The Four Corners
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Nan sat straight up in bed her eyes wide with surprise. "Why, why," she stammered, but she immediately nestled down again.
"Did you never know that?" asked her mother.
"If I did I forgot," replied Nan, and she lay awake for a long time thinking of the strangeness of the morning's experience. She could scarcely wait till the time rolled around and brought her to the day when she could tell her mother the story of her secret meeting. It seemed to her that since the day before yesterday her mental self had grown prodigiously. Mary Lee, a year and a half younger seemed now such a child, although heretofore she had been considered the more mature. Once in a while the two had discussed their grandmother and the Corner family, but Mary Lee was not greatly interested in the subject and had concluded the conversation by saying: "I don't care a picayune where she is or what she thinks. She has never done anything for me and she might as well be out of the world as in it, as far as we are concerned. I'm never going to bother my head about her, and I don't see why you want to, Nan."
This crushing indifference satisfied Nan that Mary Lee was not to be confided in when the silent house at Uplands, like a magnet, drew Nan toward it, and she was rather glad that she did not want to tell any one but her mother, for had a sympathetic spirit been ready to hear the secret would have been hard to keep.
When the eventful day came she followed Mrs. Corner from dining-room to pantry and from pantry to kitchen waiting for a chance to give her confidence. "When shall you be through, mother?" she asked. "It seems as if you had so much more than usual to do this morning."
"No more, than always," returned her mother. "Why are you so impatiently following me up, Nan? What is it? Can't you tell me now?"
Nan glanced at Mitty and the washerwoman who were eating their breakfast. "It's a secret," she said in a low tone, "a very important secret."
Mrs. Corner smiled. Nan's secrets were not usually of great importance except in her own estimation. "Well, I shall be in my room as soon as I give out the meal and sugar; you can come to me then, if you can't tell me here. Suppose you pass the time away in looking up Jack. It is about time she was getting into mischief again. She always chooses Monday morning for some sort of escapade; I suppose keeping bottled up over Sunday is too much for her."
"I'll go see where she is," agreed Nan. "She won't be painting the fence this time, I know."
Jack was discovered before a tub in the wash house. In the absence of Ginny, the washerwoman, at breakfast, she had seized the opportunity of taking her place and was about to plunge her best muslin frock into the water with the stockings and underwear when Nan came upon her. "Jacqueline Corner, what are you up to now?" cried Nan, snatching the frock from her.
"I'm just helping Ginny to wash," replied Jack with her usual air of injured innocence when discovered under such circumstances.
"You were just helping Landy when you wasted the paint and ruined your blue frock," said Nan sarcastically. "Walk yourself right out of here. Ginny is perfectly capable of doing the washing without your assistance. Besides that lawn frock doesn't go in with black stockings; a pretty mess you'd make of it. Ginny won't thank you for mixing up her wash when she's sorted it all out. Try your energies upon something you know about, young lady."
Jack flung herself away. "You're always saying I mustn't do this and I mustn't do that," she complained. "You're a regular old cross-patch. You're not my mother to order me around."
"Mother sent me to see after you, so there," returned Nan. "I'm next to mother, too, for I'm next oldest. Where's Jean?"
"I don't know and I don't care," returned Jack, sullenly.
"Who's a cross-patch now? Here comes Ginny; you'd better make tracks out of here."
Jack fled and Nan returned to the house to find her mother ready to sit down to her sewing. The girl carefully shut the door and then established herself on an ottoman near her mother. "What does my Aunt Helen look like?" she asked abruptly.
Her mother looked up in surprise. "That's the second time lately that you have asked me about your Aunt Helen. Why this sudden interest, Nannie?"
"I'll tell you presently. It's part of the secret."
"Oh, it is. Well then, Helen has dark hair and blue eyes, a fair skin and little hands and feet. She is quite small, not much taller than you."
"It all sounds right," said Nan reflectively, "except the hair. Is she quite old, mother?"
"She is younger than I."
"Oh, then, of course, it is some one else, only my little lady has a very young smile. Maybe she isn't so awfully old. Could any one younger than you have real white hair, mother?"
"Why, yes, I have seen persons much younger whose hair had turned quite gray. Sometimes hair turns gray quite suddenly from illness or grief or trouble."
"Could Aunt Helen's hair be gray by this time?"
"It could be, though it was dark when I saw her last."
