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A PRINCESS IN CALICO
by
EDITH FERGUSON BLACK
Philadelphia
The Union Press
1122 Chestnut Street
1904
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. SLEEPY HOLLOW 7
II. A TEN-DOLLAR BILL 20
III. FAIRYLAND 30
IV. A NEW WORLD 42
V. PAULINE'S BIRTHRIGHT 54
VI. GIVING ONESELF 68
VII. A GREAT SURRENDER 78
VIII. IDEALISING THE REAL 90
IX. A LOST LETTER 103
X. THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE 117
XI. PURE GOLD 129
_Chapter I_
SLEEPY HOLLOW
She stood at her bedroom window before going downstairs to take up the
burden of a new day. She was just seventeen, but they did not keep any
account of anniversaries at Hickory Farm. The sun had given her a loving
glance as he lifted his bright old face above the horizon, but her
father was too busy and careworn to remember, and, since her mother had
gone away, there was no one else. She had read of the birthdays of other
girls, full of strange, sweet surprises, and tender thoughts--but those
were girls with mothers. A smile like a stray beam of sunshine drifted
over her troubled young face, at the thought of the second Mrs Harding
stopping for one instant in her round of ponderous toil to note the fact
that one of her family had reached another milestone in life's journey.
Certainly not on washing day, when every energy was absorbed in the
elimination of impurity from her household linen, and life looked
grotesque and hazy through clouds of soapy steam.
She heard her father now putting on the heavy pots of water, and then
watched him cross the chip-yard to the barn. How bent and old he looked.
Did he ever repent of his step? she wondered. Life could not be much to
him any more than it was to her, and he had known her mother! Oh! why
could he not have waited? She would soon have been old enough to keep
house for him.
The minister had spoken the day before of a heaven where people were,
presumably, to find their height of enjoyment in an eternity of rest.
She supposed that was the best of it. Old Mrs Goodenough was always
sighing for rest, and Deacon Croaker prayed every week to be set free
from the trials and tribulations of this present evil world, and brought
into everlasting peace. An endless passivity seemed a dreary outlook to
her active soul, which was sighing to plume its cramped wings, and soar
among the endless possibilities of earth: it seemed strange that there
should be no wonders to explore in heaven. Well, death was sure, anyway,
and after all there was nothing in life--her life--but hard work, an
ever-recurring round of the same thing. She thought she could have stood
it better if there had been variety. Death was sure to come, sometime,
but people lived to be eighty, and she was so very young. Still,
perhaps monotony might prove as fatal as heart failure. She thought it
would with her--she was so terribly tired. Ever since she could remember
she had looked out of this same window as the sun rose, and wondered if
something would happen to her as it did to other girls, but the day went
past in the same dull routine. So many plates to wash, and the darning
basket seemed to grow larger each year, and the babies were so heavy.
She had read somewhere that 'all earnest, pure, unselfish men who lived
their lives well, helped to form the hero--God let none of them be
wasted. A thousand unrecorded patriots helped to make Wellington.' It
seemed to her Wellington had the best of it.
'Help me git dressed, P'liney,' demanded Lemuel, her youngest
step-brother, from his trundle bed. 'You're loiterin'. Why ain't you
down helping mar? Mar'll be awful cross with you. She always is wash
days. Hi! you'll git it!' and he endeavoured to suspend himself from a
chair by his braces.
'Come and get your face washed, Lemuel. Now don't wiggle. You know
you've got to say your prayers before you can go down.'
'Can't be bovvered,' retorted that worthy, as he squirmed into his
jacket like an eel, and darted past her. 'I'm as hungry as Wobinson
Crusoe, an' I'm goin' to tell mar how you're loiterin'.'
She followed him sadly. She had forgotten to say her own.
'Fifteen minutes late,' said Mrs Harding severely, as she entered the
kitchen. 'You'll hev to be extry spry to make up. There's pertaters to
be fried, an' the children's lunches to put up, an' John Alexander's
lost his jography--I believe that boy'd lose his head if it twarn't
glued to his shoulders. There's a button off Stephen's collar, an' Susan
Ann wants her hair curled, an' Polly's frettin' to be taken up. It beats
me how that child does fret--I believe I'll put her to sleep with you
after this--I'm that beat out I can hardly stand.'
'Here, Leander, go and call your father, or you'll be late for school
again, an' your teacher'll be sending in more complaints. 'Bout all them
teachers is good for anyway--settin' like ladies twiddling at the leaves
of a book, an' thinkin' themselves somethin' fine because they know a
few words of Latin, an' can figure with an _x_. Algebry is all very fine
in its way, but I guess plain arithmetic is good enough for most folks.
It's all I was brought up on, an' the multiplication table has kept me
on a level with the majority.'
Pauline smiled to herself, as she cut generous slices of pumpkin pie to
go with the doughnuts and bread and butter in the different dinner
pails. That was just what tired her; being 'on a level with the
majority.'
The long morning wore itself away. Pauline toiled bravely over the
endless array of pinafores which the youthful Hardings managed to make
unpresentable in a week.
'Monotony even in gingham!' she murmured; for Polly's were all of pink
check, Lemuel's blue, and Leander's a dull brown.
'Saves sortin',' had been the brief response, when she had suggested
varying the colours in order to cultivate the æsthetic instinct in the
wearers.
