AT THE FIFIELDS’
The Fifields were the oldest family in Farmdale, and lived in the most
pretentious house. Rose had greatly admired the old home with its
high-pillared porch set behind tall hedges of prim cedar, and a view of
the interior only increased the feeling. To her eyes the claw-footed
tables and tall bedsteads with canopy tops were most imposing; and the
dimly lighted, seldom used parlor with its real lace curtains, its
carpet laid in great wreaths of roses, its gilt-framed mirror, and
its damask upholstered, mahogany furniture, was a really magnificent
apartment, including as it did the family portraits, and Miss Eudora’s
girlish efforts at painting on velvet.
Rose’s position in the family had been the subject of some discussion,
for Eudora Fifield had all her life sighed for a maid arrayed in a
white cap and apron, and it had been one of her numerous grievances
that of the array of independent spirited help who had filed in and out
of the Fifield kitchen one and all had flatly refused to conform to
such usage.
“But Rose,” she argued, “has been brought up in a city, where the
manners of the lower classes are so different. Why, when I visited Aunt
Morgan in Albany, her servants treated me with a deference you never
see here. Her parlor-maid always brought in the callers’ cards and the
letters on a salver; perhaps she would be willing to do that.”
Jane Fifield gave a snort, “As long as Nathan brings your letters in
his coat pocket and hands them to you, and we haven’t a caller once
a month, I think you won’t have much use for a salver. Besides the
Blossoms make her one of the family, and Mrs. Blossom particularly said
that she should never consent to her going to any place where she would
not be taken an interest in, but simply thought of as a little drudge.”
Miss Eudora drew a little sigh at the vanishing of the cap and salver,
but quickly caught herself as she remembered the dish-washing. “Well,”
she admitted, “I suppose it’s better to concede some points than not
have her come at all.”
* * * * *
“I wonder,” suddenly spoke Silence Blossom as she sat basting the
facing on a skirt the day after Rose left, “how Rose is getting on at
the Fifields’, and if she has heard anything yet about Eudora’s visit
to Albany? I don’t believe I’ve seen her any time since that she hasn’t
made some reference to it. I have often wondered what she would have
done if she hadn’t made that visit.”
“But you know,” urged Mrs. Patience, “she and Jane both live such
monotonous lives, with hardly an interest outside themselves, how can
they help but go over the same thing again and again?”
“I can tell one thing that would have happened if Eudora had not made
that Albany visit,” remarked Mrs. Blossom, who from an adjoining room
had overheard the conversation, “she would have been a happier woman
to-day. She came back from that taste of city life completely out of
tune with everything and everybody in Farmdale, and she has never got
in tune since.”
“I am afraid,” observed Grandmother Sweet placidly, “that thee is
sitting in judgment on thy neighbors.”
“La, Grandmother,” and Miss Silence’s brisk, heartsome laugh rippled
out, “a body can’t help having opinions, though I don’t always express
mine outside the family. And you know what we said of Jane and Eudora
was true.”
“I know,” admitted Grandmother Sweet with a sigh, “though we ought to
look even at truth with the eyes of charity. But I have a hope that the
coming of a fresh young life, like Rose’s, into the Fifield home, if
only for a season, will bring a fresh interest and brightness with it.”
* * * * *
As for Rose, she had been but a little while with the Fifields till
she began to realize the difference between that and the Blossoms.
Especially was she quick to notice the petty friction, the note of
jarring discord, that made up the atmosphere at the Fifields’. What one
wanted another was sure to object to, what one said was immediately
disputed; the sisters nagged Mr. Nathan, and he in turn nagged his
sisters. No doubt at heart they loved each other, but the delicate
consideration for each other’s wishes, and the gentle courtesy of
affection, that so brightened the Blossom home was wholly absent here.
Another thing she could not but see was the prevailing tone of
discontent. Though the lives of Miss Fifield and Miss Eudora were
much easier than those of Miss Silence and Mrs. Patience, the one was
always complaining of the dullness of Farmdale, and the other making
bitter reflections on life in general. Had Rose come directly from Mrs.
Hagood’s all this might have escaped her notice, but her stay in the
white cottage with its sweet-spirited inmates had given her a glimpse
of a different life, an ideal that would always linger with her.
As the two houses were not the length of the green apart Rose was a
frequent visitor at the Blossoms’. “Did your plants freeze last night?”
she asked as she came in one afternoon. “Miss Eudora lost some of
her very prettiest ones. She says it was because Mr. Nathan didn’t
fix the fire right, and he says it was because she didn’t put the
window down tight. They were quarreling over it when I came away, and
yesterday they disputed all day whether the meat bill came in Tuesday
or Wednesday.”
