Mrs. Carey

“ So long as I have brains and hands to work with, I will keep striving to create another home like this when my time comes. Any girl that takes me will get a better husband because of you; any children I may be blessed with will have a better father because I have known you. Don't make any mistake, dear Mrs. Carey, your hearth fire glows a long, long distance!"
Mother Carey was moved to the very heart. She leaned forward and took Ralph Thurston's young face, thin with privation and study, in her two hands. ”

“ Nancy stole in softly and put her young smooth cheek against her mother's, quietly stroking her hair. "There are four of us to love you and take care of you," she said. "It is n't quite so bad as if there was nobody!"
Mrs. Carey clasped her close. "Oh! my Nancy! my first, my oldest, God will help me, I know that, but just now I need somebody close and warm and soft; somebody with arms to hold and breath to speak and lips to kiss! ”

“ The Gloom-Dispeller had been her father's name for her, but he had never thought of her as a Path-Finder, a gallant adventurer into unknown and untried regions, because there had been small opportunity to test her courage or her ingenuity.
Mrs. Carey often found herself leaning on Nancy nowadays; not as a dead weight, but with just the hint of need, just the suggestion of confidence, that youth and strength and buoyancy respond to so gladly. ”

“ Good night, widow.”
“You’ll remember us to-morrow evening,” said Caroline. “To-morrow evening! The Temple!” murmured Mrs Carey to herself. “I think the world is turned upside downwards in these parts. A brat like Mick Radley to live in a two pair, with a wife and family, or as good as he says; and this girl asks me to take a dish of tea with her and keeps house! Fathers and mothers goes for nothing,” continued Mrs Carey, as she took a very long pinch of snuff and deeply mused. “‘tis the children gets the wages,” she added after a profound pause, “and there it is.” ”

“ Never think that Cousin Ann did not suffer and sympathize and do her rocky best to comfort; she did indeed, but she was thankful that her task was of brief duration. Mrs. Carey knew how it would be, and had planned all so that she herself could arrive not long after the blow had fallen. Peter, by his mother's orders (she had thought of everything) was at a neighbor's house, the centre of all interest, the focus of all gayety. He was too young to see the tears of his elders with any profit; baby plants grow best in sunshine. ”

“ Mrs. Carey! No storm could keep me away to-night."
"What has mother been doing, now?" asked Nancy. "Her right hand is forever busy, and she never tells her left hand a thing, so we children are always in the dark."
"It was nothing much," said Mrs. Carey, pushing the young man gently into the high-backed rocker. "Mrs. Harmon, Mrs. Popham, and I simply tried to show our gratitude to Mr. Thurston for teaching our troublesome children."
"How did you know it was my birthday?" asked Thurston.
"Didn't you write the date in Lallie Joy's book?" ”

“ Carey.
She knew nothing about children. After it was settled that Philip should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she should treat him; she was anxious to do her duty; but now he was there she found herself just as shy of him as he was of her. She hoped he would not be noisy and rough, because her husband did not like rough and noisy boys. Mrs. Carey made an excuse to leave Philip alone, but in a moment came back and knocked at the door; she asked him, without coming in, if he could pour out the water himself. Then she went downstairs and rang the bell for tea. ”

“ The eyes the color of the blue velvet bonnet were turned full upon Henry Lord, Ph.D. They swam in tears and the color came and went in her cheek; she was forty, but it was a lovely cheek still.
"I will think it over," he replied with some embarrassment as he wrapped the picture again and handed it to her. "Meantime I am certainly very much obliged to you. You seem to have an uncommon knowledge of young people. May I ask if you are, or have been, a teacher?" "Oh, no!" Mrs. Carey remarked with a smile, "I am just a mother,—that's all! Good night." ”

“ Carey had a cold. Coal was expensive. Besides, Mary Ann, the maid, didn’t like fires all over the place. If they wanted all them fires they must keep a second girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs. Carey lived in the dining-room so that one fire should do, and in the summer they could not get out of the habit, so the drawing-room was used only by Mr. Carey on Sunday afternoons for his nap. But every Saturday he had a fire in the study so that he could write his sermon.
Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into a tiny bed-room that looked out on the drive. ”

