Kitabı oku: «A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg», sayfa 7

CHAPTER VII
DAFFODIL'S NEW WORLD

Their first stage was in the coach. There was really quite a caravan for the weather was very pleasant for such a trip. Mrs. Craig fussed a little in a motherly way, and M. de Ronville watched her attentively, fearful she might give way to tears. But she had a stunned, incredulous feeling. Two men in the coach were arguing about the feasibility of Philadelphia becoming the capital of the Nation. It should never have gone to New York, which, after all, had been a nest of Tories.

One of the men recalled grandad to her mind and she could not forbear a vague little smile. It roused her to an amused interest and she asked M. de Ronville in a low tone which was right.

"The stout man is right, but he might be less dogmatic about it. I wondered at its going so far North."

Mrs. Craig was quite chatty and a very sensible body who saw several amusing things outside of the coach. All the passengers had brought luncheons along and they stopped by a wayside spring for a refreshing drink and to water the horses. Most of the travellers took a little walk around to rest their limbs. And then on again. The afternoon seemed long to Daffodil, though M. de Ronville entertained her with some reminiscences of the war and before that time, and how queer and unpromising the first beginnings were, and about William Penn, whose dream and desire had been "A fair roomy city with houses set in gardens of greenery," and Benjamin Franklin, who had done so much brave work for the country.

The post road had been made very tolerable. The darkness dropped down and the woods seemed full of strange things that made her shiver. Then they stopped at an inn – taverns they were called in those days – and had a good supper.

"Are you very tired?" asked M. de Ronville with much solicitude.

"Not so much tired as stiff. I think I never sat still so long even at school," and she smiled.

"It's a rather long journey, and I hope," he was going to say, "you will not be homesick," but checked himself and added, "that you will not get clear tired out. I will see if we cannot get some horses for to-morrow. That will make a change."

"Oh, I shall like that," her face in a glow of pleasure.

The supper was very good and she was healthily hungry. Mrs. Craig found some amusement to keep up the little girl's spirits, and she fared very well until she was safe in bed beside her kind companion. Then she turned her face to the wall and her mind went back to all the nights in her short life when she had been kissed and cuddled by mother or grandmere, or for the last ten days by Norry, and now she suddenly realized what the separation meant.

The glamour was gone. She could not go back. Oh, why had she come! She wanted to fly to the dear ones. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightdress, and sighed very softly, but she need not have minded, for Mrs. Craig was gently snoring.

The next morning was bright and clear, but she wondered where she was when Mrs. Craig spoke to her. What a little bit of a room and a tin basin to wash in!

"I hope you slept well. And I never dreamed a word! What a shame, when your dreams in a strange place come true – but you wouldn't want a bad dream to come true."

"No," in a very sober tone.

There was noise enough, but it was not the familiar home tones and Felix bustling about. Daffodil made a great effort to restrain her feelings and laughed a little at some of the sallies.

M. de Ronville was pacing up and down the hall, and he held out both hands, but his eyes wore an anxious expression.

"My dear little girl, I could not help thinking last night that it was very selfish of me to want to take you away from your home and those who love you so dearly just for a bit of pleasure to myself. Did you go to sleep thinking hard thoughts of me?"

She raised her lovely eyes, but the face was sweet and grave.

"Oh, you know I need not have come unless I had wanted to. I didn't think it would be so – so hard," and there was a little quiver in her voice.

"And are you sorry? Do you want to go back?"

"No," she answered with a certain bravery. "I like you very much and you want to do the things that please those you care a great deal for. And I want to see the beautiful city and the wonderful places where things have happened. And I am going to be very happy, only I shall think of them all at home."

"That is right. And I am going to do all I can to make you happy. The journey will be tiresome – I have seldom had to take any delicate person into consideration and I didn't think – "

"Oh, I shall not get tired out," laughing with some of her olden spirit.

He had been upbraiding himself during the night for his covetous desire of having her a little longer. Yes, he would have been glad if she was in reality his ward, if she were some friendless, homeless child that he could take to his heart for all time. There were many of them who would be glad and thankful for the shelter. But he wanted this one.

The riding for awhile was a pleasant change, and they talked of themselves, of M. de Ronville's home, one of the early old houses where he had lived for years, alone with the servants. She had heard most of it before, but she liked to go over it again.

