Chapter II The Home-Stretch
How familiar were the hills around the little Hermitage Station! And how grateful was the sweet clear air of its dew-bathed meadows after the noise and smoke of the train!
My Aunt Lucretia imprinted two chilly kisses from tight-shut lips on each of my cheeks. She was a large, strong, stout woman, with a fine, high nose and full mouth, which, when it would, could settle quickly into close-shut lips of determination. Her eyes were hazel and keen: kindly when quiet; but quick to flash and far-seeing.
Without a word and very deliberately she looked me over through her gold nose glasses. I smiled as I remembered how often I had seen her pass on a horse she was purchasing in the same way. Down the six feet of my height her keen eyes went, dwelling, I imagine, a bit longer on my legs where the old lameness had been in my knee since my boyhood sickness from typhoid fever. Again I smiled, for in that same way I had seen her linger over the doubtful tendon of a horse. But the noted German surgeon, Hoffman, had, in my first year at Berlin, skillfully removed the floating cartilage, and I saw my Aunt Lucretia’s face light up, satisfied with the straight limb, and my weight upon it. Then she looked lengthwise across my shoulders, and a surprised pleasure shone in her eyes. I had grown from a frail boy into an athlete.
We had not said a word. I stood smiling at her, and she, as was her custom, would not speak until her survey was done. Very deliberately she looked me over. I had seen her examine Young Hickory, lineal descendant of Andrew Jackson’s famous Truxton in the same way.
I was eager to say something and get to Eloise. I had caught a glimpse of her face at the surrey’s door.
“I thought you would grow into that,” Aunt Lucretia remarked, as she readjusted her glasses. Then, as if to impress on me her long expressed thought, she added, “You have grown beautifully up to your pedigree, Jack.”
I laughed. “Well, if you have passed on me, here goes,” I said boisterously, as I seized her around the neck and gave her a kiss, which knocked off her glasses.
“Tut—tut, Jack, that will do! Kissing is silly and thoroughly unsanity. There is Eloise waiting for you—but no kissing—no hugging her—none of it,” she added.
I saw the straight, fine figure draw back half haughtily into the carriage, and a half-protesting look flash for an instant over the pretty face, profiled through the open space. She threw back her head in the old tribute-demanding way, and her half-closed lids veiled her eyes under great curving, brown-red brows. I caught a gleam of the old daring fun in them, as she smiled and held out both her hands, taking mine.
“Awfully glad to see you, Jack—welcome home.”
My heart betrayed itself in the quick glance I gave her. She had developed so wonderfully in those four years. And how I had longed to see her!
She sat smiling kindly into my eyes; I stood looking sillily into hers, holding both of her hands in mine, forgetful of Aunt Lucretia, and with no word that I could say to Eloise.
“Eloise,” I began haltingly at last, “is it—have you—is it really you?”
I bent down to kiss her, but she fenced away and drew back smiling.
I dropped her hand, hurt.
“Jack,” and her tone tried to compensate me, “behave now—everybody is looking.” Then she added louder, “Have you really grown into this handsome chap—and no lameness any more?”
“Tut—tut,” broke in Aunt Lucretia, half irritated, “you two make me tired. Of course he has—you have both grown wonderfully up to your pedigree—I always said so—nothing strange in that. And as you are both grown now,” she added patronizingly and with the old return of authority, “I intend to marry you to each other before Christmas—see if I don’t.”
I blushed and Eloise smiled—a trace of the old fun-loving tease breaking across the corners of her mouth. Her beautiful clear blue-hazel eyes smiled up into mine, full of the old fun and daring.
I bent over her. “Eloise, aren’t you really going to kiss me?”
“It is unsanitary, Jack,—and—” she glanced at Aunt Lucretia—“bad form and—”
I turned, hurt, and shook hands with old Thomas, the driver.
“Mighty glad to see you back home, Marse Jack, mighty glad!” said he.
I looked closely at his horses, with that pretended admiration that I knew would please him, in order to hide my chagrin. There was embarrassment in it too, for I knew I was under inspection from the eyes of Eloise.
“I declare, Marse Jack,” he went on, “dis sho’ly ain’t you, is it? I declar to goodness if you ain’t biggern yo’ daddy wuz, and yo’ gran’pa—the ole Jineral.” He grew easily loquacious. “When I fust seed you a-comin’ out dat cyar dore, I didn’t know you, and yit I sed to myself, sholy I’ve seed dat face—hit ’pears mighty complicated to me somehow.”
A smothered laugh from Eloise. “That is what I’ve been trying to say, Thomas, but couldn’t, to save me, think of the right word. Thank you so much—‘complicated,’ Jack—that’s too good!”
I showed plainly that I did not like this from Eloise. Ridicule we may bear, but not from our beloved. And I had loved Eloise always, but never so much as now. Then she suddenly broke into a smile, and said in her sweet sisterly way of old: “Forgive me, Jack—I haven’t lost my old teasing way with you, have I?”
