Читать книгу Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century - Nancy Huston Banks - Страница 14

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There is much more in the way that a thing is said than we are apt to realize. Miss Sophia always repeated her vague and unvaried formula, whenever Miss Judy seemed to expect a response, and she always did it with such an effect of firm conviction as renewed Miss Judy's confidence in the soundness of her judgment and value of her advice. In this satisfactory manner the little sisters were again discussing the new book several weeks later, when the spring was well advanced. They had thus debated the serious question of Doris's being or not being permitted to read the new novel, for an hour or more; and they might have gone on discussing it indefinitely, as they did most things, had not Sidney Wendall come in quite unexpectedly.

As the Oldfield front doors set open all day, there was not much ceremony in the announcement of visitors. The caller usually tapped on the door and entered the house forthwith, going on to seek the family wherever the members of it were most likely to be found. Sidney now gave the tap required by politeness, and then, hearing the murmur of voices, went straight through the passage and into the room in which the sisters were sitting. They both glanced up with a look of pleased surprise as Sidney's tall form darkened the doorway. Miss Judy could not rise to receive Sidney on account of having an apronful of late garden-seeds. Her sister was holding the calico bags, as usual; and then Miss Sophia's getting out of a chair and on her feet was always a matter of time and difficulty. But their faces beamed a warm welcome, and Miss Judy called Merica away from the ironing-table in the kitchen to fetch the parlor rocking-chair for Sidney to sit in, which was in itself a distinguished attention, such as could not but be flattering to any guest. And when Sidney was seated, Merica was requested to draw a bucket of water fresh from the well, so that Sidney might have a nice cool drink.

Sidney, whom no one ever thought of calling Mrs. Wendall, was a large, lean, angular woman. She had come in knitting. She always knitted as she walked, carrying the big ball of yarn under her strong left arm. Her calico sunbonnet was always worn far back on her head. She took it off that day as soon as she sat down, and hung it on the knob of the chair. Then she removed the horn comb from her hair, let it drop, shook it out, twisted it up again with a swish—into a very tight knot—and thrust the comb back in place with singular emphasis. Everybody in Oldfield knew what those gestures meant. Nobody seemed to notice what wonderful hair she had. It was long, thick, silky, rippling, and of the color of the richest gold. It was most beautiful hair—rich and dazzling enough to crown a young queen—and most strangely out of place on Sidney's homely, middle-aged head; with its plain sallow face, its pale shrewd eyes, its grotesquely long nose, its expression of whimsical humor, and its wide jester's mouth.

The Oldfield people were so well used to seeing Sidney take her hair down, and twist it up again, even in the middle of the big road, that they had long since ceased to observe the hair itself. It was the meaning of the gestures that instantly caught and held the eager interest of the entire community. For, whenever Sidney took off her bonnet, and let down her hair and shook it vigorously and swished it up again into a tighter knot, and put the comb back with a certain degree of emphasis, everybody knew that there was something interesting in the wind. Poor Miss Sophia, who was not quick to understand many things, knew what those signs meant, and when she saw them that day she straightened up suddenly, wide awake, and breathing hard as she always was when trying her best to keep the track of what was going on, and forgetting all about the seed-bags, which abruptly slid over the precipice, wholly unheeded. Even Miss Judy, who so disliked gossip, could not help feeling somewhat agreeably excited and turning quite pink, as she remembered that she had never known Sidney's news to do any harm, to wound any one, to injure any one, or to make mischief of any description. She had often wondered how Sidney could talk all day long, day after day, year in and year out, going constantly from house to house without doing harm sometimes through sheer inadvertence. She now looked at Sidney in smiling expectancy, turning a rosier pink from growing anticipation.

The mere fact of an unexpected visit from Sidney was enough to throw any Oldfield household into a state of delightful excitement. Sidney's visits were like visits of Royalty; they always had to be arranged for in advance, and they always had to be paid for afterwards. It was clearly understood by everybody that Sidney went nowhere without a formal invitation given some time in advance, and an explicit and sufficient inducement. Yet there was nothing in this to her discredit; she was far from being the mere sordid mercenary that Royalty seems now and then to be. Sidney was an open, upright worker in life's vineyard, and did nothing discreditable in holding herself worthy of her hire. It was necessary for her to earn a living for five needy souls; for her three children, her husband's brother, and herself. There were not many avenues open to women-workers in any part of the world in the day of Sidney's direst need. There were fewer where she lived than almost anywhere else throughout the civilized earth. She did what she might do; she learned to earn bread for her family by the only honorable means in her power. She studied to amuse the people of the village who had no other source of entertainment. She raised her adopted profession until it became an art. It is probable that she had the comedian's talent to begin with. She certainly possessed the comic actor's mouth. And then she doubtless soon learned, as most of us learn sooner or later, that it is more profitable to make the world laugh than to make it weep. At all events the part that she played was nearly always a merry one. Only once, indeed, during the whole of her long professional career, was she ever known to come close to tragedy; but those who were present at the time never forgot what she said, how she said it, nor how she looked while saying it.

