B, with Frances, had sung together since their first meeting. Now
Bartlemy's uncertain bass had deepened into the real thing, Basil's
tenor had grown sweeter, and Bruce's barytone richer. Oswyth had a
sympathetic, true little home voice, exactly like herself; Rob sang
alto very well, and Prue's high soprano had grown stronger than when
they first sang together rowing and working through that summer of
the beginning of Greys' acquaintance with the Rutherfords. Frances
had always sung well, and now Hester's rich, splendid alto was a real
acquisition, while Lester Baldwin's tenor was stronger and higher than
Basil's. It really was an unusual combination of voices, and long
practise together, of most of the singers, made them know exactly how
to bring out one another's best points, and made the voices blend quite
beautifully.
It had not taken much persuasion to get Lester Baldwin to give up
his intention of going back after the rehearsal, but to accept the
Rutherfords' hospitality that night and take Hester back Sunday
evening.
Bruce glowered at Lester for an hour after he met him, then yielded
to his personal charm, but still more to the charm of his marked
preference for talking to Frances, and became cordial with a heartiness
that surprised Lester. He did not know that it was not for what he had
done, nor for what he was, but for what he had not done and for what he
was not that Bruce Rutherford suddenly became his friend.
Sunday morning the three Greys and Battalion B carried off Hester and
her cousin to the quiet church where the Grey girls had been carried in
white draperies to be made little Christians in baptism--Very little
and very reluctant ones.
They came out of church into a fine, cold winter rain which had
threatened them on setting forth. It had kept Miss Charlotte and little
Polly at home for a peaceful morning in the little grey house; it
had served, with her cold, to retain Mrs. Grey at Lydia's side, for
appetites attend on church-going, as a rule, and there was much to be
done by those mother-hands which always smoothed out possible rough
places, and made all kinds of comfort certain.
Aunt Azraella was not out either, which was a relief to the girls, who
dreaded her probable addition to them at dinner, for however gentler
Aunt Azraella's diminution of health might make her, she still was not
adapted to great increase of joy.
"Do you think," Rob asked as they gathered around the hearth after
dinner, "do you really think, Mardy, that it would be unsuited to the
day for 'we (twice) four, and no more' to go up into the attic and look
over the chests and trunks of old clothing?"
"It would be Shintoism--ancestor-worship," said Bruce.
"Bruce, we have sufficient knowledge of the Eastern question to
understand what Shintoism is without your foot-note," remarked Rob
sternly.
"I think it would be perfectly proper to the day, dear, to go into the
attic and see those old costumes, that is to the Sunday side of the
day, but how about the weather side of the day? Wouldn't it be too
cold for you?" Mrs. Grey stretched her fingers towards the fire as she
spoke; she dearly loved warmth--of all sorts.
"We're not afraid of the cold, are we girls? Of course the boys are
afraid of nothing," said Rob.
_"Won't you walk into my attic?" said a robin to her mates._
_"I have venerable garments that would fit up many crates._
_"The way into my attic is up a winding stair,_
_"But, 'spite of cold, these garments old repay a journey there."_
Rob chanted this effusion, and Battalion B arose as one body and
echoed, as a refrain:
"But, 'spite of cold, these garments old repay a journey there."
Then the entire eight departed atticward with Polly and her doll,
Roberta Charlotte, bringing up the rear.
"Go on, Wythie; I must put Polly's jacket on," said Rob, pausing at her
chamber door. "Queer, that little bodies take cold more easily than
larger ones, which have more surface to catch cold on."
"What an absurd girl she is!" sighed grave Hester with supreme content
in the qualities which she lacked and which Rob possessed in excess.
"She talks nonsense all the day long, and acts sense more than any
one," said Wythie, with her loving smile.
Rob and Polly came quickly, the bunch of keys dangling from Rob's hand.
"We forgot these," she cried breathlessly. "We may get too cold if we
try to look over all the clothes. Shall we omit the fantastic ones,
Wythie, and get out only the serious ones, which we can use for the
gavotte?"
"Let us open the cedar chest first," said Oswyth, taking the key Rob
offered her.
She laid back the lid and displayed its contents. In five minutes they
were being shaken out of their folds and held up for inspection, big
cloaks, fur-trimmed hoods, shirred with rattans, long veils, shawls,
for this was the chest given over to materials which might attract
moths.
"The beautiful things are in the trunks," said Prue. "We shall want the
silks and embroidered muslins. Open this trunk, Wythie, please."
Oswyth opened it, and the girls drew a deep breath of joy over what
even their first glimpse displayed.
