This was one of the few times that Ellen played make-believe to herself. I think she had to. It was only later that her straight mind said what Alec had said, “We can do what we want to.” She hid her own disappointment from herself, and life was good to her in that it gave her a great deal to do. Although in those days wedding journeys were very rare, Mr. Sylvester had an old friend, a minister, near Washington, who came up to marry them and they were to exchange pulpits, and so directly after her disappointment Ellen was left alone with the three Sylvester children. Matilda at this time was already eleven and she remarked gravely to Ellen,—“Ellen, we’ve all decided that you can be our mother. Of course we shall call your mother ‘Mother,’ too, and we shall love her like that, because we’ve made up our minds that it is our duty,”—Matilda was very particular about duty,—“but you’ll be our real mother. I’ve done the best I can with the children,”—for thus did Matilda always refer to her little sisters,—“but our clothes are in a terrible state since Mrs. Gillig went away.” For the Sylvesters’ housekeeper had gone promptly after the announcement of her employer’s engagement. She had departed to the next town, where her relatives lived, saying that she was not going to stay around and be any one’s “kill-joy”; so with an occasional day’s work from Mrs. Butler and help from Ellen and me, they had gotten on as best they could.
“I got their poor, little things unpacked [said Ellen] and got them their supper and put them to bed and Flavia patted my cheek and said, ‘Ellen, you’re so happy, that’s why we love you,’ and Prudentia said, ‘Yes, I love folks that laugh,’ and it came over me that for a while, anyway, I really am their mother—poor me, who knows so little about doing anything. Before I went to bed Matilda put her arm around me and said, ‘Oh! Ellen, I want to grow up and be capable and take care of father and mother and everybody, and I’ve been just as capable as I know how ever since Mrs. Gillig left. I’ve been so capable it makes my jaws ache, and I want to stop and be a little girl.’ And pretty soon Aunt Sarah came in to see how badly I had done everything and to grumble good-naturedly over my endeavors, and then Grandma Hathaway dropped in to see if I needed anything, and they went off together and left Alec and me alone, and the children in bed. And Alec never once looked at me as though he cared for me; he was only funny and told me stories, just as if he knew I couldn’t have borne affection from any one but Roger.”
So it was that Ellen hid from herself and from the pain that was in her heart. This was one of the few times she played make-believe with herself. She was afraid of her own doubt and afraid of her own thoughts, really afraid for the first time; for this is another of the painful milestones which most of us have to pass in the long and bleeding road of love—the first time that we are afraid to face our fears.
Ellen and her mother had been buying cloth for Ellen’s trousseau, and she had put it all by for her mother to begin on when her mother should be married. I was to help her, and so, of course, was Aunt Sarah.
In our days, girls mostly made their own trousseaux, and the richer among us had some seamstress engaged for a couple of months or six weeks, but friends helped one another, and one was supposed to go to one’s husband with linen enough to last a long time in life, and with good, substantial garments, suitable for various occasions in a gentlewoman’s life. Ellen had a poplin and a cashmere among other things, and when I came a day or two after her mother’s wedding to encourage her to begin on her own things, I found her on her hands and knees cutting.
“Why, Ellen Payne! What’s that you’re doing?” For instead of cutting out one beautiful cashmere garment she was cutting three little frocks. “Oh, Miss Grant!” I exclaimed, scandalized, to Miss Sarah, “Ellen’s cutting up her blue cashmere from her trousseau for the children.”
Miss Grant adjusted her glasses and peered down at the patterns on the floor.
“Well, there,” said she, “you have Ellen. We’ll have Ellen Payne’s trousseau walking all over town on three pairs of legs, and rather than patch up their old things, she begins her new life by taking the very trousseau off her own back! Some would think you were self-sacrificing, Ellen, but I know you.”
Poor Ellen always remained the same, taking more pleasure in doing any one’s work than her own, and as she told me, “the soul of her sickened in patching up the clothes of those poor children any more,” and, besides, said she: “Everybody else has new clothes, and there’s no one on earth quite so proud as a little girl with a new frock.”
“But your own trousseau, Ellen,” I objected scandalized, because I had a proper sentiment for those things. Ellen was romantic, but seldom sentimental at all.