Nan pondered upon this and then said: "Well, anyhow, whoever it was, she told me I was to tell you that she was my godmother. Did I have two godmothers?"
"Yes, but I was one. What is all this about? Whom have you seen, and where did you see her?"
Nan launched forth into her story, her mother listening so attentively that her sewing lay untouched in her lap. When Nan had concluded, Mrs. Corner picked up her work again, but she was so agitated that she was unable to thread her needle.
"Who was she? Who was she?" queried Nan.
"Your Aunt Helen, without doubt."
"But I thought she was in Europe with my grandmother."
"So I thought. She evidently came over on some matter of business, leaving your grandmother there."
"Are you sorry I saw her, mother?" asked Nan, leaning her elbows on her mother's lap and looking up into her face. "I told her I ought not to go to Uplands because you don't like us to. Are you sorry I went? Are you angry, mother?"
"No, I think I am glad, Nannie."
"Then I am glad, but why didn't she come to see you when she was so near? Did she say mean horrid things, too? I can't imagine her doing anything hateful and mean."
A pained expression passed over Mrs. Corner's face. "What do you know about that sad time, Nannie? I have never mentioned it to you children."
"No, but Unc' Landy told me grandmother said bitter things. I know you didn't though."
Mrs. Corner sighed. "I said one thing, Nannie, that I have often regretted since, and it is because of it that your Aunt Helen did not let me know of her being here. It was in a moment of deep distress. I was hurt, indignant. I felt that I had been left desolate with insufficient means to support my children, and in the only interview I had with your grandmother I said, 'I hope I shall never again behold the face of one of the Corner family except the children of my beloved husband who bear his name.'"
"I don't blame you," said Nan, taking her mother's hand between her own. "They were horribly mean to go off with their money and not give you a penny. They ought at least to have let you live in the big house and use the piano."
Her mother smiled. "That is the way you look at it. Well, we get along somehow without them, thanks to Aunt Sarah. I am sorry I did not try to be more friendly to Helen. She was dominated by her mother and it was no doubt a choice between her and you children. She was very fond of you as a baby and she has not forgotten. Her mother's sadly jealous and envious spirit is what has made all the trouble."
"I was four years old when they went away," said Nan. "I don't remember them at all, though I remember dear daddy perfectly."
"Let's not talk of it any more," said Mrs. Corner.
"Aunt Helen said we might see each other again some day. Do you suppose they will come back and will be nice to us and let us go up there sometimes?"
"We cannot say. I do not look into the future to find such possibilities, Nannie. You must not build too many air-castles."
"Oh, but I like to," replied Nan. "It's lots of fun to do it and if they don't amount to anything I've had the fun of the building and nobody's hurt when they tumble down."
"In that case I suppose it doesn't make much difference, and when one is naturally a castle-builder it is hard to give up the habit."
"It isn't as bad as sucking one's fingers as Jean does, for it doesn't put my mouth out of shape; it only amuses me and I often forget my castles an hour after they are ten stories high. I suppose I am not to tell the children about Aunt Helen."
"I think I wouldn't yet."
"No," said Nan with a mature air. "I think it's best not. They mightn't understand. Besides, as she isn't a polywog nor a newly hatched bird, Mary Lee wouldn't be very much interested in her."
CHAPTER IV
A MOTHER'S SECRET
The first days of autumn brought back school days. Aunt Sarah had gone to visit a nephew in lower Maryland, leaving behind her mementoes in the form of the coat of paint for the front fence, a new cover for the living-room table, and many stitches put in made-over garments for the children. She had further dispensed her bounty in a direction of which the children as yet knew nothing, and it was Nan who first heard of it from her mother.
Aunt Sarah's absence was felt in more ways than one. Mrs. Corner was her favorite niece. A tiny grave in the old churchyard marked the resting place of her namesake, Nan's elder sister, who was her mother's first-born and who lived but three short months. It may have been that Aunt Sarah's heart went out more tenderly toward her own sister's child because of this loss which was so heavy a grief to them both, but whether it was because of this bond between them or because they mutually loved and respected each other, it is true that any sacrifices which Miss Dent felt she could make she made for the Corner family, and when she was with them no task was too heavy for her, and her wise counsel and helpful hands were greatly missed by Mrs. Corner.
