her sister; but she was bright in the parlour, and if that motherly
heart could have been made to give out its inmost secret--which,
however, it could not have been made to give out in any way painful to
dear Hetta--perhaps it might have been found that Susan was loved with
the closest love. She was taller than her sister, and lighter; her eyes
were blue as were her mother’s; her hair was brighter than Hetta’s, but
not always so singularly neat. She had a dimple on her chin, whereas
Hetta had none; dimples on her cheeks too, when she smiled; and, oh,
such a mouth! There; my allowance of pages permits no more.
One piercing cold winter’s day there came knocking at the widow’s
door--a young man. Winter days, when the ice of January is refrozen by
the wind of February, are very cold at Saratoga Springs. In these days
there was not often much to disturb the serenity of Mrs. Bell’s house;
but on the day in question there came knocking at the door--a young man.
Mrs. Bell kept an old domestic, who had lived with them in those happy
Albany days. Her name was Kate O’Brien, but though picturesque in name
she was hardly so in person. She was a thick-set, noisy, good-natured
old Irishwoman, who had joined her lot to that of Mrs. Bell when the
latter first began housekeeping, and knowing when she was well off, had
remained in the same place from that day forth. She had known Hetta as a
baby, and, so to say, had seen Susan’s birth.
“And what might you be wanting, sir?” said Kate O’Brien, apparently not
quite pleased as she opened the door and let in all the cold air.
“I wish to see Mrs. Bell. Is not this Mrs. Bell’s house?” said the young
man, shaking the snow from out of the breast of his coat.
He did see Mrs. Bell, and we will now tell who he was, and why he had
come, and how it came to pass that his carpet-bag was brought down to
the widow’s house and one of the front bedrooms was prepared for him,
and that he drank tea that night in the widow’s parlour.
His name was Aaron Dunn, and by profession he was an engineer. What
peculiar misfortune in those days of frost and snow had befallen the
line of rails which runs from Schenectady to Lake Champlain, I never
quite understood. Banks and bridges had in some way come to grief, and
on Aaron Dunn’s shoulders was thrown the burden of seeing that they were
duly repaired. Saratoga Springs was the centre of these mishaps, and
therefore at Saratoga Springs it was necessary that he should take up
his temporary abode.
Now there was at that time in New York city a Mr. Bell, great in railway
matters--an uncle of the once thriving but now departed Albany lawyer.
He was a rich man, but he liked his riches himself; or at any rate had
not found himself called upon to share them with the widow and daughters
of his nephew. But when it chanced to come to pass that he had a hand in
despatching Aaron Dunn to Saratoga, he took the young man aside and
recommended him to lodge with the widow. “There,” said he, “show her my
card.” So much the rich uncle thought he might vouchsafe to do for the
nephew’s widow.
Mrs. Bell and both her daughters were in the parlour when Aaron Dunn was
shown in, snow and all. He told his story in a rough, shaky voice, for
his teeth chattered; and he gave the card, almost wishing that he had
gone to the empty big hotel, for the widow’s welcome was not at first
quite warm.
The widow listened to him as he gave his message, and then she took the
card and looked at it. Hetta, who was sitting on the side of the
fireplace facing the door, went on demurely with her work. Susan gave
one glance round--her back was to the stranger--and then another; and
then she moved her chair a little nearer to the wall, so as to give the
young man room to come to the fire, if he would. He did not come, but
his eyes glanced upon Susan Bell; and he thought that the old man in New
York was right, and that the big hotel would be cold and dull. It was a
pretty face to look on that cold evening as she turned it up from the
stocking she was mending.
“Perhaps you don’t wish to take winter boarders, ma’am?” said Aaron
Dunn.
“We never have done so yet, sir,” said Mrs. Bell timidly. Could she let
this young wolf in among her lamb-fold? He might be a wolf;--who could
tell?
“Mr. Bell seemed to think it would suit,” said Aaron.
Had he acquiesced in her timidity and not pressed the point, it would
have been all up with him. But the widow did not like to go against the
big uncle; and so she said, “Perhaps it may, sir.”
“I guess it will, finely,” said Aaron. And then the widow seeing that
the matter was so far settled, put down her work and came round into
the passage. Hetta followed her, for there would be housework to do.
