it was long before the garden household settled down to sleep that night.
the girls had walked with mr. and mrs. moulton part of the distance toward their home. in answer to florimel’s question, mr. moulton had said that he was sure that mrs. garden would be established at home in less than a month. when jane pressed him for a right to hope for her coming in less time, he admitted that it was quite possible that she would be in vineclad within three weeks, as he meant to write to her that night.
“and tell her not to bring a maid, not unless she thinks she can’t possibly get on without her. we want to be her maids; please tell her that, mr. moulton,” jane implored him.
“very well, jane. your mother has undoubtedly been accustomed to a great deal of waiting upon; remember that you children may not have much leisure this summer for your outdoor pleasures if you do not let your mother have her maid,” mr. moulton suggested.
“of course we can find one here, later,” said mrs. moulton, seeing the protest in the three pairs of eyes turned upon them.
“and if you had a mother indoors, one you thought was dead, you wouldn’t want to go out at all, would you?” cried florimel.
“that’s what we all feel,” said mary.
“why, since i’ve heard she was alive, and i’ve got so i could think of it, i’m just hovering over my mother!” cried jane. “it’s as though my mind fluttered over her, the way birds flutter over their nests; it can’t get away.”
“it’s curious, isn’t it, when we were so happy before and loved one another almost more than any other three sisters ever did, that the moment you said our mother was alive it was as if all our life backward looked empty? we all three knew in an instant that we needed something terribly,” mary said thoughtfully.
mrs. moulton glanced at her husband. “be prepared, my dears, for not finding your mother quite like the mothers you know in vineclad,” she said. “she has had slight experience in motherhood, and she has been the pet of a large public. it is quite possible that you may be called upon to mother her, rather than find her knowing how to mother you. but you are all three capable of this, each in her way.”
then jane replied with one of her flashing intuitions: “we’ll mother her until she learns how to have daughters.”
the three garden girls turned back at this point, after mary had received from mr. moulton instructions for sending mark walpole to him in the morning, and mrs. moulton had listened, with her quietly amused smile, to mary’s hints of her discoveries in regard to mark’s tastes.
“win and i think he needs watching; he gets into day dreams and doesn’t look after himself very well,” mary ended. and the girls bade the moultons good-bye and turned toward home.
“such a born little mother as sweet mary is,” said mrs. moulton warmly, as she and her husband watched the slender figures running toward home like swift atalantas. “such a wonderfully beautiful, clever, and lovable trio! what daughters for a real mother to return to! and i have none.”
“now, althea, those children are almost your own,” said her husband hastily, for he never wanted his wife to remember that their one little daughter had lived but a few months. “and perhaps lynette garden will appreciate them. twelve years is a long time. lynette was no older than win is now when she went away; she must have changed.”
“she was a pretty little angora kitten,” said mrs. moulton, walking on. and her husband knew that mrs. garden’s defence must be left to herself when she came. mary, jane, and florimel ran into the house and up the stairs to the sewing-room, calling: “anne, anne!” as they came.
anne opened the door to them. they saw at a glance that she was idle, an almost unprecedented discovery, and her face was darkly flushed and swollen with tears.
“you know!” cried mary, throwing herself into anne’s open arms.
“win told me,” said anne, holding mary, dearest to her of the sisters, if she had a preference. “i have always wondered how this day would come, and when.”
“you knew our mother was alive, and never told us!” cried jane.
“janie, i’ve written her at odd times, telling her how you got on; she asked me to when she went away. what was the use of telling you she was alive? you could not have been with her, and you would have fretted after her. you might have come not to love her if you were wanting her and could not get her to come to you, nor take you there. it was better to let you grow up contented; mr. and mrs. moulton were strict in requiring me to keep still. but i always knew this day would come. she’ll be here soon, my little lady, and what a happy time it will be!” anne poured out her words with profound emotion.
“oh, anne, yes! what a happy time it will be! what a happy time it is!” cried mary. “we shall have all we can do to get ready for her. do you think the house has to be repapered? do we have to get new furniture, do you think? and what room shall she have?”
“you know, mary, the big south room was the room she used to have,” said anne. “that is why i kept it for a guest-room: i thought she’d be back one of these days and it would be best for her to slip into her old place. you three babies were born in that room and there she used to rock you, the short time that she had you to rock. florimel she enjoyed but a year. i can see her this minute with that black-haired midget in her arms, and you and jane playing beside her; florimel’s hair was black and plenty from the first! the small room off it was her dressing-room.”
“you’ve often told us, anne,” said jane. “do you think it needs doing over?”
“i’d rather the old furniture was there for her to see,” said anne. “of course the paper she had is gone and what’s there is faded. i’ve a piece of her wall paper in the garret. why not send it to one of the big dealers in new york and see how near he can come to matching it? i believe the nearer like the way she found her room when the doctor had it ready for her, and brought her to it, only three years older than her oldest girl is now, the more like that she finds it now the less she’ll feel that you three tall creatures are not the babies she left behind her.”
