Читать книгу Poppea of the Post-Office - Mabel Osgood Wright - Страница 11

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A month crept by with warm rains at the end of it, and the spring called the blood back to the pale tree-tops with a bound.

Though the people of Harley's Mills did not by any means hibernate in woodchuck fashion during winter, they did conserve their forces after the habits of their thrifty forebears and did not light or heat any more of their usually ample houses than was absolutely necessary. A strong tie of kinship threaded the whole community. The stately residents of Quality Hill and Westboro Road were often second and third cousins of the owners of the lonely hill farms, of the blacksmith at the cross-roads, or the joiner and carpenter, whose correct eye and a self-taught course of mechanical drawing enabled him to supply plans when required. Nor did this carpenter think it necessary to call himself an architect and builder, as he would to-day, in order to back his claims to consideration.

No one was jealous because the Misses Felton, year after year, went to New York after Thanksgiving, and returned via the South late in May. Rather were their doings a sort of general stimulant and tonic, administered in regular doses through the letters that Miss Emmy Felton wrote weekly to pretty little Mrs. Latimer, the Episcopal minister's wife, who had a love of life beyond the radius of eight hundred a year, while Miss Felton herself was in constant communication with her steward, Wheeler, as to every detail of the management of the place, so that all Harley's Mills knew exactly what to expect before it happened.

With the other wealthy landowner of the town the conditions were wholly different. When John Angus left his house for travel or the city, the gates were closed as far as knowledge of him was concerned. Ever since he had come home to take the property at his father's death, twelve years before, he had been a builder of barriers, not only between himself and those he thought beneath him, but he hedged himself with ceremony in his own household, his own inflexible will being his universal measure, and every act being in accord with a fixed plan. If, in his dislikes, he was deliberate and inexorable, those who knew him said that it was the same with his passions; in nothing had he the saving grace of spontaneity. Small wonder that his roseleaf wife withered by his side until some final shock, too strong for her endurance, swept her away to die in oblivion.

Thus the news came to Harley's Mills not only that the Feltons would return the middle of April because the disturbed state of the South had made their usual journey impossible, but that John Angus, who had been running up at odd times all the month, was going to remodel his place for the reception of his bride in June; while following on the heels of this report, house-painters, paperers, masons, and a landscape-gardener came to confirm it. So it fell out that, for a time, the lady baby, who remained unclaimed at Oliver Gilbert's, became a thing of secondary interest to every one but the postmaster and Satira Pegrim, until the full month having gone, the village was again excited, this time by the news that Gilbert had taken the final steps toward adopting the child.

Immediately several impromptu debating societies of villagers took up the merits of the case for and against the adoption. The women of the Hospital Aid Society vowing, as they rolled bandages and scraped lint, that a man of Gilbert's age was no fit guardian for a female child, especially as Satira Pegrim might be relied on to take her second at any time he should come to hand, which might easily happen in a post-office, and leave her brother in the lurch.

The men did their talking in the blacksmith's shop, a place where Gilbert was not likely to appear suddenly, their objections being impersonal and based chiefly on the fact that it wasn't a good plan to encourage the leaving of stray children on people's stoops, also that the presence of the mysterious child might be prejudicial to his official position; next the three ministers of the town, Episcopal, Congregational, and Methodist, had all made friendly calls at the post-office house and asked, according to their different methods, whether Gilbert recognized the responsibility he was contemplating. Meanwhile, in the thick of the discussion, the Misses Felton and Mr. Esterbrook arrived. Not all together, it is true, for Miss Emmy, being a trifle delicate and disliking the mixed air, crowds, and jolting of the cars, always drove from New York in the family carriage, a spacious landau, lined with rose satin and swung high upon C springs, the journey of fifty odd miles being broken for luncheon and a change of horses, the sedate family grays having been sent on to this point the day previous. Mr. Esterbrook accompanied Miss Emmy on this excursion; Nora, maid and general factotum, making the third.

As for Miss Felton, this means of progress was too slow. She took the train with the other maids and Caleb, the colored man-servant; but even this method of progression was far from rapid, as the cars were pulled singly by horses from the station in East Twenty-sixth Street, a little above the Feltons' house on Madison Square, through Fourth Avenue until, the press of traffic left behind, the cars were united and an engine attached. Still, journey as they might, the family group that parted after breakfast in the great high-ceiled house facing the square would meet at a flower-decked supper table in a new and healthier atmosphere, without hurry or disarrangement, so harmonious was Miss Felton's housekeeping in the subduing of annoying details.

