The Old Gray Homestead.
by Frances Parkinson Keyes.
CHAPTER I
"For Heaven"s sake, Sally, don"t say, "Isn"t it hot?" or, "Did you ever know such weather for April?" or, "Doesn"t it seem as if the mud was just as bad as it used to be before we had the State Road?" again. It _is_ hot. I never did see such weather. The mud is _worse_ if anything. I"ve said all this several times, and if you can"t think of anything more interesting to talk about, I wish you"d keep still."
Sally Gray pushed back the lock of crinkly brown hair that was always getting in her eyes, puckered her lips a little, and glanced at her brother Austin without replying, but with a slight ripple of concern disturbing her usual calm. She was plain and plump and placid, as sweet and wholesome as clover, and as nerveless as a cow, and she secretly envied her brother"s lean, dark handsomeness; but she was conscious of a little pang of regret that the young, eager face beside her was already becoming furrowed with lines of discontent and bitterness, and that the expression of the fine mouth was rapidly growing more and more hard and sullen. Austin had been all the way from Hamstead to White Water that day, stopping on his way back at Wallacetown, to bring Sally, who taught school there, home for over Sunday; his little old horse, never either strong or swift, was tired and hot and muddy, and hung its unkempt head dejectedly, apparently having lost all willingness to drag the dilapidated top-buggy and its two occupants another step. Austin"s manner, Sally reflected, was not much more cheerful than that of his horse; while his clothes were certainly as dirty, as shabby, and as out-of-date as the rest of his equipage.
"It"s a shame," she thought, "that Austin takes everything so hard. The rest of us don"t mind half so much. If he could only have a little bit of encouragement and help--something that would make him really happy! If he could earn some money--or find out that, after all, money isn"t everything--or fall in love with some nice girl--" She checked herself, blushing and sighing. The blush was occasioned by her own quiet happiness in that direction; but the sigh was because Austin, though he was well known to have been "rather wild," never paid any "nice girl" the slightest attention, and jeered cynically at the mere suggestion that he should do so.
"How lovely the valley is!" she said aloud at last; "I don"t believe there"s a prettier stretch of road in the whole world than this between Wallacetown and Hamstead, especially in the spring, when the river is so high, and everything is looking so fresh and green."
"Fortunate it is pretty; probably it"s the only thing we"ll have to look at as long as we live--and certainly it"s about all we"ve seen so far! If there"d been only you and I, Sally, we could have gone off to school, and maybe to college, too, but with eight of us to feed and clothe, it"s no wonder that father is dead sunk in debt! Certainly I shan"t travel much,"
he added, laughing bitterly, "when he thinks we can"t have even one hired man in the future--and certainly you won"t either, if you"re fool enough to marry Fred, and go straight from the frying-pan of one poverty-stricken home to the fire of another!"
"Oh, Austin, it"s wrong of you to talk so! I"m going to be ever so happy!"
"Wrong! How else do you expect me to talk?--if I talk at all! Doesn"t it mean anything to you that the farm"s mortgaged to the very last cent, and that it doesn"t begin to produce what it ought to because we can"t beg, borrow, or steal the money that ought to be put into it? Can you just shut your eyes to the fact that the house--the finest in the county when Grandfather Gray built it--is falling to pieces for want of necessary repairs? And look at our barns and sheds--or don"t look at them if you can help it! Doesn"t it gall you to dress as you do, because you have to turn over most of what you can earn teaching to the family--of course, you never can earn much, because you haven"t had a good enough education yourself to get a first-cla.s.s position--so that the younger girls can go to school at all, instead of going out as hired help? Can"t you feel the injustice of being poor, and dirty, and ignorant, when thousands of other people are just _rotten_ with money?"
"I"ve heard of such people, but I"ve never met any of them around here,"
returned his sister quietly. "We"re no worse off than lots of people, better off than some. I think we"ve got a good deal to be thankful for, living where we can see green things growing, and being well, and having a mother like ours. I wish you could come to feel that way. Perhaps you will some day."
"Why don"t you marry Fred"s cousin, instead of Fred?" asked her brother, changing the subject abruptly. "You could get him just as easy as not--I could see that when he was here last summer. Then you could go to Boston to live, get something out of life yourself, and help your family, too."
"No one in the family but you would want help from me--at that price,"
returned Sally, still speaking quietly, but betraying by the slight unevenness of her voice that her quiet spirit was at last disturbed more than she cared to show. "Why, Austin, you know how I lo--care for Fred, and that I gave him my word more than two years ago! Besides, I heard you say yourself, before you knew he fancied me, that Hugh Elliott drank--and did all sorts of other dreadful things--he wouldn"t be considered respectable in Hamstead."
Austin laughed again. "All right. I won"t bring up the subject again. Ten years from now you may be sorry you wouldn"t put up with an occasional spree, and sacrifice a silly little love-affair, for the sake of everything else you"d get. But suit yourself. Cook and wash and iron and scrub, lose your color and your figure and your disposition, and bring half-a-dozen children into the world with no better heritage than that, if it"s your idea of bliss--and it seems to be!"
