Silent Struggles Part 19

Barbara Stafford drew a quick breath, and walked on rapidly, making this an excuse for the long silence that followed.

"You have lived with--with the governor some time I believe," she said, at last.

"Yes."

"But you are not a native of this new land?"

"No; I was born in England."

"And your parents?"

Norman blushed crimson. "I never knew my parents," he said.

Barbara Stafford blushed also: she had given pain, yet that very fact deepened her interest in the youth.

"Forgive me, but you have not been reared without care; some one must have taken great interest in you."

"It may be so, but I never have been able to find that person out; my education went on as a matter of course; a lawyer of London paid the bills, gave me lots of advice, but refused me the least information regarding myself. When I had gone through the different grades of study thought requisite for a gentleman, the old barrister deposited a couple of thousand pounds in the hands of Sir William Phipps, which he told me was my entire patrimony, and sent me out here as secretary to the governor. In Sir William Phipps's house, I have known for the first time in my life what the word home meant."

Barbara looked earnestly at the youth as he gave this brief account of himself, but she made no further observation, for they had reached the streets of Boston, and from the novelty of the scene, or some deeper cause, she grew silent and walked forward with a reluctant, heavy step, apparently forgetful of the questions she had been asking.

CHAPTER XVII.

A LOVERS' QUARREL.

Lady Phipps met her guest in the hall bright, cheerful, and full of hospitable gladness. Elizabeth Parris followed her, but hung back a little, shy of the strange lady, who moved like a princess, and smiled so strangely as she uttered the common-places expected of a courteous guest. Lady Phipps went chatting and smiling up the staircase a little in advance of her visitor, for she would not allow a servant to attend her to the s.p.a.cious guest chamber. Lovel and Elizabeth stayed below, watching the two ladies as they mounted the stairs together. When Elizabeth turned her eyes on Lovel, there was something in his face that troubled her.

"Isn't she a n.o.ble-looking woman?" he asked, in an eager undertone.

"Perhaps--no, indeed I don't think her in the least beautiful," answered the spoiled child, with a pout of the red lips and a pretty toss of the head; "besides--"

"Why, Elizabeth, you are in a pet about something--I don't like that way of speaking about my friends."

"You never saw her but once in your life!" said Elizabeth, with a flush of the whole face, "still you look, you--I declare one would think there was not another person in the wide world, from the way you look after her."

"Ah, do I--you see it, I really cannot keep my eyes from her face."

"At any rate it is not a handsome face!" cried Elizabeth, flushing more and more redly.

"You have never seen her when she was talking, when she was really pleased--then her face changes so brightly--so--so--"

"I don't want to hear her talk--I don't care whether she is pleased or not--I only know this--she is not in the least beautiful, and is old enough to be your mother--there!"

"Old enough to be my mother, my mother!" A sudden thrill shot through the youth at the word mother. It sounded so strangely sweet. Had Elizabeth searched the language through, she could not have found two syllables so likely to form a golden link between him and the woman they were talking of.

"Yes, I say it again, she is not pretty, and she's old enough to be your mother--yet you must let the carriage come home with nothing but a trunk in it, while you and the lady take a long, long walk together on the sh.o.r.e, after you had promised to ride with me, too."

"Did I promise? forgive me, Bessie; I quite forgot it."

"Forgot it--while I was waiting and watching with my habit on, and the horses stamping down the gravel in front of the house," cried the aggrieved maiden, and a few spirited tears flashed up to her eyes, and trembled there like dew in a periwinkle. "You may believe it, I was quite ashamed to let the groom see how often I ran out into the porch to look up and down the road. I declare I've almost worn my riding-skirt threadbare with my whip, trying to make the fellows think I only came out to dust my habit."

"Indeed, I'm very sorry!"

"And you all the time promenading along the beach with a strange lady, talking, smiling--oh, I wish I were at home again. It was very cruel of you teasing the governor to consent to our marriage one of these days, if you intended to neglect me in this way."