Aaron gave himself another shake, settled the weekly number of
dollars--with very little difficulty on his part, for he had caught
another glance at Susan’s face; and then went after his bag. ’Twas thus
that Aaron Dunn obtained an entrance into Mrs. Bell’s house. “But what
if he be a wolf?” she said to herself over and over again that night,
though not exactly in those words. Ay, but there is another side to that
question. What if he be a stalwart man, honest-minded, with clever eye,
cunning hand, ready brain, broad back, and warm heart; in want of a wife
mayhap; a man that can earn his own bread and another’s;--half a dozen
others’ when the half dozen come? Would not that be a good sort of
lodger? Such a question as that too did flit, just flit, across the
widow’s sleepless mind. But then she thought so much more of the wolf!
Wolves, she had taught herself to think, were more common than stalwart,
honest-minded, wife-desirous men.
“I wonder mother consented to take him,” said Hetta, when they were in
the little room together.
“And why shouldn’t she?” said Susan. “It will be a help.”
“Yes, it will be a little help,” said Hetta. “But we have done very well
hitherto without winter lodgers.”
“But uncle Bell said she was to.”
“What is uncle Bell to us?” said Hetta, who had a spirit of her own. And
she began to surmise within herself whether Aaron Dunn would join the
Baptist congregation, and whether Phineas Beckard would approve of this
new move.
“He is a very well-behaved young man at any rate,” said Susan, “and he
draws beautifully. Did you see those things he was doing?”
“He draws very well, I dare say,” said Hetta, who regarded this as but a
poor warranty for good behaviour. Hetta also had some fear of
wolves--not for herself, perhaps; but for her sister.
Aaron Dunn’s work--the commencement of his work--lay at some distance
from the Springs, and he left every morning with a lot of workmen by an
early train--almost before daylight. And every morning, cold and wintry
as the mornings were, the widow got him his breakfast with her own
hands. She took his dollars and would not leave him altogether to the
awkward mercies of Kate O’Brien; nor would she trust her girls to attend
upon the young man. Hetta she might have trusted; but then Susan would
have asked why she was spared her share of such hardship.
In the evening, leaving his work when it was dark, Aaron always
returned, and then the evening was passed together. But they were passed
with the most demure propriety. These women would make the tea, cut the
bread and butter, and then sew; while Aaron Dunn, when the cups were
removed, would always go to his plans and drawings.
On Sundays they were more together; but even on this day there was cause
of separation, for Aaron went to the Episcopalian church, rather to the
disgust of Hetta. In the afternoon, however, they were together; and
then Phineas Beckard came in to tea on Sundays, and he and Aaron got to
talking on religion; and though they disagreed pretty much, and would
not give an inch either one or the other, nevertheless the minister told
the widow, and Hetta too probably, that the lad had good stuff in him,
though he was so stiff-necked.
“But he should be more modest in talking on such matters with a
minister,” said Hetta.
The Rev. Phineas acknowledged that perhaps he should; but he was honest
enough to repeat that the lad had stuff in him. “Perhaps after all he is
not a wolf,” said the widow to herself.
Things went on in this way for above a month. Aaron had declared to
himself over and over again that that face was sweet to look upon, and
had unconsciously promised to himself certain delights in talking and
perhaps walking with the owner of it. But the walkings had not been
achieved--nor even the talkings as yet. The truth was that Dunn was
bashful with young women, though he could be so stiff-necked with the
minister.
And then he felt angry with himself, inasmuch as he had advanced no
further; and as he lay in his bed--which perhaps those pretty hands had
helped to make--he resolved that he would be a thought bolder in his
bearing. He had no idea of making love to Susan Bell; of course not. But
why should he not amuse himself by talking to a pretty girl when she sat
so near him, evening after evening?
“What a very quiet young man he is,” said Susan to her sister.
“He has his bread to earn, and sticks to his work,” said Hetta. “No
doubt he has his amusement when he is in the city,” added the elder
sister, not wishing to leave too strong an impression of the young man’s
virtue.
They had all now their settled places in the parlour. Hetta sat on one
side of the fire, close to the table, having that side to herself. There
she sat always busy. She must have made every dress and bit of linen
worn in the house, and hemmed every sheet and towel, so busy was she
always. Sometimes, once in a week or so, Phineas Beckard would come in,
and then place was made for him between Hetta’s usual seat and the
table. For when there he would read out loud. On the other side, close
also to the table, sat the widow, busy, but not savagely busy as her
elder daughter. Between Mrs. Bell and the wall, with her feet ever on
the fender, Susan used to sit; not absolutely idle, but doing work of
some slender pretty sort, and talking ever and anon to her mother.
