 | CHAPTER XXVIII.
MISS LAVENDER MAKES A GUESS. The story of Kennett |  |
28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
MISS LAVENDER MAKES A GUESS.
There were signs of spring all over the land, and Gilbert
resumed his farm-work with the fresh zest which the
sense of complete ownership gave. He found a purchaser
for his wagon, sold one span of horses, and thus had
money in hand for all the coming expenses of the year.
His days of hauling, of anxiety, of painful economy, were
over; he rejoiced in his fully developed and recognized
manhood, and was cheered by the respect and kindly sympathy
of his neighbors.
Meanwhile, the gossip, not only of Kennett, but of Marlborough,
Pennsbury, and New-Garden, was as busy as ever.
No subject of country talk equalled in interest the loves
of Gilbert Potter and Martha Deane. Mark, too openhearted
to be intrusted with any secret, was drawn upon
wherever he went, and he revealed more (although he
was by no means Martha's confidant) than the public had
any right to know. The idlers at the Unicorn had seen
Gilbert enter Dr. Deane's house, watched his return therefrom,
made shrewd notes of the Doctor's manner when he
came forth that evening, and guessed the result of the interview
almost as well as if they had been present.
The restoration of Gilbert's plundered money, and his
hardly acquired independence as a landholder, greatly
strengthened the hands of his friends. There is no logic
so convincing as that of good luck; in proportion as a
man is fortunate (so seems to run the law of the world),
he attracts fortune to him. A good deed would not have
and unexpected release from his threatened difficulties.
The blot upon his name was already growing fainter,
and a careful moral arithmetician might have calculated
the point of prosperity at which it would cease to be seen.
Nowhere was the subject discussed with greater interest
and excitement than in the Fairthorn household. Sally,
when she first heard the news, loudly protested her unbelief;
why, the two would scarcely speak to each other,
she said; she had seen Gilbert turn his back on Martha,
as if he could n't bear the sight of her; it ought to be,
and she would be glad if it was, but it was n't!
When, therefore, Mark confirmed the report, and was
led on, by degrees, to repeat Gilbert's own words, Sally
rushed out into the kitchen with a vehemence which left
half her apron hanging on the door-handle, torn off from
top to bottom in her whirling flight, and announced the
fact to her mother.
Joe, who was present, immediately cried out, —
“O, Sally! now I may tell about Mark, may n't I?”
Sally seized him by the collar, and pitched him out the
kitchen-door. Her face was the color of fire.
“My gracious, Sally!” exclaimed Mother Fairthorn, in
amazement; “what 's that for?”
But Sally had already disappeared, and was relating her
trouble to Mark, who roared with wicked laughter, whereupon
she nearly cried with vexation.
“Never mind,” said he; “the boy 's right. I told Gilbert
this very afternoon that it was about time to speak to
the old man; and he allowed it was. Come out with me
and don't be afeard — I 'll do the talkin'.”
Hand in hand they went into the kitchen, Sally blushing
and hanging back a little. Farmer Fairthorn had just
come in from the barn, and was warming his hands at the
fire. Mother Fairthorn might have had her suspicions,
but it was her nature to wait cheerfully, and say nothing.
“See here, Daddy and Mammy!” said Mark, “have
either o' you any objections to Sally and me bein' a pair?”
Farmer Fairthorn smiled, rubbed his hands together,
and turning to his wife, asked, — “What has Mammy to
say to it?”
She looked up at Mark with her kindly eyes, in which
twinkled something like a tear, and said, — “I was guessin'
it might turn out so between you two, and if I 'd had anything
against you, Mark, I would n't ha' let it run on. Be
a steady boy, and you 'll make Sally a steady woman.
She 's had pretty much her own way.”
Thereupon Farmer Fairthorn, still rubbing his hands,
ventured to remark, — “The girl might ha' done worse.”
This was equivalent to a hearty commendation of the
match, and Mark so understood it. Sally kissed her mother,
cried a little, caught her gown on a corner of the kitchen-table,
and thus the betrothal was accepted as a family fact.