“ I was much happier about Carrie now—she seemed brighter and in better spirits. If she loathed her daily drudgery, she said little about it, and complained less. All her interests were reserved for Nightingale lane and Rowley street. The hours spent in those unsavory neighborhoods were literally her times of refreshment. Her poor people were very close to her heart, and often she told us about them as we sat working together in the evening, until mother grew quite interested, and used to ask after them by name, which pleased Carrie, and made a bond of sympathy between them. ”

“ Mr. Carey was to forget that, and hurry up and get well again. Miss Ada would have been amazed beyond measure at the gentleness, the respect, the veneration of the young savage; it made Nancy Carey’s hazel gaze grow liquid and tender.
The weeks went on in a dull procession; Mr. Carey improved slowly, Gloriana-Virginia grew slowly worse; Luke Manders made himself slowly more and more necessary to his employer; Glen Darrow began slowly to accumulate a small and austere trousseau. ”

“ Just ask Mrs. Carey to keep Mrs. Robeson with her for a few minutes, if she can.”
Carey went down and gave his wife the message, then he hurried back and stood waiting just outside the door. And all at once the summons came. In a breath the doctor had changed his rôle. He spoke sharply:
“Now, Robeson—now, Carey—we’ve waited up to the limit. Keep cool—hold him like a rock—”
Wayne Carey came down to his wife, ten minutes later, smiled tremulously, sank into a chair, and fell to crying like a baby—softly, so that he could not be heard. ”

“ Carey's handwriting, so he sped to the Yellow House as soon as his supper was over, and now, in the presence of the whole family, he felt tongue-tied and wholly unable to express his gratitude.
It was bed time, and the young people melted away from the fireside.
"Kiss your mother good-night, sweet Pete," said Nancy, taking the reluctant cherub by the hand. "'Hoc opus, hic labor est,' Mr. Thurston, to get the Peter-bird upstairs when once he is down. Shake hands with your future teacher, Peter; no, you mustn't kiss him; little boys don't kiss great Latin scholars unless they are asked." ”

“ Just hear that, father! We’re going to have a fireplace! Now, don’t you let him off. Did you design it, Mr. Copley?”
Carey lifted embarrassed eyes to his elder sister’s face, and met her look of loving pride, and flushed happily.
“Why, no, I guess my sister Nell’s to blame for that. She suggested it first, and worked it out mostly,” he said.
“Indeed, you did it all yourself, Carey,” said Cornelia. “I only wanted it, and Carey did the rest.”
“Yes, Gracie, that’s where you’re lacking,” said the minister, laughingly; “you haven’t any brother to carry out your every wish. ”

“ Carey laughed and cried over this characteristic message when it reached them! "Oh! they are darlings," Mother Carey cried. "Of course they are," the Captain murmured feebly. "Why shouldn't they be, considering you?"
"It is really just as easy to do right as wrong, Kathleen," said Nancy when the girls were going to bed one night. ”

“ The strangers were a man and a woman, and a young girl a little older than Louise and younger than Cornelia; and one could see at a glance that they were cultured, refined people, though they were quietly, simply dressed. Carey, in his gray flannel shirt open at the neck and the old trousers in which he had assisted in the last rites of putting the room in perfect order, looked down at himself in dismay, and backed precipitately around the end of the piano as far out of sight as possible, meeting the intruders with a glare of disapproval. ”

“ I am trying to do for Gilbert and Cyril what an elder brother would do, but I should have been powerless if I had not had this home and this fireside to inspire me!"
"Tibi splendet focus!" quoted Mrs. Carey, pointing to Olive's inscription under the mantelpiece. "For you the hearth fire glows!"
"Have I not felt it from the beginning?" asked Ralph. "I never knew my mother, Mrs. Carey, and few women have come into my life; I have been too poor and too busy to cultivate their friendship. Then I came to Beulah and you drew me into your circle ”

