Not Quite Eighteen
A BLESSING IN DISGUISE.
It was a dark day for Patty Flint when her father, with that curtseverity of manner which men are apt to assume to mask an inwardawkwardness, announced to her his intention of marrying for the secondtime.
"Tell the others after I am gone out," he concluded.
"But, Papa, do explain a little more to me before you go," protestedPatty. "Who is this Miss Maskelyne? What kind of a person is she? Mustwe call her mother?"
"Well--we'll leave that to be settled later on. Miss Maskelyne isa--a--well, a very nice person indeed, Patty. She'll make us all verycomfortable."
"We always have been comfortable, I'm sure," said Patty, in an injuredtone.
Dr. Flint instinctively cast a look around the room. It _was_comfortable, certainly, so far as neatness and sufficient furniture anda hot fire in an air-tight stove can make a room comfortable. There wasa distinct lack of anything to complain of, yet something seemed to himlacking. What was it? His thoughts involuntarily flew to a room which hehad quitted only the day before, no larger, no sunnier, not so wellfurnished, and which yet, to his mind, seemed full of a refinement andhomelikeness which he missed in his own, though, man-like, he could havein no wise explained what went to produce it.
His rather stern face relaxed with a half-smile; his eyes seemed to seekout a picture far away. But Patty was watching him,--an observant,decidedly aggrieved Patty, who had done her best for him since hermother died, and a good best too, her age considered, and who was notinexcusable in disliking to be supplanted by a stranger. Poor Patty! Buteven for Patty's sake it was better so, the father reflected, looking atthe prim, opinionated little figure before him, and noting how all thechildishness and girlishness seemed to have faded out of it during threeyears of responsibility. She certainly had managed wonderfully for achild of fifteen, and his voice was very kind as he said, "Yes, my dear,so we have. You've been a good girl, Patty, and done your best for usall; but you're young to have so much care, and when the new mothercomes, she will relieve you of it, and leave you free to occupy andamuse yourself as other girls of your age do."
He kissed Patty as he finished speaking. Kisses were not such every-daymatters in the Flint family as to be unimportant, and Patty, with allher vexation, could not but be gratified. Then he hurried away, and,after watching till his gig turned the corner, she went slowly upstairsto the room where the children were learning their Sunday-schoollessons.
There were three besides herself,--Susy and Agnes, aged respectivelytwelve and ten; and Hal, the only boy, who was not quite seven. Thishour of study in the middle of Saturday morning was deeply resented bythem all; but Patty's rules were like the laws of the Medes andPersians, which alter not, and they dared not resist. They had solacedthe tedium of the occasion by a contraband game of checkers during herabsence, but had pushed the board under the flounce of the sofa whenthey heard her steps, and flown back to their tasks. Over-disciplineoften leads to little shuffles and deceptions like this, and Patty, wholoved authority for authority's sake, was not always wise in enforcingit.
"When you have got through with your lessons, I have something to tellyou," was her beginning.
It was an indiscreet one; for of course the children at once protestedthat they were through! How could they be expected to interestthemselves in the "whole duty of man," with a secret obviously in theair.
"Very well, then," said Patty, indulgently,--for she was dying to tellher news,--"Papa has just asked me to say to you that he is--is--goingto be married to a lady in New Bedford."
"Married!" cried Agnes, with wide-open eyes. "How funny! I thought onlypeople who are young got married. Can we go to the wedding, do yousuppose, Patty?"
"Oh, perhaps we shall be bridesmaids! I'd like that," added Susy.
"And have black cake in little white boxes, just as many as we want.Goody!" put in Hal.
"Oh, children, how can you talk so?" cried Patty, all her half-formedresolutions of keeping silence and not letting the others know how shefelt about it flying to the winds. "Do you really want a stepmother tocome in and scold and interfere and spoil all our comfort? Do you wantsome one else to tell you what to do, and make you mind, instead of me?You're too little to know about such things, but I know what stepmothersare. I read about them in a book once, and they're dreadful creatures,and always hate the children, and try to make their Papas hate them too.It will be awful to have one, I think."
Patty was absolutely crying as she finished this outburst; and, emotionbeing contagious, the little ones began to cry also.