'But, Mrs Harding,' she remonstrated, 'they say now that it is possible
for even wall-paper to lower the moral tone of a child, and lead to
crime----'
Her step-mother turned on her a look of withering scorn.
'If your hifalutin' people mean to say that if I don't get papering to
suit their notions, I will make my boys thieves an' liars, then it's
well for us the walls is covered with sensible green paint that'll wash.
To-morrow is killing time, an' next week we must try out the tallow. You
can be as æsthetic as you're a mind to with the head-cheese and
candles.'
Pauline never attempted after that to elevate the moral tone of her
step-brothers.
Her father came in at supper-time with a letter. He handed it over to
her as she sat beside him.
'It's from your uncle Robert, my dear, in Boston. His folks think it's
time they got to know their cousin.'
'Well, I hope they're not comin' trailin' down here with their city
airs,' said Mrs Harding shortly. 'I've got enough people under my feet
as it is.'
'You needn't worry, mother, I don't think Sleepy Hollow would suit
Robert's family--they're pretty lively, I take it, and up with the
times. They'd find us small potatoes not worth the hoeing.' He sighed as
he spoke. Did he remember how Pauline's mother had drooped and died from
this very dulness? Was he glad to have her child escape?
'Well, I don't see how there's any other way for them to get
acquainted,' retorted his wife. 'Pawliney can't be spared to go
trapesing up to Boston. Her head's as full of nonsense now as an egg is
of meat, an' she wouldn't know a broom from a clothes-wringer after
she'd been philandering round a couple of months with people that are
never satisfied unless they're peeking into something they can't
understand.'
'But I guess we'll have to spare Pauline,' said Mr Harding. 'She has
been a good girl, and she deserves a holiday.' He patted Pauline's hand
kindly.
'Oh, of course!' sniffed Mrs Harding in high dudgeon; 'some folks must
always have what they cry for. I can be kep' awake nights with the baby,
and work like a slave in the day time, but that doesn't signify as long
as Pawliney gets to her grand relations.'
'Well, well, wife,' said Mr Harding soothingly, 'things won't be as bad
as you think for. You can get Martha Spriggs to help with the chores,
and the children will soon be older. Young folks must have a turn, you
know, and I shall write to Robert to-night and tell him Pawliney will be
along shortly--that is if you'd like to go, my dear?'
Pauline turned on him a face so radiant that he was satisfied, and the
rest of the meal was taken in silence. Mrs Harding knew when her husband
made up his mind about a thing she could not change him, so she said no
more, but Pauline felt she was very angry.
As for herself, she seemed to walk on air. At last, after all these
years, something had happened! She stepped about the dim kitchen
exultantly. Could this be the same girl who had found life intolerable
only two hours before? Now the Aladdin wand of kindly fortune had opened
before her dazzled eyes a mine of golden possibilities. At last she
would have a chance to breathe and live. She arranged the common, heavy
ware on the shelves with a strange sense of freedom. She would be done
with dish-washing soon. She even found it in her heart to pity her
step-mother, who was giving vent to her suppressed wrath in mighty
strokes of her pudding-stick through a large bowl of buckwheat batter.
She was not going to Boston.
When the chores were done, she caught up the fretful Polly and carried
her upstairs, saying the magic name over softly to herself. She even
found it easy to be patient with Lemuel as he put her through her
nightly torture before he fell into the arms of Morpheus. She did not
mind much if Polly was wakeful--she knew she should never close her eyes
all night. The soft spring air floated in through the open window, and
she heard the birds twitter and the frogs peep: she heard Abraham
Lincoln, the old horse that she used to ride to water before she grew
big enough to work, whinney over his hay; and Goliath, the young giant
that had come to take his place in the farm work, answer him sonorously:
the dog barked lazily as a nighthawk swept by, and in the distant
hen-yard she heard a rooster crow. Her pity grew, until it rested like a
benison upon all her humble friends, for they must remain in Sleepy
Hollow, and she was going away.
_Chapter II_
A TEN-DOLLAR BILL
'I suppose you'll be wanting some finery, little girl,' said Mr Harding
the next morning as he pushed away his chair from the breakfast table.
'Dress is the first consideration, isn't it, with women?'
'I don't know about the finery, father,' and Pauline laughed a little.
'I expect I shall be satisfied with the essentials.'
Mr Harding crossed the room to an old-fashioned secretary which stood in
one corner. Coming back, he held out to her a ten-dollar bill. 'Will
this answer? Money is terrible tight just now, and the mortgage falls
due next week. It's hard work keeping the wolf away these dull times.'
Pauline forced her lips to form a 'Thank you,' as she put the bank-note
in her pocket, and then began silently to clear the table, her thoughts
in a tumultuous whirl. Ten dollars! Her father's hired man received a
dollar a day. She had been working hard for years, and had received
nothing but the barest necessaries in the way of clothing, purchased
under Mrs Harding's economical eye. When Martha Spriggs came to take her
place she would have her regular wages. Were hired helpers the only ones
whose labour was deemed worthy of reward? Dresses and hats and boots and
gloves. Absolute essentials with a vengeance, and ten dollars to cover
the whole!
'You can have Abraham Lincoln and the spring waggon this afternoon, if
you want to go to the village for your gewgaws.'
'Very well, father.'
'I don't suppose you'll rest easy till you've made the dollars fly.
