XI. PEGGY
by Alice Brown
"Remember," said Charles Edward--he had run in for a minute on his way
home from the office where he has been clearing out his desk, "for good
and all," he tells us--"remember, next week will see us out of this
land of the free and home of the talkative." He meant our sailing. I
shall be glad to be with him and Lorraine. "And whatever you do. Peg,
don't talk, except to mother. Talk to her all you want to. Mother has
the making of a woman in her. If mother'd been a celibate, she'd have
been, also, a peach."
"But I don't want to talk," said I. "I don't want to talk to anybody."
"Good for you," said Charles Edward. "Now I'll run along."
I sat there on the piazza watching him, thinking he'd been awfully good
to me, and feeling less bruised, somehow, than I do when the rest of
the family advise me--except mother! And I saw him stop, turn round as
if he were coming back, and then settle himself and plant his feet wide
apart, as he does when the family question him about business. Then I
saw somebody in light blue through the trees, and I knew it was Aunt
Elizabeth. Alice was down in the hammock reading and eating cookies,
and she saw her, too. Alice threw the book away and got her long legs
out of the hammock and ran. I thought she was coming into the house to
hide from Aunt Elizabeth. That's what we all do the first minute, and
then we recover ourselves and go down and meet her. But Alice dropped
on her knees by my chair and threw her arms round me.
"Forgive, Peggy," she moaned. "Oh, forgive!"
I saw she had on my fraternity pin, and I thought she meant that. So I
said, "You can wear it today"; but she only hugged me the tighter and
ran on in a rigmarole I didn't understand.
"She's coming, and she'll get it out of Lorraine, and they'll all be
down on us."
Charles Edward and Aunt Elizabeth stood talking together, and just then
I saw her put her hand on his shoulder.
"She's trying to come round him," said Alice.
I began to see she was really in earnest now. "He's squirming. Oh,
Peggy, maybe she's found it out some way, and she's telling him, and
they'll tell you, and you'll think I am false as hell!"
I knew she didn't mean anything by that word, because whenever she says
such things they're always quotations. She began to cry real tears.
"It was Billy put it into my head," said she, "and Lorraine put it into
his. Lorraine wanted him to write out exactly what he knew, and he
didn't know anything except about the telegram and how the letter got
wuzzled, and I told him I'd help him write it as it ought to be 'if
life were a banquet and beauty were wine'; but I told him we must make
him say in it how he'd got to conceal it from me, or they'd think we
got it up together. So I wrote it," said Alice, "and Billy copied it."
Perhaps I wasn't nice to the child, for I couldn't listen to her. I was
watching Charles Edward and Aunt Elizabeth, and saying to myself that
mother'd want me to sit still and meet Aunt Elizabeth when she
came--"like a good girl," as she used to say to me when I was little
and begged to get out of hard things. Alice went on talking and gasping.
"Peg," she said, "he's perfectly splendid--Dr. Denbigh is."
"Yes, dear," said I, "he's very nice."
"I've adored him for years," said Alice. "I could trust him with my
whole future. I could trust him with yours."
Then I laughed. I couldn't help it. And Alice was hurt, for some
reason, and got up and held her head high and went into the house. And
Aunt Elizabeth came up the drive, and that is how she found me
laughing. She had on a lovely light-blue linen. Nobody wears such
delicate shades as Aunt Elizabeth. I remember, one day, when she came
in an embroidered pongee over Nile-green, father groaned, and
grandmother said: "What is it, Cyrus? Have you got a pain?" "Yes," said
father, "the pain I always have when I see sheep dressed lamb fashion."
Grandmother laughed, but mother said: "Sh!" Mother's dear.
This time Aunt Elizabeth had on a great picture-hat with light-blue
ostrich plumes; it was almost the shape of her lavender one that
Charles Edward said made her look like a coster's bride. When she bent
over me and put both arms around me the plumes tickled my ear. I think
that was why I was so cross. I wriggled away from her and said: "Don't!"
Aunt Elizabeth spoke quite solemnly. "Dear child!" she said, "you are
broken, indeed."
And I began to feel again just as I had been feeling, as if I were in a
show for everybody to look at, and I found I was shaking all over, and
was angry with myself because of it. She had drawn up a chair, and she
held both my hands.