“There, there, Rose,” interrupted Mrs. Blossom, “you are a member of
the Fifield family now, and have no right to repeat or we to listen to
anything you may see or hear there.”
Grandmother Sweet laid down her knitting, “As thee goes through life,
Rose, thee will find many people whose lives seem not to be ordered by
the law of love; at such times always remember that silence is not only
the part of prudence but of true charity. At the same time thee can
learn to avoid the mistakes thee sees others make.”
“Well,” Rose spoke with emphasis, “I will try to avoid the mistake
of squabbling all the time over trifles—I’m not saying that any one
does so, you know, and when I get to be an old lady I’m going to be as
gentle and lovely as Grandmother Sweet,” and she gave her a hug and a
kiss.
On her part Rose had gone to the Fifields’ with the firm resolve to do
her very best. On her first coming to the Blossoms’, while her nerves
were still keyed up in a tension of excitement, little had been said to
her in regard to the manner of her leaving Mrs. Hagood. But after she
had calmed down to her normal self Mrs. Blossom had talked to her very
seriously of the danger of yielding to passion and impulse, and had
shown her that in spite of all she had to endure what trouble she might
easily have brought on herself, and how much worse off she might have
been because of her hasty action. So that Rose instead of thinking it
a very fine, brave act to have run away, as she was at first inclined,
began to feel that it was something to regret, and be ashamed of, and
because of which she must do exceedingly well indeed, to win and hold a
high opinion.
As Rose was neat and deft, and above all anxious to please, she soon
became quite a favorite with the two middle-aged Fifield sisters, and
Miss Eudora inclined to make a confidante of her.
“So you have lived in cities most of your life?” she said one morning
as Rose was dusting her room.
“Yes, but I like the country better.”
“You do?” exclaimed Miss Eudora, pausing with a curl half brushed,
for, unlike her sister, she affected the willowy, the languishing; she
liked garments that flowed, ribbons that fluttered, and still framed
her little wrinkled face in the curls that had been the pride of her
girlhood.
“Now, I think it is perfectly delightful to live in a city. I spent a
winter in Albany, with my Aunt Morgan some years ago. What a winter
that was—” and she clasped her hands, “one round of gayety and
amusement. Aunt made a large party for me, I shall have to show you a
piece of the dress I wore. Aunt said she was proud of me that night,
and I’m sure,” with a little simper, “I had compliments enough. I
suppose,” and she gave her grey curls a toss, “it’s my own fault that
I’m not living in Albany to-day.”
“If you liked it so well why didn’t you stay?” asked Rose.
“When a young girl has the admiration I had, she doesn’t always know
what she does want. But I can tell you I made quite an impression on
Some One that evening.”
“How did you look then?” Rose was trying to imagine Miss Eudora as a
young girl.
“Oh, just as I do now,” with a complacent glance in her mirror. “I
haven’t changed as some people do. Not long ago I met a friend—well,
an old admirer, and he said he would like to know what I did to keep
myself so young; that I didn’t look any older than I did when he first
knew me. I think my hair may have something to do with that; curls do
have a youthful effect. That’s the reason, I believe, Jane is always
wanting me to put mine back.
“Jane,” and she sank her voice to a whisper, “was always plain, and
never received the admiration, or was the favorite with gentlemen I
was, and it has always made her jealous of me. But I’m fond of my
curls,” giving them a shake. “Why, I even had a poem written on them
once, and I sha’n’t put them up, at least not till I begin to grow old.”
Rose listened in amazement. She was sure Miss Silence was younger
than Miss Eudora, her hair was not grey, nor her face marked with such
little fine lines, and neither she nor Mrs. Patience ever talked like
that. It was all very queer, and most of all that Miss Eudora _could_
fancy that she looked young.
“You were a long time doing the chamberwork,” Miss Fifield remarked
when Rose went downstairs. Miss Fifield was in the kitchen baking, her
scant house dress clinging to her angular figure, and her grey hair
drawn back with painful tightness.
Rose noted the contrast between the two sisters as she answered, “Miss
Eudora was talking to me.”
“What about?” a trifle sharply.
Rose hesitated slightly. “Several things; her visit to the city for
one.”
“I’ll warrant. Perhaps you found it interesting, but when you have
heard the same story twenty-seven years, as I have, twenty-seven years
this winter, it will get to be a weariness of the flesh; that and her
lovers.” She shot a keen glance at Rose, who could not help a giggle.
Miss Jane Fifield shook the flour from her hands with energy. “I used
to hope that Eudora would grow sensible sometime, but I’ve about given
it up. One thing I am thankful for, that there is something inside of
my head, and not all put on the outside!” and she shut the oven door
with a force that threatened danger to the lightness of the pound cake
she was baking.