seen him, to speak to him, since she was
sixteen. Doctor Prescott had kept his son very close when he was home
on his vacations, and not allowed him to mingle much with the village
young people. That summer when Elmira was sixteen there had been
company in the doctor's house, and she had been summoned to assist in
the extra work. Somehow time had hung idly on young Lawrence's hands
that summer; the guests in the house were staid elderly folk and no
company for him. There was also much sickness in the village, and his
father was not as watchful as usual. It happened that Lawrence, for
lack of other amusement, would often saunter about the domestic
byways of the house, and had a hand in various tasks which brought
him into working partnership with pretty, young Elmira--such as
stemming currants or shelling pease and beans. On several occasions,
also, he and Elmira had roamed the pastures in search of blackberries
for tea. Once when they were out together, and had been picking a
long time from one fat bush, neither saying a word--for a strange
silence which abashed them both, though they knew not why, had come
between them--the girl, moved thereto by some quick impulse of
maidenly concealment and shame which she did not herself understand,
made some light and trivial remark about the size of the fruit, which
would well have acquit her had not her little voice broken with utter
self-betrayal of innocent love and passion. And then young Lawrence,
with a quick motion, as of fire which leaps to flame after a long
smoulder, flung an arm about her, with a sigh of "Oh, Elmira!" and
kissed her on her mouth.
Then they had quickly stood apart, as if afraid of each other, and
finished picking their berries and gone home soberly, with scarce a
word. But all the time it was as if invisible cords, which no
stretching could thin or break, bound them together, and when they
entered the house Doctor Prescott's wife, Lydia, looked at them both
with a gentle, yet keen and troubled air. That night, when Elmira
went home, she said to her softly that since the baking was all done
for the week, and the guests were to leave in three days, and the
weather was so warm, and she looked tired, she need not come again.
But she drew her to her gently, as she spoke, with one great
mother-arm, pressed the little dark head of the girl against her
breast, and kissed her. Lydia Prescott was a large woman, shaped like
a queen, but she was softer in her ways than Elmira's own mother.
When the girl had gone she turned to her son, who had seen her
caress, and blushed and thrilled as if he had given it himself. "You
must remember you are very young, Lawrence," said she; "you must
remember that a man has no right to follow his mind until he has
proved it, and you must remember your father."
And Lawrence had blushed and paled a little, and said, "Yes, mother,"
soberly, and gone away up-stairs to his own chamber, where he had
some wakeful hours, and when he fell asleep often started awake
again, with his heart throbbing in his side with that same joyful
pain as when he kissed pretty Elmira.
As for Elmira, she did not sleep at all, and came down in the morning
with young eyes like stars of love, which no dawn could dim. For six
years the memory of that kiss, which had never been repeated, for
Elmira had never seen Lawrence alone since, had been to her her
sweetest honey savor of life. Lucky it was for her that young
Lawrence, if the taste had not been in his heart as in hers during
his busy life in other scenes, had still the memory of its sweetness
left.
When they had passed through the avenue of brook willows, and the
brook itself had wound away through fields spotted as with emeralds
and gold, and then had passed some pasture-lands where red cattle
were grazing, and then came to a little stretch of pines, beyond
which the white walls of a house glimmered, Lawrence held up his arms
to Elmira. "It isn't necessary," said he, "but if you don't want to
ride my horse, with me leading him, past the houses there, why, I'll
take you down, as I said."
And with that Elmira slipped down, and Lawrence had kissed her again,
and she had not chidden him, and was following after him, trembling
and quite pale, except for the reflection of her pink sunbonnet,
while he rode slowly ahead.
When the cluster of houses were well passed he stopped and lifted
her again to the mare's saddle, and the old shyness of the
blackberry-field was over both of them again as they went on their
way. In truth, Lawrence was sorely bewildered betwixt his impulse of
young love and innocent conviction that his honor ought to be pledged
with the kiss, since they were boy and girl no longer, and his memory
of his father and what he might decree for him. As for Elmira, she
was much troubled in mind lest she ought to rebuke the young man for
his boldness, but could not bring herself so to do, not being certain
that she had not kissed him back and been as guilty as he.
The young couple went so all the way to Granby, striving now and
then, with casual talk, each to blind the other as to perturbation of
spirit. Lawrence lifted her from the saddle when Granby village came
in sight, but he did not kiss her again. Indeed, Elmira kept her head
well down that he might not; but he asked if he might call and see
her, and she said yes, and the next Wednesday evening was mentioned,
that day being Thursday. Then she fluttered up the Granby street to
Imogen and Sarah Lawson's with her mother's wedding silk, and
Lawrence Prescott rode back to Upham. Much he would have liked to
linger and take Elmira back as she had come, or else drive over for
her later with a chaise, but she had refused.
"Imogen and Sarah can have one of their neighbors' horses and wagons
whenever they like," said she, "and they will carry me home if I want
them to."
A strange maidenly shyness of her own bliss and happiness, which she
longed to repeat, was upon her. She had not told Lawrence what her
errand in Granby was. The truth was that she had planned her new gown
because Lawrence had come home, and she was anxious to wear it to
meeting in the hope that he might admire her in it. Should she betray
this artless preening and trimming of her maiden plumage, which,
though, like a bird's, an open secret of nature, must nevertheless be
kept sacred by an impulse of modest concealment and deceit towards
the one for whose sake it all was?