"Erigeron Elixir.
"An Unfailing cure for
"Ague. Asthma. Bright's Disease. Bronchitis.
Catarrh. Consumption. Colds. Coughs.
Diphtheria. Dropsy.
"(We spare our readers the remainder of the alphabet.)
"All genuine have the name of the inventor and proprietor blown on the bottle, thus:
"Alcibiades Smith."
A sudden light flashed upon poor Margaret, showing her forgotten piles of bottles on the counters of village stores, and long columns of unheeded advertisements in the country newspapers. She stood silent and shamefaced.
"What will your father say?" reiterated Cousin Susan. Dr. Parke's reputation with the general public was largely founded on a series of letters he had contributed to a scientific journal exposing and denouncing quack medicines.
"I didn't know," said Margaret, helplessly, wondering that the truth could sound so like a lie, but unable to fortify it by any asseveration.
"Why, you must have heard about the Smiths: everybody has. They have cut the most ridiculous figure everywhere. They came to Clifton Springs once while I was there; and they were really too dreadful; the kind of people you can't stay in the room with." Cousin Susan had not talked so much for years, and began to feel that the excitement was doing her good, which may excuse her merciless pelting of poor Margaret. "You were too young, perhaps," she went on, "to have heard about Ossian Smith, the oldest son, but the newspapers were full of him—of the life he led in London and Paris, when he was a mere boy. The American minister got him home at last, and a pretty penny old Smith had to pay to get him out of his entanglements. He had delirium tremens, and jumped out of a window, and killed himself, soon after—the best thing he could do. But you must have heard of Lunetta Smith, the daughter; about her running away with the coachman; it happened only about three or four years ago. Why, the New York Sun had two columns about it, and the World four. All the family were interviewed, your young man among the rest, and the comic papers said the mésalliance appeared to be on the coachman's side. She died, too, soon after; you must have heard of it."
"No, I never did. Father never lets me read the daily papers," said Margaret, a little proudly.
"Well!" said Cousin Susan, with relaxing energy, "I don't often read such things myself; but one can't help noticing them; and Mrs. Champion Pryor has been telling me a great deal about it."
"And did Mrs. Pryor tell you anything about my—about young Mr. Smith?"
"Oh, she said he was always very well spoken of. He was younger than the rest and delicate in health, and took to study; and his father had a good deal of money in time to educate him. They say he's rather clever, and the old man is quite proud of him; but he can't be a gentleman, Margaret—it is not possible."
"Yes, he can!" burst out Margaret; "he's too much of a man not to be a gentleman, too!"
"Well," said Cousin Susan, suddenly collapsing, "I can't talk any longer. I have such a headache. If you have asked him to call, I suppose he must come; but I can't see him. What's that? a box for you? more flowers? Oh, dear, do take them away. If there is anything I cannot stand when I have a headache, it is flowers about, and I can smell those lilacs you carried last night all the way downstairs, and through two closed doors."
Poor Margaret escaped to her own room with her flowers to write her letter, the difficulty of her task suddenly increased. Mrs. Manton threw herself back on the sofa to nurse her headache, but found that it was of no use, and that what she needed was fresh air. She ordered a cab, and drove round to see Mrs. Underwood, unto whom, in strict confidence, she freed her mind. She found some relief in the dismay her recital gave her hearer. Ralph Underwood was slowly recovering from the fit of disappointment in which he had wreaked his ill-temper on whoever came near him, as a younger, badly trained child might do on the chairs and tables; and his mother, his chief souffre douleur; who in her turn had made all around her feel her own misery, was now beginning ruefully to count up the damages, of which she felt a large share was due to the Parkes. She had been wondering whether she could not give a little lunch for Margaret; she could, at least, take her to the next German, and find her some better partner than Al Smith. Nothing could have been more disconcerting than this news. She could not with any grace do anything for Margaret now to efface the memories of the first part of her visit, and the Parkes must blame her doubly for the neglect which had allowed this engagement to take place. Why, even Susan Manton put on an injured air!
She craved some comfort in her turn, and after keeping the secret for a day and a night, told it in the strictest confidence to her intimate friend, Mrs. Thorndike Freeman, whose "dropping in" was an irresistible temptation.
"What!" cried Mrs. Freeman, "is it that large young woman with red cheeks, whom you brought one evening to Papanti's? I think it will be an excellent thing; why, the Smiths can use her photograph as an advertisement for the Elixir."
"Yes—but then her parents—you see, she's Mary Pickering's daughter."
"Mary Pickering has been married to a country doctor for five and twenty years, hasn't she? You may be sure her eyes are open by this time. Depend upon it, they would swallow Al Smith, if he were bigger than he is. The daughter seems to have found no difficulty in the feat."
"Well," said Mrs. Underwood, with a sigh, "perhaps I ought to be glad that poor Al has got some respectable girl to take him for his money. I never dreamed one would."
"It isn't likely that he ever asked one before," said Mrs. Freeman, with a double-edged sneer.
The door-bell rang, and the butler ushered in Margaret, who had come to make her farewell call. Mrs. Underwood looked at her in astonishment. Was this the shy, blushing girl who had come from Royalston three short months ago? With such gentle sweetness did she express her gratitude for the elder lady's kind attentions, with such graceful dignity did she wave aside a few awkwardly hinted apologies, above all, so regally beautiful did she look, that Mrs. Underwood felt more than ever that she would be called to account by the parents of such a creature. Margaret had quite forgiven Mrs. Underwood, for, she reasoned, if that lady had done as she ought to have done by her, she would never have had the chance of knowing Al, a contingency too dreadful to contemplate; and her forgiveness added to the superiority of her position. Mrs. Underwood could only reiterate the eternal useless regret of the tempted and fallen: "If things had not happened just when, and how, and as they did!" She envied Mrs. Freeman, who was now in the easiest manner possible plying the young girl with devoted attentions, with large doses of flattery thrown in. Mrs. Freeman, meanwhile, was mentally resolving to call on Margaret before she left town, in which case they could hardly avoid sending her wedding-cards. She foresaw that, as two negatives make an affirmative, Mr. and Mrs. Alcibiades Smith, Jr., might yet be worthy of the honor of her acquaintance.
Margaret's engagement was no primrose path. It was easier for her when her lover was away, for he wrote delightful letters, but they rarely had one happy and undisturbed hour together. Dr. and Mrs. Parke, of course, gave their consent to the marriage; but they did not like it, and did not pretend to. Dr. Parke, who, as is the wont of his profession, placed a high value on physical attractions, and who cared as little for money as any sane man could, hardly restrained his expressions of dislike. "What business," he growled, "had the fellow to ask her?" Mrs. Parke, while trying hard to keep her husband in order, was cold and constrained herself. Being a woman, she thought less of looks, and had learned in her married life to appreciate the value of money. She would have liked Margaret to make a good match; but here was more money by twenty times than she would have asked, had it only been offered by a lover more worthy of her beautiful daughter! And yet, if Margaret would only have been open with her! If she would have frankly said that she was tired of being poor, and could not forego the opportunity of marrying a rich man, who was a good sort of man enough, Mrs. Parke could have understood, and pitied, and forgiven; but to see her put on such an affectation of attachment for him drove her mother nearly wild. Why, she acted as if she were more in love than he was!
The boys had been duly respectful on hearing that their sister's betrothed was a "Harvard man," but grew contemptuous when they found him so unfit for athletics. Relations and friends, and acquaintances of every degree, believed, and still believe, and always will believe, that Margaret's was one of the most mercenary of mercenary marriages. Some blamed her parents for allowing it; others thought that their opposition was feigned, and that they were really forcing poor Margaret into it.
The two younger children, Harry and Winnie, at once adopted their new brother, and stood up stanchly for him on all occasions, and their sister was eternally grateful to them for it. Her only other support came, of all the people in the world, from Ralph Underwood. He could not be best man at the wedding, as he was going abroad with his mother, who was sadly run down and needed change; but he wrote Margaret a straightforward, manly letter, in which he said that he trusted, unworthy as he was, she would admit him to her friendship for Al's sake. He spoke of all he owed to his friend in such a way that Margaret perceived that more had passed in their college days than she ever had been or ever should be told.
The family discomfort came to a climax on the day before the wedding, when the great Alcibiades Smith himself and his wife made their appearance at Royalston. They stayed at the hotel with their suite, but spent the evening with the Parkes to make the acquaintance of their new connections. Old Mr. Smith pronounced Margaret "a bouncer." He had always known, he said, that Al would get some kind of a wife, but never thought it would be such a stunner as this one. It naturally fell to him to be entertained by Dr. Parke, or rather to entertain him, which he did by relating the whole history of the Elixir, from its first invention to the number of million bottles that were put up the last year, winding up every period with, "As you're a medical man yourself, sir." Mrs. Smith was quieter, and though well pleased, a little awe-struck, as her French maid, her authority and terror, had told her, after Mrs. Parke's and Margaret's brief call at the hotel that afternoon, that these were, evidently, "dames très comme il faut." She poured into Mrs. Parke's ear, in a corner, the tale of all Al's early illnesses, and the various treatments he had had for them, till her hearer no longer wondered at their being so little of him; the wonder was, that there was anything left at all. Then, à propos of marriages, she grew confidential and almost tearful about their distresses in the case of their daughter "Luny." She did think Mr. Smith a little to blame for poor Luny's runaway match. There was an Italian count whom she liked, but her father could not be induced to pay his debts, and "a girl must marry somebody, you know," she wound up, with a look at Margaret.
Margaret, in after years, could appreciate the comedy of the situation. It is no wonder if it seemed to her at the time the most gloomily tragical that perverse ingenuity could devise. Al's manner to his parents was perfect. He was very silent; not more, perhaps, than he always was in a room full, but she thought he looked fagged and tired, and wondered how he could bear it. She longed intensely to say something sympathetic to him; but, like most girls on the eve of their marriage, she felt overpowered with shyness. If this dreadful evening ever came to an end, and they were ever married, then she would tell him, once for all, that she loved him all the better for all and everything that he had to bear.
"They will spoil the whole effect," said Mrs. Parke, despondently, as she put the last careful touches to Margaret's wedding-dress. It was a very simple but becoming one of rich plain silk, with a little lace, and the pearl daisies with diamond dewdrops, sent by the bridegroom, accorded with it well. But Mr. Smith, senior, had begged that his gift, or part of it, should be worn on the occasion, and Mrs. Parke now slowly opened a velvet box, in which lay a crescent and a cross. Neither she nor Margaret was accustomed to estimate the price of diamonds, and had they been, they would have seen that these were far beyond their mark.
"They don't go with the dress," repeated Mrs. Parke, doubtfully.
"Oh, never mind; to please Mr. Smith," said Margaret, carelessly, as she bent forward to allow her mother to clasp round her neck the slender row of stones that held the cross, and to stick the long pins of the crescent with dexterous hand through the gathered tulle, of the veil and the thick wavy bands of hair beneath it.
As she drew herself up to her full height again before the mirror, it seemed as if the June day outside had taken on the form of a mortal girl. The gold and blue of the heavens, the pink and white of the blossoming fields, whose luminous tints rested so softly on hair and eyes, on cheek and brow, were reflected and intensified in the rainbow rays of light that blazed on her head and at her throat. It was not in human nature not to look with one touch of pride and pleasure at the vision in the glass. But the sight of another face behind hers made her turn quickly round, with, "O mamma! mamma! what is it?"
"Nothing, my dear; it's a very magnificent present; only I thought—"
"Mamma! surely you don't think I care for such things! you don't, you can't think I am the least bit influenced by them in marrying Al. O mamma! don't, don't look at me so!"
"Never mind, my dear. We will not talk about it now. It is too late for me to say anything, I know, and I am very foolish."
"Mother!" cried the girl, piteously; "you must believe me! You know that when Al asked me to marry him, and I said I would, I had no idea, not the slightest idea, that he had a penny in the world!"
"Hush, Margaret! hush, my dear! you are excited, and so am I. Don't say anything you may wish afterwards that you had not. God bless you, and make you a happy woman, and a good wife; but don't begin your married life with a—" Mrs. Parke choked down the word with a great sob, and hastily left the room. It was high noon, and she had not yet put on her own array.
Margaret stood stiff and blind with horror. Had she really known, then? Had her hand been bought? Then she remembered her own innocence when she told her love. Not so proudly, not so freely, not so gladly, could it ever have been told to the millionaire's son. A rush of self-pity came over her, softening the indignant throbbing of her heart, and opening the fountains of tears. She was at the point where a woman must have a good cry, or go mad,—but where could she give way? Not here, where anyone might come in. Indeed, there was Winnie's voice at the door of the nursery, eager to show her bridesmaid's toilette. Margaret snatched up two white shawls which lay ready on the sofa, caught up the heavy train of her gown in one hand, and flew down the front staircase like a hunted swan, through the library to the sacred room beyond—her father's study, now, as she well knew, deserted, while its owner was above, reluctantly dressing for the festivity. She pushed the only chair forward to the table, threw one shawl over it, and laying the other on the table itself, sat down, and carefully bending her head down over her folded arms, so as not to crush her veil by a feather's touch, let loose the flood-gates. In a moment she was crying as only a healthy girl who seldom cries can, when she once gives up to it.
Someone spoke to her; she never heard it. Someone touched her; she never felt it. It was only when a voice repeated, "Why, Margaret, dearest, what is the matter?" that she checked herself with a mighty effort, swallowed her sobs, and still holding her handkerchief over her tear-stained cheeks and quivering mouth, turned round to find herself face to face with her bridegroom, who having stopped to take up his best man, Alick Parke, was waiting till that young man tied his sixth necktie. She well knew that a lover who finds his betrothed crying her eyes out half an hour before the wedding has a prescriptive right to be both angry and jealous; but he looked neither; only a little anxious and troubled.
"Darling, has anything happened?"
"No—not exactly; that is—O Al! they won't believe me!"
"They! who?"
"Not one single one of them. Not mother, even mother! I thought she would—but she doesn't."
"Does not what?"
"She does not believe," said Margaret, trying to steady her voice, "that when you asked me to marry you, and I said I would, that I did not know you were rich. I told her, but she won't believe me."
"Well," said Mr. Smith, quietly, though with a little flush on his face; "it's very natural. I don't blame her."
"Al!" cried Margaret, seizing both his hands; "O Al, you don't—you do—you believe me, don't you, Al? don't you?"
POOR MR. PONSONBY
On a bright, windy morning in March, Miss Emmeline Freeman threw open the gate of her mother's little front garden on Walnut Street, Brookline, slammed it behind her with one turn of her wrist, marched with an emphatic tapping of boot-heels up the path between the crocus-beds to the front door, threw that open, and rushed into the drawing-room, where she paused for breath, and began before she found it:
"O mamma! O Aunt Sophia! O Bessie! What do you think? Lily Carey—you would never guess—Lily Carey—I was never so surprised in my life—Lily Carey is engaged!"
Mrs. Freeman laid down her pen by the side of her column of figures, losing her account for the seventh time; Miss Sophia Morgan paused in the silk stocking she was knitting, just as she was beginning to narrow; and Bessie Freeman dropped her brush full of colour on to the panel she was finishing, while all three exclaimed with one voice, "To whom?"
"That is the queer part of it. You will never guess. Indeed, how should you?"
