Chapter XVIII: Trouble at Home

"WHERE have you been all this time?" said Mrs. Orme to Selina, waylaying her as she came from her music-lesson. "I have not had even a glimpse of you."

"It hasn't been my fault, Mrs. Orme," answered Selina.

"Call me Eva," interrupted her friend: "'Orme' sounds so cold and formal. Why haven't you been in? Mr. Pyncheon was so anxious to hear you sing again. I wanted you to be friends with him, Selina: he has neither chick nor child, and he has no end of money. He said, after you went out, 'How I wish that child belonged to me! I should be so glad to give her a first-rate musical education.'"

"Did he?" asked Selina. "I know he said my voice was like his daughter's."

"Yes. Poor thing, she went to the bad,—made a runaway match, and he never saw her afterward; though he heard that she died somewhere in this neighborhood, and left a child. It was that brought him to Oldbury,—to see if he could find any trace of her. Just think, Selina, if you should turn out to be Mr. Pyncheon's grand-daughter, what a grand thing for you!"

"I don't believe there is any chance of that," said Selina. "I never asked any questions, but I always supposed my parents lived here, and were very poor people."

"They would naturally want you to think so," said Mrs. Orme reflectively, more as if she were addressing herself than speaking to Selina. Then, catching herself up, "But that might be true too. Poor Matilda married beneath her; as I said, a very common sort of man,—her father's coachman, in fact, and I dare say she might have died very poor. It was a terrible blow to her parents, and fairly killed her mother. After the first natural heat of his anger was over, Mr. Pyncheon made every effort to find his daughter, but without success. Then he went abroad, and has just come home. He has gone back to Boston now, but when he returns, we will talk to him. Come in and spend the evening with me. I have a lot of new songs for you to try."

"Mr. Schultz does not want me to sing any more songs just now," replied Selina. "He has given me a parcel of scales and exercises to practise."

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Orme. "However, singing scales is very good practice. But you can come over and see me, all the same."

"I don't believe I can, but I will see. I must go now, at any rate, Mrs. Orme,—Eva, I mean: it is dinner-time."

"Barbarous hours!" said Mrs. Orme. "Well, good-by, dear. I will contrive to meet you somehow."

Selina went home as if she were treading on air, her imagination all on fire with the news she had heard, and the brilliant prospect which seemed opening before her. As she said, she had never asked about her own parents, being restrained by a vague feeling that she might hear something she would not like. It was pleasanter to dream of wealthy and distinguished relatives coming to claim her, than to know for certain that her mother was a poor laundress or something of that sort.

And now it really seemed as if her day-dreams were coming true. Mr. Pyncheon's grand-daughter! Pyncheon was such an aristocratic name, that of one of the oldest New England families. It was worth while to have such an ancestry as that, Selina said to herself. She did not reflect that this grand ancestry had not kept her mother from running away with the coachman, who certainly could not be considered a very aristocratic connection. Still less did it occur to her to suspect, what was the fact, that Mrs. Orme had invented the whole story to serve her own purposes. Mrs. Orme had a plan with regard to Selina, and she was not likely to spare any amount of lying needful to carry it out.

Selina saw a great deal of her for the next week. Old Mrs. Woodbury was ailing; and, as she had no own daughter, Lizzy naturally devoted as much time as possible to waiting upon and comforting her mother-in-law. Whenever she went out, Mrs. Orme popped in, or called Selina into her own house. As the two grew more intimate, Mrs. Orme was more off her guard; and she did and said some things which certainly struck Selina as peculiar. For example, she drank wine and beer very freely, and on several occasions there was an odor of tobacco-smoke about the house which Selina could not account for. Selina, who had been brought up on strict total-abstinence principles, ventured to remonstrate. But she was met with a torrent of ridicule, which speedily silenced her.

"You poor little chicken, brought up in a coop among the daisies! It is really refreshing to meet with such innocence. But you must put these straitlaced Puritanical notions out of your head before you come to New York, or we shall have you making a laughing-stock of yourself. Fancy any one talking like that to my friend Mrs. Robert Livingstone on Fifth Avenue! Why, the wine alone at Mrs. Livingstone's last lunch-party cost three hundred dollars."

The idea of making herself a laughing-stock to an unknown Mrs. Livingstone on Fifth Avenue was enough to silence Selina. But happily for her, even the name of that great lady could not make her break her Sunday school pledge by taking the glass of champagne Mrs. Orme urged upon her.

