A Little Girl in Old Salem Part 25

"I'll go for the doctor. I think the end has come."

Dr. Prescott said the same thing, adding with a slow turn of the head, "She will not last long."

What should he do with Cynthia? He remembered how careful her father had been to s.h.i.+eld her. She must not see Elizabeth, she must not confront death in this awesome fas.h.i.+on.

When they came to breakfast he said:

"Cynthia, wouldn't you like to go in to Boston with me this morning?"

"Oh, it would be splendid!" She clapped her hands in delight.

"Well, Rachel must get you ready. We will take the stage. It goes early now."

Of course, she was full of excitement. It had been planned as one of the month's outings, but to take it as the first! Cousin Chilian was always thinking up such nice things.

"Oh," she cried, tying the big Leghorn hat down, making a great bow under her chin, "I must get my flowers for Cousin Elizabeth."

When she came in she would have flown upstairs, but Rachel stopped her.

"Miss Elizabeth is asleep. She had a bad spell in the night and the doctor doesn't want her disturbed. I'll take them."

"Oh!" She looked disappointed. "Tell her good-bye and that I was sorry not to come in and say it. And give her the flowers. I hope she will be better to-night."

What a great thing it was to go off in the stage! It was a fine morning with an easterly breeze. To be sure, the roads were dusty, but travellers were not so dainty in those days. Cynthia had a dust cloak of some thin material that s.h.i.+elded her white frock. There were three men and two women. They sat on the middle seat, two of the men on front with the driver, the other back with the ladies. Presently the driver blew a long toot on his horn and they came to a little town with a tavern, as they were called then, at its very entrance.

Two of the pa.s.sengers left, one came in. The horses had a drink and on they went over hill and dale, through great farms, where there were not more than two or three houses in sight. The stage stopped for a man who gave a loud halloo, and he climbed in. Then the horn gave another loud signal.

So it went on. Some places were very pretty, great fields of corn waving in the suns.h.i.+ne, potatoes, stubble where grain had been cut, stretches of woodland, high, rather rough hills, then towns again. The sun went under a cloud, which made it pleasanter. The pa.s.sengers changed now and then. One woman told her next neighbor "she was goin' in to Boston to shop, because things were cheaper now. She always went after the rush was over. There were cambrics, she heard, for one and ninepence, and cotton cloth home-made was so much cheaper than the imported, but you had to bleach it. And little traps that you couldn't get at a country store."

Cynthia was tired and sleepy when they reached their journey's end, which was Marlborough Street, where Cousin Giles had an office.

"Well! well! well!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in surprise. "Why, Miss Cynthia Leverett, I'm glad to see you. Have you come to town to shop?"

Chilian made a little sign. "She has a whole month's vacation and we are going to fill it up with journeys, taking Boston first."

"That's right. We shall have lots to show her. You'll hardly want to go back to Salem. It was a long warm ride, wasn't it? Chilian, take off her hat. Don't you want a drink?"

"I am thirsty," she admitted.

He fixed a gla.s.s of lemonade, and lemons were dear at that period--scarce, too. While she was sipping it, being refreshed in every pulse, the two men went down to the end of the room for a talk.

"She's dreadfully disfigured," Chilian said in a low tone. "And Elizabeth wasn't a bad-looking woman. The doctor thinks she can't live but a few days, her body is growing cold rapidly. I'd like to have the child out of it all. Death is a great shock and very mysterious to a child."

"Oh, I'll be glad to keep her, if she will stay content. I wish you could have brought that woman with you. Poor Elizabeth! How Eunice will miss her. Chilian, you've been like a son to those women. Women ought to marry and have children of their own, but children are not always kind.

Yes. After you're rested we'll go home. I'm going to change my office, get nearer to the business centre, only this is so pleasant with a nice outlook."

"You ought to retire."

"Oh, what would I do? Like that Roman fellow, buy a farm? I don't know a bit about farming and don't want to. There's so much going on here."

Presently they returned to the little girl, who was quite refreshed, and then they went out, as it would be dinner-time presently. Cousin Giles lived in Cambridge Street in quite an imposing row, though it had no such s.p.a.cious grounds as at Salem.

An immaculate black man opened the door and took the men's hats. "Ask Mrs. Stevens to come down," Cousin Giles said.

Mrs. Stevens seemed a great lady. Eudora Castleton's mother was like this, always looking as if she was dressed for a party. She had a pretty silk gown, with some ruffles about the bottom, short enough to show her clocked silk stockings. The waist was short also, the square neck filled in with lace, and great balloon sleeves--so large at the top they came almost up to her ears.

"This is the little girl who came from India, that I told you about, and who is going to be a great lady some day. When she gets older we'll have to have her down here to Boston, and give b.a.l.l.s and parties for her, and pick out a fine lover for her; hey, Cynthia?"

Cynthia turned scarlet.

"I think you must be warm and tired with the long stage ride; wouldn't you like to come upstairs with me?"

Cynthia rose as Cousin Chilian looked approval, and followed up the stairway, where her feet sank in the carpet. There were several rooms, with the air blowing through delightfully, and there was fragrance everywhere from vases of flowers.

Mrs. Stevens took off her hat and inspected her. She was going to be a big heiress and a pretty girl in the bargain, piquant with a slightly foreign look, though perhaps it was more in her manner.

"Susan," she called to a girl sewing in the next room, "come and wash this little visitor's hands and face. She has come all the way from Salem this morning. I wish we had a fresh frock for you, but we have no little girls."

The voice was so soft and charming that Cynthia looked up with a kind of admiring smile.

Susan took off her frock, bathed her face and hands with some perfumed water, brushed out her hair, and said, "What lovely hair you have, and so much of it. A queen might envy you!"

The idea of a queen wanting anything she had! Oh, how nice and refreshed she felt.

Susan shook out the frock and put it on again, pulled out the sleeves, smoothed the wrinkled skirt, and took her in the next room.

"It rests one so much. Are you hungry? We shall have dinner in half an hour."

"Oh, no," Cynthia said. "And--and I am very much obliged to Susan."

"Come and sit here. Tell me how the aunties are--the one with the broken limb."

"I think she isn't so well. Yesterday she was so much improved. The doctor was there this morning."

"Poor lady! She has been ill a long while. And you are quite at home in Salem, I suppose? You had a long journey. Did you like India?"

"Father was there;" with a sweet, attractive simplicity. "And some of it was very beautiful. Oh, I almost froze the first winter here, but last winter I didn't mind. And the sleigh-riding was splendid."

"Are there many little girls to be friends with?"

"Oh, I go to a nice school. And we have so many funny plays and dancing once a week. I didn't tease about it, though I wanted to go, and Cousin Chilian said I might. It's queer, but in India they come and dance for you, and you pay them. But it is lovely to do it for yourself;" and she made some graceful motions with her hands, while her beautiful eyes were alight with emotion, as if she heard the music.

"Did you ever want to go back?"

"At first. But when I heard that father had gone away, he had meant to come to Salem, but----" she made a pause, "mother was there in India.

Only the bodies, you know, the other part that thinks and feels is in heaven. He wanted mother so much. He used to talk about her. And now I am going to live in Salem with Cousin Chilian all my life long."

How simply sweet she was, with no self-consciousness.