Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 37

"I have been fortunate in my contracts for rails with the two railroads.

I shall finish this letter in Baltimore.- "Baltimore.-I saw Leila, who has quite the air of a young lady and is well, handsome and reasonably contented. Dined with your brother Henry; and really, Ann, the cold-blooded way the men talked of secession was a little beyond endurance. I spoke my mind at last, and was heard with courteous disapproval. My friend, Lt.-Colonel Robert Lee of the Army, was the only man who was silent about our troubles. Two men earnestly advocated the re-opening of the slave-trade, and if as they say slavery is a blessing, the slave-trade is morally justified and logically desirable. I do want you to feel, my dear Ann, how extreme are the views of these pleasant gentlemen.

"The Madeira was good, and despite the half-hidden bitterness of opinion, I enjoyed my visit. Let John read this letter if you like to do so.

"Yours always and in all ways,

"JAMES PENHALLOW."

She did not like, but John heard all about this visit when the Squire came home.

The winter of 1856-7 went by without other incident at Westways, with Mrs. Ann's usual bountiful Christmas gifts to the children at the mills and Westways. Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated in March. The captain smiled grimly as he read in the same paper the message of the Governor of South Carolina recommending the re-opening of the trade in slaves, and the new President's hopes "that the long agitation over slavery is approaching its end." Nor did Penhallow fancy the Cabinet appointments, but he said nothing more of his opinions to Ann Penhallow.

CHAPTER XIII

In the early days of May the Squire began to rebuild the parsonage, and near by it a large room for Sunday school and town-meetings. Ann desired to add a library-room for the town and would have set about this at once had not her husband resolutely set himself against any addition to the work with which she filled her usefully busy life. She yielded with reluctance, and the library plan was set aside to the regret of Rivers, who living in a spiritual atmosphere was slow to perceive what with the anxiety of a great love James Penhallow saw so clearly-the failure of Ann Penhallow's health.

When at last Penhallow sat down with McGregor in his office, the doctor knew at once that something serious was troubling his friend.

"Well, Penhallow," he said, "what can I do for you?"

"I want you to see my wife. She sleeps badly, tires easily, and worst of all is unwilling to consult you."

"Yes, that's serious. Of course, she does the work of two people, but has it ever occurred to you, Penhallow, that in the isolated life you lead she may be at times bored and want or need society, change?"

"My dear Doctor, if I propose to her to ask our friends from the cities to visit us, she says that entertaining women would only add to her burdens. How could she amuse them?" The Squire had the helplessness of a strong man who has to deal with the case of a woman who, when a doctor is thought to be necessary, feels that she has a right to an opinion as to whether or not it is worth while. She did not believe it to be necessary and felt that there was something unpleasant in this medical intrusion upon a life which had been one of unbroken health. To her husband's annoyance she begged him to wait, and on one pretext or another put off the consultation-it would do in a week, or 'she was better.' Her postponement and lack of decision added to the Squire's distress, but it was mid-June before she finally yielded and without a word to Penhallow wrote to ask McGregor to call.

In a week Leila would be at Grey Pine. The glad prospect of a summer's leisure filled John with happy antic.i.p.ations. He had his boat put in order, looked after Lucy's condition, and had in mind a dozen plans for distant long-desired rides into the mountains, rides which now his uncle had promised to take with them. He soon learned that the medical providence which so often interferes with our plans in life had to be considered.

Mrs. Penhallow to John's surprise had of late gone to bed long before her accustomed hour, and one evening in this June of 1857 Penhallow seeing her go upstairs at nine o'clock called John into the library.

"Mr. Rivers," he said, "has gone to see some one in Westways, and I have a chance to talk to you. Sit down."

John obeyed, missing half consciously the ever-ready smile of the Squire.

"I am troubled about your aunt. Dr. McGregor a.s.sures me that she has no distinct ailment, but is simply so tired that she is sure to become ill if she stays at home. No one can make her lessen her work if she stays here. You are young, but you must have been aware of what she does for this town and at the mills-oh, for every one who is in need or in trouble. There is the every-day routine of the house, the sick in the village, the sewing cla.s.s, the Sunday afternoon reading in the small hospital at our mills, letters-no end of them. How she has stood it so long, I cannot see."

"But she seems to like it, sir," said John. He couldn't understand that what was so plainly enjoyed could be hurtful.

"Yes, she likes it, but-well, she has a heavenly soul in an earthly body, and now at last the body is in revolt against overuse, or that at least is the way McGregor puts it. I ought to have stopped it long ago." John was faintly amused at the idea of any one controlling Ann Penhallow where her despotic beliefs concerning duties were concerned.

The Squire was silent for a little while, and then said, "It has got to stop, John. I have talked to McGregor and to her. Leila is to meet us in Philadelphia. I shall take them to Cape May and leave them there for at least the two months of summer. You may know what that means for me and for her, and, I suppose, for you."