“I don’t want you to,” I said quietly.
“Well, what do you think of her?” broke in Aunt Lucretia.
“I can’t tell you how beautiful I think she is, Aunt Lucretia,” said I.
Eloise laughed, and looked dreamily up. How quickly her eyes had changed from daring to dreams. In her low, even laugh lay four years of fashionable Washington schooling. In the soft tones of her voice were a thousand music lessons. In the well-gowned girl before me was training, the spirit of gentlefolk, centuries of correct pedigrees. She had always been strong, and with a form as lithe as a young frost-pinched hickory. How she could ride a horse and handle a gun! Her hair had been yellowish and flossy, now it was like the distant flush of a red-top meadow, mower-ripe. I had left her an over-long school girl, thin and callow, daring, caring for nothing so much as running a risk of her neck and limbs in trees, and bare-back gallops on any half-broken colt on the farm. But now—
Aunt Lucretia, watching me, guessed.
“Oh, well, she’ll pass, won’t she?” she said rather braggartly for her, I thought. “You’ll believe what I kept writing you now, eh? Though you never referred to it once, not once.”
“Oh! Aunt Lucretia,” began Eloise protestingly. Even her voice had changed. It was not the imperative, rollicking, colt-breaking voice of the school girl I had known four years ago. It was now like a fall of soft, freestone water over a moss-lined rock bed, purling into a deep pool below, sand-bordered and waveless.
“Please don’t tease him,” she began again.
Aunt Lucretia laughed triumphantly: “Oh, never mind. I want to rub it in on Jack. He needs it curried into him. He hasn’t written me a line to show that he intended to carry out my wishes until I grew positively uneasy, for fear he’d marry one of those Hessians, whose ancestors Washington crossed the Delaware to whip that night.”
(Hadn’t written, I thought. But no one shall ever know what I had dreamed and hoped in those four years.)
I was looking into Eloise’s eyes; she flushed, for I saw she knew my thoughts.
“You shan’t be hard on Jack,” she said, taking my part as it seemed to save herself. “Jack, dear,” and she took my hand in hers, her eyes for the first time flashed with sympathy, “we must do as of old, we must pool interests, when she is against us we must combine to beat her. And to prove it I am going to defy her and kiss you, for you’ve heard her say that we are betrothed, and this is always the first thing after a betrothal,” and with the old daring in her eyes she looked up at me.
I remember into what a perfect Cupid’s bow her hitherto straight lips curved, and I flushed crimson as my lips met hers. Aunt Lucretia, seeing this, said with emphatic shame, “Tut—tut, unsanitary and silly! Get into the surrey, Jack. Thomas, drive these two fools home!”
In my heart I thanked Aunt Lucretia for that tirade. I knew Eloise of old. She was always on the side of the under dog. For that reason she had kissed me. Still, with all her pretense I noticed that Aunt Lucretia had arranged that we should sit together, and had seated herself in front with Thomas, where she could watch her roan span trot off.
“Eloise,” I whispered, dropping my hand on hers, “is it really you? I never dreamed you would be so beautiful. I have loved you always, Little Sister. Don’t you love me a little?”
She laughed at my low voice. Then she suddenly grew serious, and said in a tone that hurt me, “Of course I do, Jack, as your adopted sister. But don’t!” she protested, as I tried to kiss her cheek. “You are acting so queerly; as if we were really in love!”
I drew back, very much hurt. “Eloise!”
“Don’t be silly, Jack, or you’ll spoil it all. Haven’t I always been your little sister?”
“But surely, Eloise,” I said, my heart in my throat, “after all these years—you don’t know how I’ve loved you always, and lately yearned for home and you.”
She gave me a startled look. “Jack, we must stop this. I have something to tell you.”
The hills swayed as the surrey rushed by. I saw the old field mistily, the distant trees and the white lime roads. I was almost reeling in the fear which her tone had brought.
“What do you think of them?” asked Aunt Lucretia proudly.
I looked at the handsome pair, stepping like one, at a good three minutes’ gait.
“Splendid,” I said. “I should guess they were Young Hickory’s, and their dam, Nuthunter.”
Uncle Thomas could not restrain a laugh. These horses were his pride. “Ain’t los’ none of yo’ hoss sense hobnobbin’ with them furrin’ folks, Marse Jack. You sho’ hit it ’zactly!”
“I was afraid,” went on Aunt Lucretia, “that I might not be successful in straightening out the Nuthunter legs; he hasn’t the best of hocks, you know. But did you ever see anything more beautiful?” she added.
“I never,” I answered, looking steadily into Eloise’s eyes.
“Jack,” laughed Eloise, “I must discipline you.”
For answer I caught up her hand behind Aunt Lucretia’s back and kissed it.
“I’m sorry for you, Jack,” she said with her old quietness, “but—but—well, I’ll see you to-night and explain.” Then she looked out and exclaimed, “The Home Stretch, Jack! Isn’t it beautiful? Has it changed any?”