The Open Question Part 28

As if that were not the flimsiest reason for not repeating a stock tale, half of whose charm is its familiarity.

"Didn't cousin Ethan find Henri at the Tallmadges' when he got back?"

"Yes, after that summer he spent here." The old eyes were mild. "And although Henri was a couple of years older, the two boys set up a sort of David and Jonathan league. And when Henri's father sent for him to come back to France--they said--humph!"

The mildness vanished in a sudden blaze.

"What did they say?"

Again Mrs. Gano threw back her head.

"Ethan _had_ been coming here. We had his room all ready for him, and Valeria had bought pink wax-candles for his dressing-table--a most unnecessary extravagance for a boy, as I told her. And as for Jerusha, she wasted half her mornings brightening up Ethan's knocker on the front door, and the rest of the time she was making cinnamon rolls. And, after all--humph!" she said, with something rather near to a snort.

"Then those Tallmadges wrote, didn't they?" said Emmie, gently applying the spur.

"Ho, yes, the Tallmadges wrote. The children were heart-broken at the idea of separating, and so they had to let Ethan go to Neuilly with the De Poincy boy."

"To improve his accent!" added Emmie, with borrowed scorn.

"Oh yes; I admitted in my reply that Ethan's accent was no doubt again in need of improvement, but it had not been necessary to send him so far afield as France."

"How long did he stay?" asked Val.

"Three years. He came back the summer you were born. He was nearly ten."

"Well, it's a good thing he came back. He does look a gump in those French clo's--I mean"--Val caught herself up hurriedly, seeing how unpopular the observation was--"I mean, I like him best in proper American things. This last picture's scrumptious!"

After this, it was not only gran'ma and An' Jerusha who held the Fort in readiness for Ethan's coming, eager to capitulate at the first blow on the door; but two little girls as well, in their different ways, set their faces towards the day when E. Gano's big bra.s.s knocker should be lifted by E. Gano's own hand.

School had been postponed, partly because Mrs. Gano was too anxious about her son's health, and too absorbed in the task of convincing him indirectly that life was worth living, to take the necessary steps for entering her granddaughter in the Primary Department of the Plymouth Seminary for Young Ladies. But, besides this preoccupation, it was recognized that the fall term was already far advanced, and it might be as well--it was certainly more economical--to wait till after Christmas.

However, the growing discomfort and complication of having so objectionable a child about hastened the beginning of Val's school days.

With great misgiving, and full of suspicion, Val took her place at a little hacked and initialed desk in the down-stairs school one fine day towards the middle of November.

But we are forever being disappointed of our direst fears, as well as of our dearest hopes. She found that she soon got the "hang" of the lessons; that her next-door neighbor, Julia Otway, was the nicest girl in school, and very soon her "best friend"; that Val herself could run faster than anybody in the games at recess; and that she had fallen blissfully under the spell of pretty Miss Matson, the primary teacher, who, strange to say, seemed to like Val.

The bustling life at the Plymouth Seminary for Young Ladies, full, varied, delightful, would perhaps be considered by the professional biographer of vital importance in moulding a young person's character; for was this not the time and the place of her education? One is inclined, in Val's case, at any rate, to say no. She learned by rote, at that excellent inst.i.tution, certain more or less useful things, and, more important still, she made two or three dear friends, who taught her much of value about the human heart; but for the most part she was _educated_ at home. There, and not at school, she, in common with many young people, found the influences that made her what she ultimately became.

Her father, if he understood the matter so, naturally did not so express himself. Perhaps he thought this child of his had too little of the Gano love of books, and was over-fond of running breathless races, and playing ball with the neighbor's boy.

"You came here to go to school, you know. You've played all your life up to this. Now you must begin to work. This is a very important time in your life."

"Is it?"

Val sat up very straight, with s.h.i.+ning eyes and an air of pleased responsibility.

"Oh, very important, indeed. For now you have still time to decide what kind of a woman you're going to make of Val Gano."

"Oh, have I?"

He nodded.

"You can make up your mind you won't be a dull, ignorant person, all your life bound in shallows and in miseries."

"No, indeed," she said, with vigor.

