bonnet had from utter ruin; all that we have any business to know, is
that John did _not_ appear to object, judging from the changes which
gradually took place in the house and its inmates. It was not all
Paradise by any means, but every one was better for the division of
labor system; the children throve under the paternal rule, for accurate,
steadfast John brought order and obedience into Babydom, while Meg
recovered her spirits and composed her nerves by plenty of wholesome
exercise, a little pleasure, and much confidential conversation with her
sensible husband. Home grew home-like again, and John had no wish to
leave it, unless he took Meg with him. The Scotts came to the Brookes'
now, and every one found the little house a cheerful place, full of
happiness, content, and family love. Even gay Sallie Moffatt liked to go
there. "It is always so quiet and pleasant here; it does me good, Meg,"
she used to say, looking about her with wistful eyes, as if trying to
discover the charm, that she might use it in her great house, full of
splendid loneliness; for there were no riotous, sunny-faced babies
there, and Ned lived in a world of his own, where there was no place for
her.
This household happiness did not come all at once, but John and Meg had
found the key to it, and each year of married life taught them how to
use it, unlocking the treasuries of real home-love and mutual
helpfulness, which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot buy.
This is the sort of shelf on which young wives and mothers may consent
to be laid, safe from the restless fret and fever of the world, finding
loyal lovers in the little sons and daughters who cling to them,
undaunted by sorrow, poverty, or age; walking side by side, through fair
and stormy weather, with a faithful friend, who is, in the true sense of
the good old Saxon word, the "house-band," and learning, as Meg learned,
that a woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor the art of
ruling it, not as a queen, but a wise wife and mother.
[Illustration: Tail-piece]
[Illustration: Sat piping on a stone while his goats skipped]
XXXIX.
LAZY LAURENCE.
Laurie went to Nice intending to stay a week, and remained a month. He
was tired of wandering about alone, and Amy's familiar presence seemed
to give a home-like charm to the foreign scenes in which she bore a
part. He rather missed the "petting" he used to receive, and enjoyed a
taste of it again; for no attentions, however flattering, from
strangers, were half so pleasant as the sisterly adoration of the girls
at home. Amy never would pet him like the others, but she was very glad
to see him now, and quite clung to him, feeling that he was the
representative of the dear family for whom she longed more than she
would confess. They naturally took comfort in each other's society, and
were much together, riding, walking, dancing, or dawdling, for, at Nice,
no one can be very industrious during the gay season. But, while
apparently amusing themselves in the most careless fashion, they were
half-consciously making discoveries and forming opinions about each
other. Amy rose daily in the estimation of her friend, but he sunk in
hers, and each felt the truth before a word was spoken. Amy tried to
please, and succeeded, for she was grateful for the many pleasures he
gave her, and repaid him with the little services to which womanly women
know how to lend an indescribable charm. Laurie made no effort of any
kind, but just let himself drift along as comfortably as possible,
trying to forget, and feeling that all women owed him a kind word
because one had been cold to him. It cost him no effort to be generous,
and he would have given Amy all the trinkets in Nice if she would have
taken them; but, at the same time, he felt that he could not change the
opinion she was forming of him, and he rather dreaded the keen blue eyes
that seemed to watch him with such half-sorrowful, half-scornful
surprise.
"All the rest have gone to Monaco for the day; I preferred to stay at
home and write letters. They are done now, and I am going to Valrosa to
sketch; will you come?" said Amy, as she joined Laurie one lovely day
when he lounged in as usual, about noon.
"Well, yes; but isn't it rather warm for such a long walk?" he answered
slowly, for the shaded _salon_ looked inviting, after the glare without.
"I'm going to have the little carriage, and Baptiste can drive, so
you'll have nothing to do but hold your umbrella and keep your gloves
nice," returned Amy, with a sarcastic glance at the immaculate kids,
which were a weak point with Laurie.
"Then I'll go with pleasure;" and he put out his hand for her
sketch-book. But she tucked it under her arm with a sharp--
"Don't trouble yourself; it's no exertion to me, but _you_ don't look
equal to it."
Laurie lifted his eyebrows, and followed at a leisurely pace as she ran
downstairs; but when they got into the carriage he took the reins
himself, and left little Baptiste nothing to do but fold his arms and
fall asleep on his perch.
