Chapter V Miss Berry’s Visitors
Miss Lovina Berry stood on the stone doorstep of her square, white house early one evening soon after the scene narrated in the last chapter. The elm growing in her yard would have put to shame those so carefully tended in front of the Van Tassel mansion a thousand miles away, and more of the noble trees stood outside the white picket fence and shaded the country road.
The flowers in her carefully weeded garden were homely and wholesome, like her own placid face, as she stood, elbows in her hands, regarding the neighbor who was in the act of departing from her hospitable roof.
“You’re sure ’t won’t inconvenience you a mite, Loviny?” asked the latter, folding a brown paper parcel beneath her shawl as her anxious upturned face met Miss Berry’s benevolent gaze. “You won’t need the pattern this week?”
“No, I sha’n’t need it this week,” answered Lovina pleasantly; then, as the other started off contentedly toward the little white gate, she added in an equable, unvexed undertone: “but if I want it any time within two months I shall have to come after it, that I know. There ain’t anybody slacker ’n you be, Ann Getchell, from one end o’ Pearfield to the other.” Miss Berry continued to watch contemplatively the woman whom she had characterized with such passionless severity, and suddenly she saw her stoop.
“Your posies do smell so good, Loviny,” Miss Getchell called back. “I s’pose you don’t care if I take some old man?”
Miss Berry smiled, and stepping deliberately off the stone advanced toward her guest. “Take any old man you can get, Ann. I wouldn’t lay a straw in your way.”
“That’s an old joke, Loviny,” returned the other with a sniff, breaking a piece of the feathery stuff with its pungent sweet odor, while her hostess with generous hand gathered the best the garden afforded, and tying the nosegay with a bit of striped grass, bestowed it upon the visitor, who buried her nose in its depths.
“You’re just as much of an old maid as I be, you know,” added Miss Getchell with an upward look.
“Just exactly, Ann. I don’t know but more; more set in that direction, as it were.”
Miss Lovina’s lips twitched a little as she rested her arms on the gate after her guest had gone out, but all her neighbors had reason to know that the milk of human kindness became cream in her case, and Ann Getchell had too often benefited by its richness to feel less than content now. Indeed, as she turned a curve in the country road and hugged closer her brown paper parcel, she soliloquized with much satisfaction:—
“I wasn’t sure she’d let me have it. Loviny always does set so much store by what Mis’ Page sends her, and that dollman has got a style to it that I hain’t seen anywhere else. I can get it out o’ my old gray poplin, I’m next to certain. Them spots don’t show hardly at all on the other side—Why, Mr. Gorham!” The spinster started back with a short, shrill screech. “What a turn you did give me! Why,” clutching the left side of her dress waist, “I’m all of a tremble. You riz up so unexpected from behind that rock that I—law! I can’t hardly stand up.”
The young man who had thus rudely interrupted an absorbing sunset dream looked upon the ostentatiously perturbed speaker with some trouble in his absent gaze.
“Pardon me, Miss Getchell. The evening is so beautiful, I had thrown myself down in the grass there to listen to the thrushes, and that moment happened to decide I must be moving. I did not hear your soft tread approaching.”
Over Miss Ann’s agitated countenance there stole a gratified expression. This reference to her soft tread had a pleasing sound. It was characteristic of this young man to appear to compliment when no proceeding was further from his thoughts. More worldly-wise and charming women than Miss Getchell had been similarly misled by him. Nature in mischievous mood had added to his muscular physique the features of a hero of romance, and launched him, a practical joke, upon society.
The little woman tilted her thin head to one side with an arch air, and lifted her sharp-nosed face toward his pensive eyes.
“Ain’t it a coincidence I should ‘a’ met up with you just now? I’ve got a pattern under my arm this minute that your sister’n law sent Loviny Berry. I didn’t know as you was in town.”
Her companion was anxious to pass on; but sense of duty forbade. He had startled Miss Ann. It would be uncivil to leave her abruptly.
