IN THE SPRING.
About the house at Beechwood the May flowers were blooming, and in the
maple-trees the birds were building their nests, cooing lovingly to each
other as they did so, and seeming all unconscious of the young heart
which within the doors felt that never before had there come to it a
spring so full of sorrow and harrowing dread. Jessie and Bell Verner
were both there now, and Jessie had brought two immense trunks and a
hat-box, as if her intention was to spend the entire summer. She was
just as merry and hoydenish as of old, romping with the children in the
grass and on the nursery floor, herself the veriest child among them,
while her ringing laugh woke all the echoes of the place and made even
the Squire join in it, and try to act young again.
Both Jessie and Bell noted the change in Dora, and Jessie asked her
outright what it was that made her look so frightened, as if constantly
in fear of something; but Dora could not tell what she feared, for she
had scarcely dared to define to herself the meaning of Squire Russell’s
manner toward her. A stranger would have perceived no difference in his
treatment of her now and when his wife was living, but Dora felt the
change, and it almost drove her wild, making her one day sharply rebuke
the little Daisy for calling her mamma.
“I am not your mother,” she said fiercely. “Your mamma is dead, and I am
only Auntie.”
The child looked up in surprise, but called her mamma just the same,
while Dora’s eyelids closed tightly over the hot tears she thus kept
from falling. That day when Johnnie came home from school at dinner-time
he showed unmistakable marks of having been in a fight, and when
questioned by his father as to the cause of his black eye, broke out
furiously:
“I’ve been a _lickin’_ Bill Carter, and I’ll do it again if he ever
tells such stuff about you! Why, he said you’re a going to get married
to that ill-begotten, shoulder-shotten snap-dragon of a Miss Dutton! I
told him ’twas the biggest lie, and then he said it wasn’t, that it was
true, and she was coming here to be our step-mother; that she would cut
off ’Tish’s curls, spank Ben and Burt twice a day, shake Daisy into
shoe-strings, and make Jim and me toe the mark,—the hateful!”
“She ain’t, she shan’t,—old nasty Dutton,” and fiery Ben shook his tiny
fist at an imaginary bugbear who was to spank him twice a day.
Jessie laughed aloud. Bell looked amused, Dora disturbed, and the Squire
very red, as he said to his son:
“You should not mind such gossip, or allow yourself to get into a
passion. Time enough to rebel when the step-mother comes. Now go to your
room and bathe your eye.”
Johnnie obeyed, muttering as he went:
“There’s only one person I’d have for a step-mother any how, and that’s
Aunt Dora. Guy, wouldn’t I raise hob with anybody else!”
“John, leave instantly!” the Squire said sternly, while his face colored
crimson, as did Dora’s also, making Bell and Jessie glance curiously at
each other, as both thought of the same thing.
In their own room, after dinner, they discussed together the possibility
of Dora’s becoming what Johnnie wished her to be, Bell scouting the idea
as preposterous, and Jessie insisting that a girl might love Squire
Russell well enough to take him with all his children.
“Not that I think Dora will do so,” she said, “for I fancy he is not as
much to her taste, even, as he is to mine; and I guess I’d jump in the
creek sooner than marry an old widower with half a dozen children.”
What the two sisters were discussing privately in their room was talked
openly in the village, some of the people arguing that Dora could not do
better, while all agreed that for the Squire it would be a match every
way desirable both for his own and his children’s sake. To the Squire
himself the story was told one day, the teller hinting that the matter
was entirely settled, and asking when the marriage would take place.
With some jocose reply, the Squire rode away, going round to Margaret’s
grave, and thence back to his home, where the evening lights were
shining, and where Dora, with Daisy in her arms, sat alone in the back
parlor, Bell and Jessie having accepted an invitation which she was
obliged to decline on account of a bad headache.
There were strange thoughts stirring in the Squire’s breast that night,
thoughts which had haunted him for weeks and months, aye, since Margaret
died, for he could not forget her words.
“You need not wait long. You and Dora are above people’s gossip, and it
will be so much better for the children.”
This was what Margaret had said to him that night when misapprehending
her sister just as she was misapprehended, she had told him:
“I have talked with Dora, and she has promised to take my place.”
At first he had been satisfied with matters as they were, and had said
that he never could marry and love again. But gradually there had crept
into life another feeling, which prompted him to watch Dora constantly
as she moved about his house; to miss her when she was away,—to think of
her the last at night as well as first in the morning,—to wonder, with a
harassing jealousy, if Dr. West cared for Dora, or if she cared for him.
No, she did not, he thought, and made himself believe it, else he had
never said to her what he did that night, when, with Daisy in her arms,
she sat wholly in his power, and was obliged to listen to what was not
unexpected, but which, nevertheless, fell like a thunderbolt upon her,
turning her into stone, and making her grow faint and sick, just as she
did at Saratoga, when the first suspicion dawned upon her that some day
John Russell would speak to her what he was speaking now, with one hand
on her shoulder and the other on Daisy’s golden head. It was a kind,
true, fatherly heart he offered her, and she felt that he meant it all.
