Rudder Grange Read online

  CHAPTER XIV. POMONA TAKES A BRIDAL TRIP.

  Our life at Rudder Grange seemed to be in no way materially changed bymy becoming a vestryman. The cow gave about as much milk as before, andthe hens laid the usual number of eggs. Euphemia went to church with alittle more of an air, perhaps, but as the wardens were never absent,and I was never, therefore, called upon to assist in taking up thecollection, her sense of my position was not inordinately manifested.

  For a year or two, indeed, there was no radical change in anything aboutRudder Grange, except in Pomona. In her there was a change. She grew up.

  She performed this feat quite suddenly. She was a young girl when shefirst came to us, and we had never considered her as anything else, whenone evening she had a young man to see her. Then we knew she had grownup.

  We made no objections to her visitors,--she had several, from time totime,--"for," said Euphemia, "suppose my parents had objected to yourvisits." I could not consider the mere possibility of anything likethis, and we gave Pomona all the ordinary opportunities for entertainingher visitors. To tell the truth, I think we gave her more than theordinary opportunities. I know that Euphemia would wait on herself toalmost any extent, rather than call upon Pomona, when the latter wasentertaining an evening visitor in the kitchen or on the back porch.

  "Suppose my mother," she once remarked, in answer to a mild remonstrancefrom me in regard to a circumstance of this nature,--"suppose my motherhad rushed into our presence when we were plighting our vows, and hadtold me to go down into the cellar and crack ice!"

  It was of no use to talk to Euphemia on such subjects; she always had ananswer ready.

  "You don't want Pomona to go off and be married, do you?" I asked, oneday as she was putting up some new muslin curtains in the kitchen. "Youseem to be helping her to do this all you can, and yet I don't knowwhere on earth you will get another girl who will suit you so well."

  "I don't know, either," replied Euphemia, with a tack in her mouth, "andI'm sure I don't want her to go. But neither do I want winter to come,or to have to wear spectacles; but I suppose both of these things willhappen, whether I like it or not."

  For some time after this Pomona had very little company, and we began tothink that there was no danger of any present matrimonial engagement onher part,--a thought which was very gratifying to us, although wedid not wish in any way to interfere with her prospects,--when, oneafternoon, she quietly went up into the village and was married.

  Her husband was a tall young fellow, a son of a farmer in the county,who had occasionally been to see her, but whom she must have frequentlymet on her "afternoons out."

  When Pomona came home and told us this news we were certainly wellsurprised.

  "What on earth are we to do for a girl?" cried Euphemia.

  "You're to have me till you can get another one," said Pomona quietly."I hope you don't think I'd go 'way, and leave you without anybody."

  "But a wife ought to go to her husband," said Euphemia, "especially sorecent a bride. Why didn't you let me know all about it? I would havehelped to fit you out. We would have given you the nicest kind of alittle wedding."

  "I know that," said Pomona; "you're jus' good enough. But I didn't wantto put you to all that trouble--right in preserving-time too. An' hewanted it quiet, for he's awful backward about shows. An' as I'm togo to live with his folks,--at least in a little house on the farm,--Imight as well stay here as anywhere, even if I didn't want to, for Ican't go there till after frost."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "The chills and fever," said she. "They have it awful down in thatvalley. Why, he had a chill while we was bein' married, right at thebridal altar."

  "You don't say so!" exclaimed Euphemia. "How dreadful!"

  "Yes, indeed," said Pomona. "He must 'a' forgot it was his chill-day,and he didn't take his quinine, and so it come on him jus' as he wasapromisin' to love an' pertect. But he stuck it out, at the minister'shouse, and walked home by his-self to finish his chill."

  "And you didn't go with him?" cried Euphemia, indignantly.

  "He said, no. It was better thus. He felt it weren't the right thingto mingle the agur with his marriage vows. He promised to take sixteengrains to-morrow, and so I came away. He'll be all right in a month orso, an' then we'll go an' keep house. You see it aint likely I couldhelp him any by goin' there an' gettin' it myself."

  "Pomona," said Euphemia, "this is dreadful. You ought to go and take abridal tour and get him rid of those fearful chills."

  "I never thought of that," said Pomona, her face lighting upwonderfully.

  Now that Euphemia had fallen upon this happy idea, she never droppedit until she had made all the necessary plans, and had put them intoexecution. In the course of a week she had engaged another servant, andhad started Pomona and her husband off on a bridal-tour, stipulatingnothing but that they should take plenty of quinine in their trunk.

  It was about three weeks after this, and Euphemia and I were sitting onour front steps,--I had come home early, and we had been potting someof the tenderest plants,--when Pomona walked in at the gate. She lookedwell, and had on a very bright new dress. Euphemia noticed this themoment she came in. We welcomed her warmly, for we felt a great interestin this girl, who had grown up in our family and under our care.

  "Have you had your bridal trip?" asked Euphemia.

  "Oh yes!" said Pomona. "It's all over an' done with, an' we're settledin our house."

