Brenda's Summer at Rockley/Chapter 19

by Helen Leah Reed

 

XIX
MAINE AND MANCHESTER

To Julia the visit to Eliza in Maine had all the charm of novelty. Her uncle and aunt had yielded to her urgent request, and she had been permitted to travel alone from Beverly. At Beverly she had taken the train on the main line, and there she had parted with Brenda, who was to take the branch road for Manchester-by-the-sea. Julia had been invited to join her on this visit to Edith, and she had promised to shorten her visit to Maine by a few days in order to have a little time at Manchester-by-the-sea before her return to Rockley and the wedding.

“I can’t imagine how I am to get along without my two young relatives-to-be,” said Mr. Weston, laughing, as he bade them good-bye. He had insisted on going to Beverly with them, and he had presented each of them with a large box of nougat to console her on the way.

“I shall certainly be unable,” he continued, “to go on any more pilgrimages, and I shall be driven to—”

“Devote yourself to Agnes,” cried Brenda, as the train came in sight.

“That’s just it,” responded Mr. Weston; “she won’t let me. She’s so wrapped up in her old friends, and so busy getting things for the wedding, that—”

“There’s the train, Julia,” interrupted Brenda; “don’t forget to write,” she added, a she said good-bye.

“No, indeed, I ’ll write first,” replied Julia, as the train pulled up.

Now, as letters from one school-girl to another often touch on things that an older person might not think worth mentioning, two of the letters of the cousins may give the best possible idea of their visits.

“Dear Brenda,”—

(for it was Julia, as might have been expected, who wrote first.)

Dear Brenda,—I am afraid that you will think this a very stupid letter, for really nothing has happened since I came here, except the little commonplace things that happen on a farm. I miss the ocean, and I shall be very glad to see it again. Eliza is as happy as can be. She is the head of a household, and she makes the most of it. Her little nieces and nephews are made to “toe the mark,” as she calls it, in a way that is truly wonderful. I have been held before them, it seems, as a model, ever since their aunt took charge of them. In consequence, it was two or three days before I could get them to say a word to me. The youngest merely stared at me every minute with her finger in her mouth, and the elder boy and girl stared, and said, “yes, ma’am,” and “no, ma’am,” when I spoke to them. They have gradually improved, and yesterday they asked if they might name the new calf for me. Eliza had told them that it would not be respectful unless I gave my consent, and when they found that I was willing, they were perfectly delighted. You may laugh when I tell you that I shed a few tears at poor Prince’s grave. They have made a regular mound above it, and have marked it with a tablet of wood, painted white and neatly lettered. Eliza was almost as fond of Prince as I was. Ever since I came here I have been going to bed at about half-past eight, and rising at six. That is the way in the country. Eliza’s brother gets up at dawn, and breakfasts at some unheard-of hour. That’s why country people look so much older than they are. They get more time into a year than most of us do. The other day I went to a sewing-circle tea-party. In some ways it was rather funny. I ’ll not try to tell you until I see you just what it was like. I am glad that I brought some books with me, for I have unlimited time for reading. I go out to a field that rises up back of the house, on one side of which is a little pine grove. There, in the shade, I am perfectly happy and comfortable until Eliza comes along and tries to do something for my entertainment. I am rather glad they are haying now; otherwise, I should have to drive all the time. This warm weather it is so much pleasanter to sit still and read. That reminds me of the reading class. I hope that you did write to Amy. I did not like to myself, for fear you would think me officious. Of course I do not know her as well as you do, but still I feel as if she might wonder what had become of us. If you haven’t written to her, you will, won’t you? I suppose that you are having a perfectly beautiful time at Manchester. Give my love to Edith. What fun we shall have at the wedding! To think that it is only two weeks off!

Affectionately,⁠

Julia.

Now if Julia had been able to go farther into details in her letter, she might have told—but no, her modesty would never have let her tell—of many things that she had been able to do for Eliza and the young nieces and nephews. A country farmer has not much money to spare, and Julia, when she found that Eliza’s namesake, the eldest of the family, was anxious to study music, was only too glad to pay for a six months’ course of lessons in advance. The girl already could play a few hymn-tunes on the cabinet organ, which was the most pretentious piece of furniture in the little parlor, and she had confided to Julia that when she could perform the longer pieces in the book of instruction she should be perfectly happy. A large tool-chest, filled with an assortment of mysterious implements, found its way to the farm-house during Julia’s stay there, and the boys and their father were equally pleased with it. Another box—a large one, this time—brought a collection of standard books. Julia had discovered that a great need of the little community was good books, and she had in mind the elder Eliza and her brother, and some of the heads of families in the neighborhood, when she ordered from town Sir John Lubbock’s “Hundred Best Books,” in the uniform and inexpensive binding into which a certain publisher had put them.

“Some of them,” she said to herself, “will certainly be above the heads of most of the people here. But it’s better for them to have books that they will have to climb up to, rather than books they must grovel over, like some of the novels they read.”