Not to understand the component parts of the household that lived, or, one might almost say, reigned, at Felton Manor would be to have little understanding of the conditions of the life and surroundings into which the lady baby bid fair to be adopted. The Felton ladies were Bostonians by birth and education, their father having been a prominent judge. Failing of sons, he had, after being some years a widower, virtually adopted and educated a cousin's son to be his confidential secretary, and afterward appointed him in his will as a sort of guardian and adviser to his daughters, who were left at the respective ages of eighteen and twenty with a large property for those days. This man was William Esterbrook, ten years the senior of Elizabeth Felton.

When Squire Felton died, the combination household continued as before, except that the Boston house was given up for one in New York, as the east winds were bad for Miss Emmy's throat. Miss Felton, however, took her Aunt Lucretia's place at the helm. Strangers sometimes remarked upon the peculiarity of the household arrangements, where William Esterbrook, in a house not his own, filled the old-world position of guardian over attractive and marriageable wards. The family friends, however, saw nothing more than a brotherly and sisterly arrangement, and this was the view that the trio thought they held themselves. The real fact was that the kinship, so remote as to be merely a shadow, had kept them all three from leading the normal life that was their due.

Twenty years had passed, years full of event and social intercourse with the best that either came to or lived in the land, and still it was the Misses Felton that bought a picture from a rising but struggling artist; gave the young poet or musician a chance to be heard; entertained the sedate at dinner or the opera, and, though they no longer joined in it, gave the young a chance to dance in their great rooms, or sit out the dances on stairs or in the trim conservatory. For, motherless and young as they had been at the time of their father's death, they realized the true social and moral responsibility of their wealth. Miss Felton was independent, I had almost said masculine, of action; without being brusque, she was direct and to the point, comprehended financial questions, and had an accurate judgment in real estate. Tall and of elegant proportions, she wore dark rich silks of simple lines, a plain linen collar and brooch, while her splendid hair, without a thread of gray, was drawn loosely over the ears and braided close to her head. She did not seem to make any exertion to follow the fashions, and yet was always distinguished.

Miss Emmy, having been the younger, and the pet of her father in addition, was of the spontaneous, romantic, and feminine type that, while it seems very yielding, has quite fixed ideas. She was but a trifle above medium height, with large gray eyes and light brown hair, that at forty was either heaped high in puffs, gathered in a netted "waterfall" at the back of her head, or let loose in a shower of ringlets as the whim of the moment required. She loved everything dainty, in people as well as in clothes; her skirts rippled with ribbons and lace as she trailed slowly along, her sunshades were of the daintiest, and her flowery hats bits of art that almost defied nature. Lyric music was her passion, and in spite of her years she still had a pretty voice, quite the size for ballads. Small wonder that between these two opposites William Esterbrook, who, though of somewhat superfine tastes combined with an undeveloped sense of responsibility, was still a man, stood undecided.

Twenty years before, his interests had centred upon Miss Felton, and together they had regarded pretty, kittenish Emmy as a child, a plaything. This aspect soon ceased, when Emmy, coming into the social world, had taken the sedate man of thirty-two for her cavalier quite as a matter of course, and alternately bullied him and turned to him in every strait. Once only he had come face to face with his manhood and resolved to make the plunge and propose to Emmy, but an over-estimate of the effect it might have upon Elizabeth held him back, and so the three had drifted through the best years of life, loyal to each other, yet too supremely and evenly comfortable to ever know the highest happiness.

If the trio had been separated even by a season of travel, they might have discovered their real selves, for absence is often quite necessary to give the perspective for rightly judging the feelings and relations with one another.

Six months before, the fire of war had entered Esterbrook's veins, and he, the veteran of a militia regiment, had almost broken away to join a company of his old comrades as a minor officer; but even here he was rebuffed and turned back by something wrong with his heart action that his physician discovered at the last moment. Consequently, at fifty odd, William Esterbrook, whom Miss Emmy called Willy, and Miss Felton, cousin Esterbrook, though a very well-preserved man, who had no need as yet to use either hair tonic or other toilet accessories, was possessed by a sort of self-consciousness and a certain agitated courtesy of manner.

A married man of this age usually has relaxed his tension through natural processes; a confirmed bachelor, living in his own apartments, takes his ease because there is nothing to goad him to do otherwise; but for Esterbrook, he was still living in the play that had absorbed his youth without realizing that it was a play, and sometimes he was horribly bored.

