"I wonder who he is going to marry," said Miss Sally, careless of grammar, after he had gone. "Poor, poor girl!"
"I don"t see why you should pity her," said Joyce, not looking up from her embroidery. There was just the merest tremor in her voice. Miss Sally looked at her sharply.
"I pity any woman who is foolish enough to marry," she said solemnly.
"No man is to be trusted, Joyce--no man. They are all ready to break a trusting woman"s heart for the sport of it. Never you allow any man the chance to break yours, Joyce. I shall never consent to your marrying anybody, so mind you don"t take any such notion into your head. There oughtn"t to be any danger, for I have instilled correct ideas on this subject into you from childhood. But girls are such fools. I know, because I was one myself once."
"Of course, I would never marry without your consent, Aunt Sally,"
said Joyce, smiling faintly but affectionately at her aunt. Joyce loved Miss Sally with her whole heart. Everybody did who knew her.
There never was a more lovable creature than this pretty little old maid who hated the men so bitterly.
"That"s a good girl," said Miss Sally approvingly. "I own that I have been a little afraid that this Willard Stanley was coming here to see you. But my mind is set at rest on that point now, and I shall help him fix up his doll house with a clear conscience. Eden, indeed!"
Miss Sally sniffed and tripped out of the room to hunt up a furniture catalogue. Joyce sighed and let her embroidery slip to the floor.
"Oh, I"m afraid Willard"s plan won"t succeed," she murmured. "I"m afraid Aunt Sally will never consent to our marriage. And I can"t and won"t marry him unless she does, for she would never forgive me and I couldn"t bear that. I wonder what makes her so bitter against men. She is so sweet and loving, it seems simply unnatural that she should have such a feeling so deeply rooted in her. Oh, what will she say when she finds out--dear little Aunt Sally? I couldn"t bear to have her angry with me."
The next day Willard came up from the harbour and took Miss Sally down to see Eden. Eden was a tiny, cornery, gabled grey house just across the road and down a long, twisted windy lane, skirting the edge of a beech wood. n.o.body had lived in it for four years, and it had a neglected, out-at-elbow appearance.
"It"s rather a box of a place, isn"t it?" said Willard slowly. "I"m afraid she will think so. But it is all I can afford just now. I dream of giving her a palace some day, of course. But we"ll have to begin humbly. Do you think anything can be made of it?"
Miss Sally was busily engaged in sizing up the possibilities of the place.
"It is pretty small," she said meditatively. "And the yard is small too--and there are far too many trees and shrubs all messed up together. They must be thinned out--and that paling taken down. I think a good deal can be done with it. As for the house--well, let us see the inside."
Willard unlocked the door and showed Miss Sally over the place. Miss Sally poked and pried and sniffed and wrinkled her forehead, and finally stood on the stairs and delivered her ultimatum.
"This house can be done up very nicely. Paint and paper will work wonders. But I wouldn"t paint it outside. Leave it that pretty silver weather-grey and plant vines to run over it. Oh, we"ll see what we can do. Of course it is small--a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and two bedrooms. You won"t want anything stuffy. You can do the painting yourself, and I"ll help you hang the paper. How much money can you spend on it?"
Willard named the sum. It was not a large one.
"But I think it will do," mused Miss Sally. "We"ll _make_ it do.
There"s such satisfaction getting as much as you possibly can out of a dollar, and twice as much as anybody else would get. I enjoy that sort of thing. This will be a game, and we"ll play it with a right good will. But I do wish you would give the place a sensible name."
"I think Eden is the most appropriate name in the world," laughed Willard. "It will be Eden for me when she comes."
"I suppose you tell her all that and she believes it," said Miss Sally sarcastically. "You"ll both find out that there is a good deal more prose than poetry in life."
"But we"ll find it out _together_," said Willard tenderly. "Won"t that be worth something, Miss Sally? Prose, rightly written and read, is sometimes as beautiful as poetry."
Miss Sally deigned no reply. She carefully gathered up her grey silken skirts from the dusty floor and walked out. "Get Christina Bowes to come up tomorrow and scrub this place out," she said practically. "We can go to town and select paint and paper. I should like the dining room done in pale green and the living room in creamy tones, ranging from white to almost golden brown. But perhaps my taste won"t be hers."
"Oh, yes, it will," said Willard with a.s.surance. "I am quite certain she will like everything you like. I can never thank you enough for helping me. If you hadn"t consented I should have had to put it into the hands of some outsider whom I couldn"t have helped at all. And I _wanted_ to help. I wanted to have a finger in everything, because it is for her, you see, Miss Sally. It will be such a delight to fix up this little house, knowing that she is coming to live in it."
"I wonder if you really mean it," said Miss Sally bitterly. "Oh, I dare say you think you do. But _do_ you? Perhaps you do. Perhaps you are the exception that proves the rule."
This was a great admission for Miss Sally to make.
For the next two months Miss Sally was happy. Even Willard himself was not more keenly interested in Eden and its development. Miss Sally did wonders with his money. She was an expert at bargain hunting, and her taste was excellent. A score of times she mercilessly nipped Willard"s suggestions in the bud. "Lace curtains for the living room--never!
They would be horribly out of place in such a house. You don"t want curtains at all--just a frill is all that quaint window needs, with a shelf above it for a few bits of pottery. I picked up a love of a bra.s.s platter in town yesterday--got it for next to nothing from that old Jew who would really rather _give_ you a thing than suffer you to escape without taking something. Oh, I know how to manage them."