"Peggy," said she, "haven't you been to the hospital to see that poor
dear boy?"
I didn't have to answer, for there was a whirl on the gravel, and
Billy, on his bicycle, came riding up with the mail. He threw himself
off his wheel and plunged up the steps as he always does, pretended to
tickle his nose with Aunt Elizabeth's feathers as he passed behind her,
and whispered to me: "Shoot the hat!" But he had heard Aunt Elizabeth
asking if I were not going to see that poor dear boy, and he said, as
if he couldn't help it:
"Huh! I guess if she did she wouldn't get in. His mother's walking up
and down front of the hospital when she ain't with him, and she's got a
hook nose and white hair done up over a roll and an eye-glass on a
stick, and I guess there won't be no nimps and shepherdesses get by
HER."
Aunt Elizabeth stood and thought for a minute, and her eyes looked as
they do when she stares through you and doesn't see you at all. Alice
asked Charles Edward once if he thought she was sorrowing o'er the past
when she had that look, and he said: "Bless you, chile, no more than a
gentle industrious spider. She's spinning a web." But in a minute
mother had stepped out on the piazza, and I felt as if she had come to
my rescue. It was the way she used to come when I broke my doll or tore
my skirt. But we didn't look at each other, mother and I. We didn't
mean Aunt Elizabeth should see there was anything to rescue me from.
Aunt Elizabeth turned to mother, and seemed to pounce upon her.
"Ada," said she, "has my engagement been announced?"
"Not to my knowledge," said mother. She spoke with a great deal of
dignity. "I understood that the name of the gentleman had been
withheld."
"Withheld!" repeated Aunt Elizabeth. "What do you mean by 'withheld'?
Billy, whom are those letters for?"
In spite of ourselves mother and I started. Letters have begun to seem
rather tragic to us.
"One's the gas-bill," said Billy, "and one's for you." Aunt Elizabeth
took the large, square envelope and tore it open. Then she looked at
mother and smiled a little and tossed her head.
"This is from Lyman Wilde," said she.
I thought I had never seen Aunt Elizabeth look so young. It must have
meant something more to mother than it did to me, for she stared at her
a minute very seriously.
"I am truly glad for you, Elizabeth," she said. Then she turned to me.
"Daughter," said she, "I shall need you about the salad."
She smiled at me and went in. I knew what that meant. She was giving me
a chance to follow her, if I needed to escape. But there was hardly
time. I was at the door when Aunt Elizabeth rustled after so quickly
that it sounded like a flight. There on the piazza she put her arms
about me.
"Child!" she whispered. "Child! Verlassen! Verlassen!"
I drew away a little and looked at her. Then I thought: "Why, she is
old!" But I hadn't understood. I knew the word was German, and I hadn't
taken that in the elective course.
"What is it. Aunt Elizabeth?" I asked. I had a feeling I mustn't leave
her. She smiled a little--a queer, sad smile.
"Peggy," said she, "I want you to read this letter." She gave it to me.
It was written on very thick gray paper with rough edges, and there was
a margin of two inches at the left. The handwriting was beautiful, only
not very clear, and when I had puzzled over it for a minute she
snatched it back again.
"I'll read it to you," said she.
Well, I thought it was a most beautiful letter. The gentleman said she
had always been the ideal of his life. He owed everything--and by
everything he meant chiefly his worship of beauty--to her. He asked her
to accept his undying devotion, and to believe that, however far
distance and time should part them, he was hers and hers only. He said
he looked back with ineffable contempt upon the days when he had hoped
to build a nest and see her beside him there. Now he had reached the
true empyrean, and he could only ask to know that she, too, was winging
her bright way into regions where he, in another life, might follow and
sing beside her in liquid, throbbing notes to pierce the stars. He
ended by saying that he was not very fit--the opera season had been a
monumental experience this year--and he was taking refuge with an
English brotherhood to lead, for a time, a cloistered life instinct
with beauty and its worship, but that there as everywhere he was hers
eternally. How glad I was of the verbal memory I have been so often
praised for! I knew almost every word of that lovely letter by heart
after the one reading. I shall never forget it.
