""Oh, no," said the old gentleman; "I was quite positive that Rebecca could manage him when she got him. She would make him walk straight. I knew her; she was a great girl. Every morning I went to see her to inquire how things were coming on, and she told me one day that Mr. Bridges had proposed to her, and that she had accepted him, and that it was of no use to say anything about it to her father, because he would be sure to be dead set against it. Her mother was not living, and she kept house for her father, who was a doctor, and he had often said he would not let her marry anybody who would not come there and live with him; and, judging from what she had heard him say of Garrett Bridges on one or two occasions, she did not feel encouraged to propose this arrangement for him.
""So the plan they agreed upon--which, in fact, I suggested, although Rebecca would never have admitted it--was to go off quietly and get married. Then she could write to her father and tell him all about it, and when his anger had cooled down they could make him a visit, and it would depend on him what they should do next. I worked out the whole plan of operation, which Rebecca afterwards laid before Mr. Bridges as the result of her own ingenuity, for which he commended her very much.
They both agreed--and you may be sure I did not disagree with them--that the sooner they were married the better. The equinoctial storms were expected before very long, and then a wedding-trip would be unpleasant and sloppy. So they fixed on a certain Wednesday, which suited me very well because my father and mother would then be away from home on a visit, and that would make it easier for me to do my part." ("You little schemer!" said Miss Amanda. "Of course you suggested that Wednesday.")
""This place was quite in the country then, and eight miles from a station, and there was only one train to town, at seven o"clock in the morning. If they could get to the village where the station was at quarter-past six, they would have time to get married before the train came. Old Mr. Lawrence, the Methodist minister, was always up at six o"clock, and he could easily marry them in twenty minutes, and that would give them lots of time to catch the train. I would furnish the conveyance to take them to the village, and would also attend to Rebecca"s baggage. Mr. Bridges could have his trunk taken to the station without exciting suspicion. At five o"clock in the morning, I told Rebecca, I would have a horse and buggy tied to a tree by the roadside at a little distance from the doctor"s house where the lovers were to meet.
""The night before, Rebecca was to put all the clothes she wanted to take with her in a pillow-case, which she was to carry to a woodshed near the house. Soon after they started in the buggy I would arrive with a spring-wagon and an empty trunk. I would then get the pillow-case, put it into the trunk, and drive to the station by another road.
""Mr. Bridges approved of this plan, and thought she was very clever to devise it. So everything was settled, and I went to the stable the day before, and told Peter I wanted him to get up very early the next morning, and put old Ripstaver in the buggy, and drive him over to Dr. Hendricks"s. I told him he must be there before five o"clock, and that he was to tie the horse to a maple-tree this side of the front yard. I said one of the doctor"s family had to get to the village very early because there were some things to be done before the train came, and it had been agreed we should lend our buggy. Peter was not quite pleased with the arrangement, and asked why we did not send the old mare--we only kept two horses; but I said she was too slow, and it had been specially arranged that the buggy, with Ripstaver, should be sent.
Peter was a great friend of mine, so he agreed to do what I asked, and said he did not mind walking back." ("I never would have believed," said Miss Amanda, "that the boy had such a mind. If I had only known what he was planning to do! If I had only known! But even if I had, it is so hard to tell what is right.")
""My Aunt Amanda was not in the habit of meddling with anything about the barn or stable; but that afternoon--and I never knew why--she went to the barn, and found Peter dusting off the buggy. He told me she asked if anybody was going to use the buggy that evening, and he replied he was getting it ready to take over to the Hendrickses" in the morning, as some one there wanted to go to the village before the train started for the city. Then she asked what horse he was going to put to it, and he told her old Ripstaver. Then she said she did not think that was a good plan, because Ripstaver was hard to drive, and it would be a great deal better to send the old mare. Peter agreed to this, and so it happened that when I went to the barn the next morning, as soon as I had seen Peter drive away in the buggy, I found the only horse in the stable was old Ripstaver. I was mad enough, I can tell you; for if Rebecca made any noise and woke her father he could overtake that old mare long before she could get to the village. I never did understand how my Aunt Amanda happened to meddle that afternoon."
"("Of course you couldn"t," said Miss Amanda. "You were a fine little manager; but when I looked out of my window that afternoon and saw a boy carrying a trunk to the barn I was very likely to suspect something; and when I went down to the barn myself and found Peter getting the buggy ready to go away early the next morning, I suspected a great deal more.
I did not know what to do, for I did not want to make a scandal by letting Peter know anything was out of the way, and all I could think of was to have a slow horse put in the buggy instead of a fast one. I thought that might help, anyway.")
