CHAPTER XIII
AT REHEARSAL
"Well, Bathalina," Mrs. Sanford said with despair in her voice, "if you must go, I suppose you must; but this is the third Wednesday you've been to that funeral, and I think that's plenty. It isn't lucky to put off a funeral; and here's all these cucumbers to pickle, and I can't possibly spare you, but I suppose I'll have to."
"Cousin Sam's child don't die every day," the maid retorted; "and of course they couldn't bury her alive."
"Oh, dear, no!" her mistress assented. "That would be too awful; but I want you to be sure she is really dead before you go to her funeral again."
"Yes, she's dead," was the answer. "Peter Mixon came over last night and told me."
"Peter Mixon had better mind his own business. You told me yourself, Bathalina, that he was going to be married this very month to that West girl."
"Yes, mum, of course. But it's a great cross to him. He asked me first, and if it hadn't been for my sinful pride I'd a had him in the first place."
"Sinful fire-shovels!" Mrs. Sanford exclaimed. "You turned him off because he was after the money you've got in the bank, so don't let me hear any more about him. If you are going to this protracted funeral, go along; and I do hope the remains won't need a great deal more burying. As for Peter Mixon, the less you have to do with him the better."
"I feel confident," Bathalina answered, "that it's the last funeral the child'll ever have; but in the midst of life we are in death."
"You may be," retorted her mistress bustling about; "but I'm in the midst of pickling, and can't stop to talk. Go along."
"Mother," Patty asked, appearing in the doorway, "what is the trouble?"
"Bathalina has gone traipsing off to her funeral again; and here are these cucumbers to do, and the kitchen all in heaps. She's got fool in the head worse than ever to-day."
"What awful slang, mother. Never mind, I'll help."
The next visitor to the kitchen was Flossy, who, having searched the rest of the house for her cousin, at length discovered her with sleeves rolled up, engaged in washing dishes.
"Goodness gracious, Patsy!" she exclaimed. "Are you here?"
"Mercy sakes, Flossy!" said her aunt. "Don't say 'goodness gracious,' it sounds so."
"No: I'll say 'mercy sakes,' Aunt Britann," her niece returned saucily. "Patty, what are you washing dishes for?"
"Somebody must do it; and Bathalina, the insane, has gone off."
"You are becoming a very model miss. Have you forgotten they are coming this morning to read this play?"
"I had forgotten all about that. I'm sorry, marmee, but I don't see but I must leave you in the lurch. Here comes somebody now."
The first thing concerning which a country audience is anxious is that it "gets its money's worth;" and in amateur theatricals success depends much upon the duration of the entertainment. Two plays had therefore been chosen; one a melodramatic affair entitled, "The Faithful Jewess," and the other a jolly little comedy called "The Country Wooing." Patty, who was "the favorite local actress," as Will put it, had been cast in both plays. Clarence Toxteth was her Jewish lover, toward a union with whom she struggled hopefully but vainly through the most heart-rending situations. A pretended friend, endeavored to separate the betrothed, with fatal success. Mr. Putnam had declined to take part; and the rôle which had been offered him had been given to the postmaster, one Sol Shankland.
"With falsest heart though fairest seeming,"
The company assembled this morning in Mrs. Sanford's wide, low sitting-room, numbered about a score; and Babel itself could scarcely have been noisier. The girls talked of their parts, their dresses, their hopes and fears, of this, that, and the other, until the general effect was that of mill-wheels running ever faster and faster, quite beyond the control of any regulator.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Will at last. "'I would I were dead and worms had eaten me, but not for love.' If there isn't silence here in three seconds, there will be blood shed!"
By the most energetic measures in the way of pounding and shouting, something like quiet was obtained, and the meeting proceeded to business. The two plays were read, rehearsals appointed, and a great deal said about the necessity of being letter-perfect before the next meeting.
"By Monday," Patty said, "we ought to be able to rehearse without a book."
"Mr. Blackfan is off," Sol Shankland said, "so we shall have nothing to do Sunday but to study our parts."
"How immoral!" exclaimed Miss Sturtevant. "I shall lie in a hammock all day and read."
"I suppose," Will Sanford said, "that I am the most unfortunate man that ever happened. I sent to Uncle Christopher for his grandfather's knee-breeches, and now I can't get into them."
"That is because they are small-clothes," suggested Ease Apthorpe.
"I think we have some at home," Toxteth said: "if you will come over, I'll see."
When rehearsal was over, Clarence and Will accordingly walked off together, accompanying Ease Apthorpe, who lived in the same direction. Frank Breck showed some inclination to join the group as they moved down the walk, but changed his mind, and accompanied Miss Sturtevant towards Mrs. Brown's.