It happened one night at old lady Gordon's, over the supper table. The party had been a gay one, and Sidney had been the life of it, as she always was of every gathering in Oldfield. She had told her best stories, she had given out her latest news, she had said many witty and amusing things, until the whole table was in what the ladies of Oldfield would have described as a "regular gale." It was not until they were rising from the supper, still laughing at Sidney's jokes, that she said, in an off-hand way—as if upon second thought—that she would like to have some of the dainties, with which the table was laden, to take home to her children. Before old lady Gordon had time to say, "Certainly, I'll fix up the basket," as everybody always said whenever Sidney made that expected remark, Miss Pettus blazed out:—

"How can you!" she cried, turning in her fiery way upon Sidney. "How can you sit here, eating, laughing, and spinning yarns, when you know your children are hungry at home—and never think of them till now?" Her little black eyes were flashing, and she looked Sidney straight in the face, meaning every word that she said.

The very breath was taken out of the company. The ladies were stricken speechless with amazement and dismay. Even old lady Gordon had not a thing ready to say. Sidney, too, stood still and silent for a moment, resting her hand on the back of her chair. She turned white, standing very erect, looking taller than ever, and very calm—a figure of great dignity.

"I think of my children first, last, and all the time," she said quietly and slowly after an instant's strained silence. Her cool, pale eyes met Miss Pettus's hot black eyes steadily.

"But I don't think it best to talk about them too much;" she went on calmly. "Do any of you ladies think my children would get their supper any sooner if I came here whining about how hungry they were? Would you ever invite me to come again if I did that—even once? Would you, Mrs. Gordon? Would you invite me to your parties, Miss Pettus? Wouldn't you, and you, and all of you"—turning from one to another—"begin right away to regard me as a tiresome beggar and my children as paupers? I am afraid you would. It would only be human nature. I'm not blaming anybody. But—I don't intend to risk it. I think things are better as they stand now. I amuse you and you help me. I give you what you like in exchange for what my children need. It's a fair trade; you're all bound by it to regard me and my children with respect."

Miss Pettus was crying as if her heart would break long before Sidney was done speaking. She fairly flew at her and, throwing her arms around Sidney's neck, begged her forgiveness with a humility such as no one ever knew that hasty, hot-tempered, well-meaning little woman to show over any other of her many mistakes. Never afterward would she allow Sidney to be criticised in her presence. She quarrelled fiercely with the doctor's wife for saying that she really could not see how Sidney got her news, and for quoting the doctor's opinion that it must come over the grapevine telegraph. Miss Pettus would have had her brother send Sidney's children a portion of everything that his store contained. But Sidney would not accept from any one a pennyworth more than she earned. If Miss Pettus wished to send the Wendall family a pound of candles after Sidney had supped with her, spicing the meal with news and anecdote, all very well and good. Or if, after Sidney's making a special effort to enliven one of Miss Pettus's dinner parties in the middle of the day, that lady suggested giving Uncle Watty a pair of her brother's trousers, Sidney was glad and even thankful. To get her brother-in-law's clothes was, indeed, the hardest problem she had to solve. And then, when Uncle Watty had done with the trousers, they could be cut down for her son, Billy. Under such proper circumstances, Sidney accepted all sorts of things from everybody—anything, indeed, that she chanced to want—with as complete independence and as entire freedom from any feeling of obligation, as any artist accepts his fee for entertaining the public.

The obligation commonly imposed by hospitality had consequently no weight whatever with Sidney, and in this, also, she was not unlike some other celebrities. She did not hesitate to express her opinion of old lady Gordon, whose supper she had eaten on the previous evening, when Miss Judy, knowing about it and wishing to start the conversational ball rolling, now asked how things passed off. Sidney had swapped her spiciest stories for old lady Gordon's richest food. Old lady Gordon was perfectly free to think and to say what she pleased about those stories (provided she never mentioned them before Miss Judy); and Sidney, on her side, held herself equally free to think and to say what she thought of her hostess and of the supper too, had that been open to criticism—which old lady Gordon's suppers never were.

"That old woman is a regular Hessian," was Sidney's reply to Miss Judy's innocent inquiry.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Judy, quite startled and rather shocked. "Really, Sidney, I don't think you should call anybody such a name as that."

"Well, I'd like to know what else a body is to call an old woman who hasn't got a mite of natural feeling."

"But we have no right to say that either of anybody. We can't tell," pleaded gentle Miss Judy.

