Читать книгу Old Rose and Silver - Reed Myrtle - Страница 8

"How like a man," smiled Rose. "That house has been closed for over ten years, and he thinks there is nothing to be done but to unlock the front door and engage two or three servants who may or may not be trustworthy."

"What an imposition!" Isabel said. "Aunt Francesca, didn't I meet

Allison Kent when I was here before?"

"I've forgotten."

"Don't you remember? Mother brought me here once when I was a little tot. We stayed about a week and the roses were all in bloom. I can see the garden now. Allison used to come over sometimes and tell me fairy stories. He told me that the long, slender gold-trimmed bottles filled with attar of roses came from the roots of the rose bushes—don't you remember? And I pulled up rose bushes all over the garden to find out."

"Dear me, yes," smiled Aunt Francesca. "How time does fly!"

"You were very cross with Allison—that is, as cross as you ever could be. It seemed so queer for you to be angry at him and not at me, for I pulled up the bushes."

"You were sufficiently punished, Isabel. I believe the thorns hurt your little hands, didn't they?"

"They certainly did," responded the girl, with a little shudder at the recollection. "I have a scar still. That was—let me see—why, it was fifteen years ago!"

"Just before I came to live with Aunt Francesca," said Rose. "You and your mother went away the same day."

"Yes, we went in the morning," Isabel continued, "and you were to come in the afternoon. I remember pleading with my mother to let me stay long enough to see 'Cousin Wose.'"

"Fifteen years!" Madame repeated. "Allison went abroad, then, to study the violin, and the house has been open only once since. Richard came back for a Summer, to attend to some business, then returned to Europe. How the time goes by!"

The letter fell to the floor and Francesca sat dreaming over the interlude of years. Colonel Kent had been her husband's best friend, and after the pitiless sword had cleaved her life asunder, had become hers. At forty the Colonel had married a young and beautiful girl. A year later Francesca had gone to him with streaming eyes, carrying his new- born son in her arms, to tell him that his wife was dead.

Drawn together by sorrow, the two had been as dear to each other as friends may be but seldom are. Though childless herself, Francesca had some of the gifts of motherhood, and, at every step, she had aided and counselled the Colonel in regard to his son, who had his mother's eyes and bore his mother's name. Discerning the boy's talent, long before his father suspected it, she had chosen the violin for him rather than the piano, and had herself urged the Colonel to take him abroad for study though the thought of separation caused her many a pang.

When the two sailed away, Francesca had found her heart strangely empty; her busy hands strangely idle. But Life had taught her one great lesson, and when one door of her heart was closed, she opened another, as quickly as possible. So she sent for Rose, who was alone in the world, and, for fifteen years, the two women had lived happily together.

As she sat there, thinking, some of her gay courage failed her. For the moment her mask was off, and in the merciless sunlight, she looked old and worn. Rose, looking at her with tender pity, marvelled at the ignorance of man, in asking a frail little old lady to open and make habitable, in less than a fortnight, a house of fifteen large rooms.

"Aunt Francesca," she said, "let me open the house. Tell me what you want done, and Isabel and I will see to it."

"Certainly," agreed Isabel without enthusiasm. "We'll do it."

"No," Madame replied stubbornly. "He asked me to do it."

"He only meant for you to direct," said Rose. "You surely don't think he meant you to do the scrubbing?"

Madame smiled at that, and yielded gracefully. "There must be infinite scrubbing, after all these years. I believe I'll superintend operations from here. Then, when it's all done, I'll go over and welcome them home."

"That is as it should be. Isabel and I will go over this afternoon, and when we come back, we can tell you all about it."

"You'd better drive—I'm sure the paths aren't broken."

So, after luncheon, the two started out with the keys, Madame waving them a cheery good-bye from the window.

"Everything about this place seems queer to me," said Isabel. "It's the same, and yet not the same."

"I know," Rose answered. "Things are much smaller, aren't they?"

"Yes. The rooms used to be vast and the ceilings very far away. Now, they're merely large rooms with the ceilings comfortably high. The garden used to seem like a huge park, but now it's only a large garden. There used to be a great many steps in the stairway, and high ones at that. Now it's nothing compared with other flights. Only Aunt Francesca remains the same. She hasn't changed at all."

"She's a saint," said Rose with deep conviction, as the carriage turned into the driveway.

The house, set far back from the street, was of the true Colonial type, with stately white pillars at the dignified entrance. The garden was a tangled mass of undergrowth—in spite of the snow one could see that— but the house, being substantially built, had changed scarcely at all.

