Dr. Lavendar's People Part 13

No wonder we who are poor, or even we who work hard at philanthropy or art or responsibility to manufacture our little interests--no wonder we envy such sky-blue natures. Certainly there were persons in Old Chester who envied Miss Lydia; at least, they envied her her unfailing joyousness--but they never envied her her empty purse. Which was like envying a rose its color, but despising the earth from which by some divine chemistry the color came.

Miss Lydia's eyes might smart from the smoke puffing out into her room, but she was able to laugh at the sight of her bleared visage in the narrow mirror over the mantel. Nor did the fact that the mirror was mottled and misty with age, the frame tarnished almost to blackness, cause her the slightest pang. What difference does it make in this world of life and death and joy and sorrow, if things are shabby? The fact is, the secret of happiness is the _sense of proportion_; eliminate, by means of that sense, trouble about the unimportant, and we would all be considerably happier than kings. Miss Lydia possessed this heaven-born sense, as well as the boundless wealth of interest (for to him that hath shall be given). "I don't want to brag," she used to say, "but I've got my health and my friends; so what on earth more do I want?" And one hesitated to point out a little thing like a shabby mirror, or even a smoky chimney. When the chimney smoked, Miss Lydia merely took her rocking-chair and her sewing out into a small room that served as a kitchen--and then what difference did the smoking make?

And as it turned out, one shadowy April day, it was the best thing she could have done, because, when Dr. Lavendar dropped in to see her, she could make him a cup of tea at once, without having to leave him alone.

She was a little, bustling figure, rather dusty and moth-eaten, with a black frizette, always a little to one side, and eager, gentle, blue eyes.

"What's the news?" she said. She had given Dr. Lavendar an apple, and put on the kettle, and taken up her hemming.

"I never saw anybody so fond of sewing," the old man ruminated, eating his apple. "I believe you'd sew in your grave."

"I believe I would. Dear me! I am so sorry for the poor women who don't like to sew. Amelia Dilworth told me that Mrs. Neddy can't bear to take a needle in her hand. So Milly does Ned's mending just as she did before he was married."

"Aren't you sorry for the poor men that don't like to sew?" Dr.

Lavendar said, looking about for a place to deposit his core--("Oh, drop it on the floor; I'll sweep it up sometime," Miss Lydia told him; but he disposed of it by eating it).

"Well, as for sewing," said Miss Lydia, "it's my greatest pleasure.

Why, when I get settled down to sew, my mind roves over the whole earth. I don't want to brag, but I don't believe anybody enjoys herself more than I do when I'm sewing. If you won't tell, I'll tell you something, Dr. Lavendar."

"I won't tell."

"Well, then: Sunday used to be an awful day to me. I couldn't sew, and so I couldn't think. And I really couldn't go to church all day. So I just bought some beautiful, fine nainsook and cut out my shroud. And I work on that Sundays, because a shroud induces serious thoughts."

"I should think it might," said Dr. Lavendar.

"You don't think it's wrong, do you?" she asked, anxiously; and added, joyously, "I'm embroidering the whole front. I declare I don't know what I'll do when I get it done."

"Embroider the whole back."

"Well, yes. I can do that," Miss Lydia a.s.sented. "There! there's your tea."

Dr. Lavendar took his tea and stirred it thoughtfully. "Miss Lydia,"

he said, and looked hard at the tea, "what do you suppose? Mr. William Rives--" Dr. Lavendar stopped and drank some tea. "How many years ago was it that he went away from Old Chester? I don't exactly remember."

"It was thirty-one years ago," she said; she put down her own cup of tea and stared at him. "What were you going to say about him, sir?"

"Well, only," said Dr. Lavendar, sc.r.a.ping the sugar from the bottom of his cup, "only that--"

"There! my goodness! I'll give you another lump," cried Miss Lydia; "don't wear my spoon out. What about him, sir?"

Dr. Lavendar explained that he had come back on the stage from Mercer the night before with a strange gentleman--"stout man," Dr. Lavendar said, "with a black wig. I was rooting about in my pocket-book for a stamp--I wanted to post a letter just as we were leaving Mercer; and this gentleman very politely offered me one. I took it. Then I looked at him, and there was something familiar about him. I asked him if we had not met before, and he told me who he was. He has changed a good deal."

Miss Lydia drank her tea excitedly. "Where is he going to stay? Is he well? Has he come back rich?" She hoped so. William was so industrious, he deserved to be rich. She ran into the smoky front room and brought out his picture, regarding it with affectionate interest.

"Did you know I was engaged to him, years ago, Dr. Lavendar? We thought it best to part. But--" She stopped and looked at the picture, and a little color came into her face. But in another moment she was chattering her birdlike questions.

"I declare," Dr. Lavendar said, at last, "you are the youngest person of my acquaintance."

Miss Lydia laughed. "I hope you don't think it's wrong to be young?"

she said.

"Wrong?" said Dr. Lavendar; "it's wrong not to be young. I'd be ashamed not to be young. My body's old, but that's not my fault. I'm not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul.

