A Little Girl in Old Boston, Amanda Minnie Douglas [black authors fiction .TXT] 📗

/> THE COST OF WOMANHOOD

A happy fortnight. It was worth all the after-pain to have it to remember. When Boston was a great city half a century later, and there had been another war, and Captain Hawthorne had risen in the ranks and been put on the retired list, he came a grizzled old man to find the place that had always lived in his remembrance. But the old house had been swept away by the march of improvement, the rounding corner straightened and given over to business, and the Common was magnificent in beauty. The tall, thin, scholarly man had gone to the wife of his youth. Doris, little Doris, was very happy. So what did it matter?

There was a succession of lovely days. One morning, early, Captain Hawthorne joined Doris and her uncle in a long ride over on Boston Neck. They found an odd old tavern kept by a sailor who had been round the world and taken a hand in the "scrimmage," as he called it, and with his small prize money bought out the place. There was some delightful bread and cold chicken, wine and bottled cider equal to champagne. There was another long lovely day when with Betty they went up to Salem and drove around the quaint streets and watched the signs of awakening business. There was Fort Pickering, the lighthouse out on the island, the pretty Common, the East India Marine Society's hall with its curiosities (quite wonderful even then), and the clean streets with their tidy shops, the children coming from school, the housewives going about on errands. Foster Manning drove his grandmother down to join them; and he was almost a young man now. He told Doris they all missed Elizabeth so much, but he was glad she had had that nice visit to Boston.

So the days drifted on; Doris unconsciously sweet in her simplicity, yet so innocent that the lover began to fear while he hoped.

Uncle Winthrop had gone to a meeting of the Historical Society. Miss Recompense had a neighbor in great trouble that she was trying to console out in the supper room, where they could talk unreservedly. Cary was in the study, and the two were sauntering around the fragrant walks where the grassy beds had recently been cut. There was no moon, and the whole world seemed soft and still, as if it was listening to the story Captain Hawthorne had to tell, as if it was in love with itself.

"Oh," interrupted Doris with a sharp, pained cry, "do not, please do not! I never dreamed--I--shall never go away from Uncle Winthrop. I do not want any other love. I thought it was--Betty. Oh, forgive me for the pain and disappointment. I seem even to myself such a little girl----"

"But I can wait years. I wanted you to know. Oh, Doris, as the years go on can you not learn to love me? I will be patient and live in the sweet, grand hope that some day----"

"No, no; do not hope. I cannot promise. Oh, you are so noble and upright, can you not accept this truth from me? For it would only be pain and disappointment in the end."

No, she did not love him. Her sweet soul was still asleep within her fair body. He was too really honorable to persist.

"Doris," he said,--what a sweet girl's name it was!--"five years from this time I shall come back. You will be a woman then, you are still a child. And if no other lover has won you, I shall ask again."

He pressed her hand to his lips. Then he led her around to the porch, and bade her a tender good-night. He would not embarrass her by any longer stay.

She ran up the steps. Cary intercepted her in the hall.

"Has he gone? Doris----"

"Oh, _did_ you know? How could you let him!" she cried in anguish. "How could you!"

"Doris--my dear little sister, he loved you so. But I wish it had been Betty. Oh, don't cry. You have done nothing. I am sorry, but he would not have been satisfied if he had not spoken. He wanted to ask father first, but I hated to have _him_ pained if it was not necessary----"

"Thank you for that, Cary. Do not tell him. You will not?" she pleaded, thinking of the other first.

"No, dear. We must shield him all we can."

Yes, they would try always. There was a little rift in the cloud of pain.

The next evening Captain Hawthorne came over to bid them a formal good-by. Helen Chapman and her lover and Eudora were there, so it was an unembarrassing affair with many good wishes on both sides.

Doris thought she would like to run away and hide. It seemed as if the whole story was written in her face. Betty suspected, but she loved her too well to tease. And almost immediately Helen announced her arrangements. She was to be married in October. Doris and Cary must stand with her, and one of the Chapman cousins with Eudora. Another warm girl friend and her lover would complete the party. Grandmamma had stipulated that Mr. Harrison Gray should cast in his lot with them for a year. Mr. Sargent had been attached to the embassy at London and they would remain two years longer at least. Madam Royall could not bear to have the family shrink so rapidly.

