CHAPTER XVIII.
Two days later Mr. Robert Glenowen arrived at Second Westings by the Hartford coach, alighting to be publicly kissed and embraced with a heedless fervour which would have been a scandal to the community, had not the community by this time grown accustomed to Barbara's joyous flouting of its conventions. Barbara had established for herself a general privilege, and Second Westings had ceased to do more than lift its eyebrows.
"It's the same Barbara, the same naughty little baggage of mine I left two years ago, for all that her petticoats are longer, and her lovelocks shorter, and she takes the trouble to powder her saucy little nose!" said Mr. Glenowen, presently, holding her at arms' length, and eyeing her with critical approval.
Barbara endured the scrutiny for a moment or two, then her dark cheeks flushed, her lips pouted, and she impetuously thrust herself again into his arms.
"I have grown up since you saw me, Uncle Bob!" she cried, kissing him on both cheeks.
"Whose fault is that?" he asked, again pushing her away that he might search her eyes.
"Aunt Kitty's!" answered Barbara, innocently, her eyes as clear as a child's.
Mr. Glenowen laughed, held her with his left arm about her slim waist, and stepped up toward the inn door to greet Doctor John and Doctor Jim, who had held themselves in the background that Barbara might have the first greetings uninterrupted.
A few minutes later the four were on the way to Mistress Mehitable's, walking up the middle of the street. Barbara and her uncle, arm in arm, walked between, with the great bulks of Doctor John and Doctor Jim on either side, seeming to overshadow them; while a little way behind trudged Amos, in his blue duffle shirt and leather breeches, carrying the baggage.
In this position, framed as it were and set off by Doctor John and Doctor Jim, the likeness between Barbara and her uncle came out as never before, so that both the brothers exclaimed at it together. Glenowen was a shade above middle height, with square, athletic shoulders, and no suggestion of leanness; but he had the same indescribable lightness, swiftness, fineness of bearing, which characterised Barbara. Under his very smart three-cornered hat of black beaver with its fashionable rosette, his thick, bronze-black, vigorous hair, which was worn in a queue and tied with an ample ribbon, had the same rebellious wave in it that Barbara's had. His face, like Barbara's, was short, with slightly rounded forehead, rounded chin, firm jaw, cheeks somewhat thin, lips full and passionate. But Barbara's mouth was sad, while Glenowen's was laughing, daring, tender; and Barbara's eyes were of a transparent, fathomless, gray-green, sometimes flaming, sometimes darkly inscrutable, while Glenowen's were of a sunny, merry brown, darkening and growing keen as steel when he was intent. As he was carrying his gauntlet gloves of light, American-made goat-leather, the further likeness to Barbara came out in his bare hands, which were dark and slender and fine like hers, with long-oval, polished, aristocratic nails. Barbara herself would never wear gloves about Second Westings in summer, save at meeting, or when riding, or in pulling herbs or cutting flowers. She loved nice gloves, as a dainty and suggestive article of toilet; but she loved the freedom of her little, sensitive fingers, and felt that Second Westings had no atmosphere to fit the suggestion of gloved hands. It was manifest that Barbara was chiefly a Glenowen,—but it was equally manifest that her eyes were the eyes of the Ladds; for they were profoundly different from those of her Uncle Bob, and so far as enigmatic gray-green could resemble untroubled sky-blue, they were like to the deep, transparent eyes of Mistress Mehitable.
Mr. Glenowen brought to Second Westings a lot of presents for Barbara, a whiff of freshness from the outside world, and an indefinable sense of ferment and change. It was as if the far-off tales of strife between king and colonies ceased on the sudden to be like the affairs of story-books, and became crystallised, by the visitor's mere presence, into matters of vital import. A premonition of vast events flashed through the quiet heart of the village; and from the day of the arrival of Mr. Robert Glenowen by the Hartford coach, the repose of Second Westings was never again quite the same.
