Uncle Oldways came up once in a while to the house in Shubarton Place, and made an evening call. He seemed to take apricot-color for granted, when he got there, as much as he did the plain, old, unrelieved brown at Mrs. Ripwinkley"s; he sat quite unconcernedly in the grand easy chair that Laura wheeled out for him; indeed, it seemed as if he really, after a manner, indorsed everything by his acceptance without demur of what he found. But then one must sit down on something; and if one is offered a cup of coffee, or anything on a plate, one cannot easily protest against sea-green china. We do, and we have, and we wear, and we say, a great many things, and feel ourselves countenanced and confirmed, somehow,--perhaps excused,--because n.o.body appears surprised or says anything. But what should they say; and would it be at all proper that they should be surprised? If we only thought of it, and once tried it, we might perhaps find it quite as easy and encouraging, on the same principle, _not_ to have apricot rep and sea-green china.
One night Mr. Oldways was with them when the talk turned eastwardly over the water. There were new names in the paper, of people who had gone out in the _Aleppo_, and a list of Americans registered at Bowles Brothers," among whom were old acquaintance.
"I declare, how they all keep turning up there" said Mrs. Ledwith.
"The war doesn"t seem to make much difference," said her husband.
"To think how lucky the Vonderbargens were, to be in Paris just at the edge of the siege!" said Glossy Megilp. "They came back from Como just in time; and poor Mr. Washburne had to fairly hustle them off at last. They were buying silks, and ribbons, and gloves, up to the last minute, for absolutely nothing. Mrs. Vonderbargen said it seemed a sin to come away and leave anything. I"m sure I don"t know how they got them all home; but they did."
Glossy had been staying lately with the Vonderbargens in New York.
She stayed everywhere, and picked up everything.
"You have been abroad, Mrs. Scherman?" said Mrs. Ledwith, inquiringly, to Asenath, who happened to be calling, also, with her husband, and was looking at some photographs with Desire.
"No, ma"am," answered Mrs. Scherman, very promptly, not having spoken at all before in the discussion. "I do not think I wish to go. The syphon has been working too long."
"The Syphon?"
Mrs. Ledwith spoke with a capital S in her mind; but was not quite sure whether what Mrs. Scherman meant might be a line of Atlantic steamers or the sea-serpent.
"Yes, ma"am. The emptying back and forth. There isn"t much that is foreign over there, now, nor very much that is native here. The hemispheres have got miserably mixed up. I think when I go "strange countries for to see," it will have to be Patagonia or Independent Tartary."
Uncle Oldways turned round with his great chair, so as to face Asenath, and laughed one of his thorough fun digesting laughs, his keen eyes half shut with the enjoyment, and sparkling out through their cracks at her.
But Asenath had resumed her photographs with the sweetest and quietest unconsciousness.
Mrs. Ledwith let her alone after that; and the talk rambled on to the schools in Munich, and the Miracle Plays at Oberammergau.
"To think of _that_ invasion!" said Asenath, in a low tone to Desire, "and corrupting _that_ into a show, with a run of regular performances! I do believe they have pulled down the last unprofaned thing now, and trampled over it."
"If we go," said Mrs. Megilp, "we shall join the Fayerwerses, and settle down with them quietly in some nice place; and then make excursions. We shall not try to do all Europe in three months; we shall choose, and take time. It is the only way really to enjoy or acquire; and the quiet times are so invaluable for the lessons and languages."
Mrs. Megilp made up her little varnishes with the genuine gums of truth and wisdom; she put a beautiful shine even on to her limited opportunities and her enforced frugalities.
"Mrs. Ledwith, you _ought_ to let Agatha and Florence go too. I would take every care of them; and the expense would be so divided--carriages, and couriers, and everything--that it would be hardly anything."
"It is a great opportunity," Mrs. Ledwith said, and sighed. "But it is different with us from what it is with you. We must still be a family here, with nearly the same expenses. To be sure Desire has done with school, and she doesn"t care for gay society, and Helena is a mere child yet; if it ever could"--
And so it went on between the ladies, while Mr. Oldways and Mr.
Ledwith and Frank Scherman got into war talk, and Bismarck policy, and French poss--no, _im_-possibilities.
"I don"t think Uncle Oldways minded much," said Mrs. Ledwith to Agatha, and Mrs. Megilp, up-stairs, after everybody had gone who was to go.
"He never minds anything," said Agatha.
"I don"t know," said Mrs. Megilp, slowly. "He seemed mightily pleased with what Asenath Scherman said."
"O, she"s pretty, and funny; it makes no difference what she says; people are always pleased."
"We might dismiss one girl this winter," said Mrs. Ledwith, "and board in some cheap country place next summer. I dare say we could save it in the year"s round; the difference, I mean. When you weren"t actually travelling, it wouldn"t cost more than to have you here,--dress and all.
