The mistress of the mansion was giving her orders for the day. From the
farthest nooks and corners of the attic, where fragrant herbs swayed
back and forth in ghostly fashion, to the tiled kitchen, where burnished
copper saucepans literally shone, Miss Field kept in daily touch with
her housekeeping.
The old Colonial house was her pride and her delight. It was by far the
oldest in that part of the country, and held an exalted position among
its neighbours on that account, though the owner, not having spent her
entire life in East Lancaster, was considered somewhat "new." To be
truly aristocratic, at least three generations of one's forbears must
have lived in the same dwelling.
In the hall hung the old family portraits. Gentlemen and gentlewomen,
long since gathered to their fathers, had looked down from their gilded
frames upon many a strange scene. Baby footsteps had faltered on the
stairs, and wide childish eyes had looked up in awe to this stately
company. Older children had wondered at the patches and the powdered
hair, the velvet knickerbockers and ruffled sleeves. Awkward schoolboys
had boasted to their mates that the jewelled sword, which hung at the
side of a young officer in the uniform of the Colonies, had been
presented by General Washington himself, in recognition of conspicuous
bravery upon the field. Lovers had led their sweethearts along the hall
at twilight, to whisper that their portraits, too, should some day hang
there, side by side. Soldiers of Fortune who had found their leader
fickle had taken fresh courage from the set lips of the gallant
gentlemen in the great hall. Women whose hearts were breaking had looked
up to the painted and powdered dames along the winding stairway, and
learned, through some subtle freemasonry of sex, that only the lowborn
cry out when hurt. Faint, wailing voices of new-born babes had reached
the listening ears of the portraits by night and by day. Coffin after
coffin had gone out of the wide door, flower-hidden, and step after step
had died away forever, leaving only an echo behind. And yet the men and
women of the line of Field looked out from their gilded frames,
high-spirited, courageous, and serene, with here and there the hint of a
smile.
Far up the stairs and beyond the turn hung the last portrait: Aunt
Peace, in the bloom of her mature beauty, painted soon after she had
taken possession of the house. The dark hair was parted over the low
brow and puffed slightly over the tiny ears. The flowered gown was cut
modestly away at the throat, showing a shoulder line that had been
famous in three counties when she was the belle of the countryside. For
the rest, she was much the same. Let the artist make the brown hair
snowy white, change the girlish bloom to the tint of a faded pink rose,
draw around the eyes and the mouth a few tiny time-tracks, which, after
all, were but the footprints of smiles, sadden the trustful eyes a bit,
and cover the frivolous gown with black brocade,--then the mistress of
the mansion, who moved so gaily through the house, would inevitably
startle you as you came upon her at the turn of the stairs, having
believed, all the time, that she was somewhere else.
At the moment, she was in the garden, with Mrs. Irving and "the
children," as she called Iris and Lynn. "Now, my talented
nephew-once-removed," she was saying, in her high, sweet voice, "will
you kindly take the spade and dig until you can dig no more? I am well
aware that it is like hitching Pegasus to the plough, but I have grown
tired of waiting for my intermittent gardener, and there is a new theory
to the effect that all service is beautiful."
"So it is," laughed Lynn, turning the earth awkwardly. "I know what
you're thinking of, mother, but it isn't going to hurt my hands."
"You shall have a flower-bed for your reward," Aunt Peace went on. "I
will take the front yard myself, and the beds here shall be equally
divided among you three. You may plant in them what you please and each
shall attend to his own."
"I speak for vegetables," said Lynn.
"How characteristic," murmured Iris, with a sidelong glance at him which
sent the blood to his face. "What shall you plant, Mrs. Irving?"
"Roses, heartsease, and verbenas," she replied, "and as many other
things as I can get in without crowding. I may change my mind about the
others, but I shall have those three. What are you going to have?"
"Violets and mignonette, nothing more. I love the sweet, modest ones the
best."
"Cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, melons, peas, asparagus," put in Lynn, "and
what else?"
"Nothing else, my son," answered Margaret, "unless you rent a vacant
acre or two. The seeds are small, but the plants have been known to
spread."
"I'll have one plant of each kind, then, for I must assuredly have
variety. It's said to be 'the spice of life' and that's what we're all
looking for. Besides, judging from the various scornful remarks which
have been thought, if not actually made, the rest of you don't care for
vegetables. Anyhow, you sha'n't have any--except Aunt Peace."
"Over here now, please, Lynn," said Miss Field. "When you get that done,
I'll tell you what to do next. Come, Margaret, it's a little chilly
here, and I don't want you to take cold."
For a few moments there was quiet in the garden. A flock of pigeons
hovered about Iris, taking grain from her outstretched hand, and cooing
soft murmurs of content. The white dove was perched upon her shoulder,
not at all disturbed by her various excursions to the source of supply.
Lynn worked steadily, seemingly unconscious of the girl's scrutiny.
