Chapter XIV: The Wild Wood Home by Day

It is a quiet picture of delight,
The pretty cottage hiding from the sun
In the thick woods. We see it not till there,
When at its porch ... quiet’s especial temple.—W. G. SIMMS.

“I have the vaguest idea of the outside of our home—a pretty brown cottage in evergreen woods—that was all I could make out as we approached it in the twilight last evening; and that is all I can make out now, while peering through that crimson curtained window,” said Drusilla, as she sat at breakfast with her husband the next morning.

“‘A pretty brown cottage, in evergreen woods.’ Well, that is all you would make out if you were to inspect the premises most carefully every day for a month. It is a new place, my little love. The house and stable only are finished and walled in. The grounds are not laid out or even cleared, as you may see by the thicket crowding up to the very windows,” replied Alexander.

“But, I think I like it even better just so. There is something very fascinating to me in the deep, wild wood, where the trees may grow as they please, without touch of ax or pruning knife, and where birds may sing and rabbits run without fear of trap or fowling-piece,” said Drusilla.

“Then if that be so, not a tree shall be felled, though we should have to send to the city market for all our fruit and vegetables,” laughed Alexander.

“Oh no, no, no; don’t ‘Woodman, Spare That Tree’ on my account. The woods are very charming, but so is a garden with beds of growing vegetables and parterres of blooming flowers; and so are vineyards and orchards, and poultry-yards and cow-pens, none of which can be had without the sacrifice of the woods. And you know what a good little farmer your dear mother——” Here the tears rushed to the bride’s eyes, but she quickly wiped them away and smiled, saying: “No, I will not weep the day after our wedding. I will remember that she is in Heaven, and—happy as we may be, she is happier still.”

“But what were you about to say, love, when you broke off?” gravely and gently inquired Alexander.

“Oh, I was going to remind you what a skillful little farmer your dear mother had made of me, and to tell you how well I can manage a little place like this, with the help of the two servants.”

“Yes, darling; but you will not need to do so. What? You worry with the cultivation of cabbage and onions, and the rearing of fowls and turkeys, and the feeding of cows and pigs? It is ridiculous, the idea!”

“But your dear mother saw to all such things with her own eyes, and often helped among them with her own hands.”

“My venerated mother belonged to an old school of housekeepers that are now obsolete, or fast passing away before the progress of civilization. Machinery does the work of laborers, and laborers have become intelligent directors of machinery. Nonsense! Even if this were not so, do you think I would let you spoil your exquisite beauty in the way you propose, Drusa? No, my darling, your beauty is too rare and rich to be put to any such uses. I think that even if I were a very poor man, I would rather labor day and night than you should soil your pretty hands,” he whispered, lifting one of the little members of which he spoke, and gazing on it with the eyes of a connoisseur and the smile of a lover.

“Oh, Alexander! dear Alexander!” said the little bride, earnestly, “please do not prize my looks so much. It frightens me when you do so.”

“But why?” smiled the bridegroom.

“Oh, because—one’s looks——”

“One’s beauty, you mean——”

“Oh, Alexander, it is such an accidental and perishable thing to be loved for. Illness or chance might destroy it in a day; and time will certainly impair it in the course of years. And whether I lose it sooner or later, what shall I do if I lose your love also?”

This was spoken so gravely and feelingly that the bridegroom burst into a laugh.

“Why you solemn little quiz! You remind me of a little prig of a Sunday school scholar that I used to see perched up in the corner of the housekeeper’s room in my mother’s house in Richmond. A little ‘rum un’ who used to sew quilt pieces and lecture lost sheep.”

“But oh, tell me one thing. Even if I should grow ugly, you would love me still, would you not, Alexander?”

“_You_ grow ugly? impossible! Your beauty, if you take common care of it, will last you until you are sixty years old, and by that time, I, who am so much your senior, will be so blind with age, or love, or habit, that I shall not know whether you are a Venus or a Gorgon,” said Alexander, laughing, and rising from the table.

“Till I am sixty! So many years to live together, you and I, if Heaven should spare us. Such a long and happy life, if you only love me all the time. Oh, what can I do to keep you loving me all these long, long years?” aspirated Drusilla, in a sort of repressed fervor.