“oh, dear; i’m so sorry we are so near grown up!” sighed mary.
“but she did leave us, and stayed twelve years. she can’t expect to find us just learning to walk!” exclaimed florimel, who was more inclined to remember that this fabulous mother had gone away from her children than was either of the others.
the next morning mark went to begin his labours with mr. moulton. the garden girls were so interested in his installation that this would have been an absorbing event had it not been that jane was in the library, occupied with wrapping and addressing a large strip of the paper which had been on her mother’s room when she came to it, a bride, and mary and florimel were upstairs turning the room topsy-turvy, deciding what changes to make in its furnishing.
“we’re going to keep this low rocker because our mother held us in it when we were babies,” mary announced when mark came upstairs to look for her and say good-bye. “don’t you think it would be fine to have the chairs cushioned with a very good chintz, to harmonize with the wall paper? do you like that table exactly? are you really going now to mr. moulton, mark? of course you are; i’m dazed. please don’t mind. no, we won’t say good-bye here; we’re going down to see you out of the door, though of course you will come through it nearly every day this summer. but we must see you go to seek your fortune, and wish you luck. i’ve waked up at last! when you came upstairs i couldn’t seem to understand why you came, or anything!”
“i know; you looked right through me, all82 the way across the ocean to england,” laughed mark. “i didn’t know you could talk so fast, mary! i don’t mind your forgetting me. it’s a big thing that’s happened to you, and i’m a good deal stirred up, myself, to think you’ve found out your mother’s alive and is coming back. i know how i’d feel if i could hear my mother hadn’t died, though i never knew my mother, either. but i knew my father; we were chums.”
“what a nice boy you are, mark walpole!” said mary, frankly holding out her hand. “this is another bit of luck this spring! i’m glad we’ve found you for a friend.”
“we’ve found him! h’m!” said florimel, with a withering scorn that might have withered more effectually if her face had been less dusty from rubbing it with hands that had been pushing against backs of pieces of furniture. “i guess no one found him but me—in the bulrushes down in town! i wish your name was moses, mark; it would be so funny and fitting.”
“i believe i’d just as lief have a name that isn’t so close a fit to that one incident, florimel. maybe mark will fit something else that happens to me; it sounds like a name that could come in pat,” said mark.
“of course!” cried florimel. “you’ll discover some old weed, or something, in botany, and make your mark! but i’d love to call you moses.”
“you may, pharaoh’s daughter. i don’t mind. but i can’t crave to be called that by every one,” said mark, and turned back at the foot of the stairs to put out his hand to mary. “even if i am going to see you again this evening, and nearly every day, i believe the time to thank you is when i start out on my own hook. i can’t do it,” he said. “you’ve been no end good to me, and if i didn’t know that so well, i could say it better.”
“please never say it nor think it,” said mary. “you came along and the rest of it followed you. it did itself. i love to believe everything flows along, like little waves, one after another!—planned for us, you know.”
“good-bye, mary garden. i’d like any plan that had you in it,” said mark hurriedly, as if he hated to say it.
“mark is nice; he’s gone, jane,” said mary, coming in to where jane was busily writing the wall paper firm about the paper.
“where has he gone?” asked jane absently, and they both laughed. “you can’t expect me84 to remember such a little thing as mark’s going when our mother is coming,” jane added. “he’ll be here every spare minute, anyway.”
for two weeks hollyhock house spun out of all likeness to its calm self. the new york dealer had furnished a paper for the south bedroom that differed only in a small detail from the sample which jane had mailed him. paper hangers, painters, and upholsterers worked steadily to restore the room to the appearance it had worn eighteen years before. the odour of paint dominated the early june odours, which crept in from the garden, and the bustle, untidiness, and confusion of workmen in the house left little time or thought for the loveliness which, this year, as in all years, the beautiful garden offered its young owners.
but at last the south chamber was done. it shone in the whiteness of its new paint, and blossomed, a rival to the garden, in its new wall paper, with apple blossoms rioting everywhere between its floor and ceiling. the low rocker in which, seventeen years ago, the girl mother had stilled her first baby, mary, was covered in a chintz of browns and greens and pinks, repeated on the seats of the other chairs. delicate curtains of point d’esprit fluttered from beneath the same shades in raw silk outer curtains. mary had worked steadily, and jane had helped her, to hemstitch new dresser and table covers of the finest linen, not because there was not already a store of such things in the house, but because they were eager to prepare with their own fingers these special belongings for their mother’s room. when everything was done there followed five long-drawn days of waiting. mr. moulton had received a cablegram that mrs. garden had sailed. she had asked the children not to meet her. mr. moulton went alone to new york to be there when she arrived and to bring her home.
waiting had been hard from the moment that the accomplishment of the work in the house left nothing more to be done, except to wait. after mr. moulton had gone it became unbearable.
