University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
A NEW BEGINNING.

“Six of damsons, six of green-gages, and
a dozen rareripes—and, to my mind, there's
no peach like a rarerape for a preserve.
There, that will do for to-day,” said Aunt Rachel
complacently, tying down the cork of her
last bottle of rareripes, for these were not the
days or the meridian of “air-tight cans;” and
had such innovations been suggested to Aunt
Rachel she would probably have snubbed
them as “new-fangled” and “too notional”
for her.

“Now, Nancy,” continued she, “I am going
round to open the slide into the best china-closet,
and you can pass the bottles in. Mind
you don't drop them.”

“I won't drop 'em. They do look proper
nice to be sure, and I guess the doctor'll think
more than ever of our plums when he eats
'em this way,” replied Nancy, rubbing her
hands dry upon her tow apron, and eyeing the
jars of sweetmeats appreciatively.

“Lor! who cares what the doctor thinks?”
demanded Miss Rachel, bustling out of the
room, and through the long entry whose open
door framed a lovely little picture of mowers
knee-deep in greenest grass, while Millbrook
sparkled by, and Moloch rose dark and grand
against the summer sky. But Miss Rachel's
eye was not artistic, and her heart was just
now filled with visions of sweetmeats, with,
perhaps, one little suggestion of Doctor Bliss
crowded down in the corner, as the old masters
were apt to introduce the reigning pope
among a crowd of saints and angels. So,
without heeding the lovely “bit” framed by
her front door, Miss Rachel hurried by and
threw open the door of the parlor, a room
sacred to cleanliness, order, and decorum, but
upon the threshold she stopped dismayed.

The heavy inside shutters were all closed
except the upper half of one, through which
streamed a flood of noonday light, falling full
upon the picture of the Cenci taken from the
wall and placed upon a chair. In the deep
window-seat, with the light just glancing
over her red-gold hair as it passed on to light
the one stray curl creeping from beneath the
white turban of the pictured head, sat Beatrice,
her hands folded listlessly upon her lap,
her eyes fixed upon the painting. She neither
moved nor looked round to notice the advent
of her aunt, who, after a moment's wondering
gaze, exclaimed:

“Good gracious, Beatrice, what have you
got the room fixed up this style for?”

“I wanted to see this picture, Aunt Rachel,
and it hung in a bad light,” said the girl
wearily.

“See that picture! Well, I should say
you'd had a chance in the course of twenty
years! Didn't you ever notice it before?”

“She was killed—beheaded, was she not?”
asked Beatrice, unheeding the little sarcasm.

“Yes, I believe so. I forget about it just
now; but I think that is what your mother
said.”

“And she looked just so calm and serene
when they came to lead her out to die, they
say,” pursued Beatrice in the same dreamy
way.

“Who says? She died a hundred or more
years ago in Italy, or somewhere out there,
and who is to say how she looked or how she
felt? I value the picture more for its likeness
to your mother than for itself. It does look a
sight like her if the hair was fixed differently,
and it had a common sort of dress on,” said

Aunt Rachel, gazing thoughtfully at the
painting.

“And like me too, does it not?” asked Beatrice,
looking at her aunt a little anxiously.

“Well, yes, it does—though why it should
look like you and your mother too, I don't
see,” said Miss Rachel with emphasis.

“Why? Did not we look alike? I always
supposed we did,” exclaimed Beatrice in a
tone of dismay.

“`Looks are nothing; behavior's every
thing,”' quoted Miss Rachel. “And when
you come to behavior, you and your mother
are as near alike as cream and red pepper—
just about. Alice was the sweetest, prettiest,
patientest woman that ever trod—never wanting
any thing she ought not to have; never
thwarting people that tried to do her good; never
answering back or saying pert, saucy things
to her elders and betters, or fretting because
she wasn't the queen and Pope of Rome.”

“And I am all that she was not,” interposed
Beatrice, half inquiringly, half pleadingly,
as she looked up into her aunt's face, which
softened as she met that look.

“Well, I don't say that,” replied she,
smoothing down her brown-linen apron, and
pleating the string between her fingers. “You
have your good points and your bad ones, like
the rest of us, I suppose, Trix, but you're not
like your mother—more like your great-aunt
there in the corner, though you don't look
like her”

“Tell me about her. I never heard any
thing but her name, and that she married a
nobleman,” said Beatrice, opening the other
front shutter, and looking with some curiosity
at a picture hanging upon the opposite wall.

It was the portrait of a woman in her ripest
bloom, with clear gray eyes, red lips, at once
full and firm, a low forehead, with blue-black
hair rolled high above it, a rich, sunny complexion,
and a square white chin. Will,
strength, and passion marked this face for
their own; and gazing at it, Beatrice felt an
answering chord thrill through her own
heart.

“Tell me about her, Aunt Rachel,” said she
softly.

“Why, you must have heard about her
from grandfather. He was always fond of
telling about her till he got so silent lately.
Her name was Miriam Barstow, and she lived
here in the Old Garrison with her father and
brothers, in the time of the Indian troubles,
more than a hundred years ago, I suppose; and
once, when the men-folks were all away, and a
party of savages came to plunder and burn
the house—for they spited it, you see, because
it had sheltered the folks they were after so
many times—she saw them coming, and barred
the doors and windows, and parleyed with
them out of one of the upper casements. They
tried to shoot her with their arrows- and there's
the stone head of one buried in the side of the
window now, there in my chamber—and then
they set out to burn the house down. She
warned them off once or twice, but they didn't
mind, and then she took down her father's
musket and shot the head man dead in his
tracks. He fell, so I've heard, right across the
door-stone, and his blood made that dark
streak you can see there now; for blood never
washes out, especially if it's shed in anger,
and his hasn't.”

“And what became of her then, Aunt
Rachel?” asked Beatrice with kindling eyes.

