CHAPTER V

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FREDA.

Aline always said that it was providential that Freda should have married, and married a rich man. She told Freda so herself one day, I remember, for I was in the room, but Freda only put out her red mouth, and said that she couldn't see things in that light at all, that she could have endured poverty with the best of us, and as for Jim's being a rich man, well, she would have married him if he hadn't had a sole to his boot, or a rag to his back. Poor, dear, dear old Jim, it was as hard to imagine him shabby, as it is now to imagine Freda back again in our ramshackle life. He was always so fresh and trim, with such immaculate linen, and clothes that even we rustics felt were a marvel of the tailor's art. What a dear, jolly, open-handed fellow he was! and how little any of us could have believed that he would only live two years, and leave Freda a young widow at twenty. But, after all, as Esther says, Freda was perfectly happy for two years, and that is not given to many people. And then, too, she has her little son, who is such a dear little boy,--or was when we saw him two years old,--that no mother could be very unhappy possessing him.

Jim had been visiting old Mrs. Doyne at the Valley House when he and Freda saw each other and fell in love at first sight; and that, says Esther, is the only possible love. I remember Freda that summer. She used to wear a green muslin that had once belonged to our grandmother, and she looked lovely in it. She was wearing it the very first day she ever saw Jim.

Mrs. Doyne was an old friend of mother's, and while she lived we used to go a good deal to the Valley House. Her only son Alick was in India, and she was very lonely, and liked to have us about her. I think she hoped that Alick would come home, and that he and Freda would make a match of it, for Freda was her favourite.

We hadn't the least idea that she had a visitor that June afternoon when Freda and I set out to have tea with Mrs. Doyne, I looking forward agreeably to the strawberries and cream and the tea-cakes, and the delicious rich tea in the faded sweet-smelling drawing-room at the Valley House.

Freda could never bear to be shabby like the rest of us, and I remember that when I came out of the house and found her waiting for me on the lawn in the sun, I thought she looked as fine as heart could desire. She was wearing her sailor hat, and had tucked a large bunch of dark Camille de Rohan roses into her belt; and the green frock, with her pale face and red lips, and all her little golden rings of hair like a baby's, was charming. I was rather down at heel, and my dress was crumpled, and I swung my hat by the string as I walked. I dare say I made a most effective contrast to Freda, who was so spick and span and fresh and cool, though it was very hot weather.

Well, we sat blinking like cats in the big shady drawing-room after the brilliant sun outside, and then dear old Mrs. Doyne came in and kissed us, and, having made us sit near her, kept stroking Freda's hand absently, as she had a way of doing.

She had asked after everybody, and had rung the bell for tea before she came to what was quite an exciting piece of news for our corner of the world.

"I have a young gentleman staying with me, my dears, a friend of Alick's, and such a nice lad."

"Oh, Mrs. Doyne," said I, "but isn't he a bother, and how do you manage to keep him amused?"

"Well, you see, my dear, the poor young fellow's not very strong. He's home on sick leave, and he promised Alick he wouldn't return without bringing him news of his old mother. And so when he was kind enough to come all this long way to keep his word with my Alick, and seemed to find the country so beautiful, and the summer here so mild and sweet, I could do no less than ask him to stay--could I, Hilda, my dear? And would you believe it?--he seemed quite pleased to be asked."

"And why shouldn't he be?" I said. "It's easy enough to be happy in this house. Only I was thinking of an ordinary man. Sons and brothers are different, of course; but one always thinks a man must be wanting to do something. Of course if he's ill it makes all the difference."

"He's scarcely ill now," said Mrs. Doyne. "He says he finds the air here wonderfully curative. And I assure you Susan and I enjoy cosseting him. It's almost like having Alick to pet again; though, of course, Alick, dear fellow, was never ill, and no subject for our port-wine jellies, and beaten-up eggs which Mr. Hazeldine seems to enjoy so much."

