A Little Girl in Old Salem

A >> Amanda Minnie Douglas >> A Little Girl in Old Salem

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

A few days later she went over to Polly Loring's with her work. Polly's
bag had somehow gone wrong. Cynthia had to cut the thread and ravel out
a round. The baby was to be admired as well as the chair seat Polly had
begun in worsted work, which was the new accomplishment. And they talked
over various matters: who had new gowns, new lovers, and new babies. But
every time she came almost to the subject so near her heart, Cynthia
made an elusive detour. Then she ventured out straight with her
question.

"Cynthia, are you going to take Ed Saltonstall?"

Cynthia's face was scarlet.

"He hasn't asked me, he hasn't even asked Cousin Chilian," but her voice
was not quite steady.

"How do you know? It was talked of at the assembly--the two men were a
good deal together. And if you don't mean anything, Cynthia, you'll get
yourself gossiped about, and you'll spoil some lives," declared Polly
spiritedly. This thing had been seething in her mind, and she was going
to have it out at the risk of breaking friendship.

"I don't want to spoil any one's life. And I've never really kept
company with any one."

The keeping company was the great test. When the young man came steady
one night in the week, to Sunday tea, and went to church with the girl
alone, the matter was as good as declared.

"But--well, I don't know how you've done it, but they hang about you and
it does upset them. First it's one, then it's another. You ought to
know. You ought to settle upon one and let the others alone."

Polly had acquired a good deal of married wisdom, and she really did
love Cynthia. Ben loved her, too.

"But suppose I didn't want any of them?" and Cynthia tried to laugh, but
it was a poor shadowy attempt.

"Oh, nonsense! You don't mean to be an old maid. No girl does. But it is
time you stopped playing fast and loose with hearts. Now there's Ben.
You know he's loved you this long while. And we all like you so. Last
fall he quite gave up and went to see Jenny Willing. She'll make a good
wife and she's a nice girl, though she hasn't your fortune. Mother's
been trying to make him believe that you are looking higher."

"Oh, Polly--I never scarcely think of my fortune," Cynthia interrupted,
her face full of distressful color.

"Well, I'm not saying that you do. Ben's getting along first-rate. He
has a college degree and father isn't poor. I know several girls who
would jump at a chance for him. Of course, we would _all_ rather have
you. Then at Avis Manning's party you gave him the sweetest of your
smiles, and lured him back."

Oh, she recalled it with a kind of shame. It was to keep off Archie
Turner and Mr. Saltonstall. And then for a while he had grown
troublesome. If they could be merely friends!

"The thing is just here, Cynthia. I know I'm speaking plainly and you
may get angry. If you don't want Ben, let him alone. A young man begins
to think of a home and a wife of his own, and when he likes a girl very
much--yes, I will say it, she can make or mar. She can take him away
from some other nice girl. And people now are beginning to say you are a
flirt. I think Jenny will make Ben a nice wife, and if you don't want
him----"

"Oh, Polly, I don't want any of them. You can't think how delightful
life is with Cousin Chilian. I couldn't be as happy anywhere else, or
with any other person. I can't make myself fall in love as all of you
girls have, and think this one or that one perfect. Something must be
wrong with me. And I'm very sorry. I'm not a bit jealous when they take
to other girls. Why, I'd be glad to be Jenny's bridesmaid if she wanted
me to."

Cynthia paused and mopped the tears from her cheeks. Polly was a little
subdued. Cynthia was taking this so meekly. But she said rather
spitefully, "You had better marry Mr. Leverett."

Ah, Polly, it was a dangerous seed to fling at a young girl. And it
dropped on a bit of out of the way fruitful soil.

Cynthia rose quietly. She was very pale. She began to roll up her work.

"Now I think you can go on with it," she said. "If you get in trouble
again, let me know."

Then the two friends looked at each other until the tears came into
their eyes.

"I'm very sorry," murmured Cynthia in a broken voice.

"But you see----"

"Yes. I understand. I hope Ben will be very happy."

Afterward Polly sat down and cried. She knew Ben loved Cynthia so. They
had counted on having her in the family. But she felt quite certain now
that Ed Saltonstall would get her. And he was a flirt, going with every
pretty girl, every new girl for a little while.

