"She"s only a child and she"ll soon forget him. She"s to be sent to school and taken abroad and between times she"ll live with the Richard Barrys; and they move, as everyone knows, in the very highest and gayest circles. I"m sorry for the doctor, though. A man of his age doesn"t get over a thing like that in a hurry and he was perfectly silly over Marcella. But it really serves him right for falling in love with a child."
There are times when Martha Riddell gets on my nerves. She"s a good-hearted woman, and she means well; but she rasps--rasps terribly.
Even Miss Sara exasperated me. But then she had her excuse. The child she loved as her own had been torn from her and it almost broke her heart. But even so, I thought she ought to have had a little more faith in Marcella.
"Oh, no, she"ll never come back," sobbed Miss Sara. "Yes, I know she promised. But they"ll wean her away from me. She"ll have such a gay, splendid life she"ll not want to come back. Five years is a lifetime at her age. No, don"t try to comfort me, Miss Tranquil, because I _won"t_ be comforted!"
When a person has made up her mind to be miserable you just have to _let_ her be miserable.
I almost dreaded to see Doctor John for fear he would be in despair, too, without any confidence in Marcella. But when he came I saw I needn"t have worried. The light had all gone out of his eyes, but there was a calm, steady patience in them.
"She will come back to me, Miss Tranquil," he said. "I know what people are saying, but that does not trouble me. They do not know Marcella as I do. She promised and she will keep her word--keep it joyously and gladly, too. If I did not know that I would not wish its fulfilment. When she is free she will turn her back on that brilliant world and all it offers her and come back to me. My part is to wait and believe."
So Doctor John waited and believed. After a little while the excitement died away and people forgot Marcella. We never heard from or about her, except a paragraph now and then in the society columns of the city paper the doctor took. We knew she was sent to school for three years; then the Barrys took her abroad. She was presented at court. When the doctor read this--he was with me at the time--he put his hand over his eyes and sat very silent for a long time. I wondered if at last some momentary doubt had crept into his mind--if he did not fear that Marcella must have forgotten him. The paper told of her triumph and her beauty and hinted at a t.i.tled match. Was it probable or even possible that she would be faithful to him after all this?
The doctor must have guessed my thoughts, for at last he looked up with a smile.
"She will come back," was all he said. But I saw that the doubt, if doubt it were, had gone. I watched him as he went away, that tall, gentle, kindly-eyed man, and I prayed that his trust might not be misplaced; for if it should be it would break his heart.
Five years seems a long time in looking forward. But they pa.s.s quickly. One day I remembered that it was Marcella"s twenty-first birthday. Only one other person thought of it. Even Miss Sara did not.
Miss Sara remembered Marcella only as a child that had been loved and lost. n.o.body else in Bridgeport thought about her at all. The doctor came in that evening. He had a rose in his b.u.t.tonhole and he walked with a step as light as a boy"s.
"She is free to-day," he said. "We shall soon have her again, Miss Tranquil."
"Do you think she will be the same?" I said.
I don"t know what made me say it. I hate to be one of those people who throw cold water on other peoples" hopes. But it slipped out before I thought. I suppose the doubt had been vaguely troubling me always, under all my faith in Marcella, and now made itself felt in spite of me.
But the doctor only laughed.
"How could she be changed?" he said. "Some women might be--most women would be--but not Marcella. Dear Miss Tranquil, don"t spoil your beautiful record of confidence by doubting her now. We shall have her again soon--how soon I don"t know, for I don"t even know where she is, whether in the old world or the new--but just as soon as she can come to us."
We said nothing more--neither of us. But every day the light in the doctor"s eyes grew brighter and deeper and tenderer. He never spoke of Marcella, but I knew she was in his thoughts every moment. He was much calmer than I was. I trembled when the postman knocked, jumped when the gate latch clicked, and fairly had a cold chill if I saw a telegraph boy running down the street.
One evening, a fortnight later, I went over to see Miss Sara. She was out somewhere, so I sat down in her little sitting room to wait for her. Presently the doctor came in and we sat in the soft twilight, talking a little now and then, but silent when we wanted to be, as becomes real friendship. It was such a beautiful evening. Outside in Miss Sara"s garden the roses were white and red, and sweet with dew; the honeysuckle at the window sent in delicious breaths now and again; a few sleepy birds were twittering; between the trees the sky was all pink and silvery blue and there was an evening star over the elm in my front yard. We heard somebody come through the door and down the hall.
I turned, expecting to see Miss Sara--and I saw Marcella! She was standing in the doorway, tall and beautiful, with a ray of sunset light falling athwart her black hair under her travelling hat. She was looking past me at Doctor John and in her splendid eyes was the look of the exile who had come home to her own.
"Marcella!" said the doctor.
I went out by the dining-room door and shut it behind me, leaving them alone together.
The wedding is to be next month. Miss Sara is beside herself with delight. The excitement has been really terrible, and the way people have talked and wondered and exclaimed has almost worn my patience clean out. I"ve snubbed more persons in the last ten days than I ever did in all my life before.
Nothing of this worries Doctor John or Marcella. They are too happy to care for gossip or outside curiosity. The Barrys are not coming to the wedding, I understand. They refuse to forgive Marcella or countenance her folly, as they call it, in any way. Folly! When I see those two together and realize what they mean to each other I have some humble, reverent idea of what true wisdom is.
