OAKLEIGH.
BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.
CHAPTER VIII.
Miss Betsey Trinkett had risen betimes this Friday morning. She had planned to do some work in her garden, and, besides, Miss Betsey was an early riser.
Ebenezer, the "hired man," when he came back from driving the cows to pasture, found her hard at work, in her huge sun-bonnet and garden gloves, pruning the box that formed the border of the old-fashioned garden.
Here bloomed together in delicious profusion roses--white, red, and pink--sweet-william, dahlias, peonies, mignonette, and heart"s-ease, while the labyrinth which wound in and out among them was the pride of Miss Betsey"s heart.
After a time she straightened herself and stood gazing at the view, her quaint little figure, in its old-time gay-colored gown, looking not unlike the flowers among which it stood.
"Well, I want to know!" she said, aloud, her hand raised to shield her eyes. "Any one who says his view is better than mine must be just about daft. Land sakes! I"d just about die if I didn"t get that sweep of the Merrimac and those mountings beyond!" And then, satisfied, she returned to her weeding.
Miss Betsey"s house--in which she had been born, and her father also--stood on the side of a hill. Behind was a steep pasture, full of rocks and stubby bushes. In front, on the other side of the road, the ground sloped abruptly to the village. Even the old white meeting-house, built on a hill though it was, stood lower than the Trinkett farm.
Beyond the village flowed the beautiful Merrimac. A broad stretch of meadow-land and cultivated fields rested the eye with their peaceful greens, and far away was the dim outline of the hills.
"Silas don"t get a touch of the river," continued Miss Betsey; "and as for the medders, they"re nowhere to be seen. He thinks because he can see the Common and the Soldiers" Monument his view"s better than mine!
He expects me to give up the Merrimac for the Soldiers" Monument! Sakes alive!"
She worked steadily for some time, until the click of the gate attracted her attention.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "I WANT TO KNOW!" SHE EXCLAIMED, DRAWING OFF HER OLD GLOVES.]
"I want to know!" she exclaimed, laying down her tools and drawing off her old gloves; "if here ain"t Nephew John and Jackie and that naughty Cynthy. Well, well! And this must be the bride." And she hurried down the path to meet them.
Cynthia came shyly forward after the introduction of her step-mother and the greetings were over. All the way in the train she had been meditating what she should say. With Jack"s help she had composed a little speech. His help had consisted in acting as audience, for Cynthia was seldom at a loss for words. But when the time came the speech deserted her, and all she could think of doing was to put her arms around Aunt Betsey"s neck, and, looking into the depths of the big sun-bonnet, say, softly:
"Aunt Betsey, I"m so sorry! Will you forgive me?"
"Forgive you, child!" exclaimed the old lady, her resentment melting at sight of her favorite niece. "I want to know! Did you suppose I"d remembered to be angry all this time? La, Cynthy, when you"re as old as I am you"ll have learned to take a little joke. And don"t you suppose I"m real pleased to have you look so much like me? If Mrs. Parker couldn"t tell us apart there must be some resemblance."
"Nor Jack, either," put in Cynthia, eagerly, with a lightened heart.
"I think you are too good to her, Aunt Betsey," said Mr. Franklin, as they walked towards the house. "I brought her up here to-day for the sole purpose of apologizing."
"Do tell! And I nearly disremembered it entirely! But I"m _real_ glad to see you and my new niece. Come right into the best parlor."
She opened the door, and with reverent step ushered them into the carefully kept "best parlor." An immaculate carpet, ever shielded from the light of day, covered the floor, and a horse-hair sofa and a few chairs of the same inhospitable material stood at regular intervals from one another.
A pair of tall vases and some sea-sh.e.l.ls decked the mantel-piece. During their childhood it had been a rare treat to Jack and Cynthia to hold these sh.e.l.ls to their ears and listen to the "roar of the ocean" within.
On a table between the windows were some wax flowers under a gla.s.s, and on the marble-topped centre table were a few books placed together in neat little piles.
Mrs. Franklin was given the place of honor, the large arm-chair. The chair being a high one, and she being a rather small woman, her feet barely touched the floor, and she sat in constant terror lest she should slide ignominiously to the ground.
It was so dark when they entered the room that Mr. Franklin stumbled over a worsted-work footstool which stood in a prominent place, but Miss Trinkett opened the blinds a crack, and two bars of blazing July sunshine fell across the carpet. Then she sat down to entertain her guests, but her mind wandered. The Franklins all talked, but Miss Betsey was unusually silent. "I want to know!" and "Do tell!" came at random.
Finally she said, with a hasty glance at the sunlight:
"I wonder now if you"d mind coming into my sitting-room? I"d be real pleased to have you, and maybe we"d find it cooler."
They all jumped to their feet with alacrity. Miss Betsey closed her blinds again with a sigh of relief, and in the freer atmosphere of the sitting-room, secure in the knowledge that her best-parlor carpet was no longer fading, she found her tongue.