Yet Glenowen at this time was no partisan. He was merely in active touch with the troubles of the time, and vexatiously divided within himself. By sentiment, taste, and tradition a Tory, and by intellectual conviction a Whig, he shunned rather than courted argument in which he could heartily support neither side. Nevertheless, before dinner was over, all the company, save Barbara, were at him,—Mistress Mehitable and Doctor Jim on the one side, and Doctor John, with whimsical insinuations and Parthian shafts, on the other. As for Barbara, she was too happy to care whether kings thwarted colonies or colonies thwarted kings, so long as she might sit in unwonted and radiant silence and beam upon her Uncle Bob.
But Mr. Glenowen was not to be entrapped into any serious discussions so soon after his journey. He showed an unmistakable and determined desire to play. Barbara's one curl, where he had been wont to see many, was of concern to him. Her one kitten—now admitted to the dignified precincts of the dining-room since the other two had been given away, the day before, to Doctor Jim and Mercy Chapman respectively—appeared to him of more concern than Mr. Adams or Lord North. He was brimful of appreciative merriment over the story of Barbara's adventurous voyage, and troublesomely interrogative as to the various attributes of Robert. He had attentive inquiries for old Debby, and Mercy Chapman, and Keep, and the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, and Black Prince, and many others whom none would have dreamed he could remember after two years of well-occupied absence. By the time dinner was over none had achieved to know whether Uncle Bob would call himself Tory or Whig. Barbara, of course, felt confident that he was a joyously established rebel; while Doctor Jim was equally sure he was a king's man through and through. The others were in doubt.
Nor was Mr. Glenowen more communicative when the meal was done. He was then too impatient even to smoke his pipe, for haste to get at his travelling-bags and show Barbara what he had brought for her. As he pulled out these treasures one by one, Barbara forgot all the dignity of her lengthened frocks, and screamed with delight, and kissed him spasmodically, and exhausted her rich vocabulary of endearments in the vain effort to give her rapture words; till Doctor John and Doctor Jim vowed they would have to go a journey themselves ere long, if only to bring Barbara presents and find out in person how sweet she could be. While Mistress Mehitable remarked demurely that "such knowledge of what would please a woman could only have been attained by more assiduity in effort than was quite becoming, surely, in a bachelor!"
"I hope, dear mistress," retorted Uncle Bob, with laughing eyes, "that the discernment with which you so generously credit me did not fail when I was selecting this little gift, unmeet as it is to adorn your charms." And on one knee he presented to her a bundle in green tissue, tied delicately with gilt cord.
All crowded about Mistress Mehitable while she undid the cord, and unfolded, with blushes, and with little breathless exclamations not unworthy of Barbara herself, an elaborately ruffled and laced French night-rail, embroidered heavily with silk, and lettered in gold thread with her initials.
It was such a gown as often served to make bedroom receptions popular. And Mistress Mehitable, though she held those customs in scorn as indolent and frivolous, had a healthy feminine delight in such sweet fripperies of apparel as this creation of French art. Amid the clamour of applause it was some moments before she could word her acknowledgments. At last she said:
"I shall perhaps thank you less fervently than I do now, Mr. Glenowen, for this delightful present, when its fascinations keep me from sleeping. I'm afraid I shall lie awake just to appreciate it!"
"Sleep, rather, I beg you, fair mistress, and honour me with some small place in your dreams!" cried Uncle Bob, gallantly.
"Fie! Fie! Fie!" said Mistress Mehitable, shaking at him a slim, reproving finger. "You must not put such gallantries into these young people's heads. Doctor Jim is steady enough, but such notions are very upsetting to John and Barbara!"
"Glenowen, you young scoundrel, sir!" roared Doctor Jim, "what do you mean by coming in here and turning our girls' heads with your bold compliments and French night-rails? I marvel at your devilish audacity, sir! You'll have trouble on your hands before you know what you're about,—eh, what?"
Uncle Bob was darting around the room like a pleased boy, delighted with the effect he had produced, delighted with his success in pleasing Mistress Mehitable, and in bringing out the gayer, brighter side of her conscience-burdened spirit.
"Pistols, Pigeon! Pistols let it be, this very night after moonset, under Mistress Mehitable's window!" he cried, slapping Doctor Jim's great shoulders. "I give you fair warning I shall bring the dear lady a far handsomer one the next time I come!"
