We Girls: a Home Story Part 25

There was a cl.u.s.ter of them upon her bosom, and she held some in her left hand.

Dr. Hautayne looked n.o.bly handsome, as he came forward to her side in his military dress; but I think we all had another picture of him in our minds,--dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in his shirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When a man has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely _looks_ again.

Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw his gray, s.h.a.ggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as he fixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, as still water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock; and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was like the tender glimmering of a sunbeam.

When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand upon his shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face.

"Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And John looked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere apt and effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and in the eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along the strong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and said again,--

"Perhaps, then, John,--you'll do!"

"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what the church asks, in her service, though n.o.body asked it here to-day. But we all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Her father and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring, Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered in the door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining her pocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because she was smiling also and would not cover _that_ up,--gave; and n.o.body gave with a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowning Marmaduke Wharne.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

n.o.body knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in those autumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling every bright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so nice to have it to love grandfather by," said Ruth, like a little child.

"Everything is so pleasant," said Barbara, one sumptuous morning.

"I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like a bee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin." Barbara had a new dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; she had also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had brought up from Boston.

We felt rich in much prospectively; we could afford things better now; we had proposed and arranged a book-club; Miss Pennington and we were to manage it; Mrs. Scherman was to purchase for us. Ruth was to have plenty of music. Life was full and bright to us, this golden autumn-time, as it had never been before. The time itself was radiant; and the winter was stored beforehand with pleasures; Arctura was as glad as anybody; she hears our readings in the afternoons, when she can come up stairs, and sit mending stockings or hemming ap.r.o.ns.

We knew, almost for the first time, what it was to be without any pressure of anxiety. We dared to look round the house and see what was wearing out. We could replace things--_some_, at any rate--as well as not; so we had the delight of choosing, and the delight of putting by; it was a delicious perplexity. We all felt like Barbara's bee; and when she said that once she said it for every day, all through the new and happy time.

It was wonderful how little there was, after all, that we did want in any hurry. We thought it over. We did not care to carpet the dining-room; we liked the drugget and the dark wood-margins better. It came down pretty nearly, at last, so far as household improvements were concerned, to a new broadcloth cover for the great family table in the brown-room.

Barbara's _bee_-havior, however, had its own queer fluctuations at this time, it must be confessed. Whatever the reason was, it was not altogether to be depended on. It had its alternations of humming content with a good deal of whimsical bouncing and buzzing and the most unpredictable flights. To use a phrase of Aunt Trixie's applied to her childhood, but coming into new appropriateness now, Barbara "acted like a witch."

She began at the wedding. Only a minute or two before Leslie came down, Harry Goldthwaite moved over to where she stood just a little apart from the rest of us, by the porch door, and placed himself beside her, with some little commonplace word in a low tone, as befitted the hushed expectancy of the moment.

All at once, with an "O, I forgot!" she started away from him in the abruptest fashion, and glanced off across the room, and over into a little side parlor beyond the hall, into which she certainly had not been before that day. She could have "forgotten" nothing there; but she doubtless had just enough presence of mind not to rush up the staircase toward the dressing-rooms, at the risk of colliding with the bridal party. When Leslie an instant later came in at the double doors, Mrs. Holabird caught sight of Barbara again just sliding into the far, lower corner of the room by the forward entrance, where she stood looking out meekly between the shoulders and the floating cap-ribbons of Aunt Trixie Spring and Miss Arabel Waite during the whole ceremony.

Whether it was that she felt there was something dangerous in the air, or that Harry Goldthwaite had some new awfulness in her eyes from being actually a commissioned officer,--Ensign Goldthwaite, now, (Rose had borrowed from the future, for the sake of euphony and effect, when she had so retorted feet and dignities upon her last year,)--we could not guess; but his name or presence seemed all at once a centre of electrical disturbances in which her whisks and whirls were simply to be wondered at.

"I don't see why he should tell _me_ things," was what she said to Rosamond one day, when she took her to task after Harry had gone, for making off almost before he had done speaking, when he had been telling us of the finishing of some business that Mr. Goldthwaite had managed for him in Newburyport. It was the sale of a piece of property that he had there, from his father, of houses and building-lots that had been unprofitable to hold, because of uncertain tenants and high taxes, but which were turned now into a comfortable round sum of money.

"I shall not be so poor now, as if I had only my pay," said Harry. At which Barbara had disappeared.

"Why, you were both there!" said Barbara.

