CHAPTER VII.
The Smith family speedily settled down into their new home, and after the first feeling of strangeness had worn off, were forced to acknowledge that the reality of country living was not so disagreeable as they had anticipated. The neighborhood was pleasantly and thickly settled, the people kind-hearted and hospitable. True, Mrs. Smith still secretly yearned for modern conveniences and the comforts of a daily market, and felt that time alone could reconcile her to the unreliability and inefficiency of colored servants, but even she had compensation. Her husband—whose time, since his retirement, had hung like lead upon his hands, was busy, active and interested, full of plans, and reveling in the pure delight of buying expensive machinery for the negroes to break, and tons of fertilizers for them to waste. The girls were pleased, and Norma happier and less difficult than she had been for years. And, best and most welcome of all, Warner appeared to strengthen. As for Percival, his satisfaction knew no bounds; his father had given him a gun and Nesbit Thorne was teaching him how to use it.
At the eleventh hour Nesbit Thorne had decided to accompany his relatives in their flitting, instead of waiting to visit them later in the season. He was incited thereto by idleness and ennui, leavened by curiosity as to the manner in which their future life would be ordered, and also by a genuine desire to be of service to them in the troublesome move. Perhaps there was, besides, an unacknowledged feeling in his breast, that with the departure of his kindred, New York would become lonelier, more wearisome than ever. They had given him a semblance of a home, and there was in the man's nature an undercurrent of yearning after love and the rounding out of true domestic life, that fretted and chafed in its obstructed channel, and tried here and there blindly for another outlet.
Thorne's coming with them seemed to the Smiths a very natural proceeding. His aunt proposed it one day, when he had been more than usually helpful, vowing that she scarcely knew how to get along without him, and Thorne fell in with the proposal at once; it made little difference, since he was coming for the shooting anyway. If Norma had another theory in regard to his unwillingness to be separated from them, she was careful to keep it hidden.
The country gentry, led and influenced by the Masons, extended the right hand of fellowship to the new-comers, and wrapped the folds of the social blanket cordially around them. The worldly affairs of the Virginians, like their surroundings, were in a more or less perceptible state of dilapidation, and their means frequently failed to match their hospitality. But their intentions were the best, and the Smiths (well-bred people, neither arrogant, nor purse-proud) speedily became reconciled to informality and lack of system, and learned to overlook deficiencies, or to piece them out with kindness.
From the first they were thrown much into the society of the Lanarth family, for the Masons at once assumed right of property in them, being bent with simple loyalty on defraying some portion of their debt of gratitude. When their loved one was "sick and in prison" these strangers had extended to him kindness, and now that opportunity offered, that kindness should be returned, full measure, pressed down and running over. For the general, Pocahontas conceived a positive enthusiasm, a feeling which the jolly old soldier was not slow in discovering, nor backward in reciprocating; the pair were the best of friends.
Ever since the finding of the letter, the girl's mind had been filled with the story of the brother whom she scarcely remembered. With tender imagination, she exaggerated his youth, his courage, his hardships, and glorified him into a hero. Every thing connected with him appeared pitiful and sacred; his saber hung above the mantle, crossed with his father's, and she took it down one morning and half-drew the dulled blade from the scabbard. The brass of the hilt, and the trimmings of the belt and scabbard were tarnished, and even corroded in places. She got a cloth and burnished them until they shone like gold. When she replaced it, the contrast with the other sword hurt her, and a rush of remorseful tenderness made her take that down also, and burnish it carefully. Poor father! almost as unknown as the young brother, she was grieved that he should have been the second thought.
She was restoring her father's sword to its place, and re-arranging the crimson sash, faded and streaked in its folds, from wear and time, when Norma and Blanche arrived, escorted by Nesbit Thorne. Little Sawney had been sitting on the hearth-rug watching her polish the arms, and offering suggestions, and Pocahontas dispatched him to invite her guests into the parlor, while she ran up-stairs to remove the traces of her work. The young people from Shirley often walked over in the afternoons; the way was short and pleasant, and the brother and sister usually accompanied them part of the way home.