Opposite to them all, at the other side of the table, far away from the
fire, would Aaron Dunn place himself with his plans and drawings before
him.
“Are you a judge of bridges, ma’am?” said Aaron, the evening after he
had made his resolution. ’Twas thus he began his courtship.
“Of bridges?” said Mrs. Bell--“oh dear no, sir.” But she put out her
hand to take the little drawing which Aaron handed to her.
“Because that’s one I’ve planned for our bit of a new branch from Moreau
up to Lake George. I guess Miss Susan knows something about bridges.”
“I guess I don’t,” said Susan--“only that they oughtn’t to tumble down
when the frost comes.”
“Ha, ha, ha; no more they ought. I’ll tell McEvoy that.” McEvoy had been
a former engineer on the line. “Well, that won’t burst with any frost, I
guess.”
“Oh my! how pretty!” said the widow, and then Susan of course jumped up
to look over her mother’s shoulder.
The artful dodger! He had drawn and coloured a beautiful little sketch
of a bridge; not an engineer’s plan with sections and measurements,
vexatious to a woman’s eye, but a graceful little bridge with a string
of cars running under it. You could almost hear the bell going.
“Well; that is a pretty bridge,” said Susan. “Isn’t it, Hetta?”
“I don’t know anything about bridges,” said Hetta, to whose clever eyes
the dodge was quite apparent. But in spite of her cleverness Mrs. Bell
and Susan had soon moved their chairs round to the table, and were
looking through the contents of Aaron’s portfolio. “But yet he maybe a
wolf,” thought the poor widow, just as she was kneeling down to say her
prayers.
That evening certainly made a commencement. Though Hetta went on
pertinaciously with the body of a new dress, the other two ladies did
not put in another stitch that night. From his drawings Aaron got to his
instruments, and before bedtime was teaching Susan how to draw parallel
lines. Susan found that she had quite an aptitude for parallel lines,
and altogether had a good time of it that evening. It is dull to go on
week after week, and month after month, talking only to one’s mother and
sister. It is dull though one does not oneself recognise it to be so. A
little change in such matters is so very pleasant. Susan had not the
slightest idea of regarding Aaron as even a possible lover. But young
ladies do like the conversation of young gentlemen. Oh, my exceedingly
proper prim old lady, you who are so shocked at this as a general
doctrine, has it never occurred to you that the Creator has so intended
it?
Susan understanding little of the how and why, knew that she had had a
good time, and was rather in spirits as she went to bed. But Hetta had
been frightened by the dodge.
“Oh, Hetta, you should have looked at those drawings. He is so clever!”
said Susan.
“I don’t know that they would have done me much good,” replied Hetta.
“Good! Well, they’d do me more good than a long sermon, I know,” said
Susan; “except on a Sunday, of course,” she added apologetically. This
was an ill-tempered attack both on Hetta and Hetta’s admirer. But then
why had Hetta been so snappish?
“I’m sure he’s a wolf,” thought Hetta as she went to bed.
“What a very clever young man he is!” thought Susan to herself as she
pulled the warm clothes round about her shoulders and ears.
“Well that certainly was an improvement,” thought Aaron as he went
through the same operation, with a stronger feeling of self-approbation
than he had enjoyed for some time past.
In the course of the next fortnight the family arrangements all altered
themselves. Unless when Beckard was there Aaron would sit in the widow’s
place, the widow would take Susan’s chair, and the two girls would be
opposite. And then Dunn would read to them; not sermons, but passages
from Shakspeare, and Byron, and Longfellow. “He reads much better than
Mr. Beckard,” Susan had said one night. “Of course you’re a competent
judge!” had been Hetta’s retort. “I mean that I like it better,” said
Susan. “It’s well that all people don’t think alike,” replied Hetta.
And then there was a deal of talking. The widow herself, as unconscious
in this respect as her youngest daughter, certainly did find that a
little variety was agreeable on those long winter nights; and talked
herself with unaccustomed freedom. And Beckard came there oftener and
talked very much. When he was there the two young men did all the
talking, and they pounded each other immensely. But still there grew up
a sort of friendship between them.
“Mr. Beckard seems quite to take to him,” said Mrs. Bell to her eldest
daughter.
“It is his great good nature, mother,” replied Hetta.