The two never quarrelled,--Amy was too well-bred, and just now Laurie
was too lazy; so, in a minute he peeped under her hat-brim with an
inquiring air; she answered with a smile, and they went on together in
the most amicable manner.
It was a lovely drive, along winding roads rich in the picturesque
scenes that delight beauty-loving eyes. Here an ancient monastery,
whence the solemn chanting of the monks came down to them. There a
bare-legged shepherd, in wooden shoes, pointed hat, and rough jacket
over one shoulder, sat piping on a stone, while his goats skipped among
the rocks or lay at his feet. Meek, mouse-colored donkeys, laden with
panniers of freshly-cut grass, passed by, with a pretty girl in a
_capaline_ sitting between the green piles, or an old woman spinning
with a distaff as she went. Brown, soft-eyed children ran out from the
quaint stone hovels to offer nosegays, or bunches of oranges still on
the bough. Gnarled olive-trees covered the hills with their dusky
foliage, fruit hung golden in the orchard, and great scarlet anemones
fringed the roadside; while beyond green slopes and craggy heights, the
Maritime Alps rose sharp and white against the blue Italian sky.
Valrosa well deserved its name, for, in that climate of perpetual
summer, roses blossomed everywhere. They overhung the archway, thrust
themselves between the bars of the great gate with a sweet welcome to
passers-by, and lined the avenue, winding through lemon-trees and
feathery palms up to the villa on the hill. Every shadowy nook, where
seats invited one to stop and rest, was a mass of bloom; every cool
grotto had its marble nymph smiling from a veil of flowers, and every
fountain reflected crimson, white, or pale pink roses, leaning down to
smile at their own beauty. Roses covered the walls of the house, draped
the cornices, climbed the pillars, and ran riot over the balustrade of
the wide terrace, whence one looked down on the sunny Mediterranean, and
the white-walled city on its shore.
"This is a regular honeymoon Paradise, isn't it? Did you ever see such
roses?" asked Amy, pausing on the terrace to enjoy the view, and a
luxurious whiff of perfume that came wandering by.
"No, nor felt such thorns," returned Laurie, with his thumb in his
mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that
grew just beyond his reach.
"Try lower down, and pick those that have no thorns," said Amy,
gathering three of the tiny cream-colored ones that starred the wall
behind her. She put them in his button-hole, as a peace-offering, and he
stood a minute looking down at them with a curious expression, for in
the Italian part of his nature there was a touch of superstition, and
he was just then in that state of half-sweet, half-bitter melancholy,
when imaginative young men find significance in trifles, and food for
romance everywhere. He had thought of Jo in reaching after the thorny
red rose, for vivid flowers became her, and she had often worn ones like
that from the greenhouse at home. The pale roses Amy gave him were the
sort that the Italians lay in dead hands, never in bridal wreaths, and,
for a moment, he wondered if the omen was for Jo or for himself; but the
next instant his American common-sense got the better of sentimentality,
and he laughed a heartier laugh than Amy had heard since he came.
"It's good advice; you'd better take it and save your fingers," she
said, thinking her speech amused him.
"Thank you, I will," he answered in jest, and a few months later he did
it in earnest.
"Laurie, when are you going to your grandfather?" she asked presently,
as she settled herself on a rustic seat.
"Very soon."
"You have said that a dozen times within the last three weeks."
"I dare say; short answers save trouble."
"He expects you, and you really ought to go."
"Hospitable creature! I know it."
"Then why don't you do it?"
"Natural depravity, I suppose."
"Natural indolence, you mean. It's really dreadful!" and Amy looked
severe.
"Not so bad as it seems, for I should only plague him if I went, so I
might as well stay, and plague you a little longer, you can bear it
better; in fact, I think it agrees with you excellently;" and Laurie
composed himself for a lounge on the broad ledge of the balustrade.
Amy shook her head, and opened her sketch-book with an air of
resignation; but she had made up her mind to lecture "that boy," and in
a minute she began again.
"What are you doing just now?"
"Watching lizards."
"No, no; I mean what do you intend and wish to do?"
"Smoke a cigarette, if you'll allow me."
"How provoking you are! I don't approve of cigars, and I will only allow
it on condition that you let me put you into my sketch; I need a
figure."
"With all the pleasure in life. How will you have me,--full-length or
three-quarters, on my head or my heels? I should respectfully suggest a
recumbent posture, then put yourself in also, and call it '_Dolce far
niente._'"
"Stay as you are, and go to sleep if you like. _I_ intend to work hard,"
said Amy, in her most energetic tone.