"I wonder why you didn't marry and have children of your own," and there was a cadence of regret in her tone that touched him.

"I supposed I would. But year after year passed by and then I grew settled in my ways, and satisfied. I was a great reader."

"Oh, I wonder if I shall disturb you?" and there is a charm in her accent that warms his heart. "You must have seen that we live so altogether, that word just expresses it, as if all our interests were just the same. And they are. And I shall be – strange. Is the housekeeper nice?"

"Well – a little formal and dignified perhaps. Mrs. Jarvis. And she is a widow without children. Then there is Jane, quite a young woman. Of course, Chloe belongs to the kitchen department. And there is a young man."

There is no new accession of interest. She only says – "And is that all in a great big house?"

"Oh, there are visitors at times. I've had General Lafayette and Count de Grasse and not a few of our own brave men. But they have largely dispersed now, and sometimes I have a rather lonely feeling. I suppose I am getting old."

"Oh, I don't know how any one can live without folks, real folks of their very own," she said with emphasis.

"Yet, the friends have ties and interests elsewhere, and you have no close claim on them. It is not a good thing. Suppose grandfather Duvernay had been all alone those later years."

"Oh, I don't believe he could have lived. He was so fond of us all. And I loved him so. But I couldn't truly think he had gone away. I used to sit on the arm of the chair and talk to him. Do you know just where they go, and can't they come back for a little while? Oh, I know mother would. She couldn't stay away!"

Her eyes had a beautiful expression, almost as if she had a vision of the other world.

"Oh, he was to be envied," exclaimed de Ronville, with deep feeling. His own life looked lonelier than ever.

By noon she was glad to go back to the coach. It had changed some of its passengers and there were two children that attracted Daffodil's interest and put her in a still more charming light.

It was a long and tiresome journey with one wild storm and some cloudy days, but at last they reached the much desired city, and were driven out to the end of Broad Street. It was still the "greene country towne," although it had taken on city ways. This house stood then in the midst of greenery, having a garden on both sides, one devoted to choice fruit, the other to flowers and a sort of kitchen garden. It was a square brick house with green blinds, a wide doorway, and a hall running through the centre.

Mrs. Jarvis answered the summons herself.

"A hundred warm welcomes, my dear friend," she said most cordially. "We have missed you so much. I hope you are well?"

"Quite worn with the journey. And this is my ward – Miss Daffodil Carrick."

She held out her hand to the young girl and smiled at the attractive face.

"Will you go upstairs at once? There will be time for a rest before supper. Oh, sir, you can hardly think how glad we are to get you back."

The hall and stairs seemed to Daffodil as if they were carpeted with moss. Four rooms opened on the upper hall. Jules had his master's portmanteau as well as that of the girl, which he set down at the opposite door. Mrs. Jarvis led her in.

"This is my room and you see there is a connecting doorway so you need not feel lonely. You must be tired with the dreadful journey. How people ever ventured before there was a post road I can't imagine. Yet there are families going out to Ohio and Kentucky, as if there was not land enough here to settle. Now I'll send up Jane with some warm water that will refresh you very much. And then you had better take a rest. Supper is at six. You have nearly two hours."

Left to herself Daffodil took a survey of the room. It looked quite splendid to her untrained eyes with its soft carpet, its pretty chairs, its bedstead and bureau of light wood, its clock and tall candlesticks on the mantel, and the dressing mirror that stood on feet and in which you could see the whole figure. Then in a little nook curtained off was a washing stand with beautiful appointments in white and old blue. She glanced around in amazement and was still standing there when Jane entered.

A quaint enough figure in a short, scant frock, short-waisted as was the fashion of the times, of home-dyed blue linen that would have been one of the new colors of to-day where we have gone through every conceivable shade and hue. The sleeves were short, but there were long-armed mitts for summer wear. The cape was of the same material and the straw gipsy hat had a bow on the top and the strings to tie under the chin when it was not too warm.

"Oh, you look as if you did not mean to stay," cried Jane. "Let me take your hat and cape."

Jane was nearer thirty than twenty, a comely, fresh-faced girl with an air of youthfulness, attired in a sort of Quaker gray gown, with a lace kerchief crossed over her bosom. Her hair was banded straight above her ears and gathered in a knot behind.

