Queechy Volume I Part 48

Home he went. The rest drew together particularly near, round the fire ? Hugh at his father's shoulder, and Fleda kneeling on the rug, between her uncle and aunt, with a hand on each; and there was not one of them whose gloom was not lightened by her bright face and cheerful words of hope, that, in the new scenes they were going to, "they would all be so happy."

The days that followed were gloomy, but Fleda's ministry was unceasing. Hugh seconded her well, though more pa.s.sively.

Feeling less pain himself, he perhaps for that very reason was less acutely alive to it in others ? not so quick to foresee and ward off, not so skilful to allay it. Fleda seemed to have intuition for the one and a charm for the other. To her there was pain in every parting; her sympathies clung to whatever wore the livery of habit. There was hardly any piece of furniture, there was no book or marble or picture, that she could take leave of without a pang. But it was kept to herself; her sorrowful good-byes were said in secret; before others, in all those weeks, she was a very Euphrosyne ? light, bright, cheerful of eye, and foot, and hand ? a shield between her aunt and every annoyance that she could take instead ? a good little fairy, that sent her sunbeam wand, quick as a flash, where any eye rested gloomily. People did not always find out where the light came from, but it was her witchery.

The creditors would touch none of Mrs. Rossitur's things, her husband's honourable behaviour had been so thorough. They even presented him with one or two pictures, which he sold for a considerable sum; and to Mrs. Rossitur they gave up all the plate in daily use, a matter of great rejoicing to Fleda, who knew well how sorely it would have been missed. She and her aunt had quite a little library, too, of their own private store; a little one it was indeed, but the worth of every volume was now trebled in her eyes. Their furniture was all left behind; and in its stead went some of neat light painted wood, which looked to Fleda deliciously countrified. A promising cook and housemaid were engaged to go with them to the wilds, and about the first of April they turned their backs upon the city.

CHAPTER XVII.

"The thresher's weary flinging-tree The lee-lang day had tired me: And whan the day had closed his e'e, Far i' the west, Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie, I gaed to rest."

BURNS.

Queechy was reached at night. Fleda had promised herself to be off almost with the dawn of light the next morning to see aunt Miriam, but a heavy rain kept her fast at home the whole day.

It was very well; she was wanted there.

Despite the rain and her disappointment it was impossible for Fleda to lie abed from the time the first grey light began to break in at her windows ? those old windows that had rattled their welcome to her all night. She was up and dressed, and had had a long consultation with herself over matters and prospects before anybody else had thought of leaving the indubitable comfort of a feather bed for the doubtful contingency of happiness that awaited them down stairs. Fleda took in the whole length and breadth of it, half wittingly and half through some finer sense than that of the understanding.

The first view of things could not strike them pleasantly; it was not to be looked for. The doors did not happen to be painted blue; they were a deep chocolate colour ? doors and wainscot. The fire-places were not all furnished with cranes, but they were all uncouthly wide and deep. n.o.body would have thought them so indeed in the winter, when piled up with blazing hickory logs; but in summer they yawned uncomfortably upon the eye. The ceilings were low; the walls rough papered or rougher whitewashed; the sashes not hung; the rooms, otherwise well enough proportioned, stuck with little cupboards, in recesses and corners, and out-of-the-way places, in a style impertinently suggestive of housekeeping, and fitted to shock any symmetrical set of nerves. The old house had undergone a thorough putting in order, it is true; the chocolate paint was just dry, and the paper-hangings freshly put up; and the bulk of the new furniture had been sent on before and unpacked, though not a single article of it was in its right place. The house was clean and tight ? that is, as tight as it ever was. But the colour had been unfortunately chosen ? perhaps there was no help for that; the paper was very coa.r.s.e and countrified; the big windows were startling, they looked so bare, without any manner of drapery; and the long reaches of wall were unbroken by mirror or picture-frame.