She was wondering, nevertheless, as she spoke, what could have occurred at old lady Gordon's on the night before. It was plain that the news which Sidney was holding back for an effective bringing forth must have had something to do with the visit. However, it was always useless to try to make Sidney tell what she had to tell, until she was quite ready. Even Miss Sophia was well aware of this peculiarity of Sidney's, and, breathing harder than ever in the intensity of her curiosity and suspense, she leaned forward, doing her utmost to understand what was being said in leading up to the news. Miss Judy, of course, understood Sidney's methods perfectly, through long and intimate acquaintance with them; and then, aside from the fact that Sidney could not be hurried, Miss Judy always tried anyway to turn the talk away from unpleasant themes.

"Did you remember to ask Mrs. Gordon about Mr. Beauchamp?" Miss Judy now inquired, adroitly bending Sidney's thoughts toward a delightful subject in which they were both deeply interested. "Did she know whether he used to be a dancing-master in his own country, as we have understood? I do hope you haven't changed your mind," she added earnestly. "It is really most important for Doris to learn to dance."

"No, I haven't changed it a bit. I've got the same Hard-shell, Whiskey Baptist mind that I've had for the last forty years. But it isn't as I think about dancing, or anything else that Doris is concerned in. It's as you think—"

"No—no, you mustn't say that," protested Miss Judy.

"I do say it, I mean it, and I intend to abide by it," declared Sidney, laying her knitting on her lap and loosing rings of yarn from her big ball and holding them out at arm's length. "You've always known better what was good for Doris than I ever have. When it comes to a difference of opinion I'm bound to give up."

Miss Judy blushed and looked distressed. "It is really such an important matter," she urged timidly. "A young lady cannot possibly learn how to walk and how to carry herself with real grace, without being taught dancing. If I only had some one to play the tune, I might teach Doris the rudiments myself; or sister Sophia might, if she hadn't that shortness of breath, and if I could play any instrumental piece on the guitar except the Spanish fandango. That tune, however, is not very well suited to the minuet, which is the only dance that we ever learned. Mother taught us the minuet, because she thought it necessary for all well brought up girls to learn it just for deportment, though she knew we should probably never have an opportunity to dance it in society."

Thus reminded of the many things that they had missed, Miss Judy turned and smiled a little sadly at Miss Sophia, as though it were the sweetest and most natural thing in the world to speak of Miss Sophia's dancing the minuet,—poor, little, round, slow Miss Sophia! And Miss Sophia also thought it sweet and natural, her dull gaze meeting her sister's bright one with confiding love as she murmured the usual vague assent.

"And did you think to ask Mrs. Gordon whether Mr. Beauchamp—" Miss Judy hesitated at the Frenchman's name, which she pronounced as the English pronounce it, and delicately touched her forehead.

"She said he was perfectly sane except upon that one subject, and the kindest, honestest soul alive," said Sidney, whisking the ball from under her arm and reeling off more yarn.

Miss Judy's sweet old face and soft blue eyes wore the dreamy look which always came over them when her imagination was stirred. "How romantic it is and how touching, that he should have believed, through all these years of hard work and a menial life, that he is Napoleon's son, the real King of Rome."

"Well, it don't do any harm," Sidney, the practical, said. "He don't dance with his head. It seems to me, too, I've heard that lots of crazy folks were great dancers. Anyway, you may tell him, as soon as you like, that I'll knit his summer socks to pay him for showing Doris how to dance, and you may say that I'll throw in the cotton to boot. I always like to pay the full price for whatever I get. If he still thinks that isn't enough, you might tell him I'm willing to knit his winter ones too, but he's got to furnish the yarn—there's reason in all things."

"You are sure that Mr. Beauchamp used to be a dancing-master?" asked Miss Judy.

"Old lady Gordon told me she had heard something of the kind, but she said she had never paid any attention. She never does pay any attention to anything unless she means to eat it," Sidney said.

"Poor old lady Gordon," sighed Miss Judy. "She hasn't much except her meals to attend to or think about. She must be very, very lonely, all alone in the world."

"I've never seen any sign of her being sorry for herself," responded Sidney, knitting faster, as she always did when warming to her subject. "I never heard of her making any such sign when her son and only child went away and died without coming back. I never heard or saw her show any anxiety about his son and only child, that she's never laid her eyes on, though he's now a grown man. I never heard a hint from her about him last night—till she had eaten the last ounce of the pound-cake; and drunk the last drop of the blackberry cordial. Then she remembered to tell me that this only grandson of hers is coming at last."

Here was the news! Miss Sophia settled back in her chair with a deep breath of satisfaction. Miss Judy exclaimed in interested surprise. Very few strangers came to Oldfield, consequently the advent of a young gentleman from a distant city was an event indeed. No wonder that Sidney had made as much of it as she could. Miss Judy, and even Miss Sophia, felt the high compliment paid them in being the first to whom Sidney had taken the thrilling intelligence. It was, in fact, the highest expression of Sidney's gratitude to Miss Judy, and fully recognized as such by both the little sisters, who appreciated it accordingly.

