Читать книгу Barbara Ladd - Roberts Charles G. D. - Страница 6

After this upheaval there was better understanding for a time between Barbara and Mistress Mehitable. The lady made an honest effort to allow for some of the differences in the point of view of a child brought up on a Maryland plantation, under another creed, and spoiled from the cradle. She tried, also, to allow for the volcanic and alien strain which mingled in Barbara's veins with the well-ordered blood of the Ladds. But this alien strain was something she instinctively resented and instinctively longed to subdue. Moreover, she lacked imagination; and therefore, with the most sincere good purpose on both sides, the peace between herself and Barbara was but superficial, demanding the price of ceaseless vigilance. Barbara, on her part, strove to be more diligent with her tasks, and greatly conciliated Mistress Mehitable by her swift progress in plain sewing, penmanship, and playing on the harpsichord; and she quickly learned to read aloud with a charm and a justness of emphasis which her aunt never wearied of commending. But with the elaborate Dresden embroidery and intricate lace-making, and the flummery art of "papyrotamia" – a cutting of paper flowers – which then occupied the leisure of young maids of gentle breeding, Barbara had no patience at all. She scorned and hated them – and she purchased her release from them by electing rather the rigid and exacting pursuit of Latin grammar, which only masculine intellects were considered competent to acquire. In this she had had some grounding from her father; and now, under the sympathetic tuition of Doctor John, she found its strenuous intricacies a satisfaction to her restless brain, and made such progress as to compel the reluctant commendation of the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself.

Meanwhile, seeing the restraint under which the child was holding herself, Mistress Mehitable tried to moderate to some degree her disapproval of Barbara's vagaries and impetuosities, so that sometimes her wild rides, her canoeings at unseemly hours, her consortings with old Debby, her incorrigible absences from the noonday board, were suffered to go almost unrebuked. But it was a perennial vexation to Mistress Mehitable to observe Barbara's haughty indifference to the other young girls of her own class in the township, who were her fitting associates and might have redeemed her from her wildness; while, on the other hand, she insisted on making an intimate of Mercy Chapman, the daughter of Doctor John's hired man. Barbara found all the girls whom her aunt approved hopelessly uninteresting – prim, docile, pious, uninformed, addicted to tatting, excited over feather-work. But Mercy Chapman was fearless, adventurous within her limits, protectingly acquainted with all the birds' nests in the neighbourhood, and passionately fond of animals, especially horses and cats. Mercy Chapman, therefore, was admitted very cordially to certain outer chambers of Barbara's heart; while the daughters of Squire Grannis and Lawyer Perley were treated to a blank indifference which amounted to incivility, and excited the excoriating comment of their mammas.

Another severe trial to Mistress Mehitable's patience was Barbara's unhousewifely aversion to the kitchen. She vowed she could not abide the smell of cooking in her hair, averring that all cooks carried the savour of the frying-pan. When her aunt pointed out how humiliated she would be when she came to have a house of her own, she declared there would be time enough to learn when that day threatened; and she stoutly asseverated, moreover, that she could cook without learning. Upon this rash claim Mistress Mehitable pinned her to a test, being minded to abase her for her soul's good; but she emerged from the trial with vast accession of prestige, doing up sundry tasty desserts with a readiness born of past interest in the arcana of her father's kitchen by the Pawtuxet. But for all her aunt's exhortations she would explore no further in the domain of bake-pan and skillet. There was antagonism, moreover, between Barbara and Abby, to the point that if Mistress Mehitable had prevailed with her niece in this matter, she would have found herself obliged to change her cook.

There was one department of the household economy, however, in which Barbara was ever ready to meet her aunt half-way. It furnished a common ground, whereon many a threatened rupture was averted, or at least postponed. This was the still-room.

Barbara adored cleanliness and sweet smells. The clean, fragrant place, wherein bundles of herbs whose odours spoke to her of the South, and of strange lands, and of longed-for, half-forgotten dreams, and of desires which she could not understand, was to her a temple of enchanting mysteries.

Now Mistress Mehitable was a cunning distiller of the waters of bergamot, rosemary, mint, thyme, and egrimony; but Barbara developed a subtlety in the combining of herbs and simples which resulted in perfumes hitherto unknown. One essence, indeed, which she compounded, proved so penetrating, lasting, and exquisite, that her aunt, in a burst of staid enthusiasm, suggested that she should name it and write down the formula for security. This was done, to Barbara's great pride; and thereafter the "Water of Maryland Memories" became the proper thing to use in Second Westings. Nothing, perhaps, did more to make Barbara a personage in the township than this highly approved "Water of Maryland Memories."

In this way the days passed, so that at times Mistress Mehitable had hopes that the child was going to assimilate herself, and cease to pine for her plantation in the South. In reality, the rebellion in Barbara's soul but grew the stronger as her nature deepened and matured. Throughout her second spring at Second Westings, – when the mounting sap set her veins athrill in unison, and she saw the violets come back to the greening meadows, the quaker-ladies and the windflowers to the little glades of the wood; and the wild ducks returned from the south to nest by the lake, and the blackbirds chirred again in the swaying tops of the pine-trees, – her spirit chafed more fiercely at every bar. The maddest rides over upland field and pasture lot at dawn, the fiercest paddlings up and down the lake when the wind was driving and the chop sea tried her skill, were insufficient vent to her restlessness. Her thoughts kept reverting, in spite of herself, to the idea of seeking her uncle. Misunderstandings with Mistress Mehitable grew more frequent and more perilous. But just as she was beginning to feel that something desperate must happen at once, there came to her a responsibility which for a time diverted her thoughts.

