Mary Gusta

J >> Joseph C. Lincoln >> Mary Gusta

MARY-'GUSTA

By Joseph C. Lincoln




MARY-'GUSTA




CHAPTER I


On the twentieth day of April in the year 19--, the people--that is, a
majority of the grown people of Ostable--were talking of Marcellus Hall
and Mary-'Gusta.

A part of this statement is not surprising. The average person, no
matter how humble or obscure, is pretty certain to be talked about on
the day of his funeral, and Marcellus was to be buried that afternoon.
Moreover, Marcellus had been neither humble nor obscure; also, he had
been talked about a good deal during the fifty-nine years of his sojourn
on this planet. So it is not at all surprising that he should be talked
about now, when that sojourn was ended. But for all Ostable--yes, and a
large part of South Harniss--to be engaged in speculation concerning the
future of Mary-'Gusta was surprising, for, prior to Marcellus's death,
very few outside of the Hall household had given her or her future a
thought.

On this day, however, whenever or wherever the name of Marcellus Hall
was mentioned, after the disposition of Marcellus's own bones had been
discussed and those of his family skeleton disinterred and articulated,
the conversation, in at least eight cases out of ten, resolved itself
into a guessing contest, having as its problem this query:

"What's goin' to become of that child?"

For example:

Mr. Bethuel Sparrow, local newsgatherer for the Ostable Enterprise,
seated before his desk in the editorial sanctum, was writing an obituary
for next week's paper, under the following head:

"A Prominent Citizen Passes Away."

An ordinary man would probably have written "Dies"; but Mr. Sparrow,
being a young and very new reporter for a rural weekly, wrote "Passes
Away" as more elegant and less shocking to the reader.

It is much more soothing and refined to pass away than to die--unless
one happens to be the person most concerned, in which case, perhaps, it
may make little difference.

"The Angel of Death," wrote Mr. Sparrow, "passed through our midst on
Tuesday last and called to his reward Captain Marcellus Hall, one of
Ostable's most well-known and influential residents."

A slight exaggeration here. Marcellus had lived in Ostable but five
years altogether and, during the last three, had taken absolutely
no part in town affairs--political, religious or social. However,
"influential" is a good word and usual in obituaries, so Bethuel let it
stand. He continued:

"Captain Hall's sudden death--"

Erasure of "death" and substitution of "demise."

Then:

"--Was a shock to the community at large. It happened on account of--"
More erasures and substitutions. "--It was the result of his taking cold
owing to exposure during the heavy southeast rains of week before last
which developed into pneumonia. He grew rapidly worse and passed away at
3.06 P.M. on Tuesday, leaving a vacancy in our midst which will be hard
to fill, if at all. Although Captain Hall had resided in Ostable but a
comparatively short period, he was well-known and respected, both as a
man and--"

Here, invention failing, Mr. Sparrow called for assistance.

"Hey, Perce," he hailed, addressing his companion, Mr. Percy Clark, who
was busy setting type: "What's a good word to use here? I say Marcellus
was respected both as a man--and somethin' else."

"Hey?" queried Percy, absently, scanning the eight point case. "What
d'ye say?"

"I asked you what would be a good thing to go with 'man'?"

"Hey? I don't know. Woman, I guess."

"Aw, cut it out. Never mind, I got it:

"--As a man and a citizen. Captain Hall was fifty-nine years of age at
the time of his demise. He was born in South Harniss and followed the
sea until 1871, when he founded the firm of Hall and Company, which was
for some years the leading dealer in fresh and salt fish in this section
of the state. When the firm--

"I say, Perce! 'Twouldn't do to say Marcellus failed in business, would
it? Might seem like hintin' at that stuff about his sister and the rest
of it. Might get us into trouble, eh?"

"Humph! I don't know who with. Everybody's talkin' about it, anyway. Up
to the boardin' house they've been talking about mighty little else ever
since he died."

"I know, but talk's one thing and print's another. I'm goin' to leave it
out.

"When the firm went out of business in 1879, Captain Hall followed the
sea again, commanding the ships Faraway, Fair Wind, and Treasure Seeker,
and the bark Apollo. Later he retired from the sea and has not been
active in the same or otherwise since. In 1894 he married Augusta Bangs
Lathrop, widow of the late Reverend Charles Lathrop, formerly pastor of
the Congregational Church in this town. Captain Hall had been residing
in his native town, South Harniss, but after his marriage he took up
his residence in Ostable, purchasing the residence formerly owned by
Elnathan Phinney on Phinney's Hill, where he lived until his lamented
demise. Mrs. Hall passed away in 1896. The sudden removal of Captain
Hall from our midst leaves a stepdaughter, Mary Augusta Lathrop, aged
seven. The--"

Here Mr. Sparrow's train of thought collided with the obstruction which
was derailing many similar trains in Ostable and South Harniss.