"To whom?" repeated the chorus, with a unanimity and precision that would have been creditable to the stage, and with the due accent of impatience on the important word.
"To no one you ever would have dreamed of; indeed, you never heard of him—a Mr. Reginald Ponsonby. It is a most romantic thing. He is an Englishman, very good family and handsome and all that, but not much money. That is why it has been kept quiet so long."
"So long? How long?" chimed in the trio, still in unison.
"Why, for three years and more. Lily met him in New York that time she was there in the summer, you know, when her father was ill at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But Mr. Carey would never let it be called an engagement till now."
"Did Lily tell you all this?" asked Bessie.
"No, Ada Thorne was telling everyone about it at the lunch party. She heard it from Lily."
"I think Lily might have told us herself."
"She said she did not mean to write to anyone, it has been going on so long, and her prospects were so uncertain; she did not care to have any formal announcement, but just to have her friends hear of it gradually. But she sent you and me very kind messages, Bessie, and she wants you to take the O'Flanigans—that's her district family, you know—and me to take her Sunday-school class. She says she really must have her Sundays now to write to Mr. Ponsonby, poor fellow! She has been obliged to scribble to him at any odd moment she could, and he is so far off."
"Where is he—in England?"
"Oh, dear, no! In Australia. He owns an immense sheep-farm in West Australia. He belongs to a very good family; but he was born on the continent, and has no near relations in England, and has rather knocked about the world for a good many years. He had not very good luck in Australia at first, but now things look better there, and he may be able to come over here this summer, and if he does they will perhaps be married before he goes back. Mr. Carey won't hear it spoken of now, but Ada says she has no doubt he will give in when it comes to the point. He never refuses Lily anything, and if the young man really comes he won't have the heart to send him back alone, for Ada says he must be fascinating."
"Lily seems to have laid her plans very judiciously," said Miss Morgan, "and if she wishes them generally understood, she does well to confide them to Ada Thorne."
"And she has been engaged for years!" burst out Bessie, whose mental operations had meanwhile been going ahead of the rest; "why then—then there could never have been anything between her and Jack Allston!"
"Certainly not," replied Emmeline, confidently.
"Very likely he knew it all the time," said Bessie.
"Or she may have refused him," said Mrs. Freeman.
"What is Miss Thorne's version?" said Aunt Sophia. "I shall stand by that whatever it is. Considering the extent of that young woman's information, I am perpetually surprised by its accuracy."
"Ada thinks Lily never let it come to a proposal, but probably let Jack see from the beginning that it would be useless, and that is why they were on such friendly terms."
"Well!" said Aunt Sophia, "I am always glad to think better of my fellow-creatures. I always thought Jack Allston a fool for marrying as he did if he could have had Lily, and now I only think him half a one, since he couldn't. I am only afraid the folly is on poor Lily's side. However, we must all fulfil our destiny, and I always said she was born to become the heroine of a domestic drama, at least."
"Oh, here's Bob!" said Emmeline, as her elder brother's entrance broke in upon the conversation. "Bob, who do you think is engaged?"
"You have lost your chance of telling, Emmie," replied the young man, with a careful carelessness of manner; "I have just had the pleasure of walking from the village with Ada Thorne."
"Really, it is too bad of Ada," said Emmeline, as she adjusted her hat at the glass. "She will not leave me one person to tell by to-morrow. Bessie, I think as long as we are going to five o'clock tea at the Pattersons', and I have all my things on, I will set out now and make some calls on the way. You might dress and come after me. I will be at Nina Turner's. Mamma and Aunt Sophy can"—but her voice was an indistinct buzz in her brother's ears, as he stood looking blankly out of the window at the bright crocus tufts. He had never had any intention of proposing to Lily Carey himself, and he knew that if he had she would never have accepted him, yet somehow a shadow had crept over the day that was so bright before.
Lily Carey was at that time a very conspicuous figure in Boston society; that is, in the little circle of young people who went to all the "best" balls and assemblies. She was also well known in some that were less select, for the Careys had too assured a position to be exclusive, and were too good-natured to be fashionable, so that she knew the whole world and the whole world knew her. To be exact, she was acquainted with about one five-hundredth part of the inhabitants of Boston and vicinity, was known by sight to about twice as many, and by name to as many more, with acquaintance also in such other cities and villages as had sufficiently advanced in civilisation to have a "set" which knew the Boston "set." She stood out prominently from the usual dead level of monotonous prettiness which is the rule in American ballrooms and gives piquant plainness so many advantages. Her nymph-like figure, dressed very likely in a last-year's gown of no particular fashion—for the Careys were of that Boston monde which systematically under-dresses—made the other girls look small and pinched and doll-like; her towering head, crowned with a great careless roll of her bright chestnut hair, made theirs look like barbers' dummies; and her brilliant colouring made one half of them show dull and dingy, the other faded and washed out. These advantages were not always appreciated as such—by no means; unusual beauty, like unusual genius, may fly over the heads of the uneducated; and it was the current opinion among the young ladies who only knew her by sight, and their admirers, that "Miss Carey had no style." Among her own acquaintance she reigned supreme. To have been in love with Lily Carey was regarded by every youth of quality as a necessary part of the curriculum of Harvard University; so much so that it was not at all detrimental to their future matrimonial prospects. Her old lovers, like her left-over partners, were always at the service of her whole coterie of adoring intimate friends. If she had no new ideas, these not being such common articles as is usually supposed, no one could more cleverly seize upon and deftly adapt some stray old one. She could write plays when none could be found to suit, and act half the parts, and coach the other actors; she made her mother give new kinds of parties, where all the new-old dances and games were brought to life again; and she set the little fleeting fashions of the day that never get into the fashion-books, to which, indeed, her dress might happen or not to correspond; but the exact angle at which she set on her hat, and the exact knot in which she tied her sash, and the exact spot where she stuck the rose in her bosom, were subjects of painstaking study, and objects of generally unsuccessful imitation to the rest of womankind.
Why Lily Carey at one and twenty was not married, or even engaged, was a mystery; but for four years she had been supposed by that whole world of which we have spoken to be destined for Jack Allston. Jack was young, handsome, rich, of good family, and so rising in his profession, the law, that no one could suppose he lacked brains, though in general matters they were not so evident. For four years he had skated with Lily, danced with her, sung with her, ridden, if not driven, with her, sent her flowers, and scarcely paid a single attention of the sort to any other girl; and Lily had danced, sung, ridden, skated with him, at least twice as often as with any other man. Jack had had the entrée of the Carey house, where old family friendship had admitted him from boyhood, almost as if he were another son, and was made far more useful than sons generally allow themselves to be made. He came to all parties early and stayed late, danced with all the wall-flowers and waited upon all the grandmothers and aunts, and prompted and drew up the curtain, and took all the "super" parts at their theatricals. He was "Jack" to all of them, from Papa Carey down to Muriel of four years old. The Carey family, if hints were dropped, disclaimed so smilingly that everyone was convinced that they knew all about it, and that Mrs. Carey, a most careful mother, who spent so much time in acting chaperon to her girls that she saw but little of them, would never have allowed it to go so far unless there were something in it. Why this something was not announced was a mystery. At first many reasons were assigned by those who must have reasons for other people's actions, all very sufficient: Lily too young, Jack not through the law-school, the Allstons in mourning, etc., etc.; but as one after another exhibited its futility, and new ones were less readily discovered, the subject was discussed in less amiable mood by tantalised expectants, and the ominous sentence was even murmured, "If they are not engaged they ought to be."
On October 17, 1887, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé stock was quoted at 90½, and the engagement of Mr. John Somerset Allston to Miss Julia Henrietta Bradstreet Noble was announced with all the formality of which Boston is capable on such occasions. It can hardly be said which piece of news created the greater sensation; but many a paterfamilias who had dragged himself home sick at heart from State Street found his family so engrossed in their own private morsel of intelligence that his, with all its consequences of no new bonnets and no Bar Harbor next summer, was robbed of its sting. All was done according to the most established etiquette. Jack Allston had told all the men at his lunch club, and a hundred notes from Miss Noble to her friends and relatives, which she had sat up late for the two preceding nights to write, had been received by the morning post. Jack had sat up later than she had, but only one single note had been the product of his vigils.
Unmixed surprise was the first sensation excited as the news spread. It was astonishing that Jack Allston should be engaged to any girl but Lily Carey, and it was not much less so that he should be engaged to Miss Noble. She was a little older than he was, an only child, and an orphan. Her family was good, her connections high, and her fortune just large enough for her to live upon with their help. She was of course invited everywhere, and received the attentions demanded by politeness; but even politeness had begun to feel that it had done enough for her, and that she should perform the social hara-kiri that unmarried women are expected to make at a certain age. She was very plain and had very little to say for herself. Her relatives could say nothing for her except that she was a "nice, sensible girl," a dictum expressed with more energy after her engagement to Jack Allston, when some of the more daring even discovered that she was "distinguished looking." The men had always, from her silence, had a vague opinion that she was stupid, but amiable; the other girls were doubtful on both these points, certain double-edged speeches forcibly recurring to their memory. Their doubts resolved into certainties after her engagement was announced, when she became so very unbearable that they could only, with the Spartan patience shown by young women on such occasions, hold their tongues and hope that it might be a short one. Their sole relief was in discussing the question as to whether Jack Allston had thrown over Lily, or whether she had refused him. Jack was sheepish and shy at being congratulated; Lily was bright and smiling, and in even higher spirits than usual; Miss Noble spoke very unpleasantly to and of Lily whenever she had the chance; but all these points of conduct might and very likely would be the same under either supposition. Parties were pretty evenly balanced, and the wedding was over before they had drifted to any final conclusion. As the season went on Lily looked rather worn and fagged, which gave the supporters of the first hypothesis some ground; but when, in the spring, her own engagement came out, it supplied a sufficient reason, and gave a triumphant and clinching argument to the advocates of the second. She looked happy enough then, though her own family gave but a doubtful sympathy. Mr. Carey refused to say anything further than that he hoped Lily knew her own mind; she must decide for herself. Mrs. Carey looked sad, and changed the subject, saying there was no need of saying anything about it at present; she was sorry that it was so widely known and talked about. The younger Carey girls, Susan and Eleanor, openly declared that they hoped it would never come to anything. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! His picture was very handsome, and the parts of his letters they had heard were very nice, but he did not seem likely to get on in the world, and he could not expect Lily to wait forever. "Would you like to see his picture?—an amateur one, taken by a friend; and Lily says it does not do him justice."
The photograph won the hearts of all the female friends of the family, who saw it in confidence, and increased their desire to see the original. But Mr. Ponsonby was not able, as had been expected, to come over in the summer. Violent rains and consequent floods in the Australian sheep-runs inflicted so much damage upon his stock that the marriage was again postponed, at least for a year, in which time he hoped to get things on a better basis. Lily kept up her spirits bravely. She did not go to Mount Desert with her mother and sisters, but stayed at home, wrote her letters, hemstitched her linen, declaring that she was glad of the time to get up a proper outfit, and went to bed early, keeping a pleasant home for her father and the boys as they went and came, to their huge satisfaction, and gaining in bloom and freshness; so that she was in fine condition in the fall to nurse her mother through a low fever caught at a Bar Harbor hotel, also to wait upon Susan, nervous and worn down with late hours and perpetual racket, and Eleanor, laid up with a sprained ankle from an overturn in a buckboard.
Eleanor, though not yet eighteen, was to come out next winter, Lily declaring that she should give up balls—what was the use when one was engaged? She stayed at home and saw that her sisters were kept in ball-gowns and gloves, no light task, taking the part of Cinderella con amore. She certainly looked younger than Susan at least, who since she had taken up the Harvard Annex course, besides going out, began to grow worn and thin.
One February morning Eleanor's voice rose above the usual babble at the Carey breakfast-table.
"Can't I go, mamma?"
"Where, dear?"
"Why, to the Racket Club german at Eliot Hall, next Tuesday. It's going to be so nice, you know, only fifty couples, and we ought to answer directly; and I have just had notes from Harry Foster and Julian Jervis asking me for it."
"And which shall you dance with?" asked Lily.
"Why, Harry, of course."
"I would not have any of course about it," said Lily, rather sharply. Harry Foster was now repeating Jack Allston's late role in the Carey family, with Eleanor for his ostensible object. "My advice is, dance with Julian; and I suppose I must see that your pink net is in order, if Miss Macalister cannot be induced to hurry up your new lilac."
"Shall we not go, mamma?"
"Why, mamma, how can we?" broke in Susan, who had her own game in another quarter. "It's the 'Old Men of Menottomy' night, and we missed the last, you know."
"Those old Cambridge parties are the dullest affairs going," said Eleanor; "I'd rather stay at home than go to them."
"That is very ungrateful of you," said Lily, laughing, "when I gave up my place in the 'Misses Carey' to you, for of course I don't go to either."
"Can't I go to Eliot Hall with Roland, mamma? He is asked, and Mrs. Thorne is a patroness; she will chaperon me after I get there."
"Roland will want to go right back to Cambridge, I know—the middle of the week and everything! He'll be late enough without coming here."
"Then can't I take Margaret, and depend on Mrs. Thorne?" went on Eleanor, with the persistence of the youngest pet. "Half the girls go with their maids that way."
"Oh, I don't know, my dear," said poor Mrs. Carey, looking helplessly from Eleanor, flushed and eager, to Susan, silent, but with a tightly shut look on her pretty mouth, that betokened no sign of yielding. "I never liked it—in a hired carriage—and you can't expect me to go over the Cambridge bridges without James. And I hate asking Mrs. Thorne anything, she always makes such a favour of it, and the less trouble it is the more fuss she gets up about it. Do you and Susan settle it somehow between you, and let me know when it is decided."
"Let me go with Eleanor, mamma," said Lily. "Mrs. Freeman will probably go with Emmeline and Bessie, and she will let me sit with her. I will wear my old black silk and look the chaperon all over—as good a one, I will wager, as any there. It will be good fun to act the part, and I have been engaged so long that I should think I might really begin to appear in it."
Mr. Carey was heard to growl, as he pushed back his chair and threw his pile of newspapers on to the floor, that he wished Lily would stop that nonsensical talk about her engagement once for all; but the girls did not pause in their chatter, and Mrs. Carey was too much relieved to argue the point.
"Only tell me what to do and I will do it," was this poor lady's favourite form of speech. She set off with a clear conscience on Tuesday evening with Susan for the assembly at Cambridge, where a promisingly learned post-graduate of good fortune and family was wont to unbend himself by sitting out the dances and explaining the theory of evolution to Miss Susan Carey, who was as mildly scientific as was considered proper for a young lady of her position. Lily accompanied Eleanor to more frivolous spheres, where chaperonage was an easier if less exciting task; for once having touched up her sister's dress in the ante-room, and handed her over to Julian Jervis, she bade her farewell for the evening, and herself took the arm of Harry Foster, who, gloomily cynical at the sight of Eleanor, radiant in her new lilac, with another partner, had hardly a word to say as he settled her on a bench on the raised platform where the chaperons congregated, except to ask her sulkily if she would not "take a turn," which she declined without mincing matters, and took the only seat left, next to Mrs. Jack Allston, who was matronising a cousin.
"What, Lily! you here?" asked Mrs. Thorne.
