Oldfield Part 2

"And don't you think it would be a good idea to have Merica make a pig and a kitten out of gingerbread? They might perhaps amuse the child, and keep her from crying. A half pint of flour would be quite enough, and we _have_ to have the fire anyway because it's ironing day. Then Merica picked up a big basket of chips behind the cabinet-maker's shop this morning."

"Just so, sister Judy," answered Miss Sophia, who left all provision for fire and for everything else wholly to her sister. "And she might make _us_ some gingerbread too, while she's about it."

"To be sure!" exclaimed Miss Judy, looking at Miss Sophia in loving admiration. "So she can. How quick you are to see the right way, sister Sophia. I never seem to think of things as you do."

But even as she spoke, a thought flashed uneasily across her mind, causing her sweet old face to beam less brightly. What if the child would _not_ sit on the home-made rug? She had never been used to carpets--poor little thing. What if she crumbled the gingerbread all over everything, as Miss Judy had seen children do, time and again! The thought of such desecration of the carpet that her mother had made, for which she had carded the wool and spun the warp and woven the woof, all with her own dear little hands, made Miss Judy feel almost faint. The risk of such danger threw her into more and more of a panic. She hardly slept that night, troubled by dread of what she had so thoughtfully undertaken. She was pale and trembling with fright when Sidney brought Doris and left her early on the following day.

But the child sat quite still on the rug where her mother had placed her; and she did not cry when Sidney went away, as Miss Judy feared she would, although her lips quivered. She soon turned to look at the doll, which Miss Judy hastened to give her to divert her attention,--looking at it as tender little mothers look at afflicted babies. Then she gave her attention to the gingerbread kitten, and, later, to the gingerbread pig; and Miss Judy was pleased, though she could hardly have told why, to notice that Doris ate the pig first and hesitated some time before eating the kitten.

Miss Judy gave an involuntary sigh of relief when both the pig and the kitten had disappeared without leaving a crumb. She instinctively turned toward Miss Sophia with a pardonable little air of triumph, and was disappointed to find her asleep in her chair. Thus Miss Judy and Doris were left alone together, and presently the quiet child lifted her grave brown eyes to the little lady's anxious blue ones and they exchanged a first long, bashful look. Doris was not old enough to remember what she thought of Miss Judy at that time; but Miss Judy always remembered how Doris looked--such a wonderfully beautiful, gentle little creature--as she sat there so gravely, looking up with her mites of hands folded on her lap. After a time, as Miss Sophia slumbered peacefully on, the shy child and the shyer old lady began to make timid advances to one another. Doris undressed the forlorn old doll with cautious delight, and Miss Judy dressed it again with exquisite care while Doris leaned on her knee, hardly knowing what she did, so intense was her breathless interest in what Miss Judy was doing. The shyest are always the most trusting, if they trust at all. When Sidney, returning from her rounds, came by at nightfall to take Doris home, the child was no longer in the least afraid of Miss Judy; and Miss Judy was not nearly so much frightened as she had been at first.

Yet it was, after all, surprising, considering how timid they both were, that they should so soon have become tenderly and deeply attached to each other. But every day that Sidney brought Doris and left her, she was happier to come and more willing to stay; and erelong the day on which she had not come would have been an empty one and dull indeed for Miss Judy. One bright morning they had been very, very happy together.

Miss Sophia nodded as usual in her low rocking-chair, and Miss Judy was darning her sister's stockings while Doris played at her feet.

"Miss Dudy," the child said suddenly, raising her large, serious eyes to Miss Judy's sweet face with a puzzled look; "was it you or my mammy that borned me?"

Miss Judy started,--blushing, smiling, looking like a beautiful girl,--and bending down she gathered the little one in her arms and held her for a long time very, very close. From that moment her love for Doris a.s.sumed a different character.

It was a love which grew with the child's growth; which watched and fostered every new beauty of character as the girl blossomed into early womanhood, beautiful and sweet as a tall white flower. Gradually Doris became as the sun and the moon to Miss Judy, the first object when she arose in the morning, her last thought when she lay down at night. Yet this devotion to Doris, and absorption in the girl's interests and future, did not lessen in the least her devotion to Miss Sophia, her ceaseless watchfulness over her welfare, her tender care for her happiness. Her love for Doris never touched her love for her sister at any point. The two loves were so distinct, so unlike, so widely apart that there could be no conflict. It is true that Miss Judy's love for Miss Sophia was also strongly and tenderly maternal. But Miss Judy's gentle heart was so full of this mother-love--single and simple--that some of it might have been given to the whole human race. Her love for Doris was something much more exclusive, something infinitely more subtle than this, which is shared in a measure by every womanly woman.

It was the romantic, poetic love which is given by loving age to lovable youth when it recalls life's dawn-light to the twilight of a life which has never known the full sunrise.

With ineffable tenderness Miss Judy yearned to lead Doris toward the best, the finest, the highest, toward all that she herself had reached, and toward much which she had missed. The quaint, the antiquated, the absurd, the enchanting things that the little lady taught the little child, the young maiden! There was nothing so coa.r.s.e as Shakespeare and nothing so commonplace as the musical gla.s.ses. Shakespeare seemed to Miss Judy, who knew him only by hearsay, as being a little too decided, a little too distinctively masculine. It was her theory of manners that girls should learn only purely feminine things. The musical gla.s.ses she would have deemed rather undesirable as being less modish than the guitar, and consequently not so well adapted to the high polishing of a young lady of quality, of such fine breeding as she had determined that Doris's should be. The guitar which led Miss Judy to this conclusion had belonged to her mother. Its faded blue ribbon, tied in an old-fashioned bow, still bore the imprint of her vanished fingers. The ribbon smelt of dried rose leaves, as the old music-books did too, when Miss Judy got them out of the cabinet in the darkened parlor, and gave them to Doris, smiling a little sadly, as she always smiled when thinking of her mother. Miss Judy preferred Tom Moore's songs, because they were very sentimental, and also because they were the only ones that she knew. She had never been able to sing, but she had very high ideals of what she called "expression," and she could play the guitar after a pretty, airy, tinkling old fashion. So that Doris, having a low, sweet voice of much natural music and some real talent for the art, learned easily enough through even Miss Judy's methods of teaching; and came erelong to sing of "Those endearing young charms" and "The heart that has truly loved"

in a bewitchingly heart-broken way; while the faded blue ribbon fell round her lovely young shoulders.