In the village, Julia found one or two helpless old people supported half by charity and by the grudging help of distant relatives.

“Old Mrs. Tracy,” said Eliza, “is in constant fear that she ’ll have to go to the poor-house. If her son and his wife had n’t been killed in that railroad accident, she’d never have come to this, and she’s such a good, pious woman, too.”

So it happened that Julia, after talking it over carefully with Eliza, offered to pay the three dollars a week that would keep the old lady off the town, and compensate the cousin with whom she lived for taking care of her. Old Mr. Steiner, with his wooden leg, was another of Julia’s proteges.

“If I’d a-lost that leg in the war, I’d a-had a pension; but just because I tried to stop a runaway horse, it don’t seem right that I should be so helpless. I stopped the horse fast enough, and I was knocked down and dragged, so that my leg had to be amputated.”

Old Mr. Steiner said “hoss” and “ampitated,” but Julia had great interest in him because she knew that his bravery had saved two lives. The people whom he had rescued were too poor to do more than offer him a home, when a worthless son had made him lose his farm through a mortgage note. The three dollars a week which she guaranteed to them made old Mr. Steiner as happy as a king, and he overwhelmed her with his thanks.

“You won’t have to pay it a great many years. Miss Julia,” said Eliza. “They ’re neither of them going to hold out much longer. But you could n’t have made your money go a greater ways in doing good than you have. For it ’s very hard for old people to feel that they ’re a burden on the people they’re living with.”

In other ways Julia found opportunities for making herself helpful to some of the less fortunate with whom she came in contact.

She had just returned from a tea-party at the house of one of the neighbors, when Brenda’s letter from Manchester was put into her hand. Eliza’s brother had gone to the village during their absence, and had brought back the evening mail.

As she read the three or four sheets, written on the oblong violet paper which happened then to be the fashion, Julia smiled at the contrast between the kind of thing in which Brenda was then participating, and that of which she herself had formed part during the last week or two.

My dear Julia,—I really think that you made a mistake in not coming to Manchester with me. You could have gone up to the country just as well some other time, and really it’s just the height of the season here, so you ’ve missed a lot by staying away. Philip says that you are awfully foolish. He’s been asking about you very particularly, and you know he does n’t often trouble himself about Edith’s friends. I think myself that he was much nicer a few years ago. He seems so kind of conceited now. But then most of the Harvard boys are.

Well, we ’ve been over to the Club—the Essex County—several times. The Blairs have a new pair of black horses that just spin over the ground, so that we are there in no time. To tell the truth, I’d just as soon go on my wheel, but Mrs. Blair won’t let Edith ride in August; she thinks it’s bad for her head. Then she likes to drive with us. So we sit on the piazza and listen to the music. That’s about all there is to do. But a good many people come around and talk to you, and I must say they ’re very nice, and never try to make me remember I’m only sixteen. But then, of course, Edith and I are both rather tall for our age—and her clothes, well, really, they have just as much style as if she were eighteen. Her aunt Emmeline brought her stacks of things from Paris, and I don^t see why mamma did n’t have Agnes bring me one of those blue crepons. It would be just as suitable for me as for Edith.

It’s rather fun to watch them playing golf, although I’d rather watch than play this hot weather. Do you know, I’ve hardly set foot to the ground since I left home; and there’s some one to wait on me whenever I want anything, so that I shall be lazier than ever when I go back to Rockley. The other day we had a cruise as far as Portsmouth on the Windermere’s steam-yacht—the most perfect thing you ever saw—well, it was beyond my wildest dreams of what a yacht could be. Then we ’ve been out on Jim Rembrandt’s four-in-hand. We were the only girls of our age he asked, but then he’s a kind of a cousin of Edith’s, and he drove us over to his kennels at Wenham; you never saw such perfect little terriers, and hunting dogs,—well, he has a whole outfit, and I would n’t dare say how many men he keeps just to look after those dogs. Some way or other, when I saw the care he gave them, and heard how much money he spends on them, I couldn’t help thinking of those poor little children we saw that day in Boston—you remember—begging us for flowers. But I must say that Edith is good about flowers. She sends two great hampers twice a week to the flower mission. Sometimes they are hot-house flowers, for you know Mr. Blair’s conservatories here are almost as fine as those they have in Brookline.

There’s been company every evening at dinner—Tom Hearst, of course, and Rupert Walsh one evening, and other friends of Philip’s; and Frances Pounder has been visiting the Ormsbys, and Belle was there, too, for a few days, so that it’s like a dinner-party every evening. Edith wants to have something special for me before I go, probably just an informal evening at home with a little dancing—a very little, I fancy, for the boys hate to dance in summer.