He cast no reflections upon his departed wife,—he merely said:
“You knew Margaret as well as I. She was not, perhaps, as even-tempered
as a more healthy person would have been, but I loved her, remembering
always what she was when I took her from her home. You were a little
girl, then, Dora, and I never dreamed that I should some time be sueing
for your hand just as I had sued for Margaret’s.”
Then he pleaded for his children, who loved her so much; would she be
their mother, just as she had promised Margaret she would? Then Dora
roused herself, and the face which met the Squire’s view made his heart
beat faster as he doubted what it portended.
“I did not think Margaret meant what you ask,” Dora said, her words
coming gaspingly. “I thought she meant care for them as I have tried to
do, and will do still. I’ll stay with you, John. I’ll be your
housekeeper, but don’t ask me to be your wife. I can’t; I’m too young
for you; I’m,—O John! O Margaret!” and here the voice broke down
entirely, while Dora sobbed convulsively.
Margaret, too, had said she could not be his wife when he asked her.
She, too, had said she was too young, and cried, but hers was not like
Dora’s crying, and Squire Russell saw the difference, feeling perplexed,
but never suspected the truth. It was natural for girls to cry, he
thought, when they received an offer of marriage, and so, with both
hands on her shoulder, he pleaded again, but this time for himself,
telling her in words which his true love made eloquent, how dear she was
to him, dearer, if possible, than his early choice, the beautiful
Margaret. And Dora believed him, for she knew he was incapable of
deception, and that made her pain harder to bear.
“If I had supposed you cared for any one else,” he said, “I should not
have sought you, but I did not. Dr. West wrote to you, I know, and I was
foolish enough to wish he had not called you his _dear Dora_, but you
did not answer him, and of course there is but one conclusion to be
drawn from that. You do not care for him, nor he for you?”
He put this to her interrogatively, but Dora could not speak. Once she
thought to tell him what there was between her and Dr. West, but
something kept her silent, and so in perfect good faith, kind, honest,
truthful John kept on until she answered:
“Please leave me now; I must think, and I am so stunned and bewildered.
I’ll answer another time.”
Squire Russell was far too good-natured to stay longer if she did not
wish it, and stooping down he kissed his sleeping child, and said:
“Let me kiss baby’s auntie, too?”
Dora offered no resistance, and he touched her forehead respectfully,
and then quitted the room. He had kissed her many times when Margaret
was living, but no kiss had ever burned her as this one did, for she
knew it was not a brother’s kiss, and with a sensation of loathing she
passed her hand over the place, and then wiped it with her handkerchief,
just as a rustling sound met her ear, and the next moment there was
another pleader kneeling at her feet, Johnnie, who had overheard a part
of his father’s wooing, and who took it up just where his sire had left
it; his stormy, impetuous arguments bearing Dora completely away from
herself, so that she hardly knew what she did or said.
“You will be father’s wife, Aunt Dora; you will, you must!” Johnnie
began. “I’ve prayed for it every single day since I heard that stuff
about old Dutton. I’ve gone to mother’s grave and knelt down there,
asking that it might be. Jim and ’Tish pray so, too, for I told ’em to,
and I should make Ben and Burt, only I knew they’d tell you; and Auntie,
you will! Father’s older than you a lot, I s’pose, but he is so good,
and was so kind to mother, even when she plagued him. I never told, but
once after you went to Morrisville, she got awful, and _lammed_ him the
wust kind,—told him he was fat, and pussy, and awkward, and she was
always ashamed of him at watering-places, and a sight more. At last she
left the room, and poor papa put his head right in my lap and cried out
loud. I cried too, and said to him:
“‘Let’s _lick_ her: I’ll help.’
“But he wouldn’t hear a word. Says he:
“‘Hush, my boy; she’s your mother and my wife. She is not as she used to
be. She’s sick and nervous.’
“And when I asked the difference between _ugly_ and _nervous_, he made
me stop, and was just as kind to her at supper-time as ever. Tell me
such a man won’t make a good husband! He’ll be splendid, and he’s
handsomer than he was,—he has lost that look as if he was afraid
something was after him, a henpecked look, Clem called it. Poor father;
he has had so little comfort, you must make him happy, Auntie; you will,
and you’ll make us all so good. You know how like Cain we behave without
you, and how we all mind when you tell us what is right. Will you be
father’s wife and help us grow up good?”
He had her face between his warm hands, and was looking at her so
earnestly, that for his sake Dora could almost have answered yes, but
thoughts of what being his father’s wife involved chilled her through
and through, and she answered him:
“Johnnie, I do not believe I can.”
For an instant the boy’s black eyes blazed fiercely at her, and then he
angrily exclaimed, “I’ll go to ruin, just as fast as I can go! I’ll
_smoke_ to-morrow, if I live, and teach Jim and Ben to do so too! I’ll
swear, and when the circus comes next week I’ll run away to that, and
take ’Tish with me; I’ll gamble; I’ll drink, and when I’m brought home
drunker’n a fool, you’ll know it is your work!”