It was really a pity that no one except Miss Sophia saw or heard those lessons--which must have been so well worth seeing and hearing. Miss Judy and Doris were both so entirely in earnest in all that they were doing. Both were so thoroughly convinced that the things being taught and learned were precisely the things which a young gentlewoman should know. Yet n.o.body but poor Miss Sophia, who was asleep most of the time, ever had so much as a glimpse of all that was constantly going on in this forming of a young lady of quality. It was another part of Miss Judy's theory of manners that everything concerning a gentlewoman, young or old, must be strictly private. When, therefore, it came to such delicate matters as walking and courtesying--as a young lady of quality should walk and courtesy--not even Miss Sophia was permitted to be present. Miss Judy took Doris into the darkened parlor and raised the shades only a cautious inch or two, so that, while they could see to move about, no living eye might behold the charming scene which was taking place. And there in this dim light, the dainty old lady and the graceful young girl would take delicate steps and make wonderful courtesies--grave as grave could be--all up and down, and up and down that sad old room.

Let n.o.body think, however, that Miss Judy thought only of accomplishments, while she was thus throwing her whole heart and mind and soul into the rearing and the training of this child of her spirit.

The substantial branches of education were not neglected. Miss Judy tried untiringly to help Doris in gaining a store of really useful knowledge. She did not know so well how to go about this as she did about the music and the courtesy. She knew little if any more of the hard prosaic side of the world than Doris herself knew--which was nothing at all. But she had a few good old books. Her father had been a true lover of the best in literature, and her mother had been as fond of sentiment in fiction as in real life. These books, thick, stubby old volumes bound in leather, gathered by them, were Miss Judy's greatest pride and delight. She therefore led Doris to them in due time, impressing her with proper reverence, and thus the girl became in a measure acquainted with a very few of the few really great in letters, and learned to know them as they may be known to an old lady and a young girl who have never had a glimpse of the world.

Miss Judy had but one book which was less than a half century in age.

That one book, however, was very, very new indeed and so remarkable that Miss Judy held it to be worthy of a place with the old great ones. She had already read it several times, and yet, strange to say, she had not given it to Doris to read. Of course she had told her about it as soon as it came from the thoughtful friend in Virginia who had sent it. But, for certain reasons which were not quite clear to herself, she was doubtful about its being the kind of a book best calculated to be really improving to Doris. She had read it aloud to Miss Sophia (who tried her best to keep awake), and she was confidently relying upon her judgment, which she considered so much sounder and more practical than her own, in making the decision. It was quite a serious matter, and Miss Judy was still earnestly though silently considering it after breakfast on that morning in March.

"The more I think of it the surer I feel that the main trouble with Becky was that she had no proper bringing up, poor thing;" remarked Miss Judy suddenly and rather absently, as if speaking more to herself than to her sister.

They sat side by side in their little rocking-chairs as they loved to sit, and they were busily engaged in sorting garden seeds. That is, Miss Judy was sorting the seeds while Miss Sophia held the neat little calico bags which Miss Judy had made in the fall, while Miss Sophia held the calico. Still, Miss Sophia's cooperation, slight as it seemed, really required a good deal of effort and very close attention. It was all she could do to keep the bags on her round little knees; nature, who is n.i.g.g.ardly in many things, having denied the poor lady a lap.

"Who?" asked Miss Sophia, staring, and struggling with the seed-bags.

"_What_ Betty?"

"Why, Becky Sharp, of course," said Miss Judy.

She was much surprised, and a little hurt that Miss Sophia should so soon have forgotten Becky, when they had talked about her until they had gone to bed on the night before, to say nothing of many other times. But she was only a bit hurt, she was never offended by anything that Miss Sophia did or said, and she went on as if she had not been even disappointed. "We must make up our minds as to the advisability of giving Doris the book to read before long. I was just wondering whether _you_ thought as I think, sister Sophia, that if Becky's mother had lived she would have been taught better than to do those foolish things, which were so shockingly misunderstood. I firmly believe that if Becky had been properly brought up, poor thing, she might have made a good woman. I have been waiting for a good opportunity to ask _your_ opinion.

What would _we_ have been, without our dear mother?" she urged, as though pleading with Miss Sophia not to be too hard on Becky. "And she was always so poor, too. Mercifully _we've_ never had actual poverty to contend with, as--poor Becky had. Most of the trouble came from that--Becky herself said it did, you remember, sister Sophia."

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, warmly, and without a shade of reserve, although she had but the haziest notion of who Becky was, or had been, or might be; and speaking with such firm decision that Miss Judy felt as if the matter were really about decided at last.

V

AN UNCONSCIOUS PHILOSOPHER

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 pa.s.sage 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 ap.r.o.nful 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 k.n.o.b 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. n.o.body 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 antic.i.p.ation.

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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.sed 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-sh.e.l.l, 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--"