“suppose she missed the boat!” said florimel, wriggling about in her chair on the piazza.
mary and jane laughed, but jane said: “to tell the truth, i can’t help being scared to death for fear there’s been a collision and the ship’s sunk.”
“we’d hear that at once,” said mary. “what i’ve been thinking is that she might have been taken ill and died on the way over.”
“well, girls!” remonstrated win. “i’d never have believed you’d have been breaking your necks to cross a bridge you hadn’t come to like this! it isn’t like you to imagine such catastrophes.”
“we never had a mother coming home before,” florimel reminded him. “we never had a mother anywhere,” added jane. “it doesn’t seem possible we can have one.”
“if she doesn’t get in to-morrow, the ship will be overdue; to-morrow’s the latest date for her. when ships are overdue, there’s always something wrong, isn’t there, win?” asked mary apprehensively.
“there’s always something wrong with people who worry, when worry is not due, molly darling,” win reminded her. he had been thinking for a moment or two that he saw a carriage appear and disappear down the road, revealed and concealed by its turns. now it came into sight, approaching.
“oh, mary—win!” gasped jane, springing out of the hammock where she had been lying, so pale that mary was forced to notice it in the midst of her answering excitement.
“steady, kids!” murmured win sympathetically, as the carriage stopped at the gate.
florimel uttered a queer cry and bolted into the house. mary, as white as jane, moved forward as if in a dream, and jane followed her; win brought up the rear. a lady got out of the carriage; neither girl saw her clearly. they received an impression of an elusive perfume, soft fabrics, a vivid, tender face, and arms encircling them in turn; while a voice, most lovely in tone and quality, as soft and hauntingly sweet as the fabrics and the fragrance, said with an english accent:
“oh, not really! i’m going back! not such tall, tall girls my daughters! you make an old woman of me on the instant! where’s the other one? i know jane by her hair; so you are mary. and win! grown up—but you are older than the girls; that’s a comfort. oh, my dears, i’m so tired! do you think you can give me tea? i still feel that wretched boat tossing; we had a rough crossing. have you my veil, mr. moulton? ah, yes; thanks. fancy your being so grown and so pretty, children! thank goodness, you’re decidedly pretty, though too pale. i wonder why america bleaches its girls?”
“our girls are as rosy as you could ask, mrs. garden,” mr. moulton came to the rescue as mrs. garden’s lovely voice ceased; neither mary nor jane had spoken. “they are overwhelmed by seeing you. i told you what it meant to them to have you return to them from the dead—as they thought.”
“naturally!” said mrs. garden, pressing the arm that happened to be nearest to her—jane’s. “and fancy what it means to me to see you again, my dears! i should have written you, but your guardian and anne kennington forbade me. they thought it would make you quite too unhappy to be separated from me, knowing me alive. i dare say they were right. i positively could not have you with me, going about as i did. oh, children, pity your little mother! her voice is gone!”
“indeed we are sorry, mother, darling,” said mary, finding her own voice in response to the appeal in her mother’s. “but we can’t be as sorry as we would like to be because its going meant your coming—home.”
“that’s a nice little speech, mary,” said her mother. “i’m glad you know how to say pretty things. it’s a great gift for a woman to say the right thing at the right moment.”
“mary does not make pretty speeches, mrs. garden. she says the right thing because she feels the right way,” said win, flushing.
“how nice! she looks like a darling girl; she’s quite as sweet looking as she is pretty,” said mrs. garden, as though mary were not there. “but, win, mrs. garden? aren’t you half-brother-in-law to me? why not lynette?”
“yes,” said embarrassed win. “that’s so!”
by this time they had come up the path and entered the house. at the door stood anne, tears streaming down her face.
mrs. garden flew to her. “you dear creature!” she cried. “how glad i am to find you waiting for me, exactly where i said good-bye to you twelve years ago! and the house looks just the same! how strange, when one has been living so eagerly as i have, to come back and find a place looking as though a day had hardly gone by since one left it! but the children spoil that effect! dear me, anne, why have they grown to be almost young women? it’s dismaying. where is the baby, florimel? the one i named, and who has the only pretty name among them, in consequence? she could not walk when i left her; can’t she walk now, and come to welcome me?”
“mel! florimel, come!” called jane up the stairs, as florimel emerged, as pale as her sisters, from the folds of a portière.
“oh, you charming gypsy!” cried her mother, taking her into her arms. “you had this same raven hair when we first met, and you were an hour old. you are nearly as tall as mary, and you are both as tall as if i were decrepit! isn’t it horrible? and at home in england i’ve been singing under my maiden name, and quite felt, and was treated, like a young miss lynette devon! never mind, my sweethearts, i’ve come back to be an old woman, and to let you take care of me.”