"I didn"t mean to be cross, Sally," he said, after they had driven along in heavy silence for some minutes. "I"ve been trying to do a little business for father in White Water to-day, and met with my usual run of luck--none at all. Here comes one of the livery-stable teams ploughing towards us through the mud. Who"s in it, do you suppose? Doesn"t look familiar, some way."
As the livery-stable in Hamstead boasted only four turn-outs, it was not strange that Austin recognized one of them at sight, and as strangers were few and far between, they were objects of considerable interest.
Sally leaned forward.
"No, she doesn"t. She"s all in black--and my! isn"t she pretty? She seems to be stopping and looking around--why don"t you ask her if you could be of any help?"
Austin nodded, and pulled in his reins. "I wonder if I could--" he began, but stopped abruptly, realizing that the lady in the buggy coming towards them had also stopped, and spoken the very same words. Inevitably they all smiled, and the stranger began again.
"I wonder if you could tell me how to get to Mr. Howard Gray"s house,"
she said. "I was told at the hotel to drive along this road as far as a large white house--the first one I came to--and then turn to the right.
But I don"t see any road."
"There isn"t any, at this time of year," said Sally, laughing,--"nothing but mud. You have to wallow through that field, and go up a hill, and down a hill, and along a little farther, and then you come to the house.
Just follow us--we"re going there. I"m Howard Gray"s eldest daughter Sally, and this is my brother Austin."
"Oh! then perhaps you can tell me--before I intrude--if it would be any use--whether you think that possibly--whether under any circ.u.mstances --well, if your mother would be good enough to let me come and live at her house a little while?"
By this time Sally and Austin had both realized two things: first, that the person with whom they were talking belonged to quite a different world from their own--the fact was written large in her clothing, in her manner, in the very tones of her voice; and, second, that in spite of her pale face and widow"s veil, she was even younger than they were, a girl hardly out of her teens.
"I"m not very well," she went on rapidly, before they could answer, "and my doctor told me to go away to some quiet place in the country until I could get--get rested a little. I spent a summer here with my mother when I was a little girl, and I remembered how lovely it was, and so I came back. But the hotel has run down so that I don"t think I can possibly stay there; and yet I can"t bear to go away from this beautiful, peaceful river-valley--it"s just what I"ve been longing to find. I happened to overhear some one talking about Mrs. Gray, and saying that she might consider taking me in. So I hired this buggy and started out to find her and ask. Oh, don"t you think she would?"
Sally and Austin exchanged glances. "Mother never has taken any boarders, she"s always been too busy," began the former; then, seeing the swift look of disappointment on the sad little face, "but she might. It wouldn"t do any harm to ask, anyway. We"ll drive ahead, and show you how to get there."
The Gray family had been one of local prominence ever since Colonial days, and James Gray, who built the dignified, s.p.a.cious homestead now occupied by his grandson"s family, had been a man of some education and wealth. His son Thomas inherited the house, but only a fourth of the fortune, as he had three sisters. Thomas had but one child, Howard, whose prospects for prosperity seemed excellent; but he grew up a dreamy, irresolute, studious chap, a striking contrast to the st.u.r.dy yeoman type from which he had sprung--one of those freaks of heredity that are hard to explain. He went to Dartmouth College, travelled a little, showed a disposition to read--and even to write--verses. As a teacher he probably would have been successful; but his father was determined that he should become a farmer, and Howard had neither the energy nor the disposition to oppose him; he proved a complete failure. He married young, and, it was generally considered, beneath him; for Mary Austin, with a heart of gold and a disposition like sunshine, had little wealth or breeding and less education to commend her; and she was herself too easy-going and contented to prove the prod that Howard sadly needed in his wife.
Children came thick and fast; the eldest, James, had now gone South; the second daughter, Ruth, was already married to a struggling storekeeper living in White Water; Sally taught school; but the others were all still at home, and all, except Austin, too young to be self-supporting--Thomas, Molly, Katherine, and Edith. They had all caught their father"s facility for correct speech, rare in northern New England; most of them his love of books, his formless and unfulfilled ambitions; more than one the shiftlessness and incompetence that come partly from natural bent and partly from hopelessness; while Sally and Thomas alone possessed the sunny disposition and the ability to see the bright side of everything and the good in everybody which was their mother"s legacy to them.
The old house, set well back from the main road and near the river, with elms and maples and clumps of lilac bushes about it, was almost bare of the cheerful white paint that had once adorned it, and the green blinds were faded and broken; the barns never had been painted, and were huddled close to the house, hiding its fine Colonial lines, black, ungainly, and half fallen to pieces; all kinds of farm implements, rusty from age and neglect, were scattered about, and two dogs and several cats lay on the kitchen porch amidst the general litter of milk-pails, half-broken chairs, and rush mats. There was no one in sight as the two muddy buggies pulled up at the little-used front door. Howard Gray and Thomas were milking, both somewhat out-of-sorts because of the non-appearance of Austin, for there were too many cows for them to manage alone--a long row of dirty, lean animals of uncertain age and breed. Molly was helping her mother to "get supper," and the red tablecloth and heavy white china, never removed from the kitchen table except to be washed, were beginning to be heaped with pickles, doughnuts, pie, and cake, and there were potatoes and pork frying on the stove. Katherine was studying, and Edith had gone to hastily "spread up"
the beds that had not been made that morning.