""Well," continued the old gentleman, "there was nothing for me to do but to take Ripstaver and the spring-wagon and go after Rebecca"s baggage. When I reached the doctor"s house, and found the buggy had gone, I got the pillow-case, put it into the trunk, and started off on a back road which joined the turnpike a couple of miles farther on. Near the junction of the two roads was a high hill from which I hoped I might be able to see the buggy, and, if so, I would follow it at a safe distance. As soon as I got to the top of this hill I did see the buggy; but I saw more than that--I saw another buggy not far behind it. There was a roan horse in this one which I knew to belong to the doctor.
Bridges was whipping our old mare like everything, and she was doing her best, and galloping; but the doctor"s roan was a good one, and he was gaining on them very fast. It was a beautiful race, and I felt like clapping and cheering the doctor, for, although he was spoiling my game, it was a splendid thing to see him driving his roan so fast and so steadily, never letting him break out of a regular trot, and I hated Bridges so much I was glad to see anybody getting the better of him.
""It was not long before the doctor"s buggy caught up with the other one, and then they both stopped; everybody got out, and there must have been a grand talk, but of course I could not hear any of it. The doctor shook his fist, and I could see they were having a lively time. After a bit they stopped talking, the doctor took Rebecca into his buggy and drove back, and Garrett Bridges got into our buggy and went slowly toward the station--to see about his trunk, I suppose. I did not lose any time after that, but drove to the doctor"s as fast as old Ripstaver could travel, and I had Rebecca"s pillow-case in the woodshed before the doctor arrived. Now I never was able to imagine how the doctor found out that Rebecca had gone. She did not know herself. She said she got out of the house without making any more noise than a cat; and as for her father waking up at the sound of wheels in the public road, that was ridiculous; if he had heard them he would not have paid any attention to them. That was one of the queer things neither of us ever found out."
"Miss Amanda was amused. ("Of course you didn"t; it was not intended that you should. How could you know that, being greatly troubled, I woke up very early that morning, and when I found you were not in your room I put on my overshoes and walked across the fields to Dr. Hendricks"s. I did not get there as soon as I hoped I would; but when I rang the door-bell, and the doctor himself came to the door, and I told him I did not want to see him but Rebecca, and he went to look for her and found her gone, and I confided to him as a great secret what I was sure had happened, it did not take him long to get his horse and buggy and go after her. And how glad I was she had our old mare, and not Ripstaver!
But I thought all the time it was you she had run away with, and I never knew until now that it wasn"t. The doctor told me afterwards that he and his daughter had agreed not to say anything about it, and he advised me to do the same; but the sly old fellow never told me it was Mr. Bridges and not you. But if I had only known who really was running away with her, I would not have walked across those wet pasture-fields that chilly morning--that is, I do not think I would have done it.")
""But one thing I did know," said the old gentleman, "which I often regretted; and that was that if my Aunt Amanda had not meddled with the horses and so spoiled my plan, Rebecca Hendricks would have married Mr. Bridges, and several evil consequences would have been avoided." ("I wonder what they were?" thought Miss Amanda.) "Well, things went on pretty much as they had been going on, and that Garrett Bridges came every day, just as bold as bra.s.s, to see my Aunt Amanda, who, of course, knew nothing of his trying to run away with Rebecca. Sometimes I thought of telling her, but that would have made a dreadful mess, and I was bound in honor not to say a word about Rebecca.
""Mr. Randolph Castine sometimes came to our house, but not often, and I began to wish he would court my Aunt Amanda and marry her. If she had to marry, he would be a thousand times better than Garrett Bridges, and I thought I could go to his house--which was a beautiful one, with hunting and fishing--to see her, and perhaps make long stays in the summer-time, which would have been utterly impossible in the case of Garrett Bridges." ("You would have been welcome enough in any home of mine,"
said Miss Amanda. "But you are utterly mistaken about Mr. Castine. Alas!
he was no lover at all.") "But although Mr. Castine was a splendid man in every way, he was not a bold lover like Garrett Bridges, and after a while he seemed to get tired and went off to travel. Not very long after that Bridges went off, too. I think perhaps he had received part of the inheritance he was expecting; but I am not sure about that. Anyway, he went. And then my Aunt Amanda had no lover but me.
""Very soon her health began to fail, and this went on for some time, and nothing did her any good. At last she took to her bed. It seemed to me the weaker and thinner she got the more beautiful she became, and I did everything I could for her, which, of course, was not any good. I remember very well that at this time she never lectured me about anything; but she sometimes mentioned Rebecca Hendricks, always to the effect that she was a very strange girl, and that she could not help thinking her husband, if she ever got one, would be a man who ought to be pitied. I think she was afraid I might marry her; but she need not have worried herself about that--I never had the slightest idea of any such nonsense." ("But I had every reason to suppose you had such an idea," said Miss Amanda, "considering I thought you had tried to run away with her.")
