Princess Part 5

"And why not? Surely no man would grudge a paltry three years out of his whole life's happiness to avoid so dreadful a thing as ill blood between twin brothers. If _she_ could wait for his sake, _he_ could wait for hers. A woman must not cheapen herself; if she is worth winning, she must exact the effort."

"I think it is a lovely story," Blanche interposed, decidedly. "The lady behaved beautifully; just exactly as she should have done. A quarrel between brothers is awful, and between twin brothers would be awfuler still."

In her eager partisanship, Blanche's language was more concise than elegant, but she wanted Pocahontas to know that she sided with her.

Norma regarded her sister with amus.e.m.e.nt not unmixed with chagrin.

These new friends were stealing away her follower. Blanche was becoming emanc.i.p.ated.

"Any woman who trifles with her happiness, because of a scruple, is a fool," she repeated, dogmatically.

Pocahontas held back the angry retort that was burning on the tip of her tongue, and let the subject drop. Norma was her guest, and, after all, what did it matter what Norma thought? But after that she refrained from repeating old stories before her; and of the two sisters, Blanche became her favorite.

As she entered the parlor with smiles and words of welcome, Blanche held out her hands filled with late roses and branches of green holly, bright with berries.

"See," she said, "two seasons in one bouquet. The roses are for your mother. I found them on a bush in a sheltered corner; and as we came along I made Nesbit cut the holly for me. I never can resist holly.

That tree by your gate is the loveliest thing I have ever seen; just like those in the store windows at home for Christmas. Only we never had such a profusion of berries, and I don't think they were as bright.

Do you think the holly we get at home is as bright, Norma?"

"Oh, yes; it looked always pretty much the same. We got beautiful holly every Christmas," replied Norma, who did not like Virginia exalted at the expense of her native place.

"But not with such ma.s.ses of berries. Just look at this branch; was there ever any thing more perfect? Princess, please give me something to put it in. It's far too pretty to throw away. Can I have that vase on the piano?"

Pocahontas smiled a.s.sent. She could have holly by the cart-load, but she liked Blanche's enthusiasm. While the others chatted, Blanche decked the vase with her treasure; then two others which she found for herself on a table in the corner. There were still some lovely rich bits, quite small twigs, left when she had finished, and she once more clamored for something to put them in.

Pocahontas, in the midst of an eager discussion with Thorne and Norma, in which both were arrayed against her, glanced around carelessly.

There was a cup and saucer on a small stand near her, and she picked up the cup thoughtlessly and held it out to Thorne. Just as their hands met in the transfer, both of them talking, neither noticing what they were doing, Berkeley entered suddenly and spoke, causing them to start and turn. There was a quick exclamation from Pocahontas, a wild clutch into s.p.a.ce from Thorne, and on the floor between them lay the fragile china in half a dozen pieces.

Pocahontas bent over them regretfully. It was the cup with the dreaming Indian maiden on it--the cup from which Jim Byrd had taken his coffee on that last evening. There were tears in her eyes, but she kept her head bent so that no one should see them. She would rather any cup of the set should have come to grief than that one.

She had brought it into the parlor several days before to show to a visitor, who wished a design for a hand-screen for a fancy fair, and had neglected to replace it in the cabinet. She reproached herself for her carelessness as she laid the fragments on the piano, and then the superst.i.tion flashed across her mind. Could it be an omen? The idea seemed foolish, and she put it aside.

"Don't feel badly about it," she said to Thorne, who was humbly apologetic for his awkwardness, "it was as much my fault as yours; we neither of us were noticing. Indeed, it's more my fault, for if I hadn't neglected to put it away, the accident could not have happened.

You must not blame yourself so much."

"In the actual living present, I'm the culprit," observed Berkeley, "since my entrance precipitated the catastrophe. I startled you both, and behold the result! n.o.body dreamed of convicting me, and this is voluntary confession, so I expect you all to respect it; the smallest unkindness will cause me to leave the room in a torrent of tears."

Every one laughed, and Pocahontas put the fragments out of sight behind a pile of music books. She could not put the subject out of her mind so easily, although she exerted herself to an unusual degree to prevent her guests from feeling uncomfortable; the superst.i.tion rankled.

As they took leave, Thorne held her hand in a warmer clasp than he had ever before ventured on, and his voice was really troubled as he said:

"I can't tell you how worried I am about your beautiful cup. I never had a small accident trouble me to the same extent before. I feel as though a serious calamity had befallen. There was no tradition, no a.s.sociation, I hope, which made the cup of special value, beyond its beauty, and the fact of its being an heirloom."

Pocahontas was too truthful for evasion.

"There were a.s.sociations of course," she answered gently, "with that cup as well as with the rest of the china. It has been in the family so many generations, you know. Don't reproach yourself any more, please--remember 'twas as much my fault as yours. And broken things need not remain so," with an upward glance and a bright smile, "they can be mended. I shall have the cup riveted."

