CONFIDENCES
For a moment Miss Imogene’s white hair gave Dorothea the impression that
she was quite an old lady; but that quickly vanished. There were no
betraying wrinkles in the bright face and the girl was puzzled, for, in
spite of a certain youthfulness, there was also the suggestion of a past
generation in the ways of this new-found friend.
Miss Imogene was very small, with the tiniest hands and feet, and she
walked as if borne from place to place upon the air. When she spoke it
was in a gentle, plaintive voice which seemed to belie the sprightly
expressions she used and the sparkling wit and raillery that were ever
ready on her tongue.
She was dressed daintily and with care. The material of her gown was far
from fine, and the ribbons and ornaments of the luxurious days before
the war were absent. Nevertheless she had the manner of wearing costly
stuffs and carried herself with a certain style that was the envy of
many a younger woman.
She embraced Dorothea tenderly, with a little catch of her breath as if
this meeting brought back vivid remembrances of past joys and sorrows.
Then holding the girl at arms’ length she surveyed her critically with
sparkling black eyes.
“Bless me, Parthenia!” she exclaimed, “she is as dark as I am, and yet I
can see my dear Susie’s face again. We shall love each other,” she went
on directly to Dorothea. “I intend to make you love me for your mother’s
sake.”
“I think I love you already,” Dorothea answered half-shyly. Indeed this
quaint little lady had the knack of winning those with whom she came
into contact.
“Everybody loves Cousin Imogene,” Harriot declared. “You just can’t help
it, you know.”
“The boys as well as the girls,” April laughed; “so look out for your
beaux, Dorothea.”
“Do not believe all that they say, my dear,” Miss Imogene protested with
the very faintest of becoming blushes. “They love to tease their old
cousin. And now let me see the finery you have brought from the outside
world.”
She was soon hovering over the silks and satins and fine linen Dorothea
spread out for them to admire.
“Ah,” murmured Miss Imogene, holding a gay flowered muslin in her dainty
fingers, “I wore a dress made of a material quite like that when Larry
Stanchfield gave his celebrated supper. You remember, ’Thenia.”
“Indeed I do,” Mrs. May answered with a knowing glance at the other.
“And I remember his toast ‘To the fairest of all dark women! Fairer than
any blonde.’”
“Do you really recollect that?” murmured Miss Imogene.
“Yes, my dear, and I know whose slipper he drank it out of,” Mrs. May
continued. “It was a very gay party and not one to be forgotten.”
“But the dresses were cut very differently in those days,” Miss Imogene
said, a little hurriedly, almost as if she wished to change the subject.
“But whose slipper was it?” demanded the inquisitive Harriot.
“Cousin Imogene’s, of course,” April responded, laughing.
“Is that true?” Harriot insisted.
“Yes, honey,” Miss Imogene replied. “I dropped it as I was getting into
our coach when we went home after the Militia Ball. Dear me, how long
ago that seems!”
“And didn’t you ever get it back?” Harriot questioned.
“No, not that one, but the next day a little glass slipper came, filled
with sweet hearts,” Miss Imogene answered with the most charming of
smiles.
“We’ve seen it on your dressing-table!” the two girls cried delightedly.
“Yes, that is the very one,” Miss Imogene confessed. “And there was a
bit of verse with it. Let’s see if I remember it.” She looked up at the
ceiling a moment, her eyes half closed as if she could see there the
picture she brought back in her mind.
“Ah, now I know. It went like this:
‘Accept, fair lady, in exchange
For one I hold,
This crystal slipper filled with hearts
From one made bold
By Cupid, who alas, can find no shoe to fit
Which will contain the hearts that seek a place in it.’
“It is rather pretty, don’t you think?” she ended, appealing to them all
with the gentlest of smiles.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Dorothea enthusiastically.
Already she was growing to love this strange lady who, while she was
quick to realize the present, seemed also to be dwelling in the past.
“But who sent it, Cousin Imogene?” demanded the inquisitive Harriot.
“Harry,” said her mother rather sharply, “don’t ask so many questions.”