It was at the end of the second month when Aaron took another step in
advance--a perilous step. Sometimes on evenings he still went on with
his drawing for an hour or so; but during three or four evenings he
never asked any one to look at what he was doing. On one Friday he sat
over his work till late, without any reading or talking at all; so late
that at last Mrs. Bell said, “If you’re going to sit much longer, Mr.
Dunn, I’ll get you to put out the candles.” Thereby showing, had he
known it or had she, that the mother’s confidence in the young man was
growing fast. Hetta knew all about it, and dreaded that the growth was
too quick.
“I’ve finished now,” said Aaron; and he looked carefully at the
card-board on which he had been washing in his water-colours. “I’ve
finished now.” He then hesitated a moment; but ultimately he put the
card into his portfolio and carried it up to his bed-room. Who does not
perceive that it was intended as a present to Susan Bell?
The question which Aaron asked himself that night, and which he hardly
knew how to answer, was this. Should he offer the drawing to Susan in
the presence of her mother and sister, or on some occasion when they two
might be alone together? No such occasion had ever yet occurred, but
Aaron thought that it might probably be brought about. But then he
wanted to make no fuss about it. His first intention had been to chuck
the drawing lightly across the table when it was completed, and so make
nothing of it. But he had finished it with more care than he had at
first intended; and then he had hesitated when he had finished it. It
was too late now for that plan of chucking it over the table.
On the Saturday evening when he came down from his room, Mr. Beckard was
there, and there was no opportunity that night. On the Sunday, in
conformity with a previous engagement, he went to hear Mr. Beckard
preach, and walked to and from meeting with the family. This pleased
Mrs. Bell, and they were all very gracious that afternoon. But Sunday
was no day for the picture.
On Monday the thing had become of importance to him. Things always do
when they are kept over. Before tea that evening when he came down Mrs.
Bell and Susan only were in the room. He knew Hetta for his foe, and
therefore determined to use this occasion.
“Miss Susan,” he said, stammering somewhat, and blushing too, poor fool!
“I have done a little drawing which I want you to accept,” and he put
his portfolio down on the table.
“Oh! I don’t know,” said Susan, who had seen the blush.
Mrs. Bell had seen the blush also, and pursed her mouth up, and looked
grave. Had there been no stammering and no blush, she might have thought
nothing of it.
Aaron saw at once that his little gift was not to go down smoothly. He
was, however, in for it now, so he picked it out from among the other
papers in the case and brought it over to Susan. He endeavoured to hand
it to her with an air of indifference, but I cannot say that he
succeeded.
It was a very pretty, well-finished, water-coloured drawing,
representing still the same bridge, but with more adjuncts. In Susan’s
eyes it was a work of high art. Of pictures probably she had seen but
little, and her liking for the artist no doubt added to her admiration.
But the more she admired it and wished for it, the stronger was her
feeling that she ought not to take it.
Poor Susan! she stood for a minute looking at the drawing, but she said
nothing; not even a word of praise. She felt that she was red in the
face, and uncourteous to their lodger; but her mother was looking at her
and she did not know how to behave herself.
Mrs. Bell put out her hand for the sketch, trying to bethink herself as
she did so in what least uncivil way she could refuse the present. She
took a moment to look at it collecting her thoughts, and as she did so
her woman’s wit came to her aid.
“Oh dear, Mr. Dunn, it is very pretty; quite a beautiful picture. I
cannot let Susan rob you of that. You must keep that for some of your
own particular friends.”
“But I did it for her,” said Aaron innocently.
Susan looked down at the ground, half pleased at the declaration. The
drawing would look very pretty in a small gilt frame put over her
dressing-table. But the matter now was altogether in her mother’s hands.
“I am afraid it is too valuable, sir, for Susan to accept.”
“It is not valuable at all,” said Aaron, declining to take it back from
the widow’s hand.
“Oh, I am quite sure it is. It is worth ten dollars at least--or
twenty,” said poor Mrs. Bell, not in the very best taste. But she was
perplexed, and did not know how to get out of the scrape. The article in
question now lay upon the table-cloth, appropriated by no one, and at
this moment Hetta came into the room.
“It is not worth ten cents,” said Aaron, with something like a frown on
his brow. “But as we had been talking about the bridge, I thought Miss
Susan would accept it.”
“Accept what?” said Hetta. And then her eye fell upon the drawing and
she took it up.
“It is beautifully done,” said Mrs. Bell, wishing much to soften the
matter; perhaps the more so that Hetta the demure was now present. “I am
telling Mr. Dunn that we can’t take a present of anything so valuable.”
