Six Girls Part 42

Thy mother's lot, my dear, She doth in nought accuse; Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear, To love--and then to lose.

CHAPTER XXIII.

WHEN G.o.d DREW NEAR AMONG HIS OWN TO CHOOSE.

"And is that the word you are going to send back, Olive?"

"Yes, sir."

"And Roger must go abroad, alone?"

"I suppose so, if he goes at all."

Mr. Congreve sighed, and Olive began to tap her foot impatiently on the gra.s.s.

"Uncle Ridley, I couldn't; I should hate him; I should hate myself and my art, too, if I felt that I owed all its success to some one else. He would be miserably unhappy, and so would I. Even if I loved him as he wants me to, I couldn't accept everything from him."

"Too proud, Olive, too proud; but then I suppose you are right; indeed, I shouldn't wonder if you were," muttered the old gentleman, walking slowly back and forth with his eyes down. "But I hate to take this word back to the boy, I do indeed."

"Well, I'm sure, he's a man, and I really think by this time, that he is quite reconciled to it. At any rate, he'll get over it before long,"

said Olive complacently.

"G.o.d bless my soul!" cried Mr. Congreve, pausing before her, with a puzzled wonder in his shrewd eyes. "Do you honestly so little realize what Roger's nature is, or how much the boy loves you, and how he is waiting to hear what word I bring!"

"He ought to know by this time that it is the same I gave to him. I told you, no, the day after you gave me the letter; surely, you told him so when you wrote."

"But I didn't, though. I thought, like as not, with the prospect of travel, you might change your mind after you'd thought about it more, and I told him that I was giving you time."

"You must think I am very weak and uncertain," said Olive with some impatience. "If he really is anxious for an answer, it is unkind to keep him waiting."

"Well, well, that's so, I know, but I must confess that I thought the masters and travel would bring you 'round," and Mr. Congreve shook his head, as if in dire perplexity.

"I had rather work day and night, and win my own success, be it ever so little, than to owe the widest fame to another. Besides, I don't want to be married, I wouldn't be for anything; I want to belong to myself, and do as I please!" cried Olive, vehemently; then slipped her arm through his, with a little coaxing gesture, such as she sometime used with the crusty old man, and said:

"There, Uncle Ridley, it is all settled, so let's not speak of it any more. There come Walter and Bea; we'll walk down to the gate and meet them."

This was all a month after the wedding, and it was the loveliest June Sunday, imaginable. Mr. Congreve had dreaded so to go back to Virginia without Jean, that he had yielded to their entreaties, and spent that length of time with them; but now he was going on the next day; and the old gentleman's feelings were so deeply stirred with the thought that he was obliged to resort to his crusty manners to hide them. He had most fervently hoped that Olive would change her mind, though possessed with an inward conviction that she would not; yet even while he so deeply regretted her decision, he could not but admire the independence, that refused to sit with idle hands, and receive every advantage and advancement from another. Surely, if Olive ever did marry, she would bring something to her husband besides her dependent self, and he might know, above all doubts, that indeed, he was truly loved in her heart of hearts.

Every member of the family had grown to dearly love the crusty, abrupt, peculiar old man, who wore the goodness of his heart like a mantle about him, yet so modest with it. They never knew, until after he had left them, how much good he had quietly done in his morning walks about Canfield. How he had bought poor little lame Katie Gregg a great wax doll, that could speak and cry; filled the pantry of the hard-working widow mother with packages unnumbered, pretending to be so innocent of the deed, when she found who was the giver, and tried to thank him.

There came to them, for many days after he had gone, reports, here and there, of the little deeds of kindness and acts of thoughtful generosity, the need of which, he had discovered at odd times and said nothing about, with the modesty which is characteristic of the true giver.

The parting was a truly sad one, yet not without its funny side, for the old gentleman was so torn up in mind that his actions were irresistibly funny. He whisked his red handkerchief about with such energy that its edges were pretty near in strips; and he blew his poor old nose in such repeated and violent fashions, that it clearly resembled a highly colored tomato.

"There won't be any little girl any where," he said, mournfully. "It will be so lonesome in the morning, and in the evening, and all in the day, and I will wonder if Jeanie is never coming down stairs to sit in my lap in the old library. I shall get cross, and ugly as a bear, for want of two little hands to smooth the wrinkles out of my old forehead, and a dear little girl to keep my heart in good working order. It will all be dreadful! dreadful!"

There was something pathetic in the picture they made, sitting there.

The old man, with his white head and tear dimmed eyes, holding Jean in his lap, with her arms about his neck, and his wrinkled cheek rested on her curly hair.

"I haven't very much longer to live," he went on, in that pathetic way, "and I shall have to crawl through the last little while all by myself.

