University of Virginia Library

31. CHAPTER XXXI.
AFTER THE FUNERAL.

HAD there been a train back to New York that
afternoon Wilford would most certainly have
suggested going; but as there was none he passed
the time as well as he could, finding Bell a great
help to him, but wondering that she could assimilate so
readily with such people, declaring herself in love with
the farm-house, and saying she should like to remain
there for weeks, if the days were all as sunny as this,
the dahlias as gorgeously bright, and the peaches by the
well as delicious and ripe. To these the city girl took

readily, visiting them the last thing before retiring, while
Wilford found her there when he arose next morning,
her dress and slippers nearly spoiled with the heavy dew,
and her hands full of the fresh fruit which Aunt Betsy
knocked from the tree with a quilting rod; her dress
pinned around her waist, and disclosing a petticoat scrupulously
clean, but patched and mended with so many
different patterns and colors that the original ground
was lost, and none could tell whether it had been red or
black, buff or blue. Between Aunt Betsy and Bell the
most amicable feeling had existed ever since the older
lady had told the younger how all the summer long she
had been drying fruit, “thimble-berries, blue-bries, and
huckle-berries” for the soldiers, and how she was now
drying peaches for Willard Buxton—once their hired
man. These she should tie up in a salt bag, and put in
the next box sent by the society of which she seemed to
be head and front, “kind of fust directress” she said, and
Bell was interested at once, for among the soldiers down
by the Potomac was one who carried with him the whole
of Bell Cameron's heart; and who for a few days had
tarried at just such a dwelling as the farm-house, writing
back to her so pleasant descriptions of it, with its
fresh grass and shadowy trees, that she had longed to be
there too. So it was through this halo of romance and
love that Bell looked at the farm-house and its occupants,
preferring good Aunt Betsy because she seemed the most
interested in the soldiers, working as soon as breakfast
was over upon the peaches, and kindly furnishing her
best check apron, together with pan and knife for Bell,
who offered her assistance, notwithstanding Wilford's
warning that the fruit would stain her hands, and his
advice that she had better be putting up her things for
going home.

“She was not going that day,” she said, point blank,
and as Katy too had asked to stay a little longer, Wilford
was compelled to yield, and taking his hat sauntered off
toward Linwood; while Katy went listlessly into the
kitchen, where Bell Cameron sat, her tongue moving
much faster than her hands, which pared so slowly and
cut away so much of the juicy pulp, besides making so
frequent journeys to her mouth, that Auut Betsy looked

in alarm at the rapidly disappearing fruit, wishing to herself
that “Miss Camern had not 'listed.”

But Miss Camern had enlisted, and so had Bob, or
rather he had gone to his duty, and as she worked, she
repeated to Helen the particulars of his going, telling
how, when the war first broke out, and Sumter was bombarded,
Bob, who, from long association with Southern
men at West Point, had imbibed many of their ideas, was
very sympathetic with the rebelling States, gaining the
cognomen of a secessionist, and once actually thinking of
casting in his lot with that side rather than the other.
But a little incident saved him, she said. The remembrance
of a queer old lady whom he met in the cars, and
who, at parting, held her wrinkled hand above his head
in benediction, charging him not to go against the flag,
and promising her prayers for his safety if found on the
side of the Union.

“I wish you could hear Bob tell the story, the funny
part I mean,” she continued, narrating as well as she could
the particulars of Lieutenant Bob's meeting with Aunt
Betsy, who, as the story progressed and she recognized
herself in the queer old Yankee woman, who shook hands
with the conductor and was going to law about a sheep
pasture, dropped her head lower and lower over her pan
of peaches, while a scarlet flush spread itself all over her
thin face, but changed to a grayish white as Bell concluded
with “Bob says the memory of that hand lifted above
his head haunted him day and night, during the period of
his uncertainty, and was at last the means of saving him
from treachery to his country.”

“Thank God!” came involuntarily from Aunt Betsy's
quivering lips, and, looking up, Bell saw the great tears
running down her cheeks, tears which she wiped away
with her arm, while she said faintly, “That old woman,
who made a fool of herself in the cars, was me!”

“You, Miss Barlow, you!” Bell exclaimed, forgetting
in her astonishment to carry to her mouth the luscious
half peach she had intended for that purpose, and dropping
it untasted into the pan, while Katy, who had been
listening with considerable interest, came quickly forward
saying, “You, Aunt Betsy! when were you in New York,
and why did I never know it?”

It could not be kept back and, unmindful of Bell, Helen
explained to Katy as well as she could the circumstances
of Aunt Betsy's visit to New York the previous winter.

“And she never let me know it, or come to see me, because—because—”
Katy hesitated, and looked at Bell,
who said, pertly, “Because Will is so abominably proud,
and would have made such a fuss. Don't spoil a story for
relation's, sake, I beg,” and the young lady laughed good
humoredly, restoring peace to all save Katy, whose face
wore a troubled look, and who soon stole away to her mother,
whom she questioned further with regard to a
circumstance which seemed so mysterious to her.

“Miss Barlow,” Bell said, when Katy was gone, “you
will forgive me for repeating that story as I did. Of
course I had no idea it was you of whom I was talking.”