"It's in your power now to take the necessary steps towards some better fate. By-and-by it will be too late: you'll be like the crooked catalpa in the terrace, grown awry and too old to straighten out."

"No, I shall be like the tulipifera rhododendron."

He laughed.

"You are ambitious, my dear"; and then he sighed. "Few come up to tulipifera. Now, I am far enough from being a rich man, and I can't give my daughters a fortune; but I can give them something far more valuable."

"Now?"

"Yes, I've begun giving it. I mean an education."

"Oh!"

This was a blow.

"See that you make the most of it. It will put a key in your hands that can unlock a hundred doors to happiness. I am doing with you--only a little more helpfully perhaps--what the Swedish peasant did with his eldest son."

"What did he do?"

"He took the boy up to the top of the highest hill in the country, and said, 'You are young, my son, but I am about to give you your inheritance. Look abroad'--and he stretched out his arms--'behold, I give you the world! Go forth and take what portion you will.'"

Val drew a quick breath.

"Ha! I know what _I_ want."

"What do you think you want, little girl?"

"I want to be loved--oh, but tremendously! And I want to do some one thing awfully, awfully well."

It was the most old-fas.h.i.+oned, unchildlike speech of which Val had ever delivered herself.

"Well, my dear," her father spoke, dreamily, "to be greatly loved, and to do well some one piece of work, isn't a bad destiny. Older heads than yours would be at a loss to better it."

Even to her father, even in that moment of great outgoing, she had not liked to particularize what it was she wanted to do so "awfully, awfully well." But there was no doubt in her own mind that she was going to be a dancer. She practised every rainy day, and sometimes when it didn't rain, down in the dark parlor, where it smelt so solemn and musty. There was a huge oil-painting on the north wall, of Daniel Boone and his dogs and other friends "Discovering Kentucky." Although their eyes were turned ever towards "the dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground," they were Val's audience. To the burly hunter and his racc.o.o.n-capped and s.h.a.ggy companions she bowed and pirouetted, waved her arms and tossed her heels. She did not dare touch the old rosewood piano after one or two rapturous attacks upon the yellow keys had brought swift retribution out of her grandmother's chamber; but dancing was not only a glorious and heady excitement, but, unlike most of this young person's pastimes, it was noiseless; it could be carried on by the hour without rousing any one's suspicions, unless perchance a vague uneasiness as to "what keeps that child so quiet." When discovered, she was usually found to be breathlessly examining the gilt-edged annuals and gift-books on the centre table, or else staring into the "stereopticon," though what view was visible in that dim light remained a marvel.

Perhaps the most memorable crisis of her childhood had found her in the twilight of that musty parlor. It was a pale-gray, teeming spring morning, after a night of rain--Sat.u.r.day, and yet she had been forbidden to go and see her friends next door.

"When _I_ was a little girl I didn't live at the neighbors'."

Val had been learning lessons, perched in the high window-seat of her own room, looking out now and then with a glad sense of coming summer to the early red of maple blossoms, and off to the blue Mioto Hills, that rose on the other side the river, shutting in her world. Presently, down below the rain-soaked terraces, in Mioto Avenue, a street-organ began to play.

She dropped her book and leaned farther out. A watery gleam of suns.h.i.+ne fell on the warm, dripping world. The smell of earth came up fresh, and full of a mysterious promise. The "grind-organ," as the children called it, sang and clanged. Val beat the swift time with her fist on the stone sill, and her dangling feet moved staccato to the tune. She half closed her eyes. Ah! now she could see better. She was gliding through a brilliant scene at a ball. She was just sixteen, and dressed in blue and silver, and there was a throng about her--all lovers! There were no women, save those that looked enviously on from a far background of flower-festooned wall. The faces near the blue-and-silver maiden were chiefly strange, but all n.o.ble and beautiful. All these the generous future would provide, but one or two she recognized as having followed her out of the present. There was cousin Ethan as he looked in the last picture, Jerry--and, well in the foreground, Jerry's handsome elder brother, and certain other less-known young townsmen not to be spared from the gay group of gallants; but they were destined, every man Jack of them, to break their faithful hearts. She smiled and waved her geography--her fan, of course--and each young gentleman took courage.