"Well, yes; we were there in a fashion. He was sitting by you, though, and he looked up at you, just then. It did not seem very friendly."

"I'm sure I didn't notice; I don't see why he should tell me things,"

said whimsical Barbara.

"Well, perhaps he will stop," said Rose, quietly, and walked away.

It seemed, after a while, as if he would. He could not understand Barbara in these days. All her nice, cordial, honest ways were gone.

She was always shying at something. Twice he was here, when she did not come into the room until tea-time.

"There are so many people," she said, in her unreasonable manner.

"They make me nervous, looking and listening."

We had Miss Craydocke and Mrs. Scherman with us then. We had asked them to come and spend a week with us before they left Z----.

Miss Craydocke had found Barbara one evening, in the twilight, standing alone in one of the brown-room windows. She had come up, in her gentle, old-friendly way, and stood beside her.

"My dear," she said, with the twilight impulse of nearness,--"I am an old woman. Aren't you pushing something away from you, dear?"

"Ow!" said Barbara, as if Miss Craydocke had pinched her. And poor Miss Craydocke could only walk away again.

When it came to Aunt Roderick, though, it was too much. Aunt Roderick came over a good deal now. She had quite taken us into unqualified approval again, since we had got the house. She approved herself also.

As if it was she who had died and left us something, and looked back upon it now with satisfaction. At least, as if she had been the September Gale, and had taken care of that paper for us.

Aunt Roderick has very good practical eyes; but no sentiment whatever.

"It seems to me, Barbara, that you are throwing away your opportunities," she said, plainly.

Barbara looked up with a face of bold unconsciousness. She was brought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she could not touch the nerve, as dear Miss Craydocke could.

"I always am throwing them away," said Barbara. "It's my fashion. I never could save corners. I always put my pattern right into the middle of my piece, and the other half never comes out, you see. What have I done, now? Or what do you think I might do, just at present?"

"I think you might save yourself from being sorry by and by," said Aunt Roderick.

"I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Barbara, collectedly. "Just as much as if I could understand. But perhaps there'll be some light given. I'll turn it over in my mind. In the mean while, Aunt Roderick, I just begin to see one very queer thing in the world. You've lived longer than I have; I wish you could explain it. There are some things that everybody is very delicate about, and there are some that they take right hold of. People might have _pocket_-perplexities for years and years, and no created being would dare to hint or ask a question; but the minute it is a case of heart or soul,--or they think it is,--they 'rush right in where angels fear to tread.' What _do_ you suppose makes the difference?"

After that, we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real mischief done, already.

"It's all of them, every one!" she repeated, half hysterically, that day, after her sh.e.l.l had exploded, and Aunt Roderick had retreated, really with great forbearance. "Miss Craydocke began, and I had to scream at her; even Sin Scherman made a little moral speech about her own wild ways, and set that baby crowing over me! And once Aunt Trixie 'vummed' at me. And I'm sure I ain't doing a single thing!" She whimpered and laughed, like a little naughty boy, called to account for mischief, and pretending surprised innocence, yet secretly at once enjoying and repenting his own badness; and so we had to let her alone.

But after a while Harry Goldthwaite stayed away four whole days, and then he only came in to say that he was going to Washington to be gone a week. It was October, now, and his orders might come any day. Then we might not see him again for three years, perhaps.

On the Thursday of that next week, Barbara said she would go down and see Mrs. Goldthwaite.

"I think it quite time you should," said Mrs. Holabird. Barbara had not been down there once since the wedding-day.

She put her crochet in her pocket, and we thought of course she would stay to tea. It was four in the afternoon when she went away.

About an hour later Olivia Marchbanks called.

It came out that Olivia had a move to make. In fact, that she wanted to set us all to making moves. She proposed a chess-club, for the winter, to bring us together regularly; to include half a dozen families, and meet by turn at the different houses.

"I dare say Miss Pennington will have her neighborhood parties again," she said; "they are nice, but rather exhausting; we want something quiet, to come in between. Something a little more among ourselves, you know. Maria Hendee is a splendid chess-player, and so is Mark. Maud plays with her father, and Adelaide and I are learning.

I know you play, Rosamond, and Barbara,--doesn't she? n.o.body can complain of a chess-club, you see; and we can have a table at whist for the elders who like it, and almost always a round game for the odds and ends. After supper, we can dance, or anything. Don't you think it would do?"

"I think it would do nicely for _one_ thing," said Rose, thoughtfully.

"But don't let us allow it to be the _whole_ of our winter."