CHAPTER III
A LESSON IN HISTORY
The square north parlor of the century-old Spellman homestead was furnished with few concessions to modern taste. In summer it was carefully darkened, and during the colder months exhaled that penetrating chill that is still more or less characteristic of the traditional “best room” in rural New England. There was also a mingled odor of sanctity and dried rose-leaves that filled the soul of the young exile with a secret awe. She understood perfectly that children were not expected to enter that room uninvited; even the family reserved it for occasions of ceremony; and it was with a thrill of conscious guilt overborne by an irresistible attraction, that she had stolen in alone on this keen October morning before Miss Sophia was up, and while her sister was capably engaged in preparing breakfast in the large, cheery kitchen.
It was not the ornaments, wonderful as they were, upon the high mantel-piece—the pallid wax flowers under glass, the waving pampas plumes and pink-lined tropic shells dear to romance—no, not even the mysterious closed piano—it was those ghostly crayon portraits in their tarnished gilt frames that drew this little unrelated fragment of humanity with a fascination that she did not in the least understand. She only knew that to gaze upon their white, shrouded faces was to yearn for even the staring, pictured counterparts, even the chill, clustered gravestones of her own vanished forebears. Vanished, indeed, since not even a name or a memory remained to their wistful and solitary descendant!
And these Spellmans and Russells—these revered ancestors of her dear “Mother” Waring as of the thorny and unapproachable Miss Sophia—their by-gone greatness had been so impressed upon her by allusion and suggestion that in the secret world of her imagination it reached heroic proportions. So this child of two races, the one by birth, the other by associations quite as real and vital, well-nigh forgot the shadowy demi-gods of her people while she bowed at the shrine of the commonplace county Judge who was the greatest of all the Russells, and fancied a beauty as of the moon and stars in the conventional portraits of his wife and daughters, with their uncovered necks and pallid, simpering faces.
Only a few stolen moments of gazing, and Stella crossed the dark hall on noiseless feet—for even in the black-leather boxes of civilization she had contrived to keep her native lightness of step—and softly opened the dining-room door.
With its cheerful morning sunshine streaming over the chromoed walls and gayly-carpeted floor, and with the canary singing his prettiest in the south window, above the row of thrifty geraniums and begonias, this room was the strongest possible contrast to the gloomy one she had just left behind. Ah! and that very minute the wonderful bird came out of the clock on the mantel-piece and seven times called “Cuckoo!” while, as if in answer to the call, the door into the kitchen opened, letting in the heartsome odor of frying ham and eggs, and Mother Waring with the smoking coffee-pot.
Stella flew to bring the dish of oatmeal and the hot plates, and then busied herself with the neat tray that was regularly carried up to Miss Sophia’s chamber with her morning coffee and toast. To be sure, the elder sister was only five years older than Lucy, who owned to fifty-two, and who, folks said, had always been “kinder pindlin’,” and in truth was now much worn with hard work and recent grief. But we know that there are always people who contrive to be waited upon, and others to whom it naturally falls to do the waiting.
Housewifely traditions were closely adhered to in Laurel, where but few even of the “first families” kept a maid, and it was now Stella’s duty, together with dishwashing and dusting and such of the lighter household tasks as Lucy would allow her to undertake, to carry up Miss Sophia’s tray. Even that lady had grudgingly conceded that “the child wasn’t as clumsy and heavy-footed as you might expect,” though why you shouldn’t expect anything of the sort it would have taken a better ethnologist than Miss Sophia to explain.
The little ceremony ended, and the hard old eyes met with a low-voiced “Good morning,” and a rather frightened smile, the two ate their own substantial breakfast with a hearty appetite, and directly afterward “flew ’round” to get dishes and other “chores” out of the way before school-time. At a quarter to nine, Stella put on her neat jacket and knitted red tam-o’-shanter, hugged her kind foster-mother, and set out with cheerfulness upon her morning pilgrimage, glancing about shyly at the first corner for a possible glimpse of demure Doris tripping along the sidewalk, or scatter-brained Cynthia flying breathlessly down the hill.