"What delightful enthusiasm!" and he leaned against a tall urn with an
air of entire satisfaction.
"What would Jo say if she saw you now?" asked Amy impatiently, hoping to
stir him up by the mention of her still more energetic sister's name.
"As usual, 'Go away, Teddy, I'm busy!'" He laughed as he spoke, but the
laugh was not natural, and a shade passed over his face, for the
utterance of the familiar name touched the wound that was not healed
yet. Both tone and shadow struck Amy, for she had seen and heard them
before, and now she looked up in time to catch a new expression on
Laurie's face,--a hard, bitter look, full of pain, dissatisfaction, and
regret. It was gone before she could study it, and the listless
expression back again. She watched him for a moment with artistic
pleasure, thinking how like an Italian he looked, as he lay basking in
the sun with uncovered head, and eyes full of southern dreaminess; for
he seemed to have forgotten her, and fallen into a reverie.
"You look like the effigy of a young knight asleep on his tomb," she
said, carefully tracing the well-cut profile defined against the dark
stone.
"Wish I was!"
"That's a foolish wish, unless you have spoilt your life. You are so
changed, I sometimes think--" there Amy stopped, with a half-timid,
half-wistful look, more significant than her unfinished speech.
Laurie saw and understood the affectionate anxiety which she hesitated
to express, and looking straight into her eyes, said, just as he used to
say it to her mother,--
"It's all right, ma'am."
That satisfied her and set at rest the doubts that had begun to worry
her lately. It also touched her, and she showed that it did, by the
cordial tone in which she said,--
"I'm glad of that! I didn't think you'd been a very bad boy, but I
fancied you might have wasted money at that wicked Baden-Baden, lost
your heart to some charming Frenchwoman with a husband, or got into some
of the scrapes that young men seem to consider a necessary part of a
foreign tour. Don't stay out there in the sun; come and lie on the grass
here, and 'let us be friendly,' as Jo used to say when we got in the
sofa-corner and told secrets."
[Illustration: Laurie threw himself down on the turf]
Laurie obediently threw himself down on the turf, and began to amuse
himself by sticking daisies into the ribbons of Amy's hat, that lay
there.
"I'm all ready for the secrets;" and he glanced up with a decided
expression of interest in his eyes.
"I've none to tell; you may begin."
"Haven't one to bless myself with. I thought perhaps you'd had some news
from home."
"You have heard all that has come lately. Don't you hear often? I
fancied Jo would send you volumes."
"She's very busy; I'm roving about so, it's impossible to be regular,
you know. When do you begin your great work of art, Raphaella?" he
asked, changing the subject abruptly after another pause, in which he
had been wondering if Amy knew his secret, and wanted to talk about it.
"Never," she answered, with a despondent but decided air. "Rome took all
the vanity out of me; for after seeing the wonders there, I felt too
insignificant to live, and gave up all my foolish hopes in despair."
"Why should you, with so much energy and talent?"
"That's just why,--because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy
can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing. I won't be a
common-place dauber, so I don't intend to try any more."
"And what are you going to do with yourself now, if I may ask?"
"Polish up my other talents, and be an ornament to society, if I get the
chance."
It was a characteristic speech, and sounded daring; but audacity becomes
young people, and Amy's ambition had a good foundation. Laurie smiled,
but he liked the spirit with which she took up a new purpose when a
long-cherished one died, and spent no time lamenting.
"Good! and here is where Fred Vaughn comes in, I fancy."
Amy preserved a discreet silence, but there was a conscious look in her
downcast face, that made Laurie sit up and say gravely,--
"Now I'm going to play brother, and ask questions. May I?"
"I don't promise to answer."
"Your face will, if your tongue won't. You aren't woman of the world
enough yet to hide your feelings, my dear. I heard rumors about Fred and
you last year, and it's my private opinion that, if he had not been
called home so suddenly and detained so long, something would have come
of it--hey?"
"That's not for me to say," was Amy's prim reply; but her lips would
smile, and there was a traitorous sparkle of the eye, which betrayed
that she knew her power and enjoyed the knowledge.
"You are not engaged, I hope?" and Laurie looked very elder-brotherly
and grave all of a sudden.
"No."
"But you will be, if he comes back and goes properly down upon his
knees, won't you?"
"Very likely."
"Then you are fond of old Fred?"