In personal appearance he had a style quite his own. At a time of beards and many whiskers, low collar, and loose tie, he kept a clean-shaven face and still affected a modified stock. His coat—except in the evening, a Prince Albert—had a decided waist line; he wore spats that broke the plainness of the customary high boots of the time, and his taste in waistcoats was as refined as it was fanciful. After all, it was the hat that was the most distinguishing characteristic of his apparel. This was of the softest beaver, brushed until it shone like silk; the crown of moderate height was belled out at the top and the brim curled well at the sides. In the crown of this he invariably carried his right-hand glove, the left being always in place and neatly buttoned. This habit came of the old-time courtesy of either removing the glove when shaking hands with ladies or apologizing for its presence. Once Esterbrook had removed the glove with graceful ceremony before extending his well-shaped hand. Now?—well, he was a bit weary of manners and customs, so that the offending glove lived in his hat.

About ten o'clock on the morning after the Feltons' arrival Miss Emmy and Mr. Esterbrook were seen walking on the road that ran from Quality Hill down to Westboro. Many heads looked out of windows and nodded, and not a few hands were extended over gates by way of greeting, together with bits of local news, either offered at random or for exchange.

"Had the ladies heard of the lady baby left at old Oliver Gilbert's, and his preposterous idea of keeping her?" asked the farrier's wife, who had been one of the many helpers who had married from Felton Manor.

"Had they seen Miss Marcia Duane, John Angus's intended, and was she as handsome and rich as folks said? Able to wind him, who had never before bent head or knees, around her little finger? And if so, why did she take a man old enough to be her father?"

"Why?" said Mr. Esterbrook, with his jauntiest air. "John Angus and myself are nearly of an age, and I'm not yet out of the running."

"Oh! Mr. Esterbrook, present company is always suspected, and then I'm sure no one ever thinks how old you are; you've always been just the same," said the farrier's wife.

Yes, always the same, a house cat by the fire; the bitter thought flashed through his brain, yet the next moment he was stooping courteously to disentangle Miss Emmy's parasol from the fringe of her silk mantilla. Then they proceeded along the street, Miss Emmy's full skirt of gray chiné silk, with its bordered flounces of pink roses, rustling as it swung about her, buoyed out by many petticoats, for this dainty lady followed the fashion without the use of what she considered the unnecessary vulgarity of a harsh and unmanageable hoop-skirt.

Little Mrs. Latimer ran out to remind her friend that the Hospital Aid Society would meet at the Rectory that afternoon, and did she suppose that dear Miss Felton would come and say something to the ladies about the necessity of rolling the bandages straight, as Dr. Morewood had said that to expect an army surgeon in a hurry to use a long bandage rolled loosely on the bias, was simply to invite a lesson in profanity.

Finally the post-office was reached. Oliver Gilbert, who was at his work bench in the back shop, put down a cuckoo clock that he was tinkering with and came forward quite spryly to meet his visitors, the limp, caused in boyhood by the ill setting of a broken hip, being less noticeable than usual.

"We've come to see you first, and then to take a peep at this wonderful lady baby about whom the village is agog. That is, I have; Mr. Esterbrook would probably rather stay here and talk with you about the new soldier, Grant, who has come out of nowhere and is doing such great things.

"By the way, my watch has been losing time, though sister Elizabeth declares that I wind it in the dark and turn the hands backward; at any rate, it will be the better for a visit with you." Then turning to Mr. Esterbrook, who was trying to decide which of the three morning paper she should read first, "Willy, my watch, please; you have it in your pocket."

As Miss Emmy passed through the arbor to the house, she was surprised to hear the halting tap of Gilbert's footsteps behind her. "I do not need to take you from the office," she said, "for you must not forget that Mrs. Pegrim is an old friend of mine."

"'Tisn't that, but I want to know what you think of her."

"Hasn't she any name? I mean, haven't you decided what to call her?"

"I've pretty much made up my mind; I had to, for she's to be baptized this afternoon."

At this moment, Mrs. Pegrim, who had been chafing with impatience ever since she saw Miss Emmy go into the post-office, opened the door. By her side, standing straight and true, even though one hand clung to the woman's apron, was the lady baby.

Very scant was the greeting that Miss Emmy gave Satira Pegrim, for suddenly she picked up the child and, carrying her across the room, stood her upon the table so that their faces were upon a level, all oblivious of the fact that her mantilla had slipped from her shoulders and that the lace sunshade she had dropped had been seized by the pup, who bore it to his usual câche under the stove.

