People of the Whirlpool Part 21

At the last moment Mrs. Latham changed her plan of leaving the Bluff cottage in the charge of servants, had all her personal belongings moved away, and offered the place for sale.

"Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Jenks-Smith, who, being a sort of honorary stewardess of the Colony, usually remains a full week after the breaking-up time, and frequently runs in to report progress, "she's not coming back; being divorced she doesn't need to claim residence here. The place is so convenient to town, too, but I can't really blame her,--though of course I'm glad poor Sylvia's to be happy in her own way, and all that, for it's plain to be seen with one eye she's too slow to go her mother's pace--you couldn't expect Vivvy Latham, over all the hurdles but one, and almost at the end of the race, to relish her daughter's mother-in-law being in the egg trade in the very neighbourhood.

"At first everybody thought that the Bradfords, mother and son, would probably give up work and float on Sylvester J. Latham's money, for they say (to spite Vivvy, most likely) he took to Horace Bradford at the first, for what did the young fellow do but go straight to town and look Sylvester up, and make a clean breast of it before the gossips could even twist their tongues around the affair.

"Sylvester thought he could handle Bradford to suit himself, move him to New York, jam him into business, cut up the farm in house lots, reorganize his affairs, and declare a dividend out of him for his own benefit, as he does with lame railroads,--but not a bit of it!

"'With what you may choose to do for Sylvia personally, it would be selfish for me to interfere; but our way of living can only be planned upon the basis of what I earn,' said Horace, looking Mr. Latham in the face, and he's a big man too,--Sylvia gets her height from him.

"It rather knocked Sylvester out, because it was a kind of s.p.u.n.k he'd never met, and he told Jenks-Smith about it. Thought they didn't speak?

Oh yes, they're thick again, just now, over some kind of a deal.

"Did you know Jenks-Smith had bought Vivvy's house here? Yes, the deed was pa.s.sed the day she sailed. We've got to keep the Bluffs select, you know, and if the house was put on the market, goodness knows who might buy it, just to get in with us.

"Mr. Latham had an idea of taking it and giving it to Sylvia, but they wouldn't have that either,--are just fixing up the old house a bit, and going to summer at the farm, while the old lady will keep on selling eggs the same as ever. Not but what she's a thoroughbred all right, though in a cheap stable. I was down at Vivvy's the day she came to call on Sylvia!

Just as quiet and cool, except that her hands in the openwork silk mits shook, as if her son was a duke. I thought there would be a lively row, and I wished myself out of it, but Vivvy hadn't a chance to strike out until the old lady got up to go, then she only said: 'You must not understand that I approve of Sylvia's folly, or in any way give my consent to this rash engagement. I cannot prevent it, that is all.'

"The old lady's eyes flashed, and I thought, now for it; but she only looked Vivvy through and through, and said very clearly: 'Most brides are better for their mother's blessing, but under the circ.u.mstances I think we prefer to do without it.'"

Well-meaning Lady of the Bluffs, I'm really acquiring a sort of affection for her in spite of her crudity. If all the Whirlpoolers were like her, the pool might be a noisy torrent, but never a dangerous one.

This is Lavinia Dorman's last day with me, and I know she is really sorry to go, in spite of a sort of pleasurable responsibility and excitement she feels in managing Sylvia's affairs for a time.

She waked up with a bad headache--a rare thing for her--and after breakfast seemed so forlorn and blue that I coaxed her into my room and petted her for a while, almost as I would one of the children; and as she no longer conceals the fact of the false front from me, I took it off, brushed and brushed her lovely hair until it grew supple and alive, and began to glisten, and the pain gradually slipped through it into the air; then I drew it up cushionwise from her forehead and coiled it loosely on top, and she, declaring that my fingers had a magic touch, spent the rest of the morning at my desk in writing letters.

The lovable woman who has no one specially to love her is a common tragedy of everyday life. Strangely enough it more often draws ridicule than sympathy, and it seems to be always considered the woman's own fault, instead of a combination of circ.u.mstances, woven often of self-sacrifice, mistaken duty, and the studied suppression of natural emotions.

I think that both Miss Lavinia and Martin Cortright dread the going back to their old existence, and yet I am not sure that either of them would consent to change it in any way, in spite of their growlings at the modern conditions of life in New York. They have learned to lean upon the very restrictions that cramp them, until the idea of cutting free seems as impossible as for the bulky woman to sever the stay-lace that at once suffocates and supports her.

Martin Cortright stayed to luncheon to-day. Not that it is an unusual occurrence, but he wished to have a long afternoon to finish reading a certain portion of his ma.n.u.script to Miss Lavinia before her flitting in the morning.

We were seated at the table when she came in hurriedly, apologizing for being late, saying that she had become so absorbed in finishing her letters that she did not realize that it was even noon. I did not look at her particularly until a few moments later, when Martin, after fussing with his bread a good deal, looked up and said, with a charming smile, "What a very becoming gown you have on to-day, Miss Lavinia."

