III
When Mrs. Eaton went to Mercer, the change in her life was absolute and bewildering. Robert Blair’s enormous wealth was, at first, simply not to be realized. The subdued and refined magnificence of the house conveyed nothing to his sister’s mind, because she had no standard of value. The pictures and tapestries implied not money, but only beauty and joy, for she had never dreamed of buying anything but food and clothes; so how could she guess that all the money of all her sixteen years on a minister’s salary would not have purchased, say, the small misty square of canvas that held in one corner a wonderful and noble and peasant name?
The first night in the great wainscoted dining-room, with a man bringing unknown dishes to her elbow, with candles shining on elaborate and useless pieces of silver, with the glow of firelight flickering out from under a superb chimney-piece of Mexican marble, and dancing about the stately and dignified room—the beauty and the graciousness and the wonder of it was an overwhelming experience, though she had not the dimmest idea of the fortune it represented—a fortune notorious and envied the land over. That she had had no share in it until now did not wound her in the least; she was grateful for the warmth and the comfort and the kindness, now they had come; she never harked back to the painful years of silence and forgetfulness.
Her brother and his wife watched her, amused and interested; her dazzled admiration of everything was half touching, half droll. But what a confession it was! Eleanor Blair realized this, and she said to herself, warmly, that she would make up to Robert’s sister for the past. She was in her element in arranging her sister-in-law’s future; she made a dozen plans for her in the first week; but her husband laughed and shook his head.
“Wait,” he said; “time enough when we see how we get along.”
But they got along very well. The children, after the first shy awkwardness had worn off, were really attractive. Silas, an eager brown-eyed boy of eleven, lovable in spite of his name, made artless and pretty love to his pretty aunt, who found him a delightful plaything. “The serious Esther,” as her uncle called her, was a friendly little creature, when one came to know her; her common-sense commended her to Mr. Blair, and her dressmaking and her education were an immediate interest to her aunt.
So it came about that the visit was prolonged, and the project of a little establishment of her own for Mrs. Eaton gradually given up; at all events, for the present. It was very satisfactory as it was. The house was so big, they were not in the way; and Mrs. Eaton’s mourning kept her in the background in regard to society—which “was just as well,” Mrs. Blair admitted, smiling to herself—but it made no difference in her usefulness. She was really quite useful in one way or another; she could write an intelligent note to a tradesman, or reply (by formula) to a begging letter; so, by and by, she was practically her sister-in-law’s secretary, and certainly the Blairs had never had either a maid or a butler who could begin to arrange flowers for a dinner party as Mrs. Eaton did. She was silent, and rather vague, but always gentle, and ready and eager to fetch and carry for anybody. She so rarely expressed any opinion of her own, that when she did the two strong and good-natured people who made her life so easy for her could hardly take it seriously. She did, to be sure, decline to change her son’s objectionable name, on the ground that it was his name, and so could not be changed; “and,” Mrs. Blair complained once, “she won’t let me send Esther to dancing-school. I asked her if she thought dancing was wrong, and she said, ‘Oh, no; but Mr. Eaton did.’ Isn’t it funny?”
Robert Blair laughed, and said he would straighten that out. But, somehow, it was not straightened out. Esther teased, and Mrs. Blair was just a little impatient and sarcastic. But Esther did not go to dancing-school.
“I’m sorry to displease you, Eleanor,” Mrs. Eaton said, shrinking as she spoke, like a frightened animal which expects a blow, “but—I can’t allow it. Mr. Eaton would not have wished it.”
Yet, negative as she seemed, the little quiet woman was keenly alive to the advantages of this full, rich life for the children, and, indeed, for herself. Mere rest was such a luxury to her, for she had lived and worked as only a country minister’s wife must. So, to feel no anxiety, to have delicate food, to know the touch of fine linen,—in fact, to be comfortable, meant more to her than even her brother, enjoying his generosity towards her, could possibly imagine.
So life began for his sister and her children in Robert Blair’s beautiful great house in the new part of Mercer,—the new part which is not offended by the sight of those great black chimneys roaring with sapphire and saffron flames, or belching monstrous coils of black smoke, threaded with showers of sparks,—those chimneys and roofs which are not beautiful to look upon, but which have made the “new” part of Mercer possible. When Mrs. Eaton came to her brother’s house, these unlovely foundations of his fortune were still for a month. There was a strike on, and Mercer was cleaner and quieter than it had been for many months,—in fact, than it had been since the last strike. The clang and clamor of the machine-shops, the scream of the steel saws biting into the living, glowing rails, the thunderous crash of plates being tested in the hot gloom of the foundries, had all stopped.
“And, oh dear me,” said Mrs. Blair, “what a relief it is! Of course it’s very annoying to have them strike, and all that, but when one drives into town to get to the other side of the river, the noise is perfectly intolerable. And when the wind is in that direction, we can really hear the roar even out here.”
She said this to her clergyman, who looked at her with a veiled sparkle of humor in his handsome eyes.
“So the puddlers shall starve to make a Mercer holiday,” he said good-naturedly.
“If they choose to strike, they must take the consequences,” she replied, with some spirit. “Besides, they are the most ungrateful creatures! Well, I’m sure I don’t know what we’re coming to!”
