Chapter 10. The House In The Wood

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_ CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD

Rose was wonderfully better. Every day in the clear, bracing air of Bywood seemed to bring fresh vigor to her frame, fresh color to her cheeks. She began to take regular walks, instead of strolling a little way, leaning on her friend's stronger arm. Together the girls explored all the pleasant places of the neighborhood, which were many; hunted for rare ferns, with tin plant-boxes hanging from their belts, or stalked the lonely cardinal-flower, as it nodded over some woodland brook. Often they took the little boat, and made long expeditions down the pleasant river,--Hildegarde rowing, Rose couched at her ease in the stern. Once they came to the mouth of a stream which they pleased themselves by imagining to be unknown to mankind. Dipping the oars gently, Hildegarde drew the boat on and on, between high, dark banks of hemlock and pine and white birch. Here were cardinal-flowers, more than they had ever seen before, rank behind rank, all crowding down to the water's edge to see their beauty mirrored in the clear, dark stream. They were too beautiful to pick. But Hildegarde took just one, as a memento, and even for that one the spirit of the enchanted place seemed to be angered; for there was a flash of white barred wings, a loud shrill cry, and they caught the gleam of two fierce black eyes, as something whirred past them across the stream, and vanished in the woods beyond.

"Oh! what was it?" cried Hildegarde. "Have we done a dreadful thing?"

"Only a kingfisher!" said Rose, laughing. "But I don't believe we ought to have picked his flower. This is certainly a fairy place! Move on, or he may cast a spell over us, and we shall turn into two black stones."

One day, however, they had a stranger adventure than that of the Halcyon Stream, as they named the mysterious brook. They had been walking in the woods; and Rose, being tired, had stopped to rest, while Hildegarde pursued a "yellow swallow-tail" among the trees. Rose established herself on the trunk of a fallen tree, whose upturned roots made a most comfortable armchair, all tapestried with emerald moss. She looked about her with great content; counted the different kinds of moss growing within immediate reach, and found six; tried to decide which was the prettiest, and finding this impossible, gave it up, and fell to watching the play of the sunshine as it came twinkling through the branches of oak and pine. Green and gold!--those were the colors the fairy princes always wore, she thought. It was the most perfect combination in the world; and she hummed a verse of one of Hildegarde's ballads:--

"Gold and green, gold and green,
She was the lass that was born a queen.
Velvet sleeves to her grass-green gown,
And clinks o' gold in her hair so brown."

Presently the girl noticed that in one place the trees were thinner, and that the light came strongly through, as from an open space beyond. Did the wood end here, then? She rose, and parting the leaves, moved forward, till all of a sudden she stopped short, in amazement. For something strange was before her. In an open green space, with the forest all about it, stood a house,--not a deserted house, nor a tumbledown log-hut, such as one often sees in Maine, but a trim, pretty cottage, painted dark red, with a vine-covered piazza, and a miniature lawn, smooth and green, sloping down to a fringe of willows, beyond which was heard the murmur of an unseen brook. The shutters were closed, and there was no sign of life about the place, yet all was in perfect order; all looked fresh and well cared for, as if the occupants had gone for a walk or drive, and might return at any moment. A drive? Hark! was not that the sound of wheels, even at this moment, on the neat gravel-path? Rose drew back instinctively, letting the branches close in front of her. Yet, she thought, there could be no harm in her peeping just for a moment, to see who these forest-dwellers might be. A fairy prince? a queenly maiden in gold and green? Laughing at her own thoughts, she leaned forward to peep through the leafy screen. What was her astonishment when round the corner came the familiar head of Dr. Abernethy, with the carryall behind him, Jeremiah driving, and Miss Wealthy sitting on the back seat! Rose could not believe her eyes at first, and thought she must be asleep on the tree-trunk, and dreaming it all. Her second thought was, why should not Miss Bond know the people of the house? They were her neighbors; she had come to make a friendly call. There was nothing strange about it. No! but it _was_ strange to see the old lady, after mounting the steps slowly, draw a key from her pocket, deliberately open the door, and enter the house, closing the door after her. Jeremiah drove slowly round to the back of the house. In a few moments the shutters of the lower rooms were flung back. Miss Wealthy stood at the window for a few minutes, gazing out thoughtfully; then she disappeared.

Rose was beginning to feel very guilty, as if she had seen what she ought not to see. A sense of sadness, of mystery, weighed heavily on her sensitive spirit. Very quietly she stole back to her tree-trunk, and was presently joined by Hildegarde, flushed and radiant, with the butterfly safe in her plant-box, a quick and merciful pinch having converted him into a "specimen" before he fairly knew that he was caught. Rose told her tale, and Hildegarde wondered, and in her turn went to look at the mysterious house.

"How _very_ strange!" she said, returning. "I hardly know why it is so strange, for of course there might be all kinds of things to account for it. It may be the house of some one who has gone away and asked Cousin Wealthy to come and look at it occasionally. The people _may_ be in it, and like to have the blinds all shut. And yet--yet, I don't believe it is so. I feel strange!"

"Come away!" said Rose, rising. "Come home; it is a secret, and not our secret."