It was just after Aunt Sarah's departure, and while school was still a novelty, that Nan, running in to tell her mother of the day's doings, noticed that Mrs. Corner was sewing not for one of the children but for herself. This was so unusual that Nan remarked it, and forgetting her school gossip exclaimed, "Why, mother, you are making a new frock! Where did you get it?"
Her mother dropped her work with a sigh. Nan noticed that the dear face was pale and sad. "Aunt Sarah gave it to me," was the answer. There was silence for a few moments after this, while Mrs. Corner went on with her work of measuring off the black breadths. "I have something to tell you, little daughter," she then said. "You had a secret to tell me a little while ago, and now I have one to tell you." She paused. "It isn't a happy secret, Nan," she went on, "but as you are my eldest and my staff to lean upon, you must try to help me bear it without rebelling."
Nan grew very sober. This was such a melancholy beginning that she feared what might follow, but being a young person who never thrust aside unpleasant things when she knew they must be met she said firmly, "Don't bother about me, mother; I'll be as brave as a lion."
The scissors snipped along the edges of the pattern while Mrs. Corner bent over her work. Presently she said, "It is this, Nannie: that I must leave you for awhile."
All sorts of notions flew to Nan's mind. Was her mother perhaps going to Europe to hunt up her Aunt Helen? Was she going to see Cousin Henry Dent in Maryland? "Oh, mother," she cried, "tell me quick. Where are you going?"
"I am going to the Adirondacks, Nannie."
"The Adirondacks?" Nan looked the surprise she felt. "Why in the world are you going there? You don't know any one up in those regions, do you?"
"No, and that makes it harder. I am going for my health, Nannie."
The blood forsook Nan's cheeks. She felt as if she were sinking down, down, and it took all her effort to check a rising sob. All she did, however, was to hold her nether lip closely between her teeth and to draw a quivering sigh. Then she gasped out: "Oh, mother, mother, it doesn't mean – it can't mean – "
"It doesn't mean anything very serious – yet," said Mrs. Corner dropping her scissors and sitting down by Nan's side. "But the doctor says if I go now the tendency will probably be overcome. If I stay it may mean that the disease will get the better of me, and dear Aunt Sarah has made it possible for me to go. Only a few months, Nan, and Aunt Sarah will come and stay with you while I am away. Now, I want you to stand by Aunt Sarah. She has made, and will continue to make every sacrifice for your mother, and you must make sacrifices for her."
"Oh, I will," cried Nan. "I won't touch the melodeon, and I won't nag the others any more than I can help. Aunt Sarah is good. Oh, I know she is so good, but she isn't – she isn't – you." This time the tears would have their way and they began to course down Nan's cheeks though she sat up straight and tried to blink them away. "And – and" – she went on, "she doesn't – it's hard to make her understand things like it's not always being a waste of time to do what you like and all that."
"I know, but, dear, remember that persons are very likely to respond to what you expect of them, and you will find Aunt Sarah very sympathetic if you take her the right way."
Nan was not at all sure that she could find that right way but she did not say so. She only looked at her toes very mournfully and wondered if it had happened to be Aunt Helen instead of great-aunt Sarah who was to be left in charge whether she would have minded it so much.
"No mother could have had my interests more at heart," continued Mrs. Corner. "Think how she has toiled and sacrificed herself for me, and it is entirely due to her that I am able to go, for not only has she provided the money for my journey, an expensive one, but she has thought of a way to pay my board while I am away, and it is just here, Nan, that I shall have to depend upon you to stand by Aunt Sarah. Cousin Tom Gordon's two boys are to board here and go to school. They want to prepare for the University and it seems a godsend that they are coming this year, for it will make my going away possible. Of course this is a new element. Two boys coming into a family will make new conditions and you must consider that Aunt Sarah is very unselfishly and devotedly undertaking a greater responsibility than we have any right to ask of her. So, Nan, try to play the part of peacemaker always. Be the sweetener of tart speeches; be the sunshine that drives away the clouds. Aunt Sarah loves you and appreciates you, though she has a little crisp way which your over-sensitiveness finds harsh. Never mind that. Be patient and wise and sweet, so will you help your mother and bring her back speedily."
"I'll try, oh, I'll try," said Nan. This was a secret indeed. What plans! What changes! "When do the boys come, and when do you go?" she asked.
"I go next week. Aunt Sarah will try to be here before I leave and before the boys arrive. They expect to get here on the fifteenth."
