A White Heron and Other Stories (7 page)

As for Mr. Elbury himself, he became more cheerful every day, and was almost demonstrative in his affectionate gratitude. He spoke always as if they were one in their desire to interest and benefit the parish; he had fallen into a pleasant home-like habit of saying “we” whenever household or parish affairs were under discussion. Once, when somebody had been remarking the too-evident efforts of one of her sister-parishioners to gain Mr. Elbury's affection, he had laughed leniently; but when this gossiping caller had gone away the minister said, gently, “We know better, don't we, Miss Peck?” and Eliza could not help feeling that his tone meant a great deal. Yet she took no special notice of him, and grew much more taciturn than was natural. Her heart beat warmly under her prim alpacca-dress; she already looked younger and a great deal happier than when she first came to live at the parsonage. Her executive ability was made glad by the many duties that fell upon her, and those who knew her and Mr. Elbury best thought nothing could be wiser than their impending marriage. Did not the little child need Miss Peck's motherly care? did not the helpless minister need the assistance of a clear-sighted business-woman and good housekeeper? did not Eliza herself need and deserve a husband? But even with increasing certainty she still gave no outward sign of their secret understanding. It was likely that Mr. Elbury thought best to wait a year after his wife's death, and when he spoke right out was the time to show what her answer would be. But somehow the thought of the dear old threadbare farm in the autumn weather was always a sorrowful thought; and on the days when Mr. Elbury hired a horse and wagon, and invited her and the baby to accompany him on a series of parochial visitations, she could not bear to look at the homefields and the pasture-slopes. She was thankful that the house itself was not in sight from the main road. The crops that summer had been unusually good; something called her thoughts back continually to the old home, and accused her of disloyalty. Yet she consoled herself by thinking it was very natural to have such regrets, and to consider the importance of such a step at her sensible time of life. So it drew near winter again, and she grew more and more unrelenting and scornful whenever her acquaintances suggested the idea that her wedding ought to be drawing near.

Mr. Elbury seemed to have taken a new lease of youthful hope and ardor. He was busy in the parish and very popular, particularly among his women-parishioners. Miss Peck urged him on with his good works, and it seemed as if they expressed their interest in each other by their friendliness to the parish in general. Mr. Elbury had joined a ministers' club in the large town already spoken of, and spent a day there now and then, besides his regular Monday-night attendance on the club-meeting. He was preparing a series of sermons on the history of the Jews, and was glad to avail himself of a good free-library, the lack of which he frequently lamented in his own village. Once he said, eagerly, that he had no idea of ending his days here, and this gave Miss Peck a sharp pang. She could not bear to think of leaving her old home, and the tears filled her eyes. When she had reached the shelter of the kitchen, she retorted to the too-easily ruffled element of her character that there was no need of crossing that bridge till she came to it; and, after an appealing glance at the academy-steeple above the maple-trees, she returned to the study to finish dusting. She saw, without apprehension, that the minister quickly pushed something under the leaves of his blotting-paper and frowned a little. It was not his usual time for writing—she had a new proof of her admiring certainty that Mr. Elbury wrote for the papers at times under an assumed name.

One Monday evening he had not returned from the ministers' meeting until later than usual, and she began to be slightly anxious. The baby had not been very well all day, and she particularly wished to have an errand done before night, but did not dare to leave the child alone, while, for a wonder, nobody had been in. Mr. Elbury had shown a great deal of feeling before he went away in the morning, and as she was admiringly looking at his well-fitting clothes and neat clerical attire, a thrill of pride and affection had made her eyes shine unwontedly. She was really beginning to like him very much. For the first and last time in his life the minister stepped quickly forward and kissed her on the forehead. “My good, kind friend!” he exclaimed, in that deep tone which the whole parish loved; then he hurried away. Miss Peck felt a strange dismay, and stood by the breakfast-table like a statue. She even touched her forehead with trembling fingers. Somehow she inwardly rebelled, but kissing meant more to her than to some people. She never had been used to it, except with little Tom—though the last brotherly kiss his father gave her before he went to the war had been one of the treasures of her memory. All that day she was often reminded of the responsible and darker side, the inspected and criticized side, of the high position of minister's wife. It was clearly time for proper rebuke when evening came; and as she sat by the light, mending Mr. Elbury's stockings, she said over and over again that she had walked into this with her eyes wide open, and if the experience of forty years hadn't put any sense into her it was too late to help it now.