"Oh, yes; mamma has gone to Cambridge with Susan, and said I might come over with Eleanor, and she was sure Mrs. Freeman,"—with a smile at that lady—"would look after us if we needed it."
"With the greatest pleasure," said Miss Morgan, who sat by her sister. "Here have Elizabeth and I both come to take care of our girls, as half-a-dozen elders sometimes hang on to one child at a circus. We both of us had set our hearts on seeing this german and would not give up, so you see there is an extra chaperon at your service."
"Doesn't your mother find it very troublesome to have three girls out at once?" asked Mrs. Allston of Lily, bluntly.
"Hardly three; I am not out this winter, you know."
"I don't see any need of staying in because one is engaged, unless, indeed, it were a very short one, like mine."
Mrs. Allston cast a rapid and deprecatory glance at the "old black silk," which had seen its best days, and then a still swifter one at her own gown, from Worth, but so unbecoming to her that it was easy for Lily to smile serenely back, though her heart sank within her at her prospects for the evening.
At the close of the first figure of the german, a slight flutter seemed to run through the crowd, tending toward the entrance.
"Who is that standing in the doorway—just come in?" asked Lily, in the very lowest tone, of Miss Morgan. Miss Morgan looked, shook her head decidedly, and then passed the inquiry on to Mrs. Thorne, who hesitated and hemmed.
"He spoke to me when he first came—but—I really don't recollect—it must be Mr.—Mr.——"
"Arend Van Voorst," crushingly put in Mrs. Allston, with somewhat the effect of a garden-roller. Both of the older ladies looked interested.
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Thorne, "I sent him a card when I heard he was in Boston. I have not seen him—at least since he was very young—but his mother—of course I know Mrs. Van Voorst—a little."
"I don't know them at all," said Miss Morgan; "but if that's young Van Voorst, he is better looking than there is any occasion for."
"He was a classmate and intimate friend of Jack's," said Mrs. Allston, loftily.
"I never saw him before," said Lily, incautiously.
"He only went out in a very small set in Boston," said Mrs. Allston. "I met him often, of course."
"You were too young, Lily, to meet any one when he was in college," said Miss Morgan, who liked "putting down Julia Allston."
"It's too bad the girls are all engaged," said the simple-minded Mrs. Freeman; "he won't have any partner."
"He wouldn't dance!" said Julia, too tough to feel Miss Morgan's light touches. "Very likely, as you asked him, Mrs. Thorne, he may feel that he must take a turn with Ada; and when he knows that Kitty Bradstreet is with me, very likely he will ask her out of compliment to me. He will hardly ask me to dance at such a very young party as this; I don't see any of the young married set here but myself."
Mr. Van Voorst stood quietly in the doorway, hardly appearing to notice anything, but when Ada Thorne's partner was called out, and she was left sitting alone, he walked across the room and sat down by her. He did not ask her to dance, but it was perhaps as great an honour to have the Van Voorst of New York sitting by her, holding her bouquet and bending over her in an attitude of devotion; and if what he said did not flatter her vanity, it touched another sentiment equally strong in Ada even at that early period of life.
"Who is that girl in black, sitting with the chaperons?"
"Oh, that is Lily Carey."
"Why is she there?"
"She is chaperoning Eleanor, her youngest sister, that girl in lilac who is on the floor now. They look alike, don't they?"
"Why, she is not married?"
"No, only engaged. She has been engaged a great while, and never goes to balls or anything now—only she came here with Eleanor because Mrs. Carey wanted to go to Cambridge with Susan. There are three of the Careys out; it must be a dreadful bother, don't you think so?"
"To whom is she engaged?"
"To a Mr. Reginald Ponsonby—an Englishman settled in Australia somewhere. They were to have been married last summer, but he had business losses. She is perfectly devoted to him. He wrote and offered to release her, but she would not hear of it. She was very much admired; don't you think her pretty?"
"Will you introduce me to Miss Carey? I see Mr. Freeman is coming to ask you for a turn—will you be so kind as to present me first?"
There was a sort of cool determination about this young man which Ada, or any other girl, would have found it hard to resist. She did as she was bid, not ill-pleased at the general stir she excited as she crossed the floor with her two satellites and walked up the platform steps.
"Mrs. Freeman, Miss Morgan, allow me to introduce Mr. Van Voorst. Miss Carey, Mr. Van Voorst;—I think you know my mother and Mrs. Allston." And having touched off her train, she whirled away with Robert Freeman, her observation still on the alert.
Mrs. Thorne and Mr. Van Voorst exchanged civilities; Mrs. Allston said Jack was coming soon and would be glad to see him, making room for him at her side.
"No, thank you, Mrs. Allston. Miss Carey, may I have the pleasure of a turn with you?"
"Oh, Mr. Van Voorst! You are quite out of rule—tempting away our chaperons—you should ask some of the young ladies; we did not come here to dance."
"I shall not dare to ask you, then, Mrs. Allston," he said, smiling, and offered his arm without another word to Lily. She rose without looking at him, with a quick furtive motion pulled off her left-hand glove—the right was off already—got out of the crowd about her and down the steps, she hardly knew how, and in a moment his arm was around her and they were floating down the long hall. The quartette left behind looked rather blankly at each other.
"Well," said Mrs. Thorne at last, "it really is too bad for Lily Carey to come and say she did not mean to dance, and then walk off with Arend Van Voorst, who has not asked another girl here——"
"And in that old gown!" chimed in Mrs. Allston.
"It is certainly very unkind in her to look so well in an old gown," said Aunt Sophia; "it is a dangerous precedent."
"Oh, auntie!" said Emmeline, who had come up to have her dress adjusted. "Poor Lily! She has been so very quiet all the winter, never going to anything, it would be too bad if she could not have a little pleasure."
"Very kind in you, my dear; but I don't see the force of your 'poor Lily.' I shall reserve my pity for poor Mr. Ponsonby—he needs it most."
It was long since Lily had danced, and as for Mr. Van Voorst, he was, as we have seen, supposed to be above it on so youthful an occasion; but perhaps it was this that gave such a zest, as if they were boy and girl together, to the pleasure of harmonious motion. Round and round again they went, till the dancing ranks grew thinner, and just as the music gave signs of drawing to a close, they passed, drawing all eyes, by the doorway. The line of men looking on opened and closed behind them. They had actually gone out to sit on the stairs, leaving a fruitful topic behind them for the buzz of talk between the figures. Eleanor Carey, a pretty girl, and not unlike her sister, bloomed out with added importance from her connection with one who might turn out to be the heroine of a drawing-room scandal.
Meanwhile the two who were the theme of comment sat silent under the palms and ferns. No one knew better when to speak or not to speak than Lily, and her companion was looking at her with a curiously steady and absorbed gaze, to which any words would have been an interruption. It was not "the old black silk" which attracted his attention, except, perhaps, so far as it formed a background for the beautiful hands that lay folded together on her lap, too carelessly for coquetry. No such motive had influenced Lily when she had pulled off her gloves; it was only that they were not fresh enough to bear close scrutiny; but their absence showed conspicuous on the third finger of her left hand her only ring, a heavy one of rough beaten gold with an odd-looking dark-red stone in it. Not the flutter of a finger betrayed any consciousness as his eye lingered on it; but as he looked abruptly up he caught a glance from under her eyelashes which showed that she had on her part been looking at him. An irresistible flash of merriment was reflected back from face to face.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"I—I beg your pardon, I thought you said something."
Both laughed like a couple of children; then he rose and offered his arm again, and they turned back to the ballroom.
"Good evening, Jack," said Miss Lily brightly, holding out her hand to Mr. Allston, who had just come in, and was standing in the doorway. Jack, taken by surprise, as we all are by the sudden appearance of two people together whom we have never associated in our minds, looked shy and confused, but made a gallant effort to rally, and got through the proper civilities well enough, till just as the couple were again whirling into the ranks, he spoiled it all by asking with an awkward stammer in his voice:
"How's—how's Mr. Ponsonby?"
"Very well, when I last heard," Lily flung back over her shoulder, in her clearest tone and with a laugh, soft, but heard by both men.
"What are you laughing at?" asked her partner.
"At the recollection of my copy-book—was not yours amusing?"
"I dare say it was, if it was the same as yours."
"Oh, they are all alike. What I was thinking of was the page with 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"
"Yes—Jack was a very good fellow when we were in college together—but——"
But "what" was left unsaid. On and on they went, and only stopped with the music. Lily, having broken the ice, was besieged by every man in the room for a turn. One or two she did favour with a very short one, but it was Mr. Van Voorst to whom she gave every other one, and those the longest, and with whom she walked between the figures; and finally it was Mr. Van Voorst who took her down to supper. Eleanor and she had all the best men in the room crowding round them.
"Come and sit with us, Emmie," she asked, as Emmeline Freeman passed with her partner; and Emmeline came, half frightened at finding herself in the midst of what seemed to her a chapter from a novel. Never had the even tenor of her social experiences,—and they were of as unvarying and business-like a nature as the "day's work" of humbler maidens—been disturbed by such an upheaval of fixed ideas; one of which was that Lily Carey could do no wrong, and another, that there was something "fast" and improper in having more than one man waiting upon you at a time.
"Do you mind going now, Eleanor?" asked Lily of her sister, as the crowd surged back to the ballroom. Eleanor looked rather blank at the thought of missing the after-supper dance, and such an after-supper dance; no mamma to get sleepy on the platform; no old James waiting out in the cold to lay up rheumatism for the future and to look respectfully reproachful at "Miss Ellis"; no horses whose wrongs might excite papa's wrath; nothing but that wretched impersonal slave, "a man from the livery stable" and his automatic beasts. But the Careys were a very amiable family, the one who spoke first generally getting her own way. The after-supper dance at the Racket Club german was rather a falling off from the brilliancy at the commencement, as Arend Van Voorst left after putting his partner into her carriage, and Julian Jervis and others of the men thought it the thing to follow his example.
Two days after the german, "Richards's Pond," set in snowy shores, was hard and blue as steel under a cloudless sky, while a delicious breath of spring in the air gave warning that this was but for a day. The rare union of perfect comfort and the fascination that comes of transient pleasure irresistibly called out the skaters, and "everybody" was there; that is, about fifty young men and women were disporting themselves on the pond, and one or two ladies stood on the shore looking on. Miss Morgan, who was always willing to chaperon any number of girls to any amusement, stood warmly wrapped up in her fur-lined cloak and snow-boots, talking to a Mrs. Rhodes, a mild little new-comer in Brookline, who had come with her girls, who did not know many people, and whom she now had the satisfaction of seeing happily mingled with the proper "set"; for Eleanor Carey, who had good-naturedly asked them to come, had introduced them to some of the extra young men, of whom there were plenty; and that there might be no lack of excitement, Mr. Van Voorst and Miss Lily Carey were to be seen skating together, with hardly a word or a look for anyone else—a sight worth seeing.
No record exists of the skating of the goddess Diana, but had she skated, Lily might have served as her model. Just so might she have swept over the ice with mazy motion, ever and ever throwing herself off her balance, just as surely to regain it. As for Arend Van Voorst, he skated like Harold Hardrada, of whose performances in that line we have not been left in ignorance. "It must be his Dutch blood," commented Miss Morgan.
Ada Thorne, meanwhile, was skating contentedly enough under the escort of the lion second in degree—Prescott Avery, just returned from his journey round the world, about which he had written a magazine article, and was understood to be projecting a book. His thin but well-preserved flaxen locks, whitey-brown moustache, and little piping voice were unchanged by tropic heats or Alpine snows, but he had gained in consequence and, though mild and unassuming, felt it. He had always been in the habit of entertaining his fair friends with a number of pretty tales drawn from his varied social experiences, and had acquired a fresh stock of very exciting ones in his travels. But his present hearer's attention was wandering, and her smiles unmeaning, and in the very midst of a most interesting narrative about his encounter with an angry llama, she put an aimless question that showed utter ignorance whether it took place in China or Peru. Prescott, always amiable, gulped down his mortification with the aid of a cough, and then followed the lady's gaze to where the distant flash of a scarlet toque might be seen through the thin, leafless bushes on a low spur of land.
"That is Lily Carey, is it not?" he asked. "How very handsome she is looking to-day! She has grown even more beautiful than when I went away. By-the-by, is that the gentleman she is engaged to?"
"Oh, dear, no! Why, that is Arend Van Voorst! Don't you know him? She is engaged to a Mr. Ponsonby, an English settler in South Australia."
"I see now that it is Mr. Van Voorst, whom I met several times before I left," said Prescott, with unfailing amiability even under a snubbing. Then, cheered by the prospect of again taking the superior position, he continued in an impressive tone: "But it is not astonishing that I should have taken him for Mr. Ponsonby. I believe I had the pleasure of meeting that gentleman in Melbourne when I was in Australia, and the resemblance is striking, especially at a little distance."
"Did you, indeed?" asked Ada, inwardly burning with excitement, but outwardly nonchalant. The remarkable extent of Miss Thorne's knowledge of everyone's affairs was not gained by direct questioning, which she had found defeated its own object. "It is rather odd you should have happened to meet him in Melbourne, for he very seldom goes there, and lives on a ranch in quite another part of Australia."
"But I did meet him," replied Prescott. "He had come to Melbourne on business, and I met him at a club dinner—a tall, handsome, light-haired man. He sat opposite to me and we did not happen to be introduced, but I am certain the name was Ponsonby. He took every opportunity of paying me attention, and said something very nice about American ladies, which made me feel sure he must have been here. Of course I did not know of Miss Carey's engagement, or I should certainly have made his acquaintance."
"The engagement was not out then, and of course he could not speak of it. Now I think of it, Mr. Van Voorst does really look a great deal like Mr. Ponsonby's photograph."
"I will speak of it to Miss Carey when I get an opportunity," said Prescott, delighted. "The experiences one has on a long journey are singular, Miss Thorne. Now as I was telling you——"
Ten minutes later the whole crowd were gathering round Miss Morgan, who made a kind of nucleus for those with homeward intentions, when Mr. Avery and Miss Thorne came in the most accidental way right against Mr. Van Voorst and Miss Carey. By what means half the crowd already knew what was in the wind, and the other half knew that something was, we may not inquire. It was not in human nature not to look and listen as the four exchanged proper greetings.
"Mr. Avery, Lily, has been telling me that he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ponsonby in Melbourne," said Ada, "and thought you would be glad to hear about it."
"Oh, thank you," said Lily, quietly, "I have had letters written since, of course. You were not in Melbourne very lately, Mr. Avery?"
"Last summer—winter, I should say. You know, Miss Carey, it is so queer, it is winter there when it is summer here—it is very hard to realise it. But it is always agreeable to meet those who have really seen one's absent friends, don't you think so?"
"Oh, very!"
"Mr. Ponsonby was looking very well and in very good spirits. I fancied he showed a great interest in American matters, which I could not account for. I wish I had known why, that I might have congratulated him. I hope you will tell him so."
"Thank you," said Lily again. She spoke with ease and readiness, but her beautiful colour had faded, and there was a frightened look in her eyes, as of someone who sees a ghost invisible to the rest of the company.
"Mr. Avery was struck with Mr. Ponsonby's resemblance to you, Mr. Van Voorst," said Ada; "you cannot be related, can you?"