“Why, the Indians ran away, I believe,
and the men-folks came hurrying home to
see what was the matter; and here she was as
cool as you please, not scared a bit. After
that she married an English lord that came
over here and travelled round to see the country.
She was pleased enough, so they say,
for she was as proud and haughty as she was
smart; and after she got to England she sent
home this picture to let her folks see how
fine she dressed, I expect. Don't you see,
she's got on a velvet gown, and those are diamonds
round her neck and in her ears. She
was Lady Daventry then, all over.”

“But she would have taken off velvet and
diamonds and defended her fathers house
against the Indians again, if it had come in
her way to do so, and done it as coolly and
as well as she did while she wore linsey-woolsey
and tow-cloth here at home,” said
Beatrice proudly. “And she would have gone
to her death as haughtily as Beatrice did serenely
to hers. She would have defied Death,
as Beatrice conquered him.”

“Well, I haven't any more time to waste
on pictures or talk, and I should hope you
hadn't either,” said Aunt Rachel, coming
back to real life rather crossly. “Here's
your uncle coming to tea, and this room all
up in arms, and grandma's new cap not done.”

“I will see to both, and every thing else
you mentioned this morning; and, Aunt Rachel,
I am going to try to be more patient and

better tempered after this—only please don't
say any thing to me about Marston Brent,
for he and I are—”

The girl had her arms about her aunt's
neck now, while all the golden curls went
dropping down that withered maiden's bosom,
as if searching there for tender memories and
sympathies responsive to the desolation of
that pathetic cry.

Miss Rachel smoothed the bright hair and
kissed the drooping head. Then she softly
said:

“I'm sorry, Trix, and I'll be careful not to
say any thing. But it's the way of the world,
child; most all of us get disappointed once.
Sometimes we get over it, and sometimes
that's the end of every thing. I guess you'll
get over it, dearie, you're so young and so
pretty. Your old auntie didn't.”

“Were you disappointed, auntie?” asked
Beatrice, startled even through her grief by
that rare confidence.

“Yes, child. You see I thought it was me
he wanted, and it was Alice all the time; but
they never knew, and he made her a real
good husband, and she died and I had to live
on. But—well then! I never said so much
to mother nor any one, and though I always
thought the doctor mistrusted how it was, he
never said any thing. `The heart knoweth
its own bitterness;' though there isn't any
bitterness left to it now, whatever there was
once, and sometimes it sort of eases off the
pain to know that other folks have felt just
as bad or worse, and got over it. I'm not
afraid of your saying any thing as if you
knew it, Trix, and I'm not sorry I told
you.”

“You need not be sorry, Aunt Rachel, and
I never loved you or respected you in all my
life so much as I do now,” said Trix, pressing
her ripe lips to the withered ones that trembled
as much as they.

“I shouldn't wonder if we got along better
after this. Beatrice,” said the elder softly; and
then the two embraced once more and separated,
each already anxious to hide her emotion
from the other.

“Now, you put this room to rights, won't
you? and if you've a mind to bring in some
flowers out of the garden. I don't care—only
mind and don't let the water go over on the
table, and pick up every mite of litter as fast
as it makes,” said Aunt Rachel, going into the
closet and opening the slide to the front
kitchen, where stood the preserve-jars and
Nancy.

“Well! I didn't know as you was ever
coming,” exclaimed the latter somewhat indignantly.
“I might have had the sarce-kettle
scoured inside and out by this time if
I'd known you'd be so long.”

“Why, you haven't been standing and
waiting all this time, Nancy Beals!” exclaimed
her mistress in the same tone. “I should
have thought common-sense, if you'd got
any, would have told you to go about your
work till you heard me open the slide. Do
give me the jars now, and be done with it.”

Beatrice meantime, smiling a little at the
unwonted permission to “litter the front
room with a parcel of flowers,” as her aunt
generally described the operation, took a
basket and scissors and went out to the garden,
but as her eyes fell upon the pansy-bed,
as her garments brushed the borders of the
box and drew forth their heavy perfume, she
faltered and turned toward the house, but at
the end of three steps turned again.

“Miriam Barstow was not afraid to take
the life of her enemy, and Beatrice Cenci was
not afraid to lay down her own life, and I—
I am afraid of the sight of a bed of pansies
and the smell of a box-border,” muttered she
scornfully, and then went on without a pause.
The basket filled, she set it in the shade of a
great clump of lilacs, and passing swiftly
through the garden and the grove, she
reached the seat beneath the willow, looked
at it, passed on until she stood upon the edge
of the brook, returned and seated herself.

“Here I last saw Marston Brent,” said she
aloud in a hard, mechanical voice. “Here I
urged him to resign his resolution for the
sake of my love, and when he refused I offered
to give up my own, and to break my
solemn vow, and to follow him to the wilderness
as his wife. This I offered, and he—
refused! Yes, and he said he did it to save
me from self-contempt. What does a man
think of a woman whom he must save from
herself in that way? Good-by, Marston
Brent.”

She set her lips over that last phrase, as
her ancestress may have done over the dead
body of her enemy, and then she rose and
went slowly back to the house, dressed her
flower-vases, finished the simple decoration
of the room, and then crossing the hall to
the east-room, where the old people sat, one

at either side of the little blaze—pleasant
even in summer to their chill blood—she took
the unfinished cap and sat herself down to
make it close by her grandfather's chair.

“Tell me about Miriam Barstow, grandpapa,”
said she; and the kind old man told
the story once again, as she had already
heard it, and at the end smoothed the fair
head beside him, saying:

“I am glad you will never have to shoot
Indians, daughter. Your lines are cast in
pleasanter places than that poor girl's.”

“No, I shall never have to shoot Indians,
grandpapa,” said Beatrice, bending over her
work.