"You certainly do," laughed Willard. "It amazes me to see how far you can stretch a dollar."
Willard did the painting under Miss Sally"s watchful eye, and they hung the paper together. Together they made trips to town or junketed over the country in search of furniture and dishes of which Miss Sally had heard. Day by day the little house blossomed into a home, and day by day Miss Sally"s interest in it grew. She began to have a personal affection for its quaint rooms and their adornments. Moreover, in spite of herself, she felt a growing interest in Willard"s bride. He never told her the name of the girl he hoped to bring to Eden, and Miss Sally never asked it. But he talked of her a great deal, in a shy, reverent, tender way.
"He certainly seems to be very much in love with her," Miss Sally told Joyce one evening when she returned from Eden. "I would believe in him if it were possible for me to believe in a man. Anyway, she will have a dear little home. I"ve almost come to love that Eden house. Why don"t you come down and see it, Joyce?"
"Oh, I"ll come some day--I hope," said Joyce lightly. "I think I"d rather not see it until it is finished."
"Willard is a nice boy," said Miss Sally suddenly. "I don"t think I ever did him justice before. The finer qualities of his character come out in these simple, homely little doings and tasks. He is certainly very thoughtful and kind. Oh, I suppose he"ll make a good husband, as husbands go. But he doesn"t know the first thing about managing. If his wife isn"t a good manager, I don"t know what they"ll do. And perhaps she won"t like the way we"ve done up Eden. Willard says she will, of course, because he thinks her perfection. But she may have dreadful taste and want the lace curtains and that nightmare of a pink rug Willard admired, and I dare say she"d rather have a new flaunting set of china with rosebuds on it than that dear old dull blue I picked up for a mere song down at the Aldenbury auction. I stood in the rain for two mortal hours to make sure of it, and it was really worth all that Willard has spent on the dining room put together. It will break my heart if she sets to work altering Eden. It"s simply perfect as it is--though I suppose I shouldn"t say it."
In another week Eden was finished. Miss Sally stood in the tiny hall and looked about her.
"Well, it is done," she said with a sigh. "I"m sorry. I have enjoyed fixing it up tremendously, and now I feel that my occupation is gone.
I hope you are satisfied, Willard."
"Satisfied is too mild a word, Miss Sally. I am delighted. I knew you could accomplish wonders, but I never hoped for _this_. Eden is a dream--the dearest, quaintest, sweetest little home that ever waited for a bride. When I bring her here--oh, Miss Sally, do you know what that thought means to me?"
Miss Sally looked curiously at the young man. His face was flushed and his voice trembled a little. There was a far-away shining look in his eyes as if he saw a vision.
"I hope you and she will be happy," said Miss Sally slowly. "When will she be coming, Willard?"
The flush went out of Willard"s face, leaving it pale and determined.
"That is for her--and you--to say," he answered steadily.
"Me!" exclaimed Miss Sally. "What have I to do with it?"
"A great deal--for unless you consent she will never come here at all."
"Willard Stanley," said Miss Sally, with ominous calm, "who is the girl you mean to marry?"
"The girl I _hope_ to marry is Joyce, Miss Sally. Wait--don"t say anything till you hear me out." He came close to her and caught her hands in a boyish grip. "Joyce and I have loved each other ever since we met. But we despaired of winning your consent, and Joyce will not marry me without it. I thought if I could get you to help me fix up my little home that you might get so interested in it--and so well acquainted with me--that you would trust me with Joyce. Please do, Miss Sally. I love her so truly and I know I can make her happy. If you don"t, Eden shall never have a mistress. I"ll shut it up, just as it is, and leave it sacred to the dead hope of a bride that will never come to it."
"Oh, you wouldn"t," protested Miss Sally. "It would be a shame--such a dear little house--and after all the trouble I"ve taken. But you have tricked me--oh, you men couldn"t be straightforward in anything--"
"Wasn"t it a fair device for a desperate lover, Miss Sally?"
interrupted Willard. "Oh, you mustn"t hold spite because of it, dear; And you will give me Joyce, won"t you? Because if you don"t, I really will shut up Eden forever."
Miss Sally looked wistfully around her. Through the open door on her left she saw the little living room with its quaint, comfortable furniture, its dainty pictures and adornments. Through the front door she saw the trim, velvet-swarded little lawn. Upstairs were two white rooms that only wanted a woman"s living presence to make them jewels.
And the kitchen on which she had expended so much thought and ingenuity--the kitchen furnished to the last detail, even to the kindling in the range and the match Willard had laid ready to light it! It gave Miss Sally a pang to think of that altar fire never being lighted. It was really the thought of the kitchen that finished Miss Sally.
"You"ve tricked me," she said again reproachfully. "You"ve tricked me into loving this house so much that I cannot bear the thought of it never living. You"ll have to have Joyce, I suppose. And I believe I"m glad that it isn"t a stranger who is to be the mistress of Eden. Joyce won"t hanker after pink rugs and lace curtains. And her taste in china is the same as mine. In one way it"s a great relief to my mind. But it"s a fearful risk--a fearful risk. To think that you may make my dear child miserable!"
"You know you don"t think that I will, Miss Sally. I"m not really such a bad fellow, now, am I?"
"You are a man--and I have no confidence whatever in men," declared Miss Sally, wiping some very real tears from her eyes with a very unreal sort of handkerchief--one of the cobwebby affairs of lace her daintiness demanded.