AFTER THE FUNERAL.
Had there been a train back to New York that afternoon Wilford would
most certainly have suggested going, but as there was none he passed the
time as well as he could, finding Bell a great help to him, but
wondering that she could assimilate so readily with such people,
declaring herself in love with the farmhouse, and saying she should like
to remain there for weeks, if the days were all as sunny as this, the
dahlias as gorgeously bright, and the peaches by the well as delicious
and ripe. To these the city girl took readily, visiting them the last
thing before retiring, while Wilford found her there when he arose next
morning, her dress and slippers nearly spoiled with the heavy dew, and
her hands full of the fresh fruit which Aunt Betsy knocked from the tree
with a quilting rod; her dress pinned around her waist, and disclosing a
petticoat scrupulously clean, but patched and mended with so many
different patterns and colors that the original ground was lost, and
none could tell whether it had been red or black, buff or blue. Between
Aunt Betsy and Bell the most amicable feeling had existed ever since the
older lady had told the younger how all the summer long she had been
drying fruit, "thimble-berries, blue-berries and huckleberries" for the
soldiers, and how she was now drying peaches for Willard Buxton--once
their hired man. These she should tie up in a salt bag, and put in the
next box sent by the society of which she seemed to be head and front,
"kind of fust directress," she said, and Bell was interested at once,
for among the soldiers down by the Potomac was one who carried with him
the whole of Bell Cameron's heart; and who for a few days had tarried at
just such a dwelling as the farmhouse, writing back to her such pleasant
descriptions of it, with its fresh grass and shadowy trees, that she had
longed to be there too. So it was through this page of romance and love
that Bell looked at the farmhouse and its occupants, preferring good
Aunt Betsy because she seemed the most interested in the soldiers,
working as soon as breakfast was over upon the peaches, and kindly
furnishing her best check apron, together with pan and knife for Bell,
who offered her assistance, notwithstanding Wilford's warning that the
fruit would stain her hands, and his advice that she had better be
putting up her things for going home.
"She was not going that day," she said, point-blank, and as Katy too
had asked to stay a little longer, Wilford was compelled to yield, and
taking his hat sauntered off toward Linwood; while Katy went listlessly
into the kitchen, where Bell Cameron sat, her tongue moving much faster
than her hands, which pared so slowly and cut away so much of the juicy
pulp, besides making so frequent journeys to her mouth, that Aunt Betsy
looked in alarm at the rapidly disappearing fruit, wishing to herself
that "Miss Cameron had not listed."
But Miss Cameron had enlisted, and so had Bob, or rather he had gone to
do his duty, and as she worked, she repeated to Helen the particulars of
his going, telling how, when the war first broke out, and Sumter was
bombarded, Rob, who, from long association with Southern men at West
Point, had imbibed many of their ideas, was very sympathetic with the
rebelling States, gaining the cognomen of a secessionist, and once
actually thinking of casting in his lot with that side rather than the
other. But the remembrance of a little incident saved him, she said. The
remembrance of a queer old lady whom he met in the cars, and who, at
parting, held her wrinkled hand above his head in benediction, charging
him not to go against the flag, and promising her prayers for his safety
if found on the side of the Union.
"I wish you could hear Bob tell the story, the funny part, I mean,"
she continued, narrating, as well as she could, the particulars of
Lieutenant Bob's meeting with Aunt Betsy, who, as the story progressed
and she recognized herself in the queer old Yankee woman, who shook
hands with the conductor and was going to law about a sheep pasture,
dropped her head lower and lower over her pan of peaches, while a
scarlet flush spread itself all over her thin face, but changed into a
grayish white as Bell concluded with "Bob says the memory of that hand
lifted above his head haunted him day and night, during the period of
his uncertainty, and was at last the means of saving him from treachery
to his country."
"Thank God!" came involuntarily from Aunt Betsy's quivering lips, and,
looking up, Bell saw the great tears running down her cheeks, tears
which she wiped away with her arm, while she said faintly: "That old
woman, who made a fool of herself in the cars, was me!"
"You, Miss Barlow, you!" Bell exclaimed, forgetting in her astonishment
to carry to her mouth the luscious half peach she had intended for that
purpose, and dropping it untasted into the pan, while Katy, who had been
listening with some considerable interest, came quickly forward, saying:
"You, Aunt Betsy! When were you in New York, and why did I never know
it?"
It could not be kept back, and, unmindful of Bell, Helen explained to
Katy as well as she could the circumstances of Aunt Betsy's visit to New
York the previous winter.
"And she never let me know it, or come to see me, because--because--"
Katy hesitated, and looked at Bell, who said, pertly: "Because Will is
so abominably proud, and would have made such a fuss. Don't spoil a
story for relations' sake, I beg," and the young lady laughed good
humoredly, restoring peace to all save Katy, whose face wore a troubled
look, and who soon stole away to her mother, whom she questioned further
with regard to a circumstance which seemed so mysterious to her.
"Miss Barlow," Bell said, when Katy was gone, "you will forgive one for
repeating that story as I did. Of course I had no idea it was you of
whom I was talking."
Bell was very earnest, and her eyes looked pleadingly upon Aunt Betsy,
who answered her back: "There's nothing to forgive. You only told the
truth. I did make an old fool of myself, but if I helped that boy to a
right decision, my journey did some good, and I ain't sorry now if I
did go to the playhouse. I confessed that to the sewing circle, and Mrs.