"I could be, if I tried."
"But you don't intend to try till the proper moment? Bless my soul, what
unearthly prudence! He's a good fellow, Amy, but not the man I fancied
you'd like."
"He is rich, a gentleman, and has delightful manners," began Amy, trying
to be quite cool and dignified, but feeling a little ashamed of herself,
in spite of the sincerity of her intentions.
"I understand; queens of society can't get on without money, so you mean
to make a good match, and start in that way? Quite right and proper, as
the world goes, but it sounds odd from the lips of one of your mother's
girls."
"True, nevertheless."
A short speech, but the quiet decision with which it was uttered
contrasted curiously with the young speaker. Laurie felt this
instinctively, and laid himself down again, with a sense of
disappointment which he could not explain. His look and silence, as well
as a certain inward self-disapproval, ruffled Amy, and made her resolve
to deliver her lecture without delay.
"I wish you'd do me the favor to rouse yourself a little," she said
sharply.
"Do it for me, there's a dear girl."
"I could, if I tried;" and she looked as if she would like doing it in
the most summary style.
"Try, then; I give you leave," returned Laurie, who enjoyed having some
one to tease, after his long abstinence from his favorite pastime.
"You'd be angry in five minutes."
"I'm never angry with you. It takes two flints to make a fire: you are
as cool and soft as snow."
"You don't know what I can do; snow produces a glow and a tingle, if
applied rightly. Your indifference is half affectation, and a good
stirring up would prove it."
"Stir away; it won't hurt me and it may amuse you, as the big man said
when his little wife beat him. Regard me in the light of a husband or a
carpet, and beat till you are tired, if that sort of exercise agrees
with you."
Being decidedly nettled herself, and longing to see him shake off the
apathy that so altered him, Amy sharpened both tongue and pencil, and
began:--
"Flo and I have got a new name for you; it's 'Lazy Laurence.' How do you
like it?"
She thought it would annoy him; but he only folded his arms under his
head, with an imperturbable "That's not bad. Thank you, ladies."
"Do you want to know what I honestly think of you?"
"Pining to be told."
"Well, I despise you."
If she had even said "I hate you," in a petulant or coquettish tone, he
would have laughed, and rather liked it; but the grave, almost sad,
accent of her voice made him open his eyes, and ask quickly,--
"Why, if you please?"
"Because, with every chance for being good, useful, and happy, you are
faulty, lazy, and miserable."
"Strong language, mademoiselle."
"If you like it, I'll go on."
"Pray, do; it's quite interesting."
"I thought you'd find it so; selfish people always like to talk about
themselves."
"Am _I_ selfish?" The question slipped out involuntarily and in a tone
of surprise, for the one virtue on which he prided himself was
generosity.
"Yes, very selfish," continued Amy, in a calm, cool voice, twice as
effective, just then, as an angry one. "I'll show you how, for I've
studied you while we have been frolicking, and I'm not at all satisfied
with you. Here you have been abroad nearly six months, and done nothing
but waste time and money and disappoint your friends."
"Isn't a fellow to have any pleasure after a four-years grind?"
"You don't look as if you'd had much; at any rate, you are none the
better for it, as far as I can see. I said, when we first met, that you
had improved. Now I take it all back, for I don't think you half so nice
as when I left you at home. You have grown abominably lazy; you like
gossip, and waste time on frivolous things; you are contented to be
petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected
by wise ones. With money, talent, position, health, and beauty,--ah, you
like that, Old Vanity! but it's the truth, so I can't help saying
it,--with all these splendid things to use and enjoy, you can find
nothing to do but dawdle; and, instead of being the man you might and
ought to be, you are only--" There she stopped, with a look that had
both pain and pity in it.
"Saint Laurence on a gridiron," added Laurie, blandly finishing the
sentence. But the lecture began to take effect, for there was a
wide-awake sparkle in his eyes now, and a half-angry, half-injured
expression replaced the former indifference.
"I supposed you'd take it so. You men tell us we are angels, and say we
can make you what we will; but the instant we honestly try to do you
good, you laugh at us, and won't listen, which proves how much your
flattery is worth." Amy spoke bitterly, and turned her back on the
exasperating martyr at her feet.
In a minute a hand came down over the page, so that she could not draw,
and Laurie's voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child,--
"I will be good, oh, I will be good!"