""Well," said the old gentleman, "there is not much more of the story.
My Aunt Amanda died, and our family was in great grief for a long time; but none of them grieved as much as I did." (If Miss Amanda could have embraced her dear nephew John, she would have done so that minute.) "Then, greatly to our surprise, Randolph Castine suddenly came home. He had heard of my Aunt Amanda"s dangerous condition, and he had hurried back to see her and to tell her something before she died. He told my mother, to whom he confided everything, that he had been pa.s.sionately in love with my Aunt Amanda for a long time, but that he had been so sure she was going to marry Mr. Bridges that he had never given her any reason to suppose he cared for her, which I said then, and I say now, was a very poor way of managing love business. If he had spoken, everything would have been all right, and my Aunt Amanda might have been living now; there are plenty of people who live to be ninety. I am positively sure, now, that she was just as much in love with him as he was with her."
"Miss Amanda now suffered a great and sudden pain: she seemed to exist only in her memory of her great love for Randolph Castine, and in this present knowledge that he had loved her. Oh, why had she been told that in life she had been dreaming, and that only now she had come to know what had been real! Nothing that was said, nothing that was visible, impressed her consciousness just then; but presently some words of her nephew John forced themselves upon her attention.
""So she never knew, and he never knew, and two lives were ruined; and she died," the old gentleman continued, "my mother thought, as much from disappointed love as from anything else."
""And what became of Mr. Castine?" asked Mildred, who had been listening with tears in her eyes.
""He went away again," said her grandfather, "and stayed away a long time; and at last he married a very pleasant lady because he thought it was his duty, having such a fine estate, which ought to be lived on and enjoyed."
""Did he have any children?" asked Mildred.
""Yes; one daughter, who married a Mr. Berkeley of Queen Mary County. It was considered a good match."
""Berkeley!" exclaimed the young girl, moving so suddenly toward her grandfather that all the sweet peas in her lap fell suddenly to the ground. "Berkeley! Why, Arthur Berkeley comes from Queen Mary County! Do you mean he is the grandson of Mr. Castine?"
""Exactly; that is who he is," said the old gentleman.
"Mildred sat for a few minutes without saying a word, looking at the ground. "Grandpa," she said presently, "do you know I believe all the time my mind was made up, and I did not know it. And after what you have told me of Arthur Berkeley, grandpa, and your Aunt Amanda, I really think I know myself a great deal better than I did before; and if Arthur should ask me--that is, if he ever does--"
""And he surely will," said her grandfather, "for he came to me this morning, like the honorable fellow he is, and obtained permission to do so."
""Grandpa!" exclaimed Mildred; and as she looked up at him there was no beauty in any sweet-pea blossom, or in any other flower on earth, which could equal the brightness and the beauty of her face.
"The pain faded out of the consciousness of Miss Amanda. "And this is the way it ends!" she murmured. "This is the way it ends. John"s granddaughter and his grandson." And now it was not pain, but a quiet happiness, which pervaded her consciousness.
"The grandfather and granddaughter rose from the rustic bench and walked slowly toward the house. Miss Amanda looked after them, and blessed them; then she gazed upon the sweet peas on the ground; then she looked once more upon the old dial, still bravely marking each sunny hour; and then, slowly and gradually, Miss Amanda lost consciousness, without saying to herself, "Seven o"clock" or "Fifty years" or any other period of time.
"That is the end," said the young lady.
"And quite time!" exclaimed the Master of the House. "Madam," he said, turning to his wife, "did you know of all this knowledge of which your daughter seems possessed--of boy"s nature, and woman"s love, and the human heart, and all the rest of it? I can"t fathom her with my longest line!"
"You may as well give up all idea of that sort of sounding," said the Mistress of the House. "There is no line long enough to fathom the human heart."
"I am thinking," said John Gayther, as he rattled the seeds in the pan, "whether it was worth while for Amanda to become conscious for so short a time, and just to hear a tale like that."
"Was it worth while to learn that the man she had wanted to love her had really loved her?" asked the Daughter of the House, eagerly.
"It doesn"t seem the sort of love to wait fifty years to hear about,"
said John. "I don"t like the way they have in novels of making folks keep back things that men and women couldn"t help telling."
"Then you don"t like my story, John," said the Daughter of the House, in a disappointed tone.
"Indeed, but I do, miss," he replied quickly. "As a story it is just perfect; but as real doings it doesn"t pan out square. But then, it is meant for a story, and it couldn"t be better or more unlike other stories told here. n.o.body could have thought that out that hadn"t a deep mind."
The young lady looked critically at John, but she saw he really meant what he said, and she was satisfied.
THIS STORY IS TOLD BY
THE OLD PROFESSOR
AND IS CALLED
MY TRANSLATOPHONE
IX
MY TRANSLATOPHONE