That's the way with girls, eh? As long as they can have a lot of flimsy
laces and ribbons and flowers they're as happy as birds. Well, well,
young folks must have their fling, I suppose. I hope you'll enjoy your
shopping, my dear,' and Mr Harding started for the barn, serene in the
consciousness that he had made his daughter happy in the ability to
purchase an unlimited supply of the unnecessary things which girls
delight in.
'You are a grateful piece, I must say!' remarked her step-mother, as she
administered some catnip tea to the whining Polly. 'I haven't seen the
colour of a ten-dollar bill in as many years, and you put it in your
pocket as cool as a cucumber, and go about looking as glum as a
herring. Who's going to do the clothes, I'd like to know? I can't lay
this child out of my arms for a minute. I believe she's sickening for a
fever, and then perhaps your fine relations won't be so anxious to see
you coming. For my part, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to knuckle to
people who waited seventeen years to find whether I was in the land of
the living before they said, "How d'ye do." But then I always was
proud-spirited. I despise meachin' folks.'
'I guess I can get most of the ironing done this morning, if you'll see
to the dinner,' said Pauline, as she put the irons on the stove and went
into another room for the heavy basket of folded clothes.
Dresses and hats and boots and gloves! The words kept recurring to her
inner consciousness with a persistent regularity. She wondered what
girls felt like who could buy what they did not need. She thought it
must be like Heaven, but not Deacon Croaker's kind; that looked less
attractive than ever this morning.
As she passed Mrs Harding's chair Polly put up her hands to be taken,
but her mother caught her back.
'No, no, Pawliney hasn't got any more use for plain folks, Polly. She's
going to do herself proud shoppin', so she can go to Boston and strut
about like a frilled peacock. You'll have to be satisfied with your
mother, Polly; Pawliney doesn't care anything about you now.'
Pauline laughed bitterly to herself.
'A frilled peacock, with a ten-dollar outfit!'
She began the interminable pinafores. The sun swept up the horizon and
laughed at her so broadly through the open window that her cheeks grew
flushed and uncomfortable.
Lemuel burst into the room in riotous distress with a bruised knee, the
result of his attempt to imitate the Prodigal Son, which had ended in an
ignominious head-over-heels tumble into the midst of his swinish
friends. This caused a delay, for he had to be hurried out to the back
stoop and divested of garments as odorous, if not as ragged, as those of
his prototype. Then he must be immersed in a hot bath, his knee bound
up, reclothed in a fresh suit, and comforted with bread and molasses.
She toiled wearily on. The room grew almost unbearable as her
step-mother made up the fire preparatory to cooking the noontide meal,
and Polly wailed dismally from her cot. The youthful Prodigal appeared
again in the doorway, his ready tears had made miniature deltas over
his molasses-begrimed countenance, his lower lip hung down in an
impotent despair.
'What's the matter now, Lemuel?'
'I want my best shoes, an' a wing on my finger, an' the axe to kill the
fatted calf.'
Would the basket never be empty? Her head began to throb, and she felt
as if her body were an ache personified. The mingled odours of corned
beef and cabbage issued from one of the pots and permeated the freshly
ironed clothes. She drew a long, deep breath of disgust. At least in
Boston she would be free from the horrors of 'boiled dinner.'
* * * * *
Her scanty wardrobe was finished at last, and she stood waiting for
Abraham Lincoln and the spring waggon to carry her to the station. A
strange tenderness towards her old environment came over her, as she
stood on the threshold of the great unknown. She looked lovingly at the
cows, lazily chewing their cud in the sunshine; she felt sorry for her
step-mother, as she strove to woo slumber to Polly's wakeful eyes with
the same lullaby which had done duty for the whole six; she even found
it in her heart to kiss Lemuel, who, with his ready talent for the
unusual, was busily cramming mud paste into the seams of the little
trunk which held her worldly all. She looked at it with contemptuous
pity.
'You poor old thing! You'll feel as small as I shall among the saratogas
and the style. Well, I'll be honest from the start and tell them that
the only thing we're rich in is mortgages. I guess they'll know without
the telling. I wonder if they'll be ashamed of me?'
Her father came and lifted the trunk into the back of the waggon, and
they started along the grass-bordered road to the station. He began
recalling the city as he remembered it.
'You'll have to go to Bunker Hill, of course, and the Common, and be
sure and look out for the statues, they're everywhere. Lincoln freeing
the slaves--that's the best one to my thinking, and that's down in
Cornhill, if I remember right. My, but that's a place! Mind you hold
tight to your cousins. The streets, and the horses, and the people whirl
round so, it's enough to make you lose your head. Well, well, I wouldn't
mind going along with you to see the sights.'
He bought her ticket, and secured her a comfortable seat, then he said,
'God bless you,' and went away.
Pauline looked after him wonderingly. He had never said it to her
before. Perhaps it was a figure of speech which people reserved for
travelling. She supposed there was always the danger of a possible
accident. Ah! if they could only have started off together, as he said,
and never gone back to Sleepy Hollow any more!
_Chapter III_
FAIRYLAND
To the day of her death Pauline never forgot the sense of satisfied
delight with which she felt herself made a member of her uncle's
household. Her three cousins--Gwendolyn, Russell, and Belle--had greeted
her cordially as soon as the train drew up in a station which, for size
and grandeur, surpassed her wildest dreams, and then escorted her
between a bewildering panorama of flashing lights, brilliant shop
windows, swiftly moving cars, and people in an endless stream to another
depot, for her Uncle Robert resided in the suburbs.
