Tripping with the Tucker Twins Part 21

Your devoted daughter, PAGE.

CHAPTER XVII

MISS ARABELLA

No ghosts came to disturb my slumbers in the great four-poster, but the early morning sun awoke me long before Tweedles gave any indication of coming to life. I thought for a while I was at Bracken. It must have been the lavender in the sheets and the mocking-bird, who was singing like Caruso just outside of my window. An odor will carry more suggestion than any sight; and sound comes next, I believe. I lay there wondering how long it would be before Mammy Susan would come bringing my bath-water, devoutly praying she would not "het" it up, but let me have it stinging cold from the well.

The realization that I was in Charleston came over me gradually; also, that no one would bring me bath-water, and that if I wanted first to go in the preserving-kettle I had better get up and take it. I had to go through the twins' room to get to the bathroom, and I found them sleeping like infants, looking ridiculously alike with their eyes shut and their chins snuggled down in the bed clothes. The squareness of Dum's chin and the dimple in Dee's was more of a differentiation in their case than even the eyes. Dum's were hazel while Dee's were gray, but the shape and setting were similar, if not identical. I stood a moment gazing at them, and it came over me with an added realization what their friends.h.i.+p had meant to me; theirs and their father's. I had known them according to the calendar only twenty months, not quite two years, but counting time by "heart throbs," I had known them since the beginning of time. G.o.d grant nothing should ever come between us!

Mr. Tucker had certainly been a little snappy with me before he went to Columbia, but I was never the kind to go around with a chip on my shoulder hunting for trouble, so if it was an accident I was perfectly willing to let it go at that. The truth of the matter was, that the Tuckers had one and all spoiled me. They were so lovely to me on all occasions that a slight let-up on the part of any one of them was more noticeable because of their usual kindness. He was to come back that day, and I was very glad, as indeed all of us were, although we were expecting a good teasing for having so bravely undertaken the business of getting board and then moving in without any business arrangement.

The copper tub was not so bad, after all, and the Charleston water is always a delight to bathe in. It is strangely soft, as though it had just fallen from a summer cloud, and it has a peculiar sweetish taste. I dressed in a great hurry and soon found myself in the garden. The sun that had made his way into my window had not yet reached the garden, because of the high wall.

"One morning, very early, before the sun was up, I rose and found the s.h.i.+ning dew on every b.u.t.tercup; But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed."

That was what I thought as I stepped out into that wonderful old garden.

There was a misty haze of early morning, and the freshness of the new-born day that few persons know of. Early rising is a habit that it is a pity ever to lose, and still it is something that the civilized world seems to fight against. Children naturally wake early, but as one grows older the sunrise is such a rarity that many grown-ups cannot remember ever having seen this wonderful spectacle which takes place every morning.

Father says that one of the signs of advancing years is waking quite early in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep. When he is called in to doctor old persons, who complain of waking early, he always tells them not to try to go back to sleep, but to get up and go out in the morning and see how glorious Creation is. Nature may be a.s.serting herself in these old persons so they can get back some of the spirit of childhood before they are called to the Great Beyond. He always tells them to eat something, however, before they go to commune with Nature.

The mocking-bird was not holding the fort alone that morning, as he had the evening before. His little wife was still carrying building materials for their home, and he was helping, but every now and then he left off work, although he had heard no whistle blow to tell him it was time to stop. Then such a stream of melody as he would pour forth would put Caruso to the blush. Other birds were in the garden, and all of them very busy. A tiny song sparrow had something to say with remarkable volume considering his size, and Mr. Mocking-Bird listened intently, determined to learn the new song. A thrush broke in and then a stylish robin. I thought I heard the notes of a bobolink, but it turned out to be the mocking-bird, who seemed intent on singing down all the others.

It reminded me rather of the s.e.xtette from "Lucia de Lammermoor" when the artists all seem to be trying to outdo each other and still harmony is the result.

I had brought down all the combings from our three heads, well knowing how the birds delight in hair as a building material. Of course Mammy Susan had done her best all my life to keep me from letting birds get any of my hair for nests, as it is supposed to be the very worst luck that can befall one, and terrible headaches are sure to be the lot of a person whose hair helps make a nest. Nevertheless, I had always sneaked my hair to the birds at Bracken, and this morning, feeling sure that I was the only person astir, I had quite openly brought a wad of hair, Dum's burnished black, Dee's blue black, and my curly brown, all mingled together. I put some on a lilac bush and some on the path where I noticed the builders had found some straw and would no doubt soon spy the more desirable material.