An old soul is a shameful thing. Mind, now, don't let me catch you getting old!"

And then he said good-bye, and left her sitting by the stove. She turned her skirt back over her knees to keep it from scorching and held the picture in her left hand and warmed the palm of the right; then in her right hand and warmed the left. Then she put it down on her knees and warmed both hands and smiled.

II

When Mrs. Barkley heard the news of the wanderer's return, she hurried to Dr. Lavendar's study. "Do you suppose we need go on with the present?" she demanded, excitedly.

"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar.

Mrs. Barkley looked conscious. "I only thought, perhaps--maybe--Mr.

Rives--"

"William Rives's presence in Old Chester won't improve draughts, will it?" Dr. Lavendar said, crossly. And that was all she could get out of him.

Meantime, Old Chester began to kill the fatted calf. Mr. Rives liked fatted calves; and, furthermore, he had prudently arranged with Van Horne at the Tavern for a cash credit for each meal at which he was not present. "For why," he had said, reasonably enough, "should I pay for what I don't get?" So he went cheerfully wherever he was bidden. Old Chester approved of him as a guest, for, though talkative, he was respectful in his demeanor, and he did not, so Old Chester said, "put on airs." He was very stout, and he wore a black wig that curled all around the back of his neck; his eyes were somewhat dull, but occasionally they glanced out keenly over his fat cheeks. He had a very small mouth and a slight, perpetual smile that gave his face a rather kindly look, and his voice was mild and soft.

He had come back rich (his shabby clothes to the contrary); "and poor Lydia is so poor," said Old Chester; "perhaps--" and then it paused and smiled, and added that "it would be strange, after all these years, _if_--"

When somebody said something like this to Dr. Lavendar he grew very cross. "Preposterous!" he said. "I should feel it my duty to prevent anything so dreadful."

And there were romantic hearts in Old Chester who were displeased with him for this remark. Mrs. Drayton said it showed that he could not understand love; "though he can't be blamed for that, as he never married. Still," said Mrs. Drayton, "he ought to have married. I don't want to make any accusations, _but I always look with suspicion on an unmarried gentleman_." Mrs. Barkley did not go as far as that, but she did say to herself that Dr. Lavendar was unromantic. "Dear me!" she confided to Jane Jay--"if anything _should_ happen! Well, I'd be glad to do anything I could to bring it about."

And Mrs. Barkley, who had not only the courage but the audacity of her convictions, invited the parted lovers to tea, so they met for the first time at her house. Mrs. Barkley was the last person one would accuse of being romantic, and yet Dr. Lavendar saw fit to stop at her door that morning and say, "Matches are dangerous playthings, ma'am!"

and Mrs. Barkley grew very red, and said that she couldn't imagine what he meant.

However, the party went off well enough. Miss Jane Jay, who made a conscious fourth, expected some quiverings and blus.h.i.+ngs; but that was because she was young--comparatively. If she had been older she would have known better. Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the contemplation of certain embarra.s.sing heavenly reunions--where explanations of consolation must be made.... Thirty-one years of days, days full of personal concerns and interests, had blurred and softened and finally almost blotted out that one fierce day of angry parting; those thirty-one years of days had made this man and woman able to meet with a sort of calm, good-natured interest in each other. Miss Lydia--her black frizette over one smiling eye, her hands encased in white cotton gloves, a new ribbon at the throat of her very old alpaca--called him "William," with the most commonplace friendliness.

He began with "Miss Sampson," but ended before supper was over with her first name, and even, once, just as they were going home, with "Lydy,"

at which she did start and blink for an instant, and Jane Jay thought a faint color came into her cheek. However, he did not offer to walk home with her, but bowed politely at Mrs. Barkley's gate, and would have betaken himself to the Tavern had not Mrs. Barkley, when he was half-way across the street, called after him. There was a flutter of uncertainty in her voice, for those words of Dr. Lavendar's (which she did not understand) "stuck," she said to herself, "in her crop." Mr.

Rives came back and paused in the moonlight, looking up at Mrs. Barkley standing in the doorway. "I should be pleased, sir," she said, "to have a few words with you."

"Certainly, ma'am," said Mr. Rives, in his soft voice, and followed her into the parlor.

"Sit down," said Mrs. Barkley.

William Rives sat down thoughtfully. A tall lamp on the heavy, claw-footed table emitted a feeble light through its ground-gla.s.s globe, and Mrs. Barkley stared at it a moment, as though for inspiration; then she said, in a deep ba.s.s: "Mr. Rives, I thought you might be interested in a certain little project. Some of us have thought that we would collect--a--a small sum--"

Mr. Rives bowed; his smiling lips suddenly shut tight.

"Perhaps you have not heard that our old friend Lydia Sampson is in reduced circ.u.mstances; and some of us thought that a small present of money--

"Ah--" said Mr. Rives.

Mrs. Barkley felt the color come up into her face at that small, cold sound. "Lydia is very poor," she blurted out.

"Really?" murmured Mr. Rives, with embarra.s.sment; and fell to stroking his beaver hat carefully. Then he added that he deeply regretted Mrs.