Betty was to go away again. Mr. and Mrs. Matthias King came together this time to see old friends and Boston, that Mr. King found wonderfully changed. He was to go to France on business for the firm of which he was a member, and be absent a year at least. It would be such a splendid chance for Betty. They were to take their own little Bessy and leave the three younger children with a friend who had a school for small people and who would give them a mother's care.

There was a little grandson in Sudbury Street, and Mercy had proved a very agreeable daughter-in-law. Warren had begun to prosper again, and was full of hope. The children at Hollis Leverett's were growing rapidly. They no longer said "little Sam." He was almost a young man. He had taken the Franklin prize at the Latin School and was now apprenticed to an architect and builder, and would set up for himself when he came of age, as Boston had begun to build up rapidly. But he couldn't help envying Cousin Cary Adams his prize money and wondering what he meant to do with it.

An invitation to go to Paris was not to be lightly declined then, any more than it would be now. Mrs. Manning did not see "how Betty could leave mother for so long," but Mrs. Leverett was in good health, and though she hated to have her go so far away, there really could be no objection, when Matthias King was so generous.

"I am going to have some of my good times while we are together and able to enjoy them," he said to Mrs. Leverett. "I shall have to leave Electa alone every now and then while I am about business, and it will be such a comfort to her to have Betty. No doubt, we shall marry her to a French count."

"Oh, no, bring her back to me," said Betty's mother.

There was quite a stir among Betty's compeers. She was congratulated and envied, and they begged her to write everything she could about French fashions. How lucky that she had been studying French!

Aunt Priscilla had a hard struggle with conscience about a matter that she felt to be quite a duty. Giving away finery that you would never wear was one thing, but your money was quite another.

"Betty," she said, "I'm going to make you a little gift. If you shouldn't want to use it maybe Mat will see some way to invest it for you. When the trouble came to Warren, I said he might as well have his part as to wait until I was dead and gone. I have been paid over and over again in comfort. He grows so much like your father, Betty. And he's weathered through the storm and stress. So I'll do the same by you, and if you never get any more you must be content."

It was an order for five hundred dollars. Winthrop Adams would see it paid.

Betty was quite overwhelmed. "I ought to give half of it to mother!" she cried.

"No, no. Your mother will have all she needs. The Mannings would borrow it of her to buy more ground with. I've no patience with all their scrimping, and sometimes I give thanks that poor Elizabeth is out of it all. Don't have an anxious thought about money where you mother is concerned."

"What a comfort you are, Aunt Priscilla."

"Well, it took years enough to teach me that anybody needed comforting."

As for Doris, she was so busy that she could hardly think about herself or Captain Hawthorne. She did wish he had not loved her. If she had known about the rose her heart would have been still more sore and pitiful.

Betty went before the wedding. They took a sloop to New York and were to leave there for Havre.

Madam Royall had this wedding just to her fancy, and it was quite a fine affair. Cary looked very nice, Doris thought, for the sea tan had nearly all bleached out. His figure was compact, and he had a rather soldierly bearing. He was quite a hero, too, to his old college mates, some of whom had not considered him possessed of really strong characteristics.

But the young ladies were proud of his notice and attention, and there was no end of invitations from their mothers when they were going to have evening companies.

The cold weather came on apace. Mr. Adams seemed to feel it more and gave up his horseback rides. He interested himself very much in the library plans, but he grew fonder of staying at home, and Doris was such a pleasant companion. Cary had never been fond of poetry, and now he threw himself into his profession with a resolve to stand high. Manhood's ambition was so different from the lukewarm endeavors of the boy.

His father did enjoy his earnestness very much. Sometimes he roused himself to argue a point when two or three young men dropped in, and the old fire flashed up, though he liked best his ease and his poets, or Doris reading or singing some old song. But he did not lose his interest in the world's progress or that of his beloved city.

Doris was very happy in a young girl's way. One did not expect to fill every moment with pleasure, or go to parties or the theater every evening. There were other duties and purposes to life. As Aunt Priscilla did not go out after the cold weather set in, she ran up there nearly every day with some cheerful bit of gossip. Madam Royall had grown very fond of her as well. There was the dancing class; and the sewing class, when they made garments for poor people; and shopping--even if one did not buy much, for now such pretty French and English goods were shown again. Then one stopped in the confectioner's on Newberry Street and had a cup of hot coffee or tea if it was a cold day; or strolled down Cornhill to see what new books had come over from London, for the Waverley novels