She would not tell him of the superst.i.tion; there was no use in making him feel worse about the accident than he felt already. She did not wish him to be uncomfortable, and had gladly a.s.sumed an equal share of blame. It was extremely silly in her to allow her mind to dwell on a foolish old tradition. How could the breakage of a bit of china, no matter how precious, presage misfortune? It was ill doing that entailed ill fortune, not blind chance, or heathen fate. She would think no more of foolish old portents.

Still!--she wished the cup had not been broken--wished with all her heart that it had not been _that_ cup.

CHAPTER VIII.

Blanche Smith was not at all a clever girl--not like Norma. Norma had always stood first in her cla.s.ses, had borne off prizes and medals, but with Blanche it was otherwise. No amount of coaching ever sufficed to pull her through ah examination, or to remove her from the middle of her cla.s.s. Blanche was a dunce confessedly; she hated books, and the acquisition of knowledge by labor. If people told her things and took the trouble to explain them, she remembered them sometimes; sometimes not. To accomplishments she took as a duck to water--danced beautifully, was a fair musician, sang with taste and sweetness, and chattered French with absolute self-confidence and a tolerable accent, although her rudimentary knowledge of the tongue was of the vaguest.

At school she had been more popular than her cleverer sister; the girls affirmed that she was sweeter tempered and more obliging. At home also, she was the favorite. Her father idolized her, her brothers domineered over, and petted her; even the mother made an unconscious difference between the girls; she admired Norma more--was prouder of her, but she depended upon Blanche. Norma saw the difference, and sometimes it vexed her, but generally she was indifferent to it. Her people did not understand her; she was not like them; when barn-door fowls unwittingly hatched eaglets, it was natural that the phenomenon should be beyond their comprehension, and that their ignorance should prefer the tamer members of their brood. Not that Norma actually inst.i.tuted such comparison, and deliberately set herself above her kindred; she simply acted upon the hypothesis unconsciously, and when the warmest of the family affection settled around Blanche, felt sure that it was due to natural difference, and could be no fault of hers.

Little Blanche, in her deep content with her new surroundings, wondered how she could ever have been so besotted as to object to the move. The place, the people, the mode of life were all delicious to her, and for the family at Lanarth, her enthusiasm was touching. Mrs. Mason was just her idea of "Mrs. Washington, or Cornelia, or Lady de Bourgainville," she explained to Norma, mixing history and fiction, as usual, and was laughed at for her pains.

Pocahontas never laughed at her--at least not offensively, or in a way to make her feel her ignorance. She thought sometimes that her foolish society was preferred by her new friend to that of her clever sister; certainly the quaint old tales which Pocahontas poured unreservedly into her delighted ears were never told to Norma. What impression lay in the girl's mind of handsome Berkeley Mason, had best remain uncanva.s.sed. It is ill work, violating feminine sanctuaries unless the need be urgent; an empty coat-sleeve, carelessly carried, is a powerful agent for converting a man into a hero.

Christmas, the grand high festival of the year, was approaching, and all the community was stirred with deep desire for its worthy celebration. Sociability ceased, or at best was sustained in limp, half-hearted fashion by the men. The ladies had other things to think of; for on them rested the sole responsibility of the Christmas preparations--the providing of copious lodging for expected guests, the bedecking of rooms with evergreens and holly, the absorption of store-room and kitchen, the never-ending consultations with the cook--all the wonderful machinations, the deep mysteries and incantations, which would result in glittering hospitality later on.

Realizing this, they suffered lesser matters to pa.s.s unheeded, caring naught for social converse, intellectual pleasures, or intelligence of church or state. Women might elope, men embezzle, dynasties fall, ministries change, or public faith be broken, and they viewed the result, if indeed they noted it, with absolute composure. But let eggs be unattainable, jellies become murky, the fruit in cake or pudding sink hopelessly to the bottom, and Rachel weeping for her children could not have made more wild acclaim.

At Lanarth, the week of preparation (good old Virginia housekeepers always allowed a week at least, and Mrs. Mason adhered to the time-honored custom) pa.s.sed busily. Every thing turned out unusually well, and the store-room was a picture. Jellies, in slender gla.s.ses, glittered in exquisite amber perfection, or glowed warmly crimson, with points of brighter hue where the sun fell on them. Heaps of old-fashioned "s...o...b..a.l.l.s" hid golden hearts under a pure white frosting, and cakes, baked in fantastic shapes, like Turks' heads and fluted melons, were rich, warm, brown, or white and gleaming as Christmas snow. The pastry showed all shades from palest buff to tender delicate brown, and for depth of tone there were their rich interiors of dark mincemeat and golden custards. Of the pleasures of this beautiful world not the least is the sight of beautiful food.

