“RICH WITH THE SPOILS OF NATURE”
“It certainly is convenient to be grown up,” said Florimel, when
the entire family had returned from bidding Lord Kelmscourt a final
good-bye at the station. He was gone forever, and, inconsistently, the
three girls were truly sorry. He had been so kind, so self-effacing,
his trustworthiness was so evident in driving the car, and in
looking after its occupants, that if there had been any way of
holding him, while at the same time holding him _off_--from
step-fatherhood--the Garden girls would have been delighted to have
added him permanently to their lives.
“It’s quite as convenient to be a little short of grown up, often,
Mellie. What are you thinking of that makes you say that?” asked Mary,
rapidly divesting herself of her gown, and getting into a soft blue
lounging gown, as a preparation for throwing herself across the foot of
the bed for an hour’s rest before supper.
Florimel unbraided her black hair and dropped it over the back of her
chair, rocking furiously to fan it.
“We’ve been driving and driving, hours, and you and Jane and I were
miserable, miserable-minded, because we were so sorry to think Lord
Kelmscourt had to go away and be a rejected suitor. Rejected suitors
are perfectly tragic in stories! We could hardly answer when he talked
to us, and we all acted as if we were babies, standing on one foot with
our thumbs in our mouths, we were so awkward and embarrassed. And here
was the rejected suitor driving away, as calm as milk, and madrina
chatting with him, easy and natural! She was not a bit embarrassed;
neither was the R. S.! Of course Englishmen are supposed to be just
like Gibraltar, never showing what they feel. But I still think it’s
great to be grown up. It carries you through things. I’d love to be
able to refuse to marry some one, and then act the next day as if he’d
dropped in for tea, and I happened to be out of it! Not so upset; I’ve
seen people much more embarrassed when they had company, and something
to eat was spoiled, than madrina was to-day! It’s being grown up, and
out in society.”
Jane stood in the doorway laughing; she, too, had on her kimono, and
she was wandering and combing her hair, after her incorrigible habit of
dressing on the march.
“You’ll have to see that you change as you grow up, Mel, or you’ll
never hide your feelings,” she advised. “Well, I’m as sorry as I
can be that nice Lord Kelmscourt couldn’t stay--some other way! If
only he could have been our chauffeur, a chauffeuring friend, or a
friendly chauffeur, living near enough to spend lots of evenings with
us, like Mr. and Mrs. Moulton! He’s splendid. And the clever little
points he taught me in driving to-day! You can see he’s one of those
well-trained, all-around people who do everything well. I’m sure he’s
very fond of madrina; he was so willing to give her up.”
“Of all reasons for thinking he liked her a lot!” cried Florimel.
Jane nodded her head hard. “You couldn’t tell how unwilling he
_felt_, but the quietly willing way he acted, I mean,” she
persisted. “A cheap little liking might make a row, but a big, deep
liking would consider madrina, and not make her uncomfortable.”
Mary raised her head, and poked her pillow into a bunch, as she
regarded Jane with her customary admiration.
“I wonder if you won’t be a novelist instead of a singer or actress,
Janie,” she said. “You do see things!”
“Maybe I’ll be a telescope,” said Jane, turning on her heel and
swinging down the hall, singing foolishly:
“_Jane could see when she’d look, so she wrote a great book,
Jane could see when she’d look, so she wrote a great book._”
The three girls were ready for supper before their mother, and they
went out into the garden to wait for her. Whenever the Garden girls had
to wait, or had a few spare moments, or had work to do that could be
done there, it was as natural for them to stroll out into the garden
paths as it would have been for a bird to fly out of an open window.
Mrs. Garden was not long following them. She came running downstairs,
all in white, and stole up behind Mary, who had not seen her coming.
“Why so grave, my little grandmother?” she asked.
“Was I?” Mary turned to her with a smile that was far from grave. “I
was wondering whether those hybrid tea roses we planted this spring,
which are blooming so well over there, would really prove hardy and
survive the winter.”
“Did I ever tell you that the Kelmscourt place, Lord Kelmscourt’s
splendid old house, time of George I, has an acre of nothing but roses?
Oh, me, it’s wonderful! You really know nothing of gardens over here.”
Mrs. Garden dropped her head and sighed wistfully, not an unmistakable
sigh, but a delicately done one, conveying a regret that was repressed,
struggling to the day.
