Virginia Part 19

We got here this morning after a dreadful trip--nine or ten hours late--and this is the first minute I've had when I could sit down and write to you. All the way on the train I was thinking of you and dear father, and longing for you so that I could hardly keep back the tears.

I don't see how I can possibly stay away from you for a whole year.

Oliver says he wants to take me home for Christmas if everything goes all right with us here and his work proves satisfactory to the manager.

Oh, mother, he is the loveliest thing to me! I don't believe he has thought of himself a single minute since I married him. He says the only wish he has on earth is to make me happy--and he is so careful about me that I'm afraid I'll be spoiled to death before you see me again. He says he loves the little grey dress of shot silk, with the bonnet that makes me look like a Quaker. I wish now I'd got my other hat the bonnet shape as you wanted me to do--but perhaps, after all, it will be more useful and keep in fas.h.i.+on longer as it is. When I took out my clothes this morning, while Oliver was downstairs, and remembered how you had folded and packed everything, I just sat down on the floor in the midst of them and had a good cry. I never realized how much I loved you until I got into the carriage to come away. Then I wanted to jump out and put my arms around you and tell you that you are the best and dearest mother a girl ever had. My things were so beautifully packed that there wasn't a single crease anywhere--not even in the black silk polonaise that we were so afraid would get rumpled. I don't see how on earth you folded them so smoothly. By the way, I hardly think I shall have any need of my wedding dress while I am here, so you may as well put it away at home until I come back. This place seems to be just a mining town, with very few people of our cla.s.s, and those all connected with the railroad. Of course, I may be mistaken, but from my first impressions I doubt if I'll ever want to have much to do with anybody that I've seen. It doesn't make a bit of difference, of course, because I shan't be lonesome a minute with the house to look after and Oliver's clothes to attend to; and, besides, I don't think a married woman ought to make many new friends. Her husband ought to be enough for her. Mrs. Payson, the manager's wife, was here to welcome me, but I hope I shan't see very much of her, because she isn't just exactly what I should call ladylike.

Of course I wouldn't breathe this to any other living soul, but I thought her entirely too free and easy in her manner, and she dresses in such very bright colours. Why, she had a red feather in her hat, and she must have been married at least fifteen years. Oliver says he doesn't believe she's a day under forty-five. He says he likes her well enough and thinks she's a good sort, but he is awfully glad that I'm not that kind of woman. I feel sorry for her husband, for I'm sure no man wants his wife to make herself conspicuous, and they say she even makes speeches when she is in the North. Maybe she isn't to blame, because she was brought up that way, but I am going to see just as little of her as I can.

And now I must tell you about our house, for I know you are dying to hear how we are fixed. It's the tiniest one you ever imagined, with a front yard the size of a pocket handkerchief, and it is painted the most perfectly hideous shade of yellow--the shade father always calls bilious. I can't understand why they made it so ugly, but, then, the whole town is just as ugly as our house is. The people here don't seem to have the least bit of taste. All the porches have dreadful brown ornaments along the top of them, and they look exactly as if they were made out of gingerbread. There are very few gardens, and n.o.body takes any care of these. I suppose one reason is that it is almost impossible to get servants for love or money. There are hardly any darkies here, they say, and the few they have are perfectly worthless. Mrs.

Midden--the woman who opened my house for me--hasn't been able to get me a cook, and we'll either have to take our meals at a boarding-house across the street, or I shall have to put to practise the lessons you gave me. I am so glad you made me learn how to housekeep and to cook, because I am certain that I shall have greater need of both of these accomplishments than of either drawing or music. Oliver was simply horrified when I told him so. He said he'd rather starve than see me in the kitchen, and he urged me to get you to send us a servant from Dinwiddie--but things are so terribly costly here--you never dreamed of such prices--that I really don't believe we can afford to have one come.

Then, Mrs. Midden says that they get ruined just as soon as they are brought here. Everybody tries it at first, she told me, and it has always proved a disappointment in the end. I am perfectly sure that I shan't mind cooking at all--and as for cleaning up this little house--why, it won't take me an hour--but Oliver almost weeps every time I mention it. He is afraid every instant he is away from me that I am lonesome or something has happened to me, and whenever he has ten minutes free he runs up here to see what I am doing. Do you know he has made me promise not to go out by myself until I am used to the place.