They were waiting to welcome her at the entrance of their lovely home,
her Uncle Robert and his wife. With one swift, comprehensive glance she
took it all in. The handsome house in its brilliant setting of lawns and
trees, the wide verandah with its crimson Mount Washington rockers,
luxurious hammocks, and low table covered with freshly-cut magazines,
the pleasant-faced man who was her nearest of kin, and his graceful wife
in a tea-gown of soft summer silk with rich lace about her throat and
wrists, her cousins in their dainty muslins, and Russell in his fresh
summer suit. Here, at least, were people who knew what it was to live!
'So we have really got our little country blossom transplanted,' said
her uncle, as he kissed her warmly. 'I have so often begged your father
to let you come to us before, but he always wrote that you could not be
spared.'
A hot flush burnt its way up over her cheeks and brow. And he had let
her think all this time that they had not cared! Her own father! He
might at least have trusted her!
She started, for her uncle was saying:--
'This is your Aunt Rutha, my dear,' and turned to be clasped in tender
arms, and hear a sweet voice whisper the all-sufficient introduction:--
'I loved your mother.'
And then she had been taken upstairs by the lively Belle to refresh
herself after her journey, and prepare for dinner, which had been
delayed until her arrival.
The dinner itself was a revelation. The snowy table with its silver
dishes and graceful centre-piece of hot-house blooms, the crystal
sparkling in the rosy glow cast by silken-shaded, massively carved
lamps, the perfect, noiseless serving, and the bright conversation
which flowed freely, little hindered by the different courses of soup
and fish, and game and ices--conversation about things that were
happening in the world which seemed to be growing larger every minute,
apt allusions by Mr Davis, lively sallies by Belle, and quotations by
Russell from authors who seemed to be household friends, so highly were
they held in reverence.
Afterwards there had been music, Russell at the piano, and Gwendolyn and
Belle with their violins, and she had sat upon the sofa by the gracious,
new-found friend, who stroked her rough hand gently with her white
jewelled fingers, and talked to her softly, in the pauses of the music,
of what her mother was like as a girl. Verily, Aunt Rutha had a
wonderful way of making one feel at home.
She laughed to herself as the thought came to her. She felt more at home
than she had ever done before in her life. She remembered reading
somewhere that the children of men were often brought up under alien
conditions, like ducklings brooded over by a mother hen, but as soon as
a chance was given, they flew to their native element and the former
things were as though they had not been. An inborn instinct of
refinement made this new life immediately congenial. But--could she ever
forget the weary conditions of Sleepy Hollow? She frequently heard in
imagination the clatter of the dishes and the rough romping of the
children as they noisily trooped to bed. Her nerves quivered as she
listened to Mrs Harding shrilly droning the worn-out lullaby to the
sleepless Polly, and Lemuel demanding to have _Jack the Giant Killer_
told to him six times in succession. It seemed to her the life, in its
bare drudgery, had worn deep seams into her very soul, like country
roads in spring-time, whose surface is torn apart in gaping wounds and
unsightly ruts by heavy wheels and frost and rain.
She looked at her cousins with a feeling nearly akin to envy. Their
lives had no contrasts. Always this beautiful comradeship with father
and mother; and Aunt Rutha was so lovely--she stopped abruptly. She
would not change mothers. No, no, she would be loyal, even in thought,
to the pale, tired woman, whom she could remember kissing her
passionately in the twilight, while bitter tears rained on her childish,
upturned face. She would not let the demon of discontent spoil her
visit. She would put by and forget while she enjoyed this wonderful
slice of pleasure that had come to her. There was just as much greed in
her wanting happiness wholesale as in Lemuel's crying for the whole loaf
of gingerbread; the only difference was in the measure of their
capacity.
'What is it, dear?' asked Aunt Rutha, with an amused smile. 'You have
been in the brownest of studies.'
She looked up at her brightly.
'I believe it was a briar tangle, Aunt Rutha, of the worst kind; but I
shall see daylight soon, thank you.'
Mrs Davis laid her hand on her husband's arm.
'Your penknife, Robert. Our little girl here is tied up in a Gordian
knot, and we must help to set her free.'
Her uncle laughed as he opened the pearl-handled weapon.
'If good will can take the place of skill, I'll promise to cut no
arteries.' Then he added more gravely, 'But you have nothing more to do
with knots, my dear, of any kind. You belong to us now.'
They discussed her a little in kindly fashion after she had gone to her
room for the night.
'The child has the air of a princess,' said Mrs Davis thoughtfully. 'She
holds herself wonderfully, in spite of her rustic training, but I
suppose blood always tells'; and she looked over at her husband with a
smile.
'She has wonderful powers of adaptability, too,' said Gwendolyn. 'I
watched her at dinner, and she never made a single slip, although I
imagine there were several things that were new to her beside the
finger-glasses.'
'But she is intense, mamma!' and Belle heaved a sigh of mock despair. 'I
don't believe she knows what laziness is, and I'm sure she will end by
making me ashamed of myself. When I told her we had a three months'
vacation, she never said, "How delightful!" as most girls would, but
calmly inquired what I took up in the holidays, and when I groaned at
the very thought of taking up anything, she said so seriously, "But you
don't let your mind lie fallow for three whole months?" And then she
sighed a little, and added, half to herself, "Some girls would give all
the world for such a chance to read." I believe she is possessed with a
perfect rage for the acquisition of knowledge, and when she goes to
college will pass poor me with leaps and bounds, and carry the hearts
of all the professors in her train.'