Finally, she spoke. "I don't want any of your old vegetables," she said.
"How fortunate!"
"You may not have any at all--I don't believe the seeds will come up."
"Perhaps not--it's quite in the nature of things."
The pouter pigeon, brave in his iridescent waistcoat, perched upon her
other shoulder, and Lynn straightened himself to look at her. From the
first evening she had puzzled him.
Her face was nearly always pale, but to-day she had a pretty colour in
her cheeks and her deep, violet eyes were aglow with innocent mischief.
There was a dewy sweetness about her red lips, and Lynn noted that the
sheen on the pigeon's breast was like the gleam from her blue-black
hair, where the sun shone upon it. She had a great mass of it, which she
wore coiled on top of her small, well-shaped head. It was perfectly
smooth, its riotous waves kept well in check, except at the blue-veined
temples, where little ringlets clustered, unrebuked.
"You should be practising," said Iris, irrelevantly.
"So should you."
"I don't need to."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not going to play with you any more."
"Why, Iris?"
"Oh," she returned, with a little shrug of her shoulders, which
frightened away both pigeons, "you didn't like the way I played your
last accompaniment, and so I've stopped for good."
Lynn thought it only a repetition of what she had said when he
criticised her, and passed it over in silence.
"I've already done an hour," he said, "and I'll have time for another
before lunch. I can get in the other two before dark, and then I'm
going for a walk. You'll come with me, won't you?"
"You haven't asked me properly," she objected.
Irving bowed and, in set, gallant phrases, asked Miss Temple for "the
pleasure of her company."
"I'm sorry," she answered, "but I'm obliged to refuse. I'm going to make
some little cakes for tea--the kind you like."
"Bother the cakes!"
"Then," laughed Iris, "if you want me as much as that, I'll go. It's my
Christian duty."
From the very beginning, Aunt Peace had taught Iris the principles of
dainty housewifery. Cleanliness came first--an exquisite cleanliness
which was not merely a lack of dust and dirt, but a positive quality.
When the old lady's keen eyes, reinforced by her strongest glasses, were
unable to discern so much as a finger mark upon anything, Iris knew that
it was clean, and not before.
At first, the little untrained child had bitterly rebelled, but Miss
Field's patience was without limit and at last Iris attained the
required degree of proficiency. She had done her sampler, like the
Colonial maids before her, made her white, sweet loaves, her fragrant
brown ones, put up her countless pots of clear, rich preserves, made
amber and crimson jellies, huge jars of spiced fruits, and brewed ten
different kinds of home-made wine. Then, and not till then, Iris got the
womanly idea which was beneath it all. Perception came slowly, but at
length she found herself in a beautiful comradeship with Aunt Peace. For
sheer love of the daintiness of it, Iris beat the yolks of eggs in a
white bowl and the whites in a blue one. She took pleasure out of
various fine textures and feathery masses, sang as she shaped small pats
of unsalted butter, tying them up in clover blossoms, and laughed at the
little packets of seeds Dame Nature sends with her parcels.
"See," said Iris, one morning, as she cut a juicy muskmelon and took out
the seeds, "this means that if you like it well enough to work and wait,
you can have lots, lots more."
Miss Field smiled, and a soft pink colour came into her fine, high-bred
face. For one, at least, she had opened the way to the Fortunate Isles,
where one's daily work is one's daily happiness, and nothing is so poor
as to be without its own appealing beauty.
As time went on, Iris found deep and satisfying pleasure in the
countless little things that were done each day. She piled the clean
linen in orderly rows upon the shelves, delighting in the unnameable
freshness made by wind and sun; sniffed appreciatively at the cedar
chest which stood in a recess of the upper hall, and climbed many a
chair to fasten bunches of fragrant herbs, gathered with her own hands,
to the rafters in the attic.
She washed the fine old china, rubbed the mahogany till she could see
her face in it, and kept the silver shining. "A gentlewoman," Aunt Peace
had said, "will always be independent of her servants, and there are
certain things no gentlewoman will trust her servants to do."
Upon this foundation, Aunt Peace had reared the beautiful superstructure
of her life. Her hands were capable and strong, yet soft and white. As
we learn to love the things we take care of, so every household
possession became dear to her, and repaid her for her labours an
hundred-fold.
To be sure of doing the very best for her adopted daughter, Miss Field
had, for many years, kept house without a servant. Now, at seventy-five,
she had grudgingly admitted one maid into her sanctum, but some of the
work still fell to Iris, and no one ever doubted for an instant that the
head of the household vigilantly guarded her own rights.
For a long time Iris had known how useless it was--that there had never
been a moment when the old lady could not have had a retinue of servants
at her command, but had it been useless after all? Remembering the child
she had been, Iris could not but see the immeasurable advance the woman
had made.
