Quaint Courtships Part 12

"I thought at first I wouldn't," her mother continued, pitilessly, "but I see to-night how things are goin'."

"What do you mean by that, mother?"

"I see that you are fool enough to get to likin' a man that has got the gift of the gab, and that you think is good-lookin', and that wears clothes made in the city, better than a good honest feller that we have all known about ever since he was born, and that ain't got no outlandish blood in him, neither."

"Mother!"

"You needn't say mother that way. I ain't a fool, if I haven't been to school like some folks, and I see the way you two looked at each other to-night right before that poor man that has been comin' here steady and means honorable."

"n.o.body asked or wanted him to come," said Sarah.

"Maybe you'll change your mind when you hear what I've got to tell you.

And I'm goin' to tell you. _Hyacinthus Ware has got a woman livin' over there in that house._" Sarah turned ghastly pale, but she spoke firmly.

"You mean he is married?" she said.

"I dun'no' whether he is married or not, but there is a woman livin'

there."

"I don't believe a word of it."

"It don't make no odds whether you believe it or not, she's there."

"I don't believe it."

"She's been seed."

"Who has seen her."

"Abby Jane Ketchum herself, when she went round to the back door day before yesterday afternoon to ask if Mr. Ware would buy some of her soap. You know she's sellin' soap to get a prize."

"Where was the woman?"

"She was sittin' on the back porch with Mr. Ware, and she up and run when she see Abby Jane, and Mr. Ware turned as white as a sheet, and he bought all the soap Abby Jane had left to git out of it, so she's got enough to get a sideboard for a prize. And Abby Jane she kept her eyes open and she see a blind close in the southwest chamber, and that's where the woman sleeps."

"What kind of a looking woman was she?" asked Sarah, in a strange voice.

"As handsome as a picture, Abby Jane said, and she had on an awful stylish dress. Now if you want to have men like that comin' here to see you, and want to make more of them than you do of a man that you know is all right and is good and honest, you can."

There was something about the girl's face, as she turned away without a word, that smote her mother's heart. "I felt as if I had to tell you, Sarah," she said, in a voice which was suddenly changed to pity and apology.

"You did perfectly right to tell me, mother," said Sarah. When at last she got in her little bedroom she scarcely knew her own face in the gla.s.s. Hyacinthus Ware had kissed that face the night before, and ever since the memory of it had seemed like a lamp in her heart. She had met him when she was coming home from the post-office after dark, and he had kissed her at the gate and told her he loved her, and she expected, of course, to marry him. Even now she could not bring herself to entirely doubt him. "Suppose there is a woman there," she said to herself, "what does it prove?" But she felt in her inmost heart that it did prove a good deal.

She remembered just how Hyacinthus looked when he spoke to her; there had been something almost childlike in his face. She could not believe, and yet in the face of all this evidence! If there was a woman living in the house with him, why had he kept it secret? Suddenly it occurred to her that she could go over in the garden and see for herself. It was a bright moonlight night and not yet late. If the woman was there, if she inhabited the southwest chamber, there might be some sign of her. Sarah placed her lamp on her bureau, gathered her skirts around her, and ran swiftly out into the night. She hurried stealthily through the garden.

The lilies were gone, but there was still a strong breath of sweetness, a bouquet, as it were, of mignonette and verbena and sweet thyme and other fragrant blossoms, and the hollyhocks still bloomed. She went very carefully when she reached the last enclosure of box; she peeped through the tall file of hollyhocks, and there was Hyacinthus on the porch and there was a woman beside him. In fact, the woman was sitting in the old chair and Hyacinthus was at her feet, on the step, with his head in her lap. The moon shone on them; they looked as if they were carved with marble.

Sarah never knew how she got home, but she was back there in her little room and n.o.body knew that she had been in the Ware garden except herself. The next morning she had a talk with her mother. "Mother," said she, "if Mr. John Mangam wants to marry me why doesn't he say so?" She was fairly brutal in her manner of putting the question. She did not change color in the least. She was very pale that morning, and she stood more like her mother and her great-grandmother than herself.

Mrs. Lynn looked at her, and she was almost shocked. "Why, Sarah Lynn!"

she gasped.

"I mean just what I say," said Sarah, firmly. "I want to know. John Mangam has been coming here steadily for nearly two years, and he never even says a word, much less asks me to marry him. Does he expect me to do it?"

"I suppose he thinks you might at least meet him half-way," said her mother, confusedly.

That afternoon she went over to Mrs. Wilford Biggs's, and the next night, it being John Mangam's night to call, Mrs. Biggs waylaid him as he was just about to cross the street to the Lynn house.