"Well?" said Aunt Elizabeth. She was looking at me, and again I saw how
long it must have been since she was young. "Well, what do you think of
it?"
I told the truth. "Oh," said I, "I think it's a beautiful letter!"
"You do!" said Aunt Elizabeth. "Does it strike you as being a
love-letter!"
I couldn't answer fast enough. "Why, Aunt Elizabeth," I said, "he tells
you so. He says he loves you eternally. It's beautiful!"
"You fool!" said Aunt Elizabeth. "You pink-cheeked little fool! You
haven't opened the door yet--not any door, not one of them--oh, you
happy, happy fool!" She called through the window (mother was arranging
flowers there for tea): "Ada, you must telephone the Banner. My
engagement is not to be announced." Then she turned to me. "Peggy'"
said she, in a low voice, as if mother was not to hear, "to-morrow you
must drive with me to Whitman."
Something choked me in my throat: either fear of her or dread of what
she meant to make me do. But I looked into her face and answered with
all the strength I had: "Aunt Elizabeth, I sha'n't go near the
hospital."
"Don't you think it's decent for you to call on Mrs. Goward?" she asked.
She gave me a little shake. It made me angry. "It may be decent," I
said, "but I sha'n't do it."
"Very well," said Aunt Elizabeth. Her voice was sweet again. "Then I
must do it for you. Nobody asks you to see Harry himself. I'll run in
and have a word with him--but, Peggy, you simply must pay your respects
to Mrs. Goward."
"No! no! no!" I heard myself answering, as if I were in some strange
dream. Then I said: "Why, it would be dreadful! Mother wouldn't let me!"
Aunt Elizabeth came closer and put her hands on my shoulders. She has a
little fragrance about her, not like flowers, but old laces, perhaps,
that have been a long time in a drawer with orris and face-powder and
things. "Peggy," said she, "never tell your mother I asked you."
I felt myself stiffen. She was whispering, and I saw she meant it.
"Oh, Peggy! don't tell your mother. She is not--not simpatica. I might
lose my home here, my only home. Peggy, promise me."
"Daughter!" mother was calling from the dining-room.
I slipped away from Aunt Elizabeth's hands. "I promise," said I. "You
sha'n't lose your home."
"Daughter!" mother called again, and I went in.
That night at supper nobody talked except father and mother, and they
did every minute, as if they wanted to keep the rest of us from
speaking a word. It was all about the Works. Father was describing some
new designs he had accepted, and telling how Charles Edward said they
would do very well for the trimmings of a hearse, and mother coughed
and said Charles Edward's ideas were always good, and father said not
where the market was concerned. Aunt Elizabeth had put on a white
dress, and I thought she looked sweet, because she was sad and had made
her face quite pale; but I was chiefly busy in thinking how to escape
before anybody could talk to me. It doesn't seem safe nowadays to speak
a word, because we don't know where it will lead us. Alice, too, looked
pale, poor child! and kept glancing at me in a way that made me so
sorry. I wanted to tell her I didn't care about her pranks and Billy's,
whatever they were. And whatever she had written, it was sure to be
clever. The teacher says Alice has a positive genius for writing, and
before many years she'll be in all the magazines. When supper was over
I ran up-stairs to my room. I sat down by the window in the dark and
wondered when the moon would rise. I felt excited--as if something were
going to happen. And in spite of all the dreadful things that had
happened to us, and might keep on happening, I felt as if I could die
with joy. There were steps on the porch below my window. I heard
father's voice.
"That's ridiculous, Elizabeth," he said--"ridiculous! If it's a good
thing for other girls to go to college, it's been a good thing for her."
"Ah," said Aunt Elizabeth, "but is it a good thing?"
Then I knew they were talking about me, and I put my fingers in my ears
and said the Latin prepositions. I have been talked about enough. They
may talk, but I won't hear. By-and-by I took my fingers out and
listened. They had gone in, and everything was still. Then I began to
think it over. Was it a bad thing for me to go to college? I'm
different from what I was three years ago, but I should have been
different if I'd stayed at home. For one thing, I'm not so shy. I
remember the first day I came out of a class-room and Stillman Dane
walked up to me and said; "So you're Charlie Ned's sister!" I couldn't
look at him. I stood staring down at my note-book, and now I should
say, quite calmly: "Oh, you must be Mr. Dane? I believe you teach
psychology." But I stood and stared. I believe I looked at my hands for
a while and wished I hadn't got ink on my forefinger--and he had to
say: "I'm the psychology man. Charlie Ned and I were college friends.