  "Well, sit right down here on the steps and tell us all about it," saidEuphemia, in a glow of delightful expectancy, and Pomona, nothing loth,sat down and told her tale.

  "You see," said she, untying her bonnet strings, to give an easiermovement to her chin, "we didn't say where we was goin' when we startedout, for the truth was we didn't know. We couldn't afford to take no bigtrip, and yet we wanted to do the thing up jus' as right as we could,seein' as you had set your heart on it, an' as we had, too, for thatmatter. Niagery Fall was what I wanted, but he said that it cost so muchto see the sights there that he hadn't money to spare to take us therean' pay for all the sight-seein', too. We might go, he said, withoutseein' the sights, or, if there was any way of seein' the sights withoutgoin', that might do, but he couldn't do both. So we give that up, andafter thinkin' a good deal, we agreed to go to some other falls, whichmight come cheaper, an' may-be be jus' as good to begin on. So wethought of Passaic Falls, up to Paterson, an' we went there, an' took aroom at a little hotel, an' walked over to the falls. But they wasn'tno good, after all, for there wasn't no water runnin' over em. Therewas rocks and precipicers, an' direful depths, and everything for a goodfalls, except water, and that was all bein' used at the mills. 'Well,Miguel,' says I, 'this is about as nice a place for a falls as ever Isee,' but--"

  "Miguel!" cried Euphemia. "Is that your husband's name?"

  "Well, no," said Pomona, "it isn't. His given name is Jonas, but I hatedto call him Jonas, an' on a bridal trip, too. He might jus' as well havehad a more romantic-er name, if his parents had 'a' thought of it. SoI determined I'd give him a better one, while we was on our journey,anyhow, an' I changed his name to Miguel, which was the name of aSpanish count. He wanted me to call him Jiguel, because, he said, thatwould have a kind of a floating smell of his old name, but I didn'tnever do it. Well, neither of us didn't care to stay about no dry falls,so we went back to the hotel and got our supper, and begun to wonderwhat we should do next day. He said we'd better put it off and dreamabout it, and make up our minds nex' mornin', which I agreed to, an',that evenin', as we was sittin' in our room I asked Miguel to tell methe story of his life. He said, at first, it hadn't none, but when Iseemed a kinder put out at this, he told me I mustn't mind, an' he wouldreveal the whole. So he told me this story:

  "'My grandfather,' said he, 'was a rich and powerful Portugee, a-livin'on the island of Jamaica. He had heaps o' slaves, an' owned a blackbrigantine, that he sailed in on secret voyages, an', when he comeback, the decks an' the gunnels was often bloody, but nobody knew why orwhere
fore. He was a big man with black hair an' very violent. He couldnever have kept no help, if he hadn't owned 'em, but he was so rich,that people respected him, in spite of all his crimes. My grandmotherwas a native o' the Isle o' Wight. She was a frail an' tender woman,with yeller hair, and deep blue eyes, an' gentle, an' soft, an' good tothe poor. She used to take baskits of vittles aroun' to sick folks, an'set down on the side o' their beds an' read "The Shepherd o' SalisburyPlains" to 'em. She hardly ever speaked above her breath, an' alwayswore white gowns with a silk kerchief a-folded placidly aroun' herneck.' 'Them was awful different kind o' people,' I says to him, 'Iwonder how they ever come to be married.' 'They never was married,' sayshe. 'Never married!' I hollers, a-jumpin' up from my chair, 'and you sitthere carmly an' look me in the eye.' 'Yes,' says he, 'they was nevermarried. They never met; one was my mother's father, and the other onemy father's mother. 'Twas well they did not wed.' 'I should think so,'said I, 'an' now, what's the good of tellin' me a thing like that?'

  "'It's about as near the mark as most of the stories of people's lives,I reckon,' says he, 'an' besides I'd only jus' begun it.'

  "'Well, I don't want no more,' says I, an' I jus' tell this story of histo show what kind of stories he told about that time. He said they waspleasant fictions, but I told him that if he didn't look out he'd hear'em called by a good deal of a worse kind of a name than that. The nex'mornin' he asked me what was my dream, an' I told him I didn't haveexactly no dream about it, but my idea was to have somethin' realromantic for the rest of our bridal days.

  "'Well,' says he, 'what would you like? I had a dream, but it wasn't noways romantic, and I'll jus' fall in with whatever you'd like best.'

  "'All right,' says I, 'an' the most romantic-est thing that I canthink of is for us to make-believe for the rest of this trip. We canmake-believe we're anything we please, an' if we think so in realearnest it will be pretty much the same thing as if we really was. Weaint likely to have no chance ag'in of being jus' what we've a mind to,an' so let's try it now.'

  "'What would you have a mind to be?' says he.

  "'Well,' says I, 'let's be an earl an' a earl-ess.'

  "'Earl-ess'? says he, 'there's no such a person.'

  "'Why, yes there is, of course,' I says to him. 'What's a she-earl ifshe isn't a earl-ess?'

  "'Well, I don't know,' says he, 'never havin' lived with any of 'em, butwe'll let it go at that. An' how do you want to work the thing out?'