"A new coat of paint will freshen it up amazingly," said Rose, as they went up the steps. She was thrilled with a mysterious sense of adventure which the younger woman did not share. "I feel like a burglar," she continued, putting the key into the rusty lock.

"I feel cold," remarked Isabel, shivering in her furs.

At last the wide door swung on its creaking hinges and they went into the loneliness and misery of an empty house. The dust of ages had settled upon everything and penetrated every nook and cranny. The floors groaned dismally, and the scurrying feet of mice echoed through the walls. Cobwebs draped the windows, where the secret spinners had held high carnival, undisturbed. An indescribable musty odour almost stifled them and the chill dampness carried with it a sense of gloom and foreboding.

"My goodness!" Isabel exclaimed. "Nobody can ever live here again."

"Don't be discouraged," laughed Rose. "Soap, water, sunshine, and fire can accomplish miracles."

At the end of the hall a black, empty fireplace yawned cavernously. There was another in the living-room and still another in the library back of it. Isabel opened the door on the left. "Why, there's another fireplace in the dining-room," she said. "Do you suppose they have one in the kitchen, too?"

"Go in and see, if you like."

"I'm afraid to go alone. You come, too."

There was no fireplace in the kitchen, but the rusty range was sadly in need of repair.

"I'm going down cellar," Rose said. "Are you coming?"

"I should say not. Hurry back, won't you?"

Rose went cautiously down the dark, narrow stairway. The light was dim in the basement but she could see that there was no coal. She went back and forth several times from bin to window, making notes in a small memorandum book. She was quite determined that Aunt Francesca should be able to find no fault with her housekeeping.

When she went back, there were no signs of Isabel. She went from room to room, calling, then concluded that she had gone back to the carriage, which was waiting outside.

Rose took measurements for new curtains in all the rooms on the lower floor, then climbed the creaking stairway. She came upon Isabel in the sitting-room, upstairs, standing absorbed before an open desk. In her hand she held something which gleamed brightly, even in the gathering shadow.

"Isabel!" she cried, in astonishment.

The girl turned and came forward. Her eyes were sparkling. "Look! There's a secret drawer in the desk and I found this in it. I love secret drawers, don't you?"

"I never have looked for them in other people's houses," Rose answered, coldly.

"I never have either," retorted Isabel, "except when I've been invited to clean other people's houses."

There was something so incongruous in the idea of Isabel cleaning a house that Rose laughed and the awkward moment quickly passed.

"Look," said Isabel, again.

Rose took it from her hand—a lovely miniature framed in brilliants. A sweet, old-fashioned face was pictured upon the ivory in delicate colours—that of a girl in her early twenties, with her smooth, dark hair drawn back over her ears. A scarf of real lace was exquisitely painted upon the dark background of her gown. The longing eyes held Rose transfixed for an instant before she noted the wistful, childish droop of the mouth. The girl who had posed for the miniature, if she had been truthfully portrayed, had not had all that she asked from life.

"Look at this," Isabel continued.

She offered Rose a bit of knitting work, from which the dust of years fell lightly. It had once been white, and the needles were still there, grey and spotted with rust. Rose guessed that the bit had been intended for a baby's shoe, but never finished. The little shoe had waited, all those years, for hands that never came back from the agony in which they wrung themselves to death in the room beyond.

The infinite pity of it stirred Rose to quick tears, but Isabel was unmoved. "Here's something else," she said.

She shook the dust from an old-fashioned daguerreotype case, then opened it. On the left side was a young soldier in uniform, full length—a dashing, handsome figure with one hand upon a drawn sword. Printed in faded gilt upon the dusty red satin that made up the other half of the case, the words were still distinct: "To Colonel Richard Kent, from his friend, Jean Bernard."

"Jean Bernard!" Isabel repeated, curiously. "Who was he?"

"Aunt Francesca's husband," answered Rose, with a little catch in her voice, "and my uncle. He died in the War."

"Oh," said Isabel, unmoved. "He was nice looking, wasn't he? Shall we take this to Aunt Francesca?"

"You forget that it isn't ours to take," Rose reminded her. "And, by the way, Isabel, you must never speak to Aunt Francesca of her husband. She cannot bear it."

"All right," assented the girl. "What is this?"

From the back of the drawer she took out a bronze medal, with a faded ribbon of red, white, and blue attached to it. She took it to the light, rubbed it with her handkerchief, and slowly made out the words: "Awarded to Colonel Richard Kent, for conspicuous bravery in action at Gettysburg."