He wrote me about you." But though I didn't look at him that first
time, I thought he had the kindest voice that ever was--except
mother's--and perhaps that was why I selected psychology for my
specialty. I was afraid I might be stupid, and I knew he was kind. And
then came that happy time when I was getting acquainted with everybody,
and Mr. Dane was always doing things for me. "I'm awfully fond of
Charlie Ned, you know," he told me. "You must let me take his place."
Then Mr. Goward told me all those things at the dance, how he had found
life a bitter waste, how he had been betrayed over and over by the vain
and worldly, and how his heart was dead and nobody could bring it to
life but me. He said I was his fate and his guiding-star, and since
love was a mutual flame that meant he was my fate, too. But it seemed
as if that were the beginning of all my bad luck, for about that time
Stillman Dane was different, and one day he stopped me in the yard when
I was going to chapel.
"Miss Peggy," said he, "don't let's quarrel."
He held out his hand, and I gave him mine quickly.
"No," said I, "I'm not quarrelling."
"I want to ask you something," said he. "You must answer, truly. If I
have a friend and she's doing something foolish, should I tell her?
Should I write to her brother and tell him?"
"Why," said I, "do you mean me?" Then I understood. "You think I'm not
doing very well in my psychology," I said. "You think I've made a wrong
choice." I looked at him then. I never saw him look just so. He had my
hand, and now I took it away. But he wouldn't talk about the psychology.
"Peggy," said he, "do your people know Goward?"
"They will in vacation," I said. "He's going home with me. We're
engaged, you know."
"Oh!" said he. "Oh! Then it is true. Let him meet Charles Edward at
once, will you? Tell Charles Edward I particularly want him to know
Goward." His voice sounded sharp and quick, and he turned away and left
me. But I didn't give his message to Charles Edward, and somehow, I
don't know why, I didn't talk about him after I came home. "Dane never
wrote me whether he looked you up," said Charles Edward one day. "Not
very civil of him." But even then I couldn't tell him. Mr. Dane is one
of the people I never can talk about as if they were like everybody
else. Perhaps that is because he is so kind in a sort of intimate,
beautiful way. And when I went back after vacation he had resigned, and
they said he had inherited some money and gone away, and after he went
I never understood the psychology at all. Mr. Goward used to laugh at
me for taking it, only he said I could get honors in anything, my
verbal memory is so good. But I told him, and it is true, that the last
part of the book is very dull. While I was going over all this, still
with that strange excited feeling of happiness, I heard Aunt
Elizabeth's voice from below. She was calling, softly: "Peggy! Peggy!
Are you up there?"
I got on my feet just as quietly as I could, and slipped through
mother's room and down the back stairs. Mother was in the vegetable
garden watering the transplanted lettuce. I ran out to her. "Mother," I
said, "may I go over to Lorraine's and spend the night?"
"Yes, lamb," said mother. That's a good deal for mother to say.
"I'll run over now," I told her. "I won't stop to take anything.
Lorraine will give me a nightie."
I went through the vegetable garden to the back gate and out into the
street. There I drew a long breath. I don't know what I thought Aunt
Elizabeth could do to me, but I felt safe. Then--I could laugh at it
all, because it seems as if I must have been sort of crazy that
night--I began to run as if I couldn't get there fast enough. But when
I got to the steps I heard Lorraine laughing, and I stopped to listen
to see whether any one was there.
"I tell Peter," said she, "that it's his opportunity. Don't you
remember the Great Magician's story of the man who was always afraid he
should miss his opportunity? And the opportunity came, and, sure
enough, the man didn't know it, and it slipped by. Well, that mustn't
be Peter."