The Toxteth mansion lay halfway between Dr. Sanford's and Mullen House, as was somewhat fancifully called the home of Ease. Will asked Ease to wait for him, as he was going with her after an extra play-book. Mrs. Toxteth was sitting upon the veranda, and invited Ease to a seat by her side while the young men went into the house.
"It makes me think of old times when theatricals come up," Mrs. Toxteth said. "I have always been extravagantly fond of acting and of masquerades."
"I wish we could have a masquerade," remarked Ease. "We have only had one in three years."
"Why not have one, then?"
"The girls say it is so much trouble to get up costumes. It is a bother, it is so difficult to get things."
"But now when you have your costumes all made for the plays, why not use them? You could arrange to exchange among yourselves."
"The very thing!" Ease exclaimed. "I am so glad you thought of it."
"As a reward," Mrs. Toxteth said, "I claim the privilege of giving the party. But don't speak of it just yet until I've talked with Clarence."
"Will," Ease asked as they walked towards Mullen House, "how long does Flossy mean to stay in Montfield? I am getting so fond of her that I don't like to think of her going back to Boston."
"'It may be for years, and it may be forever,'" he replied. "The case is just this. Flossy's father – you know there's nobody left in the family but these two now – cares for nothing in the world but his dinners and whist, as far as I can make out. I don't know Uncle Christopher very well, but he has the reputation of giving the best dinners of any man in his club. He had one once when I was there; and such a set of red-nosed, blear-eyed, pottle-paunched" —
"Will!"
"I beg your pardon, but the old sinners that came to that dinner were enough to disgust anybody. They were like the people Paul tells about, each carrying his own individual god under his waistcoat. No wonder Flossy doesn't care to stay at home to dine with those ogres."
"It can't be very nice for her."
"No more is it. She likes to stay here, and we certainly like to have her. As for her father, if his soup and his wines are right he is troubled by no concern for the whereabouts of his friends. So, on the whole, I dare say she may remain indefinitely."
"Don't you think she and Burleigh Blood are getting to be very good friends?"
"I hadn't noticed. I thought he was one of Patty's followers."
"He isn't so much so now," Ease answered. "To-day at rehearsal he called her Flossy, and then colored and stammered and begged her pardon. I don't believe he ever did it before."
She was right; for at that very moment Burleigh Blood was walking along a sweet country road, saying softly over and over to his bashful but happy self: "Flossy, Flossy. And she said I was always to call her so. Flossy: what a pretty name it is too!"
CHAPTER XIV
AN ELOPEMENT
The problem of "help" was no less perplexing in Montfield than in the majority of New-England villages. Mrs. Sanford often declared that she had rather do the work for the household than "to wait upon the hired girl;" but her husband insisted upon her having a servant, and Bathalina Clemens had accordingly been engaged. The girl was little better than half-witted, but she was honest and faithful. Moreover, Mrs. Sanford could not abide the Irish. So strong was her dislike for the children of Erin, that had she known the wish of Thomas Carlyle, that the Emerald Isle were sunk, she would have indorsed it most heartily. As it was, she vented her feelings in various expletives and wishes, which, if less elegant than Carlyle's Teutonic diction, were certainly more clear and no less forcible.
"The Irish," Mrs. Sanford was wont to affirm, "are part pig, or pigs are part Irish, I don't know which. They tell about pigs living in the house with the Paddies in Ireland, and I make no doubt that many a pig has been brought up as a child of the family and nobody ever the wiser."
So as Mrs. Sanford would have no Irish girl, she had been obliged to endure Bathalina, who was every thing her soul abhorred, except that she was neat. It was her one virtue; and, as people usually do who have but one virtue, she carried it to excess.
"If she was to get into heaven," her mistress declared, waxing eloquent, "I know she'd begin to scour up things, and be down on her knees to wash the golden streets."
Numberless were the freaks which resulted from her morbid mania for cleanliness. She would wash a counterpane if Pettitoes, the most dainty of cats, happened but to set one of his snowy paws upon it. She washed her sunshade, her hats, her bonnets, boots, any thing and every thing. She was accustomed to prowl about the house, seizing upon any stray article left in sight, and into the tub it went. Flossy's lace shawl was rescued on its way to the suds, Patty's muslin fichu and Will's shooting-jacket were fished out of the washtub together; and for weeks after the advent of Miss Clemens the whole house was pervaded with a damp and discouraging odor, as if in it reigned a perpetual washing-day.
"This must be stopped," Dr. Sanford declared when one night on returning home he found the pear-trees decorated with an old skeleton hoop-skirt, his own high boots, carefully scoured inside, and a miscellaneous assortment of smaller wares. Into the kitchen he walked, and found Bathalina at the washtub chanting as usual a dismal stave.
