Читать книгу The Open Question: A Tale of Two Temperaments - Elizabeth Robins - Страница 12

"'The shooting stars attend thee,

And the elves also,

Whose little eyes glow

Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.'"

"It isn't their little eyes that glow; it's their little tails," said Ethan, with his nose flattened against the camphor-bottle.

When they got near the porch, the prudent young gentleman took off his coat, and wrapped the bottle from the too inquiring gaze of his grandmother. Aunt Valeria was in a kind of dream, and didn't seem to notice.

"What a perfect evening!" she half whispered, looking up through the trees.

"Good-night," said Ethan to his grandmother, trying to get through the ceremony and hold his coat round the bottle on Aunt Valeria's arm at the same time.

"Forty-eight years to-day," she went on to her mother, "since Shelley's body was burned on the sands at Viareggio."

"Ah, yes," returned the other, speaking very gently. "Good-night, child."

"What! Is he dead?" said Ethan, feeling a double shock.

"Yes, dear; he's dead."

And he and Aunt Valeria went up-stairs in the dark.

"You never told me," said the child, when they had passed Yaffti in safety. "I s'pose Byron's all right," he added, remembering allusions to that person's physical prowess.

"Byron's dead, too," said Aunt Valeria, sadly, "and Keats—poor Keats!"

"All dead!"

They had been referred to as if they lived in the next street. If it had been Shelley who had come to make them a visit, it would have seemed as natural—more natural than the apparition of Tom Rockingham or the objectionable Uncle Elijah.

"I'll get a piece of net to put over the bottle while you undress," said Aunt Valeria.

When she came back Ethan was in bed.

"What relation was Shelley to me?" he asked, welcoming the camphor-bottle to his arms.

"Relation? None."

"Oh-h!"

These things were obscure. The Tallmadges, for instance, weren't related to Grandmamma Gano, so she had said with emphasis.

"Then what relation was Shelley to you?"

"No relation at all, dear. He was an English poet."

"You mean he wasn't even born in America?"

Ethan sat up straight in his bed.

"He was born far away in England," said Aunt Valeria, dreamily.

"An' dead an' burnt?"

"Yes."

"And never was no relation to any of us?"

"No."

"Oh-h!"

He lay back on his pillow, conscious of a new loneliness—of being bereft of something he had counted his. Yes; it was just as if some one belonging to him had died.

After Aunt Valeria had told him why they had burned Shelley's body, and even after she had repeated all his favorite poems, a sense of loss remained.

She thought he was asleep when she kissed him good-night. But he stirred and gave a little sigh.

"Well, I'm glad I've got my fireflies, anyhow," he murmured.

His leave-taking next morning was extremely harrowing to his own feelings, however austerely the rest took it. He wept freely after breakfast down under the barberry-bush, but he promised himself he would get it all done down there in the blessed privacy of the wilderness, and not cry another tear after he got back to the house. He had made a tour the moment he was dressed, saying good-bye to everything. Now there was nothing left but An' Jerusha and the family. Uncle Elijah might come any minute. He dried his eyes, and crept back through the rank undergrowth to the terrace, went heavily up the two flights of stone steps, saying good-bye again to the flag lilies and the crooked catalpa and the tulip-tree, and so on sedately round the house to the kitchen. On his appearance, An' Jerusha rushed towards him with wide-spread, motherly arms, but observing his involuntary recoil, she stood still, looking at him with unlessened affection.

"Good-bye, An' Jerusha," he said, holding her hand tight in both his own.

"Good-bye, honey. Be suah you come agin soon."

"Yes, I mean to; and thank you for all the songs and the cinnamon rolls."

"Law, honey! jes' listen to de chile."

She turned away to Venie with an attempt at a chuckle, but the tears had started down her cheeks.

"Good-bye."

Ethan shook hands with the smiling Venus.

"Maw and me done put yo' in a Johnny-cake," she said, an outsider might have thought enigmatically.

"Thank you," said Ethan, tremulously—"thank you both, awfully."

"Dat's de do'-bell, an' Massa Efan's knocker," said Aunt Jerusha, sniffing violently. "You go, Venus; I ain't 'spectabel."

"Oh, it's my uncle," said Ethan, rather relieved at the interruption; and he hurried after Venus, feeling, however, deeply dissatisfied with his leave-taking of An' Jerusha.

She had been so awfully kind—it was useless to pretend there was any other way of putting it—and she had cared so much for his father. Ought he to have kissed her? It was plain she had expected it. It was all very uncomfortable and heart-achy.

Now he was in the hall, and Uncle Elijah was there, and so was grandmamma, being very stiff to poor Uncle Elijah. Aunt Valeria came down-stairs, and the good-byes were said. Uncle Elijah's hack was at the door, and Ethan's trunk was being carried out.

Suddenly, at the very last, "Come here a moment," said his grandmother, retreating into her own long room.

