THE STEPMOTHER.
Rapidly the summer was passing away, and as autumn drew near the wise
gossips of Glenwood began to whisper that the lady from the East was
in danger of being supplanted in her rights by the widow, whose house
Mr. Hamilton was known to visit two or three times each week. But
Lenora had always some plausible story on hand. "Mother and the lady
had been so intimate--in fact, more than once rocked in the same
cradle--and 'twas no wonder Mr. Hamilton came often to a place where
he could hear so much about her."
So when business again took Mr. Hamilton to Albany suspicion was
wholly lulled, and Walter, on his return from college, was told by Mag
that her fears concerning Mrs. Carter were groundless. During the
spring Carrie had been confined to her bed, but now she seemed much
better, and after Walter had been at home awhile he proposed that he
and his sisters should take a traveling excursion, going first to
Saratoga, thence to Lake Champlain and Montreal, and returning home by
way of Canada and the Falls, This plan Mr. Hamilton warmly seconded,
and when Carrie asked if he would not feel lonely he answered, "Oh,
no; Willie and I will do very well while you are gone."
"But who will stay with Willie evenings, when you are away?" asked
Mag, looking her father steadily in the face.
Mr. Hamilton colored slightly, but after a moment replied: "I shall
spend my evenings at home."
"'Twill be what he hasn't done for many a week," thought Mag, as she
again busied herself with her preparations.
The morning came at last on which our travelers were to leave. Kate
Kirby had been invited to accompany them, but her mother would not
consent. "It would give people too much chance for talk," she said; so
Kate was obliged to content herself with going as far as the depot,
and watching, until out of sight, the car which bore them away.
Upon the piazza stood the little group, awaiting the arrival of the
carriage which was to convey them to the station. Mr. Hamilton seemed
unusually gloomy, and with folded arms paced up and down the long
piazza, rarely speaking or noticing any one.
"Are you sorry we are going, father?" asked Carrie, going up to him.
"If you are I will gladly stay with you."
Mr. Hamilton paused, and pushing back the fair hair from his
daughter's white brow, he kissed her tenderly, saying, "No, Carrie; I
want you to go. The journey will do you good, for you are getting too
much the look your poor mother used to wear."
Why thought he then of Carrie's mother? Was it because he knew that
ere his child returned to him another would be in that mother's place?
Anon, Margaret came near, and motioning Carrie away, Mr. Hamilton took
his other daughter's hand, and led her to the end of the piazza, where
could easily be seen the little graveyard and tall white monument
pointing toward the bright blue sky where dwelt the one whose grave
that costly marble marked.
Pointing out the spot to Margaret, he said, "Tell me truly, Maggie,
did you love your father or your mother best?"
Mag looked wonderingly at him a moment, and then replied, "While
mother lived I loved her more than you, but now that she is dead, I
think of and love you as both father and mother."
"And will you always love me thus?" asked he.
"Always," was Mag's reply, as she looked curiously in her father's
face, and thinking that he had not said what he intended to when first
he drew her there.
Just then the carriage drove up, and after a few good-bys and parting
words Ernest Hamilton's children were gone, and he was left alone.
"Why didn't I tell her, as I intended to?" thought he. "Is it because
I fear her--fear my own child? No, it cannot be--and yet there is that
in her eye which sometimes makes me quail, and which, if necessary,
would keep at bay a dozen stepmothers. But neither she, nor either one
of them, has aught to dread from Mrs. Carter, whose presence will, I
think, be of great benefit to us all, and whose gentle manners, I
trust, will tend to soften Mag!"
Meantime his children were discussing and wondering at the strange
mood of their father. Walter, however, took no part in the
conversation. He had lived longer than his sisters--had seen more of
human nature, and had his own suspicions with regard to what would
take place during their absence; but he could not spoil all Margaret's
happiness by telling her his thoughts, so he kept them to himself,
secretly resolving to make the best of whatever might occur, and to
advise Mag to do the same.
Now for a time we leave them, and take a look into the cottage of
Widow Carter, where, one September morning, about three weeks after
the departure of the Hamiltons, preparations were making for some
great event. In the kitchen a servant girl was busily at work, while
in the parlor Lenora was talking and the widow was listening.