"I say, Perce," he observed "what's goin' to become of that kid of
Marcellus's--his wife's, I mean? Marcellus didn't have any relations, as
far as anybody knows, and neither did his wife. Who's goin' to take care
of Mary-'Gusta?"

Percy shook his head. "Don't know," he answered. "That's what all hands
are askin'. I presume likely she'll be looked after. Marcellus left
plenty of money, didn't he? And kids with money can generally find
guardians."

"Yup, I guess that's so. Still, whoever gets her will have their hands
full. She's the most old-fashioned, queerest young-one ever I saw."


So much for Mr. Sparrow and his fellow laborer for the Enterprise. Now
to listen for a moment to Judge Baxter, who led the legal profession
of Ostable; and to Mrs. Baxter who, so common report affirmed, led the
Judge. The pair were upstairs in the Baxter house, dressing for the
funeral.

"Daniel," declared Mrs. Baxter, "it's the queerest thing I ever heard
of. You say they don't know--either of them--and the child herself
doesn't know, either."

"That's it, Ophelia. No one knows except myself. Captain Hall read the
letter to me and put it in my charge a year ago."

"Well, I must say!"

"Yes, I know, I said it at the time, and I've been saying it to myself
ever since. It doesn't mean anything; that is, it is not binding
legally, of course. It's absolutely unbusinesslike and unpractical.
Simply a letter, asking them, as old friends, to do this thing. Whether
they will or not the Almighty only knows."

"Well, Daniel, I must say I shouldn't have thought you, as his lawyer,
would have let him do such a thing. Of course, I don't know either of
them very well, but, from what little I've heard, I should say they
know as much about what they would be supposed to do as--as you do about
tying a necktie. For mercy sakes let me fix it! The knot is supposed to
be under your chin, not under your ear as if you were going to be hung."

The Judge meekly elevated the chin and his wife pulled the tie into
place.

"And so," she said, "they can say yes or no just as they like."

"Yes, it rests entirely with them."

"And suppose they say no, what will become of the child then?"

"I can't tell you. Captain Hall seemed pretty certain they wouldn't say
no."

"Humph! There! Now you look a little more presentable. Have you got a
clean handkerchief? Well, that's an unexpected miracle; I don't know how
you happened to think of it. When are you going to speak with them about
it?"

"Today, if they come to the funeral, as I suppose they will."

"I shall be in a fidget until I know whether they say yes or no. And
whichever they say I shall keep on fidgeting until I see what happens
after that. Poor little Mary-'Gusta! I wonder what WILL become of her."

The Judge shook his head.


Over the road between South Harniss and Ostable a buggy drawn by an aged
white horse was moving slowly. On the buggy's seat were two men, Captain
Shadrach Gould and Zoeth Hamilton. Captain Gould, big, stout, and
bearded, was driving. Mr. Hamilton, small, thin, smooth-faced and
white-haired, was beside him. Both were obviously dressed in their
Sunday clothes, Captain Shadrach's blue, Mr. Hamilton's black. Each wore
an uncomfortably high collar and the shoes of each had been laboriously
polished. Their faces, utterly unlike in most respects, were very
solemn.

"Ah hum!" sighed Mr. Hamilton.

Captain Shadrach snorted impatiently.

"For the land sakes don't do that again, Zoeth," he protested. "That's
the tenth 'Ah hum' you've cast loose in a mile. I know we're bound to a
funeral but there ain't no need of tollin' the bell all the way. I don't
like it and I don't think Marcellus would neither, if he could hear
you."

"Perhaps he can hear us, Shadrach," suggested his companion, mildly.
"Perhaps he's here with us now; who can tell?"

"Humph! Well, if he is then I KNOW he don't like it. Marcellus never
made any fuss whatever happened, and he wouldn't make any at his own
funeral no more than at anybody else's. That wasn't his way. Say nothin'
and keep her on the course, that was Marcellus. I swan I can hardly make
it seem possible that he's gone!"

"Neither can I, Shadrach. And to think that you and me, his old partners
and lifelong chums as you might say, hadn't seen nor spoken to him
for over two years. It makes me feel bad. Bad and sort of
conscience-struck."