Bell was very earnest, and her eyes looked pleadingly
upon Aunt Betsy, who answered her back, “There's
nothing to forgive. You only told the truth. I did
make an old fool of myself, but if I helped that boy to a
right decision, my journey did some good, and I ain't
sorry now if I did go to the play-house. I confessed
that to the sewing circle, and Mrs. Deacon Bannister
hain't seemed the same towards me since, but I don't
care. I beat her on the election to first directress of
the Soldier's Aid. She didn't run half as well as me,
That chap—you called Bob—is he anything to you? Is
he your beau?”

“It was Bell's turn now to blush and then grow white,
while Helen, lightly touching the superb diamond on her
first finger, said, “That indicates as much. When did it
happen, Bell?”

Mrs. Cameron had said they were not a family to bruit
their affairs abroad, and if so, Bell was not like her family,
for she answered frankly, “Just before he went away.
It's a splendid diamond, isn't it?” and she held it up for
Helen to inspect.

The basket was empty by this time, and as Aunt Betsy
went to fill it from the trees, Bell and Helen were left
alone, and the former continued in a low, sad tone, “I've
been so sorry sometimes that I did not tell Bob I loved
him, when he wished me to so much.”

“Not tell him you loved him! How then could you

tell him yes, as it appears you did?” Helen asked, and
Bell answered, “I could not well help that; it came so
sudden and he begged so hard, saying my promise would
make him a better man, a better soldier and all that. It
was the very night before he went, and so I said that out
of pity and patriotism I would give the promise, and I did;
but it seemed too much for a woman to tell a man all at
once that she loved him, and I wouldn't do it, but I've
been sorry since; oh, so sorry, during the two days when
we heard nothing from him after that dreadful battle at
Bull Run. We knew he was in it, and I thought I should
die until his telegram came saying he was safe. I did sit
down then and commence a letter, confessing all, but I
tore it up, and he don't know now just how I feel.”

“And do you really love him?” Helen asked, puzzled
by this strange girl, who laughingly held up her soft,
white hand, stained and blackened with the juice of the
fruit she had been paring, and said, “Do you suppose I
would spoil my hands like that, and incur ma chère mamma's
displeasure, if Bob were not in the army and I did
not care for him? And now allow me to catechise you.
Did Mark Ray ever propose and you refuse him?”

“Never!” and Helen's face grew crimson, while Bell
continued: “That is funny. Half our circle think so,
though how the impression was first given I do not know.
Mother told me, but would not tell where she received
her information. I heard of it again in a few days, and
have reason to believe that Mrs. Banker knows it too, and
feels a little uncomfortable that her son should be refused
when she considers him worthy of the Empress herself.”

Helen was very white, as she asked, “And how with
Mark and Juno?”

“Oh, there is nothing between them,” Bell replied.
“Mark has scarcely called on us since he returned from
Washington with his regiment. You are certain you
never cared for him?”

This was so abrupt, and Bell's eyes were so searching
that Helen grew giddy for a moment, and grasped the
back of the chair, as she replied: “I did not say I never
cared for him. I said he never proposed; and that is
true; he never did.”

“And if he had?” Bell continued, never taking her

eyes from Helen, who, had she been less agitated, would
have denied Bell's right to question her so closely. Now,
however, she answered blindly, “I do not know. I cannot
tell. I thought him engaged to Juno.”

“Well, if that is not the rarest case of cross-purposes
that I ever knew,” Bell said, wiping her hands upon Aunt
Betsy's apron, and preparing to attack the piled up basket
just brought in.

Farther conversation was impossible, and, with her
mind in a perfect tempest of thought, Helen went away,
trying to decide what it was best for her to do. Some
one had spread the report that she had refused Mark Ray,
telling of the refusal of course, or how else could it have
been known? and this accounted for Mrs. Banker's long
continued silence. Since Helen's return to Silverton
Mrs. Banker had written two or three kind, friendly letters,
which did her so much good; but these had suddenly
ceased, and Helen's last remained unanswered.
She saw the reason now, every nerve quivering with pain
as she imagined what Mrs. Banker must think of one who
could make a refusal public, or what was tenfold worse,
pretend to an offer she never received. “She must despise
me, and Mark Ray, too, if he has heard of it,” she
said, resolving one moment to ask Bell to explain to Mrs.
Banker, and then changing her mind and concluding to
let matters take their course, inasmuch as interference
from her might be construed by the mother into undue
interest in the son. “Perhaps Bell will do it without
my asking,” she thought, and this hope did much toward
keeping her spirits up on that last day of Katy's stay at
home, for she was going back in the morning.

They did not see Marian Hazelton again, and Katy
wondered at it, deciding that in some things Marian was
very peculiar, while Wilford and Bell were disappointed,
as both had a desire to meet and converse with one who
had been so like a second mother to the little dead Genevra.
Wilford spoke of his child now as Genevra, but to
Katy it was Baby still; and, with choking sobs and passionate
tears, she bade good-bye to the little mound
underneath which it was lying, and then went back to
New York.