The Harvest of Years Part 2

"Come, mademoiselle, come to my room, please," and of course I went, making a mock courtesy as if I were a queen, and she my maid. She unpinned my linen collar and unhooked my dress, while I sat wonder struck, saying nothing until I felt the fleecy blue silk being thrown over my shoulders, when I essayed to articulate something. But when my head emerged from the dress, she playfully covered my mouth with her hand, and proceeded to fasten the dress which seemed just to fit; then came the delicate lace and the lemon bow. Taking my hand she led me to the gla.s.s, surveyed me from head to foot, clapped her hands like a glad child, and cried,

"A perfect fit, but I was afraid."

"Why, Clara," I said, "how, what?"

"Never, never mind, you like it, I did it myself, and I wore it first only to see how it struck you. 'Tis yours, my dear, go and put it away."

I did not say thank you even, for she would not let me. I just kissed her and went to my room, to my little room with its high-post bedstead, three wooden chairs and shabby hair-cloth trunk, and dressed in that beautiful blue dress with that new silk bow. I could not help taking the old one out of the drawer to contrast it with the new, and although it did look soiled and shabby, I thought I was almost wicked to have felt so troubled at my little adornments, and then resolved to keep that little old faded lemon ribbon as long as I should live, and I have it now.

Carefully I unpinned that new bow, laying it, with the first real lace collars I had ever owned, in a mahogany box, as tenderly as though they were pearls, and hung the blue Foulard in my closet between my best much-worn alpaca and my afternoon gingham.

That night I dreamed that when father went to feed the chickens in the barn yard, a beautiful bird with silky wings of blue fluttered down among them to be fed. How impressible my artless brain! As great an event was this to me, as the inauguration of our highest potentate to the people.

Next morning I opened the closet door before dressing, and looked at the new dress. The more I thought about it the more I wondered when or where I should ever wear it, and not until a traveling suit, the fac-simile of Clara's, was dropped upon me did I realize how the blue Foulard was fitted to my shoulders. In her own sweet way she told me, that though we were to remain only a few days at her home in the city, yet her friends would surely call, and I must take the Foulard to wear in the afternoons. Dear little soul, how tender she was of everybody's feelings, and with what true womanly tact she turned, as far as possible, every one into a pleasant path! Quick to notice needs, she always applied her gifts with the greatest grace and tact, and without making any one feel under obligation to her.

The morning of August thirteenth dawned upon us not altogether smiling, since the sky looked as if inclined to weep. We started, however, on our intended journey, and more than once the old stage-driver looked around to catch a glimpse of my darling friend, who was quite a wonderment to the country folk. Inaccurate rumors of Clara and her fortune had been talked about among them--yet none knew just how it all was, except our family, and we would betray no secrets that she wished kept. I hardly recognized myself when at last we arrived at our journey's end, and I was in Clara's home. Never before had I seen myself reflected in a long pier-gla.s.s, and never on earth did I seem so homely; my hands were too large and awkward, and I sat so uncomfortably on the luxurious chairs.

Clara noticed my discomfort and kept me changing from one position to another, until I was so vexed with myself I insisted on sitting in a corner and persuaded Clara that my head ached. The compa.s.sionate soul believed it and was bathing my temples, when a light step aroused us both, and a moment later she was in the arms of her beloved son, whom she proudly introduced to me.

I was surprised at his appearance--I thought him a boy, and so he was in years, but if Clara had not told me his age, I should have guessed him to be twenty-five. He had large dark eyes, a glorious head, perfect in its shape, an intellectual forehead, and the most finely chiselled mouth, most expressive of all his feelings; his lips parted in such loving admiration of his mother and closed so lovingly upon her own.

After a profound bow to myself and a hearty grasp of the hand, he drew her to the crimson cushions of a tete-a-tete standing near, and pa.s.sing his arm around her held her closely to him, as if afraid he would lose her. I envied her, and any heart might well envy the pa.s.sionate devotion of a son like Louis Robert Desmonde.

I wanted to leave them to themselves, but as I could not do this, I covered my head, which really ached now, with my hands, and tried hard not to listen to their audible conversation, but from that time I appreciated what was meant by the manly love of this son, differing so widely from anything I had ever before known. Like his mother, he had great tact, and suited himself exactly to conditions and persons.

I moved as in a dream. Everything that wealth could lavish on a home was here. I occupied Clara's own room with her, and it seemed at night as if I lay in a fairy chamber; there were silken draperies of delicate blue, a soft velvety carpet whose ground was the same beautiful blue, covered with vines like veins traced through it, and ma.s.sive furniture with antique carving, and everything in such exquisite taste, even to the decorated toilette set on the bureau. Everything I thought was in perfect correspondence except the face on my lace-fringed pillow. I seemed so sadly out of place. I wondered if Clara was really contented with her humbly-furnished room at our house. Callers came as she had predicted, and it was all in vain my trying to keep out of the sight of those "_city people_." Insisting on my presence, and knowing well I should escape to our room if left by myself, Louis was authorized to guard me, and I had no chance of escape; I felt myself an intruder upon his time, every moment until during the last evenings of my stay, when in the lighted parlors quite a happy company gathered. I then had an opportunity of seeing a little of his thought, running as an undercurrent to his nature. Clara had been singing with such sweetness of expression and pathetic emphasis, that my eyes were filled with tears of emotion. Miss Lear, a young lady friend, followed her, and sang with such a shrill voice, such unprecedented flying about among the octaves, that it shocked me through every nerve, and I trembled visibly and uttered an involuntary exclamation of impatience. Louis caught my hand, and the moment she ended, whispered:

"Are you frightened?"

