Miss Prudence - Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
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He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that
she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at
him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his
eyes fixed upon the sea. He often sat for hours and hours looking out
upon the sea.
Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and
strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank
back into weakness and apathy. He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile
ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses.
"Papa gets tired of loving me," she had said to Nurse last night with a
quivering of the lip.
"Papa is very sick," Nurse had answered guardedly, "and he had letters
to-day that were too much for him."
"Then he shouldn't have letters," said the child, decidedly. "I'll tell
him so to-morrow."
As she danced about, her white dress and sunny curls gleaming in and out
among the heliotrope and scarlet geranium that one of the flower-loving
boarders was cultivating, her father called her name; it was a queer
name, and she did not like it. She liked her second name, Prudence,
better. But Nurse had said, when she complained to her, that the girls
would call her "Prudy" for short, and "Jerrie" was certainly a prettier
name than that.
"Jerrie," her father called.
The sound was so weak and broken by a cough that she did not turn her
head or answer until he had called more than twice. But she flew to him
when she was sure that he had called her, and kissed his flabby cheek and
smoothed back the thin locks of white hair. His black eyes were burning
like two fires beneath his white brows, his lips were ashy, and his
breath hot and hurried. Two letters were trembling in his hand, two open
letters, and one of them was in several fluttering sheets; this
handwriting was a lady's, Jeroma recognized that, although she could not
read even her own name in script.
"O, papa, those are the letters that made you sick! I'll throw them away
to the lions," she cried, trying to snatch them. But he kept them in his
fingers and tried to speak.
"I'll be rested in a moment, eat those strawberries--and then I
have--something to talk to you about."
She surveyed the table critically, bread and fruit and milk; there was
nothing beside.
"I've had my breakfast! O, papa, I've forgotten your flowers! Mrs. Heath
said you might have them every morning."
"Run and get them then, and never wait for me to call you--it tires me
too much."
"Poor papa! And I can howl almost as loud as the lions themselves."
"Don't howl at me then, for I might want to roll off into the sea," he
said, smiling as she danced away.
The child seemed never to walk, she was always frisking about, one hardly
knew if her feet touched the ground.
"Poor child! happy child," he groaned, rather than murmured, as she
disappeared around the corner of the veranda. She was a chubby,
roundfaced child, with great brown eyes and curls like yellow floss; from
her childishness and ignorance of what children at ten years of age are
usually taught, she was supposed by strangers to be no more than eight
years of age; she was an imperious little lady, impetuous, untrained,
self-reliant, and, from much intercourse with strangers, not at all shy,
looking out upon the world with confiding eyes, and knowing nothing to be
afraid of or ashamed of. Nurse had been her only teacher; she could
barely read a chapter in the New Testament, and when her father gave her
ten cents and then five more she could not tell him how many cents she
held in her hand.
"No matter, I don't want you to count money," he said.
Before he recovered his breath and self-possession she was at his side
with the flowers she had hastily plucked--scarlet geranium, heliotrope,
sweet alyssum, the gorgeous yellow and orange poppy, and the lovely blue
and white lupine. He received them with a listless smile and laid them
upon his knee; as he bade her again to eat the strawberries she brought
them to his side, now and then coaxing a "particularly splendid" one into
his mouth, pressing them between his lips with her stained fingers.
"Papa, your eyes shine to-day! You are almost well. Nurse doesn't know."
"What does Nurse say?"
"That you will die soon; and then where shall I go?"
"Would you like to know where you will go?"
"I don't want to go anywhere; I want to stay here with you."
"But that is impossible, Jerrie."
"Why! Who says so?" she questioned, fixing her wondering eyes on his.
"God," he answered solemnly.
"Does he know all about it?"
"Yes."
"Has it _got_ to be so, then?" she asked, awed.
"Yes."
"Well, what is the rest, then?"
"Sit down and I'll tell you."
"I'd rather stand, please. I never like to sit down."
"Stand still then, dear, and lean on the arm of my chair and not on me;
you take my breath away,"
"Poor papa! Am I so big? As big as a sea lion?"
Not heeding her--more than half the time he heard her voice without
heeding her words--he turned the sheets in his fingers, lifted them as if
to read them and then dropped his hand.
"Jerrie, what have I told you about Uncle John who lives near the other
ocean?"
