The Heart of Arethusa Part 7

But Miss Eliza was not much of a believer in going to town, and she considered it a waste of time to drive about merely to be driving. The old-fashioned surrey, with its dark green felt upholstery, and its flapping curtains, was rarely taken out of the barn without a distinct objective point in view. Church and prayer-meeting at the tiny frame house of worship on the Pike were the princ.i.p.al dissipations of this "household of women." Though Arethusa had often rebelled inwardly at these arbitrary decisions which so limited her excursions abroad, outward rebellion would have done her no good; Miss Eliza was firm and ruled her little kingdom with a rod of iron.

Under cover of the discussion between Miss Eliza and Miss Let.i.tia, Miss Asenath was having a few ideas of her own on other subjects.

"Why," she asked Arethusa, in her soft voice, "why do you dislike Timothy so much, dear?"

"Dislike Timothy, Aunt 'Senath!" Arethusa's eyes opened wide in surprise, "Why, I don't, at all! I like him just lots!"

"Then why," continued Miss Asenath, smiling just a little, "do you quarrel with him so?"

"I don't quarrel with him, Aunt 'Senath, dear.... Not.... Not much...."

added for the sake of honesty, after thought.

"I thought you all had rather a bad time at supper."

"Oh, that," Arethusa tossed her head, "that was all Timothy's fault.

He's.... He's just awful sometimes. He makes me so mad I could just...." both hands clenched, "and he had on father's clothes!"

"I see. But he's worn them before, dear."

"I know he has, Aunt 'Senath, and every time he does, it makes me just as mad. He.... He doesn't belong in Father's clothes! They don't suit him at all!"

Miss Asenath was silent.

'Way deep down in her heart was a Wish; but it was a Wish she had never expressed to anyone because she was wise, and she knew that wishes expressed were often not granted.

Timothy and Arethusa were nearer and dearer to her than any two people in the world. Timothy was his grandfather over again, name and all, she sometimes thought.

Miss Asenath had not resented it when that first Timothy Jarvis had married. It had hurt her a little, naturally, when she had first heard of it; but her loving heart had very soon understood. An active man could not be expected to view those months before that terrible fall as did she, pinned always to the one spot. There were long hours of both day and night in which she had naught to do but to lie still and remember the joy of those months. And nothing could ever take that away from her, she told herself: it was hers for always, and it was a great deal. So she had clung to her miniature and her memories and sent for him to wish him happiness; and she had wished it with her whole soul from the bottom of her heart. She had loved his sons and daughters when they came, but even more than they, she loved this grandson and namesake, Timothy.

And to see Timothy and Arethusa pick up the threads of her love-story where she had laid them down would almost have compensated Miss Asenath for living all these years with only memories.

Miss Asenath laid her hand on the locket at her throat, and fell to dreaming.

"Timothy," said Arethusa, half to herself, "Timothy and I get along just beautifully sometimes ... when he behaves. But he knows all the things I hate, and I think he does them just for spite to see me get mad. He says he likes to see me get mad, and I ... just like a goose, go right straight ahead and get mad for him. But I'll fix Timothy Jarvis yet for to-night! Just let him wait! If he thinks I'm going to let him ride all over me like that, he's mightily mistaken! Timothy Jarvis!!" with a most scornful emphasis, her voice rising.

Miss Asenath was conscious, although her thoughts were so very far away, of the vindictiveness of this ending, and smiled; Miss Eliza, catching Timothy's name through the sound of her own conversation, asked sharply:--

"What did you say about Timothy, Arethusa?"

Miss Eliza had a Wish also, but her Wish was quite often expressed; she had other ideas than Miss Asenath. She kept Arethusa fully cognizant of what her heart most earnestly desired.

"Nothing very much, Aunt 'Liza."

"Yes, you did. I heard you. Arethusa," Miss Eliza straightened her gla.s.ses and attacked directly, "the way you treated Timothy at the supper-table ... all through the meal.... It's beyond my comprehension how you can! But he was a gentleman through the whole thing, I must say, a perfect gentleman. Which ought to make you more than ever ashamed of yourself. Sometimes I'm forced to think that all the training your Aunt 't.i.tia and I and your Aunt 'Senath have given you has gone for naught. To treat a guest in your own home the way you did Timothy! I was scandalised!! Simply scandalized! But I must say that Timothy behaved like a gentleman."

