Читать книгу The Pleasant Street Partnership - Mary Finley Leonard - Страница 13

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Miss Wilbur was perplexed to the point of annoyance, a state of mind most unusual with her.

She was by nature a serene person, quite content with her easy, uneventful life. The outside world she faced with a timid reserve which had not diminished with years and indulgence, finding her life in her family circle and the round of small cares, her flowers and her embroidery. She disliked responsibility, and except in what she considered matters of principle was inclined to distrust her own judgment. She was full of family loyalty, and had been satisfied to look on from her place in the background, while her more clever and ambitious sisters and brothers one by one passed from the home into the world.

Naturally enough she had not married. She had not cared to, and had never given any one the opportunity to combat this indifference. Most people liked her, but she had few intimate friends, having apparently no desire to be singled out in any way, and yet she was warmly affectionate. In truth Miss Virginia was an elusive sort of person, sometimes allowing a glimpse of herself in all her unselfish sweetness, and then, presto! her reserve had taken alarm, the vision was gone.

She was conventional, made so by her environment; yet her failings, many of them, so her sister Caroline declared, were those of an untrained child. She was careless—as Charlotte had noticed, she sometimes forgot the fastenings of her skirt; when she wrote, she invariably inked her fingers; and she was constantly losing or breaking her glasses. She treated these matters lightly herself, but tried to conceal them from her sister.

In their girlhood this sister, a few years older than she, had been the object of her deepest devotion. Caroline was beautiful and clever, and to question her opinions never entered Miss Virginia's mind. It puzzled and hurt her loyal heart that she could not quite get back to the old attitude when Caroline returned to her home a widow. She submitted when Caroline assumed command of the household; but after their father's death relieved her of the position of devoted nurse, Miss Virginia found life a little empty; and what made it the harder was that she no longer felt herself altogether in sympathy with her sister's opinions and methods.

Her aspirations had never gone beyond making home pleasant for somebody, and now even this was taken from her. The things that most absorbed Mrs. Millard were of little interest to her; she began to feel useless and unhappy. She was a failure. Life had somehow slipped by unawares. She felt old at forty-eight.

Above everything she disliked change, and the sale of the corner lot and the building of the shop caused her many a pang. In the midst of all this disquietude Mr. Landor's letter arrived.

"I have most agreeable recollections of your home," he wrote, "and I realize I am asking a good deal of you, for our little niece is a somewhat tumultuous person. She has suffered from both over indulgence and neglect. She needs a different atmosphere, and much in the way of training that her old guardian cannot give her, so he ventures for Helen's sake to ask if you will take charge of her daughter for a few years."

This half sister, twelve years younger than herself, had come and gone like some happy dream in Miss Virginia's life. She had grown up under the care of her grandmother, almost a stranger in her father's house, to which she returned in her gay young girlhood, and for the one time in her experience Miss Wilbur had been swept into a whirl of gayety as Helen's chaperon. Her charge had married early, and after a few years went abroad with her husband and little girl in search of health she was never to find.

The thought of Helen's child aroused memories both bright and sorrowful, but at least here was an opportunity to be useful again. It would be pleasant to have a child in the house, Miss Virginia thought, studying the photograph of Charlotte at seven, bright-eyed and demure.

The tall, well-grown girl had been a surprise to her aunts. Her assured manner and pronounced style of dress were not exactly what one desired in a girl of fourteen. At sight of her Miss Virginia had been seized with a fit of shyness; in consequence the reins had been taken by Mrs. Millard, who was not shy and was, besides, a born manager.

Miss Virginia felt a sympathy for Charlotte, even while disapproving of her; she felt her sister to be too peremptory. In the matter of the novel it would have been better to allow Charlotte to finish it, with the understanding that it was to be the last. What could be more aggravating than to have to give up a story with only two-thirds of it read? It was an interesting story, too. Miss Virginia herself sat up till midnight to finish it. Some time perhaps she would tell Charlotte the end. Then she reminded herself that this would never do.

It was no use talking to Caroline, and yet Mr. Landor had asked her to take charge of Charlotte, and Caroline had no right to assume command. Miss Virginia wished they had not agreed to take the child.

She paced back and forth on the front porch one afternoon, thinking of all this and of the peaceful days of the past, feeling that dulness was better than problems like these. Across Pleasant Street was the little shop already showing signs of habitation. As she stood idly with her hand on the rail, a boy came up the walk and handed her what at first glance she thought was a note, but it proved on investigation to be an announcement.