The youth, whose endowment of patience was by no means marvellous, began to be a little restive under all these reproaches; they disturbed the pleasurable emotions which had predominated with him all the morning.

Worse, they impaired the angelic perfection with which his imagination had invested the young girl; the contrast between her childish petulance and the sweet dignity of the woman forced itself upon him. To be lectured and reproached by a mere child so directly after the companionship and sympathy of that lady, struck him with a sense of humiliation. He looked at the young girl gravely till the tears swelled in her eyes, then turned away, angry and hurt.

Lovers' quarrels are mere April showers, giving life to a thousand wild blossoms of the affection when both are in fault, and both angry; but when they end in silence and constraint, the November rain has not a more chilling influence.

While these impulsive young creatures were so busy planting their first thorns, Barbara Stafford had entered her chamber--a large, airy room, with four windows, all draped with filmy muslin, and a large tent-bedstead, shrouded in white till it looked like a snow-drift.

When the carriage first started to bring Barbara Stafford, Elizabeth had been, like the whole household, eager to honor a guest whom the governor had invited. She had gathered up all the unoccupied vases, and filled them with flowers; they blushed upon the toilet and the chest of drawers, and took the wind as it swept over the broad window-seats, filling the room with brightness and fragrance.

In order to indulge her own wild caprices, she had gathered all the blush-roses in bloom, and looped them among the snow of the curtains. It was strange; but while she stood, angry and flushed, at the foot of the stairs, longing to run up and destroy her own beautiful work, Barbara grew faint as death upon the threshold of the chamber. She turned an imploring look on Lady Phipps, and said--"Oh, take me away--I entreat you, take me to some other room."

"What, the flowers--the roses?" said Lady Phipps, surprised; "I will have them removed. How pale you are! how your hands quiver! I would not have believed that the scent of a few flowers could make one so ill."

Barbara was not a woman to give way to caprices of the nerves; she sat down in the great easy-chair, draped with white dimity, to which Lady Phipps led her, swept a hand across her forehead once or twice, and lifting her pale face, looked upward at a portrait of Governor Phipps, which hung in a ma.s.sive frame upon the wall. This was the first object that had met her eyes on entering the room. The portrait had been taken years before, and was that of a young man, spirited and full of power.

There was a smile upon the mouth, a consciousness of strength in the glance, that bespoke innate greatness.

When Barbara lifted her face to the picture, it was hard and pale; the rigidity of a stern resolution locked it like a vice; but as she gazed, the snow melted from her features. The lips began to tremble, the white lids drooped quivering over the eyes, and she shivered all over.

"No, no! do not remove the flowers," she said gently to Lady Phipps, who had taken a vase from the toilet. "I am better now. The walk was too much for me. Indeed, I have been subject to these turns ever since that terrible day. Do not blame the roses for my weakness; you see how much better I am."

She sat up in the easy-chair and looked around, evidently with great effort, but striving to smile and to subdue her weakness in every way.

"I am glad you are better," said Lady Phipps, kindly bending over the chair, at which Barbara shrunk back like one who fears some hurt, "and glad also that the poor flowers can remain as Elizabeth left them; she took such pains to gather and arrange them, dear child."

Barbara lifted her head suddenly, and grasped the arm of her chair.

"Dear child--your daughter, madam?"

"No. I am childless--we have always been childless."

Barbara sunk back into the chair again.

"I spoke," continued Lady Phipps, smiling, "of Elizabeth Parris, the daughter of a very dear friend. She was in the hall as you entered. A charming bit of mischief, who has turned the head of our young secretary. We shall have some ado to persuade Samuel Parris into a consent to the engagement. But he must give way at last--dear old soul: he is sure to yield when Sir William takes a thing earnestly in hand. I remember, he made all sorts of objections to officiating when we were married."

"Then this old man--this Samuel Parris performed that ceremony?"

"Yes. Sir William would have no other minister. They were old friends.

Indeed, Mr. Parris was a sort of benefactor to my husband when he was a poor boy."