"'Tortured in body, and condemned in spirit,
No sweet composure, to'" —
"Bathalina," interrupted the master of the house sternly, "get into that tub."
"What, sir?"
"Get into that tub instantly."
"But" —
"Get in."
"But my clothes" —
"In with you."
"My shoes!"
He picked her up as lightly as if her bony frame weighed nothing, and deposited her in the midst of the foamy suds. Her screams quickly brought the household to the spot.
"Don't you get out," Dr. Sanford said, "until you have had enough of the washtub to last you for five years."
"But, Charles," remonstrated his wife, "she'll get her death cold."
"She's more likely to get her death hot," he returned, smiling grimly. "Let her soak a while. It won't hurt her. And now let us have supper."
He marched off to the dining-room.
"Come, Britann; come, Patty."
"But you don't mean to leave that poor creature there to die, do you?" Mrs. Sanford pleaded. "I doubt it must be a forerunner of a bad sign to have such things happen in a house."
The doctor made no reply, but sat down to his supper quite as if nothing had happened. After the meal he took his pipe and usual seat on the piazza, but was hardly seated before Patty appeared, half-choked with laughter.
"Oh, dear, father!" she said, "that foolish thing is in the tub still, and says she won't get out till you tell her to!"
"Let her stay there then. She will dry quicker than my boots."
"Soapsuds makes green things grow," put in Will; "and Bathalina is as green as if she had been browsing with Nebuchadnezzar."
"Do come, father," Patty said, taking his arm. "She'll spend the night there if you don't."
Thus urged, Dr. Sanford rose; and the party adjourned to the kitchen, where the maid-servant still squatted amid the half-washed clothing like a very bony mermaid, singing in a defiantly mournful manner:
"'Broad is the road that leads to death.'"
"Get out of that tub, Bathalina," Dr. Sanford commanded, "and stop that noise."
"I'm going home to my Aunt Jeff's," the mermaid said.
"Nonsense: you'll do nothing of the sort. Get out of the tub and get dry clothing on."
From that day the servant never washed any thing save her own person without an express command from her mistress. Dr. Sanford made her ample amends for the damage done to her attire; and thereafter she spoke of him with the utmost respect, apparently admiring his treatment of her extremely. She held to him as her ideal of manhood, even after she had fallen a victim to the wiles of Peter Mixon, an unscrupulous fellow who had served the Brecks in the days of their father's magnificence.
"I can't think what has become of Bathalina," Mrs. Sanford remarked on the evening of the rehearsal. "She can't have staid at the funeral of that cousin's child's wife all this time. It's half-past ten."
At that moment the door-bell rang violently.
"Some one has come in considerable haste," grandmother Sanford said placidly. "Charles, it is probably some one for thee."
The person ushered into the sitting-room was not wholly a stranger to the family, and indeed by reputation they knew her well. She was an aunt of Bathalina Clemens, and rejoiced in the somewhat remarkable cognomen of Thomas Jefferson Gooch. Her grandfather being in his prime an ardent partisan of that famous statesman, had made a rash vow that his first grandchild should bear Jefferson's name. The first-born grandchild proved to be a girl, but the determined old gentleman, was no more to be restrained from the fulfilment of his vow than was Jephtha. Thomas Jefferson was the infant christened, and as "Aunty Jeff" she was now known to the whole neighborhood. She was a perfect "roly-poly-pudding" of a woman, "her husband's sphere," Will Sanford called her; but her activity was greater than that of her gauntest neighbor, and she walked as briskly as if she'd an electric battery in her back hair to keep her in motion. The corpulent little woman managed herself and her relatives with a determination which there was no evading. She dressed always in rusty black, and went about slipshod, explaining that she was too fat to reach her feet and lace up boots.
To-day, having been to the funeral of the long death-defying Emma, her attire was more striking than usual; her black bonnet being garnished with the largest of red roses, and a magenta bow lighting up the voluminous amplitude of her chins, which, like spice-boxes, came in assorted sizes.
"Good-evenin', Mis' Sanford," Aunty Jeff burst out, plunging porpoise-like at once into the room and the midst of her errand. "That ungrateful Bathaliny Clemens hain't come home, has she? No, of course she hain't; an' I knew it, the miserable hussy! She's been elopin' with that all-fired Peter Mixon."
"Eloping!" her listeners cried in chorus.