"Oh, mother," said Lenora, "isn't it so nice that they went away just
now? But won't Mag look daggers at us when she comes home and finds us
in quiet possession, and is told to call you _mother_!"
"I never expect her to do that," answered Mrs. Carter. "The most I can
hope for is that she will call me Mrs. Hamilton."
"Now really, mother, if I were in Mag's place, I wouldn't please you
enough to say Mrs. Hamilton; I'd always call you Mrs. Carter," said
Lenora.
"How absurd!" was the reply; and Lenora continued:
"I know it's absurd, but I'd do it; though if she does, I, as the
dutiful child of a most worthy parent, shall feel compelled to resent
the insult by calling her father _Mr. Carter_!"
By this time Mrs. Carter was needed in the kitchen; so, leaving
Lenora, who at once was the pest and torment of her mother's life, we
will go into the village and see what effect the approaching nuptials
was producing. It was now generally known that the "lady from the
East" who had been "rocked in Mrs. Carter's cradle," was none other
than Mrs. Carter herself, and many were the reproving looks which the
people had cast toward Lenora for the trick she had put upon them. The
little hussy only laughed at them good-humoredly, telling them they
were angry because she had cheated them out of five months' gossip,
and that if her mother could have had her way, she would have sent the
news to the _Herald_ and had it inserted under the head of "Awful
Catastrophe!" Thus Mrs. Carter was exonerated from all blame; but many
a wise old lady shook her head, saying, "How strange that so fine a
woman as Mrs. Carter should have such a reprobate of a daughter."
When, this remark came to Lenora's ears she cut numerous flourishes,
which ended in the upsetting of a bowl of starch on her mother's new
black silk; then dancing before the highly indignant lady, she said,
"Perhaps if they knew what a scapegrace you represent my father to
have been, and how you whipped me once to make me say I saw him strike
you, when I never did, they would wonder at my being as good as I am."
Mrs. Carter was too furious to venture a verbal reply; so seizing the
starch bowl she hurled it with the remainder of the contents at the
head of the little vixen, who, with an elastic bound not entirely
unlike a somersault dodged the missile, which passed on and fell upon
the hearthrug.
This is but one of a series of similar scenes which occurred between
the widow and her child before the happy day arrived when, in the
presence of a select few of the villagers, Luella Carter was
transformed into Luella Hamilton. The ceremony was scarcely over when
Mr. Hamilton, who for a few days had been rather indisposed,
complained of feeling sick. Immediately Lenora, with a sidelong glance
at her mother, exclaimed, "What, sick of your bargain so quick? It's
sooner even than _I_ thought 'twould be, and I'm sure I'm capable of
judging."
"Dear Lenora," said Mrs. Carter, turning toward one of her neighbors,
"she has such a flow of spirits that I am afraid Mr. Hamilton will
find her troublesome."
"Don't be alarmed, mother; he'll never think of me when you are
around," was Lenora's reply in which Mrs. Carter saw more than one
meaning.
That evening the bridal party repaired to the homestead, where, at Mr.
Hamilton's request, Mrs. Kirby was waiting to receive them. Willie had
been told by the servants that his mother was coming home that night,
and, with the trusting faith of childhood, he had drawn a chair to the
window from which he could see his mother's grave; and there for more
than an hour he watched for the first indications of her coming,
saying occasionally, "Oh, I wish she'd come. Willie's so sorry here."
At last growing weary and discouraged, he turned away and said, "No,
ma'll never come home again; Maggie said she wouldn't."
Upon the carriage road which wound from the street to the house there
was the sound of coming wheels, and Rachel, seizing Willie, bore him
to the front door, exclaiming, "An' faith, Willie, don't you see her?
That's your mother, honey, with the black gown."
But Willie saw only the wild eyes of Lenora, who caught him in her
arms, overwhelming him with caresses. "Let me go, Leno," said he, "I
want to see my ma. Where is she?"
A smile of scorn curled Lenora's lips as she released him, and leading
him toward her mother, she said, "There she is; there's your ma. Now
hold up your head and make a bow."
Willie's lip quivered, his eyes filled with tears, and hiding his face
in his apron, he sobbed, "I want my own ma--the one they shut up in a
big black box. Where is she, Leno?"
Mr. Hamilton took Willie on his knee, and tried to explain to him how
that now his own mother was dead, he had got a new one, who would love
him and be kind to him. Then putting him down, he said, "Go, my son,
and speak to her, won't you?"