"Oh, Frances, do you remember these?" whispered Rob, taking out a gown
of 1776, and one of the Madison Era. "Do you remember the night we wore
these?"
"Indeed I do, Rob," whispered Frances. "We must only remember now what
a happy night that was, and be thankful that it was so--that special
night."
"I think I'll wear this gown in the gavotte," said Rob, turning to the
others. "That is if no one else wants it."
"Ah, yes!" said Bruce involuntarily, and Rob knew that he too
remembered her wearing it in their impromptu frolic nearly two years
ago.
"Would this do, Bartlemy?" asked Prue, holding up a pale blue brocade
over a quilted satin petticoat.
"It's beautiful, but better for Wythie or Frances. You ought to wear
this." And Bartlemy drew out a yellow satin, overshot with white, and
sweeping open down the front to display a paler yellow petticoat. "Here
is a cloth-of-gold effect for a golden-haired maiden."
"We will make our audience play a game after the entertainment called
'The Search for the Golden Girl,'" suggested Lester Baldwin.
"And introduce Prue to them afterward as Miss Midas," added Hester. "My
mother has a great-grandmother dress for me--crimson and silver."
"I'd like to have Oswyth wear this," said Prue looking well-pleased
with her own allotment, and displaying a brocade of rosebuds on a blush
ground.
"No," said Wythie. "That is lovely, Prudy, but I have a sentimental
desire to wear something else. Eleanor Dinsmore and that gown have an
affinity for each other."
"We must try to select gowns that not only suit each wearer, but which
contrast and compose well in the general picture," said Bartlemy.
"I know what Wythie wants to do! She wants to wear one of Oswyth Grey's
gowns!" cried Rob.
"Her own?" asked Hester wondering.
"No, indeed; Oswyth Grey long dead and gone; our thrice repeated
great-aunt. That is her trunk standing there." And Rob pointed to an
ancient chest with a heavy, old-time lock. "She died when she was not
much past twenty; there was a love-story, of course, about her, and we
children have always felt the fascination of our vague knowledge of
her history, especially Wythie. When she was a little girl she seemed
greatly impressed by this kinswoman whose name she bore--I think, in a
childish way, she must have had some cloudy notion of reincarnation."
"Might we see her chest?" asked Frances. "It sounds as if opening it
would be like opening a volume of poems."
Hester shivered in spite of her effort to convince herself that she was
warm. Prue noticed it, and was rather glad of an excuse for getting
down to warmer quarters.
"Hester is freezing," she cried. "Oswyth Grey's chest hasn't such
splendid gowns in it as those we have seen; they're all simple
muslins, delicately embroidered, except one heavy violet and white
brocade--white, with violets strewn over it--which is the one Wythie
will wear at the dance, if she wears any of them. Let's go down and get
warm, all of us."
"Shall we? Are you cold, Hessie, Frances, little Rutherford B's,
and Lester?" Rob asked, hesitating a little over the use of Lester
Baldwin's name, though both he and Hester had protested against
formality.
"Well, I'm more nearly goose-flesh than one could possibly expect me to
be," said Bruce.
"I confess that the wood-fire down-stairs might be spelled wooed, for
it woos me strongly, though I should dearly love to see Oswyth Grey's
chest opened," said Hester.
"Why, she's shivering as she speaks!" cried Rob. "Come, then my
brethren. We might carry down these gowns we have selected. I'll lay
them in Mardy's room to be tried on by the girls tomorrow. Hester must
slip on hers to-night--oh, I forgot! Hester has her gown at home. We
haven't provided for the other two girls, but we didn't come up here
intending to select gowns; merely to see them."
Rob was talking as she went on down the stairs, following her guests
and Prue, Polly following her, as she always did. Her voice floated
back to Wythie who had remained behind closing the trunks. She arose
from her knees when the last key was withdrawn and looked longingly
over to Oswyth Grey's chest, where it stood in a corner by one of the
gable windows. She loved that chest and its vanished owner, whose
kinship to herself she felt so strongly, the young maiden, about whom
she knew really nothing but that she had loved and died--which, after
all, is an epitome of all lives.
"Ah, well; I shall have plenty of chances to see you again, dear
Oswyth," she said aloud.
She turned around and there was Basil, waiting for her.
"Why, you startled me, Basil," said Wythie, her colour rising. But she
did not look in the least startled; it always seemed possible to Wythie
that she might raise her eyes and see Basil, even when he was away.