"Yes, elopin'. I knew there was some kind of a gum-game up when I seed her an' him comin' in together. The hussy brought him right into the room with the mourners, and he looked at the remains as familiar and easy-like as if he'd been one of the next relations. I tried to catch Bathaliny's eye, but she wouldn't look at me. They couldn't walk to the grave together, 'cause he wasn't called with the mourners. But when we got there, and Parson Jones was a-prayin', I peeked through my fingers, and I seed Peter was a-sneakin' round toward her, – the dispisable, miser'ble wretch! An' when we was a-singin' the last hymn – we sung, to the tune of Chany, – an' I thought the singin' didn't sound so mournful kinder as it had orter, – not nigh so mournful as when we buried Marthy Foster, she was a Harris, you remember, and second cousin to Bathaliny on the father's side: so I looked up to see if Bathaliny was givin' out on the air; for, bein' a near relation, I naturally felt a care for the mournin', and wanted to see Emma buried in decent shape, if she was always a scrawny, pindlin' little thing, an' her mother Ezikel's first wife. An' I'll be blowed if that Bathaliny warn't a-sneakin' off round the thorn-bushes, – you know where they be, close by where Frank Wiswell was buried, his mother bein' a Pettingill, – she was a-skulkin' off, if you'll believe it, round them thorn-bushes with Peter Mixup, or Old Evil One, or whatever he calls himself. I wanted to holler; but, thinks I to myself, I'm a relation of the corpse, if it is only by marriage, and I ain't goin' to spoil the solemnity of this funeral if I never sets eyes on that scandiculous hussy again! An' off they went; an' Tim Bowlin see 'em goin' to Joe Brown's, an' of course they are married long ago, he bein' a justice. An' I says to myself, 'Mis' Sanford ought to know, an' I'll go over an' tell her, bein' as it's one of our family.' It does seem as if her mother's children was bound to bring disgrace on themselves and everybody else. Look at Hannah Clemens! only she ain't to be looked at by an honest woman. The nasty hussy!"
'Why do ye mourn, departed friends?'
Aunty Jeff's breath failed entirely at this point; and she fell back in her chair, her whole person quivering with excitement and indignation. Dr. Sanford laughed unrestrainedly, and Flossy and Patty were not slow to follow his lead.
"She's Bathaliny Mixon by this time," aunty Jeff burst out afresh. "All he wanted of her was the money she had in the bank. He was bespoke to 'Mandy West too; an' I shouldn't be a mite surprised ef he got his livin' goin' round marryin' girls just that way. To think one of our folks should marry a brigamist," continued the irate lady, unconsciously punning, "and demean herself to take up with a Mixon! He's a dreadful unfacalized critter; an' that's what I've always said, an' what I'll stick to, ef I was to be run through the wringin'-machine the next minute, like that baby's hand over to Samoset – poor thing! He never stuck to nothin' 'thout 'twas Mr. Breck, and them two never got no good out of one 'nother. A dreadful unfacalized critter! An' I'm in as big a hurry as a rat in the wall, Mis' Sanford, but thought you'd want to know, owin' to havin' breakfast to get. The ungrateful hussy!"
The last objurgation was addressed, not to Mrs. Sanford, but to the absent Bathalina; that maiden having evidently defeated the designs of Providence to punish her sinful pride, and wed Peter Mixon in spite of his engagement to Amanda West. The following morning the newly-wed pair came after the possessions of the bride. Bathalina looked a little sheepish, and was disposed to apologize for the step she had taken.
"Being in love," she said to Patty, "I naturally felt like taking him for better or for worse, especially as he said his shirts had give out awfully; and he told no more than the truth, either, as I've see with my own eyes."
"But where's your wedding-cake, Bathalina?" inquired Flossy. "A wedding isn't a wedding without cake."
"It isn't legal without cake," Patty added demurely.
"Ain't it?" demanded Mrs. Mixon, aghast.
"Of course not," answered Flossy. "You are not married unless you've had wedding-cake, and eaten it with your friends."
"But we didn't have no time to get cake."
"Then," pronounced Patty, "you are no more married than I am."
"O Lord! O Lord!" cried the dismayed bride. "That's what my sinful pride has brought me to. O Peter, Peter!" she continued, rushing out to the wagon where he sat waiting: "we ain't married, after all!"
It was with some difficulty that Mrs. Sanford, who appeared at this juncture, persuaded her that her marriage was legal. Bathalina was not really satisfied until Patty had produced a loaf of fruit-cake, and they had all tasted it except Peter, who still sat without, waiting.
"Now I'm married, at any rate," the bride observed, "and I don't suppose it makes so much difference to Peter as it does to me."
A slice of cake was at this hint sent to the bridegroom; and the Mixons drove away, leaving Mrs. Sanford face to face with the tremendous task of finding another servant.