"Yes," said father, "I was thinking precisely the same thing myself, so you see that in spite of our condemning your s.e.x for paying so much attention to clothes, we men are the first to note the result of them."

Miss Lavinia looked puzzled. She was too much the politic woman of the world to say that the dimity gown was the same one that she had worn for the two or three days previous; besides, the fact would have cast a doubt upon their judgment, and she was particular in all such little details of good breeding; so she parried the compliment deftly, and straightway fell to pondering as to what circ.u.mstance the remark might refer. Glancing toward the open window, she caught a reflection of herself where the gla.s.s, backed by the dark green curtain, made a mirror. She had forgotten to rearrange her hair, and her burnished silver-shot locks remained rolled back lightly from her white forehead without the ugly, concealing front! I rejoiced inwardly, for the spontaneous tribute to the improvement by those two dear, stupid, discriminating men, has settled the fronts in a way in which no arguments of mine could, for to-night she came to dinner not only with her own emanc.i.p.ated hair, but wearing a bit of red geranium stuck fetchingly in the puff.

_August_ 1. Sylvia has returned, and Miss Lavinia has gone to her, Lucy and the portly cook having arrived from New York last night, in company with Josephus, confined in a large hamper borrowed from the fishmonger, in the top of which a ventilator had been introduced. Josephus was naturally indignant when first let out, and switched his tail in wrath, declining to recognize his mistress, and starting to explore the house like an evil spirit. This morning I found him calmly perched on our woodshed roof, gazing wickedly at the boys' banty chickens in the coop below. I predict that he gets into trouble, unless his silver collar, like a badge of aristocracy, protects him. But what can you expect of a misguided Whirlpool cat, whose only conception of a bird is a dusty street sparrow, when he meets face to face the delicious and whetting elusiveness of a banty chick or a young robin.

Poor Sylvia is nervously tired out, and the month's rest will be a real boon. Her plans are quite settled, and there is nothing for her to do but rest until the time comes to carry them out. She and Horace are to be married the last week in August, so that they will have time for a Canadian trip before College begins and they return to settle down in a sc.r.a.p of a house in Northbridge.

August seems to be considered an unusual month for a wedding; but it suits the circ.u.mstances, and as Sylvia has decided to be married quite privately here at Oaklands, for her own sake, as well as for Mrs.

Bradford's convenience, she wisely wishes to have it over before the possible return of the Whirlpoolers.

Horace had hoped that his mother would join them in Northbridge, but she said "No," very firmly, adding, with a quaint, twinkling smile, "Horace, n.o.body ever loved each other closer than your father and I, but there were times in the beginning when ever so well meaning a third finger in our pie would have spoiled the baking. Best leave old mother on the farm until by and by, when she can't tell a fresh egg from a bad one any longer."

So Horace comes down twice a week to visit Sylvia, and Miss Lavinia often drives to Pine Ridge with her and leaves her for a day, so that Mrs.

Bradford may share the pleasant woman's talk of linen for table and bed, and other details of a bridal outfit.

We all missed Miss Lavinia when she left, that is, all but the boys, and they hailed the change with joy, as giving them another house to roam in and out of. How much of the joy of childhood that we so envy comes from their freedom from prejudice, the ability they have for adapting themselves.

Martin was so distrait for a time that father absolutely ventured to tease him a little, whereupon he turned stoutly about and declared: "I have never denied the inspiration and value of congenial female society, and the mere fact that circ.u.mstances have shut me from it so much of late years makes me all the more appreciative of present privileges. Oh, d.i.c.k, old friend, isn't it some credit to a man who has lived backward almost from his birth, if, after he's sixty, he realizes it and tries to catch up with the present? It seems to me as if the best things had always been just within my grasp, only to slip away again, through unforeseen circ.u.mstances, and my ill luck reminds me of a story and picture in a comic paper that the boys were chuckling over last night. It was of a well-intentioned beetle who fattened a nice green caterpillar for its family's thanksgiving dinner, and the thing went and spun itself into a coc.o.o.n the night before!"

Martin Cortright at times verges on the pathetic, but always cures himself by his appreciation of his own limitations before he reaches the bore stage. He too is taking a short vacation from work, or rather I should say that he has developed industry in a new direction and become absorbed in entomology, to the extent of waging war on the tent caterpillars that are disfiguring both the orchards and the wild cherry trees of the highways with their untidy filmy nests, leaving the foliage prematurely brown and sere, from their ravages. Yesterday, in driving home from Pine Ridge with Sylvia, we noticed that even the wood edges had the appearance of being scorched by fire, and many of the old orchards where we go in May for apple blossoms are wrecks meshed in the treacherous slimy webs.