“Something may be coming to us,” her visitor said, with a whimsical look, but he sighed, and got up to take his leave. His charming parishioner sighed too, prettily, and said with much feeling,—
“Of course, Mr. West, if there are any cases that need help, you’ll let me know.”
“But, Nellie,” said Mrs. Eaton, who had been sitting silent, as usual, and quite overlooked by the other two, “is there any use in helping the people who are in trouble because they are out of work, and yet not letting them go to work?”
Mrs. Blair laughed, in spite of herself, the protest was so unexpected, and so absurd, coming from this meek source. “My dear,” she said, “you don’t understand; they can go to work if they want to.”
“Well,” Mrs. Eaton said anxiously, “I should think, either they are wrong, and so you shouldn’t help them, or they are right, and they ought to get what they want.”
Her sister stared at her, and then laughed again, greatly amused; but William West put on his glasses and gave her a keen look.
“Mrs. Eaton, don’t you want to help us on the Organized Relief Association?”
“Yes, sir,” said Lydia Eaton, “if there’s anything I can do.”
“I don’t want to steal your services away from any other parson,” he said pleasantly. “I suppose you belong to Mr. Hudson’s flock? You are a Presbyterian, of course?”
“No, sir, I am not,” she said, the color rising in her face.
“Oh, then you do belong to me?” he said smiling.
“I’m not an Episcopalian,” she answered, with a frightened look.
“Then what on earth are you?” Mrs. Blair asked her, laughing.
“I’m not—anything,” she said, her voice trembling; “but, Eleanor, please don’t speak of it. The children must not know it. Mr. Eaton would want them to be members of his church. So we must always go there.”
There was an instant’s awkward pause. Mrs. Blair looked very disapproving.
“Why, Lydia,” she said, “do you mean you don’t believe things? Why, I never had a doubt in my life!” she exclaimed, turning to the minister, who was silent.
Mrs. Eaton caught her breath, and looked at him too, her mild eyes full of pain. “Nobody ever asked me before. I am sorry, but I can’t help it. The Bible says people go to hell; but God is good, so I don’t believe the Bible. But Mr. Eaton would wish me to go to church.”
The perfectly simple logic, so primitive as to stop at “the Bible says,” was irresistibly funny; yet, to William West, infinitely touching. But he put the discussion aside quietly.
“So you will come on our committee?” he said. “We shall be glad to have you.”
But when he went away he laughed a little to himself. “The iron heel of Edwards, I suppose. But how direct! Two and two make four. She is incapable of understanding that they sometimes make five.”
But Mrs. Blair did not dismiss it so lightly. She was annoyed at the protest about the strikers, and that impelled her to straighten out Mrs. Eaton’s religious beliefs. There was some irritation in her voice as she began, but she was in earnest, and stopped in the middle of “proofs” to tell Samuel to say she was “not at home.”
“But, Eleanor, you are,” Mrs. Eaton protested in a frightened way.
“My dear, that is a form of speech.”
“But it makes Samuel tell a lie,” she said nervously.
“Oh, Lily, don’t be silly,” Mrs. Blair said impatiently, and then jumped from hell to the strikers,—though, as it happened, the distance between them was not so great after all. “Really, now, Lydia, I don’t think you ought to speak as you did before Mr. West about the men. In the first place, business isn’t philanthropy, and Robert can’t give in to them. And in the second place, they are behaving outrageously! I should think you would have more loyalty to Robert than to seem to uphold them.”
“I only meant”—Mrs. Eaton began breathlessly.
“Oh, my dear, you don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. Blair interrupted, laughing and good-natured again. “But just remember, will you, how kind Robert is? It seems to me he is always doing things for this ungrateful place. Look at the fountain in the square; that’s the last thing.”
“But wouldn’t the men rather have had running water in the tenements?” Mrs. Eaton said; “there are only hydrants down in the back yards.”
However, as that first year in Mercer slipped by, there were very few such jars. The strike ended early in the fall, and there was nothing to call out any objectionable opinion from Mrs. Eaton on that line.
“As for Lydia,” Robert Blair said once, “you say ‘go,’ and she goeth. She has absolutely no will of her own.”
This was, apparently, quite true. At all events, she had a genius for obedience, and a terror of responsibility. In the organized relief-work which Mrs. Blair’s clergyman had proposed, obedience necessitated responsibility sometimes, and no one knew how the silent little creature suffered when she had to decide anything. But she did decide, usually with remarkable but very simple common-sense.
“And always on the supposition that two and two make four,” Mr. West said to himself. He found her literalness a little aggravating just at first, but it was very diverting. He used to put on his glasses and watch her anxious face when she talked to him or received his orders (for such his requests or suggestions seemed to her); and he would ask her questions to draw out her astounding simplicity and directness of thought, and find her as refreshing as a child. She used to sit up before him, saying, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” and looking, with her startled eyes, like a little gray rabbit—for at the end of a year she took off her black dress, and wore instead soft grays that were very pretty and becoming. Her absolute literalness gave him much entertainment; but she never knew it. If she had guessed it, she would have been humbly glad to have been ridiculous, if it had amused him.
And so the first year and a half went by.