"It musn't be any of us," said a voice. "Things are mighty critical,
though. It's as if everybody, the world and the flesh and the Whole
Family, had been blundering round and setting their feet down as near
as they could to a flower. But the flower isn't trampled yet. We'll
build a fence round it." My heart beat so fast that I had to put my
hand over it. I wondered if I were going to have heart-failure, and I
knew grandmother would say, "Digitalis!" When I thought of that I
laughed, and Lorraine called out, "Who's there?" She came to the long
window. "Why, Peggy, child," said she, "come in." She had me by the
hand and led me forward. They got up as I stepped in, Charles Edward
and Stillman Dane. Then I knew why I was glad. If Stillman Dane had
been here all these dreadful things would not have happened, because he
is a psychologist, and he would have understood everybody at once and
influenced them before they had time to do wrong.
"Jove!" said Charles Edward. "Don't you look handsome, Peg!"
"Goose!" said Lorraine, as if she wanted him to be still. "A good neat
girl is always handsome. There's an epigram for you. And Peggy's hair
is loose in three places. Let me fix it for you, child."
So we all laughed, and Lorraine pinned me up in a queer, tender way, as
if she were mother dress-me for something important, and we sat down,
and began to talk about college. I am afraid Stillman Dane and I did
most of the talking, for Lorraine and Charles Edward looked at each
other and smiled a little, in a fashion they have, as if they
understood each other, and Lorraine got up to show him the bag she had
bought that day for the steamer; and while she was holding it out to
him and asking him if it cost too much, she stopped short and called
out, sharply, "Who's there?" I laughed. "Lorraine has the sharpest
ears," I said. "Ears!" said Lorraine. "It isn't ears. I smell orris.
She's coming. Mr. Dane, will you take Peggy out of that window into the
garden? Don't yip, either of you, while you're within gunshot, and
don't appear till I tell you."
"Lorraine!" came a voice, softly, from the front walk. It was Aunt
Elizabeth. She has a way of calling to announce herself in a sweet,
cooing tone. I said to Charles Edward once it was like a dove, and he
said: "No, my child, not doves, but woodcock." Alice giggled and called
out, quite loudly, '"Springes to catch woodcock!'" And he shook his
head at her and said, "You all-knowing imp! isn't even Shakespeare
hidden from you?" But now the voice didn't sound sweet to me at all,
because I wanted to get away. We rose at the same minute, Mr. Dane and
I, and Lorraine seemed to waft us from the house on a kind little wind.
At the foot of the steps we stopped for fear the gravel should crunch,
and while we waited for Aunt Elizabeth to go in the other way I looked
at Mr. Dane to see if he wanted to laugh as much as I. He did. His eyes
were full of fun and pleasure, and he gave me a little nod, as if we
were two children going to play a game we knew all about. Then I heard
Aunt Elizabeth's voice inside. It was low and broken--what Charles
Edward called once her "come-and-comfort-me" voice.
"Dears," said she, "you are going abroad?"
"Yes," Charles Edward answered. "Yes, it looks that way now."
"Yes," said Lorraine, rather sharply, I thought, as if she meant to
show him he ought to be more decisive, "we are."
"Dears," Aunt Elizabeth went on, "will you take me with you?"
Mr. Dane started as if he meant to go back into the house. I must have
started, too, and my heart beat hard. There was a silence of a minute,
two minutes, three perhaps. Then I heard Charles Edward speak, in a
voice I didn't know he had.
"No, Aunt Elizabeth, no. Not so you'd notice it."
Mr. Dane gave a nod as if he were relieved, and we both began tiptoeing
down the path in the dark. But it wasn't dark any more. The moon was
coming through the locust-trees, and I smelled the lindens by the wall.
"Oh," I said, "it's summer, isn't it? I don't believe I've thought of
summer once this year."
"Yes," said he, "and there never was a summer such as this is going to
be."
I knew he was very athletic, but I don't believe I'd thought how much
he cared for out-of-doors. "Come down here," I said. "This is
Lorraine's jungle. There's a seat in it, and we can smell the ferns."
Charles Edward had been watering the garden, and everything was sweet.