Joe and Jake somewhat disturbed the bliss of the evening,
it is true, by bursting into the room from time to time,
staring significantly at the lovers, and then rushing out
again with loud whoops and laughter.
Sally could scarcely await the coming of the next day,
to visit Martha Deane. At first she felt a little piqued
that she had not received the news from Martha's own
lips, but this feeling speedily vanished in the sympathy
with her friend's trials. She was therefore all the more
astonished at the quiet, composed bearing of the latter.
The tears she had expected to shed were not once drawn
upon.
“O, Martha!” she cried, after the first impetuous outburst
of feeling, — “to think that it has all turned out just
as I wanted! No, I don't quite mean that; you know I
could n't wish you to have crosses; but about Gilbert!
And it 's too bad — Mark has told me dreadful things,
but I hope they 're not all true; you don't look like it;
and I 'm so glad, you can't think!”
Martha smiled, readily untangling Sally's thoughts, and
said, — “I must n't complain, Sally. Nothing has come
to pass that I had not prepared my mind to meet. We
will only have to wait a little longer than you and Mark.”
“No you won't!” Sally exclaimed. “I 'll make Mark
wait, too! And everything must be set right — somebody
must do something! Where 's Betsy Lavender?”
“Here!” answered the veritable voice of the spinster,
through the open door of the small adjoining room.
“Gracious, how you frightened me!” cried Sally. “But,
Betsy, you seem to be able to help everybody; why can't
you do something for Martha and Gilbert?”
“Martha and Gilbert. That 's what I ask myself, nigh
onto a hundred times a day, child. But there 's things that
takes the finest kind o' wit to see through, and you can't
make a bead-purse out of a sow's-ear, neither jerk Time by
the forelock, when there a'n't a hair, as you can see, to
hang on to. I dunno as you 'll rightly take my meanin';
but never mind, all the same, I 'm flummuxed, and it 's the
longest and hardest flummux o' my life!”
Miss Betsy Lavender, it must here be explained, was
more profoundly worried than she was willing to admit.
Towards Martha she concealed the real trouble of her
mind under the garb of her quaint, jocular speech, which
meant much or little, as one might take it. She had just
returned from one of her social pilgrimages, during which
she had heard nothing but the absorbing subject of gossip.
She had been questioned and cross-questioned, entreated
by many, as Sally had done, to do something (for all had
great faith in her powers), and warned by a few not to
meddle with what did not concern her. Thus she had
come back that morning, annoyed, discomposed, and more
dissatisfied with herself than ever before, to hear Martha's
recital of what had taken place during her absence.
In spite of Martha's steady patience and cheerfulness,
Miss Lavender knew that the painful relation in which she
time. She understood Dr. Deane's nature quite as well as
his daughter, and was convinced that, for the present,
neither threats nor persuasions would move his stubborn
resistance. According to the judgment of the world (the
older part of it, at least), he had still right on his side.
Facts were wanted; or, rather, the one fact upon which
resistance was based must be removed.
With all this trouble, Miss Lavender had a presentiment
that there was work for her to do, if she could only discover
what it was. Her faith in her own powers of assistance
was somewhat shaken, and she therefore resolved to
say nothing, promise nothing, until she had both hit upon
a plan and carried it into execution.
Two or three days after Sally's visit, on a mild, sunny
morning in the beginning of April, she suddenly announced
her intention of visiting the Potter farm-house.
“I ha' n't seen Mary since last fall, you know, Martha,”
she said; “and I 've a mortal longin' to wish Gilbert joy
o' his good luck, and maybe say a word to keep him in
good heart about you. Have you got no message to send
by me?”
“Only my love,” Martha answered; “and tell him how
you left me. He knows I will keep my word; when I
need his counsel, I will go to him.”
“If more girls talked and thought that way, us women 'd
have fairer shakes,” Miss Lavender remarked, as she put
on her cloak and pattens.
When she reached the top of the hill overlooking the
glen, she noticed fresh furrows in the field on her left.