Isn't that too absurd?

Dearest mother, I must stop now, and write some notes of thanks for my presents. The barrels of china haven't come yet, but the silver box got here almost as soon as we did. Freight takes a long time, Oliver says.

It will be such fun unpacking all my presents and putting them away on the shelves. I was so excited those last few days that I hardly paid any attention to the things that came. Now I shall have time really to enjoy them, and to realize how sweet and lovely everybody has been to me.

Wasn't it too dear of Miss Priscilla to give me that beautiful tea-set?

And I was so touched by poor little Miss w.i.l.l.y spending her hard-earned money on that vase. I wish she hadn't. It makes me feel badly to think of it--but I don't see what I could do about it, do you? I think I'll try to send her a cloak or something at Christmas.

I haven't said half that I want to--but I shall keep the rest for to-morrow.

With a dozen kisses and my dearest love to father, Your ever, ever loving and grateful daughter, VIRGINIA

MATOACA CITY. December 25, 1884.

DEAREST MOTHER:

It almost broke my heart not to be able to go home for Christmas. It doesn't seem like Christmas at all away from you--though, of course, I try not to let Oliver see how I mind it. He has so much to bother him, poor dear, that I keep all of my worries, big and little, in the background. When anything goes wrong in the house I never tell him, because he has so many important things on his mind that I don't think I ought to trouble him about small ones. We have given up going to the boarding-house for our meals, because neither of us could eat a morsel of the food they had there--did you ever hear of such a thing as having pie and preserves for breakfast?--and Oliver says it used to make him sick to see me in the midst of all of those people. They came from all over the country, and hardly anybody could speak a grammatical sentence.

The man who sat next to me always said "he don't" and "I ain't feeling good to-day" and once even "I done it"--can you imagine such a thing?

Every other word was "guess," and yet they had the impertinence to laugh at me when I said "reckon," which, I am sure father told me was Shakespearian English. Well, we stood it as long as we could, and then we started having our meals here, and it is so much nicer. Oliver says the change from the boarding-house has given him a splendid appet.i.te, and he enjoys everything that I make so much--particularly the waffles by Aunt Ailsey's recipe. Be sure to tell her. At first I had a servant, but she was so dreadful that I let her go at the end of the month, and I really get on ever so much better without her. She hadn't the faintest idea how to cook, and had never made a piece of light bread in her life.

Besides, she was too untidy for anything, and actually swept the trash under the bed except once a week when she pretended to give a thorough cleaning. The first time she changed the sheets, I found that she had simply put on one fresh one, and was going to use the bottom one on top.

She said she'd never heard of doing it any other way, and I had to laugh when I thought of how your face would have looked if you could have heard her. It really is the greatest relief to get rid of her, and I'd a hundred times rather do the work myself than have another of that kind.

At first Oliver hated dreadfully to have me do everything about the house, but he is beginning to get used to it now, because, of course, I never let him see if anything happens to worry me or if I am tired when he comes home. It takes every minute of my time, but, then, there is nothing else here that I care to do, and I never leave the house except to take a little walk with Oliver on Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Midden says that I make a mistake to give a spring cleaning every day, but I love to keep the house looking perfectly spick and span, and I make hot bread twice a day, because Oliver is so fond of it. He is just as sweet and dear as he can be and wants to help about everything, but I hate to see him doing housework. Somehow it doesn't seem to me to look manly. We have had our first quarrel about who is to get up and make the fires in the morning. Oliver insisted that he was to do it, but I wake so much earlier than he does, because I've got the bread on my mind, that I almost always have the wood burning before he gets up. The first few times he was really angry about it, and he didn't seem to understand why I hated so to wake him. He says he hates still worse to see my hands get rough--but I am so thankful that I am not one of those girls (like Abby Goode) who are forever thinking of how they look. But Oliver made such a fuss about the fires that I didn't tell him that I went down to the cellar one morning and brought up a basket of coal. The boy didn't come the day before, so there wasn't any to start the kitchen fire with, and I knew that by the time Oliver got up and dressed it would be too late to have hot rolls for breakfast. By the way, could you have a bushel of cornmeal sent to me from Dinwiddie? The kind they have here isn't the least bit like the water-ground sort we have at home, and most of it is yellow. n.o.body ever has batterbread here. All the food is different from ours. I suppose that is because most of the people are from the North and West.