And this to eyes trained to eschew ungracefulness and that abhorred a vacuum as much as nature is said to do! Even Fleda felt there was something disagreeable in the change, though it reached her more through the channel of other people's sensitiveness than her own. To her it was the dear old house still, though her eyes had seen better things since they loved it. No corner or recess could have a pleasanter filling, to her fancy, than the old brown cupboard or shelves which had always been there. But what would her uncle say to them! and to that dismal paper! and what would aunt Lucy think of those rattling window sashes! this cool raw day, too, for the first!

Think as she might, Fleda did not stand still to think. She had gone softly all over the house, taking a strange look at the old places and the images with which memory filled them, thinking of the last time, and many a time before that ? and she had at last come back to the sitting-room, long before anybody else was down stairs; the two tired servants were just rubbing their eyes open in the kitchen, and speculating themselves awake. Leaving them, at their peril, to get ready a decent breakfast (by the way she grudged them the old kitchen), Fleda set about trying what her wand could do towards brightening the face of affairs in the other part of the house. It was quite cold enough for a fire, luckily. She ordered one to be made, and meanwhile busied herself with the various stray packages and articles of wearing apparel that lay scattered about, giving the whole place a look of discomfort. Fleda gathered them up, and bestowed them in one or two of the impertinent cupboards, and then undertook the labour of carrying out all the wrong furniture that had got into the breakfast-room, and bringing in that which really belonged there from the hall and the parlour beyond, moving like a mouse that she might not disturb the people up stairs.

A quarter of an hour was spent in arranging to the best advantage these various pieces of furniture in the room; it was the very same in which Mr. Carleton and Charlton Rossitur had been received the memorable day of the roast-pig dinner, but that was not the uppermost a.s.sociation in Fleda's mind.

Satisfied at last that a happier effect could not be produced with the given materials, and well pleased too, with her success, Fleda turned to the fire. It was made, but not by any means doing its part to encourage the other portions of the room to look their best. Fleda knew something of wood fires from old times; she laid hold of the tongs, and touched and loosened and coaxed a stick here and there, with a delicate hand, till, seeing the very opening it had wanted ? without which neither fire nor hope can keep its activity ? the blaze sprang up energetically, crackling through all the piled oak and hickory, and driving the smoke clean out of sight. Fleda had done her work. It would have been a misanthropical person indeed that could have come into the room then, and not felt his face brighten. One other thing remained ? setting the breakfast-table; and Fleda would let no hands but hers do it this morning; she was curious about the setting of tables. How she remembered or divined where everything had been stowed; how quietly and efficiently her little fingers unfastened hampers and pried into baskets, without making any noise; till all the breakfast paraphernalia of silver, china, and table- linen was found, gathered from various receptacles, and laid in most exquisite order on the table. State Street never saw better. Fleda stood and looked at it then, in immense satisfaction, seeing that her uncle's eye would miss nothing of its accustomed gratification. To her the old room, shining with firelight and new furniture, was perfectly charming. If those great windows were staringly bright, health and cheerfulness seemed to look in at them. And what other images of a.s.sociation, with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles,"

looked at her out of the curling flames in the old wide fire- place! And one other angel stood there unseen ? the one whose errand it is to see fulfilled the promise, "Give, and it shall be given to you; full measure, and pressed down, and heaped up, and running over."

A little while Fleda sat contentedly eyeing her work; then a new idea struck her and she sprang up. In the next meadow, only one fence between, a little spring of purest water ran through from the woodland; water-cresses used to grow there.

Uncle Rolf was very fond of them. It was pouring with rain; but no matter. Her heart beating between haste and delight, Fleda slipped her feet into galoches, and put an old cloak of Hugh's over her head, and ran out through the kitchen, the old accustomed way. The servants exclaimed and entreated, but Fleda only flashed a bright look at them from under her cloak as she opened the door, and ran off, over the wet gra.s.s, under the fence, and over half the meadow, till she came to the stream. She was getting a delicious taste of old times; and though the spring water was very cold, and with it and the rain one-half of each sleeve was soon thoroughly wetted, she gathered her cresses, and scampered back with a pair of eyes and cheeks that might have struck any city belle chill with envy.