"The darling! how could any one have the heart to desert such an exquisite little creature? Positively, Mr. Gilbert, you must let us have her; I've always thought that I should adopt a young girl some day, twenty years hence, to buy pretty clothes for, after I grow too wrinkled and gray to wear pink and corn color, but I never before realized what a dear a lady baby could be. After all, it will be much nicer to watch her grow up; how surprised sister Elizabeth will be, and as for Mr. Esterbrook, I wonder what he would do if I asked him to carry her home for me."

As she leaned toward the child, who was clutching at her long pearl earrings, shaped like bunches of grapes, seeming to regard her as a new and improved species of doll, Gilbert's hand closed on Miss Emmy's arm with a grip that was by no means gentle.

"Hush!" he said almost roughly in her ear, "we don't speak about her being deserted and talk of that sort any more. None can tell when she will begin to understand. As for her being adopted by you or any one else, that's not to be. She was not left on Quality Hill; no lights were there that stormy night; there were no folks awake! She was as good as born to me. There's just three of us in this, God and her and me, and we've got to work it out between us, stand or fall."

"I could do so much more for her," Miss Emmy murmured apologetically; then stopped, checked by the expression of his face, though she did not understand it.

"Yes, ma'am, you could and would as far as boughten things would carry, but I've held Marygold in my arms, her little fingers clasped around my neck, so I know, and time out of mind it's come to me that with women folks and children the knowing and feeling sure is more than the having."

"Miss Emmy, what is a parrotpet?" Satira Pegrim had been on pins and needles during this interview, and in seeking to cut it short, jerked out a sentence quite as irrelevant as those two that have become famous,—"There's milestones on the Dover road," and "Barneses goose was stole by tinkers."

"A paroquet is a bird, a small parrot. Don't you remember that I kept a pair until one died and the other one grew moody and bit Willy—I mean Mr. Esterbrook?" said Miss Emmy, also glad of the break in a strained situation.

"No, it isn't a bird, it's something to do with bricks. They've been carting them from sloops in Westboro Harbor up to John Angus's place this week past, and this morning, when I was raking up the leaves in the garden down beyond the apple trees, making ready to sow early radishes and lettuce, I climbed up the bank to Angus's boundary to take a look, and if the old fence wasn't gone! Half a dozen men were filling out the bank even with dirt from what was the old flower garden; the old shrubs was uptore and lying roots in air, and right at the end of what was the long path was a mountain of bricks.

"Peter Nichols, the overseer, was there, so I called out and asked him what became of the fence and said I wished I could have had some of the piney roots and garden stuff that was just tossed out for filling. He says, 'There's going to be a fine brick parrotpet instead of the fence, 'cause this here's to be a rose garden, and as for the posy roots and things, I daresn't give 'em, but later on I reckon that some of 'em'll root and sprout on the filled bank your side of the parrotpet."

"Oh, it's a parapet you mean!" exclaimed Miss Emmy; "a wall something like a fort. That proves the reports that John Angus is anxious to please his bride and let her carry out her tastes, for she has a charming rose garden at their estate on the Hudson that ends in a stone parapet overlooking the river."

"Only this one overlooks the post-office and me, though I believe they can see over the trees to salt water," said Gilbert, dryly; and then his frown changed to a smile, as the lady baby, tiring of her fingering inspection of Miss Emmy's ribbons, crawled to his knee with the sidewheel motion she used when she wished to hurry, and holding her head on one side like an inquisitive bird, stretched out her arms and called "Daddy!" with unmistakable clearness.

"Mr. Gilbert, did I understand you to say that the child is to be baptized this afternoon?" asked Miss Emmy, presently, not a trace of annoyance at his rebuff remaining in her manner or voice. "Who is going to do it, and will it be here or at one of the churches? I should like to send the lady baby some of our roses; I know she will love flowers by the way her eyes follow my hat."

"Mr. Latimer is going to do it; he's coming here, Miss Emmy, and we'd be grateful for a few posies to trick out the foreroom. I reckoned to get a new paper on it before this, but it doesn't seem any season to spend for ornaments."

"Mr. Latimer, an Episcopalian? Why, I thought that you were a Congregationalist, and your wife was certainly the daughter of Mr. Moore, who used to be Methodist preacher in Bridgeton."

