Chapter XIV: In the Spring

About the house at Beechwood the May flowers were blooming, and in the maple-trees the birds were building their nests, cooing lovingly to each other as they did so, and seeming all unconscious of the young heart which within the doors felt that never before had there come to it a spring so full of sorrow and harrowing dread. Jessie and Bell Verner were both there now, and Jessie had brought two immense trunks and a hat-box, as if her intention was to spend the entire summer. She was just as merry and hoydenish as of old, romping with the children in the grass and on the nursery floor, herself the veriest child among them, while her ringing laugh woke all the echoes of the place and made even the Squire join in it, and try to act young again.

Both Jessie and Bell noted the change in Dora, and Jessie asked her outright what it was that made her look so frightened, as if constantly in fear of something; but Dora could not tell what she feared, for she had scarcely dared to define to herself the meaning of Squire Russell’s manner toward her. A stranger would have perceived no difference in his treatment of her now and when his wife was living, but Dora felt the change, and it almost drove her wild, making her one day sharply rebuke the little Daisy for calling her mamma.

“I am not your mother,” she said fiercely. “Your mamma is dead, and I am only Auntie.”

The child looked up in surprise, but called her mamma just the same, while Dora’s eyelids closed tightly over the hot tears she thus kept from falling. That day when Johnnie came home from school at dinner-time he showed unmistakable marks of having been in a fight, and when questioned by his father as to the cause of his black eye, broke out furiously:

“I’ve been a _lickin’_ Bill Carter, and I’ll do it again if he ever tells such stuff about you! Why, he said you’re a going to get married to that ill-begotten, shoulder-shotten snap-dragon of a Miss Dutton! I told him ’twas the biggest lie, and then he said it wasn’t, that it was true, and she was coming here to be our step-mother; that she would cut off ’Tish’s curls, spank Ben and Burt twice a day, shake Daisy into shoe-strings, and make Jim and me toe the mark,—the hateful!”

“She ain’t, she shan’t,—old nasty Dutton,” and fiery Ben shook his tiny fist at an imaginary bugbear who was to spank him twice a day.

Jessie laughed aloud. Bell looked amused, Dora disturbed, and the Squire very red, as he said to his son:

“You should not mind such gossip, or allow yourself to get into a passion. Time enough to rebel when the step-mother comes. Now go to your room and bathe your eye.”

Johnnie obeyed, muttering as he went:

“There’s only one person I’d have for a step-mother any how, and that’s Aunt Dora. Guy, wouldn’t I raise hob with anybody else!”

“John, leave instantly!” the Squire said sternly, while his face colored crimson, as did Dora’s also, making Bell and Jessie glance curiously at each other, as both thought of the same thing.

In their own room, after dinner, they discussed together the possibility of Dora’s becoming what Johnnie wished her to be, Bell scouting the idea as preposterous, and Jessie insisting that a girl might love Squire Russell well enough to take him with all his children.

“Not that I think Dora will do so,” she said, “for I fancy he is not as much to her taste, even, as he is to mine; and I guess I’d jump in the creek sooner than marry an old widower with half a dozen children.”

What the two sisters were discussing privately in their room was talked openly in the village, some of the people arguing that Dora could not do better, while all agreed that for the Squire it would be a match every way desirable both for his own and his children’s sake. To the Squire himself the story was told one day, the teller hinting that the matter was entirely settled, and asking when the marriage would take place.

With some jocose reply, the Squire rode away, going round to Margaret’s grave, and thence back to his home, where the evening lights were shining, and where Dora, with Daisy in her arms, sat alone in the back parlor, Bell and Jessie having accepted an invitation which she was obliged to decline on account of a bad headache.

There were strange thoughts stirring in the Squire’s breast that night, thoughts which had haunted him for weeks and months, aye, since Margaret died, for he could not forget her words.

“You need not wait long. You and Dora are above people’s gossip, and it will be so much better for the children.”

This was what Margaret had said to him that night when misapprehending her sister just as she was misapprehended, she had told him:

“I have talked with Dora, and she has promised to take my place.”

At first he had been satisfied with matters as they were, and had said that he never could marry and love again. But gradually there had crept into life another feeling, which prompted him to watch Dora constantly as she moved about his house; to miss her when she was away,—to think of her the last at night as well as first in the morning,—to wonder, with a harassing jealousy, if Dr. West cared for Dora, or if she cared for him. No, she did not, he thought, and made himself believe it, else he had never said to her what he did that night, when, with Daisy in her arms, she sat wholly in his power, and was obliged to listen to what was not unexpected, but which, nevertheless, fell like a thunderbolt upon her, turning her into stone, and making her grow faint and sick, just as she did at Saratoga, when the first suspicion dawned upon her that some day John Russell would speak to her what he was speaking now, with one hand on her shoulder and the other on Daisy’s golden head. It was a kind, true, fatherly heart he offered her, and she felt that he meant it all. He cast no reflections upon his departed wife,—he merely said:

“You knew Margaret as well as I. She was not, perhaps, as even-tempered as a more healthy person would have been, but I loved her, remembering always what she was when I took her from her home. You were a little girl, then, Dora, and I never dreamed that I should some time be sueing for your hand just as I had sued for Margaret’s.”