"I know; so it does me, in a way. And yet it wasn't our fault, Zoeth.
You know as well as I do that Marcellus didn't want to see us. We was
over to see him last and he scarcely said a word while we was there.
You and me did all the talkin' and he just set and looked at us--when
he wasn't lookin' at the floor. I never saw such a change in a man. We
asked--yes, by fire, we fairly begged him to come and stay with us for
a spell, but he never did. Now it ain't no further from Ostable to South
Harniss than it is from South Harniss to Ostable. If he'd wanted to come
he could; if he'd wanted to see us he could. We went to see him,
didn't we; and WE had a store and a business to leave. He ain't had any
business since he give up goin' to sea. He--"

"Sshh! Shh!" interrupted Mr. Hamilton, mildly, "don't talk that way,
Shadrach. Don't find fault with the dead."

"Find fault! I ain't findin' fault. I thought as much of Marcellus Hall
as any man on earth, and nobody feels worse about his bein' took than
I do. But I'm just sayin' what we both know's a fact. He didn't want to
see us; he didn't want to see nobody. Since his wife died he lived alone
in that house, except for a housekeeper and that stepchild, and never
went anywhere or had anybody come to see him if he could help it. A
reg'lar hermit--that's what he was, a hermit, like Peleg Myrick down
to Setuckit P'int. And when I think what he used to be, smart, lively,
able, one of the best skippers and smartest business men afloat or
ashore, it don't seem possible a body could change so. 'Twas that woman
that done it, that woman that trapped him into gettin' married."

"Sshh! Shh! Shadrach; she's dead, too. And, besides, I guess she was a
real good woman; everybody said she was."

"I ain't sayin' she wasn't, am I? What I say is she hadn't no business
marryin' a man twenty years older'n she was."

"But," mildly, "you said she trapped him. Now we don't know--"

"Zoeth Hamilton, you know she must have trapped him. You and I agreed
that was just what she done. If she hadn't trapped him--set a reg'lar
seine for him and hauled him aboard like a school of mackerel--'tain't
likely he'd have married her or anybody else, is it? I ain't married
nobody, have I? And Marcellus was years older'n I be."

"Well, well, Shadrach!"

"No, 'tain't well; it's bad. He's gone, and--and you and me that was
with him for years and years, his very best friends on earth as you
might say, wasn't with him when he died. If it hadn't been for her he'd
have stayed in South Harniss where he belonged. Consarn women! They're
responsible for more cussedness than the smallpox. 'When a man marries
his trouble begins'; that's gospel, too."

Zoeth did not answer.

Captain Gould, after a sidelong glance at his companion, took a hand
from the reins and laid it on the Hamilton knee.

"I'm sorry, Zoeth," he said, contritely; "I didn't mean to--to rake up
bygones; I was blowin' off steam, that's all. I'm sorry."

"I know, Shadrach. It's all right."

"No, 'tain't all right; it's all wrong. Somebody ought to keep a watch
on me, and when they see me beginnin' to get hot, set me on the back of
the stove or somewheres; I'm always liable to bile over and scald the
wrong critter. I've done that all my life. I'm sorry, Zoeth, you know I
didn't mean--"

"I know, I know. Ah hum! Poor Marcellus! Here's the first break in the
old firm, Shadrach."

"Yup. You and me are all that's left of Hall and Company. That is--"

He stopped short just in time and roared a "Git dap" at the horse. He
had been on the point of saying something which would have been far more
disastrous than his reference to the troubles following marriage. Zoeth
was apparently not curious. To his friend's great relief he did not wait
for the sentence to be finished, nor did he ask embarrassing questions.
Instead he said:

"I wonder what's goin' to become of that child, Mary Lathrop's girl. Who
do you suppose likely will take charge of her?"

"I don't know. I've been wonderin' that myself, Zoeth."

"Kind of a cute little thing, she was, too, as I recollect her. I
presume likely she's grown up consid'ble since. You remember how she set
and looked at us that last time we was over to see Marcellus, Shadrach?"

"Remember? How she looked at ME, you mean! Shall I ever forget it? I'd
just had my hair cut by that new barber, Sim Ellis, that lived here
'long about then, and I told him to cut off the ends. He thought I meant
the other ends, I cal'late, for I went to sleep in the chair, same as I
generally do, and when I woke up my head looked like the main truck of
the old Faraway. All it needed was to have the bald place gilded. I give
you my word that if I hadn't been born with my ears set wing and wing
like a schooner runnin' afore the wind I'd have been smothered when I
put my hat on--nothin' but them ears kept it propped up off my nose.
YOU remember that haircut, Zoeth. Well, all the time you and me was in
Marcellus's settin'-room that stepchild of his just set and looked at my
head. Never took her eyes off it. If she'd said anything 'twouldn't
have been so bad; but she didn't--just looked. I could feel my bald spot
reddenin' up till I swan to man I thought it must be breakin' out in
blisters. 'Never see anybody that looked just like me, did you, Sis?' I
says to her, when I couldn't stand it any longer. 'No, sir,' she says,
solemn as an owl. She was right out and honest, I'll say that for her.
That's the only time Marcellus laughed while we was inside that house.
I didn't blame him much. Ho, ho! Well, he ain't laughin' now and neither
are we--or we hadn't ought to be. Neither is the child, I cal'late, poor
thing. I wonder what will become of her."