Cynthia went home in a very sober mood. Why had they all cared so much
about her? They had nice attractive qualities, but why could they not
look at her just as she looked at them! She did not know very much about
men and that with them pursuit often merged into the strong desire for
possession, which she did not understand. But she did not want to be
blamed. She would have none of them. Cousin Chilian was more to her. If
he seldom danced and was never very gay, there were so many other
requirements to life; there was something in his nature to which hers
responded readily.

Then suddenly she seemed to have lost the clue. She experienced a season
of bewilderment. Was Cousin Chilian meaning she should take Mr.
Saltonstall for a lover? He surely gave him opportunities he had given
no other. Sometimes he excused himself and went out. There were some
difficulties with the mother country that men were discussing. She
really felt a little awkward at being left alone with Mr. Saltonstall.
Not only that, but it awoke a strange terror in her soul that he should
come so near; it was as if her whole being rose in arms.

Occasionally Chilian spoke of her marriage--he had always said she was
too young, in a protesting manner. So on one occasion she gained
courage.

"Do you mean--that is--you would like to--have me married, Cousin
Chilian?"

Married! It was as if she had given him a stab. And yet was not that
just the thing he had been thinking of?

"Why, you see, Cynthia," he made his voice purposely cold, "I am much
older than you. I may die some day. Cousin Eunice will no doubt go
before me, and you would not like to go on alone. Then Giles is older
even than I. One has to think of these things. Yes, it would be nice to
know you were happily settled."

"And why couldn't a woman live alone as well as a man? I could have Miss
Winn, and a housekeeper, and a man----"

"It's a lonely life for a woman."

"But why not for a man?"

"Oh, well, that is different. Only a few men do. And they grow queer and
opinionated."

A fortnight ago she would have protested and said, "You are not old, you
are not opinionated," in her eager, girlish manner. Now she was hurt,
and she could not tell why; so she kept silent.

And she began to note a change in him. The delightful harmony in which
they had lived fell below the major key into minors, that touched and
pierced her. He did not come so often to listen to her music, to ask her
for a song, to watch while she painted some pretty flower, to go around
with her training roses, or cutting them for the house. She put a few of
them everywhere; she did not like great bunches, only such things as
grew in clusters, lilacs and syringas and long sprays of clematis. She
missed the little walks around, and the dear talks they used to have.

She felt somewhat deceitful in planning adroitly. She made Miss Winn go
to church with her, and when they came home with Mr. Saltonstall they
sat on the porch together. A girl thinking of a lover would have asked
him in. Then she went down to Boston, and Anthony came over as often as
he could. Surely there was no danger with him.

All this time Chilian Leverett was having a hard fight with himself. He
was really ashamed of having been conquered by what he called a boy's
romantic passion. He could excuse himself for the early lapse; he was a
boy then. His honor and what he called good sense were mightily at war
with this desire that well-nigh overmastered him. True, men older than
he had married young wives. But this child had been entrusted to him in
a sacred fashion by her dying father; he must place before her the best
and richest of life, even if it condemned him to after-years of joyless
solitude.

For it was not as a father he loved her, though he had played a little
at fatherhood in the beginning. She was so companionable, they had so
many similar tastes. He was so fond of reading to an appreciative
listener, and even as he sat in the darkness, when she did not know he
was alone in the study, he could see her lovely eyes raised in their
tender light. He thought this her unusual wisdom and discernment, never
dreaming it had been mostly his training and her receptiveness. And to
think of the house without her! Why, going out of it in her wedding gown
would be almost as if she had been laid in her shroud and shut away. Of
course, he could not have her here and see her love another.

Giles Leverett's dream was much happier. In his mind he saved her for
his favorite. When Anthony was through--and he was putting in law, with
the classics--he would take him in his office, where he would find much
business made to his hand. The house was big enough for them all, and he
had grown curiously interested in young people. Anthony was very fond of
his sweet, fascinating cousin--they all were. He did not know whether
there was any one in Salem quite good enough for her. Saltonstall was a
rather trifling fellow, whose fancies were evanescent.

But Mr. Ed Saltonstall had a good friend in Mrs. Stevens, and she
counselled him not to be too ardent in his pursuit. She said pleasant
little things about him without any effusiveness. She considered his
friendship with her very charming--young men were not generally devoted
to middle-aged women. Once she shrewdly wondered why he had not made
some errand down.