Jerrie thought a moment: "That he is good and will love me dearly, and be
ever so kind to me and teach me things?"
"And Prue, Aunt Prue; what do you know about her?"
"I know I have some of her name, not all, for her name is Pomeroy; and
she is as beautiful as a queen and as good; and she will love me more
than Uncle John will, and teach me how to be a lovely lady, too."
"Yes, that is all true; one of these letters is from her, written to
you--"
"Oh, to me! to _me_."
"I will read it to you presently."
"I know which is hers, the thin paper and the writing that runs along."
"And the other is from Uncle John."
"To me?" she queried.
"No, this is mine, but I will read it to you. First I want to tell you
about Aunt Prue's home."
"Is it like this? near the sea? and can I play on the beach and see the
lions?"
"It is near the sea, but it is not like this; her home is in a city by
the sea. The house is a large house. It was painted dark brown, years
ago, with red about the window frames, and the yard in front was full of
flowers that Aunt Prue had the care of, and the yard at the back was deep
and wide with maples in it and a swing that she used to love to swing in;
she was almost like a little girl then herself."
"She isn't like a little girl now, is she?"
"No, she is grown up like that lady on the beach with the children; but
she describes herself to you and promises to send her picture!"
"Oh, good!" exclaimed the child, dancing around the chair, and coming
back to stand quietly at her father's side.
"What is the house like inside? Like this house?"
"No, not at all. There is a wide, old-fashioned hall, with a dark carpet
in it and a table and several chairs, and engravings on the walls, and
a broad staircase that leads to large, pleasant rooms above; and there is
a small room on the top of the house where you can go up and see vessels
entering the harbor. Down-stairs the long parlor is the room that I know
best; that had a dark carpet and dark paper on the walls and many
windows, windows in front and back and two on the side, there were
portraits over the mantel of her father and mother, and other pictures
around everywhere, and a piano that she loved to play for her father on,
and books in book cases, and, in winter, plants; it was not like any one
else's parlor, for her father liked to sit there and she brought in
everything that would please him. Her father was old like me, and sick,
and she was a dear daughter like you."
"Did he die?" she asked.
"Yes, he died. He died sooner than he would have died because some one he
thought a great deal of did something very wicked and almost killed his
daughter with grief. How would I feel if some one should make you so
unhappy and I could not defend you and had to die and leave you alone."
"Would you want to kill him--the man that hurt me?"
But his eyes were on the water and not on her face; his countenance
became ashy, he gasped and hurried his handkerchief to his lips. Jeroma
was not afraid of the bright spots that he sought to conceal by crumpling
the handkerchief in his hand, she had known a long time that when her
father was excited those red spots came on his handkerchief. She knew,
too, that the physician had said that when he began to cough he would
die, but she had never heard him cough very much, and could not believe
that he must ever die.
"Papa, what became of the man that hurt Aunt Prue and made her father
die?"
"He lived and was the unhappiest wretch in existence. But Aunt Prue tried
to forgive him, and she used to pray for him as she always had done
before. Jerrie, when you go to Aunt Prue I want you to take her name,
your own name, Prudence, and I will begin to-day to call you 'Prue,' so
that you may get used to it."
"Oh, will you?" she cried in her happy voice. "I don't like to be
'Jerrie,' like the boy that takes care of the horses. When Mr. Pierce
calls so loud 'Jerry!' I'm always afraid he means me; but Nurse says that
Jerry has a _y_ in it and mine is _ie_, but it sounds like my name all
the time. But Prue is soft like Pussy and I like it. What made you ever
call me Jerrie, papa?"
"Because your mamma named you after my name, Jerome. We used to call you
Roma, but that was long for a baby, so we began to call you Jerrie."
"I like it, papa, because it is your name, and I could tell the girls at
Aunt Prue's that it is my father's name, and then I would be proud and
not ashamed."
"No, dear, always write it Prudence Holmes--forget that you had any other
name. It is so uncommon that people would ask how you came by it and then
they would know immediately who your father was."
"But I like to tell them who my father was. Do people know you in Aunt
Prue's city?"
"Yes, they knew me once and they are not likely to forget. Promise me,
Jerrie--Prue, that you will give up your first name."
"I don't like to, now I must, but I will, papa, and I'll tell Aunt Prue
you liked her name best, shall I?"