"I thought perhaps you and I might stay behind long enough for just one
peep into that other Oswyth Grey's chest," said Basil. "Let me know
her, too, Wythie."
Wythie crossed over to the chest without a word, and knelt to unfasten
it. Then she threw back its lid, and looked up at Basil.
"There isn't much to see, but it has always seemed to me that there was
much to feel in this chest," she said.
An odour of attar of roses, of lavender, of tonka beans, blended into
an indefinable, sweet mustiness by more than a hundred years, arose
into the young faces bent to inhale it. Soft muslins, fine with the
fineness of the importations from India when broad-sailed merchantmen
went out from New England ports, yellow with age, and daintily wrought
with broidery, lay neatly folded before their eyes.
Beneath them, as Oswyth the second tenderly raised them, lay
high-heeled, narrow slippers, a fan that had been brought from China
long ago to the happy young girl whose cheeks' tint matched its
mandarin's crimson robe, a white silk shawl that might have come with
the fan, its knotted silken fringe and heavily embroidered flowers
several shades more yellow than the delicate fabric. Neckerchiefs of
soft mull, white and in colours lay there, ribbons, stained and faded
by the years, a sampler, a bead bag, clocked stockings, and a great
leghorn hat with its plumes and gauze ribbons flattened by long lying.
It was a young girl's chest, and its pathos spoke to Basil, the pathos
of a light heart that early had ceased to beat, of brief life and long
death.
Wythie lifted, one after the other, that other Oswyth's treasures, and
at last raised from its box near the bottom of the chest the beautiful
brocade which she wished to wear in the gavotte. Beneath it lay
bed-linen, hemmed with the tiniest stitches, and table-linen with its
"O. G." carefully wrought in its corners. And underneath all, in the
very bottom, lay a few thin books, and a bundle of letters tied with a
yellowed ribbon that might once have been either white or pale blue,
and marked in the finest of old-fashioned writing: "From B. R. to O. G.
Her all of life."
"B. R.?" exclaimed Basil. "Am I in this story, too, Wythie?"
"I never thought of those initials before," said Wythie, flushing to
the uppermost line of her brow, "I have not opened this chest, not for
ever so long--three years, it may be."
"You couldn't have thought of the initials then, Wythie, dear; I wasn't
in your story as long ago as that," said Basil.
"I remember that Oswyth Grey's lover's name was Benjamin Raymond," said
Wythie. "Poor little greatest aunt--they are sad letters!"
She gently untied the discoloured ribbon and the letters fell apart in
her lap as she sat back on her heels to look at them. From among them
fell a bunch of flowers and lock of hair; the usual trivial mementos of
greater values lost.
"The first ones are formal, but they were written happily; one can see
that," said Wythie, as she unfolded a yellow sheet, handling its brown
folds carefully, for age had made it very frail. "It's curious how the
mood of the writer shows through the set phrases of that time."
"Nature and strong feeling break through stronger barriers than
phrases, Oswyth, the second," said Basil, as he picked up the flowers.
"Look," he added, "these flowers were waxed for their preservation."
"Yes. I imagine Oswyth Grey did that, for her lover could never have
sent her waxed flowers," said Wythie, lifting the sheet which had held
them for so long that Basil might replace them. "The letters grew more
frank and assured as they went on--some day we will read them. Then
there was one reproaching my little greatest aunt for her hardness of
heart, her cruelty after so long, and then a last one bidding her
farewell. It is quite pitiable. But this is the saddest thing of all."
And Oswyth unfolded the sheet which bore on its outer fold the initials
and the inscription that had lain on top of the packet of letters, like
their epitaph as well as Oswyth Grey's. "See, she wrote this letter to
him in reply to the reproach he had made her, knowing that he would
never see it; it was never sent. Read it."
Basil read it. It threw no light on the cause of the lovers' parting,
but it was a passionate protest against the distrust of her which her
lover had expressed to that Oswyth, and a revelation of devotion and
beauty of character that, after all the years, still palpitated with
life. Oswyth Grey, the little Puritan, would not have poured out her
soul thus had she not felt sure that no other eyes than her own would
ever rest upon that paper.
"What a pity!" murmured Basil, gently folding the unsent letter in its
brown creases again. His eyes were moist.
"She died not long after that the records show; he never knew. Isn't
it a pity?" Wythie's lashes hid her downcast eyes as she fingered the
papers absently. "I always felt that I ought to make it right to her,
because I bore her name. I can't explain just what I have felt about
her, though the feeling is strong. Yet the dear girl has been quite
happy for more than a century; I suppose we need not feel sad about her
now. Here is a stanza written to her, signed B. R. It isn't remarkable,
but it is enough to prove that her B. R. cared for poetry when many
were indifferent to it."