'And did you see her,' said Gwendolyn, 'when I happened to mention that
our church was always shut up in the summer because so many people were
out of the city? She just turned those splendid eyes of hers on me until
I actually felt my moral stature shrivelling, and asked, "What about the
people in the city? don't they have to go on living?"'
'She is plucky, though,' said Russell admiringly. 'Did you notice when
you were both screaming because one of our wheels caught in a street car
rail, and the carriage nearly upset, how she never said a word, though
she must have been frightened, for we were nearly over. I like a girl
that has grit enough to hold her tongue.'
'She is a dear child,' said Mr Davis, 'and she has her mother's eyes.'
Upstairs, in her blue-draped chamber, Pauline spoke her verdict to
herself.
'They are all splendid, and I'm a good deal prouder of my relations than
they can be of me. I'm a regular woodpecker among birds of paradise. I
wish I hadn't to be so dreadfully plain. Well, I'll ring true if I _am_
homely, and character is more than clothes, anyway.'
She undressed slowly, her æsthetic eyes revelling in all the dainty
appointments of the room which was to be her very own. Then she knelt by
the broad, low window-seat, and said her prayers, looking away to the
stars, which glowed red, and green, and yellow, in the soft summer sky,
and then, in a great hush of delight, she lay down between the
delicately-perfumed sheets, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the
present which God had given her. She would not think of Sleepy Hollow.
She had put it by.
_Chapter IV_
A NEW WORLD
Belle entered Pauline's room to find her cousin revelling in the
exquisite pathos of Whittier's _Snowbound_ before dressing for dinner.
The problem of clothes had been solved by Aunt Rutha in her pleasant,
tactful way.
'You are just Belle's age, my dear,' she had said the day after
Pauline's arrival, as she lifted a delicately pencilled muslin from a
large parcel which had been brought in from White's, and laid it against
her fresh young cheek.
'That is very becoming, don't you think so, Gwen? It is such a delight
for me to have two daughters to shop for. I have always had a craze to
buy doubles of everything, but Gwendolyn was so much older, I could
never indulge myself. There is no need to say anything, dearie,' and she
kissed away the remonstrance that was forming on Pauline's lips. 'You
belong to us now, you know, and your uncle thinks he owes your mother
more than he can ever hope to repay.'
Then she led her to the lounge which Gwendolyn was piling high with
delicately embroidered and ruffled underwear.
'I did not know whether you would like your sets to be of different
patterns or not, but Belle has such a horror of having any two alike
that I ventured to think that your tastes would agree. The girls are
going in town to-morrow to order their summer hats, so you can finish
the rest of your shopping then, if you like, and get an idea of our
city.'
And then had followed a morning such as she had never dreamed of. The
excitement of driving to the station in the exhilarating morning air,
past houses which, like her uncle's, seemed the abodes of luxurious
ease. Before many of them carriages were waiting, and through the open
doors she caught glimpses of white-capped servants and coloured nurses
carrying babies in long robes of lawn and lace. A vision of Polly in her
pink checked gingham flashed before her. How could life be so different?
The ride in the cars was delightful, past a succession of elegant houses
and beautifully laid out grounds, until she began to feel she had
reached a new world where care was an unknown quantity.
Then the city, with its delightful whirl of cars and horses and people.
She had never imagined there could be so many in any one place before.
She marvelled at the condescension of the gentlemen in the handsomely
appointed shoe store, and blushed as one of them placed her foot on the
rest. She looked in amazement at the elegantly furnished apartments of
Madame Louise, and the wonderful structures of feathers and lace and
ribbon, which the voluble saleswoman assured them were cheap at thirty
dollars, and was lost in a rapturous delight, as, with the calmness of
experienced shoppers, her cousins went from one department to another in
White's and Hovey's, laying in a supply of airy nothings of which she
did not even know the use; always being treated by them with the same
delicate consideration: there was nothing forced upon her, only, as they
were getting things, she might as well be fitted too. Then to Huyler's
for ices and macaroons, then up past St Paul's and the Common, and then
home to a lunch of chicken salad and strawberries and frothed chocolate,
in the cool dining-room, with its massive leather-covered chairs and
potted plants and roses.
She was growing used now to the new order of things and smiled a welcome
to Belle from the velvet lounging chair in which she, Pauline Harding,
who had never lounged in her life, was beginning to feel perfectly at
home.
'What an inveterate bookworm you are, Paul,' and Belle looked at the
pile of volumes Pauline had brought from the library to study in the
long morning hours which the force of a lifelong habit gave her, before
the rest of the family were astir.
'You forget I am an ignoramus,' she answered quietly. 'I must do
something to catch up.'
Belle shrugged her shoulders.
'What's the use? It is surprising with what an infinitesimal fraction of
knowledge one can get through this old world.'
'Such a speech from a woman in this age is rank heresy!'
'Oh, of course, if you are going in for equal suffrage and anti-opium,
and the rest, but I never aspired to the garment of either Lucy Stone or
Frances Willard. I _do_ pine to be an anatomist, and Professor Herschel
says I have a decided talent for it too. However, papa is not
progressive, at least he does not want his daughters to be, although I
tell him I might be a professor in Harvard some day, so there is nothing
left for me but to fall into the ranks of the majority and do nothing.'