"Come," said Aunt Sophia, suddenly, "what is the use of standing here? I am tired of it, for one, and I am going to the Ripley's to get a little warmth into my bones, and all who are going to the Wilson's to-night had better come too. Emmie, you and Bessie must, Lily, you and Susie and Eleanor had better—you see, Mr. Van Voorst, how nice are the gradations of my chaperonage."
"Let me help you up the bank, Miss Morgan," said Arend; "it is steep here."
"Thank you—come, Mrs. Rhodes. Mrs. Ripley isn't at home, but we shall find hot bouillon and bread and butter."
"I had better not, thank you. I don't know Mrs. Ripley," stammered, with chattering teeth, poor Mrs. Rhodes, shivering in her tight jacket and thin boots.
"You need not know her if you do come, as she is out," said Miss Morgan, coolly; "and if you don't, you certainly won't, as you will most likely die of pneumonia. Now Fanny may think you a fool for doing so, if you like, but I'm not going to have her call me a brute for letting you. So come before we freeze."
Mrs. Rhodes meekly followed her energetic companion, both gallantly assisted up the bank by Arend Van Voorst, who was devoted in his attentions till they reached the house. He never looked towards Lily, who, pale and quiet, walked behind with Emmeline Freeman, and as soon as she entered the Ripley drawing-room ensconced herself, as in a nook of refuge, behind the table with the big silver bowl, and ladled out the bouillon with a trembling hand. The young men bustled about with the cups, but Arend only took two for the older ladies, and went near her no more.
Not a Ripley was there, though it was reported that Tom had been seen on the ice that morning and told them all to come in, of course. No one seemed to heed their absence; Miss Morgan pulled Mrs. Ripley's own blotting-book towards her and scribbled a letter to her friend; Eleanor Carey threw open the piano, and college songs resounded. Mrs. Rhodes was lost in wonder as she shyly sipped her soup, rather frightened at Mr. Van Voorst's attentions. How could Mrs. Ripley ever manage to make her cook send up hot soup at such an unheard-of hour? And could it be the "thing" to have one's drawing-room in "such a clutter"? She tried to take note of all the things lying about, unconscious that Miss Morgan was noting her down in her letter. Then came the rapid throwing on of wraps, rushing to the station, and a laughing, pell-mell boarding of the train. Mr. Van Voorst had disappeared, and Ada Thorne said he was going to walk down to Brookline and take the next train from there—he was going to New York on the night train and wanted a walk first. No one else had anything to say in the matter, certainly not Lily, who continued to keep near Miss Morgan and sat between her and the window, silent all the while. As the train neared the first station, she jumped up suddenly and hastened toward the door.
"Why, Lily, what are you about?" "Lily, come back!" "Lily, this is the wrong station!" resounded after her; but as no one was quick enough to follow her, she was seen as the train moved on, walking off alone, with the same scared look on her face.
"There is something very odd about that girl," said Miss Morgan, as soon as she was with her nieces on their homeward path.
"It is only that she feels a little overcome," said Lily's staunch admirer. "You know what Prescott Avery said about Mr. Van Voorst looking like Mr. Ponsonby, and I'm sure he does. Don't you think him very like his photograph?"
"There is a kind of general likeness, but I must say of the two Arend Van Voorst looks better fitted to fight his way in the bush, while Mr. Ponsonby might spend his ten millions, if he had them, pleasantly enough. Perhaps the idea is what has 'overcome' Lily, as you say."
"Now, auntie, I am sure the resemblance might make her feel badly. She has not seen Mr. Ponsonby for so long, and that attracted her to Mr. Van Voorst; and it was so unkind of people to say all the hateful things they did at the ball."
"I must say myself, that she rather overdoes the part of Mrs. Gummidge. It looks as if there was something more in it than thinking of the 'old un.' If she really is so afraid of Mr. Ponsonby, he must look more like Arend Van Voorst than his picture does. Well—we shall see."
Late that afternoon Arend Van Voorst walked up Walnut Street westward, drawn, as so many have been, by the red sunset glow that struck across the lake beyond, through the serried ranks of black tree trunks, down the long vista under the arching elms. Straight toward the blazing gate he walked, but when he came to where the road parted, leaving the brightness high and inaccessible above high banks of pure new snow that looked dark against it, and dipping down right and left into valleys where the shade of trees, even in winter, was thick and dark, he paused a moment and then struck into the right hand road, the one that did not lead toward the Careys' house. It was not till two or three hours later that he approached it from the other side, warm with walking, and having apparently walked off his hesitation, for he did not even slacken his pace as he passed up the drive, though he looked the house, the place, and the whole surroundings over with attentive carefulness.
The Careys lived in a fascinating house, of no particular style, the result of perpetual additions to the original and now very old nucleus. As Mr. Carey's father had bought it fifty years ago, and as his progenitors for some time further back had inhabited a much humbler dwelling, now vanished, in the same town, it was called, as such things go in America, their "ancestral home." It was the despair of architects and decorators, who were always being adjured to "get an effect something like the Carey house." The component elements were simple enough, and the principal one was the habit of the Carey family always to buy everything they wanted and never to buy anything they did not want. If Mr. and Mrs. Carey took a fancy to a rug, or a chair, or a picture, or a book, they bought it then and there, but they would go on for years without new stair-carpets or drawing-room curtains—partly because they never had time to go and choose them, partly because it was such a stupid way to spend money; it was easier to keep the old ones, or use something for a substitute that no one had ever thought of before, and everybody was crazy to have afterwards.
How much of all this Arend Van Voorst took in I cannot tell, but he looked about him with the same curiosity after the house door had opened and he was in the hall, and then as the parlour door opened, and he saw Lily rising from her low chair, before the fire afar off at the end of the long low room, a tall white figure standing out in pure, cool darkness against the blaze, like the snow-banks against the sunset. He did not know whether he wanted or not to see her alone, but on one point he was anxious—he wanted to know whether he was to be alone with her or not. The room was crowded with objects of every kind; two or three dogs and cats languidly raised their heads from the sofas and ottomans as he passed, and for aught he knew two or three children might be in the crowd. Lily had the advantage of him; she knew very well that her mother had driven into town with the other girls to the Wilsons' "small and early"; that the younger children had been out skating all the afternoon and had gone to bed; that the boys were out skating now and would not be home for hours yet; and that her father, shut into his study with the New York stock list, was as safe out of the way as if he had been studying hieroglyphics at the bottom of the Grand Pyramid. So she was almost too unconcerned in manner as she held out her hand and said, "Good evening."
He took the offered hand absently, still looking round the room, and as he took in its empty condition, gave a sigh of relief. She sat down, with a very slight motion toward a chair on the other side of the fire. He obeyed mechanically, his eyes now fixed on her. If she was lovely in her "old black," how much more was she in her "old white," put on for the strictest home retirement. It was a much washed affair, very yellowish and shrunken, and clinging to every line of her tall figure, grand in its youthful promise. She had lost her colour, a rare thing for her, and she had accentuated the effect of her pale cheeks and dark eyelashes with a great spray of yellow roses in the bosom of her gown.
"I thought you had gone to New York," she said, trying to speak lightly.
"No," slowly; "I could not go without coming here first. I must see you once at your own home." Then with an eager thrill in his voice, "He has never been here, I believe?"
"No," said Lily; "he was never here."
"I have come the first, then; let him come when he wants to; I shall not come again, to see him and you together."
Both sat silently looking into the fire for a few moments, which the clock seemed to mark off with maddening rapidity. Then Lily said in a low tone, but so clearly that it could have been heard all over the room, "If you do not wish to see him, he need never come at all."
"For God's sake, Miss Carey!" burst out Arend, "show a little feeling in this matter. I don't ask you to feel for me. I knew what I was about from the first, and I took the risk. But show a little, feign a little, if you must, for him. You know I love you. If your Mr. Ponsonby were here to fight his own battles for himself, I would go in for a fair fight with him, and give and ask no quarter. But—but—he is far away and alone, keeping faith with you for years. If he has no claim on you, he has one on me, and I'll not forget it."
He paused, but Lily was silent. She looked wistful, yet afraid to speak. Something of the same strangely frightened look was in her eyes that had been there that afternoon. Arend, whose emotion had reached the stage when the sound of one's own voice is a sedative, went on more calmly:
"And don't think I make so much of a sacrifice. I am sure now you never loved or could have loved me. If you had, there would have been some struggle, some pleading of old remembrances. Your very feeling for me would have roused some pity, at least, for him. He has your first promise; I do not ask you to break it. You can give him all you have to give to anyone, and perhaps he may be satisfied."
"You need not trouble yourself about Mr. Ponsonby," said Lily, now cold and calm, "as no such person exists."
"What!" exclaimed her hearer, in bewildered astonishment. Wild visions of the luckless Ponsonby, having heard by clairvoyance, or submarine cable, of his own pretensions, and having forthwith taken himself out of the way by pistol or poison, floated through his brain, and he went on in an awe-struck tone, "Is he—is he dead?"
"He never lived; Mr. Ponsonby, from first to last, is a pure piece of fiction. Oh, you need not look so amazed; I am not out of my senses, I assure you. Ask my father, ask my mother—they will tell you the same. And now, stop! Once for all, just once! You must hear what I have to say. I shall never ask you to hear me again, and you probably will never want to."
He looked blankly at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment.
"Oh," she broke out suddenly, "you do not know—how should you?—what it is to be a girl! to sit and smile and look pleasant while your life is being settled for you, and to see some man or other doing his best to make an utter snarl of it, while you must wait ready with your 'If you please,' when he chooses to ask you to dance with him or marry him. And to be a pretty girl is ten times worse. Everyone had settled ever since I was seventeen that I was to marry Jack Allston. Both his family and my family took it as a matter of course, and liked it well enough, as one likes matters of course. I liked it well enough myself. I cannot say now that I was ever in love with Jack Allston, but he seemed bound up in me, and I was very fond of him, and thought I should be still more so when we were once engaged. All the girls in my set expected to marry or be called social failures, and where was I ever to find a better match in every way than Jack? If I had refused him everyone would have thought that I was mad. I had not the least idea of doing so, but meanwhile I was in no hurry to be married. I thought it would be nicer to wait and have a little pleasure, and I did have a great deal, till I was eighteen, then till I was nineteen, and so on——"
She stopped for a moment, for her voice was trembling, but with an effort recovered herself and went on more firmly:
"Just as people began to look and talk, and wonder why we were so slow, and why it did not come out, and just as I began to think that I had had enough of society, and that perhaps I ought to be willing to settle down, I began to feel, too, that my power over him was going, gone! The strings I had always played upon so easily were broken, and though I ran over them in the old way, I could not win a sound. I hardly had time to feel more than puzzled and frightened, when his engagement came out, and it was all over. But there! it was the kindest way he could have done it. I hate to think of some of the things I did and said to try if he had indeed ceased to care for me; but they were not much, and if I had had time I might have done more and worse. I was struck dumb with surprise like everybody else. My father and mother were hurt and anxious, but it was easy to reassure them, and without deception. I could tell them the truth, but not the whole truth. I did not suffer from what they supposed. My heart was not broken, or even seriously hurt, but oh! how much I wished at times that it had been! Had I really loved and been forsaken, I could have sat down by the wayside and asked the whole world for pity, without a thought of shame. But for what had I to ask pity? I was like a rider who had been thrown and broken no bones, in so ridiculous a way that he excites no sympathy. What if he is battered and bruised? If he complains, people only laugh. I held my tongue when my raw places were hit. I had the pleasure of hearing that Julia Noble had been saying—" and here Lily put on Mrs. Allston's manner to perfection—"'I hope poor Miss Carey was not disappointed. Jack has, I fear, been paying her more attention than he ought; but it was only to divert comment from me; dear Jack has so much delicacy of feeling where I am concerned!'—No, don't say anything; let me have done, I will not take long. I could not get away from it all, and what was I to do? To go on in society and play the same game over with some one else was unendurable; I was getting past the age for that. Susan was out and Eleanor coming out, and I felt I ought to have taken myself out of their way, in the proper fashion. To take up art or philanthropy was not in my line. The girls I knew were not brought up with those ideas and didn't take to them unless they started with being odd, or ugly, or would own up to a disappointment. My place in the world had suited me to perfection, and now it was hateful and no other was offered me.
"It was just at this time that the devil—to speak plainly, as I told you I was going to—put the idea of poor Mr. Ponsonby into my head. An engaged girl is always excused from everything else. My lover was not here to take up my time, and as I could postpone my wedding indefinitely whenever I pleased, my preparations need not be hurried. I dropped society and all the hateful going out, and had delicious evenings at home with papa when I was supposed to be writing my long letters to Australia. I thought I could drop it whenever I liked. I did not know what I was doing."
"You? Perhaps not!" exclaimed Arend, with an exasperating air of superior age; "but your father and mother—what in the name of common sense were they thinking about to allow all this?"
"Oh, you must not think they liked it; they didn't. To tell you all the truth, I don't think they half-understood it at first. I did not tell them until I had dropped a hint of it elsewhere, and I suppose they thought I had only given a vague glimpse of a possible future lover somewhere in the distance. Poor dears! things have changed since they were young, and they don't realise that if a man speaks to a girl it is in the newspapers the next day. I had not known what I was doing. I really have not told as many lies as you might think. Full half that you have heard about Mr. Ponsonby never came from me at all. You don't know how reports can grow, especially when Ada Thorne has the lead in them. Not that she exactly invents things, but a hint from me, and some I never meant, would come back all clothed in circumstance. I could not wear my old pink sash to save my others without hearing that that tea-rose tint was Mr. Ponsonby's favourite colour. Ponsonby grew out of my hands as this went on; and really the more he outgrew me the better I liked him, and indeed I ended by being rather in love with him. He had to have so many misfortunes, too, and that was a link between us."
"But," said her hearer, suddenly, "did not Prescott Avery meet him at Melbourne?"
"Oh, if you knew Prescott, you would know that he meets everybody. If it had been a Mr. Percival of Java, instead of Ponsonby of Australia, he would have remembered him or something about him. Still, that was a dreadful moment. I felt like Frankenstein when his creature stalks out alive. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! I shall send him his coup-de-grâce by the next Australian mail. People will say that I did it in the hope of catching you, and have failed. Let them—I deserve it. And now, Mr. Van Voorst, please to go. I have humiliated myself before you enough. I said I would tell you the truth, and you have heard it all. If you must despise me, have pity and don't show it."
Lily's voice, so clear at first, had grown hoarse, and her cheeks were burning in a way that caused her physical pain. She rose to her feet and stood leaning on the back of her chair and looking at the floor.
"Go! and without a word? Do you think I have nothing to say? Sit down!"—as she made some little motion to go. "I have heard you, and now you must hear me."
Lily sank unresistingly into her chair, while he went on, "You say girls have a hard time; so they do—I have always been sorry for them. But don't you suppose men have troubles of their own? You say a pretty girl has the worst of it. How much better off is the man, who, according to the common talk, has only to 'pick and choose'; who walks along the row of pretty faces to find a partner for the dance or for life, as it happens—it is much the same. The blue angel is the prettiest and the pink the wittiest; very likely he takes the yellow one, who is neither, while in the corner sits the white one, who would have suited him best, and whom he hardly saw at all. If he thinks he is satisfied, it is just as well. I was not unduly vain nor unduly humble. I knew my wealth was the first thing about me in most people's minds, but I was not a monster, and a girl might like me well enough without it. A woman is not often forced into marriage in this country. I had no notions of disguising myself, or educating a child to marry, as men have done, to be loved for themselves alone. What is a man's self? My wealth, my place in the world were part of me. I was born with them. I should probably find some nice girl who appreciated them and liked me well enough, and I felt that I ought to give some such one the chance—and yet—and yet—I wanted something more.