"Why does Papa want to marry her, if she's so horrid?" sobbed Agnes.
"I'll never love her!" declared Susy.
"And I'll set my wooden dog on her!" added Hal.
"Oh, Hal," protested Patty, alarmed at the effect of her own injudiciousexplosion, "don't talk like that! We mustn't be rude to her. Papawouldn't like it. Of course, we needn't love her, or tell her things, orcall her 'mother,' but we _must_ be polite to her."
"I don't know what you mean exactly, but I'm not going to be it,anyway," said Agnes.
And, indeed, Patty's notion of a politeness which was to include neitherliking nor confidence nor respect _was_ rather a difficult one tocomprehend.
None of the children went to the wedding, which was a very quiet one.Patty declared that she was glad; but in her heart I think she regrettedthe loss of the excitement, and the opportunity for criticism. A bigloaf of thickly frosted sponge cake arrived for the children, with somebon-bons, and a kind little note from the bride; and these offeringsmight easily have placated the younger ones, had not Patty diligentlyfanned the embers of discontent and kept them from dying out.
And all the time she had no idea that she was doing wrong. She feltill-treated and injured, and her imagination played all sorts ofunhappy tricks. She made pictures of the future, in which she sawherself neglected and unloved, her little sisters and brotherill-treated, her father estranged, and the household under the rule ofan enemy, unscrupulous, selfish, and cruel. Over these purely imaginarypictures she shed many needless tears.
"But there's one thing," she told herself,--"it can't last always. Whengirls are eighteen, they come of age, and can go away if they like; andI _shall_ go away! And I shall take the children with me. Papa won'tcare for any of us by that time; so he will not object."
So with this league, offensive and defensive, formed against her, thenew Mrs. Flint came home. Mary the cook and Ann the housemaid joined init to a degree.
"To be sure, it's provoking enough that Miss Patty can be when she's amind," observed Mary; "a-laying down the law, and ordering me about,when she knows no more than the babe unborn how things should be done!Still, I'd rather keep on wid her than be thrying my hand at a stranger.This'll prove a hard missis, mark my word for it, Ann! See how thechildren is set against her from the first! That's a sign."
Everything was neat and in order on the afternoon when Dr. and Mrs.Flint were expected. Patty had worked hard to produce this result. "Sheshall see that I know how to keep house," she said to herself. All therooms had received thorough sweeping, all the rugs had been beaten andthe curtains shaken out, the chairs had their backs exactly to the wall,and every book on the centre table lay precisely at right angles with asecond book underneath it. Patty's ideas of decoration had not gotbeyond a stiff neatness. She had yet to learn how charming an easydisorder can be made.
The children, in immaculate white aprons, waited with her in the parlor.They did not run out into the hall when the carriage stopped. Themalcontent Ann opened the door in silence.
"Where are the children?" were the first words that Patty heard herstepmother say.
The voice was sweet and bright, with a sort of assured tone in it, as ofone used always to a welcome. She did not wait for the Doctor, butwalked into the room by herself, a tall, slender, graceful woman, with aface full of brilliant meanings, of tenderness, sense, and fun. One lookout of her brown eyes did much toward the undoing of Patty's work ofprejudice with
the little ones.
"Patty, dear child, where are you?" she said. And she kissed her warmly,not seeming to notice the averted eyes and the unresponding lips. Thenshe turned to the little ones, and somehow, by what magic they could nottell, in a very few minutes they had forgotten to be afraid of her,forgotten that she was a stranger and a stepmother, and had begun totalk to her freely and at their ease. Dr. Flint's face brightened as hesaw the group.
"Getting acquainted with the new mamma?" he said. "That's right."
But this was a mistake. It reminded the children that she was new, andthey drew back again into shyness. His wife gave him a rapid, humorouslook of warning.
"It always takes a little while for people to get acquainted," she said;"but these 'people' and I do not mean to wait long."
She smiled as she spoke, and the children felt the fascination of hermanner; only Patty held aloof.