Deacon Bannister ain't seemed the same toward me since, but I don't
care. I beat her on the election to first directress of the Soldiers'
Aid. She didn't run half as well as me. That chap you call Bob, is he
anything to you? Is he your beau?"
It was Bell's turn now to blush and then grow white, while Helen
lightly touching the superb diamond on her first finger, said: "That
indicates as much. When did it happen, Bell?"
Mrs. Cameron had said they were not a family to bruit their affairs
abroad, and if so, Bell was not like her family, for she answered
frankly: "Just before he went away. It's a splendid diamond, isn't it?"
and she held it up for Helen to inspect.
The basket was empty by this time, and as Aunt Betsy went to fill it
from the trees, Bell and Helen were left alone, the former continuing in
a low, sad tone: "I've been so sorry sometimes that I did not tell Bob I
loved him, when he wished me to so much."
"Not tell him you loved him! How then could you tell him yes, as it
appears you did?" Helen asked, and Bell answered: "I could not well help
that; it came so sudden and he begged so hard, saying my promise would
make him a better man, a better soldier and all that. It was the very
night before he went, and so I said that out of pity and patriotism I
would give the promise, and I did, but it seemed too much for a woman to
tell a man all at once that she loved him, and I wouldn't do it, but
I've been sorry since; oh, so sorry, during the two days when we heard
nothing from him after that dreadful battle at Bull Run. We knew he was
in it, and I thought I should die until his telegram came saying he was
safe. I did sit down then and commence a letter, confessing all I felt,
but I tore it up, and he don't know now just how I feel."
"And do you really love him?" Helen asked, puzzled by this strange girl,
who laughingly held up her soft, white hand, stained and blackened with
the juice of the fruit she had been paring, and said: "Do you suppose I
would spoil my hands like that and incur _ma chère-mamma's_ displeasure,
if Bob were not in the army and I did not care for him? And now that I
have confessed so much, allow me to catechise you. Did Mark Ray ever
propose and you refuse him?"
"Never!" and Helen's face grew crimson, while Bell continued: "That is
funny. Half our circle think so, though how the impression was first
given I do not know. Mother told me, but would not tell where she
received her information. I heard of it again in a few days, and have
reason to believe that Mrs. Banker knows it too and feels a little
uncomfortable that her son should be refused when she considers him
worthy of the empress herself."
Helen was very white, and her limbs shook as she asked: "And how with
Mark and Juno?"
"Oh, off and on," Bell replied; "that is, Juno is always on, while Mark
is more uncertain, and Juno really has improved in some respects. As I
wrote you once, she is very docile when with Mark, and acts as if trying
to atone for something--her old badness, I guess. You are certain you
never cared for Mark Ray?"
This was so abrupt and Bell's eyes were so searching that Helen grew
giddy for a moment and grasped the back of the chair, as she replied: "I
did not say I never cared for him. I said he never proposed; and that is
true; he never did."
"And if he had?" Bell continued, never taking her eyes from Helen, who,
had she been less agitated, would have denied Bell's right to question
her so closely. Now, however, she answered blindly: "I do not know. I
cannot tell. I thought him engaged to Juno."
"Well, if that is not the rarest case of cross-purposes that I ever
knew," Bell said, wiping her hands upon Aunt Betsy's apron, and
preparing to attack the piled up basket just brought in.
Further conversation was impossible, and, with her mind in a perfect
tempest of thought, Helen went away, trying to decide what it was best
for her to do. Some one had spread the report that she had refused Mark
Ray, telling of the refusal, of course, or how else could it have been
known? and this accounted for Mrs. Banker's long-continued silence.
Since Helen's return to Silverton Mrs. Banker had written two or thee
kind, friendly letters, which did her so much good; but these had
suddenly ceased, and Helen's last remained as yet unanswered. She saw
the reason now, every nerve quivering with pain as she imagined what
Mrs. Banker must think of one who could make a refusal public, or what
was tenfold worse, pretend to an offer she never received. "She must
despise me, and Mark Ray, too, if he has heard of it," she said,
resolving one moment to ask Bell to explain to Mrs. Banker, and then
changing her mind and concluding to let matters take their course,
inasmuch as interference from her might be construed by the mother into
undue interest in the son. "Perhaps Bell will do it without my asking,"
she thought, and this hope did much toward keeping her spirits up on
that last day of Katy's stay at home, for she was going back in the
morning. Wilford would not leave her, though she begged to stay. He did
not like the sad expression of her face, and he must take her where she
would have more excitement, hoping thus to win her from her grief, and
perhaps induce her to lay aside her black, which would be so serious a
hindrance to his enjoyment. But Katy clung to that as to a strict,
religious duty, saying to Helen, as in the twilight they sat together
up in their old room, talking of the ensuing winter, which would be so
different from the last:
"If anything besides the feeling that she is so much happier, could
reconcile me to baby's loss, it is the knowing that my mourning will
keep me from the society in which I could not mingle so soon," and her
tears dropped upon the somber robes, which had transformed her so
suddenly from the gay, airy creature of fashion into the sober, quiet
woman who seemed older, soberer than even Helen herself.
They did not see Marian Hazelton again, and Katy wondered at it,
deciding that in some things Marian was very peculiar, while Wilford and
Bell were slightly disappointed, as both had a desire to meet and
converse with one who had been so like a second mother to the little
dead Genevra. Wilford spoke of his child now as Genevra, but to Katy it
was baby still; and, with choking sobs and passionate tears, she bade
good-by to the little mound underneath which it was lying, and then went
back to her city home.