Let the grapes be ever so sweet, and hang in plenty ever so low,
there is always a fair bunch out of reach.
Mrs. Ledwith longed, now, to go to Europe.
At any rate, she was eager to have her daughters go. But, after just
one year, to take what her Uncle Oldways had given her, in return
for her settling herself near him, and _un_settle herself, and go
off to the other side of the world! Besides, what he had given her
would not do it. That was the rub, after all. What was two thousand
a year, now-a-days? Nothing is anything, now-a-days. And it takes
everything to do almost nothing.
The Ledwiths were just as much pinched now as they were before they
ever heard from Uncle Oldways. People with unlimited powers of
expansion always are pinched; it is good for them; one of the saving
laws of nature that keeps things decently together.
Yet, in the pink room of a morning, and in the mellow-tinted
drawing-room of an evening, it was getting to be the subject
oftenest discussed. It was that to which they directed the combined
magnetism of the family will; everything was brought to bear upon it;
Bridget's going away on Monday morning, leaving the clothes in the
tubs, the strike-price of coal, and the overcharge of the grocer;
Florence's music, Helena's hopeless distress over French and German;
even Desire's listlessness and fidgets; most of all Mrs. Megilp's
plans, which were ripening towards this long coveted end. She and
Glossy really thought they should go this winter.
"It is a matter of economy now; everybody's going. The Fargo's and
the Fayerwerses, and the Hitherinyons have broken all up, and are
going out to stay indefinitely. The Fayerwerses have been saving up
these four years to get away, there are so many of them, you know;
the passage money counts, and the first travelling; but after you
_are_ over, and have found a place to settle down in,"--then
followed all the usual assertions as to cheap delights and
inestimable advantages, and emancipation from all American household
ills and miseries.
Uncle Oldways came up once in a while to the house in Shubarton
Place, and made an evening call. He seemed to take apricot-color for
granted, when he got there, as much as he did the plain, old,
unrelieved brown at Mrs. Ripwinkley's; he sat quite unconcernedly in
the grand easy chair that Laura wheeled out for him; indeed, it
seemed as if he really, after a manner, indorsed everything by his
acceptance without demur of what he found. But then one must sit
down on something; and if one is offered a cup of coffee, or
anything on a plate, one cannot easily protest against sea-green
china. We do, and we have, and we wear, and we say, a great
many things, and feel ourselves countenanced and confirmed,
somehow,--perhaps excused,--because nobody appears surprised or says
anything. But what should they say; and would it be at all proper
that they should be surprised? If we only thought of it, and once
tried it, we might perhaps find it quite as easy and encouraging, on
the same principle, _not_ to have apricot rep and sea-green china.
One night Mr. Oldways was with them when the talk turned eastwardly
over the water. There were new names in the paper, of people who
had gone out in the _Aleppo_, and a list of Americans registered at
Bowles Brothers,' among whom were old acquaintance.
"I declare, how they all keep turning up there" said Mrs. Ledwith.
"The war doesn't seem to make much difference," said her husband.
"To think how lucky the Vonderbargens were, to be in Paris just at
the edge of the siege!" said Glossy Megilp. "They came back from
Como just in time; and poor Mr. Washburne had to fairly hustle them
off at last. They were buying silks, and ribbons, and gloves, up to
the last minute, for absolutely nothing. Mrs. Vonderbargen said it
seemed a sin to come away and leave anything. I'm sure I don't know
how they got them all home; but they did."
Glossy had been staying lately with the Vonderbargens in New York.
She stayed everywhere, and picked up everything.
"You have been abroad, Mrs. Scherman?" said Mrs. Ledwith,
inquiringly, to Asenath, who happened to be calling, also, with her
husband, and was looking at some photographs with Desire.
"No, ma'am," answered Mrs. Scherman, very promptly, not having
spoken at all before in the discussion. "I do not think I wish to
go. The syphon has been working too long."
"The Syphon?"
Mrs. Ledwith spoke with a capital S in her mind; but was not quite
sure whether what Mrs. Scherman meant might be a line of Atlantic
steamers or the sea-serpent.
"Yes, ma'am. The emptying back and forth. There isn't much that is
foreign over there, now, nor very much that is native here. The
hemispheres have got miserably mixed up. I think when I go 'strange
countries for to see,' it will have to be Patagonia or Independent
Tartary."
Uncle Oldways turned round with his great chair, so as to face
Asenath, and laughed one of his thorough fun digesting laughs, his
keen eyes half shut with the enjoyment, and sparkling out through
their cracks at her.
But Asenath had resumed her photographs with the sweetest and
quietest unconsciousness.
Mrs. Ledwith let her alone after that; and the talk rambled on to
the schools in Munich, and the Miracle Plays at Oberammergau.
"To think of _that_ invasion!" said Asenath, in a low tone to
Desire, "and corrupting _that_ into a show, with a run of regular
performances! I do believe they have pulled down the last unprofaned
thing now, and trampled over it."