“ Bangs was stupefied at the request, for, in her time, scarcely a single caller from the village had crossed the threshold, although there had been occasional visitors from Portland or Boston.
Mrs. Carey waited a few moments, silently regarding the unequalled bareness, ugliness, and cheerlessness of the room. "Olive has a sense of beauty," she thought, "and Olive is sixteen; it is Olive who ought to make this place different from what it is, and she can, unless her father is the stumbling-block in the way." ”

“ Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Blackstable very tiring. She seldom travelled herself, for the living was only three hundred a year, and, when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money for two, he went by himself. He was very fond of Church Congresses and usually managed to go up to London once a year; and once he had been to Paris for the exhibition, and two or three times to Switzerland. Mary Ann brought in the egg, and they sat down. The chair was much too low for Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey nor his wife knew what to do. ”

“ She stared at the money incredulously.
“There, girl,” he urged, for a woman’s distress, even though she were only a peasant, hurt him, “be happy and buy a fat and spotted cow.”
She kneeled to kiss his hand. “Monseigneur,” she sobbed, “is kind to a poor wench. Surely the good God has sent him to me,” and she poured her hot tears of gratitude on the ruffles of his sleeve.
“I am happy again,” she murmured. “Yes, I will buy a cow and be happy,” and she began to sing, flinging the coarse matted hair out of her eyes.
André watched her contentedly; it was pleasant to see her joy. ”

“ Suppose I talk to father; I’ll do it tonight. Meantime, you help me here a day or two, and then you go back to that garage, and work for a week or two, and earn money enough for your suit and what other things you need, and keep your eye open for something better all the while.”
“That’s the talk!” said Carey joyfully. “Now you’re shouting! You put some heart in a fella. Gee, I’m glad you’re home. It’s been awful without mother. It was bad enough the last few months when she was sick, but it was some dump when she went away entirely.” ”

“ When breakfast was over, Dot and I worked hard; and in the afternoon I generally read to Carrie; she was far less of an invalid now, and used to busy herself with work for the poor while she lay on her couch and listened. She used to get mother to help her sometimes, and then Carrie would look so happy as she planned how this garment was to be for old Nanny Stables, and the next for her little grandson Jemmy. With returning strength came the old, unselfish desire to benefit others. It put her quite into spirits one day when Mrs. Smedley asked her to cover some books for the Sunday school. ”

“ But neither I nor you can settle that, nor the King, for kings and men alone,” she laughed gently, “cannot make a man’s fate.”
“I thank you, Madame. His Majesty, I hope, will know that I am his servant always, but my decision is already taken, and from to-day I shall not live at Versailles nor Paris; De Nérac is to be my home, and perhaps some day Beau Séjour.”
Madame had dropped the roll of paper in an astonishment she failed to master. Her lips parted as she looked him in the face.
“Yes,” André repeated. “The Marquise de Beau Séjour and I have decided. Nothing can alter that decision.” ”

“ The idea of her absence from home for ever was too strange, too heartrending to be at once embraced, and as she neared the end of her journey on that long day, Carey’s mind was chiefly fixed on the yearning to be with her husband and Janet, who had suffered such a shock without her. She seemed more able to feel through her husband—who was so devoted to his mother, than for herself, and she was every moment more uneasy about her little daughter, who must have been in the room with her grandmother. Comfort them? ”

“ Two soft arms enfolded him for a brief second. “The lips, Vicomte” came the caressing chant—“the lips that a king has kissed salute you.” His head rested on her breast. “Adieu!” She had vanished and his numbed senses ebbed away into an enchanted oblivion. The Loire floated at his feet, the autumn trees rustled a perfect pleasantness and peace, and Denise standing beneath the carved mantelpiece with “Dieu Le Vengeur” in a scroll of gold above her had him in her forgiving arms. ”

“ You can't have the help of Yale or Harvard or Bowdoin to make a man of you, my son,—you will have to fight your own battles and win your own spurs."
"Oh! mother, but you're splendid!" cried Nancy, the quick tears in her eyes. "Brace up, old Gilly, and show what the Careys can do without 'advantages.' Brace up, Kitty and Julia! We three will make Beulah Academy ring next year!"
"And I don't want you to look upon Beulah as a place of hiding while adversity lasts," said Mother Carey. "We must make it home; as beautiful and complete as we can afford. ”