"Oh, miss, you look fagged out. Mrs. Jarvis said when you'd had a good wash you must go to bed awhile. There's nothing freshens you up like that. It must have been an awful journey! My brother has gone out to Ohio. Do you live anywhere near that?"

"Not so very far away. And the Ohio river runs by us."

"I want to know now! The world's a funny sort of place, isn't it, Miss, with land here and water there and great lakes up North and a gulf at the South that they do say is part of the ocean. Now – shan't I unpack your portmanteau?"

"Monsieur de Ronville wouldn't let mother pack up much, he said things could be bought here."

"Yes, there's no end of them now that we are trading openly with France."

"And I was growing so fast," she continued apologetically, for the two frocks looked but a meagre outfit. One was a delicate gingham made out of a skirt of her mother's when gowns were fuller, the other her best white one tucked up to the waist and with some rare embroidery.

"Can I help you any?"

"No," returned Daffodil in a soft tone and with a half smile. "I'm used to waiting on myself."

"I'll come in and fasten your frock. You'll put on the white one;" and Jane withdrew.

Oh, how good the fresh water and soap scented with rose and violet seemed! She loitered in her bathing, it was so refreshing. Then she did throw herself across the foot of the bed and in a few moments was soundly asleep, never stirring until some one said – "Miss; Miss!"

"Oh! I had a lovely rest. You get so jolted in a stage coach that it seems as if your joints were all spinning out."

"Oh, miss, what beautiful hair? It's just like threads of gold. And it curls in such a lovely fashion! And such dark lashes and eyebrows sets you off."

Jane was such a fervent note of admiration that Daffodil blushed.

She was very pretty in her frock that ended above the ankles, and her fine white linen home-knit stockings were clocked. True her shoes were rather clumsy, but her shoulders made amends for any shortcomings. Her skin was very fair; sometimes it burned a little, but it never tanned.

"Oh, miss, if you had a ribbon to tie your curls up high! All the young ladies wear it so."

"I'm not quite a young lady," archly.

M. de Ronville came out of the library to meet her. The little flush and the shy way of raising her eyes was enchanting. She seemed a part of the handsome surroundings, really more attractive than in the plainness of her own home.

"You are a most excellent traveller," he began. "And I give you a warm and heartfelt welcome to my house. You should have been my granddaughter. What now?" seeing a grave look settled in her face.

"I was thinking. I wish I might call you uncle. It's queer but I never had an uncle with all the other relations. They seem to run in one line," and she laughed.

"Oh, if you will. I've wished there was some way of bringing us nearer together. Yes, you shall be my niece. You won't forget?"

"Oh, no; I am so glad." She seemed to come a little closer, and he placed his arm around her. Oh why did he never know before how sweet love could be! Then he kisses down amid the golden hair. Even her cheek is sacred to him and her lips must be kept for some lover.

There was a little musical string of bells that summoned them to supper. A young man of three- or four-and-twenty stood just inside the door.

"For convenience sake Miss Carrick will be announced as my niece as she is my ward. Allow me to present Mr. Bartram."

Daffodil flushed and bowed. M. de Ronville placed her chair for her. The table was round and very beautifully appointed. She and the young man were opposite. He was rather tall, well looking without being especially handsome. Mrs. Jarvis poured the tea. The two men talked a little business.

"I shall lay the matter before the Wetherills to-morrow," de Ronville said. "I was surprised at the promise of the place and it has a most excellent location. At present it is rather wild, but after seething and settling down the real town comes to the surface. It will not be a bad investment if one can wait. And the Wetherills are not likely to lack descendants.

"I am glad you were not disappointed," returned the young man.

"We know so little about Pittsburg," said Mrs. Jarvis, "except the great defeat of Braddock in the old war. Your people are French, I believe," turning to Daffodil.

"Yes, on the one side. The town seems to be made up of all nations, but they agree pretty well. And they have many queer ways and fashions."

Daffodil did not feel as strange as she had been fearing for the last two or three days that she would. Mother and grandmere would stand a comparison with Mrs. Jarvis, who had the dignity and bearing of a lady.