"Yes, tell her all I've been telling you--always tell her
everything--never do anything that you cannot tell her--and be sure to
tell her if any one speaks to you about your father, and she will talk
to you about it."
"Yes, papa," promised the child in an uncomprehending tone.
"Does Nurse teach you a Bible verse every night as I asked her to do?"
"Oh, yes, and I like some of them. The one last night was about a name!
Perhaps it meant Prue was a good name."
"What is it?" he asked.
"'A good name--a good name--'" she repeated, with her eyes on the floor
of the veranda, "and then something about riches, great riches, but I do
forget so. Shall I run and ask her, papa?"
"No, I learned it when I was a boy: 'A good name is rather to be chosen
than great riches.' Is that it?"
"Yes, that's it: 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.'
I shan't forget next time; I'll think about your name, Jerome, papa; that
is a good name, but I don't see how it is better than _great_ riches, do
you?"
The handkerchief was nervously at his lips again, and the child waited
for him to speak.
"Jerrie, I have no money to leave you, it will all be gone by the time
you and Nurse are safe at Aunt Prue's. Everything you have will come from
her; you must always thank her very much for doing so much for you, and
thank Uncle John and be very obedient to him."
"Will he make me do what I don't want to?" she asked, her lips pouting
and her eyes moistening.
"Not unless it is best, and now you must promise me never to disobey him
or Aunt Prue. Promise, Jerrie."
But Jerrie did not like to promise. She moved her feet uneasily, she
scratched on the arm of his chair with a pin that she had picked up on
the floor of the veranda; she would not lift her eyes nor speak. She did
not love to be obedient; she loved to be queen in her own little realm of
Self.
"Papa is dying--he will soon go away, and his little daughter will not
promise the last thing he asks of her?"
Instantly, in a flood of penitent tears, her arms were flung about his
neck and she was promising over and over, "I will, I will," and sobbing
on his shoulder.
He suffered the embrace for a few moments and then pushed her gently
aside.
"Papa is tired now, dear. I want to teach you a Bible verse, that you
must never, never forget: 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' Say it
after me."
The child brushed her tears away and stood upright.
"The way of the transgressor is hard," she repeated in a sobbing voice.
"Repeat it three times."
She repeated it three times slowly.
"Tell Uncle John and Aunt Prue that that was the last thing I taught you,
will you?"
"Yes, papa," catching her breath with a little sob.
"And now run away and come back in a hour and I will read the letters to
you. Ask Nurse to tell you when it is an hour."
The child skipped away, and before many minutes he heard her laughing
with the children on the beach. With the letters in his hand, and the
crumpled handkerchief with the moist red spots tucked away behind him in
the chair, he leaned back and closed his eyes. His breath came easily
after a little time and he dozed and dreamed. He was a boy again and it
was a moonlight night, snow was on the ground, and he was walking home
from town besides his oxen; he had sold the load of wood that he had
started with before daylight; he had eaten his two lunches of bread and
salt beef and doughnuts, and now, cold and tired and sleepy, he was
walking back home at the side of his oxen. The stars were shining, the
ground was as hard as stone beneath his tread, the oxen labored on
slowly, it seemed as if he would never get home. His mother would have a
hot supper for him, and the boys would ask what the news was, and what
he had seen, and his little sister would ask if he had bought that piece
of ginger bread for her. He stirred and the papers rustled in his fingers
and there was a harsh sound somewhere as of a bolt grating, and his cell
was small and the bed so narrow, so narrow and so hard, and he was
suffocating and could not get out.
"Papa! papa! It's an hour," whispered a voice in his ear. The eyelids
quivered, the eyes looked straight at her but did not see her.
"Ah Sing! Ah Sing! Get me to bed!" he groaned.
Frightened at the expression of his face the child ran to call Nurse and
her father's man, Ah Sing. Nurse kept her out of her father's chamber all
that day, but she begged for her letter and Nurse gave it to her. She
carried it in her hand that day and the next, at night keeping it under
her pillow.
Before many days the strange uncle came and he led her in to her father
and let her kiss his hand, and afterward he read Aunt Prue's soiled
letter to her and told her that she and Nurse were going to Aunt Prue's
home next week.
"Won't you go, too?" she asked, clinging to him as no one had ever clung
to him before.