Suddenly she heard the noise of wheels in the side yard. Could anything have happened to Mr. Elbury? were they bringing him home hurt, or dead even? He never drove up from the station unless it were bad weather. She rushed to the door with a flaring light, and was bewildered at the sight of trunks and, most of all, at the approach of Mr. Elbury, for he wore a most sentimental expression, and led a young person by the hand.

“Dear friend,” he said, in that mellow tone of his, “I hope you, too, will love my little wife.”

Almost any other woman would have dropped the kerosene lamp on the doorstep, but not Miss Eliza Peck. Luckily a gust of autumn wind blew it out, and the bride had to fumble her way into her new home. Miss Peck quickly procured one of her own crinkly lamplighters, and bent toward the open fire to kindle a new light.

“You've taken me by surprise,” she managed to say, in her usual tone of voice, though she felt herself shaking with excitement.

At that moment the ailing step-daughter gave a forlorn little wail from the wide sofa, where she had been put to sleep with difficulty. Miss Peck's kind heart felt the pathos of the situation; she lifted the little child and stilled it, then she held out a kindly hand to the minister's new wife, while Mr. Elbury stood beaming by.

“I wish you may be very happy here, as I have been,” said the good woman, earnestly. “But Mr. Elbury, you ought to have let me know. I could have kept a secret”—and satisfaction filled Eliza Peck's heart that she never, to use her own expression, had made a fool of herself before the First Parish. She had kept her own secret, and in this earthquake of a moment was clearly conscious that she was hero enough to behave as if there had never been any secret to keep. And indignation with the Reverend Mr. Elbury, who had so imprudently kept his own counsel, threw down the sham temple of Cupid which a faithless god called Propinquity had succeeded in rearing.

Miss Peck made a feast, and for the last time played the part of hostess at the minister's table. She had remorselessly inspected the conspicuous bad taste of the new Mrs. Elbury's dress, the waving, cheap-looking feather of her hat, the make-believe richness of her clothes, and saw, with dire compassion, how unused she was to young children. The brave Eliza tried to make the best of things—but one moment she found herself thinking how uncomfortable Mr. Elbury's home would be henceforth with this poor reed to lean upon, a townish, empty-faced, tiresomely pretty girl; the next moment she pitied the girl herself,.who would have the hard task before her of being the wife of an indolent preacher in a country town. Miss Peck had generously allowed her farm to supplement the limited salary of the First Parish; in fact, she had been a silent partner in the parsonage establishment rather than a dependent. Would the First Parish laugh at her now? It was a stinging thought; but she honestly believed that the minister himself would be most commiserated when the parish opinion had found time to simmer down.

The next day our heroine, whose face was singularly free from disappointment, told the minister that she would like to leave at once, for she was belated about many things, not having had notice in season of his change of plan.

“I've been telling your wife all about the house and parish interests the best I can, and it's likely she wants to take everything into her own hands right away,” added the uncommon housekeeper, with a spice of malice; but Mr. Elbury flushed, and looked down at the short, capable Eliza appealingly. He knew her virtues so well that this announcement gave him a crushing blow.

“Why, I thought of course you would continue here as usual,” he said, in a strange, harsh voice that would have been perfectly surprising in the pulpit. “Mrs. Elbury has never known any care. We count upon your remaining.”

Whereupon Miss Peck looked him disdainfully in the face, and, for a moment, mistook him for that self so often reproved and now sunk into depths of ignominy.

