CHAPTER XXX.
PEEPING TOM AND HIS BROTHER.
Dame Alice Bradford sat alone in her fair bedroom, its latticed windows swinging wide to admit the flower-laden breeze that, young and fresh as when we saw it peeping in at the council of the fathers and the stitching of the little maids, peeped now at the still figure of the matron, sitting for once quite idle, her hands folded listlessly upon her lap. She was thinking, as it chanced, of that very morning, long ago, when the green footstool cover was finished, and her little Mercy and Desire Howland had admired it so much, and each begun one like it; and now Mercy, her one daughter, her little ewe lamb as she called her in thought, was Mistress Vermayes, with a home in Boston and a grand future before her, and Desire Howland was married to John Gorham; and although her two boys William and Joseph were as good sons as a mother need ask, they were sons, and not daughters, nor was Dame Alice in haste to see them bring daughters home to her.
A few slow, meek tears gathered in her eyes and overflowed just as the door opened and the governor came in with a letter in his hand. A glance at his wife showed him her case, and he said tenderly,—
“Is it the empty nest, sweetheart, that grieves you?”
“Nay, Will, how can I be lonesome while you are left to me?”
“Well and bravely said, my wife, and yet I blame thee not, I blame thee not. I miss the dear maid myself oftener than I would like to say. But you know how oft we’ve spoke of your sister Mary Carpenter in her lonely estate since her mother died”—
“And my mother as well as hers,” suggested Alice with a little sob.
“Why surely, dear heart, and I know well that you grieve for her; but now I’ve written to Mary, bidding her come and make her home with us, and offering to pay the charges of her voyage, since she is left in such straitened case, and here’s the letter all ready to send by Kenelm Winslow, who is summoned by his brother to England to receive some instructions. Kenelm will go to Bristol and see Mary, but I have bidden her not to wait for his escort back, but to come so soon as she can light of safe company, since you need her here.”
“Oh, Will dear, which shall I praise first, your tender thought for me, or your goodness to my sister?”
“Well, for that matter, dame, I fancy it all comes under one head, for if it were not to pleasure you I know not that I should urge Mistress Carpenter across the seas to bear me company.”
“There’s a young gentlewoman below asking to see our dame,” said the voice of Tabitha Rowse at the door, and Alice, with a gentle look of love and thanks in her husband’s face, followed the girl downstairs, and entering the new parlor said pleasantly,—
“Oh, it is you, Mistress Gillian, is it? I should think Tabitha would have remembered you.”
“I have not been in Plymouth more than once or twice since the dear Elder’s funeral,” said Gillian sorrowfully.
“The dear Elder, yes,” replied Dame Alice. “He’s been mourned but once among us, for the first mourning hath not ceased, nor will it soon with those who knew and loved him.”
“Yet none loved him like me, for he was the best friend, the only friend I had in all the world!” And in a burst of emotion honest enough, and yet more uncontrolled than the emotions of most persons of that place and time, Gillian sobbed and cried, and hid her face upon the cushion of the great chair beside which she had sunk, until the dame, laying a hand upon the round shoulder whence the cape had slipped, said kindly yet reprovingly,—
“Nay, Gillian, ’tis not meet to give way to even the worthiest grief in such fashion as this. Dry up your eyes now, while I go to fetch you some orange-flower water, and when you have drunk it we will speak of other matters.”
“Nay, dear lady, I want no orange-flower water, nor to keep you longer than need be, but I have come to you a beggar, and would fain make my petition ere my courage fails.”
“A petition, maiden? Well, now, what is it? Something that I can grant, I hope, for I love to pleasure young maids for my dear daughter’s sake.”
“Ah, sweet Dame Alice, if I might come and be a daughter to you! There’s my petition all in one word,—that I may come and live with you. Am I overbold?”
“To live with me, Gillian? Why, how do you mean, child?”
“Let me come and be in the place of a daughter and yet not claim a daughter’s love or rights, unless, indeed, I serve you so well that you cannot but love me a little, and so comfort your own heart. I have no home, and I know no one with whom I am so fain to live as with you, dear dame.”
“But your aunt, Lucretia Brewster”—
“They are going to Connecticut as soon as may be, and my aunt says she needs me not, if I can find another home, and Love Brewster and his wife treat me ill, and since the dear, dear old Elder died I have no one left to say one kind or careful word to me; and oh, dame, I do wish, and more than once or twice, that I lay beside my mother”—
“Poor child, poor orphan child!” murmured Alice Bradford, laying a hand upon the girl’s silken tresses as the head rested against her knee in all the abandonment of grief. “Yes, you shall come and stay with us for a while, at least, if the governor consent, as I am sure he will, and if your kinsfolk make no objection. Love and Sarah are here to-day, are they not?”