'Why so? Is there nothing in the world but suffrage, and opium
and--anatomy?'
'Oh, dear, yes, there's philanthropy, but Gwen does that for the family.
She is on every Society under the sun. Let me count them, if I can.
There's the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the
Society for the Improvement of the Moral Condition of Working Women, and
the Society for the Betterment of the Sanitary Conditions of Tenement
Houses. She's a member of the W.C.A., and the W.C.T.U., and the
S.P.C.A.; she's on the Board of Lady Managers of the Newsboys' Home, and
one of the Directors of the Industrial School for Girls. In fact she is
fairly torn asunder in her efforts to ameliorate the condition of the
"submerged tenth."'
'"Submerged tenth,"' echoed Pauline wonderingly. 'Is any one submerged
in Boston?'
'You dear stupid, of course! The unseen population in filth, rags and
unrighteousness, and the rest of us in lazy self-indulgence, which,
perhaps, in God's sight, is about as bad. I often think if each
professing Christian took hold of one poor beggar and tried to elevate
him, we should solve the problem a great deal sooner than by starting so
many societies to improve them in the aggregate. I can theorize, you
see, but the practice is beyond me.'
'But why don't you try it?' cried Pauline, her eyes sparkling. 'It is a
splendid idea.'
'Bless you, my child, because it would involve work, and that is a thing
I abhor.'
'But Gwendolyn must work on all these societies,' said Pauline.
Belle danced across the room, and seated herself on the arm of her
chair.
'You dear old thing! You're as innocent as your own daisies, and it is a
shame to take you from your mossy bed. Don't you know there is work and
work? God says, "Go work in My vineyard," and we good Christians answer,
"Yes, Lord, but let some one else go ahead and take out the stumps." The
most of us like to do our spiritual farming on a western scale. It is
pleasanter to drive a team of eight horses over cleared land than to
grub out dockweed and thistles all alone in one corner.'
She leaned forward and began reading the titles of the books Pauline
had selected for her study.
'Homer's _Iliad_ and _Plato_,--I told mamma you were intense--Hallam's
_Middle Ages_ and Macaulay's _History of England_. I had no idea you had
monarchical tendencies. I must take you to our little chapel, and show
you the communion service that belonged to Charles the Second, or
perhaps it was one of the Georges, I'm not very clear on that point. My
dear Paul, you're delicious! To think of anybody voluntarily undertaking
to scrape acquaintance with all these dry-as-dust worthies, and in
summertime!'
'It is not easy for you to understand how hungry I am,' said Pauline,
with a tremor in her voice. 'You have been going to school all your
life.'
'Unfortunately, yes!' sighed Belle. 'But don't pine for the experience.
You will soon have enough of it. May I inquire when you expect to find
time for these exhilarating researches?'
Pauline laughed.
'Between the hours of five and eight A.M.'
'Horrible!'
She faced round upon her suddenly.
'I wonder what you think of us all? You are as demure as a fieldmouse,
but I know those big eyes of yours have taken our measures by this time.
Come, let us have it, "the whole truth," you know. Don't be Ananias and
keep back part of the price. "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us, to
see oorsels as ithers see us." I delight in revelations. Show me myself,
Paul.'
Pauline hesitated for a moment, then she spoke out bravely.
'I love you all, dearly. You have been so kind! But, Belle, if I had
your opportunities, I would make more of my life.'
_Chapter V_
PAULINE'S BIRTHRIGHT
'Do you believe in altitudes?' It was Richard Everidge, Aunt Rutha's
favourite nephew, who asked the question of Pauline, as they sat on the
broad piazza after church waiting for lunch.
'How do you mean?'
'I mean that trilogy of exulting triumph over the trammels of
circumstance that Mr Dunn gave us this morning. Don't you remember?
"Life is what we make it--an anthem or a dirge, a psalm of hope or a
lamentation of despair." Do you believe any one can live in such a rare
atmosphere every day?'
'Of course she does,' and Belle laughed merrily. 'Anyone who has
courage to stroll through the Middle Ages with old Mr Hallam before
sunrise, must have plenty of altitude in her composition. It is my
belief she lives on Mount Shasta, in a moral sense, and I shouldn't be
surprised to hear of her taking out a building permit at the North Pole,
if she thought duty called her. But, Dick, how can you be such an
atrocious sceptic as to doubt the possibility of one's living above the
clouds when you know my lady!'
'Ah, but she is Tryphosa, the blessed.'
'Tryphosa!' echoed Pauline in a mystified tone.
'That is her name,' said Richard Everidge, with a tender reverence in
his voice, 'and she deserves it, for she is among the aristocracy of the
elect. I never see her without feeling envious, and yet she has been a
sufferer for years. I am amazed that Belle has let all this time pass
without taking you to call at the threshold of the Palace Beautiful.'
'There have been so many other things,' said Belle, 'tennis, you know,
and canoe practice and tandem parties.'
Her cousin laughed.
'But that is only when Russ and I are not reading up for exams. What do
you find to occupy your leisure?'
'Leisure!' exclaimed Belle solemnly. 'Leisure, my dear boy, has been an
unknown quantity ever since I undertook to pilot this most inexorable
young woman among the antiquities of our venerable city. She is an
inveterate relic-hunter; is enraptured with Bunker Hill and the Old
South; delights in Cornhill, and wherever she can find a crooked old
street that reminds her of Washington; and pokes about all the old
cemeteries, until I feel as eerie as Coleridge's ancient mariner. I
believe she expects to come upon all the Pilgrim Fathers buried in one
vault. But there is nothing special on the programme for to-day--we will
go and see my lady this very afternoon.'