“Oh dear no,” said Hetta. “It wouldn’t be right.”
It was a cold frosty evening in March, and the fire was burning brightly
on the hearth. Aaron Dunn took up the drawing quietly--very quietly--and
rolling it up, as such drawings are rolled, put it between the blazing
logs. It was the work of four evenings, and his chef-d’œuvre in the
way of art.
Susan, when she saw what he had done, burst out into tears. The widow
could very readily have done so also, but she was able to refrain
herself, and merely exclaimed--“Oh, Mr. Dunn!”
“If Mr. Dunn chooses to burn his own picture, he has certainly a right
to do so,” said Hetta.
Aaron immediately felt ashamed of what he had done; and he also could
have cried, but for his manliness. He walked away to one of the
parlour-windows, and looked out upon the frosty night. It was dark, but
the stars were bright, and he thought that he should like to be walking
fast by himself along the line of rails towards Balston. There he stood,
perhaps for three minutes. He thought it would be proper to give Susan
time to recover from her tears.
“Will you please to come to your tea, sir?” said the soft voice of Mrs.
Bell.
He turned round to do so, and found that Susan was gone. It was not
quite in her power to recover from her tears in three minutes. And then
the drawing had been so beautiful! It had been done expressly for her
too! And there had been something, she knew not what, in his eye as he
had so declared. She had watched him intently over those four evenings’
work, wondering why he did not show it, till her feminine curiosity had
become rather strong. It was something very particular, she was sure,
and she had learned that all that precious work had been for her. Now
all that precious work was destroyed. How was it possible that she
should not cry for more than three minutes?
The others took their meal in perfect silence, and when it was over the
two women sat down to their work. Aaron had a book which he pretended to
read, but instead of reading he was bethinking himself that he had
behaved badly. What right had he to throw them all into such confusion
by indulging in his passion? He was ashamed of what he had done, and
fancied that Susan would hate him. Fancying that, he began to find at
the same time that he by no means hated her.
At last Hetta got up and left the room. She knew that her sister was
sitting alone in the cold, and Hetta was affectionate. Susan had not
been in fault, and therefore Hetta went up to console her.
“Mrs. Bell,” said Aaron, as soon as the door was closed, “I beg your
pardon for what I did just now.”
“Oh, sir, I’m so sorry that the picture is burnt,” said poor Mrs. Bell.
“The picture does not matter a straw,” said Aaron. “But I see that I
have disturbed you all,--and I am afraid I have made Miss Susan
unhappy.”
“She was grieved because your picture was burnt,” said Mrs. Bell,
putting some emphasis on the “your,” intending to show that her daughter
had not regarded the drawing as her own. But the emphasis bore another
meaning; and so the widow perceived as soon as she had spoken.
“Oh, I can do twenty more of the same if anybody wanted them,” said
Aaron. “If I do another like it, will you let her take it, Mrs.
Bell?--just to show that you have forgiven me, and that we are friends
as we were before?”
Was he, or was he not a wolf? That was the question which Mrs. Bell
scarcely knew how to answer. Hetta had given her voice, saying he was
lupine. Mr. Beckard’s opinion she had not liked to ask directly. Mr.
Beckard she thought would probably propose to Hetta; but as yet he had
not done so. And, as he was still a stranger in the family, she did not
like in any way to compromise Susan’s name. Indirectly she had asked the
question, and, indirectly also, Mr. Beckard’s answer had been
favourable.
“But it mustn’t mean anything, sir,” was the widow’s weak answer, when
she had paused on the question for a moment.
“Oh no, of course not,” said Aaron, joyously, and his face became
radiant and happy. “And I do beg your pardon for burning it; and the
young ladies’ pardon too.” And then, he rapidly got out his cardboard,
and set himself to work about another bridge. The widow, meditating many
things in her heart, commenced the hemming of a handkerchief.
In about an hour the two girls came back to the room and silently took
their accustomed places. Aaron hardly looked up, but went on diligently
with his drawing. This bridge should be a better bridge than that other.
Its acceptance was now assured. Of course it was to mean nothing. That
was a matter of course. So he worked away diligently, and said nothing
to anybody.
When they went off to bed the two girls went into the mother’s room.
“Oh, mother, I hope he is not very angry,” said Susan.
“Angry!” said Hetta, “if anybody should be angry, it is mother. He ought
to have known that Susan could not accept it. He should never have
offered it.”
“But he’s doing another,” said Mrs. Bell.