I have the table all set for our Christmas dinner, and in a few minutes I must put the turkey into the oven. I was so glad to get the plum pudding in the Christmas box, because I could never have made one half so good as yours, and the fruit cake will last me forever--it is so big.

I wrote you about the box yesterday just as soon as it came, but after I had sent my letter, I went back to it and found that rose point scarf of grandmother's wrapped in tissue paper in the bottom. Darling mother, it made me cry. You oughtn't to have given it to me. It always looked so lovely on your black silk, and it was almost the last thing you had left. I don't believe I shall ever make up my mind to wear it. I have on my little grey silk to-day, and it looks so nice. You must tell Miss w.i.l.l.y that it has been very much admired. Mrs. Payson asked me if it was made in Dinwiddie, and, you know, she gets all of her clothes from New York. That must have been why I thought her over-dressed when I first saw her. By the way, I've almost changed my mind about her since I wrote you what I thought of her. I believe now that the whole trouble with her is simply that she isn't a Southern lady. She means well, I am sure, but she isn't what I should call exactly refined. There's something "horsey"

about her--I can't think of any other way to express it--something that reminds me just a little bit of Abby--and, you remember, we always said Abby got that from being educated in the North. Tell dearest Susan I really think it is fortunate that she did not go to one of their colleges. Mrs. Payson is a college woman and it seems to me that she is always trying to appear as clever as a man. She talks in a way sometimes that sounds as if she believed in woman's rights and all that sort of thing. I told Oliver about it, and he laughed and said that men hated talk like that. He says all a man admires in a woman is her power of loving, and that when she begins to ape a man she loses her charm for him. I can't understand why Mr. Payson married his wife. He said such nice things to me the other day about my being so domestic and such a home lover, that I really felt sorry for him. When I told him that I was so fond of staying indoors that I would never cross my threshold if Oliver didn't make me, he laughed and said that he wished I'd convert his wife to my way of thinking. Yet he seems to have the greatest admiration for her, and, do you know, I believe he even admires that red feather, though he doesn't approve of it. He never turns his eyes away from her when they are together, which isn't very much, as she goes about just as she pleases without him. Can you understand how a person can both admire and disapprove of a thing? Oliver says he knows how it is, but I must say that I don't. I hope and pray that our marriage will always be different from theirs. Oliver and I are never apart for a single minute except when he is at work in the office. He hasn't written a line since we came here, but he is going to begin as soon as we get settled, and then he says that I may sit in the room and sew if I want to. I can't believe that people really love each other unless they want to be together every instant, no matter what they are doing. Why, if Oliver went out to men's dinners without me as Mr. Payson does (though she doesn't seem to mind it) I should just sit at home by myself and cry my eyes out. I think love, if it is love, ought to be all in all. I am perfectly sure that if I live to be a hundred I shall never want any society but Oliver's. He is the whole world to me, and when he is not here I spend my time, unless I am at work, just sitting and thinking about him. My one idea is to make him as happy as I can, and when a woman does this for a man I don't think she has time to run around by herself as Mrs. Payson does. Tell dearest father that I so often think of his sermons and the beautiful things he said about women. The rector here doesn't compare with him as a preacher.

This is such a long letter it will take two stamps. I've just let myself run on without thinking what I was writing, so if I have made any mistakes in grammar or in spelling, please don't let father see them but read my letter aloud to him. I can shut my eyes and see you sitting at dinner, with Docia bringing in the plum pudding, and I know you will talk of me while you help to it. Write me who comes to dinner with you.

I wonder if Miss Priscilla and John Henry are there as usual. Do you know whether John Henry ever goes to the Treadwell's or not? I wish you would ask him to take Susan to see his old mammy in Pink Alley. Now that I am not there to go to see her occasionally, I am afraid she will get lonesome.

Good-bye, dearest mother. I will write to you before New Year. I am so busy that I don't have time to write every day, but you will understand and so will father.

With my heart's fondest love to you both, Your VIRGINIA.

MATOACA CITY. June 6, 1885.