And home they went, very silent, and forgetting to look for maiden-hair, which they had come specially to seek.

But girls are girls; and Hildegarde and Rose could not keep their thoughts from dwelling on the house in the wood. After some consultation, they decided that there would be no harm in asking Martha about it. If she put them off, or seemed unwilling to speak, then they would try to forget what they had seen, and keep away from that part of the woods; if not--

So it happened that the next day, while Miss Wealthy was taking her after-dinner nap, the two girls presented themselves at the door of Martha's little sewing-room, where she sat with her sleeves rolled up, hemming pillow-cases. It was a sunny little room, with a pleasant smell of pennyroyal about it. There was a little mahogany table that might have done duty as a looking-glass, and indeed did reflect the wonderful bouquet of wax flowers that adorned it; a hair-cloth rocking-chair, and a comfortable wooden one with a delightful creak, without which Martha would not have felt at home. On the walls were some bright prints, and a framed temperance pledge (Martha had never tasted anything stronger than shrub, and considered that rather a dangerous stimulant); and the Deathbed of Lincoln, with a wooden Washington diving out of stony clouds to receive the departing spirit.

"May we come in, Martha?" asked Hildegarde. "We have brought our work, and we want to ask you about something."

"Come in, and welcome!" responded Martha. "Glad to see you,--if you can make yourselves comfortable, that is. I'll get another chair from--"

"No, indeed, you will not!" said Hildegarde. "Rose shall sit in this rocking-chair, and I will take the window-seat, which is better than anything else; so, there we are, all settled! Now, Martha--" She hesitated a moment, and Rose shrank back and made a little deprecatory movement with her hand; but Hildegarde was not to be stopped. "Martha, we have seen the house in the wood. We just happened on it by chance, and we saw--we saw Cousin Wealthy go in. And we want to know if you can tell us about it, or if Cousin Wealthy would not like us to be told. You will know, of course."

She paused. A shadow had crossed Martha's cheerful, wise face; and she sighed and stitched away in silence at her pillow-case for some minutes, while the girls waited with outward patience. At last, "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you, young ladies," she said slowly. "It's no harm, and no secret; only, of course, you wouldn't speak of it to her, poor dear!"

She was silent again, collecting her words; for she was slow of speech, this good Martha. "That house," she said at last, "belongs to Miss Bond. It was built just fifty years ago by the young man she was going to marry." Hildegarde drew in her breath quickly, with a low cry of surprise, but made no further interruption.

"He was a fine young gentleman, I've been told by all as had seen him; tall and handsome, with a kind of foreign way with him, very taking. He was brought up in France, and almost as soon as he came out here (his people were from Castine, and had French blood) he met Miss Bond, and they fell in love with each other at sight, as they say. She lived here in this same house with her father (her mother was dead), and she was as sweet as a June rose, and a picture to look at. Ah! dear me, dear me! Poor lamb! I never saw her then. I was a baby, as you may say; leastwise a child of three or four.

"Old Mary told me all about it when first I came,--old Mary was housekeeper here forty years, and died ten year ago. Well, she used to say it was a picture to see Miss Wealthy when she was expecting Mr. La Rose (Victor La Rose was his name). She would put on a white gown, with a bunch of pansies in the front of it; they were his favorite flowers, Mary said, and he used to call her his Pansy, which means something in French, I don't rightly know what; and then she would come out on the lawn, and look and look down river. Most times he came up in his sail-boat,--he loved the water, and was more at home on it than on land, as you may say. And when she saw the white boat coming round the bend, she would flush all up, old Mary said, like one of them damask roses in your belt, Miss Hilda; and her eyes would shine and sparkle, and she'd clap her hands like a child, and run down to the wharf to meet him. Standing there, with her lovely hair blowing about in the wind, she would look more like a spirit, Mary would say, than a mortal person. Then when the boat touched the wharf, she would hold out her little hands to help him up; and he, so strong and tall, was glad to be helped, just to touch her hand. And so they would come up to the house together, holding of hands, like two happy children. And full of play they was, tossing flowers about and singing and laughing, all for the joy of being together, as you may say; and she always with a pansy for his button-hole the first thing; and he looking down so proud and loving while she fastened it in. And most times he'd bring her something,--a box of chocolate, or a new book, or whatever it was,--but old Mary thought she was best pleased when he came with nothing but himself. And both of them that loving and care-taking to the old gentleman, as one don't often see in young folks courting; making him sit with them on the piazza after tea, and the young man telling all he'd seen and done since the last time; and then she would take her guitar and sing the sweetest, old Mary said, that ever was sung out of heaven. Then by and by old Mr. Bond would go away in to his book, and they would sit and talk, or walk in the moonlight, or perhaps go out on the water. She was a great hand for the water, Mary said; and never's been on it since that time. Not that it's to wonder at, to my mind. Ah, dear me!

"Well, my dears, they was to be married in the early fall, as it might be September. He had built that pretty house, so as she needn't be far from her father, who was getting on in years, and she his only child. He furnished it beautiful, every room like a best parlor,--carpets and sofys and lace curt'ins,--there was nothing too good. But her own room was all pansies,--everything made to order, with that pattern and nothing else. It's a sight to see to-day, fifty years since 't was all fresh and new.