"Such a little while; such a little while." Nan caught her mother's hand and covered it with kisses. "And when shall you be back?" she asked.
"That I cannot say. It will depend upon what the doctors say."
Nan sat holding her mother's hand against her cheek. It would be their first separation and it would be a hard one. Every now and then the tears gushed to her eyes, though she tried to force them back. "Are you going to tell the others why you are going?" she asked.
"No," returned Mrs. Corner slowly. "I think we will not tell them just why." That we gave Nan a sense of partnership in these schemes. It elevated her to a place beside her mother and Aunt Sarah. She was their confidante and it behooved her to adjust her shoulder to a certain burden of responsibility.
"Tell me about the boys," she said. "Are they nice boys?"
"I hope so. If they are not you must try to make them so. Their names are Randolph and Ashby. Randolph is a year older than you and Ashby a year younger."
"Where will they sleep?" asked Nan, coming down to practical things.
"They can have the room Aunt Sarah always occupies and she can sleep in my room with Jean and Jack."
"Will she like that? Couldn't Mary Lee and I go into your room and let the boys have ours? Your room is so big and with two double beds in it we could do very well. Aunt Sarah always likes that southwest room and it would be warmer in winter."
Mrs. Corner looked pleased at this evidence of consideration. "I am sure that would be a much more comfortable plan for all but you and Mary Lee. It would be some trouble to move all your belongings. I thought the other way would be more convenient; still, if you don't mind – "
"Oh, no, we won't let ourselves mind," said Nan; then, a little shamefacedly, "besides, it would seem more like being near you to sleep in your bed."
Her mother gave the hand that held hers a little squeeze. "Now, I must go on with my work," she said. "I shall have to get this done before I go."
"Can't I help?" asked Nan eagerly.
"Not on this, I'm afraid."
"Then I'll do the other things that you do. I'll go see if Mitty has everything out for supper." She picked up the key basket but paused before leaving the room. "May I tell Mary Lee and the twins about the boys coming and your going if I don't tell why?"
"Yes, I shall be glad if you would." And Nan flew to assume the important office of giving information which would cause a sensation.
She found Mary Lee placidly nursing a decrepit duck which had fallen into the slop barrel, showing in her pursuit of dainties an eagerness which did not accord with her age. Having been rescued and well washed by Mary Lee, she was now lying in that young person's lap rolled in an old bit of horse blanket, her restless eyes alone giving evidence of her uncurbed ambition.
"Come here, Mary Lee, I have a mighty big piece of news to tell you," cried Nan. "I'm going to tell you first."
"You come here," said Mary Lee. "I can't put the duck down till she gets dry."
"How ridiculous! As if a duck cared whether she was wet or dry," said Nan, going up and giving the duck a friendly poke, eliciting a remonstrative "Quack!"
"You'd care if you had fallen into a slop barrel and had to be dipped out in a bucket and lathered all over and rinsed off," said Mary Lee.
"I wouldn't be so foolish as to fall into a slop barrel in the first place. Ducks are such greedy things. I don't see how she got up there."
"She walked up a board like anybody," returned Mary Lee.
"Well, anywhere that she could swim would have done for her bath. It was silly to go through all that fuss of bathing her when she's just a duck that loves water like any other duck."
"What is your news?" asked Mary Lee, changing the subject. "I don't believe it's anything much. You always get so excited over trifles."
"I reckon you won't call this a trifle," replied Nan, "when I tell you that mother is going away for weeks and that Aunt Sarah is coming back to look after us, and that Randolph and Ashby Gordon are coming here to board all winter. I should think that was something to get excited over," she said triumphantly.
Mary Lee stared. "You're making it all up just to fool me."
"I'm not, either. What in the world would I want to do that for? It's true, every word of it. You can ask mother if it isn't."
"What's she going for?" asked Mary Lee.
"Oh, just because. Grown people have their reasons for doing things and we can't always be told them," replied Nan, with, it must be said, rather a condescending air.
"Do you know why?" asked her sister, determined upon getting to the heart of the matter.
"Maybe I do, and maybe I don't."
"If you do, I think you are downright mean not to tell me. I'm 'most as old as you, and she's my mother as much as she is yours."
These latter facts Nan could not deny, so she answered weakly, "Well, anyhow, I shan't tell."