"Put the things back," Rose suggested, gently. This tiny, secret drawer, Colonel Kent's holy of holies, symbolised and epitomised the best of a man's life. The medal for military service, the miniature of his wife, the picture of his friend, and the bit of knitting work that comprehended a world of love and anguish and bereavement—these were the hidden chambers of his heart.

Isabel took up the miniature again before she closed the drawer. "Do you suppose those are diamonds?"

"No; only brilliants."

"I thought so. If they'd been diamonds, he would never have left them here."

"On the contrary," answered Rose, "I'm very sure he would." She had met Colonel Kent only a few times, years ago, during the Summer he had spent at home while Allison was still abroad, but she knew him now, nevertheless.

They went on through the house, making notes of what was needed, while their footsteps echoed and re-echoed through the empty rooms. "I'm glad there are no carpets, except on the stairs," said Rose, "for rugs are much easier to clean. It resolves itself simply into three C's—coal, curtains, and cleaning. It won't take long, if we can get enough people to work at it."

It was almost dusk when they went downstairs, but the cold slanting sunbeams of a Winter afternoon came through the grimy windows and illumined the gloomy depths of the open fireplace in the hall. Motes danced in the beam, and the house somehow seemed less despairing, less alone. A portrait of Colonel Kent, in uniform, hung above the great mantel. Rose smiled at it with comprehension, but the painted lips did not answer, nor the unseeing eyes swerve from their steady searching of Beyond.

"How was it?" asked Madame, when they reached home. "Dirty and bad?"

"Rather soiled," admitted Rose.

"And colder than Greenland," Isabel continued, warming her hands at the open fire.

"We'll soon change all that," Madame said. "I've ordered coal and engaged people to do the cleaning since you've been gone, and I have my eye upon two permanent retainers, provided their references are satisfactory."

"I've measured for all the curtains," Rose went on. "Shall we make them or buy them?"

"We'll make them. If we have help enough we can get them done in time."

The following day a small army, with Rose at the head of it, took possession of the house. Every night she came home exhausted, not from actual toil, but from the effort to instill the pride of good service into unwilling workers who seemed to rejoice in ignorance.

"I'm tired," Rose remarked, one night. "I've cerebrated all day for seven bodies besides my own and I find it wearing."

"I don't wonder," answered Madame. "I'll go over to-morrow and let you rest."

"Indeed you won't," declared Rose, with emphasis. "I've begun it and I'm going to finish it unless the Seven Weary Workers fail me absolutely."

At last the task was completed, and even Rose could find no speck of dust in the entire establishment. The house was fresh with the smell of soap-suds and floor wax and so warm that several windows had to be kept open. The cablegram had come while the curtains were being made, but everything was ready two days before the wayfarers could possibly reach home.

On the appointed day, Rose and Isabel were almost as excited as Madame Bernard herself. She had chosen to go over alone to greet the Colonel and his son. They were expected to arrive about four in the afternoon.

At three, Madame set forth in her carriage. She wore her best gown, of lavender crepe, trimmed with real lace, and a bunch of heliotrope at her belt. Rose had twined a few sprays of heliotrope into her snowy hair and a large amethyst cross hung from her neck by a slender silver chain. She wore no other jewels except her wedding ring.

Fires blazed cheerily in every fireplace on the lower floor, and there was another in the sitting-room upstairs. She had filled the house with the flowers of Spring—violets, daffodils, and lilies of the valley. A silver tea-kettle with a lamp under it waited on the library table.

When she heard the wheels creaking in the snowy road, Madame lighted the lamp under the kettle with her own hands, then opened the door wide. Followed by their baggage, the two men came up the walk—father and son.

The Colonel was a little older, possibly, but still straight and tall— almost as tall as the son who walked beside him, carrying a violin case under his arm. He wore the familiar slouch hat, the same loose overcoat, and the same silvery goatee, trimmed most carefully. His blue eyes lighted up warmly at the sight of the figure in the doorway.

"Welcome home!" cried Madame Francesca, stretching a hand toward each.

"Welcome home!"

Allison only smiled, taking the little hand in his strong young clasp, but his father bent, hat in hand, to kiss the one she offered him.

"Oh," cried Madame, "I'm so glad to see you both. Come in!"

They entered their own hospitable house, where fires blazed and the kettle sang. "Say," said Allison, "isn't this great! Why did we ever leave it? Isn't it fine, Father?"

But "father" still had his eyes upon the dainty little lady who had brought forth the miracle of home from a wilderness of dust and ashes. He bent again over the small, white hand.

"A woman, a fire, and a singing kettle," he said. "All the dear, familiar spirits of the house to welcome us home."