But Amy did not laugh, for she was in earnest; and, tapping on the
outspread hand with her pencil, said soberly,--
"Aren't you ashamed of a hand like that? It's as soft and white as a
woman's, and looks as if it never did anything but wear Jouvin's best
gloves, and pick flowers for ladies. You are not a dandy, thank Heaven!
so I'm glad to see there are no diamonds or big seal-rings on it, only
the little old one Jo gave you so long ago. Dear soul, I wish she was
here to help me!"
"So do I!"
The hand vanished as suddenly as it came, and there was energy enough in
the echo of her wish to suit even Amy. She glanced down at him with a
new thought in her mind; but he was lying with his hat half over his
face, as if for shade, and his mustache hid his mouth. She only saw his
chest rise and fall, with a long breath that might have been a sigh, and
the hand that wore the ring nestled down into the grass, as if to hide
something too precious or too tender to be spoken of. All in a minute
various hints and trifles assumed shape and significance in Amy's mind,
and told her what her sister never had confided to her. She remembered
that Laurie never spoke voluntarily of Jo; she recalled the shadow on
his face just now, the change in his character, and the wearing of the
little old ring, which was no ornament to a handsome hand. Girls are
quick to read such signs and feel their eloquence. Amy had fancied that
perhaps a love trouble was at the bottom of the alteration, and now she
was sure of it. Her keen eyes filled, and, when she spoke again, it was
in a voice that could be beautifully soft and kind when she chose to
make it so.
"I know I have no right to talk so to you, Laurie; and if you weren't
the sweetest-tempered fellow in the world, you'd be very angry with me.
But we are all so fond and proud of you, I couldn't bear to think they
should be disappointed in you at home as I have been, though, perhaps,
they would understand the change better than I do."
"I think they would," came from under the hat, in a grim tone, quite as
touching as a broken one.
"They ought to have told me, and not let me go blundering and scolding,
when I should have been more kind and patient than ever. I never did
like that Miss Randal, and now I hate her!" said artful Amy, wishing to
be sure of her facts this time.
"Hang Miss Randal!" and Laurie knocked the hat off his face with a look
that left no doubt of his sentiments toward that young lady.
"I beg pardon; I thought--" and there she paused diplomatically.
"No, you didn't; you knew perfectly well I never cared for any one but
Jo." Laurie said that in his old, impetuous tone, and turned his face
away as he spoke.
"I did think so; but as they never said anything about it, and you came
away, I supposed I was mistaken. And Jo wouldn't be kind to you? Why, I
was sure she loved you dearly."
"She _was_ kind, but not in the right way; and it's lucky for her she
didn't love me, if I'm the good-for-nothing fellow you think me. It's
her fault, though, and you may tell her so."
The hard, bitter look came back again as he said that, and it troubled
Amy, for she did not know what balm to apply.
"I was wrong, I didn't know. I'm very sorry I was so cross, but I can't
help wishing you'd bear it better, Teddy, dear."
"Don't, that's her name for me!" and Laurie put up his hand with a quick
gesture to stop the words spoken in Jo's half-kind, half-reproachful
tone. "Wait till you've tried it yourself," he added, in a low voice, as
he pulled up the grass by the handful.
"I'd take it manfully, and be respected if I couldn't be loved," said
Amy, with the decision of one who knew nothing about it.
Now, Laurie flattered himself that he _had_ borne it remarkably well,
making no moan, asking no sympathy, and taking his trouble away to live
it down alone. Amy's lecture put the matter in a new light, and for the
first time it did look weak and selfish to lose heart at the first
failure, and shut himself up in moody indifference. He felt as if
suddenly shaken out of a pensive dream, and found it impossible to go to
sleep again. Presently he sat up, and asked slowly,--
"Do you think Jo would despise me as you do?"
"Yes, if she saw you now. She hates lazy people. Why don't you do
something splendid, and _make_ her love you?"
"I did my best, but it was no use."
"Graduating well, you mean? That was no more than you ought to have
done, for your grandfather's sake. It would have been shameful to fail
after spending so much time and money, when every one knew you _could_
do well."
"I did fail, say what you will, for Jo wouldn't love me," began Laurie,
leaning his head on his hand in a despondent attitude.
"No, you didn't, and you'll say so in the end, for it did you good, and
proved that you could do something if you tried. If you'd only set about
another task of some sort, you'd soon be your hearty, happy self again,
and forget your trouble."
"That's impossible."