After a short conversation Mrs. Biggs and her brother crossed the street together, and it was not long before Mrs. Lynn asked Mrs. Biggs and the old grandmother, who had also come over, to go in the house and see her new black silk dress. Then it was that John Mangam mumbled something inarticulate, which Sarah translated into an offer of marriage. "Very well, I will marry you if you want me to, Mr. Mangam," she said. "I don't love you at all, but if you don't mind about that--"

John Mangam said nothing at all.

"If you don't mind that, I will marry you," said Sarah, and n.o.body would have known her voice. It was a voice to be ashamed of, full of despair and shame and pride, so wronged and mangled that her very spirit seemed violated. John Mangam said nothing then. She and the man sat there quite still, when Hyacinthus came stepping over the hedge.

Sarah found a voice when she saw him. She turned to him. "Good evening, Mr. Ware," she said, clearly. "I would like to announce my engagement to Mr. Mangam."

Hyacinthus stood staring at her. Sarah repeated her announcement. Then Hyacinthus Ware disregarded John Mangam as much as if he had been a post of the white fence that enclosed the Lynn yard. "What does it mean?" he cried.

"You have no right to ask," said she, also disregarding John Mangam, who sat perfectly still in his chair.

"No right to ask after--Sarah, what do you mean? Why have I no right to ask, after what we told each other?--and I intended to see your mother to-night. I only waited because--"

"Because you had a guest in the house," said Sarah, in a cold, low voice. Then John Mangam looked up with some show of animation. He had heard the gossip.

Hyacinthus looked at her a moment, speechless, then he left her without another word and went home across the hedge.

It was soon told in Adams that Sarah Lynn and John Mangam were to be married. Everybody agreed that it was a good match and that Sarah was a lucky girl. She went on with her wedding preparations. John Mangam came as usual and sat silently. Sometimes when Sarah looked at him and reflected that she would have to pa.s.s her life with this automaton a sort of madness seized her.

Hyacinthus she almost never saw. Once in a great while she met him on the street, and he bowed, raising his hat silently. He never made the slightest attempt at explanation.

One night, after supper, Sarah and her mother sat on the front door-step, and by and by the old grandmother came across the fields, and Mrs. Wilford Biggs across the street, and Mr. John Mangam from his own house farther down. He looked preoccupied and worried that night, and while he was as silent as ever, yet his silence had the effect of speech.

They sat in their customary places: Mrs. Lynn and Mrs. Biggs in the chairs on the broad step-stone, Sarah and the old woman on the step, and Mr. John Mangam in his chair on the gravel path,--when a strange lady came stepping across the hedge from the Ware garden. She was not so very young, although she was undeniably very handsome, and her clothes were of a fas.h.i.+on never seen in Adams. She went straight up to the group on the door-step, and although she had too much poise of manner to appear agitated, it was evident that she was very eager and very much in earnest. Mrs. Lynn half arose, with an idea of giving her a chair, but there was no time, the lady began talking so at once.

"You are Miss Sarah Lynn, are you not?" she asked of Sarah, and she did not wait for a reply, "and you are going to be married to him?" and there was an unmistakable emphasis of scorn.

"I have just returned," said the lady; "I have not been in the house half an hour, and my father told me. You do not know, but the gentleman who has lived so long in the Ware house, the caretaker, is my father, and--and my mother was Hyacinthus's mother; her second marriage was secret, and he would never tell. My father and my mother were cousins.

Hyacinthus never told." She turned to Sarah. "He would not even tell you, when he knew that you must have seen or heard something that made you believe otherwise, because--because of our mother. No, he would not even tell you."

She spoke again with a great impetuosity which made her seem very young, although she was not so very young. "I have been kept away all my life,"

she said, "all my life from here, that the memory of our mother should not suffer, and now I come to tell, myself, and you will marry my brother, whom you must love better than that gentleman. You must. Will you not? Tell me that you will," said she, "for Hyacinthus is breaking his heart, and he loves you."

Before anything further could be said John Mangam rose, and walked rapidly down the gravel walk out of the yard and down the street.

Sarah felt dizzy. She bent lower as she sat and held her head in her two hands, and the strange lady came on the other side of her, and she was enveloped in a fragrance of some foreign perfume.

"My brother has been almost mad," she whispered in her ear, "and I have just found out what the trouble was. He would not tell on account of our mother, but poor mother is dead and gone."

Then the old woman on the other side raised her voice unexpectedly, and she spoke to her granddaughter, Mrs. Lynn. "You are a fool," said she, "if you wouldn't rather hev Serrah merry a man like Hyacinthus Ware, with all his money and livin' in the biggest house in Adams, than a man like John Mangam, who sets an' sets an' sets the hull evenin' and never opens his mouth to say boo to a goose, and beside bein' threatened with a suit for breach."

"I don't care who she marries, as long as she is happy," said Sarah's mother.