“I have but just arrived. I’ve come down for a flying visit to Miss Berry.”
“Jus’ so. I’ve jus’ come from there, as I said. You hain’t been down in years, have you?”
“It is a long time for me to stay away from Pearfield. Good”—
“Loviny didn’t say a word about expectin’ you,” said Miss Ann curiously. “Do you still like lawyerin’?”
“Yes, I like it. Good evening, Miss Getchell.” He lifted his hat; then as though compunction prompted the act, he advanced a step and shook Miss Ann’s limp hand. He was recalling that she had been kind to him in a past when the quality of apples was not material, and the fruit on her gnarly little trees had seemed desirable.
“Good evenin’,” she answered. “Come and see me if you’re stayin’ long enough.”
“Thank you. I return to Boston almost immediately.”
The young man pursued his way, relieved to be free again to give all his attention to the soft summer sky where the light was fading; to the bird-notes which were becoming disconnected and dreamy; to the scents which rose gratefully from willows, and the thorny luxuriance of vines that rioted over the stone wall at the roadside.
Miss Berry was still lingering at her gate when he approached the house. She dropped her hands from her elbows and grasped the pickets of the fence at sight of the face under the lifted hat.
“Why, Mr. Gorham!” she exclaimed, and opened the gate, her countenance alight with pleased surprise. “I was just thinkin’ about you this minute, as I was standin’ here.”
“Naturally. I was a coming event, and I cast my shadow before.”
The visitor shook the plump offered hand with no abstraction now in his eyes, and his teeth gleamed beneath his mustache. “I’ve no doubt I can tell what you were thinking about, too.”
“Like enough. I s’pose lawyers know everything. Come into the house,” said Miss Lovina hospitably.
“Not yet. It is far too pleasant here. Where is that old settee that used to be under the oriole elm? Why, there it is, of course, only pushed to the other side,” and the speaker started for the desired haven.
“Come back, come back, Gorham Page. Don’t you wade through the wet grass!” exclaimed Miss Berry imperatively.
Her visitor turned around, laughing. “That sounds natural, Aunt Love,” he said.
“Well, perhaps it does,” replied the other in half-laughing apology; “but haven’t you learned good sense yet? The dew’s a-fallin’, and that grass ought to been mowed last week.”
“Do you remember when I used to mow it for you?”
“I remember when you used to promise to,” rejoined Miss Berry, the corners of her mouth still twitching. “Look here. I ain’t goin’ under that elm to set with my feet in the water.”
“All right,” replied Page, succumbing with a sigh, and casting a glance toward the graceful branches of the tallest elm, behind which the new moon glimmered in a primrose sky. “What an evening!” he ejaculated.
“‘M; dewy though,” returned Miss Berry.
“I do like those old trees,” said her guest slowly, continuing to gaze.
“So do the mosquitoes,” replied Miss Berry inflexibly. “Come up on to the stoop.”
Page, with a smile of amusement, followed his hostess to the piazza, where she ensconced him in one rocking chair, and herself in another.
“Do the orioles still hold possession of that elm?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad of that. The rest of the world may change, and must; but I’m jealous of a hair’s breadth of change in Pearfield.”
“Well, I don’t know. The hang-birds squabble a good deal,” remarked Miss Lovina impartially.
Her guest laughed again. The fact being that very few things in life moved him to laughter, he was enjoying himself hugely.
“You are too practical; too unsentimental, Aunt Love,” he asserted argumentatively.
“Too unsentimental, hey?” responded Miss Berry, folding her hands over the white apron that protected her striped gingham gown. “That’s pretty good from you. What does it mean? Have you repented o’ your singular ways, and been fallin’ in love?”
“Oh, yes,” responded the other, more seriously; then added simply, as though stating an undeniable fact, “I am always falling in love.”