"No, I must stay here all winter--I shall come to you some time."
She sobbed herself to sleep in his arms, with the letter held fast in her
hand; he laid her on her bed, pressing his lips to her warm, wet face,
and then went down and out on the beach, pacing up and down until the
dawn was in the sky.
XVI.
MAPLE STREET.
"Work for some good, be it ever so slowly."--_Mrs. Osgood_.
The long room with its dark carpet and dark walls was in twilight, in
twilight and in firelight, for without the rain was falling steadily, and
in the old house fires were needed early in the season. In the time of
which little Jeroma had heard, there had been a fire on the hearth in the
front parlor, but to-night, when that old time was among the legends, the
fire glowed in a large grate; in the back parlor the heat came up through
the register. Miss Prudence had a way of designating the long apartment
as two rooms, for there was an arch in the centre, and there were two
mantels and two fireplaces. Prue's father would have said to-night that
the old room was unchanged--nothing had been taken out and nothing new
brought in since that last night that he had seen the old man pacing up
and down, and the old man's daughter whirling around on the piano stool,
as full of hope and trust and enthusiasm as ever a girl could be.
But to-night there was a solitary figure before the fire, with no
memories and no traditions to disturb her dreaming, with no memories of
other people's past that is, for there was a sad memory or a foreboding
in the very droop of her shoulders and in her listless hands. The small,
plump figure was arrayed in school attire of dark brown, with linen
collar and cuffs, buttoned boots resting on the fender, and a black silk
apron with pockets; there were books and a slate upon the rug, and a
slate pencil and lead pencil in one of the apron pockets; a sheet of note
paper had slipped from her lap down to the rug, on the sheet of paper was
a half-finished letter beginning: "Dear Morris." There was nothing in the
letter worth jotting down, she wondered why she had ever begun it. She
was nestling down now with her head on the soft arm of the chair, her
eyes were closed, but she was not asleep, for the moisture beneath the
tremulous eyelids had formed itself into two large drops and was slowly
rolling, unheeded, down her cheeks.
The rain was beating noisily upon the window panes, and the wind was
rising higher and higher; as it lulled for a moment there was the sound
of a footfall on the carpet somewhere and the door was pushed open from
the lighted hall.
"Don't you want to be lighted up yet, Miss Marjorie?"
"No, Deborah, thank you! I'll light the lamps myself."
"Young things like to sit in the dark, I guess," muttered old Deborah,
closing the door softly; adding to herself: "Miss Prudence used to, once
on a time, and this girl is coming to it."
After that for a little time there was no sound, save the sound of the
rain, and, now and then, the soft sigh that escaped Marjorie's lips.
How strange it was, she reasoned with herself, for her to care at all!
What if Hollis did not want to answer that last letter of hers, written
more than two months ago, just after Linnet's wedding day? That had been
a long letter; perhaps too long. But she had been so lonesome, missing
everybody. Linnet, and Morris, and Mr. Holmes, and Miss Prudence had gone
to her grandfather's for the sea bathing, and the girl had come to help
her mother, and she had walked over to his mother's and talked about
everything to her and then written that long letter to him, that long
letter that had been unanswered so long. When his letter was due she had
expected it, as usual, and had walked to the post-office, the two miles
and a half, for the sake of the letter and having something to do. She
could not believe it when the postmaster handed her only her father's
weekly paper, she stood a moment, and then asked, "Is that all?" And the
next week came, and the next, and the next, and no letter from him; and
then she had ceased, with a dull sense of loss and disappointment, to
expect any answer at all. Her mother inquired briskly every day if her
letter had come and urged her to write a note asking if he had received
it, for he might be waiting for it all this time, but shyness and pride
forbade that, and afterward his mother called and spoke of something
that he must have read in that letter. She felt how she must have
colored, and was glad that her father called her, at that moment, to help
him shell corn for the chickens.
When she returned to the house, brightened up and laughing, her mother
told her that Mrs. Rheid had said that Hollis had begun to write to her
regularly and she was so proud of it. "She says it is because you are
going away and he wants her to hear directly from him; I guess, too, it's
because he's being exercised in his mind and thinks he ought to have
written oftener before; she says her hand is out of practice and the
Cap'n hates to write letters and only writes business letters when it's a
force put. I guess she will miss you, Marjorie."
Marjorie thought to herself that she would.