Mary Lee was slow to wrath, but once aroused she did not hesitate to speak her worst. She deposited her roll of horse blanket upon the ground and the duck with satisfied quacks waddled forth from the encumbering folds, glad of her freedom. "You are altogether too high and mighty, Nancy Weston Corner," said Mary Lee, quite outraged by Nan's refusal. "You're a scurvy old pullet, so there!"
"I like your way of calling names," returned Nan contemptuously. "I should think any one could tell that you had been near a slop barrel; you talk like it."
Mary Lee did not wait for further words, but fled to her mother, Nan following, taking the shorter way and reaching her mother first. "I tried to tell Mary Lee without saying why," she began breathlessly, "and she called me a horrid name, so I don't know how it will turn out."
"I think we shall have to tell her," said Mrs. Corner. "I did not realize that it might be difficult for you."
"She's coming now," said Nan.
Mary Lee's footsteps were hastily approaching. She burst into the room with, "Mother, is it true that you are going away?"
"Yes, dear child."
"What for? Nan was so mean and wouldn't tell me."
"I didn't give Nan permission to tell you why I was going."
"She needn't have been so disagreeable about it though," said Mary Lee. "Why didn't she say that you told her not to tell?"
"You didn't give me a chance," put in Nan. "You called me a scurvy old pullet before I could explain."
"What a name, Mary Lee," said Mrs. Corner reprovingly. "Where did you hear it?"
"Phil says it."
"Don't say it again. If you lose your temper like that and cannot bridle your tongue, I am afraid your mother will have many sorry moments while she is away trying to regain her health."
In an instant Mary Lee was on her knees by her mother's side. "Are you ill, mother?" she asked anxiously.
"Not very, but I may be if I do not have a change of climate, so I am going to take a trip. I have hardly left this place for eight years and more. I shall come back trig as a trivet, Mary Lee, so don't be troubled about me."
Nan left her mother to explain matters further and sought the twins who were amicably swinging under a big tree. As she unfolded her news to them the point which at first seemed to be most important was the coming of the two boys. Jack objected to their arrival, Jean welcomed it, and straightway they began a discussion in the midst of which Nan left them. Her brain was buzzing with the many thoughts which her interview with her mother suggested. She determined to be zealous in good works, and immediately hunted up Mitty that she might see that all was going well in the kitchen.
Mitty had not much respect for one younger than herself and paid no attention when Nan entered, but kept on singing in a high shrill key:
"Whe-e-en Eve eat de apple,Whe-e-e-en Eve eat de apple,Whe-en Eve eat de apple,Lord, what a try-y-in' time.""Mitty, have you everything out for supper?" asked Nan with her mother's manner.
Mitty rolled her eyes in Nan's direction, but vouchsafed no reply, continuing to sing in a little higher key:
"When she-e gabe de co' to Adam,Whe-en she gabe de co' to Adam,Whe-e-en she gabe de co' to Adam,Lord, what a try-y-yin' time.""I want to know," repeated Nan severely, "if you have everything out for supper?"
"I has what I has," returned Mitty, breaking some splinters of wood across her knee.
"I wish you'd answer me properly," said Nan, impatiently.
"Yuh ain' de lady ob de house," returned Mitty, provokingly. "Yuh ain' but jest a little peepin' chick. Yuh ain' even fryin' size yet."
"I think when mother sends me with a message, it is your place to answer me," said Nan with her head in the air. "I will see if Unc' Landy can get you to tell me what mother wants to know." And she stalked out.
As Unc' Landy was Mitty's grandfather, and the only being of whom she stood in awe, this had its effect. "I tell yuh, Miss Nan, 'deed an' 'deed I will," cried Mitty, running after her and hastily enumerating the necessary articles to be given out from the pantry. "'Tain' no buttah, 'tain' no sugah, jest a little bit o' co'n meal. Oh, Miss Nan!"
But Nan had passed beyond hearing and was resolutely turning her steps toward Unc' Landy's quarters, a comfortable brick cabin which stood about fifty yards from the house. The old man was sitting before its door industriously mending a hoe-handle. It was not often that Nan complained of Mitty, for she, too, well knew the effect of such a course. Upon this occasion, however, she felt that her future authority depended upon establishing present relations and that it would never do to let Mitty know she had worsted the eldest daughter of the house. "Unc' Landy, I wish you'd speak to Mitty," said Nan. "She wouldn't tell me what to give out for supper and mother gave me the keys to attend to it for her; she's busy sewing."