"I wish I had some of Molly Brown's," I said to myself. We had got in the habit of speaking of Mrs. Green as Molly Brown, and no doubt would soon begin to call her Molly to her face. "Hers would make the dear birds feel that they were weaving suns.h.i.+ne into their nests. I'm going to ask her for some."

I made my way very slowly and quietly, so as not to disturb the busy homemakers, along the overgrown path to the summer house.

I was mistaken in thinking I was the only human being astir in that enchanted garden. As I lifted a great branch of s...o...b..a.l.l.s that, heavy with its own beauty, had fallen across the path, I saw that Miss Arabella was before me. She was seated in the summer house. The great gray cat was on the ground in front of her, looking up into her face with a sly expression in his round, yellow eyes.

"Now, Grimalkin, I give you fair warning. If you dare so much as look at one of these birds I will shut you up in the house for the rest of the day! You hear me, sir?"

"Me-i-ou----!" and he tried to slink off, deceit in every curve of his handsome body.

"No, you don't, sir!" and with astonis.h.i.+ng agility for an old lady who had swallowed a hereditary poker, she swooped forward and caught the cat up into her lap. How different this was from the Miss Arabella of the evening before! Her soft gray hair, with a glint of gold in it, was all loosened about her face. There was a little flush on her cheeks, and instead of the sombre black dress she now wore a loose lavender wrapper. If it had been possible to back out and get up the garden path without being seen, I would have done it. I felt like Peeping Tom and Lady G.o.diva. Somehow this was Miss Arabella's naked soul I had come on, and I was afraid she would be terribly cut up. There was nothing for me, however, but to speak. I made a little scratching on the path with my toe and shook the s...o...b..ll branch. She looked up, startled, and loosened her hold on Grimalkin, who immediately took advantage of her and sprang from her lap. This was no time for dignity! The cat at liberty in the garden meant havoc for the nesting birds.

"I'll catch him!" I cried, and then such a chase ensued! Grimalkin thought all the world moved as slowly as the dear ladies who had raised him, and at first scorned me as a pursuer, but I soon gave him to understand that a country girl with gym training added to her natural agility is a match for a fat old tomcat. I cornered him just as he started up the high wall, and, catching him by the back of his neck, in the proper place for a cat to be held, I carried him back to his smiling mistress, who, all unmindful of his unsheathed claws, caught him to her bosom, where he soon dropped asleep, purring away as though that was where he meant to go all the time.

"You are very kind! I am exceedingly grateful to you!"

"Oh, not at all! It was my fault the cat got away. I thought I was all alone in the garden and did not mean to come on you this way. I fancied the birds and I were the only creatures awake."

"I always come down in the garden very early in the morning. I can't trust Grimalkin alone out here while the birds are nesting. After they have hatched and the little ones can fly they can escape from him, he is so fat, but I am always afraid he will drive the mocking-birds away. I can't sleep in the early morning, anyhow. Do you usually arise so early?"

"Not always, but I am a country girl, and country people always get up earlier than city people. My friends, the Tuckers, have to be dragged out of bed unless there is some especial reason for getting up, and then they are energetic enough. I did not disturb them this morning as they were sleeping so peacefully."

Miss Arabella had made a place for me on the stone bench, and was still smiling at me in a very encouraging way. Perhaps she was as eager to find out things about me as I was about her.

"My sister was sleeping, too, at least she seemed to be trying to. Both of us, as a rule, awaken very early, but she lies still trying to get back to sleep, while I feel that it is best to get up and take advantage of the beautiful morning light. You must excuse my being _en deshabille_. I did not expect to be seen."

"Oh, I think you look lovely!"

She didn't mind a bit, but blushed and patted my hand.

"I am very fond of young girls, but never see any nowadays but Claire Gaillard. She is the only one who comes to our sad old house."

"Sad! Not sad, it is too beautiful to be sad."

"It is its very beauty that seems sad to me," she sighed. "And the garden! I feel like a traitor to let it get so unkempt. I am not strong enough to keep it weeded. All I have strength to do now is to keep Grimalkin from devouring the birds. Judith thinks I am very foolish. She lays more stress on having the furniture rubbed and keeping up the inside of the house, but to me the garden and birds are more important.