"In this state of mind I met you at the ball. Very likely if I had seen you among the other girls, I might not have given you more than a passing glance; but I thought you were married, and the thrill of disappointment had as much pleasure as pain, for I felt I could have loved. But you were not married, only engaged. What's an engagement? It may mean everything or nothing. For the life of me I could not help trying how much it meant to you. What must the man be, I thought, as I sat by you on the stairs, whom this girl loves? He should be a hero, and yet, as such things go, he's just as likely to be a noodle. You laughed—I could have sworn you knew what I was thinking."
"Yes! I remember. I was thinking how nicely you would do for a model for my Ponsonby," Lily said. Their eyes met for a moment with a swift flash of intelligence, but the light in hers was quenched with hot, unshed tears.
"No laugh ever sounded more fancy free! I felt as if you challenged me; and if he had been here I would have taken up the challenge—he or I, once for all. But he was alone and far away, and I could not take his place. Why did I meet you on the pond, then? why did I come here to-night? Because I wanted to see if I could not go a little further with you. I wanted something to remember, a look, a tone, a word, that ought not to have been given to any man but your promised husband; something I could not have asked if I had hoped to be your husband. My magnanimity toward Ponsonby, you see, did not go the length of behaving to his future wife with the respect I would show my own."
"You have shown how much you despise me," said Lily, springing to her feet, her hot tears dried with hotter anger, but her face white again. "That might have been spared me. I suppose you think I deserve it. Very well, I do, and you need not stay to argue the matter. Go!"
"Go! Why I should be a fool to go now, and you would be—well, we will call it mistaken—to let me. After we have got as far as we have, it would be absurd to suppose we can go back again. We know each other now better than nine tenths of the couples who have been married a year. I don't ask you to say you love me now; I am very sure you can, and I know I can love you—infinitely——"
"Oh, but—but you said you would not take his place—Mr. Ponsonby's. Can you let everyone think you capable of such an act of meanness? And if you could not respect me as your wife, how can you expect others to? Can we appear to act in a way to deserve contempt without despising each other?"
"There will be a good deal that is unpleasant about it, no doubt; but everyone's life has some unpleasantness. It would be worse to let a dream, even a dream of honor, come between us and our future. You made a mistake and underestimated its consequences, but it would be foolish to lose the substance of happiness because we have lost the shadow. We will live it down together and be glad it is no worse."
"But I have been so wrong, so very wrong—I have too many faults ever to make anyone happy."
"Of course you have faults, but I know the worst of them and can put up with them. I have plenty of my own which you may be finding out by this time. I am very domineering—you will have to promise to obey me, and I shall keep you to it; and then I can, under provocation, be furiously jealous."
"You are not jealous of Jack Allston?" she whispered.
"Jealous of old Jack? Oh, no! I shall keep my jealousy for poor Mr. Ponsonby."
Society had been so often agitated by Lily Carey's affairs that it took with comparative coolness the tidings that she was to be married to Arend Van Voorst in six weeks. Miss Morgan said she supposed Lily was tired of "engagements," and wanted to be married this time. Her niece Emmeline shed tears over "poor Mr. Ponsonby," and refused to act as bridesmaid at his rival's nuptials; and in spite of her aunt's scoldings and Lily's entreaties, and all the temptations of the bridesmaids' pearl "lily" brooches and nosegays of Easter lilies, arranged a visit to her cousins in Philadelphia to avoid being present. Miss Thorne had no such scruples, and it is to her the world owes a lively account of the wedding; how it was fixed at so early a date lest "poor Mr. Ponsonby" should hurry over to forbid the banns, and how terribly nervous Lily seemed lest he might, in spite of the absolute impossibility, and though Ponsonby, true gentleman to the last, never troubled her then or after.
"Poor Mr. Van Voorst, I should say!" exclaimed Mrs. Jack Allston. "I am sure he is the one to be pitied. But do tell me all the presents that have come in, for Jack says that I must give them something handsome after such a present as he gave me when we were married."
Mrs. Van Voorst received the tidings of her son's approaching marriage rather doubtfully. "Yes—the Careys were a very nice family; she knew Mrs. Carey was an Arlington, and her mother a Berkeley, and his mother—but—Miss Carey was very handsome, she had heard—with the Berkeley style of beauty and the Arlington manner, but—but—she did not mind their being Unitarians, for many of the very best people were, in Boston, but—but—but—indeed, my dear Arend, I have heard a good deal about her that I do not altogether like. I hope it may not be true—about her keeping Jack Allston hanging on for years, as pis-aller to that young Englishman she was engaged to all the while—and finally throwing him over—and now she has thrown over this Mr. Ponsonby too!"
"Will you do just one thing for me, dear mother," asked her son; "will you forget all you have heard about Lily, and judge her by what you see?"
Mrs. Van Voorst had never refused Arend anything in his life, and could not now. By what magic Lily, in their very first interview, won over the good lady is not known, but afterwards no mother-in-law's heart could have withstood the splendid son and heir with which she enriched the Van Voorst line. The young Van Voorsts were allowed by all their friends to be much happier than they deserved to be. Long after the gossip over their marriage had ceased, and it was an old story even to them, Arend was still in love with his wife. Lily was interesting; she had that quality or combination of qualities, impossible to analyse, which wins love where beauty fails, and keeps it when goodness tires. Her own happiness was more simple in its elements. She was better off than most women, and knew it—the last, the crowning gift, so often lacking to the fortunate of earth. She thought her husband much too good for her, though she never told him so. Nay, sometimes when she was a little fretted by his exacting disposition, for Arend was a strict martinet in all social and household matters and, as he had said, would be minded, she would sometimes more or less jestingly tell him that perhaps after all she had made a mistake in not keeping faith with "poor Mr. Ponsonby."
MODERN VENGEANCE
"Well, Lucy, I must say I never saw anything go off more delightfully!"
"It would hardly fail to, with such interesting people," said Mrs. Henry Wilson.
"Why, every one said they thought it would be most difficult to manage; a sort of half-public thing, you know, to entertain those delegates or whatever they call them; they said it was well you had it, for no one else could possibly have made it go so well."
"I have no doubt most of them could, if they had all the help I had—from you, especially! I only wish I could have made it a dinner, instead of a lunch; but Henry is so very busy, just now, and I dared not attempt a dinner without him."
"Oh, my dear!" said her mother-in-law, "a doctor's time is always so occupied; they all know that. And dear Henry, of course, is more occupied than most."
"Perhaps it is as well," said the younger lady, "that they could come by daylight, as it is so far out of town; Medford is pretty, even in winter."
"Oh, yes! so they all said. Lady Bayswater thinks it is the prettiest suburb of Boston she has yet seen; and she admired the house, too, and you, and everything. 'Mrs. Wilson,' she said to me, 'your charming daughter-in-law is the prettiest American woman I have seen yet.'" And Mrs. Wilson, senior, a little elderly woman, to whom even her rich mourning dress could not impart dignity, jerked her heavy black Astrachan cape upon her shoulders, and tied its wide ribbons in a fluttering, one-sided way.
"She is very kind."
"And they all said so many things—I can't remember them."
"I am glad if they were pleased," said Mrs. Henry Wilson, rousing herself; "to tell the truth, I have not been able to think much of the lunch, or how it went off."
"Why, dear Henry is well, isn't he?"
"Yes, as well as usual, but a good deal troubled about——"
"Oh, the poor little Talbot boy! how is he?"
"I do not know. Henry, of course, gives no opinion; but I am afraid it is a very serious case. Membranous croup always is alarming, you know."
"Yes, indeed! sad—very sad; and their only boy, too, now. To be sure, if any one can save him, dear Henry can; but then, what with losing the other, and so much sickness as they have had, and Mabel expecting again, I really don't see how they are to get along," said Mrs. Wilson, fussing with her pocket handkerchief.
"It is very hard," assented her daughter-in-law, with a sigh.
"I do pity poor Eugene. What can a man do? I saw all those children paddling in the wet snow only last week; very likely that brought it on. If I had let mine do so when they were little, I should have expected them to have croup, and diphtheria, and everything else. I would not mention it to any one but you, but I do think Mabel has always been very careless of her children."
"Poor Mabel!" said Mrs. Henry Wilson, with a look of angelic compassion. "Remember how many cares and troubles she has had, and all her own ill-health. We all make mistakes sometimes in the care of our children, with the very best intentions. I let Harry play out in that very snow. I feared then that you might not approve; but you were not here, and he was so eager!"
"Oh, but, my dear, you always look after Harry so well! Those Talbot children had no rubbers on; and then, Harry is so much stronger than his father was. I do think your management most successful. I only wish poor Eugene had a wife like you." And as her hearer was silent: "I must go. Darling Harry is still at gymnasium, isn't he? and I suppose it is no use waiting for dear Henry, now. My love to them both; and do come round when you can, dear, won't you?" And after a little more fuss in looking for her muff and letting down her veil, and a prolonged series of embraces of her daughter-in-law, she departed.
Young Mrs. Wilson, left alone, sat down in front of a glowing fire to review her day; but earlier memories appealed so much more powerfully, that in another moment she was reviewing her whole past life—an indulgence she rarely allowed herself.
If the poet in the country churchyard was struck with the thought of greatness that had perished unknown for lack of opportunity, how doubly he might have pointed his moral with renown missed by being of the wrong sex. In clear perception of her ends, and resistless pursuit of them, Lucy Morton had not been inferior in her sphere to Napoleon in his; and if, after all, she was not so clever as she thought herself, why, neither was he. To begin with, she was born in a cul-de-sac ending at a cow pasture. But what is that to genius? "This lane," she thought, "shall never hem me in"; and from earliest childhood she struggled to grow out of it, like a creeper out of a hole, catching at every aid.
She was early left an orphan, and lived with her grandfather, a well-to-do retired grocer, and her grandmother, and a maiden aunt. There was one other house in the lane, and in it lived a great-aunt, widow of the grocer's brother and partner, and a maiden first cousin once removed. They were a contented family, and liked the seclusion of their place of abode, which was clean and quiet, and where the old gentleman could prune his trees, and prick out his lettuces unobserved. He read the daily paper, and took a nap after his early dinner. The women made their own clothes, and dusted their parlours, and washed their dishes, and as the cul-de-sac was loathed of servants, they often had the opportunity of doing all their own work, which they found a pleasant excitement, and in their secret souls preferred. They belonged to the Unitarian church, which marked them as slightly superior to the reigning grocer, who went to the "Orthodox meeting," but did not give them the social intercourse they would have found in churches of inferior pretensions. The elite of Medford, in those early days, was chiefly Unitarian, and it respected the Mortons, who gave generously of their time and money whenever they were asked. Its men spoke highly of "old Morton," and were civil to him at town and parish meetings; and its women would bow pleasantly to his female relatives after service and speak to them at sewing circles; and would inquire after the rest of the family when they could remember who they were. More, the Mortons did not ask or wish. They knew enough people on whom to make formal calls, gave or went to about six tea-parties a year, and exchanged visits with cousins who lived in Braintree.
Lucy was sent to the public school, and taught sewing and housework at home. She proved an apt pupil at both, and showed no discontent with her daily routine. She was early allowed to sit up to tea, even when company came; and had she asked to bring home any little girl in her school to play with her, her grandmother would not have objected. But she did not ask, nor was she ever seen with her schoolmates in the shady, rural Medford roads.
Perhaps she might have pined for companions of her own age, but that fortune had provided her with some near by. At the entrance of the lane where she lived, but fronting on a wider thoroughfare, was the house of Mrs. Wilson, a widow of good means and family, who filled less than her proper space among her own connections, for she went out but little, being engrossed with the care and education of her two delicate little boys to a degree which rendered her fatiguing as a companion—the poorness of their physical constitutions, and the excellence of their moral natures, being her one unending theme. They were not strong enough for the most private of schools, and were too good to be exposed to its temptations, and always had a governess at home.
"Henny" and "Cocky" Wilson—their names were Henry and Cockburn, and their light red hair, combed into scanty crests on top of their heads, had suggested these soubriquets—were the amusement of their mother's contemporaries, and the scorn of their own. A hundred tales were told of them: as, how when Mrs. Wilson first came home from abroad, where she had lived long after her husband's death there, she brought her boys to Sunday-school, with the audible request to the superintendent that as they were such good little children, they might, if possible, be placed among those of similar, if not equal, qualities; thereby provoking the whole school for the next month to a riotous behaviour which poor Mr. Milliken found it difficult to subdue.
Mrs. Wilson's friends made some efforts to induce their boys to be friendly with hers, with the result that one July evening, Eugene Talbot, a bright-eyed, curly-haired little dare-devil, who led the revels, patronisingly invited them to join a swimming party after dark in the reservoir which supplied Medford with water—one of those illegal, delicious sprees which to look back on stirs the blood of age. Henny and Cocky gave no answer till they had gone, as in duty bound, to consult their mother, who replied: "My dears, I think this would be a very uncomfortable amusement. Should you not enjoy much more taking a bath in our own bathroom, with plenty of soap and hot-water?" It required a great effort of self-control on Eugene's part not to knock the heads of the two together when they reported their mother's opinion to him verbatim; but he had the feeling that it would be as mean to hit one of the Wilsons as to hit a girl, and he only sent them to Coventry, where they grew up, apparently careless. They were content at home, and they could now and then play with Lucy Morton, who had contrived to make their acquaintance through the garden fence, and who, though three years younger than Cocky, the youngest, was quite as advanced in every way.
When Mrs. Richard Reed, the social leader of the town, tired of taking her children into Boston to Papanti's dancing-class, prevailed upon the great man to come out and open one in Medford, she could not be over-particular in her selection of applicants, the requisite number being hard to make up; but when she opened a note signed, "Sarah C. Morton," asking admission for the writer's granddaughter, she paused doubtfully. "It is a queerly written note, but it looks like a lady's somehow," she said, consulting her privy council.
"Oh, that is old Mrs. Morton, who comes to our church, don't you know? They are very respectable, quiet people. I don't believe there's any harm in the little girl," said adviser number one.
"She is a pretty, well-behaved child. I have noticed her at Sunday-school," added councillor number two.
"She is a sweet little thing," said Mrs. Wilson, who was present, though not esteemed of any use in the matter. "My dear boys sometimes play with her, and are so fond of her, and they would not like any little girl who was not nice."
"Oh, well, she can come!" said Mrs. Reed, dashing off a hasty consenting line, and thinking, "She will do to dance with Henny and Cocky; none of the other girls will care to, I imagine, and I don't want to hurt the old lady's feelings. What can have made her think of asking?"