The End of the Young Family Feud
A week before Christmas, Aunt Jean wrote to Elizabeth, inviting her and Alberta and me to eat our Christmas dinner at Monkshead. We accepted with delight. Aunt Jean and Uncle Norman were delightful people, and we knew we should have a jolly time at their house.
Besides, we wanted to see Monkshead, where Father had lived in his boyhood, and the old Young homestead where he had been born and brought up and where Uncle William still lived. Father never said much about it, but we knew he loved it very dearly, and we had always greatly desired to get at least a glimpse of what Alberta liked to call "our ancestral halls."
Since Monkshead was only sixty miles away, and Uncle William lived there as aforesaid, it may be pertinently asked what there was to prevent us from visiting it and the homestead as often as we wished.
We answer promptly: the family feud.
Father and Uncle William were on bad terms, or rather on no terms at all, and had been ever since we could remember. After Grandfather Young"s death there had been a wretched quarrel over the property.
Father always said that he had been as much to blame as Uncle William, but Great-aunt Emily told us that Uncle William had been by far the most to blame, and that he had behaved scandalously to Father.
Moreover, she said that Father had gone to him when cooling-down time came, apologized for what he had said, and asked Uncle William to be friends again; and that William, simply turned his back on Father and walked into the house without saying a word, but, as Great-aunt Emily said, with the Young temper sticking out of every kink and curve of his figure. Great-aunt Emily is our aunt on Mother"s side, and she does not like any of the Youngs except Father and Uncle Norman.
This was why we had never visited Monkshead. We had never seen Uncle William, and we always thought of him as a sort of ogre when we thought of him at all. When we were children, our old nurse, Margaret Hannah, used to frighten us into good behaviour by saying ominously, "If you "uns aint good your Uncle William"ll cotch you."
What he would do to us when he "cotched" us she never specified, probably reasoning that the unknown was always more terrible than the known. My private opinion in those days was that he would boil us in oil and pick our bones.
Uncle Norman and Aunt Jean had been living out west for years. Three months before this Christmas they had come east, bought a house in Monkshead, and settled there. They had been down to see us, and Father and Mother and the boys had been up to see them, but we three girls had not; so we were pleasantly excited at the thought of spending Christmas there.
Christmas morning was fine, white as a pearl and clear as a diamond.
We had to go by the seven o"clock train, since there was no other before eleven, and we reached Monkshead at eight-thirty.
When we stepped from the train the stationmaster asked us if we were the three Miss Youngs. Alberta pleaded guilty, and he said, "Well, here"s a letter for you then."
We took the letter and went into the waiting room with sundry misgivings. What had happened? Were Uncle Norman and Aunt Jean quarantined for scarlet fever, or had burglars raided the pantry and carried off the Christmas supplies? Elizabeth opened and read the letter aloud. It was from Aunt Jean to the following effect:
DEAR GIRLS: I am so sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot help it. Word has come from Streatham that my sister has met with a serious accident and is in a very critical condition. Your uncle and I must go to Streatham immediately and are leaving on the eight o"clock express. I know you have started before this, so there is no use in telegraphing. We want you to go right to the house and make yourself at home. You will find the key under the kitchen doorstep, and the dinner in the pantry all ready to cook. There are two mince pies on the third shelf, and the plum pudding only needs to be warmed up.
You will find a little Christmas remembrance for each of you on the dining-room table. I hope you will make as merry as you possibly can and we will have you down again as soon as we come back.
Your hurried and affectionate, AUNT JEAN
We looked at each other somewhat dolefully. But, as Alberta pointed out, we might as well make the best of it, since there was no way of getting home before the five o"clock train. So we trailed out to the stationmaster, and asked him limply if he could direct us to Mr.
Norman Young"s house.
He was a rather grumpy individual, very busy with pencil and notebook over some freight; but he favoured us with his attention long enough to point with his pencil and say jerkily, "Young"s? See that red house on the hill? That"s it."
The red house was about a quarter of a mile from the station, and we saw it plainly. Accordingly, to the red house we betook ourselves. On nearer view it proved to be a trim, handsome place, with nice grounds and very fine old trees.
We found the key under the kitchen doorstep and went in. The fire was black out, and somehow things wore a more cheerless look than I had expected to find. I may as well admit that we marched into the dining room first of all, to find our presents.
There were three parcels, two very small and one pretty big, lying on the table, but when we came to look for names there were none.
"Evidently Aunt Jean, in her hurry and excitement, forgot to label them," said Elizabeth. "Let us open them. We may be able to guess from the contents which belongs to whom."
I must say we were surprised when we opened those parcels. "We had known that Aunt Jean"s gifts would be nice, but we had not expected anything like this. There was a magnificent stone marten collar, a dear little gold watch and pearl chatelaine, and a gold chain bracelet set with turquoises.
"The collar must be for you, Elizabeth, because Mary and I have one already, and Aunt Jean knows it," said Alberta; "the watch must be for you, Mary, because I have one; and by the process of exhaustion the bracelet must be for me. Well, they are all perfectly sweet."
Elizabeth put on her collar and paraded in front of the sideboard mirror. It was so dusty she had to take her handkerchief and wipe it before she could see herself properly. Everything in the room was equally dusty. As for the lace curtains, they looked as if they hadn"t been washed for years, and one of them had a long ragged hole in it. I couldn"t help feeling secretly surprised, for Aunt Jean had the reputation of being a perfect housekeeper. However, I didn"t say anything, and neither did the other girls. Mother had always impressed upon us that it was the height of bad manners to criticize anything we might not like in a house where we were guests.