Instantly Florimel pounced on her, while Mary and Jane exchanged a look
of terror.
“Now you’re sorry!” cried Florimel, her voice tragic. “We don’t blame
you, but now you’re sorry!” She stalked away, misery in her whole
attitude. Mrs. Garden threw up her head with a laugh, her eyes dancing
with mischief, swung on the toes of her dainty little slippers like a
dancer, and ran after Florimel.
“You little gypsy explosive baby!” she cried, catching her youngest
girl around the shoulders and turning her to see her mother’s laughing
face. “I thought that would tease you, silly little zanies! Why, girls,
can’t you see how happy I am? I’m as pleased as if I’d found a lost
treasure chest! I was not obliged to leave you, of course, and I didn’t
come anywhere near going, but I feel as though I had escaped a great
danger! My lassies, I want you to know, once for all, that I’d rather
be your mother than anything else on earth. I’ve said that before, but
do realize how true it is! And I love the old Garden house and the old
Garden garden, and I’d be horribly jealous for you of any interest that
would divide me. I want to be yours, entirely yours! I’ve found it’s
the best thing in all the world to be a mother--even a toy-mother!
Come, hug me!” Mrs. Garden held out her arms, laughing, but with the
merry eyes that called to Mary and Jane, as well as to Florimel,
shining through moisture on their lashes.
“Well, Lynette Garden! You bet we’ll hug you!” cried Florimel, and no
one felt that the slangy response was blameworthy this time. There
seemed to be need of vigorous expression.
The Garden girls crushed the little white-clad figure in a threefold,
bearlike embrace. The day was won, their mother was won; the last
uncertainty as to her loving them well enough to be happy with them,
at the price of the loss of her old world of pleasures and admiration,
was settled. The strange relationship, in which the daughters
were almost as much their mother’s mother as she was their mother;
the protecting, petting, playful love they gave her, the admiring,
dependent, comrade love which she gave them, was cemented, assured
forever. It was an exceedingly happy, radiant Garden family that came
in to supper when Anne called the four young women.
After supper, in the twilight of the garden, as usual, the mother and
the girls, with Win--and Chum, as always, at Florimel’s feet--sat
expecting Mr. and Mrs. Moulton. They heard Mark’s halting step coming
down the street, unaccompanied. Mark’s lameness was less visible than
audible. It swayed his body but slightly, but it gave an irregular beat
to his footfall.
“Mark is coming without them!” said Mary.
Mark came in at the side gate and across the path to the group.
“Thought I’d find you here,” he said. “Aren’t you chilly?”
“Not yet, but we shall be soon,” said Mrs. Garden. “It was
uncomfortably warm in the sunshine to-day, but there’s a chilliness
creeping into the evening.”
“September,” suggested Mark. “Summer’s over; though it takes the sun
awhile to find it out, the stars know it. I’ve a good deal to tell you.
May I bring a chair?”
“With my help, Markums,” said Win, rising to take one arm of the garden
chair which Mark went over to fetch.
“Oh, why not go in at once? We shall only have to move after Mark gets
under way with his story,” said Florimel, who hated to be interrupted
when she was interested.
“No; let’s cling to every possible moment of our last garden evenings
this year!” cried Jane, and Mark dropped into the chair which Win
considerately halted near Mary.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” said Mark, as they all looked at him,
waiting for him to begin. “I had a birthday to-day.”
“And never told us!” Jane reproached him.
“I don’t see how we happened not to have found out your date. We always
keep the birthdays; we love to. Why didn’t you let us know, Mark?” Mary
exclaimed.
“Because you’d have bought me one of those girl-chosen neckties no
fellow ever wants to wear, Mary,” Mark teased her.
“Are you nineteen to-day, Mark?” asked Mrs. Garden.
“That’s all, Mrs. Garden, but don’t you think I’m pretty far along for
my age?” asked Mark. “Mr. and Mrs. Moulton had found out my birthday
date some time ago. Dear Garden blossoms, they’ve given me a present.”
The boy stopped short; evidently he was profoundly moved.
“Oh, Mark, what?” cried Mary, leaning forward, catching his excitement.
“A present with a condition attached to it, but such a condition!” Mark
resumed. “They have asked me to promise to devote my life to carrying
on Mr. Moulton’s work; with him, while he lives, for him after he is
dead. Mr. Moulton thinks that I shall be competent to do this, and he
has asked me to undertake it. It’s a great thing--both ways. A great
thing to do and a great opportunity for me.” Again Mark paused.