"Then, but that's a sweet girl!" said Mary the cook to Jane the housemaid.

"A lovely countenance she has," answered Jane, who was refined in her speech.

"Take her away, and you've taken the best of the house, I'm a thinking."

"Mrs. Rossitur is a lady," said Jane, in a low voice.

"Ay, and a very proper behaved one she is, and him the same, that is, for a gentleman I mean; but Jane; I say, I'm thinking he'll have eat too much sour bread lately! I wish I knowed how they'd have their eggs boiled till I'd have them ready."

"Sure it's on the table itself they'll do 'em," said Jane.

"They've an elegant little fixture in there for the purpose."

"Is that it!"

n.o.body found out how busy Fleda's wand had been in the old breakfast-room. But she was not disappointed; she had not worked for praise. Her cresses were appreciated; that was enough. She enjoyed her breakfast ? the only one of the party that did. Mr. Rossitur looked moody; his wife looked anxious; and Hugh's face was the reflection of theirs. If Fleda's face reflected anything, it was the sunlight of heaven.

"How sweet the air is after New York!" said she.

They looked at her. There was a fresh sweetness of another kind about that breakfast-table. They all felt it, and breathed more freely.

"Delicious cresses!' said Mrs. Rossitur.

"Yes; I wonder where they came from," said her husband. "Who got them?"

"I guess Fleda knows," said Hugh.

"They grow in a little stream of spring water over here in the meadow," said Fleda, demurely.

"Yes, but you don't answer my question," said her uncle, putting his hand under her chin, and smiling at the blushing face he brought round to view. "Who got them?"

"I did."

"You have been out in the rain?"

"Oh, Queechy rain don't hurt me, uncle Rolf."

"And don't it wet you either?"

"Yes, Sir ? a little."

"How much?"

"My sleeves ? oh, I dried them long ago."

"Don't you repeat that experiment, Fleda," said he, seriously, but with a look that was a good reward to her, nevertheless.

"It is a raw day!" said Mrs. Rossitur, drawing her shoulders together, as an ill-disposed window-sash gave one of its admonitory shakes.

"What little panes of gla.s.s for such big windows!" said Hugh.

"But what a pleasant prospect through them," said Fleda ?

"look, Hugh! ? worth all the Batteries and Parks in the world."

"In the world! in New York, you mean," said her uncle. "Not better than the Champs Elysees?"

"Better to me," said Fleda.

"For to-day I must attend to the prospect in-doors," said Mrs.

Rossitur.

"Now, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, "you are just going to put yourself down in the corner, in the rocking-chair there, with your book, and make yourself comfortable; and Hugh and I will see to all these things. Hugh and I and Mary and Jane ? that makes quite an army of us, and we can do everything without you, and you must just keep quiet. I'll build you up a fine fire, and then, when I don't know what to do, I will come to you for orders. Uncle Rolf, would you be so good as just to open that box of books in the hall, because I am afraid Hugh isn't strong enough. I'll take care of you, aunt Lucy."

Fleda's plans were not entirely carried out, but she contrived pretty well to take the brunt of the business on her own shoulders. She was as busy as a bee the whole day. To her all the ins and outs of the house, its advantages and disadvantages, were much better known than to anybody else; nothing could be done but by her advice; and, more than that, she contrived by some sweet management to baffle Mrs.

Rossitur's desire to spare her, and to bear the larger half of every burden that should have come upon her aunt. What she had done in the breakfast-room, she did or helped to do in the other parts of the house; she unpacked boxes and put away clothes and linen, in which Hugh was her excellent helper; she arranged her uncle's dressing-table with a scrupulosity that left nothing uncared-for; and the last thing before tea she and Hugh dived into the book-box to get out some favourite volumes to lay upon the table in the evening, that the room might not look to her uncle quite so dismally bare. He had been abroad, notwithstanding the rain, near the whole day.