Some friends came in to congratulate M. de Ronville on his safe return. Mrs. Jarvis was much relieved at Daffodil's quiet manner. And she certainly was a pretty girl. They had quite a little talk by themselves when the guests were gone and Mrs. Jarvis was well pleased that she had come of a good family, as the town set much store by grandfathers and the French were in high repute.

Before M. de Ronville went to business the next morning he made a call on Miss Betty Wharton, who was a person of consequence and had had a romance, a lover who had been lost at sea when he was coming to marry her and the wedding finery was all in order. She and her mother lived together, then the mother died and Betty went on in her small house with a man and a maid and a negro cook. They were in high favor at that time. She had been quite a belle and even now was in with the Franks and the Shippens and the Henrys, and through the war her house had been quite a rendezvous for the patriots. She was an excellent card player, good humored and full of spirits, helpful in many society ways. She could have married, that all her friends knew; indeed two or three elderly beaux were still dangling after her.

"I am come to ask a favor," he said after the talk of his journey was over. "I have brought back with me a young girl, my ward, who will some day have a big and valuable estate as the country improves. Mrs. Jarvis hardly feels capable of shopping for her, and of course does not go about much. She is a charming girl and my father and her great-grandfather were the dearest of friends. M. Duvernay almost rounded out his hundred years. I call her my niece as the French blood makes us kin. Could you oblige me by taking her in hand, seeing that she has the proper attire and showing her through the paths of pleasure? You will find her a beautiful and attractive young girl."

"Why – really!" and her tone as well as her smile bespoke amusement. "French! Where did you unearth this paragon? And is she to have a lover and be married off? Has she a fortune or is she to look for one?"

He would not yield to annoyance at the bantering tone.

"Why, she is a mere child, and has no thought of lovers. She will have fortune enough if times go well with us, and need not think of that until her time of loving comes. She has been brought up very simply. There is a brother much younger. Her father was in the war the last three years. She is not ignorant nor unrefined, though Pittsburg does not aim at intellectuality."

"Pittsburg! Isn't it a sort of Indian settlement, and – well I really do not know much about it except that it is on the western borders."

"Oh, it is being civilized like all new places. We have had to work and struggle to plant towns and bring them into shape. Pittsburg has a most admirable position for traffic and abounds in iron ore as well as other minerals."

"And the girl is presentable?"

"Oh, she is not old enough for society. I did not mean that. But to go about a little and perhaps to a play, and places where it would look odd for me to take her without some womenkind. We French have rather strict ideas about our girls. Come to supper to-night and see her."

"Why, I'll come gladly. I like your young man, too. He has not been spoiled by the flirting young women. It is a shame I did not marry and have such a son to lean on in my old age;" and she laughed gayly.

"Then you can see for yourself. And if you do not like Miss Carrick we will let the matter drop through."

"Yes, I will be happy to come."

M. de Ronville went on to his office. Already there began to be business streets in the Quaker City that was rapidly losing its plainer appearance. This was rather old-fashioned and wore a quiet aspect. One clerk sat on a high stool transcribing a lengthy deed, and young Bartram had just deposited another pile of letters on his employer's desk which was at the far end of the place and could be shut off.

"I think these are not worth your first consideration," he said in a quiet tone. "And here is a list of people anxious to see you to-day. And – if you can spare me a little while – I am due at the Surrogate's office."

"Yes," nodding politely. Then he watched the young man as he walked away with a light, firm tread. There had always been a certain manliness in Aldis Bartram since the time he had attracted his employer's favor and been taken in as a clerk. Then he had an invalid mother to whom he had been devoted, that had been another passport to the elder's favor. On her death M. de Ronville had offered him a home and he was now confidential clerk and might one day be taken in the business which had been made a most excellent one from the Frenchman's uprightness and probity as well as his knowledge and judgment. Many a time he had settled a dispute and made friends between two hot-headed litigants.

He did not read his letters at first but dropped into a peculiar train of thought. He was in good health and vigor, his mind was clear and alert. But he was growing old. And if Betty Wharton in the prime of a delightful life thought a son would conduce to the pleasure and security of her old age, why not to his? Could he have a better son than Aldis Bartram? But he wanted the feminine contingent and he was past marrying. He wanted some one young and bright, and, yes, charming to look at, tender of heart. And here were these two in the very blossom time of life. Why they might fancy each other and in the course of time have it ripen to a real and lasting regard. Oh, the old house would be a Paradise. And if there were children —

He had to rouse himself from the dream with an effort and look over the accumulation. For perhaps the first time business seemed irksome to him, and he had always been fond of it, too fond perhaps.