“Yes; Sarah’s father, Master Prence, is removing his chattels left in the house he used while he was governor, and Love and Sarah came to help him.” And Gillian, her end attained, rose gracefully to her feet, straightened her dress and smoothed back her ruddy hair, while Dame Alice, gazing out of the window toward the harbor, sadly thought of the bereavement Plymouth that day was suffering; for a colony of some of her best men, headed by Thomas Prence, with Nicholas Snow and his wife, once Constance Hopkins, Cook, Doane, Bangs, and others, were embarking with all their cattle and household goods for Nauset on the Cape, there to found the town of Eastham, fondly dreaming it should become the successor of Plymouth, which by successive emigrations, deaths, and shrinkage of values seemed threatened with extinction, dull and lifeless. As Bradford himself wrote that day in the journal so invaluable to us all,—
“Thus was this poor church left like an ancient mother, grown old and forsaken of her children, until she that had made many rich herself became poor.”
Fighting against the depression of spirits and want of interest in what remained that assailed his spirit, the governor gladly consented to accept Gillian Brewster, as everybody called her, as an inmate of his house, and a few days later she was installed in the pretty bedroom first occupied by Priscilla Carpenter, now a portly and sedate matron, wife of John Cooper, of Barnstable, and at a later date by Mercy Bradford, lately become Mistress Vermayes. Nor did her new patrons regret their generosity for some time to come, since the girl, warned perhaps by late misadventures, restrained the “wicked lightnings of her eyes” to such flashes of summer lightning as only served to startle and amuse the beholder, or at most to suggest electrical forces beneath the surface, and to arouse a certain interest in the nature that concealed them. Sometimes, to be sure, the governor’s serious and intent gaze would rest upon the girl’s face until she turned uneasily away, and sometimes Dame Alice would speak in her gentle and pure-toned voice of the beauty of modesty and reserve in a maiden’s character; but William and Joseph noticed her hardly more than they did their mother’s kitten, and when occasionally she tried some little coquetries upon them, William would look bored and absent-minded, and Joseph laugh in a satirical fashion hard for Gillian’s hot temper to endure. One word between the brothers may explain much that to the girl herself never was explained. It was spoken in the first days of Gillian’s sojourn under their father’s roof, when the two young men, gun on shoulder, were traversing the hills about Murdock’s Pond in search of birds to tempt their mother’s languid appetite. It was Joseph who said, wiping his brow and resting his “piece” upon a crotched tree, for the day was warm,—
“Bill, this maid Gillian is the one David Alden spoke of last harvest, isn’t she?”
“Ay, is she. And mind you, Joe, what he said of her?”
“That she would wile a bird off a bough; yes, that’s what Dave said, and Betty Alden, she puts in, ‘Allowing ’twas a male bird, so she would.’”
“Ay, Betty’s keen as a needle, and as straight. Well, Joe, if she’s made a fool of a score, there’s no call for us to make it two-and-twenty, is there?”
“Indeed there’s not, and I wouldn’t vex the dear mother for a cargo of red-gold heads like hers.”
“Nor for any other. So, that’s settled, Joe, and you’re breathed by now. Come on.”
An hour later the young men, worn, weary, and sore athirst, welcomed the sound of rushing waters, heard but not seen through the thick foliage, and Joseph, in the advance as usual, cried out,—
“Hullo! Here’s Jenney’s Mill close at hand. We’ve got enough birds for a famous stew, so let’s stop and rest awhile, and speak with the miller’s folk.”
“‘Folk’ standing for Abby and Sally and Sue Jenney,” said William provokingly.
“And Sam and his new wife, who was a great friend of yours, Master Bill, while she was called Nanny Lettice, and the Widow Jenney, who to my mind is better company than the girls.”
“Ho! Ho! Well, there’s naught like a sober mind to recommend a young fellow, and I’m glad to see it cropping up in your field, Father Joseph. Well, we’ll make a neighborly call upon the widow, and while you talk about Parson Chauncey’s notions of immersion and Mr. Ainsworth’s psalmody I’ll e’en say a word of a lighter sort to the young gentlewomen.”
“Have your jest, Will, have your jest,” returned the younger brother coolly, “but I know somewhat you don’t.”
“Think you do, I dare say! A wise man in his own conceit is Joe Bradford.”
But seeing that his brother, instead of being teased, was holding himself very quiet and peeping through the branches of the young maples crowding down to the brink of the little river Plymouth modestly calls The Town Brook, William stepped softly behind him, and with something of the guilty joy of Actæon, looked upon almost as fair a sight as he did.
No prettier spot was then, or until very lately, to be found in the dear old town which is mother of us all, than Holmes’s Dam, or as it then was called Jenney’s Mill, where in the midst of a dense wood The Town Brook, rushing toward the sea, found itself at a very early date impeded by a dam, more or less artificial and effectual according to the owner, but always sufficient to turn the big wheel of the gristmill first erected by Stephen Dean, husband of that Betty Ring who inherited so little of her mother’s great estate, and afterward carried on by burly John Jenney, who sat as Assistant at the council board when Duxbury wrung consent for separate identity from the mother town. And now John slept, although not with his English fathers, and his widow jointly with her son Samuel administered the mill and ground the grain not only of Plymouth, but of Duxbury, Sandwich, and several other towns. With so wide a custom the miller’s was a flourishing business, and might have been still more so had it been more carefully carried on, but alas! John Jenney was a shipowner, and aspired to setting up salt-works at Clark’s Island, and in fact had a soul above the pottles of meal by which he was supposed to live; and when his widow succeeded to his estate the customers complained that they were forced to share their grain with rats and mice, and that the miller’s widow was too easy tempered to be very efficient. Now, however, that the oldest son was married and the daughters were grown up, things went better, and the mill became a popular resort for the young people, especially in hot weather.
