Chapter IV: At the Farm House

It was fifteen years since Milly Leach sat shelling peas on the doorstep where now two young girls were sitting, one listening to and the other reading a letter which evidently excited and agitated her greatly. It was as follows:

“LANGHAM’S, LONDON, MAY —, 18—.

“DEAR ALICE,—You will probably be surprised to hear that I am going to
be married to a Miss Fanny Gardner, whom I first met in Florence. She
is twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and the most beautiful woman I ever
saw, and good as she is beautiful. You are sure to like her. The
ceremony takes place at —— church in London, and after the wedding
breakfast at her mother’s town house we shall go for a short time to
Wales and Ireland and then sail for home.

“I suppose you and Gerard are at the Park, or will be soon, and I want
you to see that everything is in order. We shall occupy the suite of
rooms on the south side of the house instead of the east, and I’d like
to have them refurnished throughout, and will leave everything to your
good taste, only suggesting that although Miss Gardner’s hair is
rather a peculiar color,—golden brown, some might call it,—she is not
a blonde; neither is she a brunette; and such tints as soft French
grays and pinks will suit her better than blue. The wedding day is
fixed for June —. Shall telegraph as soon as we reach New York, and
possibly write you before.

“Your loving father,
“GILES THORNTON.”

“Oh—h,” and the girl who was listening drew a long breath. “Oh—h! Going to be married,—to Fanny Gardner. That’s a pretty name. She’s English, I suppose. I guess you’ll like her;” and Bessie put her hand, half pityingly, half caressingly upon the arm of her friend, down whose cheeks two great tears were rolling.

“Yes,” Alice replied; “but it is so sudden, and I’m thinking of mother. I wonder what Gerard will say. There he is now. Oh, Gerard,” she called, as a young man came through the gate and seating himself upon a lower step took Bessie’s hand in his and held it while the bright blush on her lovely face told what he was to her.

“What’s the matter, Allie?” he said to his sister. “You look solemn as a graveyard.”

“Papa is going to be married,” Alice replied, with a sob.

“Wha—at!” and Gerard started to his feet. “Father married! Why, he is nearly fifty years old. Let me see,”—and taking the letter from Alice he read it aloud, commenting as he read. “Twenty-seven or twenty-eight; not much older than I am, for I am twenty-five; quite too young for me to call her mother. ‘The most beautiful woman I ever saw.’ He must be hard hit. ‘Ceremony takes place——’ Why, girls, it’s to-day! It’s past. I congratulate you, Allie, on a stepmother, and here’s to her health from her son;” and stooping over Bessie he kissed her before she could remonstrate.

Just then Hugh McGregor came up the walk, and taking off his straw hat wiped the perspiration from his face, while he stood for a moment surveying the group before him with a quizzical smile upon his lips. Fifteen years had changed Hugh from the tall, awkward boy of seventeen into the taller, less awkward man of thirty-two, who, having mingled a good deal with the world, had acquired much of the ease and polish which such mingling brings. Handsome he could not be called; there was too much of the rugged Scotch in him for that, but he had something better than beauty in his frank, honest face and kindly blue eyes, which bespoke the man who could be trusted to the death and never betray the trust. He, too, had received a letter from Mr. Thornton, whose business in Rocky Point he had in charge, and after reading it had gone to Thornton Park with the news. Finding both Alice and Gerard absent, he had followed on to the farm house where he was sure they were.

“I see you know it,” he said, pointing to the letter in Gerard’s hand. “I have heard from your father and came to tell you. Did you suspect this at all?”

“No,” Alice replied; “he has never written a word of any Miss Gardner. I wonder who she is.”

“I don’t know,” Hugh answered slowly, while there swept over him the same sensation he had experienced when he first saw the name in Mr. Thornton’s letter.

It did not seem quite new, and he repeated it over and over again but did not associate it with Mildred although she was often in his mind, more as a pleasant memory now, perhaps, for the feelings of the man were not quite what the boy’s had been, and in one sense Milly had dropped out of his life. When she first went away, and he was in school, everything was done with a direct reference to making of himself something of which Milly would be proud when she came back. But Milly had not come back, and the years had crept on and he was a man honored among men, and in his busy life had but little leisure for thought beyond his business. It was seldom now that he looked at the dark brown curl, or the little pea in the pod, hard as a bullet, and shriveled almost to nothing. But when he did he always thought of the summer day years ago and the young girl on the steps and the sound of the brook gurgling over the stones as it ran under the little bridge. And it all came back to him now, with news of Mr. Thornton’s bride, though why it should he could not tell. He only knew that Milly was haunting him that morning with strange persistency, and his first question to Bessie was, “When did you hear from your sister?”

“Last night. She is in London, or was,—but wrote she was going on a journey and then was coming home. I shall believe that when I see her. Mother has the letter, and will be glad to see you,” was Bessie’s reply, and Hugh went into the pleasant, sunny room where the blind woman was sitting, with her hands folded on her lap and a listening expression on her face.