"If we go," said Mrs. Megilp, "we shall join the Fayerwerses, and
settle down with them quietly in some nice place; and then make
excursions. We shall not try to do all Europe in three months; we
shall choose, and take time. It is the only way really to enjoy or
acquire; and the quiet times are so invaluable for the lessons and
languages."
Mrs. Megilp made up her little varnishes with the genuine gums of
truth and wisdom; she put a beautiful shine even on to her limited
opportunities and her enforced frugalities.
"Mrs. Ledwith, you _ought_ to let Agatha and Florence go too. I
would take every care of them; and the expense would be so
divided--carriages, and couriers, and everything--that it would be
hardly anything."
"It is a great opportunity," Mrs. Ledwith said, and sighed. "But it
is different with us from what it is with you. We must still be a
family here, with nearly the same expenses. To be sure Desire has
done with school, and she doesn't care for gay society, and Helena
is a mere child yet; if it ever could"--
And so it went on between the ladies, while Mr. Oldways and Mr.
Ledwith and Frank Scherman got into war talk, and Bismarck policy,
and French poss--no, _im_-possibilities.
"I don't think Uncle Oldways minded much," said Mrs. Ledwith to
Agatha, and Mrs. Megilp, up-stairs, after everybody had gone who was
to go.
"He never minds anything," said Agatha.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Megilp, slowly. "He seemed mightily
pleased with what Asenath Scherman said."
"O, she's pretty, and funny; it makes no difference what she says;
people are always pleased."
"We might dismiss one girl this winter," said Mrs. Ledwith, "and
board in some cheap country place next summer. I dare say we could
save it in the year's round; the difference, I mean. When you
weren't actually travelling, it wouldn't cost more than to have you
here,--dress and all.
"They wouldn't need to have a new thing," said Glossy.
"Those people out at Z---- want to buy the house. I've a great mind
to coax Grant to sell, and take a slice right out, and send them,"
said Mrs. Ledwith, eagerly. She was always eager to accomplish the
next new thing for her children; and, to say the truth, did not much
consider herself. And so far as they had ever been able, the
Ledwiths had always been rather easily given to "taking the slice
right out."
The Megilps had had a little legacy of two or three thousand
dollars, and were quite in earnest in their plans, this time, which
had been talk with them for many years.
"Those poor Fayerwerses!" said Asenath to her husband, walking home.
"Going out now, after the cheap European living of a dozen years
ago! The ghost always goes over on the last load. I wonder at Mrs.
Megilp. She generally knows better."
"She'll do," said Frank Scherman. "If the Fayerwerses stick
anywhere, as they probably will, she'll hitch on to the Fargo's, and
turn up at Jerusalem. And then there are to be the Ledwiths, and
their 'little slice.'"
"O, dear! what a mess people do make of living!" said Asenath.
Uncle Titus trudged along down Dorset Street with his stick under
his arm.
"Try 'em! Find 'em out!" he repeated to himself. "That's what
Marmaduke said. Try 'em with this,--try 'em with that; a good deal,
or a little; having and losing, and wanting. That's what the Lord
does with us all; and I begin to see He has a job of it!"
The house was sold, and Agatha and Florence went.
It made home dull for poor Desire, little as she found of real
companionship with her elder sisters. But then she was always
looking for it, and that was something. Husbands and wives, parents
and children, live on upon that, through years of repeated
disappointments, and never give up the expectation of that which is
somewhere, and which these relations represent to them, through all
their frustrated lives.
That is just why. It _is_ somewhere.
It turned out a hard winter, in many ways, for Desire Ledwith. She
hated gay company, and the quiet little circle that she had become
fond of at her Aunt Ripwinkley's was broken somewhat to them all,
and more to Desire than, among what had grown to be her chronic
discontents, she realized or understood, by the going away for a
time of Kenneth Kincaid.
What was curious in the happening, too, he had gone up to "And" to
build a church. That had come about through the Marchbankses'
knowledge of him, and this, you remember, through their being with
the Geoffreys when the Kincaids were first introduced in Summit
Street.
The Marchbankses and the Geoffreys were cousins. A good many Boston
families are.
Mr. Roger Marchbanks owned a good deal of property in And. The
neighborhood wanted a church; and he interested himself actively and
liberally in behalf of it, and gave the land,--three lots right out
of the middle of Marchbanks Street, that ran down to the river.
Dorris kept her little room, and was neighborly as heretofore; but
she was busy with her music, and had little time but her evenings;
and now there was nobody to walk home with Desire to Shubarton
Place, if she stayed in Aspen Street to tea. She came sometimes, and
stayed all night; but that was dreary for Helena, who never
remembered to shut the piano or cover up the canary, or give the
plants in the bay window their evening sprinkle, after the furnace
heat had been drying them all day.
Kenneth Kincaid came down for his Sundays with Dorris, and his work
at the Mission; a few times he called in at Uncle Oldways' after
tea, when the family was all together; but they saw him very seldom;
he gave those Sunday evenings mostly to needed rest, and to quiet
talk with Dorris.
Desire might have gone to the Mission this winter, easily enough,
after all. Agatha and Florence and Glossy Megilp were not by to make
wondering eyes, or smile significant smiles; but there was something
in herself that prevented; she knew that it would be more than half
to _get_, and she still thought she had so little to give! Besides,
Kenneth Kincaid had never asked her again, and she could not go to
him and say she would come.