As they went in to lunch, Richard Everidge leaned over to Pauline and
whispered:--
'You have not answered my question. Do you think it is possible for
common, every-day Christians to live above the clouds?'
'If I were a Christian,' she said, in a low tone, 'I should want to get
as high up as I could.'
When they reached Tryphosa's, they heard her singing. They waited,
listening.
'Here brief is the sighing,
And brief is the crying,
For brief is the life!
The life there is endless,
The joy there is endless,
And ended the strife.
O country the fairest!
Our country the dearest,
We press toward thee!
O Sion the golden!
Our eyes are still holden,
Thy light till we see.
We know not, we know not,
All human words show not
The joys we may reach.
The mansions preparing,
The joys for our sharing,
The welcome for each.'
Then Belle opened the door softly and went in.
Pauline saw a large bay window opening into a tiny conservatory, which
loving hands kept dowered with a profusion of blooming plants. The room
was large and dainty with delicate draperies, two or three fine
pictures, and a beautiful representation in marble of the Angel of
Patience, which stood on a buhl table, where the invalid's eyes could
always rest upon it.
Tryphosa turned her head to greet them from the low couch, which was the
battle-ground where she had wrestled with the angel of pain during years
of physical agony. Her eyes were lustrous with a radiance not of earth,
and a wealth of silver hair fell in soft curling waves about her face;
her mouth, sweet and tender, parted in a smile of welcome as she held
out her hands to the girls.
Belle caught them in her own, and kissed them gently.
'This is our cousin, my lady, Aunt Mildred's only child.'
The thin hands drew Pauline's face down, and she was kissed on cheek and
brow.
'Your mother was my friend, dear child, in the long ago.' Then she added
softly, with her hands on the silver cross at her throat, 'Are you a
princess? Do you belong to the King?'
Pauline shook her head, 'No, my lady.'
'I am very sorry.'
They sat down then beside her. She held Pauline's strong hand between
her wasted fingers.
'Dear Mildred Davis! You have her eyes and brow, my child. It does me
good to see you.'
'That is just like papa,' said Belle. 'He says he can almost fancy
himself back in the old home with Aunt Mildred getting him ready for
school.'
Pauline coloured with pleasure. No one spoke of her mother at Sleepy
Hollow.
She looked through the French windows into the conservatory.
'How beautiful the flowers are!'
'You love them? Of course you must, to be your mother's child. It is
such a comfort to me to lie here and listen to them talk.'
'Talk!' exclaimed Pauline. 'Do they do that, my lady?'
Tryphosa smiled.
'Surely,' she said gently. '"Every flower has its story, and every
butterfly's life is a poem."'
Belle broke the silence.
'We heard you singing, my lady; I do not think Pauline had thought you
would have the heart to sing.'
A ripple of the sweetest laughter Pauline had ever heard fell through
the quiet room, and Tryphosa's eyes flashed merrily.
'"The pilgrims kept on their journey, and as they journeyed they sang,"'
she said. 'Do you think there is anything to cry about when we are on
our way to a palace, dear child? But Sunday is always my resting time,'
she continued, 'I do not sing as much through the week as I should. I am
tired often, and busy.'
'Busy,' echoed Pauline involuntarily, with a glance at the frail body
propped up among the cushions.
Tryphosa gave another soft, merry laugh, and drew forward a rosewood
writing-table, which was fitted to her couch.
'Here is where I do my work, when my hands are willing; and then there
are my dear poor people, and my rich friends, and sometimes the latter
need as much comforting as the former. Oh, there is a great deal to do,
dear child, for some have to be taught the way to the palace, and some
have to be brought into audience with the King,' her voice hushed itself
into a reverent whisper.
'And how about the pain, my lady?' asked Belle. Pauline's eyes were full
of tears.
'Just right,' she answered brightly. 'Some days are set in minor key,
and the Lord calls me where the waves run high; but so long as I am sure
it is the Lord, what does it matter? Not one good thing has failed of
all that He has promised, and soldiers do not mind a few sword thrusts
when they are marching to victory. "This day the noise of battle, the
next the victor's song." She closed her eyes and a triumphant smile
played about her mouth.
'You seem so certain, my lady,' said Belle wistfully.
'Surely! "For we know that He hath prepared for us a city."'
'Now you mean heaven,' said Pauline impetuously. 'To me heaven is
enveloped in fog.'
'It will not be, dear child, when the mists have rolled away, and in the
clear light of the Sun of Righteousness you look across to the other
shore.'
'Couldn't you tell me what it is like, my lady? You seem to know. I
can't fathom it, and everything looks so dark.'
Tryphosa lifted a plain little book from a revolving bookcase of
morocco-bound treasures, which stood within easy reach.