Thousands of odors came out such as I never smelled before. And all the
time the moon was rising. After we had sat there awhile, talking a
little about college, about my trip abroad, I suddenly found I could
not go on. There were tears in my eyes. I felt as if so good a friend
ought to know how I had behaved--for I must have been very weak and
silly to make such a mistake. He ought to hear the worst about me.
"Oh," I said, "do you know what happened to me?"
He made a little movement toward me with both hands. Then he took them
back and sat quite still and said, in that kind voice: "I know you are
going abroad, and when you come back you will laugh at the dolls you
played with when you were a child." But I cried, softly, though,
because it was just as if I were alone, thinking things out and being
sorry, sorry for myself--and ashamed. Until now I'd never known how
ashamed I was. "Don't cry, child," he was saying. "For God's sake,
don't cry!" I think it came over me then, as it hadn't before, that all
that part of my life was spoiled. I'd been engaged and thought I liked
somebody, and now it was all over and done. "I don't know what I'm
crying for," I said, at last, when I could stop. "I suppose it's
because I'm different now, different from the other girls, different
from myself. I can't ever be happy any more."
He spoke, very quickly. "Is it because you liked Goward so much?"
"Like him!" I said. "Like Harry Goward? Why, I--" There I stopped,
because I couldn't think of any word small enough, and I think he
understood, for he laughed out quickly.
"Now," said he, "I'm a psychologist. You remember that, don't you? It
used to impress you a good deal."
"Oh," said I, "it does impress me. Nobody has ever seemed so wise as
you. Nobody!"
"Then it's understood that I'm a sage from the Orient. I know the
workings of the human mind. And I tell you a profound truth: that the
only way to stop thinking of a thing is to stop thinking of it. Now,
you're not to think of Goward and all this puppet-show again. Not a
minute. Not an instant. Do you hear?" He sounded quite stern, and I
answered as if I had been in class.
"Yes, sir."
"You are to think of Italy, and how blue the sea is--and Germany, and
how good the beer is--and Charlie Ned and Lorraine, and what trumps
they are. Do you hear?"
"Yes, sir," said I, and because I knew we were going to part and there
would be nobody else to advise me in the same way, I went on in a great
hurry for fear there should not be time. "I can't live at home even
after we come back. I could never be pointed at, like Aunt Elizabeth,
and have people whisper and say I've had a disappointment. I must make
my own life. I must have a profession. Do you think I could teach? Do
you think I could learn to teach--psychology?"
He didn't answer for a long time, and I didn't dare look at him, though
the moon was so bright now that I could see how white his hand was,
lying on his knee, and the chasing of the ring on his little finger. It
had been his mother's engagement ring, he told me once. But he spoke,
and very gently and seriously. "I am sure you could teach some things.
Whether psychology--but we can talk of that later. There'll be lots of
time. It proves I am going over on the same steamer with Charlie Ned
and Lorraine and you."
"You are!" I cried. "Why, I never heard of anything so--" I couldn't
find the word for it, but everything stopped being puzzling and unhappy
and looked clear and plain.
"Yes," said he. "It's very convenient, isn't it? We can talk over your
future, and you could even take a lesson or two in psychology. But I
fancy we shall have a good deal to do looking for porpoises and asking
what the run is. People are terribly busy at sea."
Then it occurred to me that he had never been here before, and why was
he here now? "How did you happen to come?" I asked. I suppose I really
felt as if God sent him.
"Why," said he, "why--" Then he laughed. "Well," said he, "to tell the
truth, I was going abroad if--if certain things happened, and I needed
to make sure. I didn't want to write, so I ran down to see Charlie Ned."
"But could he tell you?" said I. "And had they happened?"
He laughed, as if at something I needn't share. "No," he said, "the
things weren't going to happen. But I decided to go abroad."
I was "curiouser and curiouser," as Lorraine says.
"But," I insisted, "what had Charles Edward to do with it?"
There were a great many pauses that night as if, I think, he didn't
know what was wise to say. I should imagine it would always be so with
psychologists. They understand so well what effect every word will have.
"Well, to tell the truth," he answered, at last, in a kind, darling
way, "I wanted to make sure all was well with my favorite pupil before
I left the country. I couldn't quite go without it."
"Mr. Dane," I said, "you don't mean me?"
"Yes," he answered, "I mean you."