But all this time the governor’s sons are peeping through the boscage, and we peeping with them see four young girls, their kirtles of blue and white homespun linen drawn about their knees, while with bare feet they comfortably paddle in a little pool formed by a bend of the stream, floored with beach sand and bordered by a grassy bank, whereon the four damsels sit, and chat with all the sweet volubility of blackbirds. The rays of the morning sun sifting through the branches of the young oaks overhead dance merrily upon heads of gold and brown, and the flaxen locks that curl around Susan Jenney’s head, while her eyes, blue as the blossom of the flax, gleam beneath as she says,—
“We wouldn’t do this to-night, girls, would we?”
“I dare say the lads wouldn’t say nay, if we asked them to a wading match,” replied her sister Sally with a twinkling laugh, while Abby, older than the rest, looked sharply among the bushes, saying,—
“Who knows but we’re spied upon! I feel a creep up my back.”
“’Tis Harry Wood, be sure on’t!” cried Susan with a little flirt of her white toes that sent the water into her sister’s face, while William Bradford, softly pulling Joseph backward, whispered in his lowest tones,—
“Betty Alden’s there, and she’d never forgive us if she knew we’d spied on them.”
“Here goes, then!” and Joseph, laughing silently, pointed his gun at the sky and pulled the trigger, then hastily turned back to his post of observation, clinging to Will’s arm and shaking with an earthquake of suppressed merriment, as if he would go to pieces.
“’Tis like a plump of white ducks that hear the shot pattering around them,” whispered William; but Joe was beyond speech, and could only gasp and shake with laughter as he watched the girls, who with little shrieks and screams and exclamations clung to each other, staring wildly around, and then gathering their feet up under their skirts wriggled backward in some mysterious feminine fashion, until gaining the shelter of the undergrowth they stood up and looked around them in timid defiance for a moment, and then, no foe presenting himself, Abby, as oldest and bravest, darted out, and seizing the shoes and stockings lying in a heap, bore them triumphantly under shelter.
Some fifteen minutes later, William and Joseph Bradford, dignified and grave as two young parsons, arrived at the door of the mill and were received by Abby and Sally Jenney, demure and self-possessed as possible, but with eyes on the alert for any indication that these were the peeping Toms whom they suspected.
“We’ve a surprise for you, William,” remarked Abby, as steps were heard descending the stairs. “Who do you suppose is visiting us from out of town?”
“Is anybody visiting you? I had not heard of it.”
“Well, here she is. Betty, you did not think we’d have company so soon to bid you welcome, did you, now?”
“Nay, Betty, heed her not,” exclaimed William, rising to claim the privilege of a salute. “’Tis no company, but only two of your old playmates. Why, you’re looking fresh as the morning, Betty, isn’t she, Joe?” And both young men gravely surveyed the blushing girl from head to foot, noticing especially the white thread hose and dainty buckled shoes that covered the feet but now so rosy white in the water of the little pool.
“How long is it since I saw you, Betty?” demanded Joseph presently, and William paused in a speech to Sally to hear the reply.
“I really do not know, Joe; don’t you?”
“I can’t say, Betty, can’t say at all;” and Betty, casting a hasty glance at his face, was met by so serene a smile that she comfortably assured herself, “It was not they, or they didn’t see.”
“We’re going to have a little company to-night, and some games in the old mill,” said Abby presently. “Will you both come? And if the young gentlewoman at your house would like to make one of the guests, we’re more than happy to have her.”
“My mother is beholden to you for remembering her companion, but I doubt if Gillian Brewster can be spared,” said William a little hastily, and perhaps a little haughtily, for he shrank from seeing the siren who had wrought such mischief among some of his friends introduced to others under shelter of his mother’s name. But Joseph, heedless of his brother’s tone and only half hearing his words, replied almost in the same breath,—
“You’re very thoughtful, Abby, and I doubt not Gillian will like to come. I’ll bring her in my boat.”
“Gillian Brewster!” murmured Betty in a tone of dismay that drew William Bradford’s attention to her face, suddenly pale and disturbed, and going close to the girl who had been to him almost a sister for the first ten years of their lives, he whispered, “Shall I prevent it, Betty?”
“No, no, Will! Why should I care? She’s naught to me.”
“Nay, I thought”—
“’Tis a poor custom, Will; better break it off while you can.”
“The custom of thinking?”
“Ay. How is Mercy, and when did your mother hear from her last?”
Half an hour soon ran away, and so did the great stone pitcher of cider which the miller’s wife insisted upon producing, and the young men took leave, promising to be ready at an early hour for the evening’s frolic.