DARLING MOTHER:

The little patterns were exactly what I wanted--thank you a thousand times. I knew you would be overjoyed at the news, and you are the only person I've breathed it to--except, of course, dear Oliver, who is frightened to death already. He has made me stop everything at once, and whenever he sees me lift my hand, he begins to get nervous and begs me not to do it. Oh, mother, he loves me so that it is really pathetic to see his anxiety. And--can you believe it--he doesn't appear to be the least bit glad about it. When I told him, he looked amazed--as if he had never thought of its happening--and said, "Oh, Virginia, not so soon!"

He told me afterwards that, of course, he'd always thought we'd have children after a while, before we were middle-aged, but that he had wanted to stay like this for at least five or ten years. When the baby comes, he says he supposes he'll like it, but that he can't honestly say he is glad. It's funny how frightened he is, because I am not the least bit so. All women must expect to have children when they marry, and if G.o.d makes them suffer for it, it must be because it is best that they should. Perhaps they wouldn't love their babies so much if they got them easily. I never think of the pain a minute. It all seems so beautiful and sacred to me that I can't understand why Oliver isn't enraptured just as I am. To think of a new life starting into the world from me--a life that is half mine and half Oliver's, and one that would never be at all except for our love. The baby will seem from the very first minute to be our love made into flesh. I don't see how a woman who feels this could waste a thought on what she has to suffer.

I am so glad you are going to send me a nurse from Dinwiddie, because I'm afraid I could never get one here that I could trust. The servant Oliver got me is no earthly account, and I still do as much of the cooking as I can. The house doesn't look nearly so nice as it used to, but the doctor tells me that I mustn't sweep, so I only do the light dusting. I sew almost all the time, and I've already finished the little slips. To-day I'm going to cut out the petticoats. I couldn't tell from the pattern you sent whether they fasten in front or in the back. There are no places for b.u.t.tonholes. Do you use safety pins to fasten them with? The embroidery is perfectly lovely, and will make the sweetest tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. I am using pink for the basket because Oliver and I both hope the baby will be a girl. If it is, I shall name her after you, of course, and I want her to be just exactly like you. Oliver says he can't understand why anybody ever wants a boy--girls are so much nicer. But then he insists that if she isn't born with blue eyes, he will send her to the orphanage.

I am trying to do just as you tell me to, and to be as careful as I possibly can. The doctor thinks I've stayed indoors too much since I came here, so I go out for a little walk with Oliver every night. I am so afraid that somebody will see me that I really hate to go out at all, and always choose the darkest streets I can find. Last night I had a bad stumble, and Oliver says he doesn't care if the whole town discovers us, he's not going to take me down any more unlighted alleys.

It has been terribly hot all day--not a breath of air stirring--and I never felt the heat so much in my life. The doctor says it's because of my condition--and last night, after Oliver went to sleep, I got up and sat by the window until daybreak. At first I was dreadfully frightened, and thought I was going to stifle--but poor Oliver had come home so tired that I made up my mind I wasn't going to wake him if I could possibly help it. This morning I didn't tell him a word about it, and he hasn't the least idea that I didn't sleep soundly all night. I suppose that's why I feel so dragged and worn out to-day, just as if somebody had given me a good beating. I was obliged to lie down most of the afternoon, but I am going to take a bath in a few minutes and try to make myself look nice and fresh before Oliver comes home. I have let out that flowered organdie--the one you liked so much--and I wear it almost every evening. I know I look dreadfully, but Oliver says I am more beautiful than ever. It seems to me sometimes that men are born blind where women are concerned, but perhaps G.o.d made it that way on purpose.

Do you know Oliver really admires Mrs. Payson, and he thinks that red feather very becoming to her. He says she's much too good for her husband, but I have been obliged to disagree with him about that. Even if Mr. Payson does drink a little, I am sure it is only because he gets lonesome when he is left by himself, and that she could prevent it if she tried. Oliver and I never talk about these things because he sees that I feel so strongly about them.

Oh, darling mother, I shall be so glad to see you! I hope and pray that father will be well enough for you to come a whole month ahead. In that case you will be here in less than two months, won't you? If the baby comes on the twelfth of August, she (I am perfectly sure it will be a girl) and father will have the same birthday. I am so anxious that she shall be born on that day.