On the whole, however, the inside of the house was more tidy than the outside, and the girl in black was aware of the homely comfort and good cheer of the living-room into which she was ushered (since there was no time to open up the cold "parlor") more than she was of its shabbiness.
"Come right in an" set down," said Mrs. Gray cheerfully, leading the way; "awful tryin" weather we"re havin", ain"t it? An" the mud--my, it"s somethin" fierce! The men-folks track it in so, there"s no keepin" it swept up, an" there"s so many of us here! But there"s nothin" like a large family for keepin" things hummin" just the same, now, is there?"
Mrs. Gray had had scant time to prepare her mind either for her unexpected visitor or the object of her visit; but her mother-wit was ready, for all that; one glance at the slight, black-robed little figure, and the thin white face, with its tired, dark-ringed eyes, was enough for her. Here was need of help; and therefore help of some sort she must certainly give. "Now, then," she went on quickly, "you look just plum tuckered out; set down an" rest a spell, an" tell me what I can do for you."
"My name is Sylvia Cary--Mrs. Mortimer Cary, I mean." She shivered, paused, and went on. "I live in New York--that is, I always have--I"m never going to any more, if I can help it. My husband died two months ago, my baby--just before that. I"ve felt so--so--tired ever since, I just had to get away somewhere--away from the noise, and the hurry, and the crowds of people I know. I was in Hamstead once, ten years ago, and I remembered it, and came back. I want most dreadfully to stay--could you possibly make room for me here?"
"Oh, you poor lamb! I"d do anything I could for you--but this ain"t the sort of home you"ve been used to--" began Mrs. Gray; but she was interrupted.
"No, no, of course it isn"t! Don"t you understand--I can"t bear what I"ve been used to another minute! And I"ll honestly try not to be a bit of trouble if you"ll only let me stay!"
Mrs. Gray twisted in her chair, fingering her ap.r.o.n. "Well, now, I don"t know! You"ve come so sudden-like--if I"d only had a little notice! There"s no place fit for a lady like you; but there are two rooms we never use--the northeast parlor and the parlor-chamber off it.
You could have one of them--after I got it cleaned up a mite--an" try it here for a while."
"Couldn"t I have them both? I"d like a sitting-room as well as a bedroom."
"Land! You ain"t even seen "em yet! maybe they won"t suit you at all!
But, come, I"ll show "em to you an" if you want to stay, you shan"t go back to that filthy hotel. I"ll get the bedroom so"s you can sleep in it to-night--just a lick an" a promise; an" to-morrow I"ll house-clean "em both thorough, if "t is the Sabbath--the "better the day, the better the deed," I"ve heard some say, an" I believe that"s true, don"t you, Mrs.
Cary?" She bustled ahead, pulling up the shades, and flinging open the windows in the unused rooms. "My, but the dust is thick! Don"t you touch a thing--just see if you think they"ll do."
Sylvia Cary glanced quickly about the two great square rooms, with their white wainscotting, and shutters, their large, stopped-up fireplaces, dingy wall-paper, and beautiful, neglected furniture. "Indeed they will!"
she exclaimed; "they"ll be lovely when we get them fixed. And may I truly stay--right now? I brought my hand-bag with me, you see, hoping that I might, and my trunks are still at the station--wait, I"ll give you the checks, and perhaps your son will get them after supper."
She put the bag on a chair, and began to open it, hurriedly, as if unwilling to wait a minute longer before making sure of remaining. Mrs.
Gray, who was standing near her, drew back with a gasp of surprise. The bag was lined with heavy purple silk, and elaborately fitted with toilet articles of shining gold. Mrs. Cary plunged her hands in and tossed out an embroidered white satin negligee, a pair of white satin bed-slippers, and a nightgown that was a mere wisp of sheer silk and lace; then drew forth three trunk-checks, and a bundle an inch thick of crisp, new bank-notes, and pulled one out, blushing and hesitating.
"I don"t know how to thank you for taking me in to-night," she said; "some day I"ll tell you all about myself, and why it means so much to me to have a--a refuge like this; but I"m afraid I can"t until--I"ve got rested a little. Soon we must talk about arrangements and terms and all that--oh, I"m awfully businesslike! But just let me give you this to-night, to show you how grateful I am, and pay for the first two weeks or so."
And she folded the bill into a tiny square, and crushed it into Mrs.
Gray"s reluctant hand.
Fifteen minutes later, when Howard Gray and Thomas came into the kitchen for their supper, bringing the last full milk-pails with them, they found the pork and potatoes burnt to a frazzle, the girls all talking at once, and Austin bending over his mother, who sat in the big rocker with the tears rolling down her cheeks, and a hundred-dollar bill spread out on her lap.