And it was Christmas eve.

The shadows were gathering, and the sun sending in his resignation to the night, when Pocahontas, tying on her pretty scarlet hood and wrappings, armed herself with a small basket of corn, and proceeded to the poultry yard to house her turkeys for the night. They usually roosted in an old catalpa tree near the back gate, earlier in the season; but as Christmas approached Pocahontas found it expedient to turn the key upon them, since leaving them out caused weaker brothers to offend. As she pa.s.sed the kitchen door she called to little Sawney, whose affection for his grandmother increased at Christmas, to come out and help her.

The little fellow had that morning been invested by a doting parent with a "pa'r o' sto' boots" purchased entirely with reference to the requirements of the future. They were many sizes too large for him: the legs adorned with flaming scarlet tops, reached nearly to his middle; they flopped up and down at every step, and evinced an evil propensity for wabbling, and bringing their owner with sorrow to the ground. They were hard-natured, stiff-soled, uncompromising--but! they were _boots_!--"sto' boots, whar cos' money!"--and Sawney's cup of bliss was full.

Any one who has experience in the ways and wiles of the domestic treasure, must be aware of the painful lack of consideration sometimes evinced by turkeys in this apparently simple matter of allowing themselves to be housed. Some evenings, they march straight into their apartment with the directness and precision of soldiers filing into barracks; on others the very Prince of Darkness, backed by the three Fates and the three Furies, apparently takes possession of the perverse, shallow-pated birds. They wander backward and forward, with an air of vacancy as though they knew not what to do; they pa.s.s and repa.s.s the yawning portal of the turkey house, with heads erect and eyes fixed on futurity, not only as if they did not see the door, but actually as if there were no door there to see. And when the maddened driver, wrought to desperation, hurls into their midst a stick or stone, hoping fervently and vengefully that it may break a neck or a leg, they leap nimbly into the air with "put-putterings" of surprise and rebuke, and then advance cautiously upon the missile and examine it.

The Lanarth turkeys were behaving in just this reprehensible manner, and Pocahontas was working herself into a frenzy over them. Three times she engineered the flock successfully up to the open door, and three times the same old brown hen advanced, peered cautiously into the house, started tragically aside as though she beheld some evil thing, and produced a panic and a stampede.

"You miserable wretch!" exclaimed Pocahontas, hurling her empty basket impotently at the dusky author of her woe, "I could kill you! Shoo!

shoo! Sawney, why don't you help me? Head them! Run round them!

Shoo! shoo! you abominable creatures!"

Sawney essayed to obey, grasping the straps of his boots, and lifting his feet very high.

"Take them off and run," commanded Pocahontas. But Sawney would as soon have parted with his skin. "I dwine ter run," he responded, and gripped his boots valiantly. It was of no use. Sawney had gotten too much boot for his money, and if walking in them was difficult, running was impossible. He held on to them bravely, but that only impeded progress further; the faithless cowhides wabbled, twisted, and finally landed him sprawling on his back in the middle of the flock, which promptly retired to distant parts of the poultry yard, "puttering" and dodging.

"Sawney proves a broken reed, as usual," called a pleasant voice from somewhere in the background; "here, let me help you," and Nesbit Thorne leaped over the fence, and advanced, gun in hand, to the rescue.

"It's the fault of his 'sto' boots,'" Pocahontas explained, laughing, as she extended her hand. "Sawney's intentions were honorable enough.

I shall be glad of your a.s.sistance--as usual," with a merry glance, "for these aggravating birds are shattering my nerves, and ruining my temper."

Then, together, the pair pursued the unruly fowls, and pressed upon them and buffeted them, until the turkeys were right glad to defy the vision of the old brown sensationalist, and take refuge in their house.

Pocahontas closed the door with a sharp bang almost upon the tail of the hindmost one, locked it, and then turned cordially to her companion and invited him to remain and take tea with them.

Thorne glanced down at his splashed boots and corduroys. "I'm scarcely in trim for a lady's tea table," he said, smiling, "you must excuse me, and let me come some other time. I met your brother on the low grounds as I came up. I've been shooting over his land, and called to leave your mother a few birds."

"Had you good sport?" inquired Pocahontas, with interest, watching him empty the pockets of his shooting-coat on the top of an adjacent chicken-coop, and admiring the soft shades, and exquisite markings of the plumage of the dead birds.

"Here's old 'bur-rabbit,'" said Thorne, reaching his hand behind his back, and drawing out the pretty brown beast by the legs. "I knocked him over just below your garden fence in a little patch of briers. It was a pretty shot; see, right through the head. I hate to mangle my game. I'd pretty fair sport; the birds are a little wild, though, and I had no dog. I lost a fine duck--a canvas-back, this afternoon, by its falling into deep water. I must send North for a brace of good dogs."