Clambering through the fence, she waited until the heads
of a pair of horses made their appearance, rising over the
verge of the hill. As she conjectured, Gilbert Potter was
behind them, guiding the plough-handle. He was heartily
glad to see her, and halted his team at the corner of the
“land.”
“I did n't know as you 'd speak to me,” said she, with
assumed grimness. “Maybe you would n't, if I did n't
come direct from her. Ah, you need n't look wild; it 's
only her love, and what 's the use, for you had it already;
but never mind, lovyers is never satisfied; and she 's chipper
and peart enough, seein' what she has to bear for your
sake, but she don't mind that, on the contràry, quite the
reverse, and I 'm sure you don't deserve it!”
“Did she tell you what passed between us, the last
time?” Gilbert asked.
“The last time. Yes. And jokin' aside, which often
means the contràry in my crooked ways o' talkin', a'n't it
about time somethin' was done?”
“What can be done?”
“I dunno,” said Miss Lavender, gravely. “You know
as well as I do what 's in the way, or rather none of us
knows what it is, only where it is; and a thing unbeknown
may be big or little; who can tell? And latterly I 've
thought, Gilbert, that maybe your mother is in the fix of a
man I 've heerd tell on, that fell into a pit, and ketched by
the last bush, and hung on, and hung on, till he could hold
on no longer; so he gev himself up to death, shet his eyes
and let go, and lo and behold! the bottom was a matter o'
six inches under his feet! Leastways, everything p'ints to
a sort o' skeary fancy bein' mixed up with it, not a thing to
laugh at, I can tell you, but as earnest as sin, for I 've seen
the likes, and maybe easy to make straight if you could
only look into it yourself; but you think there 's no chance
o' that?”
“No,” said Gilbert. “I 've tried once too often, already;
I shall not try again.”
“Try again,” Miss Lavender repeated. “Then why
not?” — but here she paused, and seemed to meditate.
The fact was, she had been tempted to ask Gilbert's
advice in regard to the plan she was revolving in her brain.
The tone of his voice, however, was discouraging; she saw
— his uneasy air hinted that he desired to avoid further
talk on this point. So, with a mental reprimand of the
indiscretion into which her sympathy with him had nearly
betrayed her, she shut her teeth and slightly bit her
tongue.
“Well, well,” she said; “I hope it 'll come out before
you 're both old and sour with waitin', that 's all! I don't
want such true-love as your'n to be like firkin-butter at th'
end; for as fresh, and firm, and well-kep' as you please, it
ha'n't got the taste o' the clover and the sweet-grass; but
who knows? I may dance at your weddin', after all, sooner
'n I mistrust; and so I 'm goin' down to spend the day
with y'r mother!”
She strode over the furrow and across the weedy sod,
and Gilbert resumed his ploughing. As she approached
the house, Miss Lavender noticed that the secured ownership
of the property was beginning to express itself in
various slight improvements and adornments. The space
in front of the porch was enlarged, and new flower-borders
set along the garden-paling; the barn had received a fresh
coat of whitewash, as well as the trunks of the apple-trees,
which shone like white pillars; and there was a bench with
bright straw bee-hives under the lilac-bush. Mary Potter
was at work in the garden, sowing her early seeds.
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Miss Lavender, after
the first cordial greetings were over. “Seems almost like
a different place, things is so snugged up and put to
rights.”
“Yes,” said Mary Potter; “I had hardly the heart,
before, to make it everything that we wanted; and you
can't think what a satisfaction I have in it now.”
“Yes, I can! Give me the redishes, while you stick in
them beets. I 've got a good forefinger for plantin' 'em, —
long and stiff; and I can't stand by and see you workin'
alone, without fidgets.”
Miss Lavender threw off her cloak and worked with a
will. When the gardening was finished, she continued her
assistance in the house, and fully earned her dinner before
she sat down to it. Then she insisted on Mary Potter
bringing out her sewing, and giving her something more to
do; it was one of her working-days, she said; she had
spent rather an idle winter; and moreover, she was in such
spirits at Gilbert's good fortune, that she could n't be satisfied
without doing something for him, and to sew up the
seams of his new breeches was the very thing! Never
had she been so kind, so cheerful, and so helpful, and
Mary Potter's nature warmed into happy content in her
society.