"One day--my dear young ladies, the ways of the Lord are very strange by times, but we must truly think that they _are_ his ways, and so better than ours,--one day Miss Wealthy was looking for her sweetheart at the usual time of his coming, about three o'clock in the afternoon. The morning had been fine, but the weather seemed to be coming up bad, Mary thought; and old Mr. Bond thought so, too, for he came out on the piazza where Mary was sorting out garden-herbs, and said, 'Daughter, I think Victor will drive to-day. There is a squall coming up; it isn't a good day for the water.'

"And it wasn't, Mary said; for an ugly black cloud was coming over, and under it the sky looked green and angry.

"But Miss Wealthy only laughed, and shook her yellow curls back,--like curling sunbeams, Mary said they was, and said, 'Victor doesn't mind squalls, Father dear. He has been in gales and hurricanes and cyclones, and do you think he will stop for a river flaw? See! there is the boat now, coming round the bend.' And there, sure enough, came the white sailboat, flying along as if she was alive, old Mary said. Miss Wealthy ran out on the lawn and waved her handkerchief, and they saw the young man stand up in the boat and wave his in return. And then--oh, dear! oh, dear me!--Mary said, it seemed as if something black came rushing across the water and struck the boat like a hand; and down she went, and in a moment there was nothing to see, only the water all black and hissing, and the wind tearing the tree-tops."

"Oh! but he could swim!" cried Hildegarde, pale and breathless.

"He was a noble swimmer, my dear!" said Martha, sadly. "But it came too sudden, you see. He had turned to look at his sweetheart, poor young gentleman, and wave to her, and in that moment it came. He hadn't time to clear himself, and was tangled in the ropes, and held down by the sail. Oh, don't ask me any more! But he was drowned, that is all of it. Death needs only a moment, and has that moment always ready. Eh, dear! My poor, sweet lady!"

There was a pause; for Rose was weeping, and Hildegarde could not speak, though her eyes were dry and shining.

Presently Martha continued: "The poor dear fell back into her father's arms, and he and Mary carried her into the house; and then came a long, sad time. For days and days they couldn't make her believe but that he was saved, for she knew he was a fine swimmer; but at last, when all was over, and the body found and buried, they brought her a little box that they found in his pocket, all soaked with water,--oh, dear!--and in it was that pin,--the stone pansy, as she always wears, and will till the day she dies. Then she knew, and she lay back in her bed, and they thought she would never leave it. But folks don't often die that way, Miss Hilda and Miss Rose. Trouble is for us to live through, not to die by; and she got well, and comforted her father, and by and by she learned how to smile again, though that was not for a long time. The poor gentleman had made a will, giving the new house to her, and all he had; for he had no near kin living. Mr. Bond wanted her to sell it; but, oh! she wouldn't hear to it. All these years--fifty long years, Miss Hilda!--she has kept that house in apple-pie order. Once a month I go over, as old Mary did before me, and sweep it from top to bottom, and wash the windows. And three times a week she--Miss Bond--goes over herself, as you saw her to-day, and sits an hour or so, and puts fresh pansies in the vases; and Jeremiah keeps the lawn mowed, odd times, and everything in good shape. It's a strange fancy, to my idea; but there! it's her pleasure. In winter, when she can't go, of course, for the snow, she is always low-spirited, poor lady! I was _so_ glad Mrs. Grahame asked her to go to New York last winter!

"And now, young ladies," said Martha, gathering up her pillow-cases, "I should be in my kitchen, seeing about supper. That is all the story of the house in the wood. And you'll not let it make you too sad, seeing 't was the Lord's doing; and to look at her now, you'd never think but what her life had been of her own choosing, and she couldn't have had any other."

Very quietly and sadly the girls went to their rooms, and sat hand in hand, and talked in whispers of what they had heard. The brightness of the day seemed gone; they could hardly bear the pain of sympathy, of tender pity, that filled their young hearts. They could not understand how there could ever be rallying from such a blow. They knew nothing of how long passing years turn bitter to sweet, and build a lovely "House of Rest" over what was once a black gulf of anguish and horror.

Miss Wealthy's cheerful face, when they went down to tea, struck them with a shock; they had almost expected to find it pale and tear-stained, and could hardly command their usual voices in speaking to her. The good lady was quite distressed. "My dear Rose," she said, "you look very pale and tired. I am quite sure you must have walked too far to-day. You would better go to bed very early, my dear, and Martha shall give you a hop pillow. Very soothing a hop pillow is, when one is tired. And, Hilda, you are not in your usual spirits. I trust you are not homesick, my child! You have not touched your favorite cream-cheese."

Both girls reassured her, feeling rather ashamed of themselves; and after tea Hildegarde read "Bleak House" aloud, and then they had a game of casino, and the evening passed off quite cheerfully. _

Read next: Chapter 11. "Up In The Morning Early"

Read previous: Chapter 9. Broken Flowers

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