Wives and Widows; or The Broken Life Part 20

It was a splendid afternoon. The sunshine, warm and golden, without being oppressive, was softened by transparent clouds that drifted like currents and waves of gauze athwart the sky. The meadows were full of daisies, b.u.t.tercups, and crimson clover, through which the blue-flies and b.u.mble-bees fluttered and hummed their drowsy music. In the pastures clouds of gra.s.shoppers sprang up, with a whir, from the cl.u.s.ters of white everlasting that sprinkled the slopes like a snow-storm; and little birds bent down the stately mullein-stalks with their weight, and sang cheerily after me from the crooks of the fences.

How I loved these little creatures with their bright eyes and graceful ways! How quietly they opened my heart to those sweet impulses that make one grateful and child-like! My step grew buoyant, and I felt a cool, fresh color mounting to my cheeks. The walk had done me good. I had been too much in the house, indulging in strange fancies that were calculated to make no one happy, and were, perhaps, unjust. How could I have sunk into this state of mind? Was I jealous of Mrs. Dennison? Yes, possibly!

But not as another would have understood the feeling. It was rather hard to hear the whole household singing her praises from morning till night; and Jessie, my own Jessie, seemed so bound up in the woman.

Well, after all, these things seemed much more important in the house, where I felt like an involuntary prisoner, than they appeared to me, with the open fields breathing fragrance around me, and the blue skies speaking beautifully of the beneficent G.o.d who reigned above them.

I really think the birds in that neighborhood had learned to love me a little, they gave such quaint little looks, and burst into such volumes of song among the hazel-bushes as I pa.s.sed. Before I knew it, fragments of melodies were on my own lips. I gathered handful after handful of the meadow-flowers, grouping the choicest into bouquets, and scattering the rest along my path. Thus you might have tracked my progress by tufts of gra.s.s, and golden lilies, as the little boy in fairy history was traced by the pebble-stones he dropped.

Mrs. Bosworth's house was one of the oldest and finest of those ponderous Dutch mansions that are scattered over Pennsylvania. There were rich lands to back that old-fashioned building, and any amount of invested property, independent of the lands. After all, young Bosworth was no contemptible match for our Jessie, even in a worldly point of view. If his residence lacked something of the elegance and modern appointments for which ours was remarkable, it had an aspect of age and affluence quite as imposing. Indeed, in some respects it possessed advantages which our house could not boast.

Majestic trees that struck their roots in a virgin soil, and shrubbery that had grown almost into trees, surrounded the old house. One great, white lilac-bush lifted itself above the second-story windows, and old-fashioned white roses clambered half over the stone front. Then there was a huge honeysuckle that spread itself like a banner upon one corner, garlanding the eaves, and dropping down in rich festoons from the roof itself.

But all this was nothing compared to that magnificent elm-tree, which overhung a wing of the building with its tent-like branches, through which the wind was eternally whispering, and the sunshine was broken into faint flashes before it reached the roof. I had never been so much impressed with the dignity of old times, as when I approached this dwelling. It possessed all the respectability of a family mansion, growing antique in the prosperity which surrounded it, without any attempt at modern improvements.

The very flowers on the premises were old-fashioned; great snow-ball bushes and rows of fruit-trees predominating. In the square garden, with its pointed picket-fence, that ran along the road, I saw cl.u.s.ters of smallage, and thickets of delicate fennel. On each side the broad threshold-stone stood green boxes running over with live-forever and house-leeks, while all around the lower edges of the stone foundation that exquisite velvet moss, which we oftenest find on old houses, was creeping.

I lifted the heavy bra.s.s knocker very cautiously, for it was ponderous enough to have reverberated through the house. Even the light blow I gave frightened me. No wonder people felt constrained to m.u.f.fle knockers like that in the good old times, when sickness came to the family.

A quiet, middle-aged colored woman came to the door. She knew me at once, though it was the first time I had entered the house in years.

"Come in, Miss Hyde," she said, welcoming me with a genial look. "Mrs.

Bosworth said, if you called she would come right straight down and see you; so walk in."

She opened the door of a sitting-room on the right of the hall. It was old-fashioned like the exterior of the building. Windows sunk deep into the wall, ponderous chairs, and a capacious, high-backed sofa with crimson cushions, and embroidered footstools standing before it,--all had an air of comfortable ease. The carpet had been very rich in its time, and harmonized well with the rest of the apartment.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER.

I seated myself on the sofa, and waited with some anxiety. Surely, my young friend must be very ill to have abandoned this room for his own!

