Alfred--Albert; no, Alfred. He was a beau of mine."
"Mother! I don"t think it"s refined to use such a word."
"Well, he wanted me to elope with him," Mrs. North said, gayly; "if that isn"t being a beau, I don"t know what is. I haven"t thought of it for years."
"If you"ve finished your curds you must lie down," said Miss North.
"Oh, I"ll just look about--"
"No; you are tired. You must lie down."
"Who is that stout old gentleman going into the Price house?" Mrs. North said, lingering at the window.
"Oh, that"s your Alfred Price," her daughter answered; and added, that she hoped her mother would be pleased with the house. "We have boarded so long, I think you"ll enjoy a home of your own."
"Indeed I shall!" cried Mrs. North, her eyes snapping with delight.
"Mary, I"ll wash the breakfast dishes, as my mother used to do!"
"Oh no," Mary North protested; "it would tire you. I mean to take every care from your mind."
"But," Mrs. North pleaded, "you have so much to do; and--"
"Never mind about me," said the daughter, earnestly; "you are my first consideration."
"I know it, my dear," said Mrs. North, meekly. And when Old Chester came to make its call, one of the first things she said was that her Mary was such a good daughter. Miss North, her anxious face red with determination, bore out the a.s.sertion by constantly interrupting the conversation to bring a footstool, or shut a window, or put a shawl over her mother"s knees. "My mother"s limb troubles her," she explained to visitors (in point of modesty, Mary North did not leave her mother a leg to stand on); then she added, breathlessly, with her tremulous smile, that she wished they would please not talk too much. "Conversation tires her," she explained. At which the little, pretty old lady opened and closed her hands, and protested that she was not tired at all. But the callers departed. As the door closed behind them, Mrs. North was ready to cry.
"Now, Mary, really!" she began.
"Mother, I don"t care! I don"t like to say a thing like that, though I"m sure I always try to speak politely. But it"s the truth, and to save you I would tell the truth no matter how painful it was to do so."
"But I enjoy seeing people, and--"
"It is bad for you to be tired," Mary said, her thin face quivering still with the effort she had made; "and they sha"n"t tire you while I am here to protect you." And her protection never flagged. When Captain Price called, she asked him to please converse in a low tone, as noise was bad for her mother. "He had been here a good while before I came in," she defended herself to Mrs. North, afterwards; "and I"m sure I spoke politely."
The fact was, the day the Captain came, Miss North was out. Her mother had seen him pounding up the street, and hurrying to the door, called out, gayly, in her little, old, piping voice, "Alfred--Alfred Price!"
The Captain turned and looked at her. There was just one moment"s pause; perhaps he tried to bridge the years, and to believe that it was Letty who spoke to him--Letty, whom he had last seen that wintry night, pale and weeping, in the slender green sheath of a fur-trimmed pelisse. If so, he gave it up; this plump, white-haired, bright-eyed old lady, in a wide-spreading, rustling black silk dress, was not Letty. She was Mrs.
North.
The Captain came across the street, waving his newspaper, and saying, "So you"ve cast anchor in the old port, ma"am?"
"My daughter is not at home; do come in," she said, smiling and nodding.
Captain Price hesitated; then he put his pipe in his pocket and followed her into the parlor. "Sit down," she cried, gayly. "Well, _Alfred_!"
"Well--_Mrs. North_!" he said; and then they both laughed, and she began to ask questions: Who was dead? Who had so and so married? "There are not many of us left," she said. "The two Ferris girls and Theophilus Morrison and Johnny Gordon--he came to see me yesterday. And Matty Dilworth; she was younger than I--oh, by ten years. She married the oldest Barkley boy, didn"t she? I hear he didn"t turn out well. You married his sister, didn"t you? Was it the oldest girl or the second sister?"
"It was the second--Jane. Yes, poor Jane. I lost her in "forty-five."
"You have children?" she said, sympathetically.
"I"ve got a boy," he said; "but he"s married."
"My girl has never married; she"s a good daughter,"--Mrs. North broke off with a nervous laugh; "here she is, now!"
Mary North, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway, gave a questioning sniff, and the Captain"s hand sought his guilty pocket; but Miss North only said: "How do you do, sir? Now, mother, don"t talk too much and get tired." She stopped and tried to smile, but the painful color came into her face. "And--if you please, Captain Price, will you speak in a low tone? Large, noisy persons exhaust the oxygen in the air, and--"
"_Mary!_" cried poor Mrs. North; but the Captain, clutching his old felt hat, began to hoist himself up from the sofa, scattering ashes about as he did so. Mary North compressed her lips.