Altogether it was a pleasant visit, though Cynthia kept revolving her
duty, if such there was in the case. A blind, mysterious asking for
something haunted her, something it would be sad to miss out of her
life.

Then she came home alone in the stage. There was a property dispute
going on, where Mr. Leverett was an important witness for a friend. When
the stage stopped, Rachel and Jane both ran out and gave her a joyful
welcome.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Cousin Eunice, "we are so glad to get you back.
You are the light _of_ the house, isn't she?" glancing at the other.
"Even Chilian has been mopey, though I think he isn't well. He is
getting thin, too, and goodness knows he had no flesh to lose. Oh, my
dear, I hope you will never go away again while I live;" and she gave a
long sigh as the girl left the room.

She came down presently in a cheerful light frock and began to tell
Cousin Eunice and Jane what she had seen and heard. She was in the full
tide of this, eager, bright, and flushing when Chilian entered. He
greeted her rather languidly. Yes, he had grown thinner, and Cousin
Giles was putting on too much flesh and growing jollier. Chilian did not
look well and an ache went all over Cynthia's body, every nerve being
sympathetic. He was not silent, however; he asked questions, but she
thought he was hardly paying attention to the answers. He remained down
in the sitting-room and read his _Gazette_, now and then making some
comment, or answering some query of Cousin Eunice. It was not nine yet
when he rose and said, "He was very tired; if they would excuse him, he
would go to bed."

They all went presently. She was glad to be alone in the room, glad
there was no moon, and she turned her face over on the pillow and cried
softly. After all, life was a riddle--two ways and not knowing which to
take, both having a curiously lonely ending. Could she not bear it
better alone? If he should go away as her father had done, if she should
stay here in the old house, and then Cousin Eunice would fold her hands
in that silent clasp, Rachel would slip into old womanhood, Jane would
marry, she was keeping company now. There would be other Janes and
she----

On the other hand would be love, marriage, children maybe, a pleasant
home. Living along side by side, as other people did.

She did not try to shut out either vision. Which should she take? Was
life just for one's self?

She was not morbid. It was only in religion that people took out their
very souls and examined them for lurking sins; the days' duties were
what must be accomplished, whether or no. She knew she was not very
religious, the deep things seemed beyond her grasp. And there was a
certain joyousness in her love for sunshine, flowers, people, and all
the attractive things of life. She was deeply grateful, she raised her
heart in thankfulness to God for every good gift. And now she took up
the daily duties cheerfully. It was not their fault the shadow had
fallen over them.

Some days afterward she was rambling around aimlessly, when she met a
girl friend, and they chatted about various matters.

"Oh," exclaimed the friend, "there'll be another wedding in the autumn,
and Betty Upham is keeping steady company. I used to have an idea that
you and Ben would make a match----"

"It's Jenny Willing," she interrupted. "And I am heartily glad."

"You were all such friends;" looking puzzled.

"And I hope we will go on being friends. I have always liked Jenny."

"She was awfully afraid you'd cut her out. You know he did fancy you
first. I think she would have been very unhappy if she had missed him. I
don't see what there is about you, Cynthia;" studying her intently. "You
are pretty, but there are some handsome girls in Salem. And they run
after Ed Saltonstall as if there was no other man in town. And my advice
to you is to seize on him, for I think your chance best. He's an awful
flirt, though. I think good-looking men always are."

Cynthia flushed. Why should these things be profaned by foolish gossip.

Polly came over one afternoon. She had accomplished the bag and was
proud enough of it. And she announced Bentley's engagement.

"They will be married in the early fall; they are not going to build,
but have part of that double house of Nelsons'. She'll make a fine,
economical wife, and that is what men need who are trying to get along.
Assemblies and all that are not the thing for prudent married people."

"And one gets tired of them." She had a feeling just then that she
should never want to dance any more.

Cynthia was glad to have him settled, glad Jenny Willing had the man she
loved.

And the last time he had come back to her she had held up her finger to
him thoughtlessly, to shield herself from some other pointed attentions.
It had been a mean thing to do. But she had only meant it for that
evening, and he had gone on importunately. She was ashamed of it now.
Yes, she had better marry; then no one would be pleading for favors,
mistaking a simple smile for deeper meaning. Was her smile different
from that of other girls?