Men nearly always went home to a noon dinner. He found Mrs. Jarvis and Daffodil in a comfortable state of friendliness, but the girl's eyes lighted with pleasure at the sight of him and her voice was full of gay gladness. No, she was not homesick; she had been in the garden and there were so many flowers she had never seen before and the ripe luscious fruit. There had been so many things to look at that she had not finished her letter, but she would do that this afternoon.

She is a gleam of the most enchanting sunshine in the old house, and her voice soft and merry, the tiredness and discomfort of travelling gone out of it is sweetest music to him and warms his heart. The eyes are very blue to-day, not so much brilliant as gladsome and her rosy lips curve and smile and dimple and every change seems more fascinating than the previous one. There is no young man in the room, it is the outcome of her own delightful golden heart. Oh, any young man might fall in love on the spot.

"Miss Wharton will be in to supper," M. de Ronville remarked casually. "She is not a young girl," seeing the look of interest in Daffodil's face; "but you will find her a very agreeable companion."

"It's queer, but I don't know many young girls. Some of the older ones were married in the spring, and I have been so much with mother and grandmere and Norah that I'm a little girl, a big little girl, I've grown so much."

Her laugh was a gay ripple of sound. He took it with him to the office and her golden head seemed dancing about everywhere, just as it had at home.

"Of course," Miss Wharton said to herself as she lifted the brass knocker, "de Ronville never could be so foolish as to fall in love with a chit of a thing, though I have heard of men training a young girl just to their fancy. He has always been so discreet and punctilious. French are a little different."

No, he had not overpraised her beauty. Betty Wharton admitted that at once. And her manners had a natural grace, it ran in the French blood. Why it would be a pleasure to take her about and have men stare at her as they would be sure to do.

She and Mrs. Jarvis found enough to talk about, and while the housekeeper had gone to look after the tea she turned her attention to Daffodil.

"Oh, I can't help liking the place," the child said with charming eagerness. "Mrs. Jarvis has been telling me about the stores and the gardens a dozen times prettier than this, though I don't see how that can be. They don't seem to care much about gardens at home, they have a few posy beds, but you can go out and gather basketsful in the woods, only they are not grand like these. And there are no such beautiful houses. Oh, there are lots of log huts, really, the older ones, and people are not – I don't just know what to call it, but they do not seem to care."

"All towns improve after a while. The people in New York think they are much finer than we, and then there is Boston – where the people are starched so stiff with the essence of fine breeding that they can hardly curtsey to one another. I like my town the best, having seen them all."

"Oh, how splendid it must be to go about to strange, beautiful places," the child said wistfully, with glowing eyes.

"But I have not been to France;" laughingly.

"Neither have I. But great-grandfather came from there when he was a young man. And he had been to Paris, but he did not live there. And he and grandmother, whom I never saw, had to fly for their lives because they worshipped God in a different fashion from Royalty. And I can talk quite a good deal in French, but I like English better. It seems to mean more."

Miss Wharton laughed at that.

They had a very delightful meal and Betty, by a well known society art, brought out the brightness of the little girl, that made her very charming without any overboldness.

"Why you have unearthed quite a prize," Miss Wharton said to her host later in the evening. "Has Pittsburg many such girls? If so I am afraid our young men will be running after them. You may command me for any service, only I must have her as my guest now and then."

"A thousand thanks. Will you see about her wardrobe to-morrow? There is no need to stint."

"I shall be very glad to oblige you. I suppose you do not mean to turn her into a young lady?"

"No – o," rather hesitatingly.

"Then it shall be simple prettiness."

After that Miss Wharton played on the spinet and sang several old songs. Daffodil wished grandad could hear two that were his favorites, and she was quite sure Norry could not have resisted jumping up and dancing at the sound of "The Campbells Are Coming." Mr. Bartram turned over the leaves of the music, while Daffodil snuggled in the corner of the sofa beside her guardian. And when she went to bed her head was full of Norah's fairy stories come true.