Hildegarde's Harvest Part 3

"Yes, I know it is valuable!" she said. "Old Mr. Aytoun left all his personal property to Mamma, you know, Aunt Emily; there was a great deal of lace, some of it very fine indeed; this is a small piece that went with some broad flounces. Beautiful flounces they are!"

Mrs. Delansing's eyes lightened, and her fingers moved nervously. Lace was one of her few pa.s.sions, and she could not see it, or even hear of it, unmoved.

"And what does your mother propose to do with all this lace?" she asked.

"She cannot wear it herself, in the wilderness that she chooses to live in."

"Oh, she keeps it!" said Hildegarde. "It is delightful to have good lace, don't you think so? even if you don't wear it. And when either of us wants a bit to put on a gown,--like this, for example,--why, there it is, all ready."

"It seems wanton; it seems almost criminal," said Mrs. Delansing, with energy, "to keep valuable lace shut up in a mouldering country-house.

I--it distresses me to think of it. I shall feel it a point of duty to write to your mother."

Hildegarde wondered what her aunt would feel it her duty to say. It was hardly her mother's fault that the lace had been left to her; it seemed even doubtful whether she should be expected to mould her life upon the lines of lace; but this seemed an unsafe point to suggest.

"That is very beautiful lace on your dress, Aunt Emily!" said this wily young woman.

Mrs. Delansing's brow smoothed, and she looked down with a shade of complacency. "Yes, this is good," she said. "This is very good. Your grandfather,--I should say your great-uncle, bought this lace for me in Brussels. It is peculiarly fine, you may perceive. The young woman who made it lost her eyesight in consequence."

"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Hildegarde. "How could you--" "How could you bear to wear it?" was what she was going to say, but she checked herself, and the old lady went on, placidly.

"Your great-uncle paid something more than the price asked on that account. He thought something more was due; he was a man of great benevolence. This is point lace."

"Yes," said Hildegarde, "Point d'Alencon; I never saw a more delicate piece."

"Ah! you know point lace!" said Mrs. Delansing. Her voice took on a new tone, and she looked at the girl with more friendly eyes. "I did not know that any young women of the new generation understood point. These matters seem to be thought of little consequence nowadays. I have myself spent months in the study of a special point, and felt myself well repaid."

She put some searching questions, relative to the qualities of Spanish, Venice, and Rose point, and nodded her head at each modest but intelligent answer. Hildegarde blessed her mother and Cousin Wealthy, who had expounded to her the mysteries of lace. At the end of the catechism, the old lady sighed and shook her head.

"It is an exceptional thing," she said, "to find any knowledge of laces in the younger generations. I instructed my own daughters most carefully in this branch of a gentlewoman's education, but they have not thought proper to extend the instruction to their own children. I--a shocking thing happened to me last year!" She paused, and Hildegarde looked up in sympathy.

"What was it, Aunt Emily?" she asked.

Mrs. Delansing was still silent, lost in distressful reverie. At length, "It is painful to dwell upon," she said, "and yet these things are a warning, and it is, perhaps, a duty to communicate them. You have met my granddaughters, your cousins, Violette and Blanche?"

"Oh, yes!" said Hildegarde, smiling a little, and colouring a little too. These cousins were rather apt to attempt the city-cousin role, and to treat her as a country cousin and poor relation. She did not think they had had the best of it at their last meeting. "Yes, I know them,"

she said, simply.

"They are girls of lively disposition," Mrs. Delansing continued.

"Their mother--your Cousin Amelia--has been something of an invalid,--I make allowance for all this, and yet there are things--" She broke off; then, after a moment, went on again. "Violette made me a visit last winter, here, in this house. She was engaged in what she called fancy work, for a bazaar (most objectionable things to my mind), that was to be held in the neighbourhood. One day she came to Hobson--I was unwell at the time--and said,--Hobson remembers her very words:

"'Oh, Hobson, see what a lovely thing I have made out of a bit of old rubbishy lace that was in this bureau drawer.'

"Hobson looked, and turned pale to her soul, as she expressed it in her homely way. She recognised the pattern of the lace.

"'I cut out the flowers,' said the unhappy girl, 'and applied them'--she _said_ 'appliqued' them, a term which I cannot reproduce--'applied them to this crimson satin ribbon; it will make a lovely picture-frame; so unique!'

"She had--she had taken a piece of my old Mechlin, which Hobson had just done up and had laid in the drawer till I should feel strong enough to examine and approve its appearance,--she had taken this and cut it to pieces, cut out the flowers, to sew them-- There are things that have to be lived through, my dear. It was weeks before Hobson felt able to tell me what had occurred. I was in danger of a relapse for several weeks, though she did it as delicately as possible,--good Hobson. I did not trust myself to speak to Violette in person; I sent for her mother, and told her of the occurrence. She--she--laughed!"

There was silence for some minutes. Hildegarde wanted to show the sympathy that she truly felt, for she liked lace, and the idea of its stupid destruction filled her with indignation. She ventured to lay her hand timidly on the old lady's arm, but Mrs. Delansing took no notice of the caress; she sat bolt upright, gazing out of the window with stony eyes. Presently she said:

"You may ring for Hobson, if you please. I feel somewhat shaken, and will have my malted milk in my own room. Another evening, I may ask your patience in a game of backgammon,--you have been taught to play backgammon? Yes; but not to-night. You will find books in the library, and the piano does not disturb me. Good-night, my niece."