Willie advanced rather cautiously toward the black silk figure, which
reached out its hand, saying, "Dear Willie, you'll love me a little,
won't you?"
"Yes, if you are good to me," was the answer, which made the new
stepmother mentally exclaim, "A young rebel, I know," while Lenora,
bending between the two, whispered emphatically:
"She _shall_ be good to you!"
And soon, in due order, the servants were presented to their new
mistress. Some were disposed to like her, others eyed her askance, and
old Polly Pepper, the black cook, who had been in the family ever
since Mr. Hamilton's first marriage, returned her salutation rather
gruffly, and then, stalking back to the kitchen, muttered to, those
who followed her, "I don't like her face nohow; she looks just like
the milk snakes, when they stick their heads in at the door."
"But you knew how she looked before," said Lucy, the chambermaid.
"I know it," returned Polly; "but when she was here nussin' I never
noticed _her_, more I would any on you; for who'd of thought that Mr.
Hamilton would marry her, when he knows, or or'to know, that nusses
ain't fust cut, nohow; and you may depend on't, things ain't a-goin'
to be here as they used to be."
Here Rachel started up, and related the circumstance of Margaret's
refusing to see "that little evil-eyed-lookin-varmint, with curls
almost like Polly's." Lucy, too, suddenly remembered something which
she had seen, or heard, or made up--so that Mrs. Carter had not been
an hour in the coveted homestead ere there was mutiny against her
afloat in the kitchen; "But," said Aunt Polly, "I 'vises you all to be
civil till she sasses you fust!"
"My dear, what room can Lenora have for her own?" asked Mrs. Hamilton,
as we must now call her, the morning following her marriage.
"Why, really, I don't know," answered the husband; "you must suit
yourselves with regard to that."
"Yes; but I'd rather you'd select, and then no one can blame me," was
the answer.
"Choose any room you please, except the one which Mag and Carrie now
occupy, and rest assured you shall not be blamed," said Mr. Hamilton.
The night before Lenora had appropriated to herself the best chamber,
but the room was so large and so far distant from any one, and the
windows and fireboard rattled so, that she felt afraid, and did not
care to repeat her experiment.
"I 'clar for't!" said Polly, when she heard of it. "Gone right into
the best bed, where even Miss Margaret never goes! What are we all
comin' to? Tell her, Luce, the story of the ghosts, and I'll be bound
she'll make herself scarce in them rooms!"
"Tell her yourself," said Lucy; and when, after breakfast, Lenora,
anxious to spy out everything, appeared in the kitchen, Aunt Polly
called out, "Did you hear anything last night, Miss Lenora?"
"Why, yes--I heard the windows rattle," was the answer; and Aunt
Polly, with an ominous shake of the head, continued:
"There's more than windows rattle, I guess. Didn't you see nothin',
all white and corpse-like, go a-whizzin, and rappin' by your bed?"
"Why, no," said Lenora; "what do you mean?"
So Polly told her of the ghosts and goblins which nightly ranged the
two chambers over the front and back parlors. Lenora said nothing, but
she secretly resolved not to venture again after dark into the haunted
portion of the house. But where should she sleep? That was now the
important question. Adjoining the sitting-room was a pleasant, cozy
little place, which Margaret called her music-room. In it she kept her
piano, her music stand, books, and several fine plants, besides
numerous other little conveniences. At the end of this room was a
large closet where, at different seasons of the year, Mag hung away
the articles of clothing which she and her sister did not need.
Toward this place Lenora turned her eyes; for, besides being unusually
pleasant, it was also very near her mother, whose sleeping-room
joined, though it did not communicate with it. Accordingly, before
noon the piano was removed to the parlor; the plants were placed, some
on the piazza, and some in the sitting-room window, while Margaret and
Carrie's dresses were removed to the closet of their room, which
chanced to be a trifle too small to hold them all conveniently; so
they were crowded one above the other, and left for "the girls to see
to when they came home!"
In perfect horror Aunt Polly looked on, regretting for once the ghost
story which she had told.
"Why don't you take the chamber jinin' the young ladies? that ain't
haunted," said she, when they sent for her to help move the piano.
"Miss Margaret won't thank you for scattern' her things."