He looked like a young tiger as he stood uttering these terrible
threats, and Dora quailed before his flashing eyes, feeling that much he
had said was in earnest. She did not fear his swearing, or gambling, or
drinking, for the present, at least, but he might not always act his
best; he might grow surly and hard and unmanageable, even by her, unless
she yielded to his request, and this she couldn’t do.
“Johnnie,” she began, and something in her voice quieted the excited
boy, “would you have me marry your father when I do not love him, and
just the thought of being his wife makes me almost sick?”
Johnnie was not old enough to comprehend her meaning. He only felt that
it was not a very bad thing to be the wife of a man as good as his
father, and he answered her, “You do love him well enough, or you will,
and he so affectionate. Why he used to hug and kiss mother every day,
even when she was crosser than fury. Of course then he’ll hug you most
to death.”
“Oh—h,” Dora groaned, the tone of her voice so indicative of disgust
that even Johnnie caught a new idea, which he afterwards acted upon; but
he would not yield his point: Dora should be his mother, and he
continued the siege until, wearied out with his arguments, Dora
peremptorily bade him leave her while she could think in quiet.
Oh, that long, terrible thinking which brought on so racking a headache
that Dora was not seen in the parlor on the day following, but lay
upstairs in her own room, where, with the bolted door between her and
the world outside, she met and battled with what seemed her destiny! One
by one every incident connected with Margaret’s death came back to her,
and she knew now what the questionings meant, far better than she did
then, while she half expected the dead sister to rise before her and
reproach her for shrinking from her duty. Then the children came up, a
powerful argument swaying her in the direction of Squire Russell. She
could do them good; she could train them so much better than another,
and John, if she refused him, would assuredly bring another there to
rule and govern them. These were the arguments in favor of John’s suit,
while on the other side a mighty barrier was interposed to keep her from
the sacrifice. Her love for Dr. West, and the words spoken to her at
Anna’s grave; and was she not virtually engaged to him?
“Yes,—oh yes, I am!” she cried, and then there came over her all the
doubts which had so tortured her since that time in the Morrisville
cemetery.
Had he not spoken hastily and repented afterwards? His continued silence
on the subject would seem so; and why did he not write to her just as
did he to Jessie, who, since coming to Beechwood, had received a letter
from him which contained no mention of her, but was full of the light,
bantering matter in which he knew Jessie delighted. Dora had heard
Jessie say she was going to answer the letter that very day; and
suddenly, like a dawn of hope, there flashed over her the determination
that she, too, would write and tell him of Squire Russell’s offer; and
if he loved her still he would come to save her, or he would write,
telling her again how dear she was to him, and that he alone must call
her his wife.
“Yes, I’ll do it,” Dora whispered; “I know he is at San Francisco, for
Jessie directs there; I’ll write to-day. It shall go in the same mail
with hers. I’ll wait two months for his reply, and then, if he answers
Jessie and ignores me, I’ll—”
Dora set her teeth firmly together, and her breath came hurriedly, as
she paused a moment ere she added, “I’ll marry John.”
And so with a throbbing head Dora wrote to Dr. West, telling him of the
proposal and asking what he thought of it. This was all she meant the
letter to mean, for her maidenly reserve would not suffer her to betray
her real motive if she knew it, but it was more like a pleading cry for
help, more like a wail of anguish for one she loved to save her from a
fate she had not strength to resist alone, than like a mere asking of
advice. The letter was finished, and just after dark, when sure no one
could see her, Dora stole from the house unobserved, and hastening to
the office, dropped into the box the missive of so much importance to
her.
“It is sure to go with Jessie’s,” she said, as she wended her way back,
“so if hers is received I shall know that mine was also.”
Alas! Jessie’s had been written the previous night, after that young
lady’s return from her visit, and while Dora’s letter was lying quietly
in the box at Beechwood awaiting the morning mail, Jessie’s was miles on
its way to New York and the steamer which would take it to California a
week in advance of the other. But Dora did not know this, neither did
she know that it contained the following paragraph:
“There is no news, except the rumor that Squire Russell will marry his
pretty sister-in-law. Bell won’t believe a word of it, but some things
look like it. Dora is so queer. I had picked her out for you, and
believe now that she likes you, though when your name is mentioned, she
bites her words off so short and crisp that I am confounded. She is a
splendid girl, and will make a grand wife, to say nothing of
step-mother.”
Little did Jessie suspect the harm these few comparatively harmless
lines would cause, and little did Dora suspect it either, as with a load
of pain lifted from her heart and consequently from her head, she sat
down by her open window and followed with her mind her letter’s course
to far-off California, and then imagined the quick response it would
bring back, and which would make her so happy.
“Johnnie must be the medium between Squire Russell and me,” she said.
“I’ll tell him to-morrow that his father must wait for my definite reply
at least six weeks, and possibly two months. At the end of that time I
shall know for sure, and if the doctor does not care, there will be a
kind of desperate pleasure in marrying my brother.”