Wythie looked up, smiling to show that the moisture on those lashes
meant nothing, and offered Basil one more yellow page. He took it and
read:
_If there were other like to thee, my loved one,_
_Then might I love that other perfect she;_
_But since the world holds naught like thee, my loved one,_
_How can I choose but at thy feet to be?_
_For, save in this, thou hast no fault, my loved one,_
_That to my love thou prov'st thy obduracy._
Basil returned the verse without comment, and Wythie tied up again the
packet just as that other Wythie had tied it so long before. But with
the great difference that for this Wythie happiness just within reach
seemed to fill the shadowy attic.
"You didn't care for B. R's poetry?" she said, bending over to replace
the letters at the bottom of the chest.
"On the contrary, and I like him for writing it," said Basil. "Wythie,
there will never come anything between us? We shall not be parted as
were this other B. R., and Oswyth Grey? I am still in college, but when
I begin life you are coming to begin it with me in the Caldwell house,
aren't you? We know you are, both of us, but I have been feeling lately
that I wanted to hear you say it."
Oswyth trembled. She had known that Basil's first preference for her
had grown into a devoted love, and she knew that she would have had no
courage to face the years if they did not include Basil. Gentle Wythie
had gone on to this moment without a fear, quietly unfolding without
doubt or dread. But, after all, it meant so much, and for a moment the
girl paused. Then she looked up into Basil's face. "It couldn't be
otherwise, Basil, because it is just as Oswyth Grey wrote here: All of
life," she said.
Basil bowed his head for a speechless moment. "God helping me this
Oswyth shall never be unhappy," he said. Then a great joy seized him,
and he was silent, holding back the expression of it, for Wythie's dove
eyes looked up, half frightened, at the new, manly Basil beside her.
And before either could speak Rob's voice rang out, and Rob's step came
up the lower flight of stairs.
"Where are you two? Basil, Wythie, what has happened to you?" she
called. "Have you fallen into a trunk, and are we going to have a case
of the Mistletoe Bough right here in the little grey house and our own
attic?"
She appeared at the foot of the attic stairs, peering up through the
gathering darkness.
"We opened Oswyth Grey's chest--Basil wanted to see its contents--and
it took longer than we realized," said Wythie coming to the head of the
stairs. "Here is her white brocade with the violets; I shall wear this
in the gavotte."
Wythie's voice sounded unnatural; Rob pounced on her the moment she
descended, and glanced at Basil, following her with his eyes alight as
they had never been before.
"What have you been doing?" she demanded. "Reading Oswyth Grey's
letters? Wythie, what has kept you? Weren't you cold?"
"Oh, no; it is as warm--" began Wythie.
"'As springtime, the only pretty ring time,'" supplemented Basil.
"Wythie, tell me!" insisted Rob.
"Not now; wait until to-night," said Wythie, and escaped with Oswyth
Grey's white brocade all bestrewn with violets.
"If I have to wait until to-night there's nothing to wait for; I know
this minute," muttered Rob. Then she turned fiercely upon Basil.
"Basil, I thought we could trust you," she said.
"Nonsense, Rob, you knew quite well what was coming," retorted Basil
with a quiet laugh of triumph.
"Does that make me like it?" she demanded. "My blessed Wythie! How do
you expect me to go down again to the rest?"
"Shall I send Bruce up?" inquired Basil blandly.
Rob bolted for the back-stairs, to the calm atmosphere of Lydia till
she should have regained sufficient composure to face her guests and
the first romance of this generation in the little grey house.
CHAPTER NINE
ITS TRIUMPH
When her young guests had gone, and the little grey house was quiet for
the night, Mrs. Grey stood before the charred embers on the hearth,
thoughtfully regarding the blackened scales, with their under edges
still glowing, which lay all along the sides of the bits of logs
remaining.
Kiku-san stirred, stretched his paws, lifted his head and remarked:
"M-m-m-mmm?" in a cooing voice, at once welcoming and inquiring. Mrs.
Grey looked up to see Wythie in her violet kimono. She held out her
arms without speaking, for she knew what Oswyth had come to say.
Wythie sprang into the loving arms and nestled her head on her mother's
shoulder.
"Basil wants--" she began.
"You, when the time comes, darling," whispered Mrs. Grey. "I suppose we
have known that for a long time."
"Yes, but he said so," Wythie whispered back.