It was what Timothy would have termed "dirt mean" of Miss Eliza to add this extra chapter to the thorough scolding for the afternoon which she had given Arethusa such a short while before. But Timothy was Miss Eliza's most vulnerable spot; one of her few weaknesses.

"He always does," muttered Arethusa, "according to you. But you don't hear anything he says, he's too smart!"

"What's that?" Miss Eliza looked quite ready for battle.

"Nothing, Aunt 'Liza."

"There was something. You said something about Timothy, Arethusa, for I heard you ... again. That habit of yours of answering 'nothing,' when I ask you to repeat what you have said, is decidedly disrespectful."

Miss Eliza reached around for a copy of the _Christian Observer_ which was lying on the sitting room table (the most secular reading she ever did were the stories and articles in its pages) and settled her shiny gla.s.ses firmly on the bridge of her nose. Then she drew the lamp nearer and turned it up just a trifle, preparing to enjoy a long discussion of the burning of Servetus which she had been saving for several weeks to read when she would have time to do so uninterrupted.

It was signed "Calvinist," and Miss Eliza had the feeling that she was going to agree with every word of it.

Then as a parting shot, as she rattled the pages open:

"You must conduct yourself more like a lady with Timothy, Arethusa, or I'm very much afraid he won't want to marry you."

"Won't want to marry me!" Arethusa sprang hotly from her seat on the couch. "It's me that don't want to marry Timothy!"

"You do not know what you are saying," very coldly and decidedly from Miss Eliza. "Of course you want to. It is fitting in every way, most fitting. He is the right age, the families have known each other always, and the lands adjoin."

This with Miss Eliza was the clinching argument. The Jarvis Farm was on both sides of the Pike, but on one side it enclosed the Redfield Farm north and west and south, and went nearly to town. The "V" lot, especially, seemed to Miss Eliza to be in a position that made annexation desirable. The marriage of Timothy and Arethusa would make one Farm of the two, and straighten all those irregular boundaries.

When so made, it would be by far the largest individual piece of property in the County. For to Arethusa, as the sole descendant of the Redfields, would go some day all the land of their owning, and to Timothy had already been left the home Farm of his grandfather, because of his name.

"I shall never marry Timothy," said Arethusa, "Never! If the land was plaited in and out, I never would!"

Miss Eliza put the _Christian Observer_ down in her lap; her gla.s.ses slipped to the end of her nose.

"Why?"

"Oh, Sister, don't!"

Miss Let.i.tia gazed distressfully from Miss Eliza to Arethusa, and then back to Miss Eliza again. Her round, good-natured little face was all drawn up and distorted with worry, just as it always was when war threatened, even remotely, between Miss Eliza and Arethusa. And these bouts concerning the girl's marriage to Timothy occurred so often without any advantage to either side.

"Because I shan't."

"That's no reason. You must have some sort of a reason. You can have no really valid objection to Timothy, Arethusa. He is quite handsome, and very likeable. _I_ am devoted to him, myself."

Miss Asenath felt quite like answering for Arethusa that this last statement was most irrelevant, but she refrained. There was really no use in adding the slightest fuel to flames already sufficiently high.

"You speak of the land being plaited in and out," continued Miss Eliza, looking sternly over her gla.s.ses. "That was a most foolish remark. Such a thing could never be, and you know it. I do not want you to marry Timothy for his land, of course. I merely mention its situation as next to what will some day be your own as making the alliance just that much more desirable. For heaven knows what will happen to the Farm when you do get it, if you haven't some sensible man to take care of it for you!

But there are other things about Timothy that would make him a husband any girl could be proud of. There are plenty of them in this very County would jump at the chance you've had."

"They're very welcome to him!"

Arethusa thought it best not to say this too loud, but unfortunately Miss Eliza heard.

"I'm ashamed of you, Arethusa, if you're not ashamed of yourself. It's throwing away the opportunity of a life-time. I wish I was young, and in your shoes. Have you refused him lately?"

No answer from Arethusa. She picked at the soft blue fleece of Miss Asenath's comfort until she had collected quite a little pile of down, which she made into a ball and put as carefully to one side as if she intended it for some future use. Miss Asenath watched her sympathetically. If it would have done the slightest good she would have entered the breach, but when Miss Eliza reached the stage of her argument of pointblank questions, it meant pursuit to the bitter end.

Miss Let.i.tia was not so wise. She had made three attempts to catch the loop of the same st.i.tch in her crocheting, and failed each time, in her excitement. This was a most unusual performance for her. Her crochet needle poised in mid-air.