"That's all so, Miss Emmy; but what I'm striving at in regards to the bringing up of lady baby is to be fair and unbiassed in all things where I can. Now, Mary belonging to one of the sects in town and me to another, it seems fair to divide 'round and give this child whatever benefit there is in the third. Then, too, they've got an organ down to the 'Piscopal Church and we've only got a tuning-fork, 'cause whenever an organ is brought up, John Angus votes it down as sinful."

"Aye, aye! he still holds to Kirk o' Scotland; he's vairy serious and canty," interposed Miss Emmy, with a well-feigned accent, "for his housekeeper told that last winter, when the cook asked higher wages, he couldn't give an answer until he'd pondered it on communion sabbath, which put off the evil day four weeks."

"The child likes music," continued Gilbert, "for only yesterday, when a fiddler with a dancing bear came past and I had him in to play, she'd a crept off after him in a twinkling while Satira's back was turned, if the pup there hadn't barked and tugged her by the skirt.

"Well, I asked Mr. Latimer and explained to him, and he said, 'Why not bring her to the church after service Sunday morning,' but when I told him Marygold was named in the foreroom, then he said he'd come up. I'm not asking a company,—Satira couldn't see her way to manage,—so there'll only be jest two or three, but I'd be pleased to see you, Miss Emmy, if you're interested that far to take the trouble."

"What is the news?" asked Miss Emmy, as she joined Mr. Esterbrook, who was walking to and fro under the maples that lined the walk opposite the post-office, a goodly quantity of their scarlet catkins decorating the wide brim of his hat.

"News? There isn't any, except that McClellan is still on his way to Richmond and there are some war bonds, 5-20's and 6-20's, going on the market that I think we should all subscribe to as far as we are able. I must speak to Elizabeth about them to-night."

Then as he raised the parasol in which there were several holes not in the original pattern and held it between her and the now really hot sun, he glanced at her face and saw, not only that it was flushed, but that it wore a wholly new expression, while the strings of her bonnet, that had been tied with a graceful precision, hung loose and bore the unmistakable print of moist fingers. Her face held Esterbrook's eyes until, unconsciously drawn, she looked up and in her turn was amazed at the sudden intensity of his usually placid countenance and the flash of his eyes as he shifted them.

"What is it? What has happened?" he said. "Has the child been temperish and vexed you, or did she pull your ribbons awry in play?"

"No, she was lovely, far too lovable;" then she paused to look over the neat picket-fence into one of the many gardens that filled the spaces between street and white-pillared porches, where tufts of golden daffodils shone like prisoned sunbeams on the lawn and single white violets, short stemmed and fragrant, huddled timidly about the roots of leafless rose-bushes in the long borders. "What has happened is that in this last hour I've been away, Willy," she said, as she made a wide-sweeping gesture, "so far away from you and Elizabeth that I almost forgot how you looked. So far that I saw quite back to things that might have been."

Emeline Felton had always been, within fixed boundaries, of a romantic and emotional disposition, but with that gesture, suggestive of the breaking of bonds, Esterbrook felt that she swept these boundaries aside.

"Was I other than I am now in those far-away days? Have I not always been the same to you? Do I not always study your interests?" Esterbrook said, again meeting her eyes that did not turn away.

"Yes, but you were different once, though not for long; since then, as you say, you've been always the same, and that's part of the matter."

"I wish that in those other days I'd had the courage to go away far enough to see if you would miss me and then haunt you until I'd made you marry me, Emeline."

"And I—I wish you had!"

Esterbrook caught his breath: "Is it too late? Am I too old to change the might have been?"

"Ah, yes; if I married, after to-day, it must be a younger man than you. Besides you could not stand the shock of telling Elizabeth, and if I told her, she might send me to bed without my supper!

"Then at our age we must consider our obligations to society; as Elizabeth puts it, how disappointed it would be if the institution known as the Misses Felton and Mr. Esterbrook should disintegrate! How we should be missed, we nice safe people! Ah, no, Willy, don't look so serious; it's only some left-over mad March Hare that has bewitched me," and Miss Emmy laughed with the same ripple in her voice as that of the bluebird on the roof of its box in the garden.

"We must not forget to be patriotic; we must hurry home to consult Elizabeth about those 6-20's you spoke of, and please, Willy, ask Wheeler to make me a nice little bouquet of roses with lace paper around it by three o'clock to-day, and tie up a box of loose flowers also. I'm going to the christening of Oliver Gilbert's lady baby."

The bonnet strings were tied as usual and the flush on her cheek had faded to its normal tint when Esterbrook next glanced at his companion, but in those few minutes he too had looked back and travelled afar, and his face changed as though he had been a ghost of himself.