"I tell my daughter-in-law they"ll keep the moths away," the old gentleman said, sheepishly.
"I use camphor," said Miss North, "Flora must bring a dust-pan."
"Flora?" Alfred Price said. "Now, what"s my a.s.sociation with that name?"
"She was our old cook," Mrs. North explained; "this Flora is her daughter. But you never saw old Flora?"
"Why, yes, I did," the old man said, slowly. "Yes. I remember Flora.
Well, good-bye,--Mrs. North."
"Good-bye, Alfred. Come again," she said, cheerfully.
"Mother, here"s your beef tea," said a brief voice.
Alfred Price fled. He met his son just as he was entering his own house, and burst into a confidence: "Cy, my boy, come aft and splice the main-brace. Cyrus, what a female! She knocked me higher than Gilroy"s kite. And her mother was as sweet a girl as you ever saw!" He drew his son into a little, low-browed, dingy room at the end of the hall. Its grimy untidiness matched the old Captain"s clothes, but it was his one spot of refuge in his own house; here he could scatter his tobacco ashes almost unrebuked, and play on his harmonicon without seeing Gussie wince and draw in her breath; for Mrs. Cyrus rarely entered the "cabin." "I worry so about its disorderliness that I won"t go in," she used to say, in a resigned way. And the Captain accepted her decision with resignation of his own. "Crafts of your bottom can"t navigate in these waters," he agreed, earnestly; and, indeed, the room was so cluttered with his belongings that voluminous hoop-skirts could not get steerageway. "He has so much rubbish," Gussie complained; but it was precious rubbish to the old man. His chest was behind the door; a blow-fish, stuffed and varnished, hung from the ceiling; two colored prints of the "Barque _Letty M._, 800 tons," decorated the walls; his s.e.xtant, polished daily by his big, clumsy hands, hung over the mantel-piece, on which were many dusty treasures--the mahogany spoke of an old steering-wheel; a whale"s tooth; two Chinese wrestlers, in ivory; a fan of spreading white coral; a conch-sh.e.l.l, its beautiful red lip serving to hold a loose bunch of cigars. In the chimney-breast was a little door, and the Captain, pulling his son into the room after that call upon Mrs. North, fumbled in his pocket for the key. "Here," he said; "(as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina)--Cyrus, she handed round _beef tea_!"
But Cyrus was to receive still further enlightenment on the subject of his opposite neighbor:
"She called him in. I heard her, with my own ears! "Alfred," she said, "come in." Cyrus, she has designs; oh, I worry so about it! He ought to be protected. He is very old, and, of course, foolish. You ought to check it at once."
"Gussie, I don"t like you to talk that way about my father," Cyrus began.
"You"ll like it less later on. He"ll go and see her to-morrow."
"Why shouldn"t he go and see her to-morrow?" Cyrus said, and added a modest bad word; which made Gussie cry. And yet, in spite of what his wife called his "blasphemy," Cyrus began to be vaguely uncomfortable whenever he saw his father put his pipe in his pocket and go across the street. And as the winter brightened into spring, the Captain went quite often. So, for that matter, did other old friends of Mrs. North"s generation, who by-and-by began to smile at one another, and say, "Well, Alfred and Letty are great friends!" For, because Captain Price lived right across the street, he went most of all. At least, that was what Miss North said to herself with obvious common-sense--until Mrs. Cyrus put her on the right track....
"What!" gasped Mary North. "But it"s impossible!"
"It would be very unbecoming, considering their years," said Gussie; "but I worry so, because, you know, nothing is impossible when people are foolish; and of course, at their age, they are apt to be foolish."
So the seed was dropped. Certainly he did come very often. Certainly her mother seemed very glad to see him. Certainly they had very long talks.
Mary North shivered with apprehension. But it was not until a week later that this miserable suspicion grew strong enough to find words. It was after tea, and the two ladies were sitting before a little fire. Mary North had wrapped a shawl about her mother, and given her a footstool, and pushed her chair nearer the fire, and then pulled it away, and opened and shut the parlor door three times to regulate the draught.
Then she sat down in the corner of the sofa, exhausted but alert.
"If there"s anything you want, mother, you"ll be sure and tell me?"
"Yes, my dear."
"I think I"d better put another shawl over your limbs?"