She watched Cousin Chilian narrowly. Was the old dear freedom between
them gone? He seemed rather abstracted. He did not call her into the
study, he went out oftener of an evening. Mr. Saltonstall would pass by,
then turn and walk up the path and sit down on the step. This would
occur several times a week. He asked her to ride with him, but she
shrank from that. She went over one evening on special invitation, when
Chilian was to play chess with the father. Mrs. Saltonstall took her in
quite as if she was one of the family, and really was very sweet to her.
And the old gentleman was fatherly.

That seemed to settle it for her, rather the fact that sank deeper in
her mind every day that Cousin Chilian wished her to marry and that this
young man was his preference. She allowed him to come a little nearer,
to hold her hand, to take nameless small freedoms, and he was always
delicate.

Would he be satisfied without all she could not help withholding? Would
it be right to give him a half love? But then how could she help loving
Cousin Chilian, who had been so tender to her in childhood? She would be
gladly content to stay without any nearer tie between them; of course,
that other could not be thought of.

One night Mr. Saltonstall asked her in a manly fashion. And suddenly a
great white light shot up in her heart, and loving one man she knew she
had no right to deceive another, to live a deception all her life long,
to cheat him--yes, it was that. Better a hundred times to live out her
flawed life alone.

"Oh, I cannot," she murmured. "I--I"--she choked down the strangling
sob.

"My little darling, give me the opportunity to teach you what love
really is. You do not know."

CHAPTER XVII

THE FLOWERING OF THE SOUL

Cynthia had said coldly that she did not wish to marry at present,
perhaps never. "I have been trying to love you to--to please some one
else, and it is a compliment for you to ask me. But any woman ought to
be sure before she makes a life-long promise. I must be honest--with
you, with myself."

Something in the solemn tone awed him. He had not been looking at the
serious side of love. She was pretty, bright, and winsome, with a good
deal of Puritan simplicity, a great power of enjoyment and difficult to
win. He liked to do the winning himself. He liked to find some new
qualities in girls, and Cynthia, with all her daintiness, had many sides
that surprised one. She had been brought up by a man--that made the
difference.

"We will wait a little," he said. "Talk to your cousin about it. I think
it will all come right. You are the first woman I ever desired to marry,
and I have been fond of girls, too."

That would have flattered some women. She said good-night in a strained,
breathless tone, and vanished through the door. He sat and thought.
There was no other lover, he was quite sure.

She went to bed at once. She did not cry, she was somehow stunned at
this revelation about herself, for she had resolved to accept him and
this sudden protest told her that it was quite impossible. If Cousin
Chilian was disappointed, if he was tired of her, there was a warm
welcome in Boston.

She did not sleep much. Rachel noted her heavy eyes, and the expression
as if she might be secretly upbraiding fate. What if Mr. Saltonstall had
been trifling?

Chilian went up to his study. He felt languid, he nearly always did now.
He took a book and sat by the open window. Two tall trees hid the
prospect, except a space of blooming garden. To-day a small outlook
pleased him, for his life was to be made narrower. She would come and
tell him--shut the golden gate forever. He could not, would not, enter
their paradise. Let him keep quite on the outside.

She came in a soft, white gown that clung to her virginal figure. The
swelling-out period had passed, even sleeves had collapsed to a small
puff, and for house wear the arms and neck were left bare.

The book was a Greek play. The letters danced before her eyes as she
stood there. He looked off the book, but not up at her.

"Cousin Chilian, I want to tell you"--her voice had the peculiar
softness that one uses to try to cover the hurt one cannot help
giving--"Mr. Saltonstall was here last evening. He has asked me to marry
him."

It seemed to her the silence lasted moments. Then he said in an
incurious tone, "Well?"

"I--will you be angry or disappointed when I confess that I cannot, that
I do not love him."

"Oh, Cynthia, child; what do you know about love?" he said impatiently.

"Enough to know that it would be wrong to take a man's love and give him
nothing in return." Now her voice was steady, convincing.

He had a sudden thought. Like a vision the stalwart form of the young
sailor rose before him. He had carried admiration, yes, love in his
eyes. What if he had carried more than that away?

"Cynthia, is there some one else, some one you _could_ love----"

"There is some one else." Her tone was very low, but brave. That
admission would settle the matter.

"Are you to wait three years for him?"

"For whom?" in surprise.

Then he glanced up. Her face, that had been lily-white, was flushed from
brow to neck. What was there in the beautiful, entreating eyes?

"Cynthia?" All his firmness gave way.

