Real Folks, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney [the reader ebook txt] 📗

though that is one of the local questions that have never yet been fully decided.

"How far does Miss Waite's ground run along the river?" asked Kenneth, taking Rosamond's shawl over his arm.

"Not far; it only just touches; it runs back and broadens toward the Old Turnpike. The best of it is in those woods and pastures."

"So I thought. And the pastures are pretty much run out."

"I suppose so. They are full of that lovely gray crackling moss."

"Lovely for picnics. Don't you think Miss Waite would like to sell?"

"Yes, indeed, if she could. That is her dream; what she has been laying up for her old age: to turn the acres into dollars, and build or buy a little cottage, and settle down safe. It is all she has in the world, except her dressmaking."

"Mr. Geoffrey and Mr. Marchbanks want to buy. They will offer her sixteen thousand dollars. That is the secret,--part of it."

"O, Mr. Kincaid! How glad,--how _sorry_, I can't help being, too! Miss Waite to be so comfortable! And never to have her dear old woods to picnic in any more! I suppose they want to make streets and build it all up."

"Not all. I'll tell you. It is a beautiful plan. Mr. Geoffrey wants to build a street of twenty houses,--ten on a side,--with just a little garden plot for each, and leave the woods behind for a piece of nature for the general good,--a real Union Park; a place for children to play in, and grown folks to rest and walk and take tea in, if they choose; but for nobody to change or meddle with any further. And these twenty houses to be let to respectable persons of small means, at rents that will give him seven per cent, for his whole outlay. Don't you see? Young people, and people like Miss Waite herself, who don't want _much_ house-room, but who want it nice and comfortable, and will keep it so, and who _do_ want a little of God's world-room to grow in, that they can't get in the crowded town streets, where the land is selling by the foot to be all built over with human packing-cases, and where they have to pay as much for being shut up and smothered, as they will out here to live and breathe. That Mr. Geoffrey is a glorious man, Rosamond! He is doing just this same thing in the edges of three or four other towns, buying up the land just before it gets too dear, to save for people who could not save it for themselves. He is providing for a class that nobody seems to have thought of,--the nice, narrow-pursed people, and the young beginners, who get married and take the world in the old-fashioned way."

He had no idea he had called her "Rosamond," till he saw the color shining up so in her face verifying the name. Then it flashed out upon him as he sent his thought back through the last few sentences that he had spoken.

"I beg your pardon," he said, suddenly. "But I was so full of this beautiful doing,--and I always think of you so! Is there a sin in that?"

Rosamond colored deeper yet, and Kenneth grew more bold. He had spoken it without plan; it had come of itself.

"I can't help it now. I shall say it again, unless you tell me not! Rosamond! I shall have these houses to build. I am getting ever so much to do. Could you begin the world with me, Rosamond?"

Rosamond did not say a word for a full minute. She only walked slowly by his side, her beautiful head inclined gently, shyly; her sweet face all one bloom, as faces never bloom but once.

Then she turned toward him and put out her hand.

"I will begin the world with you," she said.

And their world--that was begun for them before they were born--lifted up its veil and showed itself to them, bright in the eternal morning.

* * * * *

Desire Ledwith walked home all alone. She left Dorris at Miss Waite's, and Helena had teased to stay with her. Mrs. Ledwith had gone home among the first, taking a seat offered her in Mrs. Tom Friske's carriage to East Square; she had a headache, and was tired.

Desire felt the old, miserable questions coming up, tempting her.

Why?

Why was she left out,--forgotten? Why was there nothing, very much, in any of this, for her?

Yet underneath the doubting and accusing, something lived--stayed by--to rebuke it; rose up above it finally, and put it down, though with a thrust that hurt the heart in which the doubt was trampled.

Wait. Wait--with all your might!

Desire could do nothing very meekly; but she could even _wait_ with all her might. She put her foot down with a will, at every step.

"I was put here to be Desire Ledwith," she said, relentlessly, to herself; "not Rosamond Holabird, nor even Dolly. Well, I suppose I can stay put, and _be_! If things would only _let_ me be!"

But they will not. Things never do, Desire.

They are coming, now, upon you. Hard things,--and all at once.


XVIII.

ALL AT ONCE.

There was a Monday morning train going down from Z----.

Mr. Ledwith and Kenneth Kincaid were in it, reading the morning papers, seated side by side.