“If you thought that, you ought to have known better,” she said. “You can't expect a woman who has property and relations of her own to give up her interests for yours altogether. I got a letter this morning from my brother's boy, little Tom, and he's got leave from his mother and her husband to come and stop with me a good while—he says all winter. He's been sick, and they've had to take him out o' school. I never supposed that such stived-up air would agree with him,” concluded Miss Peck, triumphantly. She was full of joy and hope at this new turn of affairs, and the minister was correspondingly hopeless. “I'll take the baby home for a while, if 't would be a convenience for you,” she added, more leniently. “That is, after I get my house well warmed, and there's something in it to eat. I wish you could have spoken to me a fortnight ago; but I saw Joe Farley to-day—that boy that lived with me quite a while—he's glad to come back. He only engaged to stop till after cider time where he's been this summer, and he's promised to look about for a good cow for me. I always thought well of Joe.”

The minister turned away ruefully, and Miss Peck went about her work. She meant to leave the house in the best of order; but the whole congregation came trooping in that day and the next, and she hardly had time to build a fire in her own kitchen before Joe Farley followed her from the station with the beloved little Tom. He looked tall and thin and pale, and largely freckled under his topknot of red hair. Bless his heart! how his lonely aunt hugged him and kissed him, and how thankful he was to get back to her, though she never would have suspected it if she had not known him so well. A shy boy-fashion of reserve and stolidity had replaced his early demonstrations, but he promptly went to the shelf of books to find the familiar old “Robinson Crusoe.” Miss Peck's heart leaped for joy as she remembered how much more she could teach the child about books. She felt a great wave of gratitude fill her cheerful soul as she remembered the pleasure and gain of those evenings when she and Mr. Elbury had read together.

There was a great deal of eager discussion in the village; and much amused scrutiny of Eliza's countenance, as she walked up the side aisle that first Sunday after the minister was married. She led little Tom by the hand, but he opened the pew-door and ushered her in handsomely, and she looked smilingly at her neighbors and nodded her head sideways at the boy in a way that made them suspect that she was much more in love with him, freckles and all, than she had ever been with Mr. Elbury. A few minutes later she frowned at Tom sternly for greeting his old acquaintances over the pew-rail in a way that did not fit the day or place. There was no chance to laugh at her disappointment; for nobody could help understanding that her experience at the parsonage had been merely incidental in her life, and that she had returned willingly to her old associations. The dream of being a minister's wife had been only a dream, and she was surprised to find herself waking from it with such resignation to her lot.

“I'd just like to know what sort of a breakfast they had,” she said to herself, as the bride's topknot went went waving and bobbing up to the parsonage pew. “If ever there was a man who was fussy about his cup o' coffee, 't is Reverend Wilbur Elbury! There now, Elizy Peck, don't you wish 't was you a-setting there up front and feeling the eyes of the whole parish sticking in your back? You could have had him, you know, if you'd set right about it. I never did think you had proper ideas of what gettin' promoted is; but if you ain't discovered a new world for yourself like C'lumbus, I miss my guess. If you'd stayed on the farm all alone last year you'd had no thoughts but hens and rutabagys, and as 't is you've been livin' amon'st books. There's nothin' to regret if you did just miss makin' a fool o' yourself.”

At this moment Mr. Elbury's voice gently sounded from the pulpit, and Miss Peck sprang to her feet with the agility of a jack-in-the-box—she had forgotten her surroundings in the vividness of her revery. She hardly knew what the minister said in that first prayer; for many reasons this was an exciting day.

A little later our heroine accepted the invitation of her second cousin, Mrs. Corbell, to spend the hour or two between morning and afternoon services. They had agreed that it seemed like old times, and took pleasure in renewing this custom of the Sunday visit. Little Tom was commented upon as to health and growth and freckles and family resemblance; and when he strayed out-of-doors, after such an early dinner as only a growing boy can make vanish with the enchanter's wand of his appetite, the two women indulged in a good talk.

“I don't know how you viewed it, this morning,” began Cousin Corbell; “but, to my eyes, the minister looked as if he felt cheap as a broom. There, I never was one o' his worshippers, you well know. To speak plain, Elizy, I was really concerned at one time for fear you would be overpersuaded. I never said one word to warp your judgment, but I did feel as if 't would be a shame. I—”