No one should rashly accuse Miss Lavender if there was
a little design in this. The task she had set herself to attempt
was both difficult and delicate. She had divided it
into two portions, requiring very different tactics, and was
shrewd enough to mask, in every possible way, the one
from which she had most hopes of obtaining a result. She
made no reference, at first, to Gilbert's attachment to Martha
Deane, but seemed to be wholly absorbed in the subject
of the farm; then, taking wide sweeps through all varieties
of random gossip, preserving a careless, thoughtless, rattling
manner, she stealthily laid her pitfalls for the unsuspecting
prey.
“I was over 't Warren's t' other day,” she said, biting off
a thread, “and Becky had jist come home from Phildelphy.
There 's new-fashioned bonnets comin' up, she says.
She stayed with Allen's, but who they are I don't know.
Laws! now I think on it, Mary, you stayed at Allen's, too,
when you were there!”
“No,” said Mary Potter, “it was at — Treadwell's.”
“Treadwell's? I thought you told me Allen's. All the
same to me, Allen or Treadwell; I don't know either of
'em. It 's a long while since I 've been in Phildelphy, and
never likely to go ag'in. I don't fancy trampin' over them
but what with boxes tumbled in and out o' the stores, and
bar'ls rollin', and carts always goin' by, you 're never sure
o' y'r neck; and I was sewin' for Clarissa Lee, Jackson that
was, that married a dry-goods man, the noisiest place that
ever was; you could hardly hear yourself talk; but a body
gets used to it, in Second Street, close't to Market, and
were you anywheres near there?”
“I was in Fourth Street,” Mary Potter answered, with a
little hesitation. Miss Lavender secretly noticed her uneasiness,
which, she also remarked, arose not from suspicion,
but from memory.
“What kind o' buttons are you goin' to have, Mary?”
she asked. “Horn splits, and brass cuts the stuff, and
mother o' pearl wears to eternity, but they 're so awful
dear. Fourth Street, you said? One street 's like another
to me, after you get past the corners. I 'd always know
Second, though, by the tobacco-shop, with the wild Injun
at the door, liftin' his tommyhawk to skulp you — ugh! —
but never mind, all the same, skulp away for what I care,
for I a'n't likely ever to lay eyes on you ag'in!”
Having thus, with perhaps more volubility than was required,
covered up the traces of her design, Miss Lavender
cast about how to commence the second and more hopeless
attack. It was but scant intelligence which she had gained,
but in that direction she dared not venture further. What
she now proposed to do required more courage and less
cunning.
Her manner gradually changed; she allowed lapses of
silence to occur, and restricted her gossip to a much narrower
sweep. She dwelt, finally, upon the singular circumstances
of Sandy Flash's robbery of Gilbert, and the restoration
of the money.
“Talkin' o' Deb. Smith,” she then said, “Mary, do you
mind when I was here last harvest, and the talk we had
about Gilbert? I 've often thought on it since, and how I
I am an old maid, and so it 's come out as I said, and a
finer couple than they 'll make can't be found in the
county!”
Mary Potter looked up, with a shadow of the old trouble
on her face. “You know all about it, Betsy, then?” she
asked.
“Bless your soul, Mary, everybody knows about it!
There 's been nothin' else talked about in the neighborhood
for the last three weeks; why, ha' n't Gilbert told
you o' what passed between him and Dr. Deane, and how
Martha stood by him as no woman ever stood by a man?”
An expression of painful curiosity, such as shrinks from
the knowledge it craves, came into Mary Potter's eyes.
“Gilbert has told me nothing,” she said, “since — since
that time.”