His arm stole softly around her, drew her a trifle down. "Tell me! Tell
me!" he cried, yet he had no idea he was asking her to lay her heart
bare. There was still the boy Anthony.

"Cousin Chilian, if a woman loved very much, would it be a shame to her
if, unasked, she----"

Her head sank down on his shoulder. He felt the warm, throbbing breath
on his cheek. He drew her closer. Did the slim, palpitating body betray
its secret?

"Oh, Cynthia, child, the most precious thing in all the world to me,
tell me that I will not have to give you to another, that I may keep you
to myself. For I cannot comprehend how so great a joy could come to me.
And whether I would have the right to take your sweet young life, that
should be replete with the joys of youth, with the gladness that is its
proper birthright."

"If I gave it to you? If I could never have given it to any other?"

He drew her down closer, and the gentle yielding, the sort of rapturous
sigh, answered him better than any words. He pressed kisses on the
unresisting lips, kisses that then were sacred to affianced lovers and
husbands.

Was it an hour or half a lifetime? He inclined her to his knee as he had
when she was a little girl, but at length he came back to his senses.

"Cynthia," he began with tender gravity, "there are many points to
consider. Do you know that I am more than double your age----"

"Don't tell that to me. Isn't love as sweet?"

Could he deny it in the face of that ravishing smile, those appealing
eyes.

"Still--the world will think about it. And you are a rich young woman,
you could take your pick of lovers----"

"But they are all so troublesome," she interrupted. "And one gets
affronted with the other. And if I picked very much I might be called a
flirt, perhaps I have been. I didn't want them, only to dance and be
merry with, and there are so many pretty girls in the world--enough for
all of them."

He smiled a little and it gave her a heartache to see how thin he had
grown, and there were new creases in his forehead that had been so fair
and smooth.

"And if some day you should repent?"

"I'm not going to repent. Why should one when one gets the thing one
wanted?"

There was a touch of the old brightness in her tone. Had she really
wanted him?

"I've been very naughty with all these lovers, haven't I? But no one
came near enough to really ask me that question until last night, though
Mr. Marsh thought he would if he were going to stay. And Cousin Chilian,
I had made up my mind truly, I thought, for I liked Mr. Saltonstall very
much, and it seemed to me you wanted me to----" Her voice died away in
pathos.

"I did. Oh, you must know the worst of me. When I found you were
growing into my very heart, and I began to feel jealous of the young
men, I took myself in hand as a most reprehensible old fellow. But I
found you had entwined yourself in every fibre of my heart, and it was
hard indeed to uproot you."

"And you really tried?" Her tone was upbraiding.

"I tried like an honest, upright man. I shall never be ashamed of the
effort. I would not mar or spoil your life. You see you might have loved
some of these brave young lads. You might have been very happy with
them."

"Oh, you can't have but one husband;" in laughing gayety.

He flushed at her mischief.

"I wonder when you began to love me? And what has made you so cold and
distant, as if you were taking your affection away?"

"I was--I was--Heaven forgive me! I was learning to live without you; to
go back to a life more solitary than it was before you came. And,
Cynthia, you were not altogether a welcome guest. I did not know what to
do with a little girl. I was set in my ways. I did not like to be
disturbed. I could have sent a boy off to school. And Elizabeth thought
it a trouble, too. You must read your father's letter and see the trust
he reposed in me. But you were such a strange, shy little thing, and so
delicate in all your ways. You never touched an article without
permission, you handled books so gently, you never made dog's-ears, or
crumpled a page. And that winter you were ill--and the faith you had in
his return. How many times my heart ached for you. After that I could
not have given you up, and I fell into a sort of belief that it would go
on this always. When the lovers began to come, I found I must awake from
my delusion. And then I knew that an oldish fellow could love a sweet
girl in her first bloom, but that it would be a selfish, unpardonable
thing."

"Not if she loved him!" She raised her face in all its sweet bravery of
color.

"But it was his duty to let her see what pleasure there was in the world
for youth; it was the promise to her dead father, who had confided his
treasure to him. And even now he hesitates, lest you shall not have the
best of everything."

"I shall have the best;" with winning confidence.

"I loved your mother. I was a young lad, and she some five years older.
I suppose I was like a young brother to her, because your father, her
lover, had been here so much. And somehow, you slipped into the place
where there never had been any other."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16