“But I wanted to know,” Harriot persisted, and there was a momentary
argument before the matter was disposed of; although Dorothea noticed
that Miss Imogene did not betray the name of the gentleman who had sent
her the crystal slipper.
It took a good while to unpack all of the trunks, for each piece of
finery was exhibited and talked over and admired by these Southern
ladies whom the war had now deprived of all such pretty things. But it
was finally accomplished. The cupboards and bureau drawers were filled
and the empty boxes banished to the attic.
“At last, my dear, you are at home,” said Mrs. May as she surveyed the
room, once more in order. “And you must rest an hour before supper.”
“I really don’t feel tired, Aunt Parthenia,” Dorothea demurred; “I never
take naps.”
“Neither do I!” Harriot put in with a note of triumph; decidedly this
new cousin was to her taste.
“And I always do,” Miss Imogene remarked placidly. “It keeps the roses
blooming longer in our cheeks.”
With a light laugh she went off with April, followed by the reluctant
Harriot, who seemed very averse to leaving Dorothea even for a moment.
“I shall wait and see that you obey me,” Mrs. May said as she closed the
door behind her daughter. “Come, my dear, put on a wrapper and rest,
even if you don’t sleep.”
Dorothea set about doing as Mrs. May suggested, glad to have the elder
lady to herself for a little. It was more than just a visit to her
relatives in Georgia that had brought her there, though the chief reason
lay very deep in her heart.
“Aunt Parthenia,” she began as she sat in a comfortable chair beside her
aunt, “you are glad to see me, aren’t you?”
Mrs. May guessed what was in her mind, indeed she had stayed behind the
others on purpose to have a little talk with her niece. So she reached
out and took the girl’s hand gently in her own.
“My dearest child,” she said warmly, “I am more than glad to see you.
Your mother was my only sister, and I can’t tell you how I have longed
to know the little girl she left behind. Do you remember her at all,
honey?”
“A little,” Dorothea answered. “Of course I was very small when she
died, but I can still recollect a dear face that bent over me before I
went to sleep at night. Even now I see it sometimes, just as I am going
off. One of the things I want most was to have you tell me about her.
Father says hardly anything—it hurts him to think about it, I know,
because I can always see a shadow come over his face when I mention my
mother. So I do not like to make his heart ache. But, oh, Aunt
Parthenia, I have longed for some one to talk to who remembers her. She
was very pretty, wasn’t she? Does this look like her?”
On her wrist Dorothea wore a gold clasp mounted on a red velvet ribbon,
and opening this case she showed it to her aunt.
Mrs. May gazed at the picture, her eyes growing soft in her recollection
of the girlish face she saw, and for a moment or two there was silence
in the room.
“It is very like her, dear,” she said finally. “Very like her, indeed.
She was just as sweet and pretty as this painting shows her to be.”
“That is how I think of her,” Dorothea remarked. “And that is the face I
see sometimes in my dreams. But I am never sure whether it is my real
mother or the remembrance of the picture that I see. Yet, somehow, I
have felt sure she was like that and it is a comfort to me to have the
picture with me. It makes her seem nearer to me.”
“Do you always wear it on your wrist?” asked Mrs. May.
“Always,” answered Dorothea. “Father told me red was her favorite color,
so I have a supply of red ribbons to mount it on. And, you know, Aunt
Parthenia, except for father, who gave it to me, you are the only one
who has seen it. At school lots of the girls wondered what was in the
locket, but, somehow, I never wanted to tell them. It was as if mother
and I had that little picture between us and it wasn’t a thing you could
show to strangers. You think I’m right, don’t you?”
“I am sure you are, dear, if it gives you any comfort,” Mrs. May
answered earnestly.
“Well, it does,” Dorothea went on. “You see, for a while I was at
boarding-school and father was all alone. Then he wanted me with him,
for mother’s sake mostly, I think, and ever since we have been living
first in one place and then in another, all over the world. It’s been
very interesting, but it has never been like home; for of course I
rarely stayed anywhere long enough to make any real friends. That is one
of the reasons why I wanted so much to see you and my cousins. That, and
to talk to you of mother.”
