CHAPTER XXV
Arethusa gathered up her woolly rug and a dog-eared copy of "Jane Eyre," which would have known almost instant confiscation if Miss Eliza had glimpsed it in her possession, and proceeded to go down to the woodland. It was an afternoon in early May, and unseasonably hot. As she passed through the kitchen, Mandy paused in her bread-making and looked around. She shook her head at the girl's evident intention, with disapproval.
"I wouldn' be gwine out theah to be settin' this arternoon, Arethusie. It are gwine to rain," she stated with positiveness. Mandy was by way of being something of a weather prophet.
"Nonsense, Mandy! The sky's as blue as blue! There's not a cloud anywhere!" Arethusa dismissed the idea with laughter. "Don't be such an old prophet of evil!"
"Yes'sum, it are gwine to rain." Mandy left the table and went to the door, her hands full of bread dough, to peer out at the metallic looking sky, "and 'foah ve'y long, too. See thet theah?" She pointed to a low brownish grey line far down on the horizon.
"Oh that! That doesn't mean anything!" Arethusa was not to be deterred.
She trailed the rug after her across the orchard and into the woodland without noticing that it was touching the ground nearly all the way.
Miss Asenath's Woods were very beautiful just now; they were always at their loveliest in the spring. The May-apples were in full bloom, and the ground was splotched with great clumps of them, with their straight waxy stems and their pale green umbrella-like leaves, almost hiding the delicate flowers. Everywhere, through the woodland, were all sorts of ambitious, tiny trees which would be choked out later on by the heaviness of the growth above them, but just at present they lifted their beginning life towards the sun, each one as erect as possible; making, all together, something that seemed like a miniature forest. A love-vine, sentimentally named parasite, was starting its curling way over one of the shrubs; the moss was tinted with new green; and blue and white and purple violets showed their saucy faces here and there in patches, scattered with bits of the straight dark-green of the spears of the star of Bethlehem leaves which made a contrast for the lighter color of the violet foliage. And the spring world was all very still, and very peaceful.
Arethusa spread the rug underneath the Hollow Tree, and lay down upon it, resting her head on her crossed arms. She looked above her into the curving arch of those faraway branches, their gnarled age made beautiful with the tenderness of young leaves. Some of these were so small and delicately curly in their newness, they were almost like the crumpling of a baby's fingers. Patches of the bright blue sky showed through them all. An alert robin ran across the woodland like a very fat little man in a terrible hurry, and he paused at the edge of the rug to look at Arethusa inquiringly, his head on one side. But she never moved an inch to notice him, and so, quite satisfied that she was nothing that could harm him, he pecked about within three feet of her head.
Dreaming was her favorite occupation through these spring days, dreaming of the future and what it might bring to her. And Arethusa, believing that she knew just exactly what was to happen by reason of what had already happened, settled the outlines of this future in her dreaming, over and over again, without a single ray of light to break through the darkness of her picture. She would spend it here at the Farm, this strangely quiet Farm; more than ever "a household of women," without Timothy running in and out every day. And some day she would be old and grey like Miss Eliza, busy farming it herself, and wearing plain black dresses and scolding the servants when they did not do just as she wanted. It was a blank future that contained no Timothy. But Arethusa could not very well put Timothy into the future when he refused to be in the present. She would always live alone, she decided, and when she was quite old she would wear a locket like Miss Asenath's, and people would speak of her as having had a Romance; for she had had a Romance, and it had ended very sadly. But she would not wear Mr. Bennet's picture in her locket; he was not worthy of that. Perhaps she might wear Timothy's. She had a splendid picture of Timothy which would look very well in a Locket. There were times when, comparing them, Arethusa was quite of the opinion that Timothy was far handsomer than Mr. Bennet. And even if he did go off and marry some one else, he could surely have no objection to her honoring his picture so. His grandfather had not minded Miss Asenath's ownership of his miniature, and he had married some one else, because she had loved him when he was young. Arethusa had always loved Timothy; she loved him now. If Timothy would only stop to think long enough, he would remember the hundreds of times she had told him he was the best friend she had ever had.