The next few weeks went unhappily enough with her. She had to see heradherents desert her, one by one; to know that Mary and Ann chanted thepraises of the new housekeeper to all their friends; to watch the littlegirls' growing fondness for the stranger; to notice that little Halpetted and fondled her as he had never done his rather rigorous eldersister; and that her father looked younger and brighter and more contentthan she had ever seen him look before. She had also to witness thegradual demolishment of the stiff household arrangements which she hadinherited traditionally from her mother, and sedulously observed andkept up.
The new Mrs. Flint was a born homemaker. The little instinctive toucheswhich she administered here and there presently changed the whole aspectof things. The chairs walked away from the walls; the sofa was wheeledinto the best position for the light; plants, which Patty had eschewedas making trouble and "slop," blossomed everywhere. Books were"strewed," as Patty in her secret thought expressed it, in alldirections; fresh flowers filled the vases; the blinds were thrown backfor the sunshine to stream in. The climax seemed to come when Mrs. Flintturned out the air-tight stove, opened the disused fireplace, routed apair of andirons from the attic, and set up a wood fire.
"It will snap all over the room. The ashes will dirty everything. Thechildren will set fire to their aprons, and burn up!" objected Patty.
"There's a big wire fireguard coming to make the children safe," repliedher stepmother, easily. "As for the snapping and the dirt, that's allfancy, Patty. I've lived with a wood fire all my life, and it's notrouble at all, if properly managed. I'm sure you'll like it, dear, whenyou are used to it."
And the worst was that Patty _did_ like it. It was so with many of thenew arrangements. She opposed them violently at first in her heart, notsaying much,--for Mrs. Flint, with all her brightness and affectionatesweetness, had an air of experience and authority about her which it wasnot easy to dispute,--and later ended by confessing to herself that theywere improvements. A gradual thaw was taking place in her frozen littlenature. She fought against it; but as well might a winter-sealed pondresist the sweet influences of spring.
Against her will, almost without her knowledge, she was receiving theimpress of a character wider and sweeter and riper than her own.Insensibly, an admiration of her stepmother grew upon her. She saw hercourted by strangers for her beauty and grace; she saw her become a sortof queen among the young people of the town; but she also saw--she couldnot help seeing--that no tinge of vanity ever marred her reception ofthis regard, and that no duty was ever left undone, no kindness everneglected, because of the pressure of the pleasantness of life. Andthen--for a girl cannot but enjoy being made the most of--she graduallyrealized that Mrs. Flint, in spite of coldness and discouragement, caredfor her rights, protected her pleasures, was ready to take pains thatPatty should have her share and her chance, should be and appear at herbest. It was something she had missed always,--the supervision andloving watchfulness of a mother. Now it was hers; and, though she foughtagainst the conviction, it was sent to her.
In less than a year Patty had yielded unconditionally to the new_regime_. She was a generous child at heart, and, her opposition onceconquered, she became fonder of her stepmother than all the rest puttogether. Simply and thoroughly she gave herself up to be re-mouldedinto a new pattern. Her standards changed; her narrow world of motivesand ideas expanded and enlarged, till from its confines she saw theillimitable width of the whole universe. Sunshine lightened all her darkplaces, and set her dormant capacities to growing. Such is the result,at times, of one gracious, informing nature upon others.
Before her eighteenth birthday, the date which she had set in her firstignorant revolt of soul for escape from an imaginary tyranny, thestepmother she had so dreaded was become her best and most intimatefriend. It was on that very day that she made for the first time a fullconfession of her foolishness.
"What a goose!--what a silly, bad thing I was!" she said. "I hated theidea of you, Mamma. I said I never would like you, whatever you did; andthen I just went and fell in love with you!"
"You hid the hatred tolerably well, but I am happy to say that you don'thide the love," said Mrs. Flint, with a smile.
"Hide it? I don't want to! I wonder what did make me behave so? Oh, Iknow,--it was that absurd book! I wish people wouldn't write suchthings, Mamma. When I'm quite grown up I mean to write a book myself,and just tell everybody how different it really is, and that the nicest,dearest, best things in the world, and the greatest blessings,are--stepmothers."
"Blessings in disguise," said Mrs. Flint. "Well, Patty, I am afraid Iwas pretty thoroughly disguised in the beginning; but if you consider mea blessing now, it's all right."
"Oh, it's all just as right as it can be!" said Patty, fervently.