“And to find a real home, Dorothea,” Mrs. May murmured, patting the
girl’s hand. “Hereafter, no matter what happens, there is always a place
for you here, and the girls will soon be like your sisters.”
“April is wonderful,” Dorothea said warmly; “and Harriot is so funny and
dear. I know I shall love them. Indeed I loved you all just as soon as I
saw you. You were all so good and kind and made me feel welcome right
away. In England, now, it would have taken weeks and weeks before I
should have been able to talk to you like this.”
“I understand,” Mrs. May agreed, nodding. “In the South you will find
that every one is very friendly. In one way or another most of the
people down here are kin to each other or else they are friends of our
friends, so it is just like one big family. If it wasn’t for this
terrible war you would see how happily we live.”
There was a pause for a moment, Dorothea looking out of the window with
her face very thoughtful.
“You know, Aunt Parthenia,” she said, after a little, “I saw the
soldiers on both sides as I came through.”
“Yes, I know,” Mrs. May replied, “and I thought there was something you
didn’t want to talk about.”
“There was,” Dorothea confessed; “I’m sure you’ll understand, Aunt
Parthenia, but I didn’t know what the others might think. You see I
don’t believe the South can win the war—though I’m awfully _for_ it.”
“What makes you say that, Dorothea?” Mrs. May asked earnestly.
“Because, when I came through the Northern army,” Dorothea explained,
“all the men I saw looked well-fed and strong; everything they wanted
was at hand to make them comfortable; and they were cheery and joked
with each other; they were like boys on a holiday. But when I came
through the Confederate lines it was awful, Aunt Parthenia. The men
looked half starved. They were in rags and they looked so haggard and
drawn, as if they actually suffered. It isn’t fair that they should be
expected to fight against those strong men of the North. It isn’t fair,
Aunt Parthenia!”
“No, my dear, it isn’t fair,” her aunt agreed. “I wish this war had
never come. There are those who still doubt my loyalty to the
Confederacy, for I am not afraid to say we should never have seceded,
yet I _am_ loyal to the South. It is my home, and the home of all my
friends and relatives. I love it, but I have seen for a long time that
there is only more suffering and misery in store for us—and, in the end,
defeat. You will soon find to what shifts we have already been put to
manage to live. And here in Georgia we are very well off. You are right
that it isn’t fair to ask our men to go on fighting against overwhelming
odds; but, my dear, don’t talk about that here. The feeling against the
North is very bitter and any one who does not proclaim perfect
confidence that the South will win is treated like a traitor.”
“Of course, I’ve always wanted you to win,” Dorothea affirmed once more.
“You will hear only that side of the matter in this house, honey,” Mrs.
May cautioned. “We all want the South to win, now war is here; but some
of us are very sorry that it was ever brought about. It was the
politicians did it, and you will do well to remember that there are two
sides to the story.”
“Of course I don’t know very much about it,” Dorothea confessed.
“Father, you know, doesn’t talk about the war at all, even to me. But
it’s so different in the North. They have so much, and somehow it’s
natural to want the weaker side to win. But, Aunt Parthenia, it is hard
to believe that Mr. Lincoln is the cruel man they say he is down here.
Once you’ve seen him and talked to him, you just can’t believe that.”
“I am sure he is the best friend the South has, my dear,” Mrs. May half
whispered; “but that is quite between ourselves. I shouldn’t dare say it
to any one else I know. Particularly to April. Remember, honey, she is a
very staunch Rebel.”
“I always think that mother would have been a Rebel, too,” Dorothea said
softly. “I fancy that’s the reason I am one.”
“You seem a very mild Rebel,” Mrs. May laughed, getting to her feet;
“and you’ll be a very tired one if you don’t rest a little. Remember you
have a lot of people to meet to-night and I want my Susie’s baby to do
her mother justice.” She rose to her feet and, leaning down, kissed the
girl again. “I am glad to have you here, dear, for your own sake as well
as for your mother’s.”
Dorothea’s heart was too full to make a reply, but she hugged her aunt,
who understood, and a moment later left the girl alone.