"What does he do all day?" asked Freda.

"Oh, he's not at all troublesome, my dear. He likes to lie in the sun, with his cap over his eyes, and soak in the air, as he says. Or he reads and talks to me when I am ready for him, or knocks the billiard balls about, or takes long walks with Rory. Poor Rory hasn't had such good times since his master went away. Oh, by the way, I thought of making a little picnic and asking you young people. Just ourselves, you know, to Inver Waterfall. I could have the barouche out for any one who didn't care to walk, and the donkey-cart could take over the hampers."

Of course we were rejoiced, and said so. Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Doyne's visitor came in. He evidently had expected to find no one but her, and at first I think he could hardly make us out in the dark room, though Freda's gown made a radiance in her corner, as if the sun were looking in through green leaves.

I thought him pleasant-looking at the first glance. He would naturally be bronzed, and a little brown was already stealing over the pallor of recent illness. He was freckled, and smiled pleasantly, showing a row of white teeth, as he was introduced to us. Then he went over to Freda's corner and sat down beside her, and in a few minutes they were talking quite like old friends. I watched them while I drank my tea. He was leaning forward looking at Freda as he talked. She listened with a slightly averted head, as was her way, and her quietly dreamy smile.

Afterwards he went out into the garden, and Mrs. Doyne and I walked together while the other two somehow fell behind. The dear old lady talked on about her roses and her pet doves, and her dairy, and her dear Alick, while she was filling a little basket with strawberries for us to take to Aline. After a while we found a shady seat and sat down.

"Did it strike you, my dear," asked the old lady suddenly, "that Mr. Hazeldine seemed quite taken with your sister?"

"I should be surprised if he weren't," said I. "Do you know, Mrs. Doyne, I admire Freda so much? I think in that green frock she is exactly like a lily of the valley--don't you?"

"It is very pretty of you to think so, dear Hilda, and she is indeed very fair and sweet."

She sighed a little, and I guessed it was with a faint fear that her Alick might be too late to appreciate that sweetness.

"He seems a good lad," she went on, "and my boy thinks a great deal of him. He has made a very fine position for himself for so young a man, and his father, Sir John Hazeldine, is a very rich man, a London banker, my dear, though of course he has other sons than this one."

Now this didn't interest me much, for I couldn't look as far ahead as Mrs. Doyne. Any one with eyes in his head must admire Freda, but admiration and love are different things. And I didn't care a bit about Mr. Hazeldine's prospects. I was such a goose in those days that I believe the fact of poor Jim's prospects being so rosy rather diminished my interest in a possible romance.

"That's pleasant for him," said I, standing up and opening my ragged parasol. "But now, dear Mrs. Doyne, I think we must find Freda, and be thinking of getting home."

We found the pair calmly strolling up and down the avenue of chestnuts by the trout-stream, which we used to call the Lovers' Walk, and I thought Mr. Hazeldine looked as if we had come too soon.

Well, the picnic occurred a day or two later, and after that Mr. Hazeldine seemed to be always coming over to us, or a party of us going to the Valley House for tennis, or a gipsy tea, or something or other. But from the beginning there was never any doubt about Mr. Hazeldine and Freda.

He didn't pretend to think of anybody but her. Indeed his adoration was so embarrassing that we were always glad when, after a few minutes, they would go mooning off down the sycamore alleys, or round the pond at the garden-foot, and relieve us of their presence. It made the boys very contemptuous of poor Jim. Hugh used to say that if he thought he could ever look like that he'd hang himself; and as for Donald, his scorn for the man who could prefer the company of a girl to a man's company--by which, I suppose, he meant his own--was something too crushing.

Freda looked lovely in those days, paler even than usual, but somehow as if there were a light burning inside the whiteness.

I think it was really only about four weeks from that day Freda and I went to the Valley House that Jim spoke, but we thought it very long. It was the first love affair we had had in the family, and it embarrassed us all.