Barbara, meanwhile, and Mistress Mehitable, and Doctor John, had their heads close together over the intricate and beautiful embroidery, admiring each fine detail in careful succession.
"It is perfectly beautiful!" pronounced Barbara, at length, with a deep breath of satisfaction and a consciousness of duty loyally done. There were several of her own presents which she admired more fervently, and she already had five, with the possibility of more yet to come from Uncle Bob's wonderful bag. But she felt it would not be playing fair if she failed to give full measure of time and fervour to sympathising with Aunt Hitty in her good fortune. At the same time, she felt that in her aunt's frank delight in such a frivolous and quite unnecessarily beautiful garment she had found a new bond of understanding with that long-misunderstood lady.
But Mistress Mehitable had yet one more word to say before she was ready, in turn, to give undivided attention to Barbara's fortunes.
"I am going to confess, Mr. Glenowen," said she, with a smiling, half-shamefaced glance, as she held up the dainty creation of lawn and lace and silk, caressing her smooth pink and white cheek with it, "I am going to confess that this lovely garment is just such a thing as I have longed to have, yet should have considered it wicked self-indulgence to purchase. Even so sober and prosy a dame as I may dearly love the uselessly beautiful. I'm beginning to doubt whether I really want to be quite so useful and competent as I am thought to be. You, Mr. Glenowen, a comparative stranger, and with but a casual, courteous regard for me, have read my heart as these my dearest and lifelong friends, who would, I believe, give their right hands to serve me, could not do."
"Glenowen, you die to-night!" roared Doctor Jim, knitting his great brows.
But Doctor John was on one knee at Mistress Mehitable's black-satin-shod small feet, one hand upon his breast.
"Nothing more utilitarian than silk stockings, most dear and unexpectedly frivolous lady," he vowed, "shall be my tributes of devotion to you henceforth!"
"And mine shall be garters, fickle Mehitable!" cried Doctor Jim, dropping on his knee beside Doctor John, and swearing with like solemnity. "Silk garters,—and such buckles for silk garters!"
"And little silk shoes, and such big buckles for little silk shoes!" said Doctor John.
"And silk petticoats!" went on Doctor Jim, antiphonally. "Brocaded silk, flowered silk, watered silk, painted silk, corded silk, tabby silk, paduasoy silk, alamode silk, taffety silk, charrydarry—" till Mistress Mehitable put her hand over his mouth and stopped the stream of his eruditions.
"And silk—and silk—" broke in Doctor John, once more, but stammeringly, because his knowledge of the feminine wardrobe was failing him. "Tut, tut, silk night-rails, indeed! The scoundrel! The vagabond Welshman! May I die of Jim Pigeon's physic if I don't make shift—make silk shift—"
"John!" cried Mistress Mehitable, in tone of rebuke, and pushing them both away from her. "Get up at once, both of you, and don't be so silly!"
Her eyes shone, and her cheeks were flushed with mingled pleasure and embarrassment, and Glenowen realised that she was much younger and prettier than he had been wont to think.
"O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!" vowed Doctor John, towering over her. "Your sweet and now perverted soul shall be satisfied with gewgaws! I, John Pigeon, swear it!"
"O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!" vowed Doctor John.
"Then I want a bosom-bottle, of Venice glass and gold filigree, to keep my nosegays from withering!" retorted Mistress Mehitable, flashing up at him a look of her blue eyes. "I've never had such a chance as this in all my life!"
"There now, hussy!" growled Doctor Jim, turning upon Barbara. "See what you have done. In three days you have demoralised her completely. And I see the ruin of John and Jim Pigeon, buying her things!"