“Then why don’t you get married?” asked Miss Lovina bluntly. “I haven’t heard a thing about you in so long, I didn’t know but what you was married, only I hadn’t received any cake. I didn’t believe you’d forget me.”
“No,” said Page. “If I could be as loyal to any girl as I am to you, Aunt Love, I should certainly ask her if she would have me.”
“But if you fall in love?” asked Miss Berry, perplexed.
“The trouble is I don’t stay in love,” explained Page with simple sincerity. “I can’t help forgetting about the young lady in a little while. It really makes me blue sometimes. Now this summer at Bar Harbor I met a girl who was remarkably pleasant. Pretty, clever, a good talker. Her tastes and mine coincided. My mind was full of her when I left the place.”
“Have you heard from her since?” asked Miss Berry with interest. This certainly sounded encouraging.
“Oh yes. I have sent her candy and flowers and books from time to time,” responded Page, beginning to look serious and abstracted.
“Then you write to each other?”
“Yes, oh yes, we do—yes. Come to think of it, though,” Page gave a short uncomfortable laugh, “I believe I never answered her last letter. I’ve forgotten. I must look it up when I get back to town, if I can remember it. Aunt Love,” brightening, “are those scalloped cookies still in the tin box?”
“Child! You haven’t had any supper!” Miss Berry sprang to her feet with astonishing celerity, her plumpness considered.
The guest also rose. “Yes I have, but I want a cookie.”
“Then I’ll get it for you.”
“No, no; that would spoil everything.” Page took his hostess by her plump, comfortable arms and forced her back into her seat.
“There ain’t a bit o’ light in there,” remarked Miss Berry resignedly.
“That was the condition of things when my aim for the cookies used to be most unerring,” returned the visitor, disappearing into the house.
He returned shortly, carrying in one hand a cookie which already had lost from its side a generous semicircle, and in the other a round, deep tin box which he placed at an impartial distance between his own chair and Miss Lovina’s.
“Those are not my usual cookies,” stated the latter, meditatively regarding the box as her guest settled himself with a sigh of content.
Page smiled. “That’s all right,” he answered. “You know they never were.”
“Now I deny it, Gorham Page,” rejoined Miss Berry warmly. “I was never one to make excuses all the time, and you can’t say I was; not truthfully you can’t.”
“These are exactly right, anyway,” returned the other calmly. “There never was a cookie outside this house that tasted as good.”
“Oh now, that’s silly, Mr. Gorham,” returned Miss Berry with a pleased smile.
“No, it is sound sense. I feel old, and tired of things very often. If I could only get hold of one of these at such moments, I should be young again in a minute, with an appetite for everything. If you should some day receive a telegram asking for a cookie, you may know that I need to be rejuvenated, and mail me one at once.”
“Have you forgotten my currant wine?” asked Miss Berry radiantly.
“Well, I guess not! But you never let me know where you kept that.”
His hostess laughed. “No sir, indeed I didn’t. You set where you are, and I’ll fetch it out.”
She was as good as her word, and in a short time a little table stood at Page’s elbow, and upon it a bottle and two glasses.
“I am sure I’m a big boy now,” he laughed, as he poured the wine, “since you trust me with this. I well remember the half glasses you used to give me as a treat. How many summers did we come here, Aunt Love?”
“Pretty near every year after you was ten years old till you went to college.”
A little silence fell between them, for it was that summer before Page’s collegiate life began that his mother bade him a last good-by upstairs in this very house, in the low-ceiled chamber where the branches of the oriole elm cast their shadow.
“How’s your cousin Jack? I wonder if he remembers Pearfield too,” continued Miss Berry.
“Indeed he does. He graduated from Harvard this year, and of course I attended the Commencement. He asked for you, and I told him I didn’t know half as much about you as I ought to; so when your business letter reached me last week, I determined to answer it in person, and I hope you will pardon what was unbusinesslike delay, for I could not arrange to come at once.”