Desire Ledwith began to have serious question of what life was ever
going to be for her. She imagined, as in our early years and our
first gray days we are all apt to imagine, that she had found out a
good deal that it was _not_ going to be.
She was not going to be beautiful, or accomplished, or even, she was
afraid, agreeable; she found that such hard work with most people.
She was not ever--and that conclusion rested closely upon these
foregoing--to be married, and have a nice husband and a pretty
house, and go down stairs and make snow-puddings and ginger-snaps of
a morning, and have girls staying with her, and pleasant people in
to tea; like Asenath Scherman. She couldn't write a book,--that,
perhaps, was one of her premature decisions, since nobody knows till
they try, and the books are lying all round, in leaves, waiting only
to be picked up and put together,--or paint a picture; she couldn't
bear parties, and clothes were a fuss, and she didn't care to go to
Europe.
She thought she should rather like to be an old maid, if she could
begin right off, and have a little cottage out of town somewhere, or
some cosy rooms in the city. At least, she supposed that was what
she had got to be, and if that were settled, she did not see why it
might not be begun young, as well as married life. She could not
endure waiting, when a thing was to be done.
"Aunt Frances," she said one day, "I wish I had a place of my own.
What is the reason I can't? A girl can go in for Art, and set up a
studio; or she can go to Rome, and sculp, and study; she can learn
elocution, and read, whether people want to be read to or not; and
all that is Progress and Woman's Rights; why can't she set up a
_home_?"
"Because, I suppose, a house is not a home; and the beginning of a
home is just what she waits for. Meanwhile, if she has a father and
a mother, she would not put a slight on _their_ home, or fail of her
share of the duty in it."
"But nobody would think I failed in my duty if I were going to be
married. I'm sure mamma would think I was doing it beautifully. And
I never shall be married. Why can't I live something out for myself,
and have a place of my own? I have got money enough to pay my rent,
and I could do sewing in a genteel way, or keep a school for little
children. I'd rather--take in back stairs to wash," she exclaimed
vehemently, "than wait round for things, and be nothing! And I
should like to begin young, while there might be some sort of fun in
it. You'd like to come and take tea with me, wouldn't you, Aunt
Frank?"
"If it were all right that you should have separate teas of your
own."
"And if I had waffles. Well, I should. I think, just now, there's
nothing I should like so much as a little kitchen of my own, and a
pie-board, and a biscuit-cutter, and a beautiful baking oven, and a
Japan tea-pot."
"The pretty part. But brooms, and pails, and wash-tubs, and the back
stairs?"
"I specified back stairs in the first place, of my own accord. I
wouldn't shirk. Sometimes I think that real good old-fashioned hard
work is what I do want. I should like to find the right, honest
thing, and do it, Aunt Frank."
She said it earnestly, and there were tears in her eyes.
"I believe you would," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "But perhaps the right,
honest thing, just now, is to wait patiently, with all your might."
"Now, that's good," said Desire, "and cute of you, too, that last
piece of a sentence. If you had stopped at '_patiently_,' as people
generally do! That's what exasperates; when you want to do something
with all your might. It almost seems as if I could, when you put it
so."
"It is a 'stump,' Luclarion would say."
"Luclarion is a saint and a philosopher. I feel better," said
Desire.
She stayed feeling better all that afternoon; she helped Sulie
Praile cut out little panels from her thick sheet of gray
painting-board, and contrived her a small easel with her round
lightstand and a book-rest; for Sulie was advancing in the fine
arts, from painting dollies' paper faces in cheap water colors, to
copying bits of flowers and fern and moss, with oils, on gray board;
and she was doing it very well, and with exquisite delight.
To wait, meant something to wait for; something coming by and by;
that was what comforted Desire to-day, as she walked home alone in
the sharp, short, winter twilight; that, and the being patient with
all one's might. To be patient, is to be also strong; this she saw,
newly; and Desire coveted, most of all, to be strong.
Something to wait for. "He does not cheat," said Desire, low down in
her heart, to herself. For the child had faith, though she could not
talk about it.
Something; but very likely not the thing you have seen, or dreamed
of; something quite different, it may be, when it comes; and it may
come by the way of losing, first, all that you have been able yet,
with a vague, whispering hope, to imagine.
The things we do not know! The things that are happening,--the
things that are coming; rising up in the eastward of our lives below
the horizon that we can yet see; it may be a star, it may be a
cloud!
Desire Ledwith could not see that out at Westover, this cheery
winter night, it was one of dear Miss Pennington's "Next Thursdays;"
she could not see that the young architect, living away over there
in the hundred-year-old house on the side of East Hill, a boarder
with old Miss Arabel Waite, had been found, and appreciated, and
drawn into their circle by the Haddens and the Penningtons and the
Holabirds and the Inglesides; and that Rosamond was showing him the
pleasant things in their Westover life,--her "swan's nest among the
reeds," that she had told him of,--that early autumn evening, when
they had walked up Hanley Street together.