“you’ll never be an old woman, and we’ll take care of you so that you’ll feel like a whole orphan asylum!” cried florimel, characteristically able to express what mary and jane felt too deeply to utter.
“you dear funny child! is there tea, anne? i’m half dead from fatigue. and send a maid out to fetch my portmanteau, will you? my luggage will be here to-morrow, but i want to go right to my room, and get into a loose gown i’ve kept with me, just as soon as i’ve had tea,” said mrs. garden.
“win has brought your bag in, mother: i slipped out to see,” said mary. “he’s taken it to your room. abbie is bringing you tea and a cracker and some crisp lettuce out of the garden.”
“is that fine garden as good as ever? a cracker, my american daughter? we say biscuit at home. but what a dear little caretaking creature you are! i did not like your name; i was awfully vexed that the doctor insisted on calling you after one of the gardens—his aunt, wasn’t it? i was going to name you elaine; then we both should have been called out of the idyls of the king, you know. but it turned out quite right; you’re a genuine english mary, sweet, old-fashioned kind. and my pretty jane—do you know that lovely old tenor song? jane would have been gwendoline if i’d had my way, but she got called after her grandmother. i had my way with florimel, and none other! however, jane is so brilliant and clever looking that jane is rather nice for her; the plain name emphasizes her. ah, thank you—abbie, did you say, mary? thank you, abbie. i’m half dead, and the tea smells perfect.” mrs. garden accepted the cup which mary poured for her, and the lettuce that jane eagerly served her, also the “biscuit” that florimel passed. the three girls hovered around her, silent but alert, their pallor now giving way to a flooding colour which enhanced the beauty of their sparkling eyes.
92 “my word!” said their mother, looking from one to the other as she sipped her tea. “am i really your mother, my three tall princesses?”
anne stood gloating over her lady, whose absence she had ceaselessly mourned. mrs. garden’s children had recovered enough by this time to see that she was exceedingly slender, with a willowy grace of motion that gave her five feet two of height the effect of more inches. her face was long and thin, delicately formed. jane was more like her than either of the others, though in expression, as in colouring, they were unlike. mrs. garden’s hair was a light brown, her eyes were blue, her nose as pretty as possible, straight and fine. her mouth was small and pretty in shape as in expression. though she never could have been as lovely as mary, for she lacked mary’s earnest eyes and the reposeful strength which supplemented her prettiness; though jane and florimel both far outshone her in beauty, yet mrs. garden must have been at their age a remarkably pretty girl, with a childish appeal, and a little manner that demanded and inspired service from all of her world. to her children she looked older than they had expected to see her, for to the years below twenty the lines which nearly forty years93 must engrave suggest age. but in reality she was wonderfully young looking for her age, with a faded look of childhood upon her, as if she were a little girl that some one had veiled unsuitably, and who was overtired. it was easy to understand that she had attracted people to her all her life. the girls, watching her, began to feel her charm, and to throb with rapid heartbeats, feeling it.
“now i really must go to my room, children,” she announced, rising at last. “i’m quite refreshed; the tea was excellent, my good abbie. where is mr. moulton? i never said a word to him when i got here! how rude of me! yet how can one remember one’s manners, meeting her three big girls, whom she last saw babies?”
“mr. moulton found mark coming after him, and went home with him,” anne explained. “he bade me tell you, mrs. garden, that he begged to be excused from wearying you further to-night; that he hoped you would find yourself rested to-morrow, and that he and mrs. moulton would come to ask after you in the afternoon.”
“that’s very nice of him, anne; he seems to be nicer than i remembered him. he bored me when i was a girl here, but the doctor adored him. are you going to take your mother up, my trio?” asked mrs. garden.
mary, jane, and florimel eagerly crowded around her to escort her upstairs. mary, remembering that anne loved her no less, and knew her far better, than her own children, turned back and invited anne to come, too, with her outstretched hand.
“what a pity i’m not a triangle!” said mrs. garden, as her three girls tried to find a place next to her simultaneously. “and my room! quite unchanged! that’s never the same paper, anne? yet i’m sure it is! how extraordinary!”
“we tried to match it, mother; anne had kept a piece of the old paper,” jane explained. “do you think you will like it?”
“i think i shall like you!” cried mrs. garden, taking the face of each of her girls in turn between her cool palms and kissing their foreheads.
jane dashed away and, when mary and florimel followed her more slowly, they found her tempestuously crying for joy among the pillows on her bed, her small feet waving emotionally. she sat up when her sisters entered.
“she’s so pretty, and has such ways, and we’re not orphans any longer!” she gasped.