It will easily be guessed that Miss Lucy had been the instigator of this daring move. She had begun by asking her grandfather, who never refused her anything, and backed by his sanction had succeeded in persuading her grandmother, who wrote an occasional letter, but who hardly knew what a note was, to sit down and write one to Mrs. Reed. So to the dancing-school she went, alone; for neither grandmother, aunts, nor cousin ever dreamed of accompanying her. But she felt no fears. She was a pretty little girl, and took to dancing as a duck to water; but she did not presume on the popularity these qualities might have won her with the older boys, but patiently devoted herself to Henny and Cocky and the younger fry, whom Mr. Papanti was only too glad to consign to her skilful pilotage. Their mothers approved of her, especially after she had asked Mrs. Reed, with many blushes, "if she might not sit near her, when she was not dancing?" "I have to come alone," she added shyly, "for my dear grandmamma is so old, you know, and my aunt is far from strong." Both of these women could have done a good day's washing, and slept soundly for nine hours after it; but of this Mrs. Reed knew nothing, and pronounced Lucy a charming child, with such sweet manners, took her home when it rained, and asked her to her next juvenile party.
It was an easy step from this to Lucy Morton at one-and-twenty, where her quick backward glance next lighted, the popular favourite of the best "set" of girls in Medford, and extending her easy flight beyond under the drilling chaperonage of their mammas. She pleased all she met of whatever age or sex, though to more dangerous distinctions she made no pretensions. She had early learned the great secret of popularity, so rarely understood at any age, that people do not want to admire you—they want you to admire them. No one called Lucy Morton a beauty; but it was wonderful how many beauties were numbered among her intimate friends, how many compliments they received, what hosts of admirers they had, and how brilliant, clever, and full of promise were these admirers. Indeed, after a dance or a talk with Miss Morton, the young men could not help thinking so themselves.
As for Lucy, she was early consigned by public opinion to one or other of the Wilsons. Henny and Cocky had miraculously survived their mother's coddling and clucking, and had kept alive through college and professional training, though looking as if it had been a hard struggle. Henny had, at the period on which his wife was now dwelling, returned from his medical studies at Vienna, while Cocky still lingered in Paris studying architecture.
There was very little opening for Dr. Henry Wilson in his native town; but his mother would have been wretched had he gone anywhere else. He set up an office in her house, and his friends said it was a good thing he had money enough to live on, for really none of them could be expected to call him in. He practised among the poor, who seemed to like him; but of course they could not afford to be particular.
He would be a very good match for Lucy Morton, if not for any girl of his own circle. They lived close by each other and had always been intimate; and she was such a sweet, amiable girl, just the one to put up with Mrs. Wilson's tiresome ways! If her relations were scarcely up to the Wilson claims, at least they were quiet and harmless, and would probably leave her a little money.
With such reasoning did all the neighbouring matrons allay their anxieties as to their favourite's future. Their daughters dissented. The latter had gradually come to perceive that Lucy had no intentions of the kind. Not one of them but thought her justified in looking higher, and not one envious or grudging comment was spoken or even thought when they began to regard her as destined for Eugene Talbot—not even by those, and they were many, who themselves cherished a budding preference for Eugene, a flirt in a harmless, careless way. Everyone allowed that his attentions this time were serious. How naturally, how irresistibly, the pleasing conviction stole upon Lucy's own heart!
Mrs. Wilson, a wife of many years, here sprang to her feet, with her heart beating hard, and her cheeks flushing scarlet with shame. So would they flush on her death-bed, if the remembrance of that time came to disturb her then—the only time when her prudence had for once failed, the only time when she had trusted any one but herself, when she had really, truly, been so sure that Eugene Talbot loved her, that she had let others see she thought so. She had disclaimed, indeed, all knowledge of his devotion, but she had disclaimed it with a blushing cheek and conscious smile, like a little—little—oh, what a little fool!
There was no open wound to her pride to resent. He had never spoken out plainly, and no mere attentions from an emperor would have won a premature response from Miss Morton; nor was it possible for her to betray her preference to anyone else. How she found out, as early and as surely as she did, that his hour for speaking was never to come, was marvellous even to herself; but she was clairvoyant, so to speak, so fully did she extract from those who surrounded her all they knew, and much they did not know. Before Eugene's engagement to Mabel Andrews was a fixed fact, before Mabel herself knew it was to come, she did, and took her measures accordingly.
One terrible, long afternoon she spent in her own room behind closed shutters, seeing even then, in the darkness, Eugene, proud and handsome, breathing words of love in the Andrews's beautiful blossoming garden among all the flowers of May, while a glow of rapturous surprise lighted up Mabel's sweet, impassive face. It might have been some consolation to another girl to know her own superiority, and to feel sure that Eugene was marrying the amiable, refined, utterly commonplace Miss Andrews with the view to the push her highly placed relatives could, and doubtless would, give him in his business; but the knowledge only added a sting to Lucy's sufferings. She bore them silently, tasting their full bitterness, and then left the room, the very little bit of girlishness in her composition gone forever, but still ready to draw from life the gratifications proper to maturer years. She could imagine that revenge might not lose its taste with time, and she had already some faint conception of the form hers might take.
She walked down the lane and far enough along the street to turn about and be overtaken by Dr. Wilson on his way home. Of course he stopped to speak to her, and then walked a little way up the lane with her; and when Miss Morton once had Dr. Wilson all to herself in a cul-de-sac, it was impossible for him to help proposing to her if she were inclined to have him. Indeed, he was much readier at the business than she had expected. In an hour both families knew all about it; and the next day the engagement was "out," to the excitement of their whole world. It was such a romantic affair—childish attachment—Henry Wilson so deeply in love, and so hopeless of success, his feelings accidentally betrayed at last! On these details dilated all Lucy's young friends. They did not think they could ever have loved him themselves, but they admired her for doing so. When, some time after, the grander but less interesting match between the Talbot and Andrews clans was announced, it chiefly roused excitement as having doubtless been the result of pique on Eugene's part—an idea to which his subdued appearance gave some colour; and he was pitied accordingly.
His wedding was a quiet one, overshadowed by the glories of Lucy's. No one would have dreamed of her grandparents doing the thing with such magnificence; but they were so surprised and pleased, for to them the Wilson connection was a lofty one; and Mrs. Wilson was so flatteringly eager and delighted, that Lucy found them pliant to her will. Her grandfather unhesitatingly put at her disposal a larger sum than his yearly expenditure had ever amounted to; and her exquisite taste in using it made her wedding a spectacle to be remembered, and conferring distinction on everyone who assisted in the humblest capacity, while still each one of these had the flattering conviction that without his or her presence the whole thing would have been a failure. The bride of ten years back could not but recall with approval her own demeanour on the occasion, when, "as one in a dream, pale and stately she went," the very personification of feeling too deep to be stirred by the unregarded trifles of her wedding pomp.
The tale of the ensuing years she ran briefly over, for it was one of uncheckered prosperity. Dr. Wilson's reputation had steadily grown. Hardly a year after his marriage he had successfully performed the operation of tracheotomy upon a patient almost in articulo mortis; and although it was only on the ninth child of an Irish labourer, it got into all the newspapers, and ran the rounds of all circles. It was wonderful how such cases came in his way after that, till no one in town dreamed of calling in anyone else for a sore throat; the other physicians being, as Mrs. Henry Wilson was wont to say, "very good general practitioners, but—" At thirty-five he had an established fame as a specialist, with an immense consulting practice extending all over and about Boston, his personal disadvantages forgotten in the prestige of his marvellous skill, indeed, rather enhancing it.
He took his successes very indifferently; but his wife showed a loving pride in them, too simple and too well controlled to excite envy, gently checking his mother's more outspoken exultation, and backing him up in his refusal of all solicitations to move into Boston, well knowing his constitution could never stand a town life. Money was now less of an object to him than ever. Lucy's grandfather had died in peace and honour, leaving a much larger estate than any one had dreamed possible. The lane had been extended into a road, and the cow pasture had been cut up into building lots. All the Morton property had risen in value, and all was one day to be Lucy's; and on the very prettiest spot in it she now lived, in a charming house designed (with her assistance) by her brother-in-law, that rising young architect, Cockburn Wilson, so strikingly original, and so delightfully convenient, that photographs and plans of it were circulated in every direction, bringing the architect more orders than he wanted or needed; for though with not much more to boast of in the way of looks than his brother, he had made another amazing stroke of Wilson luck in marrying that great heiress, Miss Jenny Diman. She was a heavy, shy young person, who had been educated in foreign convents, and had missed her proper duty of marrying a foreign nobleman by being called suddenly home to settle her estate. She had taken a fancy to the clever, amusing Mrs. Wilson, had visited her, and found the little partie carrée at her pretty house delightful, she hardly knew why; but it was evident that her hostess's married life was most successful, and Lucy told her that dear Cockburn had in him the making of as devoted a husband as dear Henry.
Dear Cockburn for some time showed no eagerness to exercise his latent powers; but his delicacy in addressing so great an heiress once overcome, swelled into heroic proportions, and made the love affairs of two extremely plain and quiet people into a wildly romantic drama. They seemed surprised, but well content, when they found themselves settled in their pretty home, still prettier than Dr. Wilson's, because it showed yet newer ideas; and Mrs. Cockburn Wilson, who had never known society, developed a taste for it, which her sister-in-law well knew how to direct.
Lucy's active mind had just run down the stream of time to the present, and was boldly projecting itself forward into the future, and the throbbing pulses her one painful memory had raised were subsiding in the soothing task of planning the decorations for a dinner party for which Jenny's invitations were already out. She had just decided that it would make a good winter effect to fill all Jenny's lovely Benares brass bowls with red carnations, when her husband entered the room.
The crest of sandy locks, which had won Dr. Wilson his boyish title, had thinned and faded now. It was difficult to say of what colour it had been; and his face was of no colour at all. He had no salient points, and won attention chiefly by always looking very tired. This evening he looked doubly so. "Dear Henry, I am so glad!" cried his wife, springing up to give him an affectionate embrace. "You will have something to eat?" and, as he nodded silently, she rang the bell twice, the only signal needed at any hour to produce an appetising little meal at once; and she herself waited on him while he ate.
"How is the little boy?" she asked timidly.
"Very low."
"Directly. I am going to operate as soon as Stevens gets there. I have telephoned for him."
"Is there any hope?"
"Can't say."
"Can I do anything?"
"You might come and take the other children home with you—all but the baby."
"I can just as well have her too."
"I would rather have her there; her mother needs her."
"Yes, I suppose you don't want Mabel in the room while the operation is going on."
"I don't want her there at all. She's of no use."
"Poor thing!"
"She can't help it."
"Could I do anything there? If I can, Jenny will take the children, I know."
"No, there's no need of that." The doctor threw out his sentences between mouthfuls of food automatically taken from a plate replenished by his wife.
"What nurse have they?"
"They've had Nelly Fuller—she is a very fair one; but of course they need two now, and one of them first rate, so I got Julia Mitchell for them."
"Julia! but how ever could you make Mrs. Sypher give her up?"
"I had no trouble."
"And how can the Talbots ever manage to pay her?"
"That will be all right. I told them she would not expect her full price for such a short engagement, in a gap between two others. I settled it with her myself beforehand, of course."
"I am very glad you did," said Lucy, with another loving caress, which he hardly seemed to notice. He looked at his watch, and told her she had better hurry and change her dress. In five minutes they walked together down the street under the beautiful arch of leafless elms, where the snowy air brought glowing roses into Lucy's cheeks, and an elastic spring into her tread. Her husband shrank up closer inside his fur-lined coat, and slipped a case he had taken from his study from one cold hand to another.
"I hope the children will be ready," from her; "Julia will see to that," from him,—were all the words that passed between them on their way.
The Talbot house was but a few streets off. Lucy did not often enter it; but the picture of battered, faded prettiness it presented, taken in at a few glances, and heightened each time it was seen, was deeply stamped on her mind. There was no spare money to keep up appearances here. Mabel's father had been unfortunate in his investments and extravagant in his expenditures, and died a poor man, while her relations had grown tired of helping Eugene, whose business talents had not fulfilled their early promise. He always seemed, somehow, to miss in his calculations.
What little order there now was in the place was due to the energetic rule of Julia Mitchell, already felt from garret to cellar. By her care the three little girls were dressed and ready, and were hanging, eager and excited, round their mother, who sat, her baby on her lap, with tear-washed cheeks and absent gaze, all pretence to the art of dress abandoned. She hardly looked up as her beautiful, richly clad visitor entered; but when she felt the tender pressure of the hand that Lucy silently extended, she gave way to a fresh burst of grief.
"Stevens here? asked Dr. Wilson, aside, of Miss Mitchell.
"Yes, sir; he's upstairs; and Miss Fuller, and Mr. Talbot—he's some use, and the boy wants him. I don't believe you'll ever get him to take the ether unless his papa's 'round; and I thought, if Miss Fuller would stay outside and look after her?"
"Certainly."
"Then, if Mrs. Wilson will take the others off, why, the sooner the better."
The doctor looked at his wife, who was quick to respond, though with her whole soul she longed to stay. She wanted to see Eugene; to know how he was taking it; to hear him say something to her, no matter what; to give him the comfort and support his wife was evidently past giving; and then, she wanted to see her husband as nearly as possible at the moment he had saved the child's life. She did not let the thought that he might fail enter her mind,—not in this case, the crowning case of his life! For this alone he had toiled, and she had striven. She gave his hand one hard squeeze, as if to make him catch some of the passionate longing of her heart, and then drew back with the fear that it might weaken rather than strengthen his nerve. He looked as immobile as ever; and she turned to take the children's little hands in hers.
"Oh, Lucy!" faltered out her successful rival, "how good of you! I can't tell you—it does not seem as if it could be true that my beautiful Eugene—" Here another burst of sobs shook her all over. Lucy's own tears, as she kissed the poor mother, were bright in her eyes, but they did not fail. She led the two older girls silently away, and young Dr. Walker, who had been standing in the background, followed with the third in his arms, his cool business air, just tempered by a proper consideration for the parents' feelings, covering his inward excitement at this first chance of assisting the great physician at an operation. As he helped the pretty Mrs. Wilson, adored of all her husband's pupils, into her handsome carriage, which had come for her, and settled his little charge on her lap, he was astonished, and even awe-struck, to see that she was crying. "I never thought," he said to himself, "that Mrs. Wilson had so much feeling! but to be sure she has a boy just this little fellow's age!"
At nine o'clock, the Talbot children, weary of the delights of that earthly paradise, Harry Wilson's nursery, had been put to bed, and Lucy was waiting for her husband. She looked anxiously at his face when he came, but it told her nothing.
"How—is he?" she faltered out at last.
"Can't tell as yet."
"Was the operation successful?"
"Yes, that was all right enough."
"And how soon shall you know if he's likely to rally?"
"Impossible to say."
"Any bad signs?"
"No, nothing apparent as yet."
"You must be very tired," she said, with a tender, unnoticed touch of her hand to his forehead.
"Not very."
"Have you been there all this time?"
"No, I have made one or two other calls. I was there again just now."
"Do have some tea," said Lucy, striking a match and lighting the alcohol lamp under her little brass kettle, to prepare the cup of weak, sugarless, creamless tea, the only luxury of taste which the doctor, otherwise rigidly keeping to a special unvaried regimen, allowed himself; and while he sipped it languidly, she watched him intently. If only he would say anything without being asked! But she could not wait.
"How is Mabel?"