But Marjorie's mother did not repeat all the conversation; she did not
say that she had followed her visitor to the gate and after glancing
around to be sure that Marjorie was not near had lowered her voice and
said:
"But I do think it is a shame, Mis' Rheid, for your Hollis to treat my
Marjorie so! After writing to her four years to give her the slip like
this! And the girl takes on about it, I can see it by her looks, although
she's too proud to say a word."
"I'm sure I'm sorry," said Mrs. Rheid. "Hollis wouldn't do a mean thing."
"I don't know what you call this, then," Marjorie's mother had replied
spiritedly as she turned towards the house.
Mrs. Rheid pondered night and day before she wrote to Hollis what
Marjorie's mother had said; but he never answered that part of the
letter, and his mother never knew whether she had done harm or good. Poor
little Marjorie could have told her, with an indignation that she would
have been frightened at; but Marjorie never knew. I'm afraid she would
not have felt like kissing her mother good-night if she had known it.
Her father looked grave and anxious that night when her mother told him,
as in duty bound she was to tell him everything, how she was arranging
things for Marjorie's comfort.
"That was wrong, Sarah, that was wrong," he said.
"How wrong? I don't see how it was wrong?" she had answered sharply.
"Then I cannot explain to you, Marjorie isn't hurt any; I don't believe
she cares half as much as you do?"
"You don't know; you don't see her all the time."
"She misses Linnet and Morris, and perhaps she grieves about going away.
You remind me of some one in the Bible--a judge. He had thirty sons and
thirty daughters and he got them all married! It's well for your peace of
mind that you have but two."
"It's no laughing matter," she rejoined.
"No, it is not," he sighed, for he understood Marjorie.
How the tears would have burned dry on Marjorie's indignant cheeks had
she surmised one tithe of her mother's remonstrance and defence; it is
true she missed his letters, and she missed writing her long letters to
him, but she did not miss him as she would have missed Morris had some
misunderstanding come between them. She was full of her home and her
studies, and she felt herself too young to think grown-up thoughts and
have grown-up experiences; she felt herself to be so much younger
than Linnet. But her pride was touched, simple-hearted as she was she
wanted Hollis to care a little for her letters. She had tried to please
him and to be thoughtful about his mother and grandmother; and this was
not a pleasant ending. Her mother had watched her, she was well aware,
and she was glad to come away with Miss Prudence to escape her mother's
keen eyes. Her father had kissed her tenderly more than once, as though
he were seeking to comfort her for something. It was _such_ a relief--and
she drew a long breath as she thought of it--to be away from both, and to
be with Miss Prudence, who never saw anything, or thought anything, or
asked any questions. A few tears dropped slowly as she cuddled in the
chair with her head on its arm, she hardly knew why; because she was
alone, perhaps, and Linnet was so far off, and it rained, and Miss
Prudence and her little girl might not come home to-night, and, it might
be, because Miss Prudence had another little girl to love.
Miss Prudence had gone to New York, a week ago, to meet the child and to
visit the Rheids. The nurse had relatives in the city and preferred to
remain with them, but Prue would be ready to come home with Miss
Prudence, and it was possible that they might come to-night.
The house had been so lonely with old Deborah it was no wonder that she
began to cry! And, it was foolish to remember that Holland plate in Mrs.
Harrowgate's parlor that she had seen to-day when she had stopped after
school on an errand for Miss Prudence. What a difference it had made to
her that it was that plate on the bracket and not that yellow pitcher.
The yellow pitcher was in fragments now up in the garret; she must show
it to Prue some rainy day and tell her about what a naughty little girl
she had been that day.
That resolution helped to shake off her depression, she roused herself,
went to the window and looked out into darkness, and then sauntered as
far as the piano and seated herself to play the march that Hollis liked;
Napoleon crossing the Alps. But scarcely had she touched the keys before
she heard voices out in the rain and feet upon the piazza.
Deborah's old ears had caught an earlier sound, and before Marjorie could
rush out the street door was opened and the travellers were in the hall.
Exclamations and warm embraces, and then Marjorie drew the little one
into the parlor and before the fire. The child stood with her grave eyes
searching out the room, and when the light from the bronze lamp on the
centre table flashed out upon everything she walked up and down the
length of the apartment, stopping now and then to look curiously at
something.