“Oh, Hugh,” she exclaimed, “I am glad you have come. I want to talk to you.”

Straightening her widow’s cap, which was a little awry, as deftly as a woman could have done, he sat down beside her, while she continued, as she drew a letter from her bosom, where she always kept Milly’s last. “I heard from Milly last night. I am afraid she is not happy, but she is coming home by and by. She says so. Read it, please.”

Taking the letter he began to read:

“LONDON, May —, 18—.

“DARLING MOTHER:—I am in London, but shall not stay long, for I am going on a journey, and it may be weeks, if not months, before I can write you again. But don’t worry. If anything happens to me you will know it. I am quite well and—oh, mother, I never loved you as I do now or needed your prayers so much. Pray for me. I can’t pray for myself, but I’d give half my life to put my arms around your neck and look into your dear, blind eyes, which, if they could see, would not know me, I am so changed. My hair fell out when I was so sick in Naples, and is not the same color it used to be. Everything is different. Oh, if I could see you, and I shall in the fall, if I live.

“Give my love to Tom and Bessie, and tell Hugh,——No, don’t tell him anything. God bless you, darling mother. Good-bye,

“From
“MILDRED F. LEACH.”

Hugh’s face was a study as he read this letter, which sounded like a cry for help from an aching heart. Was Milly unhappy, and if so, why? he asked himself as he still held the letter with his eyes fixed upon the words “Tell Hugh——No, don’t tell him anything.” Did they mean that in her trouble she had for a moment turned to him, he wondered, but quickly put that thought aside. She had been too long silent to think of him now; and he was content that it should be so. His liking for her had been but a boy’s fancy for a little girl, he reasoned, and yet, as he held the letter in his hand, it seemed to bring Milly very near to him, and he saw her plainly as she looked when entering Thornton Park that morning so long ago. “I felt I was losing her then. I am sure of it now,” he was thinking, when Mrs. Leach asked what he thought of Milly’s letter, and where he supposed she was going, and what ailed her.

Hugh was Mrs. Leach’s confidant and oracle, whom she consulted on all occasions, and Tom himself was no kinder or tenderer in his manner to her than this big-hearted Scotchman, who soothed and comforted her now just as he always did, and then, without returning to the young people by the door he went out through the long window of Mrs. Leach’s room and off across the fields to the woods on the mountain side, where he sat down upon a rocky ledge to rest, wondering why the day was so oppressive, and why the words “Tell Hugh” should affect him so strangely, and why Mildred seemed so near to him that once he put up his hand with a feeling that he should touch her little hard, brown hand, browned and hardened with the work she hated so much. It was not often that he indulged in sentiment of this kind, but the spell was on him, and he sat bound by it until the whistle from the large shop had called the workmen from their dinners. Then he arose and went down the mountain road to his office, saying to himself: “I wonder where she is to-day, when I am so impressed with a sense of her nearness that I believe she is thinking of me,” and with this comforting assurance, Hugh was very patient and kind to the old woman whose will he had changed a dozen times, and who came to have it changed again, without a thought of offering him any remuneration for his trouble.

Meantime the group by the door had been joined by Tom, who had grown into just the kind of man Whittier’s barefoot boy would have grown into if he had grown at all,—a frank, sunny-faced young man, whom every old woman and young girl liked, and whom one young girl loved with all the intensity of her nature, caring nothing that he was poor and one whom her proud father would scorn as a son-in-law. They were not exactly engaged,—for Alice said her father must be consulted first, and they were waiting for him, while Gerard, who could wait for nothing where Bessie was concerned, was drinking his fill of love in her blue eyes, with no thought or care as to whether his father would oppose him or not.

“Hello, you are all here,” Tom said, as he came round the corner and laid his hand on Allie’s shoulder; then, glancing at her face, he continued: “Why, you’ve been crying. What’s the matter, Allie?”

“Oh, Tom, papa is married to-day,—to Fanny Gardner, an English girl with golden-brown hair and only twenty-eight years old and very handsome, he says. I know I shall hate her,” Alice sobbed, while Tom burst into a merry laugh.

“Your father married to a girl with golden-brown hair, which should be gray to match his,—that is a shame, by Jove. But, I say, Allie, I’m glad of it, for with a young wife at Thornton Park, you will be _de trop_, don’t you see?” And just as Gerard had done to Bessie so Tom did to Alice—kissed her pale face, with his best wishes to the bride, who was discussed pretty freely, from her name to the furniture of her room, which was to harmonize with the complexion of one who was neither a blond nor a brunette, but very beautiful.

For the next few weeks there was a great deal of bustle and excitement at Thornton Park, where Bessie went every day to talk over and assist in the arrangement of the bridal rooms, which were just completed when there came a telegram from New York saying that the newly married pair had arrived and would be home the following day.