"Very much overcome."
"She has no self-control."
"She is fairly worn out."
"I am glad Julia is there."
"Yes, I should not feel easy unless she were. But Talbot himself behaved very well. He is more of a hand with the boy than the mother is. He seems bound up in him."
"Poor fellow!" said Lucy, sympathetically. Her husband did not respond. "You had better go to bed, dear, and get some sleep," she went on. "You must need it."
"I told Julia I would be there before six," said Dr. Wilson, rising. "She must get some rest then. So if you'll wake me at five—"
"Of course," said Lucy, who was as certain and much more agreeable than an alarm clock; "and now go to sleep, and forget it all. You have had a hard day, you poor fellow!"
The doctor threw his arm round his wife, as she nestled closer to him, and they turned with a common impulse to the next room, where there own only child lay sleeping. Father and mother stood long without a word, looking at the bright-haired boy, whose healthy breathing came and went without a sound or a quiver; but when the mother turned to go, the father lingered still. She did not wait for him, for her exquisite tact could allow for shyness in a husband as well as in anyone else, and she had no manner of jealousy of it. If he wanted to say his prayers, or shed a few tears, or go through any other such sentimental performance which he would feel ashamed to have her witness, why, by all means let him have the chance; and she kept on diligently brushing her rich, dark hair, that he might not find her waiting.
There was no dramatic scene when little Eugene Talbot was declared out of danger; it came gradually as blessings are apt to do; but after Dr. Wilson had informed his wife day after day for a week that the child was "no worse," he began to report him as "a little better," and finally somewhat grudgingly to allow that with care there was no reason why he should not recover. By early springtime the little fellow was playing about in the sun and air; his sisters had been sent home all well and blooming, with many a gift from Mrs. Wilson, and their wardrobes bearing everywhere traces of her dainty handiwork; the mother had overflowed in tearful thanks, and the father had struggled to speak his in vain.
"I wish I knew how small I could decently make Talbot's fee," said Dr. Wilson, as he sat at his desk, in a half-soliloquising tone, but still designed to catch his wife's ear, and win her judicious advice.
But it was not till after he had repeated the words, that she said without raising her head from her work, while her fingers ran nervously on, "I will tell you what I should do."
"Well?" as she paused.
"I should make out my bill for the usual amount, and send it in receipted. Won't you, Henry? I wish you would, so very, very much!" she went on, surprised at the dawning of a look she had never seen before on his face.
"That would be hardly treating him like a gentleman," he began; and then suddenly, "Lucy, how can you keep up such a grudge against Eugene Talbot?"
Lucy's work dropped, and she sat looking full at him, her pretty face white as ashes, and her eyes dilated as if she had heard a voice from the grave.
"I know," he resumed, "that he has injured you on the tenderest point on which a man can injure a woman, but surely you should have got over thinking of that by this time. Is it noble, is it Christian to bear malice so long? Can't you be satisfied without crowding down the coals of fire so very hard upon his head? I never," went on Dr. Wilson, reflectively, "did like that passage, though it is in the Bible."
"Oh, Henry!"
"Put it on a lower ground. Is it just to me? Do you owe me nothing? I don't forget how much I owe you. You have made the better part of what little reputation I have; you are proud of it; you would like to have me more so. But do you suppose I can feel pride in anything earthly, while another man has the power so to move my wife? You may think you do not love him now; but where you make a parade of forgiveness, resentment lingers; and where revenge is hot, love is still warm."
"Then you knew it all?" gasped Lucy; "but how—how could you ever want to marry me?"
"Because, my dear, I loved you—all the time—too well not to be thankful to get you on any terms. I gave you credit for too much good sense and high principle to let yourself care for him when you were once married; and—I am but a poor creature, God knows! but I hoped I could win your love in time. There, my dear, don't! I knew I could! I am very sure I did."
He raised her head from where she had buried it among the sofa pillows, and let her weep out a flood of the bitterest tears she had ever shed, on his shoulder. It was long before she could check them enough to murmur, "Forgive me—only forgive me!"
"Dearest, we will both of us forget it."
"Mr. Talbot wants to see you, ma'am."
"Is the doctor out?"
"Yes, ma'am. He did not ask for the doctor. He said he wanted to speak to you for a minute."
"Show him into the library, and tell anyone else who calls that I am engaged for a few moments."
Mrs. Wilson hastened downstairs, to find her visitor rather nervously turning over the books on her table. Eugene's once bright chestnut curls were as thin now as Henry Wilson's sandy locks, and his attire was elegant with an effort, though he still kept his fine eyes and winning smile.
"Won't you sit down?"
"No, thank you. I only came—I have not much time—I came on business—if you are not too much engaged?"
"Not at all," said Lucy, quietly seating herself, which seemed to soothe her companion's nerves.
He sat down, too, and began abruptly, "I cannot begin to tell you how much we owe to your husband!"
"We have both sympathised so much in your sorrow and anxiety! If he could do anything at all, I am sure he is only too glad, and so am I."
"It was not only his saving our child's life, but he has done—I can't tell you what he has done for us in every way, as if he had been a brother—"
Lucy raised her head proudly, with a glad light in her eyes. Eugene looked at her a moment, and then went on with a sigh; "I couldn't say this to him, but I must to you, though of course you don't need any praise I can give him to tell you what he is."
"No," said Lucy, "it is the greatest happiness of my life to know it—it would be if no one else did; not but what it is very pleasant to have him appreciated," she added, smiling.
"I know," said Eugene, now growing red and confused, "that no recompense could ever express all we felt. Such services as his are not to be bought with a price, but I could not feel satisfied if I did not give him all that was in my power. I shall never rest till I have done so,—but—the fact is," he hurried on desperately, "I know his charges are very small—they seem ridiculously so for a man of his reputation—but the fact is, I am unable just now to meet all my obligations; the ill-health of my family has been terribly expensive—I must ask a little time—I am ashamed to do so, but I can do it better from him than from anyone else—and from you."
"Oh, don't mention it!" cried Lucy, eagerly, "the sum is a mere trifle to us; it would not matter if we never had it. To whom should you turn to be helped or understood, if not to old friends like us?"
"I hope to be able to pay all my just debts, and this among the first."
"Oh, of course! but don't feel the least bit hurried about it! Henry will never think of it till the time comes. He always forgets all about his bills when they are once out. Wait till it is perfectly convenient."
"Thank you," said Eugene huskily; "you are all goodness. I have not deserved this of you." He had already risen to go: but as he drew near the door he turned back: "Oh, Lucy, don't believe I was ever quite as heartless as I seemed. I know I treated you in a scoundrelly way, but I loved you all the time—indeed, indeed, I did."
"Stop, Mr. Talbot! This is no language for you to use! If you have no regard for me, recollect at least what is due to your wife."
"I have nothing to say against Mabel. She's a dear good girl, a great deal too good for me. It isn't her fault that things have gone against me. I always felt it was to pay me up for my conduct to you. I loved you as well as I ever could love anyone; but I was a selfish brute, and thought to better myself in the world—"
"Stop, Mr. Talbot! I ought not to hear any more of this! I was too much overcome by surprise at first to check you, but now I must ask you to leave me at once if you cannot control yourself."
"I haven't a word to say that need offend you," said Eugene, humbly. "I only wanted to ask you to forgive me for old time's sake."
"There is nothing I know of for me to forgive. I am sorry, for your own sake, to hear that you ever had such feelings. I never dreamed of them."
"It seemed to me as if you could not help knowing."
"Indeed? I don't remember," said Mrs. Wilson, smiling. "I was so engrossed with my own affairs then, you see," she added with engaging candour; "and if I thought about you, I supposed you were the same. You can understand, after what you have seen of Henry, how little attention a girl who loved him would have to spare for anyone else."
Eugene assented absently. He was unable to discipline his wandering memory, which just then was vividly picturing Lucy Morton at her prettiest, as with a sparkle in her eye and a curl on her lip she had, for the amusement of them both, flung some gentle sarcasm at "Henny Wilson." He could still hear her ringing laugh at his affected jealousy of her neighbour. But those days were past, and there before him sat Mrs. Wilson, her face lighted up with earnest emotion, grown more lovely still, and her voice thrilling with a deeper music. He allowed with a pang of mortification that he was not as clever as he had supposed himself in sounding the depths of womankind; and then with keener shame he stifled his incredulous doubts of Dr. Wilson's being able to win and keep love. "He deserves it all," he said aloud, while still a secret whisper told him that love does not go by desert.
"Does he not?" said Lucy. "And now we will not talk of this any more. You must know how glad we are to be able to give you any little help, and you must be willing to take it as freely as it is given. I am very sure that brighter days are coming for Mabel and you; and when they do, we will all enjoy them together, will we not?"
"You are an angel," said Eugene, taking the hand she held out; and then he let it go and turned away without another word. Lucy stood looking after him a longer time than she usually allowed herself to waste in revery; and then, starting, hastened off intent on household duties.
"Why are these boots in such a condition?" she asked, in a more emphatic tone than was her wont to use to her servants, as a muddy pair in her back entry caught her eye.
"I am very sorry, ma'am. I brought them down here to be cleaned, but Crossman has gone, as you ordered, to take Mrs. Talbot a little drive, and James is out with the doctor somewhere, and there are two clean pair in his dressing-room. Shall I black these, ma'am?" inquired the highly trained parlour maid, who would have gone down on her very knees to scrub the stable floor at a hint that such a proceeding might be agreeable to Dr. Wilson.
"Oh, no; never mind," said her mistress, carelessly; but when the girl had gone, she stooped and, picking up the boots, bore them to her own room, and bringing blacking also, cleaned and blacked them all over in the neatest manner, with her own delicate hands.
"I know I'm not worthy to black Henry's boots," she thought to herself, as a tear or two, which she made haste to rub away, dropped on their polished surface; "but I can do them well, at least. No one shall ever say that I have not made him a good wife!"
THREE CUPS OF TEA
"Mrs. Samuel N. Brackett, at home Wednesday, December Tenth, from four to seven, 3929 Commonwealth Avenue."
"Miss Caldwell, Wednesdays, Mount Vernon Street, December 10th, 4.30-6.30."
"100 Charlesgate, East.
"Dearest Carrie:
"I am obliged to give up the Bracketts'. Mother went and asked Dr. Thomas if I could go, and he said, of course not. I was so provoked, for if she hadn't spoken of it, he would never have dreamed of forbidding me to go out—he never does. Most likely he never imagines that anybody will go anywhere if they are not obliged to. Now that I am not going, mother won't go herself. She wants to go to Cousin Jane's little tea. She says they are so far apart she can't do both. So stupid in Cousin Jane to put hers the same day as the Bracketts'—but I dare say she will have a sufficient number of her own set to fill up. I doubt if she gets many of the girls. You are so soft-hearted that I dare say you will struggle for both. Do get through in time to drop in here any time after half-past six. I am going to have a few girls to tea in my room to cheer me up and tell me all about the Bracketts'. They have asked everyone they possibly can, and I dare say everyone will go to see what it is like. I am sure I would if I could. Remember you must come.
"Ever your
"Grace G. D.
"Tuesday P.M."
As Miss Caroline Foster, after lunch on the tenth of December, inspected the cards and notes which encircled her mirror in a triple row, she selected these three as calling for immediate attention. Of course she meant to go to all: when was she ever known to refuse an invitation? Though young and pretty, well connected and well dowered, and far from stupid, she occupied in society the position of a down-trodden pariah or over-worked galley-slave, for the reason that she never could say no to anyone. She had nothing—money, time, sympathy—that was not at the service of anyone who chose to beg or borrow them. At parties she put up with the left-over partners, and often had none—for even the young men had found out that she could always be had when wanted. Perhaps this was the reason why, with all her prettiness and property, she was not already appropriated in marriage. Of course she had hosts of friends, who all despised her; but one advantage she did enjoy, for which others might have been willing to barter admiration and respect; no one, man, woman, or child, was ever heard to speak harshly to Caroline Foster, or to say anything against her. Malice itself must have blushed to say that she was too complying, and malice itself could think of nothing else.
This tenth of December marked an uncommon event in her experience, for on it she had, for the first time in her life, made up her mind to refuse an asked-for gift; and the consciousness of this piece of spirit, and of a beautiful new costume of dark-blue velvet trimmed with otter fur, which set off her fair hair and fresh face to perfection, gave her an air of unwonted stateliness as she stepped into a handsome coupé and drove off alone. She was by no means an independent or unguarded young woman; but her aunt, with whom she lived, had two committee meetings that afternoon, and told Caroline that she might just as well go to Miss Caldwell's little tea for ladies only, alone. They would meet at Mrs. Brackett's; and if they didn't they could tell everyone they were trying to—which would do just as well.
Miss Caldwell lived in an old house on Mount Vernon Street which gave the impression that people had forgotten to pull it down because it was so small; but within it looked spacious, as it sheltered only one lady and two maids. Everything about it had an air of being fresh and faded at once. The little library in front was warm dull olive-green; and the dining-room at the back soft deep grey-blue; and the drawing-room, up one flight of an unexpected staircase, was rich dark brick-red—all very soothing to the eye. They were full of family portraits, and old brass and pewter, and Japanese cabinets, and books bound in dimly gilded calf-skin, and India chintzes, all of which were Miss Caldwell's by inheritance. Even sunlight had a subdued effect in these rooms; and now they were lighted chiefly by candles, and none too brilliantly.
Miss Caldwell had been receiving her guests in the drawing-room; but there were not many, and being a lady accustomed to do as she pleased, she had followed them down to the dining-room, which was just comfortably full. Conversation was, as it were, forced to be general, and the whole room heard Mrs. Spofford remark that "Malcolm Johnson would be a very poor match for Caroline Foster."
"Caroline Foster and Malcolm Johnson, is that an engagement?" asked the stout, good-natured Mrs. Manson, who was tranquilly eating her way through the whole assortment of biscuits and bonbons on the table. "Well, Caroline is a dear, sweet girl—just the kind to make a good wife for a widower."
"With five children to start with, and no means that I know of!" said Miss Caldwell, scornfully. "I am sure I hope not!"
"I have heard it on the best authority," said the first speaker.
"It will take better authority than that to make me believe it."
"If he proposes to her," said Mrs. Manson, "I should say she would take him. I never knew Caroline to say no to anyone."
"Well," said Miss Caldwell, "I suppose it's natural for a woman to be a fool in such matters—for most women," she corrected herself; "but if Caroline marries Malcolm Johnson I shall think her too foolish—and she has never seemed to me to be lacking in sense."
"Perhaps," said the pourer out of tea, a pretty damsel with large dark eyes, a little faded to match the room—"perhaps she wants a sphere."
"As if her aunt could not find her fifty spheres if she wanted them!"
"Too many, perhaps," said a tall lady with a sensible, school-teaching air. "I have sometimes thought that Mrs. Neal, with managing all her own children's families and her charities, had not much time or thought to spare for poor little Caroline. She is kind to her, but I doubt if she gives her much attention."
"A woman likes something of her own," said Mrs. Manson.
"Her own!" said Miss Caldwell. "How much good of her own is she likely to have if she marries Malcolm Johnson?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Spofford, "his motives would be plain enough; I dare say he's in love with her. Caroline is a lovely girl, but of course in such a case her money goes for something."