Then he pleaded for his children, who loved her so much; would she be their mother, just as she had promised Margaret she would? Then Dora roused herself, and the face which met the Squire’s view made his heart beat faster as he doubted what it portended.

“I did not think Margaret meant what you ask,” Dora said, her words coming gaspingly. “I thought she meant care for them as I have tried to do, and will do still. I’ll stay with you, John. I’ll be your housekeeper, but don’t ask me to be your wife. I can’t; I’m too young for you; I’m,—O John! O Margaret!” and here the voice broke down entirely, while Dora sobbed convulsively.

Margaret, too, had said she could not be his wife when he asked her. She, too, had said she was too young, and cried, but hers was not like Dora’s crying, and Squire Russell saw the difference, feeling perplexed, but never suspected the truth. It was natural for girls to cry, he thought, when they received an offer of marriage, and so, with both hands on her shoulder, he pleaded again, but this time for himself, telling her in words which his true love made eloquent, how dear she was to him, dearer, if possible, than his early choice, the beautiful Margaret. And Dora believed him, for she knew he was incapable of deception, and that made her pain harder to bear.

“If I had supposed you cared for any one else,” he said, “I should not have sought you, but I did not. Dr. West wrote to you, I know, and I was foolish enough to wish he had not called you his _dear Dora_, but you did not answer him, and of course there is but one conclusion to be drawn from that. You do not care for him, nor he for you?”

He put this to her interrogatively, but Dora could not speak. Once she thought to tell him what there was between her and Dr. West, but something kept her silent, and so in perfect good faith, kind, honest, truthful John kept on until she answered:

“Please leave me now; I must think, and I am so stunned and bewildered. I’ll answer another time.”

Squire Russell was far too good-natured to stay longer if she did not wish it, and stooping down he kissed his sleeping child, and said:

“Let me kiss baby’s auntie, too?”

Dora offered no resistance, and he touched her forehead respectfully, and then quitted the room. He had kissed her many times when Margaret was living, but no kiss had ever burned her as this one did, for she knew it was not a brother’s kiss, and with a sensation of loathing she passed her hand over the place, and then wiped it with her handkerchief, just as a rustling sound met her ear, and the next moment there was another pleader kneeling at her feet, Johnnie, who had overheard a part of his father’s wooing, and who took it up just where his sire had left it; his stormy, impetuous arguments bearing Dora completely away from herself, so that she hardly knew what she did or said.

“You will be father’s wife, Aunt Dora; you will, you must!” Johnnie began. “I’ve prayed for it every single day since I heard that stuff about old Dutton. I’ve gone to mother’s grave and knelt down there, asking that it might be. Jim and ’Tish pray so, too, for I told ’em to, and I should make Ben and Burt, only I knew they’d tell you; and Auntie, you will! Father’s older than you a lot, I s’pose, but he is so good, and was so kind to mother, even when she plagued him. I never told, but once after you went to Morrisville, she got awful, and _lammed_ him the wust kind,—told him he was fat, and pussy, and awkward, and she was always ashamed of him at watering-places, and a sight more. At last she left the room, and poor papa put his head right in my lap and cried out loud. I cried too, and said to him:

“‘Let’s _lick_ her: I’ll help.’

“But he wouldn’t hear a word. Says he:

“‘Hush, my boy; she’s your mother and my wife. She is not as she used to be. She’s sick and nervous.’

“And when I asked the difference between _ugly_ and _nervous_, he made me stop, and was just as kind to her at supper-time as ever. Tell me such a man won’t make a good husband! He’ll be splendid, and he’s handsomer than he was,—he has lost that look as if he was afraid something was after him, a henpecked look, Clem called it. Poor father; he has had so little comfort, you must make him happy, Auntie; you will, and you’ll make us all so good. You know how like Cain we behave without you, and how we all mind when you tell us what is right. Will you be father’s wife and help us grow up good?”

He had her face between his warm hands, and was looking at her so earnestly, that for his sake Dora could almost have answered yes, but thoughts of what being his father’s wife involved chilled her through and through, and she answered him:

“Johnnie, I do not believe I can.”

For an instant the boy’s black eyes blazed fiercely at her, and then he angrily exclaimed, “I’ll go to ruin, just as fast as I can go! I’ll _smoke_ to-morrow, if I live, and teach Jim and Ben to do so too! I’ll swear, and when the circus comes next week I’ll run away to that, and take ’Tish with me; I’ll gamble; I’ll drink, and when I’m brought home drunker’n a fool, you’ll know it is your work!”