"Oh!" I said, "she is your guest, but where is her soul?"

"In heaven awaiting her, I suspect," he replied, "but, Miss Emily, she is a fair type of a society woman. I have just been thinking that to-morrow at sunset I hope to be among the birds and beneath the sky of your native town; one can breathe there; I am glad to go."

"I don't want you to go," I said, impetuously (poor Emily did it).

He turned his full dark eyes upon me, and I felt the tide that flooded cheek and brow with crimson.

"Explain to me, Miss Emily," he said, "you love to keep my mother there."

"I did not mean to say it, Louis, but it is true."

"Why true?"

"I am so sorry--"

My dilemma was a queer one; I had to explain, and the tears that gathered when his mother sang, came back as I described our plain home.

"I love my home, it is good enough for me, I could not exchange it even with you, but you will think us rude, uncultivated people, I fear; you will find no attraction there; everything is as homely there as I am myself!"

And I never can forget how his bright, dark eyes grew humid with sympathy, to be covered with the sunlight of his smile at the earnest honesty of my remarks, especially the last one.

"Ah! Miss Emily, you know not your friend; I am more anxious than ever to go, and care not if you are sorry."

"I am glad now of my unexpected speech," I replied, "and feel as if I had really been to the confessional; your mother is so sensitive, I could not tell her, and I have kept this thought constantly before me, 'He will not stay if he goes, and I am sure he cannot eat rye bread and b.u.t.ter.'"

"You will see, Miss Emily, how I shall eat it, but we are to be interrupted; here comes the soulless girl that shocked you so; mother is with her; excuse me for a moment," and he made his way to a corner of the parlors, seating himself alone as if in reverie.

"Mademoiselle Emily, my friend, Miss Lear, desires an introduction to you; be seated, Miss Lear," and Clara took the chair on the other side; the disappointment of Miss Lear, in not finding Louis, was visible, even to my unpractised eye, and her tender enquiries of his mother regarding his health etc., were amusing.

I saw her furtive glances at my plain toilette, and knew she thought me a lowly wild flower on life's great meadow, a dandelion, unnecessary to be included in a fashionable nosegay, and while these thoughts were pa.s.sing through my mind, Clara left us to ourselves, and, feeling in duty bound to say something to me, she began:

"Mrs. Desmonde tells me your house is in the country; how sublime the country is! You see sunrises and sunsets, do you not?"

"I hope I do," I replied. "There is great pleasure in watching nature."

"Oh! the country is so sublime, don't you think so?"

"Well that depends on your ideas of the sublime; I do not imagine milking cows and b.u.t.ter-making would correspond with the general ideas of sublimity."

"Oh!" and she tossed her befrizzled head in lofty disdain, "that is perfectly horrid, I cannot see how human beings endure such things; oh!

dear, what a poor hand I should be at living under such circ.u.mstances."

"You would perhaps enjoy the general housework more, leaving the problem of the dairy to another."

"Housework?--I--ah! I see you are unlearned--beg your pardon--in society ways. Do my hands betray symptoms of housework?" and she laughed ironically.

At this moment Louis came to take the seat his mother had left, and heard of course my reply to Miss Lear's last remark.

"Yes, I know I am verdant in the extreme, and must plead guilty also to the charge of milking, churning and housework; I take, however, some pride in trying to do all these things well, and I believe the most fastidious can partake of the creamy b.u.t.ter rolls, we make at home."

"Bravo," exclaimed Louis, "pray tell me what elicited Miss Emily's speech?"

"We were talking of the country," I replied, growing bold; "Miss Lear thinks the country is sublime, but the b.u.t.ter-making, etc., horrid."

"Well," said Miss Lear, "it may be my ideas are rather crude, but really I cannot imagine I could ever make b.u.t.ter! Do you think I could, Mr.

Desmonde?" leaning forward to catch Louis' eye, and plying her flashy fan with renewed energy and great care to show the ring of emeralds and diamonds that glistened on her right fore-finger.

"I cannot say, Miss Lear, I am going up to find out the ways and expect to be Miss Emily's a.s.sistant. I imagine it takes brain to do farm work."

Miss Lear waited to rally a little and said only, "Complimentary in the extreme! Pray tell me the hour, I think my carriage must be here;" then the fashion-plate shook hands with us both and departed.

I felt almost ashamed, and repeated verbatim to Louis our conversation; he laughed, and, patting my shoulder, said:

"You spoke quite rightly, she was impertinent, pardon her ignorant vanity."

Then I stood with Louis and Clara in the centre of the parlors and received the adieux of their friends. Louis carried his mother in his arms up stairs and soon dreams carried me home to green fields and b.u.t.ter-making.