I suppose the dear good Lord knows best, but I don't see why He gave me two little girls to love, and then took them both away. Even Olive won't go back with me, and Roger will go off, and it will be dreadful!

dreadful!"

So far down had the poor man's spirits gone, that he seemed perfectly lost in pathetic resignation. Even the apparently unquenchable handkerchief hung limp and inactive from a coat-tail pocket, where it had been jammed in a moment of unresigned despair; and the big tears dropped one by one on Jeanie's hair, as he talked now in that quiet, grieved way.

"Will you come back to us?" asked Mrs. Dering, much touched, and laying her hands on his shoulder. "We should so love to have you, Uncle Ridley, all of us. Go home and send Roger off if he wants to go; leave the Hall with such old servants as you can trust, and then come back to us, and call this home. Will you?"

"Will I?" Mr. Congreve jumped up, and the handkerchief came out in all its color and activity. "Are you really in earnest, Elizabeth? Would you have such a crusty old humbug as I am, around?"

"In the truest and warmest earnest, Uncle Ridley."

"Oh, please do," cried Jean eagerly; and the other girls echoed it.

"If I ever! G.o.d bless my soul! I never did!" exclaimed Mr. Congreve, falling back into his chair, perfectly overcome. "You will let me come and stay till next summer, then you and Jean and Ernestine go home with me, as you promised?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Dering.

"Well, well, I might have known that the good Lord would fix it some way. That's just the thing. I'll do it, Elizabeth; I will. Where's my snuff-box and satchel! It's pretty near train time."

Jean ran to get them, while Mr. Congreve went up stairs to say good-bye to Ernestine; and when he went off at last, it was in the gayest possible spirits, with promises to be back as soon as Roger started abroad; and so all the sadness was taken from the parting.

They thought he would be back in, at least, a month, but the time lengthened itself into three and four, and yet he did not come. Roger was sick, to begin with, and did not gain strength very rapidly, and nothing could have made the old man leave him.

"But I can stand it very well," he wrote. "I know that it's not going to last, so I can keep up plenty of spirits, with thinking of the time when I will come. The boy is getting better fast, and as soon as he settles up a little business, he is off, and then I will shut up and be off likewise, in a hurry."

But they at home, found hands and hearts busy with new work that was sadly brief and bitter. As the warm weather came, Ernestine began to fail rapidly. She suffered no new pain, and uttered no complaint, but as the days went by, and the intense heat of summer burned all purity and life from the air, she just seemed to droop, and bow her head feebly beneath the oppressive heat; and the frail stem of life snapped, with the weight of its own slight self. They had hoped against hope, that the sad end could be fought off, and with the first coming of warm days, Mrs. Dering had proposed going to the sea-side with her; but Dr.

Barnett, who had fought eagerly and desperately with the dread disease, told them that it would do no good. The excitement might only hasten the end, and better to leave her quiet, and so contentedly happy as she seemed, than to bring new faces and new scenes to worry and distract the last feeble remnant of her strength. So they submitted themselves to his word, as one of authority, and took upon themselves the sad duty of watching a loved life drift peacefully out, and trying to say, as the end drew near: "Thy will be done."

The big rocking-chair, the pretty wrappers, and gayly colored sacques were all laid aside now. The feeblest strength could no longer lift the frail form, and all the patient sufferer said when lifted or moved was, "I'm so tired; that will do; it is quite easy." Then the short breath would give out, and she could only thank them with her eyes, that daily grew more eloquently beautiful, as though the spirit, refined through suffering, were taking its last, long farewell look at mother and sisters, and uttering wordless thanks, which the heart loving then framed, but the lips weakly refused to utter.

"The end is not far off," Dr. Barnett said, one sultry August night, after he had left the sick-room. "I shall go down and telegraph for Olive to come on the first train."

Mrs. Dering laid her clasped hands on his arms with a little gasp, as of one long expecting a bitter draught, and finding the cup held to her lips at last. But she was very quiet.

"You think it will come to-night?"

"Hardly. She may live through to-morrow, but no longer, mother."

There was something so helpful in his presence, the warm, loving utterance of that dear name, and the strong, tender clasp of his hands, and she clung to him for a moment, as in recognition of the comfort and help he was, and had been in these sad days.

"They have telegraphed for Olive," Kittie whispered to Kat and Jean, as they three sat sleeplessly on the bedside, with their arms about each other, and a pale, hushed awe in their faces.

"That means that she is going to die," cried Kat, trembling. "Oh, how dreadful it is! I don't think it's right, no I don't."

"Hush," said Kittie, solemnly; but she couldn't say any more. Her own heart was sadly rebellious, and could not think it was right.