"Could I not go there for a while?"

"I think not. I really have not the courage to be left alone, John. I think of asking you to spend a part of the day at the mills this summer. You will have to learn the business, for as you know your own property, your aunt's and mine are largely invested in our works. I thought too of an engineering school for you in the fall, and then of the School of Mines in Paris. It is a long look ahead, but it would fit you to relieve me of my work. Think it over, my son. How does it look to you, or have you thought of what you mean or want to do? Don't answer me now-think it over. And now I have some letters to write. Good-night."

John went upstairs to bed with much to think about, and above all else of the disappointing summer before him and the wish he had long cherished, but which his uncle's last words had made it necessary for him to reconsider.

Ann Penhallow had made a characteristic fight against the combined forces of the doctor and her husband. She had declared she would give up this and that, if only she could be left at home. She showed to the doctor an irritability quite new to his experience of her and which he accepted as added evidence of need of change. Her bodily condition and her want of common sense in a matter so clear to him troubled the Squire and drove him to his usual resort when worried-long rides or hard tramps with his gun. After luncheon and a decisive talk with Mrs. Ann, she had pleaded that he ought to remain with them at the sh.o.r.e. She was sure he needed it and it would set her mind at ease. He told her what she knew well enough, how impossible it would be for him to leave the mills and be absent long. She who rarely manufactured difficulties now began to ask how this was to be done and that, until Rivers said at last, "I can promise to read at the hospital until I go away for my August holiday."

"You would not know the kind of things to read."

"No one could do it as well as you," said Rivers, "but I can try."

"Everything will be cared for, Ann," said Penhallow, "only don't worry."

"I never worry," she returned, rising. "You men think everything will run along easily without a woman's attention."

"Oh, but Ann, my dear Ann!" exclaimed Penhallow, not knowing what more to say, annoyed at the discussion and at her display of unnecessary temper and the entire loss of her usual common sense.

She said, with a laugh in which there was no mirth, "I presume one of you will, of course, run my sewing-cla.s.s?"

"Ann-Ann!" said the Squire.

Rivers understood her now in the comprehending sympathy of his own too frequent moods of melancholy. "Ah!" he murmured, "if I could but teach her how to knit the ravelled sleeve of care."

"I presume," she added, "that I am to accept it as settled," and so went out.

"Come, John," said Penhallow an hour later, "call the dogs-I must have a good hard tramp, and a talk with you!"

John kept pace with, the rapid stride of the Squire, taking note of the reddening buds of the maples, for this year in the hills the spring came late.

"You must have seen your aunt's condition," said Penhallow. "I have seen it coming on ever since that miserable affair of Josiah. It troubled her greatly."

John had the puzzled feeling of the inexperienced young in regard to the matter of illness and its influential effect on temper, and was well pleased to converse on anything else, when his uncle asked, "Have you thought over what I said to you about your future?"

"Well?"

"I should like to go to West Point, Uncle Jim."

To his surprise Penhallow returned, pausing as he spoke, "I had thought of that, but as I did not know you had ever considered it, I did not mention it. It would in some ways please me. As a life-long career it would not. We are in no danger of war, and an idle existence at army-posts is not a very desirable thing for an able man."

"I had the idea, uncle, that I would not remain in the service."

"But you would have to serve two years after you were graduated-and still that was what I did, oh! and longer-much longer. As an education in discipline and much else, it is good-very good. But tell me are you really in earnest about it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, it is better than college. I will think about it. If you go to the Point, it should be this coming fall. I wonder what Ann will say."

Then John knew that the Squire favoured what had been for a long time on his own mind. What had made him eager to go into the army was in part that tendency towards adventure which had been a family trait and his admiration for the soldier-uncle; nor did the mere student life and the quiet years of managing the iron-mills as yet appeal to him as desirable.

"I wish, Uncle Jim, that you could settle the matter."

This was so like his own dislike of unsettled affairs that the Squire laughed in his hearty way. "So far as I am concerned, you may regard it as decided; but securing a nomination to the Point is quite another matter. It may be difficult. I will see about it. Now we will let it drop. That dog is pointing. Ah! the rascal. It is a hare."

They saw no more birds, nor did the Squire expect to find anything in the woods except the peace of mind to be secured by violent exercise. He went on talking about the horses and the mills.

When near to the house, Penhallow said, "Your aunt is to go away to-morrow. Every day here seems to add to her difficulty in leaving home. I shall say nothing to her of West Point until it is settled one way or another. I shall, of course, go to the Cape for a day, unless your aunt's brother Charles will take my place when he brings Leila to Philadelphia to meet us. I may be gone a week, and you and Rivers are to keep bachelor's hall and watch the work on the parsonage. I shall ask Leila to write to you and to me about your aunt. Did I say that we go by the 9:30 A.M. express?"