I'm sure Aline and Pierce did their best to be very business-like when Jim broke in on them one day and announced that Freda had accepted him, and he wanted to be married before the summer was over. But there was no real difficulty in the way. Mrs. Doyne knew all about Jim, and after he had gone over to England to see his father and mother and tell them about Freda, they wrote saying how sorry they were not to be able to take the long journey to see their son married, but that they looked forward to seeing Freda afterwards, which seemed very satisfactory, though the letters read rather stiltedly. That might be, however, because they were English people. I had a kind of idea at the time that Lady Hazeldine resented her favourite boy being married by a wild Irishwoman. However, that may have been fancy, but we thought it a little odd that none of them came to the wedding.

Jim came back from London that time simply laden with the most beautiful gifts, not only for Freda but for the smallest child in the house, and for Oona, and the little maids, and some of the poor people about, whose acquaintance he had made.

We all agreed that Jim and Freda were well matched, for she was always good at giving, though her few pretty things were dear to her.

We received Jim's gifts rapturously, but he would say laughing:

"Don't thank me. Wait till you see the pretty things I'll send you from India, when I have Freda to help me choose them."

And Freda looked on at his giving and his promises with a grave delight, as if he were fulfilling wishes of hers which had long been denied. It was really such a wonderful thing to have money going round in the family at last.

Dear old Mrs. Doyne gave Freda her trousseau. It was so dear of her, for we all felt that the marriage destroyed her long-cherished hopes. However, it was fortunate that Freda didn't wait for Alick, for he married the following year, and not long after that our dear old friend died, so that Alick will hardly ever again come to the Valley House.

Well, Jim and Freda were married one beautiful September morning, and Esther and I were bridesmaids, so fine in some beautiful gauzy silk stuff which Jim had brought us from London. We were all rather miserable, for Freda was going away so far, and she cried a few tears herself too, though she couldn't help looking as if she were in a seventh heaven all the time.

But, as Aline said, it was happiness to know that Freda was safe from the poverty and the fear of having to leave Brandon, which is the lot of the rest of us. I know that Aline's heart is troubled for all her chickens, and in addition to the comfort of feeling that one was safe, I think she had a little hope that Freda, if she was going to be rich, would help with the boys and the twins, for how they are to get their schooling, much less be provided for later, Heaven knows.

I remember the last thing I whispered to Freda was:

"Be sure and tell me if they have gold plate every day at the Hazeldines'"--for Esther and I had been romancing about the wealth of Jim's people.

And she laughed,--though her eyes were full of tears,--and said she would be quite sure to tell me.

But she never did, though she wrote long letters to us all, and kept sending us all kinds of useful and beautiful things. She said very little indeed about Sir John and Lady Hazeldine, but we thought it was because she was so very full of Jim, for her letters were nothing but Jim, Jim, Jim, and how good he was to her, and what a happy woman she was. And so it was after they went to India.

Then the little boy was born, and we were so excited about him, at least we girls were, for boys can't be expected to care about babies; and Freda sent us a picture of him when he was eight months old, with his Indian nurse, and we thought he was the quaintest and sweetest little thing we had ever seen.

Alas!--poor Freda!--that all her palaces should have crumbled into dust. Poor Jim took a chill after playing a fast game of tennis one day, and died almost without warning. I don't like even to think of it, I who had seen the two meet, and the summer of their love begin.

When Freda came to see us a year or so later, soon after her return from India, she was not the same Freda. Such wide, sorrowful eyes, in a face the soft roundness of which had given way to piteous hollows and angles. We young ones were not much with her. We used to go away out of her hearing with the little boy, and have rare games, for in spite of his black clothes he was as full of fun as a kitten. Freda used to sit with Aline in her little room, silent for the most part; but one day I was sitting in the window-seat reading, when Freda broke silence suddenly.

"I have been with you long enough, Aline. It is time for us to be going, Jacky and I. You have been good to keep us so long."