Thorne was fond of these informal visits; his interest in Pocahontas had increased; the chord, instead of merely vibrating, was beginning to give out faint, sweet notes, like a far-off dream of music, just stirring toward embodiment. He took a keen artistic pleasure in her, she satisfied him, and at first he was almost shy of pressing the acquaintance lest she should fail somewhere. He had been disappointed so many times, had had so many exquisite bubbles float before him, to break at a touch and leave only dirty soap-suds. He let himself be interested slowly, drawing out the pleasure, and getting its full flavor. Then, when he found that it was true metal and might be worked at will without fear of baseness, or alloy, he gave himself up to the pleasure of it. Then, his instinct being always to draw to himself what he desired, he strove to awaken an interest in her. He was a man of unusually brilliant attainments, and he spared no pains. He began to seek her society, and, when in it, to exert himself and appear always at his best, trying to fascinate her as she was, unconsciously, beginning to fascinate him. He would entrap her into ventilating her old-fashioned ideas and prejudices; her primitive notions of life and conduct. Her straightforwardness, simplicity, absolute truthfulness, struck him as quaint and delicious; even her romance and almost German sentiment were attractive to him. He felt like a scientist, who discovers old truths in an absolutely new development. Early in their acquaintance he discovered her fondness for old legends, and her perfect acceptance of, and faith in them; and it was his delight to beguile her into relating tales of her kindred, and of the olden times so dear to the hearts of Virginians. Her remarks and comments often touched, always interested him, although sometimes they well-nigh convulsed him with amusement. To the mind of the man of the world they appeared so—almost obsolete.
Pocahontas was generally willing enough to tell her stories, unless indeed Norma happened to be present, and then the improvisatrice was dumb. Pocahontas was not in sympathy with Norma. Norma thought old stories great rubbish, and did not scruple to show that such was her opinion, and Pocahontas resented it. One evening, in the beginning of their acquaintance, the three girls had walked down to the old willows at the foot of the lawn, and Pocahontas, for the amusement of her guests, had related the little story connected with them.
"I think it was all great foolishness," Norma declared. "If she loved the man, why not marry him at once like a sensible woman? The idea of making him wait three years, and watch a rubbishing little tree, just because his brother would have made a scene. What if he did make a scene? He would soon have submitted to the inevitable, and made friends. The lady couldn't have cared much for her lover, to be willing to put up with that driveling probation."
"She did love him," retorted Pocahontas, with annoyance, "and she proved it by being willing to sacrifice a little of her happiness to spare him the bitterness of a quarrel with his own brother. The men were twins, and they loved one another, until unnatural rivalry pushed family affection into the background. If the matter had been settled when both were at white heat, an estrangement would have ensued which it would have taken years to heal—if it ever was healed. There's no passion so unyielding as family hate. They were her kinsmen, too, men of her own blood; she must think of them, outside of herself. The welfare of the man she didn't love must be considered as well as that of the man she did love—more, if any thing, because she gave him so much less. How could she come between twin brothers, and turn their affection to hatred? She knew them both—knew that her own true lover would hold firm for all the years of his life, so that she could safely trust him for three. And she knew that the lighter nature would, in all probability, prove inconstant; and if he left her of his own freewill, there could be no ill-feeling, and no remorse."
Norma laughed derisively. "And in this fine self-sacrifice she had no thought of her lover," quoth she. "His pain was nothing. She sacrificed him, too."
"And why not? Surely no man would grudge a paltry three years out of his whole life's happiness to avoid so dreadful a thing as ill blood between twin brothers. If she could wait for his sake, he could wait for hers. A woman must not cheapen herself; if she is worth winning, she must exact the effort."
"I think it is a lovely story," Blanche interposed, decidedly. "The lady behaved beautifully; just exactly as she should have done. A quarrel between brothers is awful, and between twin brothers would be awfuler still."
In her eager partisanship, Blanche's language was more concise than elegant, but she wanted Pocahontas to know that she sided with her.
Norma regarded her sister with amusement not unmixed with chagrin. These new friends were stealing away her follower. Blanche was becoming emancipated.
"Any woman who trifles with her happiness, because of a scruple, is a fool," she repeated, dogmatically.
Pocahontas held back the angry retort that was burning on the tip of her tongue, and let the subject drop. Norma was her guest, and, after all, what did it matter what Norma thought? But after that she refrained from repeating old stories before her; and of the two sisters, Blanche became her favorite.