“It’s big, old Mark!” said Win. “But the present in return?”
“If I will accept Mr. Moulton’s trust in me and devote my life to his
work, he--they, his wife and he--will adopt me legally, not taking
their name, you know, but as their heir. They’ll make me their son.
It’s--it’s awful!” Mark choked, and his head went down on the back
of his chair, to which he turned his face, utterly unable to command
himself any longer.
“Mark, dear, it’s not awful; it’s beautiful! Beautiful both ways!”
cried Jane.
“I don’t know whether I’m more glad for you or for the dear Moultons,”
said Mary.
“You don’t have to be glad separately; it’s all one,” said Florimel
wisely.
“Old chap, I’m too glad to say how glad!” cried Win, slapping Mark on
the back with such vigour that it had a tonic effect.
Mrs. Garden had not spoken, but the touch of her hand on Mark’s
shoulder was eloquent of her rejoicing sympathy.
Mark faced them all again, wiping his eyes, unashamed. “I didn’t cry
when I was down and out,” he said. “A fellow doesn’t feel so much like
crying when he’s got his teeth set, and he’s standing things. But
this--this heavenly kindness gets me.”
“It would any one,” said Mary. “But it isn’t all kindness, Mark. Mr.
Moulton was anxious, troubled when he could not see any one who would
be likely to finish what he had begun; you know what that means to a
scientist, for you are one yourself, in your younger way. And Mrs.
Moulton has been lonely. I can see that she leans on you as much, in
her way, as her husband does for the botanical work. They’re very fond
of you and this is just as good for them as for you--not that I want
to belittle what they do for you, but it wouldn’t be right for you to
think of it as in the least a charity.”
“I don’t, Mary; I see it just as you do,” said Mark. “But you can’t
understand, not even you people who are so quick to understand things,
what it means to belong. My father and I were chums. When he died it
wasn’t so much that I was left poor, when I had supposed we were well
off, but the relatives I had rather did me, and I didn’t belong to a
soul. Take a dog; it isn’t enough to feed him. A good dog craves a
master, he’s got to belong to some one. I knew a lost dog once that
some people fed; he wasn’t hungry, but he was heart-broken till he was
adopted by some one who loved him. In a week you wouldn’t have known
him; chirked right up, _belonged_ again, you see. Now if a dog
feels that, so does a boy. You’ve all been like old friends to me, the
Moultons couldn’t have been better, but I didn’t belong to any one.
Mr. and Mrs. Moulton told me about this only a little while ago, at
supper time, but I know it’s making me over already. Oh, my soul, what
a birthday present!”
“You’re going to accept the conditions?” hinted Mrs. Garden, with her
little look of mischief.
“Accept them! I don’t believe I am; I think they simply swallow me up.
I would rather do something of the sort Mr. Moulton is doing than be
Romulus and Remus and found Rome! Think of it! I used to intend to go
to college, and then devote my life to science, but father was killed
in the fire and the whole game was up, college and affording to work at
a science--botany--and all! And then I wandered into Vineclad, looking
for a bookkeeper’s job which I heard was here, and walked right into
the fulfilment of my ambition! Talk about our lives being laid out for
us! Did you ever know anything like it? And Mr. and Mrs. Moulton’s
adopted son! The finest people! And everything on earth I could desire
made possible, just when no one could have seen a chance for me!”
Mark’s eyes as they rested on Mary were so alight that hers fell.
“Lucky isn’t the only one lucky,” said Florimel, rising with Lucky
in her arms; the cat always found her after a while and cuddled
down in her lap wherever she was seated. Florimel held him close to
Mark’s face. “Kiss him and tell him you and he are twin brothers in
luckiness! But don’t you forget, Mark Walpole, that Florimel Garden
made you come home with her that day, you and Chum, both.”
“Indeed I’ll not forget it, Miss Blackbird,” said Mark. “But I won’t
kiss Lucky; I’ll shake his paw instead. We are triplets in luck, Lucky,
Chum, and I! And it is the cold fact that the littlest Garden girl was
our mascot, all three of us.”
“The littlest Garden girl can be some good, if she is only the gypsy
and the blackbird, dancing and whistling,” said Florimel with dignity.