The kitchen cat presented the household with four kittens. Having a well-grounded suspicion that kittens were a superfluity in Second Westings, the mother hid her furry miracles in the recesses of a loft in the barn. Not until their eyes were well open were they discovered; and it was Barbara who discovered them. With joyous indiscretion, all undreaming of the consequences, she proclaimed her discovery in the house. Then the customary stern decree went forth – but in this case tempered with fractional mercy, seeing that Mistress Mehitable was a just woman. One was spared to console the mother, and three were doomed to death.

Barbara, all undreaming of the decree, chanced to come upon Amos in the cow-shed, standing over a tub of water. She saw him drop a kitten into the tub, and pick up the next. She heard the faint mewing of the victims. For one instant her heart stood still with pain and fury. Then, speechless, but with face and eyes ablaze, she swooped down and sprang upon him with such impetuous violence that, bending over as he was, he lost his balance and sprawled headlong, upsetting the tub as he fell. As the flood went all abroad, sousing Amos effectually, Barbara snatched up the dripping and struggling mewer, clutched it to her bosom, seized the basket containing the other two, burst into wild tears, fled to the house, and shut herself into her room with her treasures. Straightway realising, however, that they would not be safe even there, she darted forth again, defying her aunt's efforts to stop her, ran to the woods, and hid them in the secret hollow of an old tree. Knowing that Amos would never have committed the enormity at his own instance, she hastened to make her peace with him, – which was easy, Amos being at heart her slave, – with a view to getting plenty of milk for the tiny prisoners; but against Mistress Mehitable her wrath burned hotly. She stayed out till long past supper, and crept to bed without speaking to any one – hungry save for warm milk supplied by Amos.

This was an open subversion of authority, and Mistress Mehitable was moved. In the morning she demanded the surrender of the kittens. Barbara fiercely refused. Then discipline was threatened – a whipping, perhaps, since duty must be done, however hard – or imprisonment in her room for a week. Barbara had a vision of the kittens slowly starving in their hollow tree, and her face set itself in a way that gave Mistress Mehitable pause, suggesting tragedies. The next moment Barbara rushed from the room, flew bareheaded down the street, burst into Doctor Jim's office, and announced that she would kill herself rather than go back to her Aunt Hitty. Past events precluding the possibility of this being disregarded as an idle threat, it was perforce taken seriously. Doctor John was summoned. The situation was thrashed out in all its bearings; and finally, while Barbara curled herself up in a tired heap on the lounge and went to sleep, her two champions went to confer with Mistress Mehitable. Hard in this case was the task, for the little lady considered a principle at stake; but they came back at last triumphant. Barbara was to be allowed to retain the kittens, on the pledge that she would keep them from becoming in any way a nuisance to the rest of the house, and that she would, as soon as possible, find homes elsewhere for at least two of them. This last condition might have troubled her, but that Doctor John and Doctor Jim both winked as they announced it, which she properly interpreted to mean that they, being catless and mouse-ridden, would help her.

So Barbara went back to Aunt Hitty – who received her gravely; and the kittens came back from their hollow tree; and the shock of clashing spheres was averted. But the peace was a hollow and precarious one – an armistice, rather than a peace. For about a week Barbara's heart and hands were pretty well occupied by her little charges, and Mistress Mehitable found her conciliatory. But one day there came a letter from Uncle Bob, accompanied by a box which contained macaroons and marchpanes, candied angelica, a brooch of garnets, and a piece of watchet-blue paduasoy sufficient to make Barbara a dress. The letter announced that Uncle Bob was at Bridgeport, and about to sojourn for a time at the adjoining village of Stratford. Why, Stratford was in Connecticut – it could not be very far from Second Westings! Barbara's heart throbbed with excitement. The very next day she made excuse to visit Lawyer Perley, and consult a map of the Connecticut colony which she had once observed in his office. She noted the way the rivers ran – and her heart beat more wildly than ever. Just at this point conscience awoke. She put the dangerous thought away vehemently, and for a whole week was most studious to please. But Mistress Mehitable was still austere, still troubled in her heart as to whether she had done right about the kittens. One morning just after breakfast Barbara was set to hemming a fine linen napkin, at a time when she was in haste to be at something else more interesting. She scamped the uncongenial task – in very truth, the stitches were shocking. Hence came an unpleasantness. Barbara was sent to her room to meditate for an hour. She was now all on fire with revolt. Escape seemed within reach. She meditated to such purpose that when her hour was past she came forth smiling, and went about her affairs with gay diligence.

It was on the following morning that, when the first pallor of dawn touched the tree-tops, she climbed out of the window, down the apple-tree, and fled with her bundle and her kittens.