  "'This way,' says I. 'You, Miguel--'

  "'Jiguel,' says he.

  "'The earl,' says I, not mindin' his interruption, 'an' me, your nobleearl-ess, will go to some good place or other--it don't matter much jus'where, and whatever house we live in we'll call our castle an' we'llconsider it's got draw-bridges an' portcullises an' moats an' secritdungeons, an' we'll remember our noble ancesters, an' behave accordin'.An' the people we meet we can make into counts and dukes and princes,without their knowin' anything about it; an' we can think our clothes issilk an' satin an' velwet, all covered with dimuns an' precious stones,jus' as well as not.'

  "'Jus' as well,' says he.

  "'An' then,' I went on, 'we can go an' have chi-VAL-rous adventures,--ormake believe we're havin' 'em,--an' build up a atmosphere ofromanticness aroun' us that'll carry us back--'

  "'To ole Virginny,' says he.

  "'No,' says I, 'for thousands of years, or at least enough back for thetimes of tournaments and chi-VAL-ry.'

  "'An' so your idea is that we make believe all these things, an' don'tpay for none of 'em, is it?' says he.

  "'Yes,' says I; 'an' you, Miguel--'

  "'Jiguel,' says he.

  "'Can ask me, if you don't know what chi-VAL-ric or romantic thing youought to do or to say so as to feel yourself truly an' reely a earl, forI've read a lot about these people, an' know jus' what ought to be did.'

  "Well, he set himself down an' thought a while, an' then he says, 'Allright. We'll do that, an' we'll begin to-morrow mornin', for I've gota little business to do in the city which wouldn't be exactly the rightthing for me to stoop to after I'm a earl, so I'll go in an' do it whileI'm a common person, an' come back this afternoon, an you can walk aboutan' look at the dry falls, an' amuse yourself gen'rally, till I comeback.'

  "'All right,' says I, an' off he goes.

  "He come back afore dark, an' the nex' mornin' we got ready to startoff.

  "'Have you any particular place to go?' says he.

  "'No,' says I, 'one place is as likely to be as good as another for ourstyle o' thing. If it don't suit, we can imagine it does.'

  "'That'll do,' says he, an' we had our trunk sent to the station, andwalked ourselves. When we got there, he says to me,

  "Which number will you have, five or seven?'

  "'Either one will suit me, Earl Miguel,' says I.

  "'Jiguel,' says he, 'an' we'll make it seven. An' now I'll go an' lookat the time-table, an' we'll buy tickets for the seventh station fromhere. The seventh station,' says he, comin' back, 'is Pokus. We'll go toPokus.'

  "So when the train come we got in, an' got out at Pokus. It was a prettysort of a place, out in the country, with the houses scattered a longways apart, like stingy chicken-feed.

  "'Let's walk down this road,' says he, 'till we come to a good house fora castle, an' then we can ask 'em to take us to board, an' if they wontdo it we'll go to the next, an' so on.'

  "'All right,' says I, glad enough to see how pat he entered into thething.

  "We walked a good ways, an' passed some little houses that neither of usthought would do, without more imaginin' than would pay, till we came toa pretty big house near the river, which struck our fancy in a minute.It was a stone house, an' it had trees aroun' it, there was a gardenwith a wall, an' things seemed to suit first-rate, so we made up ourminds right off that we'd try this place.

  "'You wait here under this tree,' says he, 'an' I'll go an' ask 'em ifthey'll take us to board for a while.'

  "So I waits, an' he goes up to the gate, an' pretty soon he comes outan' says, 'All right, they'll take us, an' they'll send a man with awheelbarrer to the station for our trunk.' So in we goes. The man wasa country-like lookin' man, an' his wife was a very pleasant woman. Thehouse wasn't furnished very fine, but we didn't care for that, an'they gave us a big room that had rafters instid of a ceilin', an' a bigfire-place, an' that, I said, was jus' exac'ly what we wanted. The roomwas almos' like a donjon itself, which he said he reckoned had oncebeen a kitchin, but I told him that a earl hadn't nothin' to do withkitchins, an' that this was a tapestry chamber, an' I'd tell him allabout the strange figgers on the embroidered hangin's, when the shaddersbegun to fall.

  "It rained a little that afternoon, an' we stayed in our room, an' hungour clothes an' things about on nails an' hooks, an' made believethey was armor an' ancient trophies an' portraits of a long line ofancesters. I did most of the make-believin' but he agreed to ev'rything.The man who kep' the house's wife brought us our supper about dark,because she said she thought we might like to have it together cozy, an'so we did, an' was glad enough of it; an' after supper we sat before thefire-place, where we made-believe the flames was a-roarin' an' cracklin'an' a-lightin' up the bright places on the armor a-hangin' aroun', whilethe storm--which we made-believe--was a-ragin' an' whirlin' outside. Itold him a long story about a lord an' a lady, which was two or threestories I had read, run together, an' we had a splendid time. It allseemed real real to me."