As she entered the parlor with smiles and words of welcome, Blanche held out her hands filled with late roses and branches of green holly, bright with berries.
"See," she said, "two seasons in one bouquet. The roses are for your mother. I found them on a bush in a sheltered corner; and as we came along I made Nesbit cut the holly for me. I never can resist holly. That tree by your gate is the loveliest thing I have ever seen; just like those in the store windows at home for Christmas. Only we never had such a profusion of berries, and I don't think they were as bright. Do you think the holly we get at home is as bright, Norma?"
"Oh, yes; it looked always pretty much the same. We got beautiful holly every Christmas," replied Norma, who did not like Virginia exalted at the expense of her native place.
"But not with such masses of berries. Just look at this branch; was there ever any thing more perfect? Princess, please give me something to put it in. It's far too pretty to throw away. Can I have that vase on the piano?"
Pocahontas smiled assent. She could have holly by the cart-load, but she liked Blanche's enthusiasm. While the others chatted, Blanche decked the vase with her treasure; then two others which she found for herself on a table in the corner. There were still some lovely rich bits, quite small twigs, left when she had finished, and she once more clamored for something to put them in.
Pocahontas, in the midst of an eager discussion with Thorne and Norma, in which both were arrayed against her, glanced around carelessly. There was a cup and saucer on a small stand near her, and she picked up the cup thoughtlessly and held it out to Thorne. Just as their hands met in the transfer, both of them talking, neither noticing what they were doing, Berkeley entered suddenly and spoke, causing them to start and turn. There was a quick exclamation from Pocahontas, a wild clutch into space from Thorne, and on the floor between them lay the fragile china in half a dozen pieces.
Pocahontas bent over them regretfully. It was the cup with the dreaming Indian maiden on it—the cup from which Jim Byrd had taken his coffee on that last evening. There were tears in her eyes, but she kept her head bent so that no one should see them. She would rather any cup of the set should have come to grief than that one.
She had brought it into the parlor several days before to show to a visitor, who wished a design for a hand-screen for a fancy fair, and had neglected to replace it in the cabinet. She reproached herself for her carelessness as she laid the fragments on the piano, and then the superstition flashed across her mind. Could it be an omen? The idea seemed foolish, and she put it aside.
"Don't feel badly about it," she said to Thorne, who was humbly apologetic for his awkwardness, "it was as much my fault as yours; we neither of us were noticing. Indeed, it's more my fault, for if I hadn't neglected to put it away, the accident could not have happened. You must not blame yourself so much."
"In the actual living present, I'm the culprit," observed Berkeley, "since my entrance precipitated the catastrophe. I startled you both, and behold the result! Nobody dreamed of convicting me, and this is voluntary confession, so I expect you all to respect it; the smallest unkindness will cause me to leave the room in a torrent of tears."
Every one laughed, and Pocahontas put the fragments out of sight behind a pile of music books. She could not put the subject out of her mind so easily, although she exerted herself to an unusual degree to prevent her guests from feeling uncomfortable; the superstition rankled.
As they took leave, Thorne held her hand in a warmer clasp than he had ever before ventured on, and his voice was really troubled as he said:
"I can't tell you how worried I am about your beautiful cup. I never had a small accident trouble me to the same extent before. I feel as though a serious calamity had befallen. There was no tradition, no association, I hope, which made the cup of special value, beyond its beauty, and the fact of its being an heirloom."
Pocahontas was too truthful for evasion.
"There were associations of course," she answered gently, "with that cup as well as with the rest of the china. It has been in the family so many generations, you know. Don't reproach yourself any more, please—remember 'twas as much my fault as yours. And broken things need not remain so," with an upward glance and a bright smile, "they can be mended. I shall have the cup riveted."
She would not tell him of the superstition; there was no use in making him feel worse about the accident than he felt already. She did not wish him to be uncomfortable, and had gladly assumed an equal share of blame. It was extremely silly in her to allow her mind to dwell on a foolish old tradition. How could the breakage of a bit of china, no matter how precious, presage misfortune? It was ill doing that entailed ill fortune, not blind chance, or heathen fate. She would think no more of foolish old portents.
Still!—she wished the cup had not been broken—wished with all her heart that it had not been that cup.