Ethan followed, quaking. Had he been doing something wrong? And yet she had just kissed him good-bye so kindly. As she turned and faced him, he saw her eyes were full of tears. He could hardly believe his senses, but he began to cry, too.

"I do wish I was going to stay with you," he said, breaking down and forgetting his fears.

"You will come back to me," she said; and she put her arms round him, and held him close to her for a moment, while he cried silently against her white veil, thinking the while she wouldn't like it when she discovered it was wet.

"Don't you think," he faltered, as she released him—"couldn't this be my home?"

"Of course, it is your home. Isn't your name on the front door?"

"Oh yes," he said, smiling through his tears; "I forgot that," and the remembrance seemed to give him confidence in the future.

Mrs. Gano was looking hastily about for some excuse for bringing him into the room.

"Here is a book that belonged to your great-grandfather, called Plutarch's Lives. You will read it when you are older, and remember it was my parting present after your first visit."

"Oh, thank you," he said, brushing his sleeve across his eyes; and they went out, and Ethan got into the carriage. "Oh, dear me, my fireflies!" he shouted, suddenly, as the driver was closing the door. "I shall need them so awfully—I mean so pertickly—in Boston"; and he scrambled out and rushed up to his bedroom.

"What does the child mean?" asked Mrs. Gano.

"It's all right," said Aunt Valeria; "something I gave him. I'll tell you afterwards."

Ethan came tumbling down-stairs in the buff middle of the carpet—anywhere, indifferent for once to Yaffti and his possible revenge.

"Good-bye," he called back from the carriage-window. "Thank you, ma'am, for Plutarch."

"Keep him covered," was Mrs. Gano's unemotional rejoinder as they drove away.

Ethan sank back breathless, clutching the camphor-bottle under his coat.

"Tired?" asked Uncle Elijah, looking at the flushed little face. Ethan nodded "Yes, sir."

"You needn't have hurried so; there's oceans of time. But I thought we could wait just as well at the station."

They were not going the way Ethan had been driven that day of his arrival, so long, long ago, at the beginning of the summer. He leaned forward excitedly.

"Why, he's taking us round by the Wilderness!"

"The what?" Uncle Elijah looked out. "Moses! they do let things run wild here."

Ethan's quick eye had sought out the spot where, hidden in that tangle, was a little clearing and a "heavenly secret-house," with a barberry-bush for a roof. But no hint of such a matter to the profane passer-by!

What was that? His heart gave a great jump. Why, it was An' Jerusha on the lower terrace watching to see them go by! She stood there alone, and now she was putting her apron up to her eyes. Nobody else was looking after the carriage from this side. It was plain, for all his grandmother's momentary melting, it was An' Jerusha who had felt the parting most, and he had refused to kiss her!

"Uncle Elijah," said the child, hurriedly, "do you mind, if we've got such a lot of time, I'd like to get a barberry leaf for my fire-flies. Please stop!" he called out of the window to the coachman.

And while Uncle Elijah was saying, "What—what?—barberry leaves, fire-flies? What nonsense is this you've been learning?" Ethan had jumped out of the slowing vehicle, made a frantic sign to An' Jerusha, run up to the fence, pushed aside a loose picket of his acquaintance, and dashed into the wilderness. There was nothing for Uncle Elijah to do but to wait. The child had vanished without a trace; by the time Mr. Tallmadge had adjusted his spectacles on his nose he couldn't even find the place where his nephew had disappeared. The eminent Bostonian sat fuming while Ethan was feverishly making his way to An' Jerusha.

"Come down!" he called, when he got near the bottom of the terrace. "Come towards the barberry-bush, An' Jerusha—quick, quick!"

Her eyes rolling wildly with amazement and concern, Jerusha penetrated a few paces into the jungle.

"Wha is yo', honey? Wot's de matter? Air yo' hurt, my honey? Jes' wait; An' Jerusha's comin'."

"Oh, here I am," gasped the child, and he precipitated himself into her arms. "I forgot to kiss you good-bye, An' Jerusha, and I had to come back."

He shut his eyes and held his breath while she kissed him, muttering prayers and blessings.

"Good-bye, An' Jerusha," he said. "I sha'n't ever forget you;" and he tore his way back through the rank grasses, the mulleins and sunflowers, catching his feet in the briers, and saying to himself: "Oh, I'm quite sure my father never, never did. But for me it's different; I'm glad I went back."

He stripped a handful of leaves and coral berries off the barberry-bush as he passed, pushed back the loose picket, and reappeared all over burrs and pollen before Uncle Elijahs' astonished and unapproving eyes.

"I've got plenty of leaves for my fire-flies," was his greeting, as he clambered into the hack, "but I must get some water for them at the station. How many years should you say a fire-fly would live, Uncle Elijah, with plenty to eat and drink?"