Martin's methods are regular and very simple, but he goes about his task each day as if the matter was a marvel of military strategy. First he puts a book ostentatiously in one pocket and a flask of alcohol in the other. Next he takes his torch, consisting of a piece of sponge wired to an old rake handle, which he keeps on the back stoop, and makes sure that it is tight and secure, finally searching me out to say that in case he meets Miss Lavinia, have I any message for her.

Why he does not keep his outfit up at Martha's I do not know; perhaps because of Timothy's keen tongue.

Miss Lavinia, after her morning housekeeping is over, takes her work bag to the narrow cottage porch and apparently gives herself up to the task of making pin-cushions for Sylvia or embroidering initials on napery.

Suddenly she will get up, say that her feet are falling asleep and that she needs a walk to restore her circulation. Will Sylvia go with her?

Sylvia, after pretending to consider, thinks not, making some excuse of its being too warm or that she expects Horace that day. Presently two prim people walking in opposite directions meet and, taking the same path, may be seen any morning along the less frequented roads and orchard paths, sometimes repairing the torch that has a constant tendency to lose its head, sometimes watching the destruction by fire of an unusually wicked worm city, and frequently with their heads stuck into some suspicious bush, where they appear to be watching invisible things with breathless interest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bug Hunters.]

Father and I chanced upon them when thus employed the other morning.

Martin turned about and in the most serious manner began to dilate upon the peculiarities of worms in general and particular, as well as of the appropriateness of their study by the book collector, as the score and a half insects that injure books and their bindings are not worms at all, having none of the characteristics of the veritable book worm _Sitodrepa panicea_, to all of which Miss Lavinia listened with devout attention.

"What makes them act so?" I said, half to myself, as we drove on, and father stopped shaking with laughter. "There isn't the slightest reason why they should not go to walk together; why do they manoeuvre with all the transparency of ostriches?"

"It's another manifestation of suppressed youth," said father, wiping his eyes, "upon the principle that the boy would rather slip out of the window to go coasting at night than ask leave and walk out publicly, and that when a young girl begins to grow romantic, she often takes infinite pains to go round the back way to meet some one who is quite welcome at the front door. When young folks have not had a chance to do these things, and the motive for them lies dormant, heaven alone knows how or when it will break loose."

Others, however, have observed, and the "Bug Hunters" has now come to be the local nickname of these two most respectable middle-aged people with ancestors.

Josephus, who has been leading a sporting life for many days, or rather nights, has at last returned minus his long tail with which he used to express his displeasure in such magnificent sweeps. Miss Lavinia is in tears, and wishes to have a reward offered for the apprehension of the doer of the deed.

Evan says that if she does, and thus acknowledges the cat as hers, she may be deluged with bills for poultry, as he has been hearing weird tales on the train, such as are often current among commuters who are not zoologists, of a great black lynx that has been invading chicken coops and killing for pleasure, as his victims are usually left on the ground.

Thus has country freedom corrupted the manners of a polite cat, and at the same time a hay knife (probably) has rendered him tailless.

_August_ 20. Summer is at high tide. How I dread its ebbing; yet even now the hastening nights are giving warning. Evan has been taking a vacation, and we have spent many days, we four, following the northward windings of the river in a wide, comfortable boat and lunching in the woods. We are pagans these days, basking in the sun, cooling in the shade, and living a whole life between sunrise and sunset. The boys are showing unconscious kinship with wood things, and getting a wholesome touch of the earth in their thoughts.

I am sure that the mind often needs a vacation more than the body, and yet the condition of change that bears the name of rest frequently merely gives the head fresh work.

How far away the Whirlpool and its people seem as we sit perhaps on one of the many tiny river islands enjoying this time separateness, not as individuals, but as a family, for the whirl of the pool is tiresome even to watch. I have felt old these last three months, and I suppose it is a still further carrying out of the allegory and penalty of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge; only the discipline does seem a little hard when, having no desire either to pluck or taste the apple, one stands actually away with hands safely behind back, and yet has the fruit absolutely thrust between unwilling lips.

Even the feathered things about us are in this mood; their family life is over, the companionship of fall travel has not begun, and the woods are full of moulting birds choosing this separateness in preparation for the tension of new flight and its perils. Everything, in short, in wild nature has its corresponding note in our own humanity,--the sweating of the corn, the moulting of the bird, the contraction of the earth by frost, all have a kindred season or experience in the heart.

Then, too, the August nights--so heavy with the intensity of sleep that is akin to sleeplessness, broken by peremptory thunder voices and searching lightning, or again enveloped by moonlight that floods the room--shut out the world until, kneeling in its tide between the little white beds, I can feel the refrain of that hymn of mother's that father taught me long ago to say to myself in the night when she had gone away from sight and I was lonely:--

"Father, on thy heart I lean When the world comes not between."