"I can't, Eva; I have promised not to touch it, and I can't break my word."

"Oh, well, if you have promised, of course that is all about it," said Mrs. Orme, adding to herself, "I will drive all that nonsense out of you, my lady, before I have had you long."

But Selina was not destined to enjoy any longer the dangerous delights of Mrs. Orme's society. The very day after the temperance lecture, Mr. Bassett came for her. Mr. Weston had fallen from the barn-loft, and broken his leg. It was a bad fracture; he was perfectly helpless, and Selina must come home and help wait upon him. There was nothing for it but to go. And to do Selina justice, she never thought of any thing else till she ran in to bid Mrs. Orme good-by.

"What a shame," said that lady, "to take you away from your music and all, just to wait on that old farmer, who is not related to you!"

"I should not have had many music-lessons only for that old farmer, as you call him," said Selina indignantly, her better nature roused for the moment.

"Well, don't be angry. I did not mean any disrespect," said Mrs. Orme, perceiving she had overshot her mark. "Of course it is very kind and self-sacrificing in you to go. I suppose you will be back before long."

"I can't tell. It will depend upon how father is. Good-by, Eva; I must not keep Mr. Bassett waiting.

"Don't you want something to read?" asked Mrs. Orme, hastily gathering together and tying up a quantity of paper books, with which her room was always strewed.

"I don't believe I shall have much time to read, but I will take them," replied Selina. "Good-by, Eva, and thank you for all your kindness."

"Good-by, dear, till I see you again. I shall write to you. And see here, Selina, don't hamper yourself by any more pledges and promises. And I wouldn't say any thing about Mr. Pyncheon, if I were you. Your friends would not like it, and might put obstacles in your way. And you must see, that, if he is really your grandfather, he has the best right to you."

"Of course," said Selina. "I really must go, Eva. Good-by."

Selina could not restrain her tears as she took her seat in the miller's comfortable carriage.

And Mr. Bassett, respecting her grief, was silent for the first mile or two. By that time Selina had recovered her self-control, and began to ask questions.

"Is Miss Armstrong at our house?"

"Oh, yes! Ma wanted her to come to us, and Mrs. Van Zandt sent for her up there. But she left it to your ma, and she said Miss Armstrong made no trouble in the house, and was such a comfort she couldn't bear to part with her."

"Well, I wonder she should care to stay," said Selina. "She and Mrs. Van Zandt are such great friends, and she would be much more comfortable up there."

"Miss Armstrong isn't the woman to be always thinking first of her own comfort," replied Mr. Bassett. "She and I together took care of your pa last night, and persuaded your ma to go to bed; and a better nurse, I never saw. She knows where to put her hand every time. Symantha Mallory was down in the afternoon to see if there was any thing she could do."

"I should not think mother would care to have 'her' about," said Selina.

"Oh, well, I don't think there is any harm in Symantha. Every one agrees that she took good care of her stepmother. And she keeps Kit just as neat as a pin, though she hasn't much to do with, I fancy, for Phin isn't going on very well. Kit comes to church and Sunday school regularly now; and ma says she never had a better scholar, only she asks such queer questions. We have another new scholar, too,—a great friend of yours."

"You don't mean Milly Richmond!" exclaimed Selina. "What brings her to Sunday school, of all people?"

"I don't know, I'm sure, unless she wants to learn something. I can't think how she has grown-up to know so little about the Bible. Poor Kit is a good Bible scholar compared to her. But she behaves very well, I must say that for her, and seems interested in her lessons."

"I should not think Mrs. Richmond would allow it," said Selina, "she is so very liberal in her views."

"So liberal that she doesn't want her daughter to have any opinion of her own, eh? Isn't that a funny kind of liberality?"

"Perhaps so. But I have heard her say that she did not wish to bring up her daughters to any religion; when they were old enough, they could choose for themselves."

"That might do, perhaps, if trouble and death would only wait till people are grown-up," remarked Mr. Bassett. "But they don't, as Mrs. Richmond ought to know by this time. Poor Cordelia is failing fast, as Mrs. Gleason thinks. But her mother won't allow it at all."

"I suppose Agnes was confirmed last Sunday."

"Yes; and her mother too, and Sarah Leet, and my Abner, and about ten more. It was a blessed day, I can tell you. We all wished you were there, Selina."

"What makes you turn up this way?" asked Selina as Mr. Bassett turned his horses into a cross-road.

