Part 1 (1/2)
John Ward, Preacher.
by Margaret Deland.
CHAPTER I.
The evening before Helen Jeffrey's wedding day, the whole household at the rectory came out into the garden.
”The fact is,” said Dr. Howe, smiling good-naturedly at his niece, ”the importance of this occasion has made everybody so full of suppressed excitement one can't breathe in the house.”
And indeed a wedding in Ashurst had all the charm of novelty. ”Why, bless my soul,” said the rector, ”let me see: it must be ten--no, twelve years since Mary Drayton was married, and that was our last wedding. Well, we couldn't stand such dissipation oftener; it would wake us up.”
But Ashurst rather prided itself upon being half asleep. The rush and life of newer places had a certain vulgarity; haste was undignified, it was almost ill bred, and the most striking thing about the village, resting at the feet of its low green hills, was its atmosphere of leisure and repose.
Its gra.s.sy road was nearly two miles long, so that Ashurst seemed to cover a great deal of ground, though there were really very few houses.
A lane, leading to the rectory, curled about the foot of East Hill at one end of the road, and at the other was the brick-walled garden of the Misses Woodhouse.
Between these extremes the village had slowly grown; but its first youth was so far past, no one quite remembered it, and even the trying stage of middle age was over, and its days of growth were ended. This was perhaps because of its distance from the county town, for Mercer was twelve miles away, and there was no prospect of a railroad to unite them. It had been talked of once; some of the shopkeepers, as well as Mr. Lash, the carpenter, advocated it strenuously at Bulcher's grocery store in the evenings, because, they said, they were at the mercy of Phibbs, the package man, who brought their wares on his slow, creaking cart over the dusty turnpike from Mercer. But others, looking into the future, objected to a convenience which might result in a diminution of what little trade they had. Among the families, however, who did not have to consider ”trade” there was great unanimity, though the Draytons murmured something about the increased value of the land; possibly not so much with a view to the welfare of Ashurst as because their property extended along the proposed line of the road.
The rector was very firm in his opinion. ”Why,” said he, mopping his forehead with his big silk handkerchief, ”what do we want with a railroad? My grandfather never thought of such a thing, so I think I can get along without it, and it is a great deal better for the village not to have it.”
It would have cut off one corner of his barn; and though this could not have interfered with the material or spiritual welfare of Ashurst, Dr.
Howe's opinion never wavered. And the rector but expressed the feelings of the other ”families,” so that all Ashurst was conscious of relief when the projectors of the railroad went no further than to make a cut at one end of the Drayton pastures; and that was so long ago that now the earth, which had shown a ragged yellow wound across the soft greenness of the meadows, was sown by sweet clover and wild roses, and gave no sign of ever having been gashed by picks and shovels.
The Misses Woodhouse's little orchard of gnarled and wrinkled apple-trees came to the edge of the cut on one side, and then sloped down to the kitchen garden and back door of their old house, which in front was shut off from the road by a high brick wall, gray with lichens, and crumbling in places where the mortar had rotted under the creepers and ivy, which hung in heavy festoons over the coping. The tall iron gates had not been closed for years, and, rusting on their hinges, had pressed back against the inner wall, and were almost hidden by the tangle of vines, that were woven in and out of the bars, and waved about in the suns.h.i.+ne from their tops.
The square garden which the wall inclosed was full of cool, green darkness; the trees were the growth of three generations, and the syringas and lilacs were so thick and close they had scarcely light enough for blossoming. The box borders, which edged the straight prim walks, had grown, in spite of clippings, to be almost hedges, so that the paths between them were damp, and the black, hard earth had a film of moss over it. Old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers grew just where their ancestors had stood fifty years before. ”I could find the bed of white violets with my eyes shut,” said Miss Ruth Woodhouse; and she knew how far the lilies of the valley spread each spring, and how much it would be necessary to clip, every other year, the big arbor vitae, so that the suns.h.i.+ne might fall upon her bunch of sweet-williams.
Miss Ruth was always very generous with her flowers, but now that there was to be a wedding at the rectory she meant to strip the garden of every blossom she could find, and her nephew was to take them to the church the first thing in the morning.
Gifford Woodhouse had lately returned from Europe, and his three years'
travel had not prepared his aunts to treat him as anything but the boy he seemed to them when he left the law school. They still ”sent dear Giff”
here, or ”brought him” there, and arranged his plans for him, in entire unconsciousness that he might have a will of his own. Perhaps the big fellow's silence rather helped the impression, for so long as he did not remonstrate when they bade him do this or that, it was not of so much consequence that, in the end, he did exactly as he pleased. This was not often at variance with the desires of the two sisters, for the wordless influence of his will so enveloped them that his wishes were apt to be theirs. But no one could have been more surprised than the little ladies, had they been told that their nephew's intention of practicing law in the lumber town of Lockhaven had been his own idea.
They had cordially agreed with him when he observed that another lawyer in Ashurst, beside Mr. Denner, would have no other occupation than to make his own will; and they had nodded approvingly when the young man added that it would seem scarcely gracious to settle in Mercer while Mr.
Denner still hoped to find clients there, and sat once a week, for an hour, in a dingy back office waiting for them. True, they never came; but Gifford had once read law with Mr. Denner, and knew and loved the little gentleman, so he could not do a thing which might appear discourteous.
And when he further remarked that there seemed to be a good opening in Lockhaven, which was a growing place, and that it would be very jolly to have Helen Jeffrey there when she became Mrs. Ward, the two Misses Woodhouse smiled, and said firmly that they approved of it, and that they would send him to Lockhaven in the spring, and they were glad they had thought of it.
On this June night, they had begged him to take a message to the rectory about the flowers for the wedding. ”He is glad enough to go, poor child,”
said Miss Deborah, sighing, when she saw the alacrity with which he started; ”he feels her marriage very much, though he is so young.”
”Are you sure, dear Deborah?” asked Miss Ruth, doubtfully. ”I never really felt quite certain that he was interested in her.”
”Certainly I am,” answered Miss Deborah, sharply. ”I've always maintained they were made for each other.”
But Gifford Woodhouse's pleasant gray eyes, under straight brown brows, showed none of the despair of an unsuccessful lover; on the contrary, he whistled softly through his blonde moustache, as he came along the rectory lane, and then walked down the path to join the party in the garden.
The four people who had gathered at the foot of the lawn were very silent; Dr. Howe, whose cigar glowed and faded like a larger firefly than those which were beginning to spangle the darkness, was the only one ready to talk. ”Well,” he said, knocking off his cigar ashes on the arm of his chair, ”everything ready for to-morrow, girls? Trunks packed and gowns trimmed? We'll have to keep you, Helen, to see that the house is put in order after all this turmoil; don't you think so, Lois?”