"They wouldn"t need to have a new thing," said Glossy.
"Those people out at Z---- want to buy the house. I"ve a great mind to coax Grant to sell, and take a slice right out, and send them,"
said Mrs. Ledwith, eagerly. She was always eager to accomplish the next new thing for her children; and, to say the truth, did not much consider herself. And so far as they had ever been able, the Ledwiths had always been rather easily given to "taking the slice right out."
The Megilps had had a little legacy of two or three thousand dollars, and were quite in earnest in their plans, this time, which had been talk with them for many years.
"Those poor Fayerwerses!" said Asenath to her husband, walking home.
"Going out now, after the cheap European living of a dozen years ago! The ghost always goes over on the last load. I wonder at Mrs.
Megilp. She generally knows better."
"She"ll do," said Frank Scherman. "If the Fayerwerses stick anywhere, as they probably will, she"ll hitch on to the Fargo"s, and turn up at Jerusalem. And then there are to be the Ledwiths, and their "little slice.""
"O, dear! what a mess people do make of living!" said Asenath.
Uncle t.i.tus trudged along down Dorset Street with his stick under his arm.
"Try "em! Find "em out!" he repeated to himself. "That"s what Marmaduke said. Try "em with this,--try "em with that; a good deal, or a little; having and losing, and wanting. That"s what the Lord does with us all; and I begin to see He has a job of it!"
The house was sold, and Agatha and Florence went.
It made home dull for poor Desire, little as she found of real companionship with her elder sisters. But then she was always looking for it, and that was something. Husbands and wives, parents and children, live on upon that, through years of repeated disappointments, and never give up the expectation of that which is somewhere, and which these relations represent to them, through all their frustrated lives.
That is just why. It _is_ somewhere.
It turned out a hard winter, in many ways, for Desire Ledwith. She hated gay company, and the quiet little circle that she had become fond of at her Aunt Ripwinkley"s was broken somewhat to them all, and more to Desire than, among what had grown to be her chronic discontents, she realized or understood, by the going away for a time of Kenneth Kincaid.
What was curious in the happening, too, he had gone up to "And" to build a church. That had come about through the Marchbankses"
knowledge of him, and this, you remember, through their being with the Geoffreys when the Kincaids were first introduced in Summit Street.
The Marchbankses and the Geoffreys were cousins. A good many Boston families are.
Mr. Roger Marchbanks owned a good deal of property in And. The neighborhood wanted a church; and he interested himself actively and liberally in behalf of it, and gave the land,--three lots right out of the middle of Marchbanks Street, that ran down to the river.
Dorris kept her little room, and was neighborly as heretofore; but she was busy with her music, and had little time but her evenings; and now there was n.o.body to walk home with Desire to Shubarton Place, if she stayed in Aspen Street to tea. She came sometimes, and stayed all night; but that was dreary for Helena, who never remembered to shut the piano or cover up the canary, or give the plants in the bay window their evening sprinkle, after the furnace heat had been drying them all day.
Kenneth Kincaid came down for his Sundays with Dorris, and his work at the Mission; a few times he called in at Uncle Oldways" after tea, when the family was all together; but they saw him very seldom; he gave those Sunday evenings mostly to needed rest, and to quiet talk with Dorris.
Desire might have gone to the Mission this winter, easily enough, after all. Agatha and Florence and Glossy Megilp were not by to make wondering eyes, or smile significant smiles; but there was something in herself that prevented; she knew that it would be more than half to _get_, and she still thought she had so little to give! Besides, Kenneth Kincaid had never asked her again, and she could not go to him and say she would come.
Desire Ledwith began to have serious question of what life was ever going to be for her. She imagined, as in our early years and our first gray days we are all apt to imagine, that she had found out a good deal that it was _not_ going to be.
She was not going to be beautiful, or accomplished, or even, she was afraid, agreeable; she found that such hard work with most people.
She was not ever--and that conclusion rested closely upon these foregoing--to be married, and have a nice husband and a pretty house, and go down stairs and make snow-puddings and ginger-snaps of a morning, and have girls staying with her, and pleasant people in to tea; like Asenath Scherman. She couldn"t write a book,--that, perhaps, was one of her premature decisions, since n.o.body knows till they try, and the books are lying all round, in leaves, waiting only to be picked up and put together,--or paint a picture; she couldn"t bear parties, and clothes were a fuss, and she didn"t care to go to Europe.
She thought she should rather like to be an old maid, if she could begin right off, and have a little cottage out of town somewhere, or some cosy rooms in the city. At least, she supposed that was what she had got to be, and if that were settled, she did not see why it might not be begun young, as well as married life. She could not endure waiting, when a thing was to be done.