It was nearly a week since the picnic, but the engagement of Rosamond and Kenneth had not transpired. Mr. Holabird had been away in New York. Of course nothing was said beyond Mrs. Holabird and Ruth and Dolly Kincaid, until his return. But Kenneth carried a happy face about with him, in the streets and in the cars and about his work; and his speech was quick and bright with the men he met and had need to speak to. It almost told itself; people might have guessed it, if they had happened, at least to see the _two_ faces in the same day, and if they were alive to sympathetic impressions of other people's pain or joy. There are not many who stop to piece expressions, from pure sympathy, however; they are, for the most part, too busy putting this and that together for themselves.

Desire would have guessed it in a minute; but she saw little of either in this week. Mrs. Ledwith was not well, and there was a dress to be made for Helena.

Kenneth Kincaid's elder men friends said of him, when they saw him in these days, "That's a fine fellow; he is doing very well." They could read that; he carried it in his eye and in his tone and in his step, and it was true.

It was a hot morning; it would be a stifling day in the city. They sat quiet while they could, in the cars, taking the fresh air of the fields and the sea reaches, reading the French news, and saying little.

They came almost in to the city terminus, when the train stopped. Not at a station. There were people to alight at the last but one; these grew impatient after a few minutes, and got out and walked.

The train still waited.

Mr. Ledwith finished a column he was reading, and then looked up, as the conductor came along the passage.

"What is the delay?" he asked of him.

"Freight. Got such a lot of it. Takes a good while to handle."

Freight outward bound. A train making up.

Mr. Ledwith turned to his newspaper again.

Ten minutes went by. Kenneth Kincaid got up and went out, like many others. They might be kept there half an hour.

Mr. Ledwith had read all his paper, and began to grow impatient. He put his head out at the window, and looked and listened. Half the passengers were outside. Brake-men were walking up and down.

"Has he got a flag out there?" says the conductor to one of these.

"Don't know. Can't see. Yes, he has; I heard him whistle brakes."

Just then, their own bell sounded, and men jumped on board. Kenneth Kincaid came back to his seat.

Behind, there was a long New York train coming in.

Mr. Ledwith put his head out again, and looked back. All right; there had been a flag; the train had slackened just beyond a curve.

But why will people do such things? What is the use of asking? Mr. Ledwith still looked out; he could not have told you why.

A quicker motion; a darkening of the window; a freight car standing upon a siding, close to the switch, as they passed by; a sudden, dull blow, half unheard in the rumble of the train. Women, sitting behind, sprang up,--screamed; one dropped, fainting: they had seen a ghastly sight; warm drops of blood flew in upon them; the car was in commotion.

Kenneth Kincaid, with an exclamation of horror, clutched hold of a lifeless body that fell--was thrust--backward beside him; the poor head fractured, shattered, against the fatal window frame.

* * * * *

The eleven o'clock train came out.

People came up the street,--a group of gentlemen, three or four,--toward Mr. Prendible's house.

Desire sat in a back window behind the blinds, busy. Mrs. Ledwith was lying on the bed.

Steps came in at the house door.

There was an exclamation; a hush. Mr. Prendible's voice, Kenneth Kincaid's, Mr. Dimsey's, the minister's.

"O! How? "--Mrs. Prendible's voice, now.

"Take care!"

"Where are they?"

Mrs. Ledwith heard.

"What is the matter?"--springing up, with a sudden instinct of precognition.

Desire had not seen or heard till now. She dropped her work.

"What is it, mother?"

Mrs. Ledwith was up, upon the floor; in the doorway out in the passage; trembling; seized all over with a horrible dread and vague knowledge.

"_Tell_ me what it is!" she cried, to those down below.

They were all there upon the staircase; Mrs. Prendible furthest up.

"O, Mrs. Ledwith!" she cried. "_Don't_ be frightened! _Don't_ take on! Take it easy,--do!"

Desire rushed down among them; past Mrs. Prendible, past the minister, straight to Kenneth Kincaid.

Kenneth took her right in his arms, and carried her into a little room below.

"There could have been no pain," he said, tenderly. "It was the accident of a moment. Be strong,--be patient, dear!"

There had been tender words natural to his lips lately. It was not strange that in his great pity he used them now.

"My father!" gasped Desire.

"Yes; your father. It was our Father's will."

"Help me to go to my mother!"

She took his hand, half blind, almost reeling.

And then they all, somehow, found themselves up-stairs.

There were moans of pain; there were words of prayer. We have no right there. It is all told.

* * * * *

"Be strong,--be