And meanwhile the child herself was vaguely, and in childish fashion,
wondering that very thing. She was in the carriage room of the barn
belonging to the Hall estate--if the few acres of land and the buildings
owned by the late Marcellus may be called an estate--curled up on the
back seat of the old surrey which had been used so little since the
death of her mother, Augusta Hall, four years before. The surrey was
shrouded from top to floor with a dust cover of unbleached muslin
through which the sunshine from the carriage room windows filtered in a
mysterious, softened twilight. The covered surrey was a favorite retreat
of Mary-'Gusta's. She had discovered it herself--which made it doubly
alluring, of course--and she seldom invited her juvenile friends to
share its curtained privacy with her. It was her playhouse, her tent,
and her enchanted castle, much too sacred to be made common property.
Here she came on rainy Saturdays and on many days not rainy when other
children, those possessing brothers or sisters, played out of doors. She
liked to play by herself, to invent plays all her own, and these other
children--"normal children," their parents called them--were much
too likely to laugh instead of solemnly making believe as she did.
Mary-'Gusta was not a normal child; she was "that queer Lathrop
young-one"--had heard herself so described more than once. She did not
like the phrase; "queer" was not so bad--perhaps she was queer--but she
had an instinctive repugnance to being called a young-one. Birds and
rabbits had young-ones and she was neither feathered nor furred.

So very few of the neighborhood children were invited to the shaded
interior of the old surrey. Her dolls--all five of them--spent a good
deal of time there and David, the tortoise-shell cat, came often,
usually under compulsion. When David had kittens, which interesting
domestic event took place pretty frequently, he--or she--positively
refused to be an occupant of that surrey, growling and scratching in a
decidedly ungentlemanly--or unladylike--manner. Twice Mary-'Gusta had
attempted to make David more complacent by bringing the kittens also to
the surrey, but their parent had promptly and consecutively seized
them by the scruff of their necks and laboriously lugged them up to the
haymow again.

Just now, however, there being no kittens, David was slumbering in
a furry heap beside Mary-'Gusta at one end of the carriage seat, and
Rosette, the smallest of the five dolls, and Rose, the largest, were
sitting bolt upright in the corner at the other end. The christening of
the smallest and newest doll was the result of a piece of characteristic
reasoning on its owner's part. She was very fond of the name Rose, the
same being the name of the heroine in "Eight Cousins," which story Mrs.
Bailey, housekeeper before last for Marcellus Hall, had read aloud to
the child. When the new doll came, at Christmas time, Mary-'Gusta wished
that she might christen it Rose also. But there was another and much
beloved Rose already in the family. So Mary-'Gusta reflected and
observed, and she observed that a big roll of tobacco such as her
stepfather smoked was a cigar; while a little one, as smoked by Eben
Keeler, the grocer's delivery clerk, was a cigarette. Therefore, the big
doll being already Rose, the little one became Rosette.

Mary-'Gusta was not playing with Rose and Rosette at the present time.
Neither was she interested in the peaceful slumbers of David. She was
not playing at all, but sitting, with feet crossed beneath her on the
seat and hands clasped about one knee, thinking. And, although she was
thinking of her stepfather who she knew had gone away to a vague place
called Heaven--a place variously described by Mrs. Bailey, the former
housekeeper, and by Mrs. Susan Hobbs, the present one, and by Mr. Howes,
the Sunday school superintendent--she was thinking most of herself, Mary
Augusta Lathrop, who was going to a funeral that very afternoon and,
after that, no one seemed to know exactly where.

It was a beautiful April day and the doors of the carriage house and
the big door of the barn were wide open. Mary-'Gusta could hear the hens
clucking and the voices of people talking. The voices were two: one was
that of Mrs. Hobbs, the housekeeper, and the other belonged to Mr. Abner
Hallett, the undertaker. Mary-'Gusta did not like Mr. Hallett's voice;
she liked neither it nor its owner's manner; she described both voice
and manner to herself as "too soothy." They gave her the shivers.