“Be beautiful, be happy and love me—that is all,” he answered. “And now put on some outer garment and come with me, and I will show you what little is to be seen of our small place.”

Drusilla took a gray hooded cloak from the hands of the maid who had run and fetched it for her, and she wrapped herself in it, drew the hood over her head, and took the offered arm of Alexander.

He led her out of the front door and down the step of the porch to the broad carriage drive that had been cleared through the cedars from the house to the gate.

It was a fine wintry day. A little snow had fallen during the night, just sufficient to cover the ground with a white garment and powder the cedars like coachmen’s wigs; but the sky was now clear and the sun bright.

They walked down the drive to the gate, and then, at Alexander’s suggestion, turned about and leaned against the gate, and faced the front of the cottage to take a look at it.

“A mere toy palace, or doll’s house, as I told you,” said Alexander, disparagingly.

“It is a beauty. But perhaps you are comparing it with spacious Crowood or lofty Lyon Hall; in which case it must suffer by comparison in size, I grant you, but not in beauty,” said Drusilla, gazing on her home with perfect satisfaction.

“I am very glad you approve of it, darling, even in its half finished condition. In another year I will see what money and taste can do to convert it into a paradise for you,” said Alexander.

“The sweet spot is Arcadia already. But how were you so fortunate as to get it, dear Alexander? And have you rented it, or bought it?” she asked.

“I have taken it on trial for a year, with the privilege of purchasing it, if I like it, at the end of that time.”

“But why does the owner wish to sell such a pretty place, which he has only just built?”

“Ah, love, it is a common case. The place was commenced by a poor old fellow, who was about to retire from business on a comfortable competency. But he put off living too long, for just as he was preparing to do it he died.”

“Poor man! and he never enjoyed the pretty place.”

“Let us hope that he enjoys a better one. Meanwhile we have the privilege of purchasing it, if we like.”

“Oh, I do like it so much!”

“Then consider it purchased, my pet.”

“Not on my account. Oh, Alexander, dear, please do always what you judge to be best without thinking of me in the matter.”

“But, darling, if I love you as you wish me to do, and as I certainly do, I _must_ think of your pleasure in everything.”

She looked at him, secretly acknowledging the truth of his words, yet much perplexed by them.

The house upon which they gazed, incomplete as were its surroundings, deserved all Drusilla’s praise.

It was a charming little cottage ornée, which, if the truth may be spoken, was much more suitable as the home of a fresh young bride than the resting-place of a worn-out old worldling. It was built after no particular plan, and therefore perhaps all the more picturesque and pleasing in its aspect. It was so irregularly and fantastically erected as to defy all manner of description. From the outside it seemed an eccentric collection of low walls and steep roofs, gable ends, twisted chimneys, hanging balconies, bay-windows, porches, verandahs, and so forth. Its dark gray stone walls and dark green Venetian shutters and pillars and cornices, so harmonized in hue with the colors of the wintry woods, as at a short distance to mingle with them and be indistinguishable from them. Such was the outside of Drusilla’s little home.

The inside was a collection of hexagon shaped halls, chambers, parlors, quaint closets, cosy recesses and sunny nooks.

“Now I will take you round and show you the stable and the cow-house,” said Alexander, drawing his wife’s arm within his own, and leading her around to the rear of the house where, in a neat and well kept stable, he showed her a pretty pair of gray ponies and a neat little carriage.

She looked up in his face to thank him with her eyes, but when she would have spoken, he stopped her with a kiss.

Then he took her to an adjoining compartment of the same building, and showed her a white cow with a young calf beside her.

“I can not thank you enough; no, I can not—not only for all that you have given me, but for the _beauty_ of every object and every living creature you have placed around me—the beautiful house and furniture, the beautiful carriage and ponies, the pretty white cow and calf. Dear Alexander, I thank you so much for all the beauty with which you have blessed my home,” smiled and faltered Drusilla, in a voice broken by happy emotions.

