Forrest House

by Mary Jane Holmes

“She is my cousin on mother’s side,” Mrs. Morton said. “She is the great woman of Bronson, and the richest, and lives in the grandest house. She never had any children of her own, and I do not think her very fond of them. She would be kind in a certain way, but very exacting. She does not understand them. She used to teach school, and was very strict, indeed. She could not make allowances for the difference between herself and little folks. She is Aunt Nancy’s own niece.”

“And who is Aunt Nancy?” Bee asked, and Mrs. Morton replied, “Mother’s old maid sister, Nancy Phillips, who has always lived with us. She is the neatest, most particular person you ever saw; and because she is strong and willing, and mother is feeble, she has run the house so long that she thinks it is her own, and orders father as if he were a dog. But she has many excellent traits, and they could not live without her. She was always kind to me, and I’d rather trust my children with her than with Cousin Julia Hayden. It is very hard, and makes me so nervous.”

“Yes, I can fancy it all,” Bee said; and then, recurring to the letter, she added: “You are to give up the one which will fill the house the fullest and make the most noise. Now, which is that?”

Instantly the eyes of both went over to the window, where Trixey was combing and brushing Bunchie’s hair, pulling and snarling it awfully, and talking all the time as fast as her tongue could fly. Yes, there was no mistake. Little Trix would fill the house the fullest and make the greatest to do, and Mrs. Hayden would never understand her, or make allowance for her busy, active ways; and Beatrice wanted her for herself, and said at last to Mrs. Morton: “Will you let me have Trixey, for as long a time as Mrs. Hayden would keep her? I know I can make her happy. You can trust her with me.”

Mrs. Morton was sure of that. During the few days she had known Miss Belknap she had received from her too many kindnesses to think of her as other than a friend, and one to be trusted. At first, she had looked a little suspiciously upon the elegant woman who had been Theo’s first choice, and who was so unlike herself, and she had more than once thought, “How could he have chosen me after knowing her?” She did not say “love me,” for she had been morally sure that when she became Theodore Morton’s wife there was not much love on his side at least. She had loved him for years, and been picked out for his wife since she was a little girl. His father and grandfather had been clergymen, and he had been her father’s pupil when the Rev. Mr. Brown taught a small school for boys, by way of ekeing out his salary. Theo had said then he meant to be a missionary, and she had said she meant to be one, too, and wise ones predicted that they might go together. But the young man wandered very far away from quiet Bronson, and its staid, old-fashioned people, and went to Europe, and fell in with Bee Belknap, and forgot the plain, angular Mary Brown, in the home under the apple trees, who had mended his clothes, and studied Latin and Greek, and talked enthusiastically of a missionary’s life as the happiest and best a man could choose. He had never quite believed it possible that a bright, gay creature like Bee, with hundreds of thousands at her command, would go with him to those islands in the far-off Pacific, but he nevertheless asked her the question, and her answer, given tearfully and sadly, and rather as a refusal of the Feejees than of himself, scattered the sweetest dream of his life, and with a new-made grave in his heart he went back to Bronson on a matter of business he had with Mr. Brown. That he should take a wife with him seemed a necessity, and as Mary was ready, and more than willing, and he cared little now who it was, so that she was good and true and pure, he married her with no love in his heart for her, only a great respect, and a registered vow that she should receive from him everything but love, and if it were possible, should never feel the absence of that. And she had not, for he had kept his vow religiously, and only when he gave the name to Trixey had she experienced a little prick of jealousy, and felt curious with regard to the original Beatrice. If he did not choose to tell her of the lady she would not ask, and so knew nothing till she met her in New York, and was dazzled and bewildered, and troubled, and a very little annoyed at first, and finally won by the sparkling, brilliant woman who had done so much for her, and who now stood offering to take Trixey off her hands and save her from Mrs. Hayden. She knew she could trust her, and that Trix would be safe with her, but she shrank from parting with the helpful, motherly child, who did so much for her and the baby, and she hesitated in her answer, and said at last she would see what Theodore would say.

Theodore approved the plan heartily, if Trixey must go somewhere to be out of the sick grandmother’s and Aunt Nancy’s way. But now there arose trouble in an unexpected quarter. Trixey herself demurred. She loved the pretty lady, and was interested to hear about the dolls and dresses, and the cats and kittens, and pretty little tea-set and table, and wash-tub, and flat-iron, which should all be hers in that new home in Ohio. The wash-tub, and flat-iron, and tea-set made her waver a little, till she glanced at Bunchie, when, with quivering lip, she said:

“What good to have ever so many sings, and Bunchie not with me to see me use the flat-iron and was-tub, and sit at the other end of the table when I makes the tea?”

This was the ground she took. Bunchie would not be there to share her happiness, and she did not swerve from it until her father appealed to her sense of right, and told her the real reason why she should go. Grandpa’s house was very small, and he was poor. Grandma was sick, and Aunt Nancy could not have so many children round.

“But I could help her lots. I’d rock baby brudder to seep, and wipe the dishes ever so many times, and be so good and still as Bunchie,” pleaded the little girl; but she was persuaded at last to go because it was right, and God would love her if she did, and take care of Bunchie and baby brother, and in the summer she should come and see them in the old home; and so it was quite settled that Trixey was to go with Beatrice, who felt more and more the wisdom of the decision when that very afternoon she met Mrs. Hayden herself in Mrs. Morton’s room, and had an opportunity of judging what manner of person she was, and what Trixey’s chance for happiness would have been with her.

She was a tall, large, finely-formed woman, with great black eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a growth of hair about her wide mouth which gave her a more masculine appearance even than did her figure and size. She spoke loudly and decidedly, as one used to her own way, as well as to dictate the way of others. Her dress was very rich and showy, but not New-Yorkey a bit, Bee decided, after a rapid survey of the lady, who scrutinized her as closely, and decided that she was New-Yorkey, and wondered who her dressmaker was. To faded, plain Mrs. Morton she was very patronizing and frank, and told her that what she wanted was fresh air, and cold baths, and oatmeal to bring her up again, while her mother, who had been sick so long, needed effort and energy. She could get up if she only thought so. Nervous prostration was not a disease; it was a fancy, which, if indulged in, would end in one’s being bed-ridden.