"Oh, my dear," said Aline, rather shocked; "where would you be welcome, if not in your own home? I suppose you cannot stay with us altogether, as we would all have wished? It is not likely you would be content?"

"Oh, no," said Freda, with a curious, unmirthful laugh, "it is not at all likely I should be content!"

Aline looked hurt a little, but I thought Freda could not mean to be so unkind as the words seemed. However, I said nothing; probably they had forgotten my presence. After a minute or two, Aline said:

"Of course, Sir John and Lady Hazeldine will want you to be with them--at least at first?"

"I'm not going to the Hazeldines'," Freda said, shortly.

"And what are your plans, then, dear?"

"Mrs. Vincent, who was so good to my Jim, is coming home from India. She wants me to live with her. Her husband is dead, and she is sadder even than I am, for she has no child."

"That will be a nice arrangement," said Aline; and I, who know all her ways, heard a ring of disappointment in her voice. I think she felt that Freda was going to make for herself a life in which we had no part.

"You will set up a sweet little house together, with a garden perhaps," she said after a minute or two, "and a couple of little maids, and perhaps a tiny carriage? You must take care of yourself, for you don't look strong, Freda."

"I shall be all right," said Freda, and again she laughed in that odd way. "Yes, I suppose Mrs. Vincent and I shall be very comfortable together."

"I thank God every day, Freda, that you and your little boy are well provided for. You will not always be unhappy, dear; you are too young. There is much to make you glad yet in this world, though it has pleased God to take your dear husband. You will try and pluck up courage after you have left us, for your little boy's sake?"

Freda turned away her head and said nothing.

"I have wanted to speak to you, darling," said Aline, very gravely. "It is more than a year now since your great trouble, and it is time to begin to live again. I know that life can never be the same for you again, but, after all, Freda, to your faith and mine, is not death only a brief absence from each other for those who love truly? And though your absence from him is a time of sorrow and pain, his absence from you is the happiness of God. Can't you bear it, knowing all is well with him?"

Still Freda said not a word.

"Then his little child--the little one mustn't be robbed of the joy of life that is a child's inheritance. When you have gone back to London, darling, don't give yourself up to sadness. Make the sacrifice of your grief for the child's sake, and God will surely bless it. Don't stay at home and fret. Go into society, where many people will want you. Go about freely, and gather any brightness you can from life. Happily, you are not poor. Even I can see that it would be harder to escape from grief if one were very poor."

"Yes," said Freda, facing her for the first time, and with the oddest expression, "it would be harder if one were very poor."

She spoke with a kind of bitter amusement. Then Aline went over and kissed her.

"You won't think I am making little of your grief, you poor soul?"

"I could never be so unjust to you, Aline."

"There will be always Jim's mother to take care of you and love you, as well as your Mrs. Vincent. You and the child will be a good deal with Lady Hazeldine, I am sure?"

She spoke wistfully. I guessed that she was thinking Freda too young and too pretty to be launched in London society alone.

Freda's face became suddenly hard.

"I shall see very little of Lady Hazeldine, Aline. Perhaps I shall not need to say more when I tell you that she suggested to me that I should give up my boy to her."

Aline turned red and pale.

"Give up Jacky!" she said, incredulously.

"Yes, she had the insolence. But I will say no more. I did not mean to tell you, for she is Jim's mother; and now we will never talk about it again."

Aline looked at her doubtfully. She did not know whether to speak or not; but just then Jacky burst turbulently into the room, carrying a very large kite. He was crying out in his childish tongue, which no one but his mother seemed to thoroughly understand, that Uncle Hugh was going to "fy" it for him.

Freda caught him up suddenly to her breast, and held him so a moment. A red spot came into each cheek, and I guessed what she was thinking of. At least that horrid Lady Hazeldine met her deserts when she dared to make such a proposal to Freda; that was a comforting thing to think upon.

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