He looked like a young tiger as he stood uttering these terrible threats, and Dora quailed before his flashing eyes, feeling that much he had said was in earnest. She did not fear his swearing, or gambling, or drinking, for the present, at least, but he might not always act his best; he might grow surly and hard and unmanageable, even by her, unless she yielded to his request, and this she couldn’t do.

“Johnnie,” she began, and something in her voice quieted the excited boy, “would you have me marry your father when I do not love him, and just the thought of being his wife makes me almost sick?”

Johnnie was not old enough to comprehend her meaning. He only felt that it was not a very bad thing to be the wife of a man as good as his father, and he answered her, “You do love him well enough, or you will, and he so affectionate. Why he used to hug and kiss mother every day, even when she was crosser than fury. Of course then he’ll hug you most to death.”

“Oh—h,” Dora groaned, the tone of her voice so indicative of disgust that even Johnnie caught a new idea, which he afterwards acted upon; but he would not yield his point: Dora should be his mother, and he continued the siege until, wearied out with his arguments, Dora peremptorily bade him leave her while she could think in quiet.

Oh, that long, terrible thinking which brought on so racking a headache that Dora was not seen in the parlor on the day following, but lay upstairs in her own room, where, with the bolted door between her and the world outside, she met and battled with what seemed her destiny! One by one every incident connected with Margaret’s death came back to her, and she knew now what the questionings meant, far better than she did then, while she half expected the dead sister to rise before her and reproach her for shrinking from her duty. Then the children came up, a powerful argument swaying her in the direction of Squire Russell. She could do them good; she could train them so much better than another, and John, if she refused him, would assuredly bring another there to rule and govern them. These were the arguments in favor of John’s suit, while on the other side a mighty barrier was interposed to keep her from the sacrifice. Her love for Dr. West, and the words spoken to her at Anna’s grave; and was she not virtually engaged to him?

“Yes,—oh yes, I am!” she cried, and then there came over her all the doubts which had so tortured her since that time in the Morrisville cemetery.

Had he not spoken hastily and repented afterwards? His continued silence on the subject would seem so; and why did he not write to her just as did he to Jessie, who, since coming to Beechwood, had received a letter from him which contained no mention of her, but was full of the light, bantering matter in which he knew Jessie delighted. Dora had heard Jessie say she was going to answer the letter that very day; and suddenly, like a dawn of hope, there flashed over her the determination that she, too, would write and tell him of Squire Russell’s offer; and if he loved her still he would come to save her, or he would write, telling her again how dear she was to him, and that he alone must call her his wife.

“Yes, I’ll do it,” Dora whispered; “I know he is at San Francisco, for Jessie directs there; I’ll write to-day. It shall go in the same mail with hers. I’ll wait two months for his reply, and then, if he answers Jessie and ignores me, I’ll—”

Dora set her teeth firmly together, and her breath came hurriedly, as she paused a moment ere she added, “I’ll marry John.”

And so with a throbbing head Dora wrote to Dr. West, telling him of the proposal and asking what he thought of it. This was all she meant the letter to mean, for her maidenly reserve would not suffer her to betray her real motive if she knew it, but it was more like a pleading cry for help, more like a wail of anguish for one she loved to save her from a fate she had not strength to resist alone, than like a mere asking of advice. The letter was finished, and just after dark, when sure no one could see her, Dora stole from the house unobserved, and hastening to the office, dropped into the box the missive of so much importance to her.

“It is sure to go with Jessie’s,” she said, as she wended her way back, “so if hers is received I shall know that mine was also.”

Alas! Jessie’s had been written the previous night, after that young lady’s return from her visit, and while Dora’s letter was lying quietly in the box at Beechwood awaiting the morning mail, Jessie’s was miles on its way to New York and the steamer which would take it to California a week in advance of the other. But Dora did not know this, neither did she know that it contained the following paragraph:

“There is no news, except the rumor that Squire Russell will marry his pretty sister-in-law. Bell won’t believe a word of it, but some things look like it. Dora is so queer. I had picked her out for you, and believe now that she likes you, though when your name is mentioned, she bites her words off so short and crisp that I am confounded. She is a splendid girl, and will make a grand wife, to say nothing of step-mother.”

Little did Jessie suspect the harm these few comparatively harmless lines would cause, and little did Dora suspect it either, as with a load of pain lifted from her heart and consequently from her head, she sat down by her open window and followed with her mind her letter’s course to far-off California, and then imagined the quick response it would bring back, and which would make her so happy.

“Johnnie must be the medium between Squire Russell and me,” she said. “I’ll tell him to-morrow that his father must wait for my definite reply at least six weeks, and possibly two months. At the end of that time I shall know for sure, and if the doctor does not care, there will be a kind of desperate pleasure in marrying my brother.”