Well, I must stop now, though I could run on forever. I never see a living soul from one day to another--Mrs. Payson is out of town--so when Oliver stays late at the office, and I am too tired to work, I get a little--just a little bit lonesome. Mr. Payson sent me a pile of novels by Oliver the other night--but I haven't looked into them. I always feel that it is a waste of time to read when there are things about the house that ought to be done. I wish everything didn't cost so much here. Money doesn't go half as far as it does in Dinwiddie. The price of meat is almost three times as much as it is at home, and chickens are so expensive that we have them only twice a week. It is hard to housekeep on a small allowance, and now that we have to save for the baby's coming, I have to count every penny. I have bought a little book like yours, and I put down all that I spend during the day, and then add it up at night before going to bed. Oliver says I'm dreadfully frugal, but I am always so terribly afraid of running over my allowance (which is every cent that we can afford) and not having the money to pay the doctor's bills when they are due. n.o.body could be more generous with money than Oliver is--I couldn't endure being married to a stingy man like Mr. Treadwell--and the other day when one of the men in the office died, he sent the most beautiful wreath that cost ten dollars. I am trying to save enough out of the housekeeping balance to pay for it, for Oliver always runs out of his pocket money before the middle of the month. I haven't bought anything for the baby because you sent me all the materials I needed, and I have been sewing on those ever since they came. Of course my own clothes are still as good as new, so the only expense will be the doctor and the nurse and the extra things I shall be obliged to have to eat when I am sick.

Give dear father a dozen kisses from me, and tell him to hurry and get well so he can christen his granddaughter.

Your devoted and ever grateful VIRGINIA.

MATOACA CITY. August 11, 1885.

DARLING MOTHER:

Just a line to say that I am so, so sorry you can't come, but that you mustn't worry a minute, because everything is going beautifully, and I am not the least bit afraid. The doctor says he never saw any one in a better frame of mind or so little nervous. Give my dear love to father.

I am so distressed that he should suffer as he does. Rheumatism must be such terrible pain, and I don't wonder that you are frightened lest it should go to his heart. I shall send you a telegram as soon as the baby comes.

Your devoted daughter, VIRGINIA.

MATOACA CITY. August 29, 1885.

MY PRECIOUS MOTHER:

This is the first time I have sat up in bed, and I am trying to write a little note to you on a pillow instead of a desk. My hand shakes so that I'm afraid you won't be able to read it, but I felt that I wanted to send you a few words of my very own, not dictated to the nurse or to Mrs. Payson. I can't tell you how perfectly lovely Mrs. Payson has been to me. She was here all that dreadful night, and I believe I should have died without her. The doctor said I had such a hard time because I'd let myself get run down and stayed indoors too much. But I'm getting all right now--and the rest is over and doesn't matter. As soon as I am strong again I shall be perfectly happy.

Oh, mother, aren't you delighted that the baby is a girl, after all? It was the first question I asked when I came back to consciousness the next morning, and when they told me it was, I said, "Her name is Lucy Pendleton," and that was all. I was so weak they wouldn't let me open my lips again, and Oliver was kept out of the room for almost ten days because I would talk to him. Poor fellow, it almost killed him. He is as white as a sheet still, and looks as if he had been through tortures. It must have been terrible for him, because I was really very, very ill at one time.

But it is all over now, and the baby is the sweetest thing you ever imagined. I believe she knows me already, and Mrs. Payson says she is exactly like me, though I can see the strongest resemblance to Oliver, even if she has blue eyes and he hasn't. Wasn't it lovely how everything came just as we wanted it to--a girl, born on father's birthday, with blue eyes, and named Lucy? But, mother, darling, the most wonderful thing of all was that you seemed to be with me all through it. The whole time I was unconscious I thought you were here, and the nurse tells me that I was calling "Mother! Mother!" all that night. Nothing ever made me feel as close to you as having a baby of my own. I never knew before what you were to me, and how dearly, dearly I love you.

The nurse is taking the pencil away from me.

Your loving VIRGINIA.

Isn't it funny that Oliver won't take any interest in the baby at all?

He says she caused more trouble than she is worth. Was father like that?

MATOACA CITY. April 3, 1886.

DEAREST MOTHER: