Part 27 (1/2)
Rosa came in, and the signing was done. After the business was finished George lingered as if he wished to speak with me. Very likely he wished to apologize, but my nerves were not in tune for more talk with him, and in any case it was better to ignore all that had been unpleasant.
”You have no more business, have you, George?” I asked him directly.
”Tom of course will want to see the daughter he has given away. I didn't let him see her first for fear he'd refuse to part with her.”
George had no excuse for staying after that, and he was just leaving the room when Rosa reappeared with Tomine. The darling looked like a cherub, and was in a mood truly angelic. George scowled at her as if the dear little thing had done him some wrong, and hurried away. I do not understand how he could resist my darling, or why he should feel so about her. It is, I suppose, friends.h.i.+p for me; but he should realize a little what a blessing baby is to my lonely life.
Tom stood silent when Rosa took Thomasine up to him. He did not offer to touch the tiny pink face, and I could fancy how many thoughts must go through his mind as he looked. While he might not regret the dead woman, indeed, while he could hardly be other than glad that Julia was not alive, he must have some feeling about her which goes very deep. I should think any man who was not wholly hard must have some tenderness toward the mother of his child, no matter who or what she was. It moves even me, to think of such a feeling; and I could not look at Tom as he stood there with the living child to remind him of the dead mother.
It seemed a long time that he looked at baby, and we were all as quiet as if we had been at prayer. Then Tom of his own accord kissed Tomine.
He has never done it before except as I have asked him. He came over to me and held out his hand.
”I must go back to haying,” he said. Then he held my hand a minute, and looked into my eyes. ”Make her as much like yourself as you can, Ruth,”
he added; ”and G.o.d bless you.”
The tears came into my eyes at his tone, and blinded me. Before I could see clearly, he was gone. I hope he understood that I appreciated the generosity of his words.
July 3. I am troubled by the thought of yesterday. George went away so evidently out of sympathy with what I had done, and very likely thinking I was unfriendly, that it seems almost as if I had really been unkind. I must do something to show him that I am the same as ever. Perhaps the best thing will be to have his wife to tea. My mourning has prevented my doing anything for them, and secretly, I am ashamed to say, this has been a relief. I can ask them quietly, however, without other guests.
July 8. I feel a little as if I had been shaken up by an earthquake, but I am apparently all here and unhurt. Day before yesterday Cousin Mehitable descended upon me in the wake of her usual telegram, determined to bear me away to Europe, despite, as she said, all the babies that ever were born. She had arranged my pa.s.sage, fixed the date, engaged state-rooms, and cabled for a courier-maid to meet us at Southampton; and now I had, she insisted, broken up all her arrangements.
”It's completely ungrateful, Ruth,” she declared. ”Here I have been slaving to have everything ready so the trip would go smoothly for you.
I've done absolutely every earthly thing that I could think of, and now you won't go. You've no right to back out. It's treating me in a way I never was treated in my whole life. It's simply outrageous.”
I attempted to remind her that she had been told of my decision to stay at home long before she had made any of her arrangements; but she refused to listen.
”I could bear it better,” she went on, ”if you had any decent excuse; but it's nothing but that baby. I must say I think it's a pretty severe reflection on me when you throw me over for any stray baby that happens to turn up.”
I tried again to put in a protest, but the tide of Cousin Mehitable's indignation is not easily stemmed.
”To think of your turning Cousin Horace's house into a foundling hospital!” she exclaimed. ”Why don't you put up a sign? Twenty babies wouldn't be any worse than one, and you'd be able to make a martyr of yourself to some purpose. Oh, I've no patience with you!”
I laughed, and a.s.sured her that there was no sort of doubt of the truth of her last statement; so then she changed her tone and begged me not to be so obstinate.
Of course I could not yield, for I cannot desert baby; and in the end Cousin Mehitable was forced to give me up as incorrigible. Then she declared I should not triumph over her, and she would have me know that there were two people ready and just dying to take my place. I knew she could easily find somebody.
The awkward thing about this visit was that Cousin Mehitable should be here just when I had asked the Westons to tea. I always have a late dinner for Cousin Mehitable, although Hannah regards such a perversion of the usual order of meals as little less than immoral; and so George and his wife found a more ceremonious repast than I had intended. I should have liked better to have things in their usual order, for I feared lest Mrs. Weston might not be entirely at her ease. I confess I had not supposed she might think I was endeavoring to impress her with my style of living until she let it out so plainly that I could not by any possibility mistake her meaning. She evidently wished me to know that she saw through my device; and of course I made no explanations.
It was an uncomfortable meal. Cousin Mehitable refused to be conciliating. She examined the bride through her lorgnette, and I could see that Mrs. Weston was angered while she was apparently fascinated.
George was taciturn, and I could not make things go smoothly, though I tried with all my might. By the time the guests went, I felt that my nerves were fiddlestrings.
”Well,” Cousin Mehitable p.r.o.nounced, as soon as the door had closed behind them, ”of all the dowdy frumps I ever saw, she is the worst. I never saw anybody so overdressed.”
”She was overdressed,” I a.s.sented; ”but you behaved horribly. You frightened her into complete shyness.”
”Shyness! Humph!” was her response. ”She has no more shyness than a bra.s.s monkey. That's vulgar, of course, Ruth. I meant it to be to match the subject.”
I put in a weak defense of Mrs. Weston, although I honestly do find her a most unsatisfactory person. She is self-conscious, and somehow she does not seem to me to be very frank. Very likely, moreover, she had been disconcerted by the too evident snubs of my unmanageable cousin.