“That time. I won't ask you what time; it 's neither
here nor there; but you ought to know the run o' things,
when it 's common talk.” And therewith Miss Lavender
began at the beginning, and never ceased until she had
brought the history, in all its particulars, down to that very
day. She did not fail to enlarge on the lively and universal
interest in the fortunes of the lovers which was manifested
by the whole community. Mary Potter's face grew
paler and paler as she spoke, but the tears which some
parts of the recital called forth were quenched again, as it
seemed, by flashes of aroused pride.
“Now,” Miss Lavender concluded, “you see just how the
matter stands. I 'm not hard on you, savin' and exceptin'
that facts is hard, which they sometimes are I don't deny;
but here we 're all alone with our two selves, and you 'll
grant I 'm a friend, though I may have queer ways o'
showin' it; and why should n't I say that all the trouble
comes o' Gilbert bearin' your name?”
“Don't I know it!” Mary Potter cried. “Is n't my
load heaped up heavier as it comes towards the end?
his father's name?”
“His father's name! Then you can do it, some day? I
suspicioned as much. And you 've been bound up from
doin' it, all this while, — and that 's what 's been layin' so
heavy on your mind, was n't it?”
“Betsy,” said Mary Potter, with sudden energy, “I 'll
say as much as I dare, so that I may keep my senses. I
fear, sometimes, I 'll break together for want of a friend
like you, to steady me while I walk the last steps of my
hard road. Gilbert was born in wedlock; I 'm not bound
to deny that; but I committed a sin, — not the sin people
charge me with, — and the one that persuaded me to it has
to answer for more than I have. I bound myself not to tell
the name of Gilbert's father, — not to say where or when
I was married, not to do or say anything to put others on
the track, until — but there 's the sin and the trouble and
the punishment all in one. If I told that, you might guess
the rest. You know what a name I 've had to bear, but
I 've taken my cross and fought my way, and put up with
all things, that I might deserve the fullest justification the
Lord has in His hands. If I had known all beforehand,
Betsy, — but I expected the release in a month or two, and
it has n't come in twenty-five years!”
“Twenty-five years!” repeated Miss Lavender, heedless
of the drops running down her thin face. “If there was
a sin, Mary, even as big as a yearlin' calf, you 've worked
off the cost of it, years ago! If you break your word now,
you 'll stand justified in the sight o' the Lord, and of all
men, and even if you think a scrimption of it 's left, remember
your dooty to Gilbert, and take a less justification
for his sake!”
“I 've been tempted that way, Betsy, but the end I
wanted has been set in my mind so long I can't get it out.
I 've seen the Lord's hand so manifest in these past days,
that I 'm fearsome to hurry His judgments. And then,
from hour to hour, — and it seems that if I was to give up
and break my vow, He would break it for me the next
minute afterwards, to punish my impatience!”
“Why,” Miss Lavender exclaimed, “it must be your
husband's death you 're waitin' for!”
Mary Potter started up with a wild look of alarm. “No
— no — not his death!” she cried. “I should want him
to — be living! Ask me no more questions; forget what
I 've said, if it don't incline you to encourage me! That 's
why I 've told you so much!”
Miss Lavender instantly desisted from further appeal.
She rose, put her arm around Mary Potter's waist, and
said, — “I did n't mean to frighten or to worry you, deary.
I may think your conscience has worked on itself, like, till
it 's ground a bit too sharp; but I see just how you 're
fixed, and won't say another word, without it 's to give
comfort. An open confession 's good for the soul, they
say, and half a loaf 's better than no bread, and you have n't
violated your word a bit, and so let it do you good!”
In fact, when Mary Potter grew calm, she was conscious
of a relief the more welcome because it was so rare in her
experience. Miss Lavender, moreover, hastened to place
Gilbert's position in a more cheerful light, and the same
story, repeated for a different purpose, now assumed quite
another aspect. She succeeded so well, that she left behind
her only gratitude for the visit.
Late in the afternoon she came forth from the farm-house,
and commenced slowly ascending the hill. She
stopped frequently and looked about her; her narrow
forehead was wrinkled, and the base of her long nose was
set between two deep furrows. Her lips were twisted in
a pucker of great perplexity, and her eyes were nearly
closed in a desperate endeavor to solve some haunting,
puzzling question.