I'd like to see the garden looking as it used to, with trim flower beds and the dead wood all cut away."

Miss Arabella seemed to forget I was there, or to forget I was a stranger, perhaps. I am sure she had no intention of unburdening her soul to me. She closed her eyes and I knew she was picturing the garden as it had been years ago, and perhaps she was even seeing the lover of the past as he looked when she kissed him through the gate. A thought wave seemed to have gone from me to her. I no sooner put my mind on the iron gates that I felt sure must have been where the ugly board ones were now, ere she began talking of those very gates. The sun had reached the garden now, and was lifting the soft mist that hung over it like a tulle veil. I felt somehow that the veil of the past was being lifted, too, and Miss Arabella was letting me catch a glimpse of her true self.

"I hate that ugly gate," she mused. "I miss the beautiful old grille that had been there for so many years--where our friends and ancestors had come and gone so often."

"I was sure there must have been an iron gate there."

"Yes, my dear, one of the most beautiful in Charleston. We had to let something go. I thought the Stuart portrait of General Laurens would be the best, but Judith felt that the gates would be the thing to give up.

She rather likes having the board ones that no one can see through. I hate them, as I like to look out on the street sometimes. The gates were very valuable, being wrought-iron of a most delicate and intricate pattern. There was hardly a spot where one could so much as get a hand through." I gasped here and had a vision of Miss Arabella, young and beautiful, trying to get her hand through and ending by finding a place where her rosy lips with some pouting could reach her lover, locked out no doubt by a stern parent. "I don't know why I should speak of these things to you, child. It would provoke sister Judith very much if she knew----"

"But she won't know," and I took the frail old hand in mine. "I long to hear about the gates and the garden as it used to be. It is so lovely now that I can well picture what it must have been. Please go right on and tell me everything about it, and let me be your friend, as well as Claire."

And the old lady, with her eyes all soft, sat on the stone bench in that early morning, the purring Grimalkin clasped with one hand and the other holding mine, and told many wonderful tales of olden times. It was an hour never to be forgotten by me. The birds hopped close to us, some in search of the early worm and some intent on building material, stopping every now and then to pour forth the joy of living in song. They seemed to trust the lady of the garden to keep the enemy from them.

I hoped the stern Miss Judith was sleeping peacefully, and would not come stalking into our dreams like a great Grimalkin herself. Miss Arabella was enjoying herself immensely. She lived in the past, and her mind was like some old chest filled with faded souvenirs of a happier time. She had opened this wonder-box for me and was having the time of her life taking out treasure after treasure, shaking out the folds of some rare silken memory, or unwrapping some quaintly set jewel of experience. I listened entranced, only occasionally dropping a word to show my interest or pressing the little hand, so thin now that perhaps it might have slipped through the grille.

Dilsey, opening the shutters of the dining-room, brought us back to the present. The household was astir! Miss Judith must be up and doing by now. The sun had found the garden out with his searching rays, and the last bit of mist had disappeared.

"My goodness! It must be getting quite late!" exclaimed my old new friend. "I am afraid you are sadly bored with my tales," she added penitently.

"Bored! Why, Miss Arabella, it has been lovely. I do thank you for talking to me and please do it some more."

"Well, another morning then, child! I must hurry in now and dress myself and be a sad old woman some more. I thank you for making me forget it for once,--being a sad old woman, I mean."

She certainly did not look like a sad old woman as she tripped down the path to the house, her lavender draperies brus.h.i.+ng the syringa and lilacs as she pa.s.sed. She seemed to me more to be the spirit of eternal youth and spring. Miss Arabella might swathe herself in black again and remember to respond to the hereditary poker, but I had glimpsed the real Miss Arabella and knew now that the sad old woman was merely the body in which a radiant spirit dwelt. It was this spirit that we had heard singing that night in the garden, "Speak not, ah, breathe not--there's peace on the deep."

Tweedles were opening their eyes when I came in, and, uncovering their chins, so they did not look so much alike.

"Dressed already, Page?" yawned Dum.

"Yes, dressed and out in the garden for hours! I took down all the combings for the birds and they are crazy about them. Can't you hear their hymn of thanksgiving?"

"Pig! Why didn't you call me?" and Dee rolled out of bed to beat Dum to the copper-kettle-like bathtub.