“I feel as though I”—Miss Berry was beginning diffidently, when a small dark whirlwind rattled the tin cake box, jostled the table, and leaped frantically against Miss Lovina’s arm, upsetting some drops of wine upon the clean white apron.
“Get out! get down! Your paws are dirty!” she exclaimed, emphasizing her unflattering protests with slaps at the panting, bounding, shaggy terrier, who at last seated himself for an instant on his stump of a tail, before rising to take a minute survey of the visitor’s pantaloons.
“Oh, you nuisance!” apostrophized Miss Lovina, wiping up the wine drops with her handkerchief. “He’s been to get the cow with Obed. He goes every night, and he always races home like a mad thing, just as though it had come over him up in the pastur’ that p’raps I’d give him the slip and go off somewheres without him. No sir, don’t you touch that cookie box!” for the terrier’s eyes were gleaming through the mat of hair, and his mobile nose worked hungrily, first toward Page’s hand, and then toward the base of supplies.
“H’m! He evidently knows those cookies, and agrees with my estimate of them,” said the young man, breaking a piece and offering it to the dog as he returned alertly from Miss Berry’s vigorous push. The creature swallowed the morsel, and at each mouthful Page took thereafter, became convulsed throughout his rough body, then planted his four feet firmly and expectantly, and emitted a little bark. “This is an innovation,” continued the guest. “Pearfield does move, it seems, after all.”
“Oh, well,” sighed Miss Lovina, lifting the cookie box to a safe perch on the table, “it’s none o’ my doin’. Since the last season you spent here I haven’t made it any reg’lar thing to keep summer boarders; but last year a lady was here with her children, and nurse, and this dog. They had him new for a plaything for the children, and they was too little to like him. He’s the livest thing, Blitzen is, that ever walked, anyway. No, I ain’t talkin’ to you. Keep down! And he scared the children with his wild ways. The upshot of it was, they all went off and left him on my hands. Mrs. Siddall said it was so much trouble to travel with him that if he bothered me I might give him away to somebody in the village. Humph! That was all very well to say. I’ve given him to four folks already.”
Page smiled and gave the dog another mouthful. “Wise Blitzen. He knows which side his bread is buttered on,” was his comment.
“He wouldn’t stay tied up, nor shut up, no more ’n a witch,” continued Miss Berry, “and every time he’d come back, he looked rougher than the last time; and when he’d catch sight o’ me, he’d act foolish and actually laugh. It’s a fact. He’d grin till he showed every tooth in his head. Of course I gave in at last. I had to. He’s a knowin’ critter,” sighed Miss Lovina; “he knows everything on earth only just that I don’t want him. He’s set out to deny that, and he’ll stick to it.”
“He seems to be a fine dog of his kind,” said Page.
“Yes. They said he cost a lot o’ money,” returned Miss Berry, regarding the terrier dubiously. “I did think though, first off, that I should never get to tell quick which was which end of him. He hasn’t got tail enough to wag, and he’s so rough and queer he’s given me a start many a time barkin’ in the direction I didn’t expect. What were we talkin’ about when Blitzen broke in?”
“I was asking pardon for my delay in responding about your business matter. I told you when I met you at the gate that I knew you were thinking, as you stood there, that it was strange that I should be neglectful of you.”
“Well, I wasn’t. I was wonderin’ if I’d done the right thing to bother you about the matter anyway.”
“Decidedly you did. It is a problem I can solve for you with very little trouble, I’m sure, if you will show me the papers you spoke of. I have robbed the tin box shamefully and the light has gone; supposing we go into the house and talk the matter over. My time in Pearfield is limited. I sail for Germany next Saturday, and I have considerable to do between now and then.”
“Well, if you ain’t clever to me,” said Miss Berry gratefully, as she rose and led the way into the house, while Page followed with the impedimenta of box and bottle, and the further embarrassment of Blitzen, who writhed ingeniously about his legs, evidently intending to make clear his adherence to one who could command cake at such an astonishing time and place.