When Sidney was gone on her way to distribute the great news at the various points which promised the largest results, Miss Judy went into the darkened parlor, the other of the two large rooms which the house contained. It was rarely opened, and never used except when, at long and rare intervals, a formal caller, of whom there were not many in that country, was invited to enter it and to feel the way to a chilly, slippery seat. There were two good reasons for the room's disuse. One was that social preëminence in the Pennyroyal Region demanded a dark and disused parlor, although it did not militate against a bed in the living room. Formal visitors expected to grope their way through impenetrable gloom to invisible seats. Accidents sometimes happened, it is true, as when, upon one occasion, old lady Gordon, in calling upon Miss Judy shortly before Major Bramwell left for Virginia, sat down in a large chair, without being aware that it was already occupied by the major, who was a very small man. The second good reason for the room's not being used was that in cool weather Miss Judy could not get fuel for another fire. It was all that Merica could do, all the year round, to find enough wood for one fire; the stray sticks dropped from passing wagons, an occasional branch fallen from the old locust trees which lined the big road, and the regular basket of chips picked up behind the cabinet-maker's shop, barely sufficing to keep up a small blaze in the corner of the fireplace in the living room, which was also the sisters' bedroom.

Miss Judy groped her way cautiously through the darkness of the chilly parlor, and raised the shades far enough to let in a slender shaft of sunlight. She looked around the room with a soft sigh. It was so full of sad and tender memories, and so empty of everything else. The portraits of her father and mother, painted very young, hung side by side over the tall mantelpiece. The intelligent force of her father's face and the soft beauty of her mother's came back to Miss Judy anew whenever she looked at their likenesses. On the opposite walls hung the portraits of her paternal grandfather and grandmother, painted when they were very old. The old gentleman, a judge under the crown in Virginia, had been painted in his wig and gown. His fine face was hard and stern, and Miss Judy often wondered whether he ever had forgiven his son for fighting against the king and the mother country. The old lady's face was as sweet and gentle as Miss Judy's own, and there was a charming resemblance between the pictured and the living features. But the grandmother's face wore an expression of unhappiness, and the granddaughter's was never unhappy, although it was sometimes sad for the unhappiness of others and the pain of the world.

The portraits had been taken out of their frames, so that they might be brought over the Alleghanies with less difficulty. They had never been reframed, and there was something inexpressibly melancholy in their hanging thus, quite unshielded, against the rough, whitewashed logs. Melancholy, vague and far-off, pervaded indeed the whole atmosphere of the shadowed room. It floated out from a broken vase of parian marble which was filled with dried rose leaves, brown and crumbling, yet still sending forth that sweetest, purest, loneliest, and saddest of scents. It clung about the angular, empty arms of the few old chairs, dim with brocade of faded splendor. It lay on the long old sofa—with its high back and its sunken springs—like the wan ghost of some bright dream that had never come true. But the tenderest and subtlest sadness came from the fading sampler which Miss Judy's mother had worked in those endless days of exile in the wilderness. Ah, the silent suffering, the patient endurance, the uncomplaining disappointment, wrought into those numberless stitches! And yet, with all, perhaps bits of brightness too,—a touch of rose-color here, and a hint of gold there—such as a sweet woman weaves into the grayest fabric of life.

Miss Judy, sighing again, although she could not have told why she always sighed on entering the darkened parlor, now knelt down beside the sofa, and drew a small box from beneath it. But she did not open the box at once; instead, she seated herself on the floor and sat still for a space holding the box in her hand, as if she shrank from seeing its contents. At length, slowly untying the discolored cord that bound the box, she lifted the cover, and took out a pair of satin slippers. They had once been white, but they were now as yellow as old ivory, and the narrow ribbon intended to cross over the instep and to tie around the ankle had deepened almost into the tint of the withered primrose. The slippers were heel-less, and altogether of an antiquated fashion, but Miss Judy did not know that they were. She was doubtful only about the size, for they seemed very small even to her; and she thought, with tender pride, how much taller Doris was than she had ever been, even before she had begun to stoop a little in the shoulders. Turning the slippers this way and that, she regarded them anxiously, with her curly head on one side, until she at last made up her mind that Doris could wear them. They might be rather a snug fit, but they would stay on, while Doris was dancing, all the better for fitting snugly. Yet Miss Judy still sat motionless, holding the slippers, and looking down at them, long after reaching this conclusion. The most unselfish of women, she was, nevertheless, a truly womanly woman. She could not surrender the last symbol of a wasted youth without many lingering pangs.