"You've nothing to do with Lenora," said Mrs. Hamilton; "you've only
to attend to your own matters."
"Wonder then what I'm up here for a-h'istin this pianner," muttered
Polly. "This ain't my matters, sartin'."
When Mr. Hamilton came in to dinner he was shown the little room with
its single bed, tiny bureau, silken lounge and easy chair, of which
the last two were Mag's especial property.
"All very nice," said he, "but where is Mag's piano?"
"In the parlor," answered his wife. "People often ask for music, and
it is more convenient to have it there than to come across the hall
and through the sitting-room."
Mr. Hamilton said nothing, but he secretly wished Mag's rights had not
been invaded quite so soon. His wife must have guessed as much; for,
laying her hand on his, she, with the utmost deference, offered to
undo all she had done, if it did not please him.
"Certainly not--certainly not; it does please me," said he; while
Polly, who stood on the cellar stairs listening, exclaimed, "What a
fool a woman can make of a man!"
Three days after Mr. Hamilton's marriage he received a letter from
Walter, saying that they would be at home on the Thursday night
following. Willie was in, ecstasies, for though as yet he liked his
new mother tolerably well, he still loved Maggie better; and the
thought of seeing her again made him wild with delight. All day long
on Thursday he sat in the doorway, listening for the shrill cry of the
train which was to bring her home.
"Don't you love Maggie?" said he to Lenora, who chanced to pass him.
"Don't I love Maggie? No, I don't; neither does she love me," was the
answer.
Willie was puzzled to know why any one should not like Mag; but his
confidence in her was not at all shaken, and when, soon after sunset,
Lenora cried, "There, they've come," he rushed to the door, and was
soon in the arms of his sister-mother. Pressing his lips to hers, he
said, "Did you 'know I'd got a new mother? Mrs. Carter and Leno--they
are in there," pointing toward the parlor.
Instantly Mag dropped him. It was the first intimation of her father's
marriage which she had received, and reeling backward, she would have
fallen had not Walter supported her. Quickly rallying, she advanced
toward her father, who came to meet her, and whose hand trembled in
her grasp. After greeting each of his children he turned to present
them to _his wife_, wisely taking Carrie first. She was not
prejudiced, like Mag, and returned her stepmother's salutation with
something like affection, for which Lenora rewarded her by terming her
a "little simpleton."
But Mag--she who had warned her father against that woman--she who on
her knees had begged him not to marry her--she had no word of welcome,
and when Mrs. Hamilton offered her hand she affected not to see it,
though with the most frigid politeness she said, "Good evening, madam;
this is, indeed, a surprise!"
"And not a very pleasant one, either, I imagine," whispered Lenora to
Carrie.
Walter came last, and though he took the lady's hand, there was
something in his manner which plainly said she was not wanted there.
Tea was now announced, and Mag bit her lip when, she saw her
accustomed seat occupied by another.
Feigning to recollect herself, Mrs. Hamilton, in the blandest tones,
said, "Perhaps, dear Maggie, you would prefer this seat?"
"Of course not," said Mag, while Lenora thought to herself:
"And if she does, I wonder what good it will do?"
That young lady, however, made no remarks, for Walter Hamilton's
searching eyes were upon her and kept her silent. After tea, Walter
said, "Come, Mag, I have not heard your piano in a long time. Give us
some music."
Mag arose to comply with his wishes, but ere she had reached the door
Mrs. Hamilton gently detained her, saying, "Maggie, dear, Lenora has
always slept near me, and as I knew you would not object, if you were
here, I took the liberty to remove your piano to the parlor, and to
fit this up for Lenora's sleeping-room. See"--and she threw open the
door, disclosing the metamorphose, while Willie, who began to get an
inkling of matters, and who always called the piazza "outdoors,"
chimed in, "And they throw'd your little trees outdoors, too!"
Mag stood for a moment, mute with astonishment; then thinking she
could not "do the subject justice," she turned silently away. A
roguish smile from Walter met her eye, but she did not laugh, until,
with Carrie, she repaired to her own room, and tried to put something
in the closet. Then coming upon the pile of extra clothes, she
exclaimed, "What in the world! Here's all our winter clothing, and, as
I live, five dresses crammed upon one nail! We'll have to move to the
barn next!"
This was too much, and sitting down, Mag cried and laughed
alternately.