"I was coming to see you, niece, just as soon as I could see my way to it. Marthy, my hired girl, has been off for a spell, and that"s kept me busy. I"d have written, but I"m a poor hand at writing. Silas he says he wonders the letters I write ever get there, but then he"s one of the doubting kind, Silas is. I"ve great faith in government. I think as long as they undertake to carry letters about at all, they"ve got sense enough to carry "em safe, even if I do disremember part of the direction sometimes. And it"s wonderful, as I"ve said many a time before, what you can send through the mails nowadays. But now tell me about those poor little orphans in the poultry-yard."
The success of the last hatch was described to her; in fact, all the news of Brenton was asked for and received, and in turn bits of Wayborough gossip were told to the attentive Mrs. Franklin, while Silas"s latest sayings were repeated and commented upon.
When Jack and Cynthia had gone out-doors, Miss Betsey drew her chair a little closer to that of Mrs. Franklin.
"My dear--Hester, I think your name is, and Hester it will be my pleasure to call you--my dear Hester, I want to tell you first and foremost that I"m real pleased you should come and be a mother to those children of Nephew John"s. They needed you; they needed you badly. And now I"m going to treat you as one of the family, and talk over a little matter with you and John. You"ve probably heard of Silas Green. He"s been courting me these forty years, and now he"s got it into his head that he can"t be climbing this hill any more of a Sunday night. He wants me to fix the day! I declare, it kind of takes the stiffening right out of me to think of fixing the day after all these years, and I still hold out, as I can"t give up my view of the river."
"What are you going to do about it, Aunt Betsey?"
"That"s just it, John. Well, I"m going to hold out a little longer, and I think--in fact, I"m pretty sure--that Silas is weakening. You see, it"s kind of lonesome for him down there, now his sister"s dead that kept house for him, and it _is_ depressing to have nothing much to look at but the Common and the Soldiers" Monument. Yes, I think he"s weakening, and I shouldn"t wonder if you were to find him here next time you come. But I"ll let you know in time to come to the wedding, you may be sure of that. But there"s something else I want to speak about."
Here Miss Betsey paused. She folded her hands anew in her lap, and, rocking briskly, waited for some one to speak. The clock on the chimney-shelf ticked comfortably, and Miss Trinkett"s canary chirped and hopped about in its cage at the window. Mrs. Franklin looked at her husband.
"And what is that, Aunt Betsey?" said he. "Somehow you have so taken my breath away by hinting that you are going to make Mr. Silas Green happy, after all these years, that I can"t take in anything else."
"Ah, now, my dear boy, don"t jump too quickly at a conclusion. Things may not be any nearer a settling now than they were forty years ago.
It"s all a question of view, and men are terribly set in their ways.
However, to continue: I want to make each of the children a present. I feel that I"m getting on in life--though I"m not so very old either, but still no one knows what may happen--and I"d rather do things up before I die than have it all a-going on after I"m laid away. I never did think much of wills, anyhow. So I"m going to send "em each a present from time to time as I feel inclined."
"Nonsense, Aunt Betsey!" said Mr. Franklin. "You are not going to die for many a year yet, and you give the children enough. Keep your money."
"Now you needn"t say a word, John. My mind"s made up, and it takes a deal to make me change it--it"s in the Trinkett blood. And then I like to get the letters the children write to thank me. I must say I"m powerful fond of their letters, "specially Cynthy"s. She does write a beautiful letter. I"ll send "em each in turn, beginning with Edith and ending up with w.i.l.l.y. Of course they can do what they like with the money, but it would be my advice to put it in the savings-bank. It"s wonderful how money does roll up in an inst.i.tution of that kind."
Miss Betsey could not be turned from her purpose, so her nephew was forced to content himself with begging her, if she sent money through the mails, to address it carefully.
"One would think, nephew, from the way you talk that I didn"t know how to write," said the old lady, with some asperity.
Jack and Cynthia in the mean time were exploring the farm. It was a never-failing source of pleasure to them, accustomed to farm life though they were.
"This is a really true farm," said Cynthia; "not a make-believe, like ours, with a hired farmer to do it all. And Aunt Betsey"s garden is a thousand times nicer than ours, and her hens are all so big and strong-looking."
"That"s only because you"ve been looking so much at the "little orphans." By-the-way, I wonder how they"re getting on. I do wish I hadn"t had to leave home to-day. I wonder if Neal will attend to things?
Queer kind of a duffer, isn"t he, Cynth?"
"Yes: but I like him. He"s awfully lazy and all that, but I think I"d trust him."
"Oh, I"d trust him far enough, except where hard work"s concerned. In that line I think I"d rather trust myself. But I wish it was time to go home."
"So do I," said Cynthia, thoughtfully. "I have a feeling that something is going on there and we are missing it. Aunt Betsey"s isn"t as much fun as usual, though she was awfully good to forgive me so easily. And you have been frightening me about it all the way, Jack."
At last the day wore on, and amid cordial good-byes from Miss Betsey, her relatives took leave.
"I"ll send you something for those little orphans at Christmas-time, Jackie," she called after them, "though this being only July, I hope to see you before then."