'I believe I will let Miss Warner answer you. "Would you like a heaven
so small, so human, that mortal words could line it out, and mortal
wishes be its boundary? The things we look for are prepared by One whose
thoughts are as far above our thoughts as the broad starlit heaven is
above this little gaslit earth. And do you think that people are to be
all massed in heaven, losing their various identities, their differing
tastes, their separate natures? Going from this lower world so full of
its adaptations, where colour and form take on a thousand changes, and
life and pursuit can be varied almost at will, to a mere dead level of
perfect felicity? To leave earth where no two things are alike, and go
to heaven to find no two different! The Lord's preparations mean more
than that. We should learn better from this lower world. No one pair of
black eyes is just like another, no two leaves upon the same tree. And
not a yellow blossom can spring up by the wayside, without a red or a
white one at hand for contrast. Are the clouds copies of each other? Are
the shadows on the hills ever twice the same? Take for your comfort the
full assurance that the very Tree of Life--which in Eden seems to have
borne but one manner of fruit--in heaven shall bear twelve. But we
cannot imagine it--in its fulness. We must look, not to see clear
outlines and distinct colours, but only the flood of heavenly light.
From point to point the promises pass on, with their golden touch; until
the vacant places in our lives disappear, and the aches die out, and
desire and longing are lost in 'more than heart could wish.'"'
A pause fell then, and a stillness, broken only by the plashing of a
little fountain, whose drops fell among the flowers.
As they rose to go, Tryphosa drew Pauline's face down until it touched
her own.
'Dear child, won't you claim your birthright?'
'I will, my lady.'
_Chapter VI_
GIVING ONESELF
The summer slipped away, and to Pauline it was a continual dream of
pleasure. She adhered strictly to her habit of rising with the sun, and
not the least enjoyable part of the morning was the three hours spent in
the solitude of her uncle's luxurious library, while the day was new.
Her active mind awoke from its enforced lethargy, and plumed itself for
flight with a delightful sense of freedom. The dream of her life was
coming true at last, and she was to have a chance to learn. She had
learned all that the Sleepy Hollow school could teach her long ago. She
would take up chemistry, of course, and biology, mathematics and
physics, French and Latin, geology and botany, and--well, she would
decide later upon the rest of her curriculum. Her father seemed to take
it for granted she should stay in Boston, her uncle called her his own
little daughter, and she was content. Her healthy nature enjoyed to the
full the innumerable diversions and pleasures which Belle's active brain
was continually planning. Picnics and garden-parties, excursions to the
beaches, where she was never tired of feasting her eyes on the glory of
the waves; or a run into the city to hear some special attraction.
Always brightness and fun and laughter, for Aunt Rutha's hospitable
house was a favourite resort with many of the Harvard students, and it
was the glorious summer time, when all the world--their little
world--was free to be gay. She, Pauline Harding, was like other girls
at last!
Then she must learn to row and to ride, with Richard Everidge for her
teacher. Belle taught her to swim, and Russell to play tennis, and
Gwendolyn took her to some of the many meetings to which she devoted her
life.
And then there was Tryphosa. She always made time for a visit there at
least once every week. She was hungry to hear all she could about her
mother. She began to understand how Richard Everidge, in the pride of
his manly beauty, could find it in his heart to envy the woman who day
and night kept close company with pain. Sometimes the shadows would lie
purple under the brilliant eyes, and the thin fingers be tightly
clenched in anguish, but the brave lips gave no sign. On such days
Pauline could only sit beside her in mute sorrow, or sing softly some
of the hymns she loved.
'It is terrible to see you suffer so, my lady!' she cried, one morning,
when, in the fulness of her strength, she had gone from the laughing
sunshine into the shadowed room, where every ray of light fell like a
blow upon the invalid's quivering nerves.
Tryphosa made answer with a smile.
'Not one stroke too much, dear child. It is my Father's hand upon the
_tribulum_. He never makes mistakes.'
One day she slipped away directly after breakfast. She wanted to be sure
of finding her alone.
It was one of the invalid's good days, and she greeted her with a bright
smile of welcome.
'My lady,' she began abruptly, 'do you think I have forgotten all about
my promise? I could not. It has haunted me through everything, and--I
gave myself to the King last night.'
Tryphosa's eyes glowed deep with pleasure.
'Thank God!' she exclaimed softly. Then she closed her eyes, and Pauline
knew from her moving lips that she was talking with the Lord.
She touched Pauline gently.
'I had to talk a little about the good news with Jesus. He is my nearest
neighbour, you know. And now, dear child, tell me all about it. What a
wonderfully simple thing it is! People talk so much about being a
Christian, when, after all, it is simply to be Christ's. We open the
door where He has knocked so long, and let Him in. We give ourselves
away to Jesus henceforth to live in Him, with Him, by Him, and for Him
for ever. Dear child, when you were giving, did you include your will?'
'My will?' echoed Pauline, startled.
'Why surely. The Christian is not to direct his Master.'
'But how do you mean, my lady?'
Tryphosa began to sing softly:--
'O, little bird, lie still
In thy low nest:
Thy part, to love My will:
My part--the rest.'
'That is His message to me. Yours will be different, for no two of His
children get the same training.'
'I suppose now life will be all duty,' said Pauline, with a sigh.
Tryphosa smiled.
'That is not the way I read my Bible. Peter says we must "love the
brethren," and John, "This is Christ's commandment, that we believe and
love," because "he who loveth knoweth God," and Paul, "The love of
Christ constraineth us."'
'Well, but I must do something, my lady.'
'Don't fall into that snare, little one. It is what we are, not what we
do. The dear Christ wants us, not for what we do for Him, but what He
does for us. Listen: "He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same
bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me ye can do nothing." "He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the
shadow of the Almighty." The first great thing for you now is to "get
your meaning."'
Pauline looked puzzled.
'I do not understand, my lady.'