Mr. Hallett's tone was subdued at the present time, but a trifle of the
professional "soothiness" was lacking. He and Mrs. Hobbs were conversing
briskly enough and, although Mary-'Gusta could catch only a word or two
at intervals, she was perfectly sure they were talking about her. She
was certain that if she were to appear at that moment in the door of the
barn they would stop talking immediately and look at her. Everybody whom
she had met during the past two days looked at her in that queer way. It
made her feel as if she had something catching, like the measles, and as
if, somehow or other, she was to blame.

She realized dimly that she should feel very, very badly because her
stepfather was dead. Mrs. Hobbs had told her that she should and seemed
to regard her as queerer than ever because she had not cried. But,
according to the housekeeper, Captain Hall was out of his troubles and
had gone where he would be happy for ever and ever. So it seemed to her
strange to be expected to cry on his account. He had not been happy
here in Ostable, or, at least, he had not shown his happiness in the way
other people showed theirs. To her he had been a big, bearded giant of
a man, whom she saw at infrequent intervals during the day and always
at night just before she went to bed. His room, with the old-fashioned
secretary against the wall, and the stuffed gull on the shelf, and the
books in the cupboard, and the polished narwhal horn in the corner, was
to her a sort of holy of holies, a place where she was led each evening
at nine o'clock, at first by Mrs. Bailey and, later, by Mrs. Hobbs,
to shake the hand of the big man who looked at her absently over his
spectacles and said good night in a voice not unkindly but expressing no
particular interest. At other times she was strictly forbidden to enter
that room.

Occasionally, but very rarely, she had eaten Sunday dinner with
Marcellus. She and the housekeeper usually ate together and Mr. Hall's
meals were served in what the child called "the smoke room," meaning the
apartment just described, which was at all times strongly scented with
tobacco. The Sunday dinners were stately and formal affairs and were
prefaced by lectures by the housekeeper concerning sitting up straight
and not disturbing Cap'n Hall by talking too much. On the whole
Mary-'Gusta was rather glad when the meals were over. She did not
dislike her stepfather; he had never been rough or unkind, but she had
always stood in awe of him and had felt that he regarded her as a "pesky
nuisance," something to be fed and then shooed out of the way, as Mrs.
Hobbs regarded David, the cat. As for loving him, as other children
seemed to love their fathers; that the girl never did. She was sure
he did not love her in that way, and that he would not have welcomed
demonstrations of affection on her part. She had learned the reason, or
she thought she had: she was a STEPCHILD; that was why, and a stepchild
was almost as bad as a "changeling" in a fairy story.

Her mother she remembered dimly and with that recollection were memories
of days when she was loved and made much of, not only by Mother, but by
Captain Hall also. She asked Mrs. Bailey, whom she had loved and whose
leaving was the greatest grief of her life, some questions about these
memories. Mrs. Bailey had hugged her and had talked a good deal about
Captain Hall's being a changed man since his wife's death. "He used to
be so different, jolly and good-natured and sociable; you wouldn't know
him now if you seen him then. When your mamma was took it just seemed to
wilt him right down. He was awful sick himself for a spell, and when
he got better he was like he is today. Seems as if HE died too, as
you might say, and ain't really lived since. I'm awful sorry for Cap'n
Marcellus. You must be real good to him when you grow up, Mary-'Gusta."

And now he had gone before she had had a chance to grow up, and
Mary-'Gusta felt an unreasonable sense of blame. But real grief, the
dreadful paralyzing realization of loss which an adult feels when a dear
one dies, she did not feel.

She was awed and a little frightened, but she did not feel like crying.
Why should she?

"Mary-'Gusta! Mary-'Gusta! Where be you?"

It was Mrs. Hobbs calling. Mary-'Gusta hurriedly untwisted her legs
and scrambled from beneath the dust cover of the surrey. David, whose
slumbers were disturbed, rose also, yawned and stretched.

"Here I be, Mrs. Hobbs," answered the girl. "I'm a-comin'."

Mrs. Hobbs was standing in the doorway of the barn. Mary-'Gusta noticed
that she was not, as usual, garbed in gingham, but was arrayed in her
best go-to-meeting gown.

"I'm a-comin'," said the child.

"Comin', yes. But where on earth have you been? I've been hunting all
over creation for you. I didn't suppose you'd be out here, on this day
of all others, with--with that critter," indicating David, who appeared,
blinking sleepily.

"I must say I shouldn't think you'd be fussin' along with a cat today,"
declared Mrs. Hobbs.

"Yes'm," said Mary-'Gusta. David yawned, apparently expressing a bored
contempt for housekeepers in general.

"Come right along into the house," continued Mrs. Hobbs. "It's high time
you was gettin' ready for the funeral."

"Ready? How?" queried Mary-'Gusta.