I could have danced and sung with happiness. "Oh," said I, "then I must
have been a better scholar than I thought. I feel as if I could teach
psychology--this minute."
"You could," said he, "this minute." And we both laughed and didn't
know, after all, what we were laughing at--at least I didn't. But
suddenly I was cold with fear.
"Why," I said, "if you've only really decided to go to-night, how do
you know you can get a passage on our ship?"
"Because, sweet Lady Reason," said he, "I used Charlie Ned's telephone
and found out." (That was a pretty name--sweet Lady Reason.)
We didn't talk any more then for a long time, because suddenly the moon
seemed so bright and the garden so sweet. But all at once I heard a
step on the gravel walk, and I knew who it was. "That's Charles
Edward," I said. "He's been home with Aunt Elizabeth. We must go in."
"No!" said he. "No, Peggy. There won't be such another night." Then he
laughed quickly and got up. "Yes," he said, "there will be such
nights--over and over again. Come, Peggy, little psychologist, we'll go
in."
We found Lorraine and Charles Edward standing in the middle of the
room, holding hands and looking at each other. "You're a hero,"
Lorraine was saying, "and a gentleman and a scholar and my own
particular Peter."
"Don't admire me," said Charles Edward, "or you'll get me so bellicose
I shall have to challenge Lyman Wilde. Poor old chap! I believe to my
soul he's had the spirit to make off."
"Speak gently of Lyman Wilde," said Lorraine. "I never forget what we
owe him. Sometimes I burn a candle to his photograph. I've even dropped
a tear before it. Well, children?" She turned her bright eyes on us as
if she liked us very much, and we two stood facing them two, and it all
seemed quite solemn. Suddenly Charles Edward put out his hand and shook
Mr. Dane's, and they both looked very much moved, as grandmother would
say. I hadn't known they liked each other so well.
"Do you know what time it is?" said Lorraine. "Half-past eleven by
Shrewsbury clock. I'll bake the cakes and draw the ale."
"Gee whiz!" said Mr. Dane. I'd never heard things like that. It sounded
like Billy, and I liked it. "I've got to catch that midnight train."
For a minute it seemed as if we all stood shouting at one another,
Lorraine asking him to stay all night, Charles Edward giving him a
cigar to smoke on the way, I explaining to Lorraine that I'd sleep on
the parlor sofa and leave the guest-room free, and Mr. Dane declaring
he'd got a million things to do before sailing. Then he and Charles
Edward dashed out into the night, as Alice would say, and I should have
thought it was a dream that he'd been there at all except that I felt
his touch on my hand. And Lorraine put her arms round me and kissed me
and said, "Now, you sweet child, run up-stairs and look at the
moonlight and dream--and dream--and dream."
I don't know whether I slept that night; but, if I did, I did not dream.
The next forenoon I waited until eleven o'clock before I went home. I
wanted to be sure Aunt Elizabeth was safely away at Whitman. Yet, after
all, I did not dread her now. I had been told what to do. Some one was
telling me of a song the other day, "Command me, dear." I had been
commanded to stop thinking of all those things I hated. I had done it.
Mother met me at the steps. She seemed a little anxious, but when she
had put her hand on my shoulder and really looked at me she smiled the
way I love to see her smile. "That's a good girl!" said she. Then she
added, quickly, as if she thought I might not like it and ought to know
at once, "Aunt Elizabeth saw Dr. Denbigh going by to Whitman, and she
asked him to take her over."
"Did she?" said I. "Oh, mother, the old white rose is out!"
"There they are, back again," said mother. "He's leaving her at the
gate."
Well, we both waited for Aunt Elizabeth to come up the path. I picked
the first white rose and made mother smell it, and when I had smelled
it myself I began to sing under my breath, "Come into the garden,
Maud," because I remembered last night.
"Hush, child," said mother, quickly. "Elizabeth, you are tired. Come
right in."
Aunt Elizabeth's lip trembled a little. I thought she was going to cry.
I had never known her to cry, though I had seen tears in her eyes, and
I remember once, when she was talking to Dr. Denbigh, Charles Edward
noticed them and laughed. "Those are not idle tears, Peg," he said to
me "They're getting in their work."