"Well, it cuts off quite a piece of the distance, and it is good enough this time of year. It is rather lonesome, but we needn't mind that as long as we take daylight with us."

"I don't mind it: I like it," said Selina, "the woods are so pretty. Do you think father will be laid up long?"

"Well, yes, I'm afraid he'll have a tedious time. You see, he is getting an elderly man; and beside the broken bone, it was a pretty severe shake for him. I hope he will get well, I'm sure; for beside the blow to his own family, he would be a dreadful loss to the neighborhood. But he is in the Lord's hands, my girl, and there we must leave him."

"How is mother?"

"Just what she ought to be, neither more nor less," said Mr. Bassett with emphasis: "never thinking about herself, always doing and saying the right thing at the right time. I'll tell you what, Selina, if you don't turn out a good girl, you'll have a great deal to answer for. Never girl had a better father and mother than you have, nor a pleasanter home."

"Well, I hope I shall turn out a good girl," said Selina. "Why should you think I won't, Mr. Bassett? I don't think I have been a very bad girl so far."

"I don't say you have,—far from it," answered Mr. Bassett. "Only, if you'll excuse my plain speaking, Selina, I don't think you have always appreciated your advantages. But then, none of us do that; and perhaps it isn't to be expected of young folks. I tell my boys, sometimes, I believe they think money grows on bushes, like blueberries."

"How did Miss Van Zandt get on with the school?" asked Selina, willing to turn the conversation.

"Oh, famously,—as well as Miss Armstrong herself. That young lady has a genius for other things beside music. She knows how to teach what she has learned. The children think her perfection."

"Yes, she gets on nicely with little ones," said Selina. "She knows how to amuse them, and she is so childish herself she is like a companion to them."

"Childlike, if you choose, not childish," replied the miller. "There is a difference."

"I don't see it."

"Well, it seems others do. St. Paul says, when he became a man, he put away childish things; but our Lord says we must become as little children, or we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. There is just the same difference between 'childish' and 'child-like' as between 'womanish' and 'womanly.' 'Womanish' implies all the weakness, and 'womanly' all the strength, of a woman. Miss Van Zandt has all the simple, frank, unaffected ways of a nice child. She never seems to think whether any one is looking at her or not."

"There it goes!" thought Selina. "I never was so tired of any one's name in my life."

"Isn't there some one on the road there before us, Selina?" said Mr. Bassett. "I am rather short-sighted, and I have forgotten my glasses."

"Yes, two men; one looks like Phin Mallory," said Selina, bending forward to look. "Yes, it 'is' Phin Mallory. There, they have turned into the woods. Why!" exclaimed Selina in a tone of great surprise, and then she checked herself.

"Why, what?"

"I thought the man with him looked like a gentleman I saw in Oldbury; but it couldn't be, of course."

"Well, they won't interfere with us," said Mr. Bassett.

They had now come to the place where the two men had disappeared, and discovered Phin in the act of lighting a cigar, but nothing was to be seen of his companion.

"Halloo, Phin! Have a ride?" said the miller, pulling up.

"No, thank'ee, Mr. Bassett; I'm going up through the woods to look for a stray critter of mine. You didn't see him, did you,—a red steer with a ball on one horn?"

"I saw him in your pasture-lot when I drove by, this morning."

"All right, then: he has got home before me. No, thank'ee, I won't ride. My cigar might annoy the young lady. How's the squire?"

"Much about the same, only his head is all right to-day."

"Tell his folks I'll come and sit up any night. I used to be reckoned a good hand in sickness."

"I dare say. I'll tell Mrs. Weston. Well, good-by, if you won't ride. Take care of that cigar of yours in the woods, for every thing is as dry as tinder. By the way, who was that you were talking with just before we came up?"

"Talking with? Nobody," replied Phin with a curious tremor in his voice. "Oh, yes: a tramp asked me the way to the village. You'll pass him farther on, I dare say."

"Poor Phin! He has good streaks in him, after all," said Mr. Bassett as they drove on. "They say he was kind to his wife. And it was neighborly in him to offer to sit up with your pa. You might have thanked him, Selina."

"I was thinking of something else," said Selina, with perfect truth.

It could not be possible, she thought, and yet certainly the man she had seen talking with Phin Mallory bore a very strong resemblance to Mrs. Orme's aristocratic Boston friend, Mr. Pyncheon.