What a comfortable look the place had! How delightfully all the tints were toned down! There stood a queer, old work-table, with any amount of curiously twisted legs, and on it an antique bible, mounted and clasped with silver. Such books are only to be found now in the curiosity shops of the country. Under this table, and somehow lodged among its complication of legs, was the old lady's work-basket, in which I detected a silver-mounted case for knitting-needles, some b.a.l.l.s of worsted, and an embroidered needle-book. Ladies are always noticing these little feminine details; they aid us greatly in that quick knowledge of character which men are apt to set down as intuition.

While I was thinking over these speculations, a step in the hall, and the rich, heavy rustle of those old silks that our grandmothers were so proud of, disturbed me. The door opened, and an old lady, very old indeed, came into the room.

I stood up involuntarily, for the person of this old lady was so imposing, that it exacted a degree of homage which I had never felt before. I can imagine a figure like that, wandering through the vast picture-galleries of some fine English castle, and there I should have given her a t.i.tle at first sight. As it was, her person struck me with amazement. Not that it was out of keeping with the premises, but because this lady was altogether a grander and older person than I had expected to see in that house.

She received my salutation with a slow curtsy, very slight and dignified in its movement, and, advancing to a huge, crimson easy-chair that stood near the work-table, sat down.

"My daughter is in her son's room," she said, in a soft and measured voice, glancing at me with her placid eyes. "He is very ill, and we are frightened about him."

"Is not this sudden?" I inquired.

"Yes, very; we don't know what to make of it. He is always so healthy and so cheerful; something has gone wrong with him, Miss Hyde."

She looked at me earnestly, as if expecting that I would explain the something which was beyond her understanding.

I felt myself blushing. It was not for me to speak of Jessie's affairs to any one, certainly not in a case like this.

The old lady dropped her eyes, and, taking her knitting-case from the basket, laid it in her lap, evidently disposed to give me time. At length she spoke again.

"My grandson has enjoyed himself so much since we came to the country, especially since his friend, Mr. Lawrence, arrived; and now to have him struck down all at once--it is disheartening!"

"Is he so very ill?" I inquired.

"He has been restless and excited, more or less, for a week or more, but during the last three days has fallen seriously ill. Now he is entirely out of his head; my daughter sat up with him all last night; the doctor was here this morning. He p.r.o.nounces it a brain-fever."

I was really disturbed. She saw it and went on.

"He asked for you three or four times during the night; and--and for another person whom we could not venture to invite here."

"I am glad you sent for me," I replied, anxious to waive all explanation. "At home they consider me a tolerable nurse."

She looked at me seriously a moment, and then said, in a gentle, impressive way,--

"Miss Hyde, be kind to an old woman who has nothing but the good of her child at heart, and tell me if Miss Lee has--has repulsed my grandson?"

"No, not that, madam; but, but--"

"She has rejected him, I see it by your face; I suspected it from his wanderings," she said, sorrowfully.

I was silent; the mournful accents of her voice touched my heart.

"You have no hope to give the old woman?" she said. "Yet to her it seems impossible for any one not to love Bosworth."

"I am sure there is no man living for whom Miss Lee has more respect," I answered.

She smiled a little sadly.

"Respect! That is a cold word to the young heart, Miss Hyde."

That moment the door opened and Bosworth's mother came in. She was altogether unlike the stately old lady with whom I was conversing. Her small figure, wavering black eyes, and restless manner, spoke of an entirely different organism, which was natural enough, as she was only connected with the stately dame by marriage with her son, a union that had been consecrated by an early widowhood.

It was easy to see that the elder lady was mistress of that house, and that the daughter-in-law held her in profound reverence. Poor lady! she was in great distress, and came up to me at once.

"You are kind, very kind," she exclaimed; "he has asked for you so often. Oh! Miss Hyde, it is terrible to see him in this state with no way of helping."

"It is indeed," I answered, pitying her from my heart.

"Will you go up now? He asked for you and some one else only a few minutes ago," she said, walking up and down the room in nervous distress. "It was an out-of-the-way thing to send for you, almost a stranger, for the Ridge has been empty so long that you all seem like new people, but I am sure you will excuse it. Oh! Miss Hyde, we love him so. We two lonely women, and to lose him!"

Here the poor mother burst into a pa.s.sion of tears; while the old lady sat down by her work-table and looked on with a sorrowful countenance.

A noise from up-stairs arrested the younger Mrs. Bosworth in her walk.

"He is calling," she said. "Oh! Miss Hyde, he cannot bear me out of his sight! Just as it was years ago, when he would plead with me to sit by his bed, after our mother there insisted on the lamp being put out."