"Someday, my child," Aunt Peace had said, "when your adopted mother is
laid away with her ancestors in the churchyard, you will bless me for
what I have done. You will see that wherever you happen to be, in
whatever station of life God may be pleased to place you after I am
gone, you have one thing which cannot be taken away from you--the
power to make for yourself a home. You will be sure of your comfort
independently, and you will never be at the mercy of the ignorant and
the untrained. In more than one sense," went on Miss Field, smiling,
"you will have the gift of Peace."
In the house, in her favourite chair by the fire, the old lady was
saying much the same thing to Margaret Irving. It was apropos of a book
written by a member of the shrieking sisterhood, which had sorely
stirred East Lancaster, set as it was in quiet ways that were centuries
old.
"I have no patience with such foolishness," Aunt Peace observed.
"Since Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, women have been
home-makers and men have been home-builders. All the work in the
world is directly and immediately undertaken for the maintenance and
betterment of the home. A woman who has no love for it is unsexed.
God probably knew how He wanted it--at least we may be pardoned for
supposing that He did. It is absolutely--but I would better stop, my
dear. I fear I shall soon be saying something unladylike."
Margaret laughed--a low, musical laugh with a girlish note in it. For
a long time she had not been so happy as she was to-day.
"To quote a famous historian," she replied, "a book like that 'carries
within itself the germs of its decay.' You need have no fear, Aunt
Peace; the home will stand. This single house, this beautiful old home
of yours, has lasted two centuries, hasn't it, just as it is?"
"Yes," sighed the other, after a pause, "they built well in those days."
The charm of the room was upon them both. Through the open door they
could see the long line of portraits in the hall, and the house seemed
peopled with friendly ghosts, whose memories and loves still lived.
Because she had recently come from a city apartment, Margaret
looked down the spacious vista, ending at a long mirror, with an
ever-increasing sense of delight.
"My dear," said Miss Field, "I have always felt that this house should
have come to you."
"I have never felt so," answered Margaret. "I have never for a moment
begrudged it to you. You know my father died suddenly, and his will,
made long before I was born, had not been changed. So what was more
natural than for my mother to have the house during her lifetime, with
the provision that it should revert to his favourite sister afterward,
if she still lived?"
"I have cheated you by living, Margaret, and your mother was cut off in
her prime. She was a hard woman."
"Yes," sighed Margaret, "she was. But I think she meant to be kind."
"I knew her very little; in fact, the only chance that I ever had to get
acquainted with her was when I came here for a short visit just after
you were married. The house had been closed for a long time. She took
you away with her, and when she came back she was alone. Then she wrote
to me, asking me to share her loneliness for a time, and I consented."
The way was open for confidences, but Margaret made none, and Aunt Peace
respected her for it.
"We never knew each other very well, did we?" asked the old lady, in a
tone that indicated no need of an answer. "I remember that when I was
here I yearned over you just as I did over Iris several years later. I
wanted to give to you out of my abundance; to make you happy and
comfortable."
"Dear Aunt Peace," said Margaret, softly, "you are doing it now, when
perhaps I need it even more than I did then. All your life you have
been making people happy and comfortable."
"I hope so--it is what I have tried to do. By the way, when I am through
with it, this house goes to you, then to Lynn and his children after
him."
"Thank you." For an instant Margaret's pulses throbbed with the joy of
possession, then the blood retreated from her heart in shame.
"I have made ample provision for Iris," Miss Field went on. "She is my
own dear daughter, but she is not of our line."
At this moment, Iris came around the house, laughing and screaming, with
Lynn in full pursuit. Mrs. Irving went to the window and came back with
an amused light in her eyes.
"What is the matter?" asked Aunt Peace.
"Lynn is chasing her. He had something in his fingers that looked like
an angle-worm."
"No doubt. Iris is afraid of worms."
"I'll go out and speak to him."
"No--let them fight it out. We are never young but once, and Youth asks
no greater privilege than to fight its own battles. It is mistaken
kindness to shield--it weakens one in the years to come."
"Youth," repeated Margaret. "The most beautiful gift of the gods, which
we never appreciate until it is gone forever."
"I have kept mine," said Aunt Peace. "I have deliberately forgotten all
the unpleasant things and remembered the others. When a little pleasure
has flashed for a moment against the dark, I have made that jewel mine.
I have hundreds of them, from the time my baby fingers clasped my first
rose, to the night you and Lynn came to bring more sunshine into my old
life. I call it my Necklace of Perfect Joy. When the world goes wrong, I
have only to close my eyes and remember all the links in my chain, set
with gems, some large and some small, but all beautiful with the beauty
which never fades. It is all I can take with me when I go. My material
possessions must stay behind, but my Necklace of Perfect Joy will bring
me happiness to the end, when I put it on, to be nevermore unclasped."
"Aunt Peace," asked Margaret, after an understanding silence, "why did
you never marry?"
Miss Field leaned forward and methodically stirred the fire. "I may be
wrong," she said, "but I have always felt that it was indelicate to
allow one's self to care for a gentleman."