“Here come Mr. and Mrs. Moulton. We’d better go in; Mrs. Moulton can’t
sit out so late, now.”
“They let me come ahead of them to skim my own cream,” said Mark.
“Bless their splendid old hearts! I hope I’ll never fail them.”
“Sons that fail usually walk into failure. You won’t fail them, Mark,”
said Mrs. Garden, rising and helplessly trying to draw her scarf around
her, to which end her three girls, Win, and Mark jumped to help her.
The Gardens and Mark met Mr. and Mrs. Moulton at the steps. Mr. Moulton
smiled at Mary with the peculiar tenderness his eyes held for her,
mingled with a quizzical look that was new.
“How do you like my son Mark? This is his first birthday; it was Mark
Walpole’s nineteenth birthday, Marygold,” he said.
“Dear Mr. Moulton, we never, never shall be able to say how glad we
all are; as glad as we can be for you, too,” said Mary, seizing her
guardian by both hands.
“Ah, then I can see that you like my son Mark, for I’m sure you would
not rejoice if I had a son whom you disapproved,” returned Mr. Moulton,
swinging both of Mary’s arms by the extended hands, and ending by
laying her hands on his shoulders while he kissed her cheek.
“I’ve liked Mark from the first time I saw him,” said Mrs. Moulton,
temperately, but with a look at Mark that made her words sound warmer
than their registered temperature. “When he came over from your house
to talk to Mr. Moulton, he turned back to straighten a rug, and he
helped me to catch my canary, which had flown out of his cage; he
handled the little creature gently and wooed him with soft notes.
There’s a boy, I said to myself, who is orderly; witness the rug.
Gentle, patient; witness the bird. Kind and respectful; witness his
bothering about the concerns of a woman of my age. I decided on the
spot that Mark was a good boy; of course it was easy to see that he
was well-bred. I’ve never altered my opinion.”
Mark looked at her, rosy red even to the tips of his ears. He went up
to her with an entirely new freedom and affection of manner.
“See here, Mother Moulton,” he said. “You mustn’t praise me to total
strangers!”
It was not hard to see that Mrs. Moulton was delighted by this little
speech. Not less than Mark she felt--the childless woman in a happy
home, and with a husband such as few women can boast--that it was a
great deal “to belong,” to belong in a motherly way, to a fine boy.
“I’ve told Mark that I will not ask him to take my name,” said Mr.
Moulton. “He is to be my son, inheriting my property and my work,
fulfilling what I cannot finish. But he loved his father, and I should
not wish to supplant him, even if I could, which would be impossible
nonsense to discuss with a boy worth his salt. But as we all know that
when ‘The Study of the Flora of New York’ is published, long after I am
dead, it will be under my name and Mark’s, as joint authors--I believe
I’d be glad if he would consent to become Mark Moulton Walpole. Would
you object, Mark? Mary, urge my request.”
“It needs no urging, sir,” said Mark. “I’d be glad to take your name.
There’s no way I can express fully how much I owe you, nor how I’m
yours. That goes a little toward doing it.”
“As to owing, that’s nonsense. We serve one another, we three members
of the Moulton family. It’s not nonsense to feel that you belong to
us beyond verbal labelling. It may be nonsense, but it is true, that
I’d like my name to be incorporated with yours, so that when the book
appears, compiled by Austin Moulton and Mark Moulton Walpole, those
who see it will recognize you as my kin. As you surely are, my boy,
though you did not spring from my stock. We are of the same botanical
genus--and genius!--at least. Much obliged for your instant consent to
grafting my name on yours. Come home, Mark; Mrs. Moulton is waiting.”
Mr. Moulton laid his hand on Mark’s shoulder and the elder man and
the younger one looked into each other’s eyes with a smile that said
everything.
The Garden girls, Mrs. Garden, and Win went with them to the gate.
Florimel chased Mark with the intention of boxing his ears twenty
times, the birthday chastisement, with “one to grow on.” She was
fleet-footed, but Mark out-dodged her. Florimel hung, breathless
and defeated, on the gate watching the Moulton party down the road.
Mrs. Garden, Mary, Jane, and Win waved their hands just as wildly as
Florimel did, till the three visitors were out of sight. Then Florimel
stepped off of the gate and voiced the sentiments of her family in her
own way.
“Isn’t it hallelujahfied? Makes you want to sob your cheers, you’re so
stirred-up glad!” she said.