“It 's queer,” she muttered to herself, when she had
Like a whip-poor-will on a moonlight night: you hear it
whistlin' on the next fence-rail, it does n't seem a yard off;
you step up to ketch it, and there 's nothin' there; then
you step back ag'in, and `whip - poor - will! whip - poor-will!'
whistles louder 'n ever, — and so on, the whole
night, and some folks says they can throw their voices
outside o' their bodies, but that 's neither here nor
there.
“Now why can't I ketch hold o' this thing? It is n't a
yard off me, I 'll be snaked! And I dunno what ever she
said that makes me think so, but I feel it in my bones, and
no use o' callin' up words; it 's one o' them things that
comes without callin', when they come at all, and I 'm so
near guessin' I 'll have no peace day or night.”
With many similar observations she resumed her walk,
and presently reached the border of the ploughed land.
Gilbert's back was towards her; he was on the descending
furrow. She looked at him, started, suddenly lost her
breath, and stood with open mouth and wide, fixed eyes.
“Ha-ha-a! Ha-ha-a-a!”
Loud and shrill her cry rang across the valley. It was
like the yell of a war-horse, scenting the battle afar off.
All the force of her lungs and muscles expended itself in
the sound.
The next instant she dropped upon the moist, ploughed
earth, and sat there, regardless of gown and petticoat.
“Good Lord!” she repeated to herself, over and over
again. Then, seeing Gilbert approaching, startled by the
cry, she slowly arose to her feet.
“A good guess,” she said to herself, “and what 's more,
there 's ways o' provin' it. He 's comin', and he must n't
know; you 're a fool, Betsy Lavender, not to keep your
wits better about you, and go rousin' up the whole neighborhood;
good look that your face is crooked and don't
show much o' what 's goin' on inside!”
“What 's the matter, Betsy?” asked Gilbert.
“Nothin' — one o' my crazy notions,” she said. “I
used to holler like a kildeer when I was a girl and got
out on the Brandywine hills alone, and I s'pose I must ha'
thought about it, and the yell sort o' come of itself, for it
just jerked me off o' my feet; but you need n't tell anybody
that I cut such capers in my old days, not that folks 'd
much wonder, but the contràry, for they 're used to me.”
Gilbert laughed heartily, but he hardly seemed satisfied
with the explanation. “You 're all of a tremble,” he
said.
“Am I? Well, it 's likely, — and my gownd all over
mud; but there 's one favor I want to ask o' you, and no
common one, neither, namely, the loan of a horse for a
week or so.”
“A horse?” Gilbert repeated.
“A horse. Not Roger, by no means; I could n't ask
that, and he don't know me, anyhow; but the least roughpacin'
o' them two, for I 've got considerable ridin' over
the country to do, and I would n't ask you, but it 's a busy
time o' year, and all folks is n't so friendly.”
“You shall have whatever you want, Betsy,” he said.
“But you 've heard nothing?” —
“Nothin' o' one sort or t'other. Make yourself easy,
lad.”
Gilbert, however, had been haunted by new surmises
in regard to Dr. Deane. Certain trifles had returned to his
memory since the interview, and rather than be longer annoyed
with them, he now opened his heart to Miss Lavender.
A curious expression came over her face. “You 've got
sharp eyes and ears Gilbert,” she said. “Now supposin'
I wanted your horse o' purpose to clear up your doubts in
a way to satisfy you, would you mind lettin' me have it?”
“Take even Roger!” he exclaimed.
“No, that bay 'll do. Keep thinkin' that 's what I 'm
after, and ask me no more questions”
She crossed the ploughed land, crept through the fence,
and trudged up the road. When a clump of bushes on the
bank had hid Gilbert from her sight, she stopped, took
breath, and chuckled with luxurious satisfaction.
“Betsy Lavender,” she said, with marked approval,
“you 're a cuter old thing than I took you to be!”
| CHAPTER XXVIII.
MISS LAVENDER MAKES A GUESS. The story of Kennett | |