Now I was so sorry for her that I stopped thinking of last night and
put it all away. It seemed cruel to be so happy. Aunt Elizabeth sat
down on the step and mother brought her an eggnog. It had been all
ready for grandmother, and I could see mother thought Aunt Elizabeth
needed it, if she was willing to make grandmother wait.
"Ada," said Aunt Elizabeth, suddenly, as she sipped it, "what was Dr.
Denbigh's wife like?"
"Why," said mother, "I'd almost forgotten he had a wife, it was so long
ago. She died in the first year of their marriage."
Aunt Elizabeth laughed a little, almost as if no one were there. "He
began to talk about her quite suddenly this morning," she said. "It
seems Peg reminds him of her. He is devoted to her memory. That's what
he said--devoted to her memory."
"That's good," said mother, cheerfully, as if she didn't know quite
what to say. "More letters, Lily? Any for us?" I could see mother was
very tender of her for some reason, or she never would have called her
Lily.
"For me," said Aunt Elizabeth, as if she were tired. "From Mrs.
Chataway. A package, too. It looks like visiting-cards. That seems to
be from her, too." She broke open the package. "Why!" said she, "of all
things! Why!"
"That's pretty engraving," said mother, looking over her shoulder. She
must have thought they were Aunt Elizabeth's cards. "Why! of all
things!"
Aunt Elizabeth began to flush pink and then scarlet. She looked as
pretty as a rose, but a little angry, I thought. She put up her head
rather haughtily. "Mrs. Chataway is very eccentric," she said. "A
genius, quite a genius in her own line. Ada, I won't come down to
luncheon. This has been sufficient. Let me have some tea in my own room
at four, please." She got up, and her letter and one of the cards fell
to the floor. I picked them up for her, and I saw on the card:
Mrs. Ronald Chataway
Magnetic Healer and Mediumistic Divulger
Lost Articles a Specialty
I don't know why, but I thought, like mother and Aunt Elizabeth, "Well,
of all things!"
But the rest of that day mother and I were too busy to exchange a word
about Mrs. Chataway or even Aunt Elizabeth. We plunged into my
preparations to sail, and talked dresses and hats, and ran ribbons in
things, and I burned letters and one photograph (I burned that without
looking at it), and suddenly mother got up quickly and dropped her
lapful of work. "My stars!" said she, "I've forgotten Aunt Elizabeth's
tea."
"It's of no consequence, dear," said Aunt Elizabeth's voice at the
door. "I asked Katie to bring it up."
"Why," said mother, "you're not going?"
I held my breath. Aunt Elizabeth looked so pretty. She was dressed, as
I never saw her before, a close-fitting black gown and a plain white
collar and a little close black hat. She looked almost like some sister
of charity.
"Ada," said she, "and Peggy, I am going to tell you something, and it
is my particular desire that you keep it from the whole family. They
would not understand. I am going to ally myself with Mrs. Chataway in a
connection which will lead to the widest possible influence for her and
for me. In Mrs. Chataway's letter to-day she urges me to join her. She
says I have enormous magnetism and--and other qualifications."
"Don't you want me to tell Cyrus?" said mother. She spoke quite faintly.
"You can simply tell Cyrus that I have gone to Mrs. Chataway's," said
Aunt Elizabeth. "You can also tell him I shall be too occupied to
return. Good-bye, Ada. Good-bye, Peggy. Remember, it is the bruised
herb that gives out the sweetest odor."
Before I could stop myself I had laughed, out of happiness, I think.
For I remembered how the spearmint had smelled in the garden when
Stillman Dane and I stepped on it in the dark and how bright the moon
was, and I knew nobody could be unhappy very long.
"I telephoned for a carriage," said Aunt Elizabeth. "There it is." She
and mother were going down the stairs, and suddenly I felt I couldn't
have her go like that.
"Oh, Aunt--Aunt Lily!" I called. "Stop! I want to speak to you." I ran
after her. "I'm going to have a profession, too," I said. "I'm going to
devote my life to it, and I am just as glad as I can be." I put my arms
round her and kissed her on her soft, pink cheeks, and we both cried a
little. Then she went away.