"And that alters it? Yes, a little. But I want it to be just as little
as possible, my Wythie," returned her mother. "We won't talk about it
to any one outside the little grey house, and you and Basil will be
just the same friendly, simple comrades you have always been. You are
so young, dear, and Basil is still in college. But we understand, as we
have understood all along, that by and by your friendship is to broaden
and deepen into much more."
"It can't, Mardy," said Wythie.
"Ah, Oswyth, everything broadens and deepens with time. Youth feels
tempestuously, but years bring profounder depths. You are too much a
child to know the truth of what I say to you. Be a young girl still, my
Wythie, and be happy. Basil is all we could wish him to be," said Mrs.
Grey, speaking out of the knowledge of her years of sacrificial love
and her widowhood.
"Then you are willing, you don't mind, Mardy?" murmured Wythie.
"I am very glad, dearest, and I believe my gentle girl is going to be a
happy woman. I mind nothing now but that she should miss sleep and take
cold. Go to bed, little daughter, and go to sleep. Waking or sleeping
my very breathing prays for you and Robin and little Prudy."
Mrs. Grey kissed Wythie hastily and half pushed her from her. Wythie
clung to her as she returned the kiss, but went instantly away with
her tear-wet face smiling. It was the mother, left standing beside
the hearth, whose tears fell without the smiles. At last she stirred,
sighed, stooped to pick up the fallen hearth brush, and stroked
Kiku-san with the other hand.
"Of course I am glad, glad and thankful," she said, with only the white
cat to hear. "But joy seems brief when one is a widow at forty-three,
and mothers are selfish creatures." And this most unselfish mother
brushed the ashes over the dying embers of the fire, looked at each
window fastening, slowly put out her reading-lamp, and crept up-stairs
like one that craved for rest.
Twelfth Night was not long in coming; it was to bring such a great
event that it even successfully hurried the holidays out of the way.
Rob, watching Wythie jealously, saw no change in her except a greater
sweetness and gentleness, and a deeper look of contentment in her
brooding eyes.
"You see I am not very old, Rob, and Mardy says that I'm not to be
formally engaged; only to go happily on till the time comes to go
happier further," explained Wythie.
"H'm!" ejaculated Rob, inconsistently exasperated by the fulfilment
of her own wishes. "I don't know about the formality--we're not
particularly formal as a family--but you're as much engaged as you can
be, and I long to put you back into short dresses and braid your hair
down your back."
"And whip me soundly and put me to bed, like the old woman that lived
in the shoe?" laughed Wythie. "Your voice sounds threatening. You silly
Robin! You're much taller than I am. I doubt my having a monopoly of
growing up, or----"
Wythie stopped suggestively, and Rob said hastily:
"Here comes Aunt Azraella, critically examining the boundaries of
the path I dug around the clothes whirligig, out through the back
yard towards her place. Her Aaron and I met at the fence. Poor Aunt
Azraella; she looks older! She has her little black bag; I believe she
is coming to render her account of the tickets that she has sold for
to-morrow night."
"I went over to Mrs. Silsby's on my way home from market this morning,"
Mrs. Winslow said without preliminary on entering. "She is having her
great parlours decorated beautifully, and her arrangement of the
spectators' seats is perfect. I think it is safe to say that this will
be the finest affair ever held in this place. I have seventy-four
dollars here for thirty-seven tickets, and several people sent to me
for tickets while I was out. Elvira could not find them; I had them all
with me."
Prue could not repress a tiny giggle at this excellent reason for
Elvira's failure. But Wythie covered it by saying: "I can deliver them
when I go out. Everybody is coming up on the same train this afternoon,
Battalion B and the Baldwins; I am going to meet them after I have done
a few errands. We have a dress rehearsal to-night up at Mrs. Silsby's.
I can take the tickets to the people who sent for them, Aunt Azraella."
"Very well. I will send Aaron around with the carriage; you'll be too
tired if you walk everywhere, and rehearse dancing to-night. I'll send
the victoria, and you can bring the Baldwins and two of the Rutherfords
home with you," said Aunt Azraella with her new consideration of the
Grey's comfort.
"Thank you, Aunt," said Wythie. "Hester writes that there will be more
than a car full of people from New York to-morrow--Oh, I do so hope the
good weather will hold out!"
"My almanac says that we shall have fair weather for six days; this is
the third day," said Aunt Azraella confidently; she pinned her faith
to a certain venerable publication, withstanding frequent failures on
the part of her prophet. "The good weather began with the change of the
moon, which occurred at the right hour--shortly after midnight; this
weather will hold."