She shook hands with Hildegarde, and departed on Hobson's arm, looking old and feeble, though holding herself studiously erect. Hildegarde went to her room, feeling half sad, half amused, and wholly homesick. She greeted the china sailor with effusion, as if he were a friend of years.

"Oh, you dear fellow!" she said. "You are young, aren't you? and happy, aren't you? Well, mind you stay so, do you hear?" She nodded vehemently at him, and took up her book, to read till bedtime.

CHAPTER IV.

GREETINGS.

THERE was no family breakfast at the house in Gramercy Park. A smiling chambermaid brought up a tray to Hildegarde's room, with all manner of pleasant things under suggestive little covers. Hilda ate and was thankful, and then, finding that her aunt would not be visible before noon, she put on her hat and went for a walk. The streets were chilly, in the November morning, but the air was fresh and good, and Hildegarde breathed it in joyously.

This was just a walk, she said to herself. She had many visits to make, of course, and more or less shopping to do, but there was time enough for all that. Now she would walk, and get her bearings, and consider that one might live well in a city. The brick sidewalks seemed at once strange and familiar; she had known the brown-stone streets all her life. Once they had seemed her own, the only place worth walking in; now they were a poor apology, indeed, for shady lanes and broad sunny roads along which the feet trod or the wheel spun, winged by "the joy of mere living." She pa.s.sed the house where her childhood had been spent, and paused to look up at the tall windows, in loving thought of the dear father who had made that early home so bright and full of cheer. Dear Father! There was his smoking-room window, where he used to sit and read aloud to her, so many happy hours. How he would dislike those heavy brocade curtains; he used to thunder, almost as loud as Colonel Ferrers, about curtains that kept out the blessed suns.h.i.+ne. How--the house was a corner one, and at this moment, as Hildegarde stood gazing up at the windows, a gentleman turned the corner, and ran plump into her.

"Upon my soul," said the gentleman, with great violence, "it is a most extraordinary thing that a human being should turn himself into a post for the express purpose of--I beg your pardon, madam. I was not conscious that I was addressing a lady! Can I serve you in any way?

Command me, I beg of you!"

The moment Hildegarde caught the sound of the gentleman's voice, she turned her head away, so that he could not see her face; and now she spoke over her shoulder.

"A place in thy memory, dearest--sir, is all that I ask at thy hands. It is hard to be forgotten so soon, so utterly!"

"What! what! what! what!" said the Colonel. "Who! who! why--why the mischief will you not turn your head round, young woman? There is only one young woman in the world who would address me in this manner, and she is a hundred miles away. Now, in the name of all that is elfish, Hildegarde Grahame, what are you doing here?"

Hildegarde turned round, her eyes full of happy laughter, and took her friend's arm.

"And in the name of all that is occult, and necromantic, and Rosicrucian, Colonel Ferrers, what are _you_ doing here?" she asked. "I thought you were in Was.h.i.+ngton."

"I was, till last night!" the Colonel replied. "We have seen all the sights, the boy and I, and now we have come to see the sights here on our way home. Well! well! and the first sight I see is the best one for sair een that I know. What a pity I left the boy at the hotel! He was still asleep. We arrived late last night. I went to wake him, and I give you my word, I could as soon have thought of waking an angel from a dream of paradise; the little fellow smiled, you understand, Hildegarde, and--and moved his little arms, and--I came away, sir,--my dear, I should say,--and left him to sleep as long as he would. Where are you going now, my child? have you had breakfast? if not,--"

"Oh, yes, I have had breakfast, dear sir!" said Hildegarde. "And you were thinking, if I had had it, how pleasant for me to go in and surprise that blessed lamb in his crib; now, weren't you?"

"The point, as usual!" cried the Colonel. "Country neighbours learn to know each others' thoughts, they say, but I never believed it, till I had neighbours. Well, shall we go? Now, upon my soul, this is the most surprising and delightful thing that has happened to me for forty years.

But you have not told me where you are staying, Hilda, nor why you are here, nor in fact anything; have simply wormed information out of the confiding friend, and remained silent yourself!" and the Colonel looked injured, and twirled his moustaches with mock ferocity.

"I like that!" said Hildegarde. "That really pleases me! Kindly indicate, dear sir, the moment at which I could have got in a word edgewise, since you began your highly interesting remarks! I have been simply panting with eagerness to tell you that I left home yesterday, and arrived in New York at five o'clock in the afternoon; that I am staying with my great-aunt in Gramercy Park; that I am wofully homesick, and that the sound of your voice was the most ecstatic sound I have heard for half a century."

"Ha!" said the Colonel. "Humph! mockery, I perceive! of the aged, too!

Very well, Miss Grahame, your punishment will be decided hereafter.

Meanwhile, here we are at my hotel, and we will go straight up and wake the boy,--if he seems to be ready to wake, my dear. I am sure you will agree with me that it would be a pity to rouse him from a sound sleep.

'Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,' you remember, Hildegarde!"

"Yes, dear Colonel Ferrers!" said Hildegarde. "But I don't believe Hugh's sleeve is very deeply ravelled, do you? and indeed, it is high time for him to be awake."

They turned in at a great white marble portal, and the elevator soon brought them to the Colonel's door. He opened it softly with a latch-key, and led the way into the apartment; then paused, and beckoned Hilda to come in quietly.

"Listen!" he whispered. "Hugh is awake!"