But Barbara was by this time too absorbed in her own things to heed the catastrophe thus impending. It was plain that Uncle Bob had been prosperous these past two years,—and equally plain that he was in full sympathy with Barbara's tastes. First of all, there were books,—a handsomely bound copy of Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia," an old, time-stained copy of "England's Helicon," a copy in boards of the admired "Odes" of Mr. Gray, and a copy of Mr. Thompson's "The Castle of Indolence." With these, in strange companionship, a white silk mask,—a black velvet mask with silver buttons on silver cord behind the mouth, to enable the wearer to hold it in place with her lips, when both hands might chance to be occupied,—and a small pistol, inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl. This seductive little weapon Barbara hugged rapturously to her breast. Though she would not kill anything for the world, she loved to feel she could be slaughterous an she wished!
Then came wonders of the wardrobe. Barbara hungered to try them on all at once, and in truth made marvellous efforts toward that unachievable end. There were kerchiefs of sheerest lawn and lace, and of embroidered silk. There were two pairs of silk garters, three pairs of silk stockings, and six pairs of fine thread stockings. She loved the silk stockings as she did the pistol and Sir Philip Sidney. There were shoes, low, shapely, thin-soled shoes of red morocco, and black chamois, and black satin, and a pair of daintiest slippers of white satin, all with buckles satisfyingly resplendent.
"I knew your feet would never be any larger than they are now," explained Uncle Bob, "so having the opportunity to get some uncommon fine shoes at a price uncommon reasonable, I thought it just as well to embrace occasion boldly!"
"But how did you ever guess the right size, Uncle Bob?" cried Barbara, in ecstasy, trying on a black satin one with supreme forgetfulness of company manners, and poking out ingenuously the most bewitching foot in the thirteen colonies. "Do just look. It fits like a glove!"
Stooping quickly as if to examine it, Doctor Jim engulfed it in one large, white hand; and kissed it just above the glittering buckle.
"There, Bob Glenowen," he growled, as he straightened himself, "is that the proper civility to show a lady when she pokes out her foot at you? I suppose you would pocket the shoe and carry off the lady! Eh, what?"
"How dare you kiss my niece without my leave?" demanded Mr. Glenowen.
"He shall kiss me just whenever he likes, and no one in the world shall interfere!" declared Barbara, springing up, and pulling Doctor Jim's neck down to be swiftly hugged. "But—how did you know the right size, Uncle Bob?"
A look passed between Mistress Mehitable and Glenowen; and Barbara, intercepting it, understood in a flash.
"Oh! Oh! Aunt Hitty! You did it!" she shrieked, clapping her hands. "You sent him my green silk slipper for a pattern! And I've been thinking I had lost it! And I was ashamed to tell you! Oh, how dear, and deceitful of you, honey!"
"Here, indeed, is the delinquent slipper!" acknowledged Uncle Bob, drawing the green silk toy from his bag. He handed it over to Mistress Mehitable, for Barbara was again absorbed, her glowing face, with one massive black curl hanging straight past her cheek, bent low over her spoils, among which were lengths of silk,—a rich brocade, a taffeta, and a silk Damascus, out of which her quick fancy conjured up a dream of petticoats, panniers, and bodices that should appear most sumptuously grown-up. There were gloves, too, and mitts; and a mighty handsome little "equipage" of silver-gilt, containing scissors, thimble, nail-trimmer, tweezers, and such small needments, to hang at the left side of her bodice. There was a flimsy affair of a "lovehood," silk and gauze and mystery, from which Barbara's vivid, petulant, dark little face flashed forth with indescribable bewitchment. This love-hood, swore Doctor John, should never be worn by Barbara on the streets of Second Westings, for reasons affecting the public weal, as it would bedevil the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself in the very sanctuary of his pulpit. Barbara suddenly looked forward with interest to going to meeting on the following Sunday, bedecked in the disastrous love-hood.
Last, but not least in Barbara's eyes, there was an exceedingly delicate frivolity in the shape of a carven gilt patch-box, about an inch and a half in length. In the top was set a painted china medallion, representing a richly dressed shepherdess enwreathed in roses, with the appropriate posy:
"My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her!"
On the inside of the cover was a tiny mirror. When Barbara, silent with delight, peered into this mirror, she caught a vision of herself in a gay ballroom, patched and powdered and furbelowed, shattering the hearts of a host of cavaliers, who every one of them looked like a relative of Robert Gault.