“Beauty! why who was it that, just now, begged and prayed me not to love her for her beauty?” asked Alexander, quizzingly.

“It was I, of course,” said Drusilla, blushing and laughing, “but that was because I wished you to love me for something deeper and more lasting.”

“And so I do, darling; but come—confess that you like beautiful things—that you like even _me_ better for not being ill-looking.”

“Oh, Alexander, not you! it was never your looks, although I like you to be handsome. But oh, dear Alick, if you were to be maimed by accident or marked by illness, I should love you quite as much as I do now, and even more tenderly, I think, as I know I shall love you when you are old and gray.”

“Bah! I would rather die than grow old and gray; but the time for that is far enough off, thank Heaven!” said Alexander, as he led her back into the house.

He took her into the drawing-room and showed her three musical instruments, each of the very best quality—a piano, a harp and a guitar. Upon a stand near was a collection of old standard music, and of all the best new pieces out.

I suppose no one but a monomaniac in music can understand the delight of sitting down and trying the tone of a new instrument of the very best order.

Drusilla placed herself at the piano, and ran her fingers up and down the keys to test its powers. And then she turned over her music and sang song after song, for hour after hour, without weariness. And Alexander leaned over her, and listened to her without flagging.

When at length she arose from the piano, he led her from the drawing-room and across the hexagon hall to an opposite room, fitted up as a library. Here, in the elegant book cases, were collected some of the best standard works in English, French and German, also some choice Latin and Greek volumes, and a few of the most popular publications of the day.

Here were neat writing desks, easy reading chairs, soft foot cushions, and every means and appliance of comfort and luxury.

And on the walls were a few very choice pictures, and on stands stood statuettes and vases and other gems of art, to please a cultivated taste.

“No words—you leave me no words to thank you for all these blessings,” Drusilla murmured.

“I tell you they are all mine as you are mine, so there are no words wanted for thanks,” smiled Alexander.

“Ah! but I know you did all this for me; I feel it and I must say it, Alick, dear Alick,” she murmured, with tears of love and joy in her eyes.

All the time they were in the library they heard the songs of birds—a sound so unusual in that wintry season, that Drusilla had looked up once or twice with a startled expression; but as Alexander had only smiled at her surprise without attempting to gratify her unspoken curiosity, she forbore to ask him questions, and waited until he should explain the mystery.

“Come now,” he said, “I have something else to show you.”

And he led her down to the lower end of the room, to a green curtain that hung from ceiling to floor, and from side to side, and corresponded, except in color, with that one which divided the dining-room from the drawing-room.

He drew aside this curtain and revealed a scene of enchantment.

It was a room of crystal glass, in gilded sashes, and it was filled with the rarest and most beautiful exotic plants, most of them in full bloom. Among these plants hung large gilded cages, in which were birds of the most brilliant plumage and the sweetest notes, whose songs filled all the sunny and perfumed air with melody.

Birds and flowers of all the objects in nature had always been Drusilla’s especial delight. Her love of them might have been called a passion. And it had never been gratified until now. And here she had them of the most beautiful sorts, gathered in one splendid crystal room like a fairy palace. And as she looked a smile of rapture lighted up her lovely face, and then she turned towards the giver of all these and tried to utter her feelings; but instead of speaking, she burst into tears, threw herself in his arms, and sobbed on his bosom.

He had overwhelmed her with his gifts, as he had done once before.

How smilingly he caressed and soothed her, until she lifted up her head, dashed away her tears, and said, laughing:

“‘I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of,’ as Juliet, or Lady Macbeth, or Regan, or Goneril, or some one of Shakespeare’s women says.”

“Miranda, my love; it was Miranda. Never misquote Shakespeare; never even in your most confidential communications to your most intimate friends; never even in soliloquy and in solitude!” said Alexander, shaking his head in mock gravity.

“Indeed I wasn’t even sure it _was_ in Shakespeare,” said Drusilla.

“And now to the dining-room. I think we have earned an appetite for dinner,” smiled Alexander, drawing her arm within his own, and leading her from the library.

This evening was spent in the drawing-room, where tea was served.

And so ended the second day of their bright honeymoon.