Of course you ’ll be shocked to hear that I ’ve hardly read a thing since I came here. You see, Edith and I have so much to talk about. Besides, although she’s rather serious, she is n’t as fond of reading as you are. I miss your influence, and Amy’s. That reminds me, I have n’t written to Amy yet, but I’m going to ask her to assist at the wedding; Agnes says the more young girls there are there the better she ’ll like it. Don’t you feel excited when you think of being a bridesmaid? I’m sure I do. You know you ’re to meet me in Boston on the 25th to try the dresses, and mamma says we’d better stay in town over night. She and Agnes will be there, so I think that would be a good time to go out to Shiloh, just as we planned. Edith sends love, and so would Philip, if he knew I was writing.

So good-bye (honestly, I should think you ’d And it very stupid in the country).

Affectionately,⁠

Brenda.

Julia smiled a little as she read this characteristic letter, and she saw that her cousin was really enjoying her visit. Yet the description of the gayety did not make her discontented with the life that she herself had been leading during her fortnight in Maine.

“It’s rather comical, too, that Brenda has forgotten that I am to spend two or three days at Manchester on my way home. I ’ll drop a line to Edith not to refresh her memory, and when I arrive she ’ll be taken by surprise.”

Accordingly, when Julia presented herself at Mrs. Blair’s dinner-table a few days after this, Brenda really was very much surprised.

“How in the world did you get over from the station? Edith and I could have met you, for we were out driving.” Then, noting a smile on Philip’s face, “Oh, I suppose Philip went over. Well, I dare say that that was pleasanter, still you might have let me know.”

“Why, you silly girl,” cried Edith, “how forgetful you are! It was all arranged before you left Rockley. Julia promised to give me two or three days on her way back from Maine.”

“Oh, I remember we talked of it. But I thought that she would n’t tear herself away from Eliza until the last minute.”

“I told her that she must go with us on that excursion to-morrow, and here she is,” and Edith threw her arm affectionately around Julia’s waist.

The next morning, by an early train, Ralph Weston arrived.

“When I heard that it was to be a pilgrimage I dropped everything and just came,” he said. “You see, I must know all that I can about this wonderful North Shore,” he said. “I’m going to be a tremendous patriot when I return to Paris, and I can’t afford to neglect any opportunity for informing myself about historic places. It’s Norman’s Woe we ’re to see to-day, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Well, now can you tell me what Norman’s Woe is distinguished for?”

“Why, Longfellow wrote a poem about it. Don’t you remember?

“‘Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax.’

Surely you remember how the Skipper and his daughter drifted on

⁠“‘fast through the midnight dark and drear,
⁠Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
⁠Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.’”

“Don’t recite in that tragic tone; we don’t wish to be too sad to-day. You ’ll have to be as cheerful as possible, so that I may have something pleasant to remember when I go back to Europe,” said the irrepressible Mr. Weston. “You should retain pleasant memories, too, of your last pilgrimage, for I don’t suppose that you ’ll have the heart for anything more of the kind when I am no longer with you.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” replied Brenda; “we ’re just getting into the proper mood for such expeditions.”

“All ready,” cried Edith, coming around the corner of the house on the front seat of the beach-wagon.

“Yes, here we are,” and “here we are,”—and from various nooks and corners appeared Julia and Evelyn Romney, one of Edith’s friends, and Tom and Philip, and Mrs. Pell, who promised Mrs. Blair that she would look after the young people, and who afterwards admitted that the task had been much more difficult than she had expected.

But after all, one excursion of this kind is much like another, and the amount of sight-seeing of this party of friends did not tire those who had no interest in historic places, and yet it was enough to make the day much more interesting to thoughtful people like Julia and Mr. Weston, who cared for something more than the excitement of a day’s outing. So, after the short drive from Magnolia, the two latter hastened over the rocks to gaze into the depths of Rafe’s Chasm, and to look out toward the treacherous sea,—

⁠“where the white and fleecy waves,
Looked soft as carded wool,”

as soft as when

⁠“the cruel rocks, they gored her side,
Like the horns of an angry bull.”

On their way to the little old-fashioned inn in Essex where they were to have luncheon, Julia and Mr. Weston exclaimed many times over the beautiful woods, that seemed to belong rather to a mountain region than to one close to the sea,—wild stretches of woodland so markedly in contrast with the broad, smooth roads, and the great country houses and finely kept lawns which they were constantly passing.

They were a gay and merry party, and this picnic of Edith’s (for so they called it, although their luncheon was served to them at the old inn)—this picnic of Edith’s was one of the pleasantest excursions of the summer for Brenda and Julia.

“I am to see your mother and Agnes in the city to-morrow,” said Mr. Weston, as he bade Brenda good-bye. “I believe that you are to meet them there the day after. I may tell them, I suppose, that you are coming. As for myself, I have to go on to New York for a day or two, but I’ll be back—”

“Yes, do come back in time for the wedding,” interposed Brenda, mischievously.

“Oh, very well, if you are sure that I am expected.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose that they could get along without you,” rejoined Brenda.

“Well, then, I won’t forget it,” and swinging himself up to the seat of the carriage, the young man raised his hat politely, as he drove away.