"But she has not so very much money," said Mildred, dropping a lump of sugar into a cup—"plenty, I suppose, for herself, but it would not support a large family like Mr. Johnson's."
"It would pay his taxes, my dear, and buy his coal," said Miss Caldwell, "and he has kept house long enough to appreciate the help that would be."
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Manson, "coal is so terribly high this winter!"
"It would be a saving for him to marry anybody," said a thin lady with a sweet smile, slightly soiled gloves, and her bonnet rather on one side. "He tells me that his housekeepers are no end of trouble. He is always changing them, and his children are running wild with it all. He's a very old friend of mine," she added with a conscious air.
"They are very troublesome children," said Miss Caldwell. "I hear them crying a great deal."
"Poor little things!—they need training," said Mrs. Manson.
"Caroline would never train them; she is too amiable."
"They have so much illness," said Mrs. Eames, the "old friend." "Poor Malcolm tells me he is afraid that little Willie has incipient spine complaint; he is in pain most of the time. The poor child was always delicate, and his mother watched him most carefully. She was a most painstaking mother, poor thing, though I don't imagine there was much congeniality between her and Malcolm. I wish I could do something for them, but I have such a family of my own."
"Someone ought to warn Caroline," said Miss Caldwell. "I wonder he has the audacity to ask her. If he wasn't a widower he wouldn't dare to."
"If he wasn't a widower," said Miss Mildred, "her loving him in spite of all his drawbacks would seem more natural."
"If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Manson, "he wouldn't have the drawbacks, you know."
"If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Eames, "he might not be so anxious to marry her. Good-by, dear Miss Caldwell. Such a delightful tea! I may take some little cakes to the dear children?"
"Good-by," said Mrs. Manson, swallowing her last macaroon. She turned back as she reached the doorway; and her ample figure, completely filling it up, gave opportunity for a young lady who had been standing in the shadow of the staircase to dart across the hall unseen. Miss Caroline Foster had sought her hostess in the drawing-room, but finding it empty, had come downstairs again, and had been obliged to listen to the conversation, which she had not the courage to interrupt; and she now threw on her wrap and rushed past the astonished maid out of the house before Mrs. Manson's slow progress could reach the cloak-room.
At half-past five o'clock the Brackett tea was in full swing. The occupants of the carriages at the end of the long file were getting out and walking to the door, and some of the more prudent were handing in their cards and departing, judging from the crush that if their chance of getting in was but small, their chance of getting away was none at all. The Bracketts were at home; but of their home there was nothing to be seen for the crowd, except the blazing chandeliers overhead, the high-hung modern French pictures in heavy gilded frames, the intricate draperies of costly stuffs and laces at the tops of the tall windows, here and there the topmost spray of some pyramid or bank of flowers, and the upper part of the immense mirrors which reflected over and over what they could catch of the scene. The hostess was receiving in the middle drawing-room; but it was a work of time and pains to get so far as to obtain a view of the sparkling aigret in her hair. A meagre, carefully dressed woman had accomplished this duty, and might now fairly be getting off and leaving her place for someone else; yet she lingered near the door of the outer room, loath to depart, looking with an anxious eye for familiar faces, with an uneasy incipient smile waiting for the occasion to call out. Sometimes it grew more marked, and she made a tentative step forward; and if the person went by with scant greeting or none at all, she would draw back and patiently repair it for future use. For the one or two who stopped to speak to her she kept it carefully up to, but not beyond, a certain point, while still her restless eye strayed past them in search of better game. Just as she had exchanged a warmer greeting than her wont with a quiet, lady-like woman who was forced on inward by the crowd, she was startled by a smart tap on her shoulder, and as she turned sharp round towards the wall, the rich brocade window-curtains waved, and a low voice was heard from behind them.
"Come in here, won't you, Miss Snow?"
Miss Martha Snow, bewildered, drew aside the heavy folds, and found herself face to face with a richly arrayed, distinguished-looking, though passée woman, who had settled herself comfortably on the cushioned seat between the lace curtains without and the silk within.
"My dear Mrs. Freeman! how do you do? How you did frighten me!"
"I have been trying to get at you for an age," said Mrs. Thorndike Freeman, laughing. "I thought you would never have done falling into the arms of that horrid Hapgood woman."
"I could not help it. She would keep me. She is one of those people you can't shake off, you know."
"I! I don't know her."
"But why are you here, out of sight of everyone? Are you waiting for a chance to get at Mrs. Brackett?" hurried on Miss Snow.
"I'm waiting for a chance to get away from her. I would not be seen speaking to her for any consideration whatever."
"I—I was surprised to meet you here!"
"I came because I wanted to see what it would be like, but I had no conception it would be so bad. Did you ever see such a set as she has collected?"
"It does seem mixed."
"Unmixed, I should call it. I have been waiting for half an hour to see a soul of my acquaintance. Sit down here, and let us have a nice talk."
A nice talk with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman foreboded a dead cut from her the next time you met her; for she never took anyone up without as violently putting them down again—and then there was no one now to see and envy. However, Miss Snow dared not refuse, and seating herself with a conciliatory, frightened air, somewhat like a little dog in the cage of a lioness, asked in timid tones:
"Why do you stay? Is not your carriage here?"
"I want to get something to eat first," said Mrs. Freeman, "for I suppose their spread is something indescribable."
"Oh, quite! The whole middle of the table is a mass of American Beauty roses as large as—as cabbages, and around that a bank of mignonette like—like small cauliflowers, and all over beneath it is covered with hothouse maiden-hair ferns, and——"
"And what's the grub?"
"I—did not eat much; I only wanted to see it; but I had a delicious little paté—chicken done in cream, somehow; and I saw aspic jelly with something in it handed round; and the ices—they are all in floral devices, water lilies floating on spun sugar, and roses in gold baskets, and cherries tied in bunches with ribbons, and grapes lying on tinted Bohemian glass leaves—and———"
"It sounds appetising. I'll wait till I see a man that doesn't know me, and he shall get me some. I don't want it known that I ever entered their doors."
"Shall I not go back to the dining-room and send a waiter to you?"
"No, indeed—he would be sure to know me, and I should get put on the list."
"The stationers who sent out the invitations will do that."
"Oh, well—I can only say I never came. But the waiter would swear to me, and very likely describe my dress. No, I shall wait a little longer. Stay here and keep me company."
"Oh, it will be delightful!" quavered Miss Snow, though worrying at the prospect of getting away late on foot, and ill able to afford cab-hire.
"You've heard of the engagement, I suppose?"
"Which of them?" asked Miss Snow, skilfully hedging.
"Why, the only one, so far as I know. Why, haven't you heard? Ralph Underwood and Winnie Parke."
"Oh, yes! has that come out? I have been away from home for a few days, and had not heard. Very pleasant, I'm sure."
"Very—for her. It was her sister who did it, Mrs. Al Smith. She's a very clever young woman; fished for Al herself in the most barefaced way, and now she's caught Ralph for her sister; and she's not nearly so good-looking, either, Winnie Parke, though I should say she had a better temper than Margaret. You know Margaret Smith of course?"
"Not very well," said Miss Snow, deprecatingly. "I thought when you spoke of an engagement you meant Malcolm Johnson and Caroline Foster."
"That never will be an engagement!" said Mrs. Freeman scornfully.
"Oh! I am very glad to hear you say so—only I have met him so much there lately, and it quite worried me; it would be such a bad thing for dear Caroline; she is a sweet girl."
"You need not worry about it any longer, for I know positively that she has refused him."
"I am very glad. I was so afraid that Caroline—she is so amiable a girl, you know, and so apt to do what people tell her to—I was afraid she might say yes for fear of hurting his feelings."
"She would never dream of his having feelings—her position is so different. Why, Caroline is a cousin of my own."
"Oh, yes, of course—only he would doubtless be so much in love; and many people think him delightful—he was very handsome."
"Before Caroline was born, maybe. No, no, Caroline has plenty of sense, though she looks so gentle—and then the family would never hear of it. His affairs are in a shocking condition. Why, you know what he lost in Atchison—and I happen to know that his other investments are in a very shaky condition."
"He has that handsome house."
"Mortgaged, my dear, mortgaged up to its full value. No, he's badly off—and then there are such discreditable rumours about him; Thorndike knows all about it."
"Dear me! I never heard anything against his character."
"I could tell you plenty," said Mrs. Freeman, with a little shrug. "And then he drinks, or at least he probably will end in drinking—they always do when they are driven desperate. Oh, no, Caroline is a cousin of mine, and a most charming girl. Don't for heaven's sake hint at such a thing."
"Oh, I assure you, I never have. I am always so careful."
"Yes, I never say a thing that I am not certain is true," said Mrs. Freeman, yawning. "Why, where do all these lovely youths come from? Ah! I see; past six o'clock; the shop is closed, and they have turned the clerks on duty here. Well, now, I can get something to eat, for I never buy anything of them. Tell that one over there to come to me, the light-haired one, I mean; he looks strong and good-humoured."
As Miss Snow rose to obey this order, a fair-haired girl in a dark-blue velvet gown, who on entering had been pinned close against the wall within hearing by the crowd, made a frantic struggle for freedom, and succeeded in reaching the entrance hall, to the amazement of the other guests, who did not look for such a display of strength in so gentle-looking and painfully blushing a creature.
At half-past six a select party was assembling in Miss Grace Deane's own room, the prettiest room, it was said, in Boston, in the handsomest of the new Charlesgate houses; a corner room, with a bright sunny outlook over the long extent of waterside gardens. The high wainscot, the chimney-piece, the bed on its alcoved and curtained haut pas were of cherry wood, the natural colour, carved with elaborate and unwearied fancy; and its rich hue showed here and there round the Persian rugs on the floor. At the top of the wall was a painted frieze of cherry boughs in bloom, with now and then one loaded with fruit peeping through, and the same idea was imitated in the chintzes. The wall space left was papered in a shade of spring green so delicate and elusive that no one could decide whether it verged on gold or silver, almost hidden with close-hung water colours and autotypes; and the ceiling showed between cherry beams an even softer tint in daintily stained woods. The Minton tiles around the fireplace and lining the little adjoining bathroom were all in different designs of pale green and white sparingly dashed with coral pink. There were sofas and low chairs and bookcases and cabinets and a tiny piano and a writing-desk and a drawing-table, and a work-table and yet more tables, all covered with smaller objects. Useless, and especially cheap, bric-à-brac was Miss Deane's abomination, but everything she used was exquisite. The bed and dressing-table were covered with finest linen, drawn and fretted by the needle, into filmy gossamer; and from the latter came a subdued glitter of a hundred silver trifles of the toilet, beaten and chiselled like the fine foamy crest of the wave.
Miss Deane, the owner of this pretty room, for whom and by whom it had been devised and decked with abundant means held well in check by taste, was very seldom in it. The Deanes had two country houses, and they spent a great deal of time abroad, and in the winter they often went to California or Florida or Bermuda; and when they were at their town houses they were usually out. But Miss Deane did sometimes sleep there, and when she had a cold and had to keep in she could not but look around it with gratification. It certainly was a pleasant room to give a little tea in. Its being her bedroom only made the effect more piquant. She believed the ladies of the last century used to have tea in their bedrooms; and this was quite in antique style—yes, the tea-table and some of the chairs were real antiques. By the time she had arranged the flowers to her taste and sat down arrayed in a tea-gown of rose-coloured China crape and white lace to make tea in a Dresden service with little rosebuds for handles, she felt quite well again, and ready to greet a dozen or so of her dearest friends, who ran upstairs unannounced and threw off their own wraps on the lace-covered bed.
Some of these young women were beautiful, and all looked pretty, their charms equalised by their clothes and manners. They had all been on the most intimate terms with each other from babyhood, and they had the eagerness to please anyone and everyone, characteristic of the American girl. Each talked to the other as if that other were a lover, and they had the sweetest smiles for the maid.
"So it was pleasant at the Bracketts'?" asked Grace, beginning to fill her cups.
"Oh, delightful!" exclaimed the whole circle; "that is"—with modified energy—"it was crowded of course, and very hot, and it was hard to get at people, and there was no time to talk when you did; but everybody was there," they concluded with revived spirit.
"I was not there," sighed Mildred; "I had to make tea for Miss Caldwell—mother said I must—and some of the people stayed so late that it was no use thinking of the other place, though I put on this gown to be all ready. I thought it would do to pour out at such a little tea"—surveying her pale fawn cloth gown dashed with dark velvet worked in gold.
"Oh, perfectly! most appropriate!" said the others.
"Who else poured out?" said Grace.
"Why, she told me that Caroline Foster was coming, and I was so delighted; but when I got there I found Mrs. Neal had sent a note saying she could not allow Caroline to give up the Bracketts' altogether; and Miss Caldwell had invited that Miss Leggett, whom I hardly know—wasn't it unpleasant? And she wore regular full dress, pink India silk and chiffon, cut very low—the effect was dreadful!"
"Horrid!" murmured her sympathising friends.
"Caroline was there, I suppose?" queried one.
"No—she never came at all."
"Probably she went to the Bracketts' first, and couldn't get away," said Grace. "I wonder she isn't here by this time. Who saw her there?" General silence was the sole answer, and she looked round her only to have it re-inforced by a more emphatic "I didn't."
"Why, she must have been there! She told me she should surely go. How odd—" but her words died away, and the group regarded each other with looks of awe, till one daring young woman broke the spell with, "Do you think—can it be possible—that she's really engaged?"
"To Mr. Johnson?" broke out the whole number. "Oh! I hope not! It would be shocking—dreadful—too bad!"
"We shouldn't see a thing of her; she would be so tied down," murmured Dorothy Chandler, almost in tears.
"Everyone who marries is tied down, for that matter," cheerfully remarked a blooming young matron, who had been the rounds of the teas. "I assure you," she went on, nibbling a chocolate peppermint with relish, "I am doing an awful thing myself in being here at this hour; aren't you, Anna?"—addressing a mate in like condition, who blushed, conscience-stricken as she said, "Perhaps Caroline is in love with Mr. Johnson."
"I don't see how any one can fall in love with a widower," said Mildred.
"That depends on the widower," said the pretty Mrs. Blanchard. "I do think Mr. Johnson is rather too far gone."
"Oh, yes," said Mildred; "he looks so—so—I don't know how to express it."
"What you would call dowdy if he were a woman," said her more experienced friend. "He looks as if he wanted a wife; but I don't see why someone else would not do as well as Caroline—some respectable maiden lady who could sew on his buttons and make his children stand round. I don't think Caroline would be of the least use to him."
"It would be almost impossible to keep her up," said Grace.
"Yes," said Mrs. Blanchard; "I'm very fond of Caroline, but I'm afraid I could never get Bertie up to the point of intimacy with Malcolm Johnson; he thinks him underbred—says his hats show it."
"Is your tea too strong, Harriet, dear? There is no hot water left," said Grace, ringing her little silver bell with energy. But no one came. "I told Marguerite to keep in the sewing-room, in hearing," she went on, ringing it again.
"I thought I heard her at the door just now," said the outermost of the circle.
"Would you mind looking, dear? If she's not there I'll ring the other bell for someone from downstairs."
No Marguerite was at the door, the sounds laid to her charge having been caused by the precipitate retreat of a young lady who had come late and, running quickly upstairs unannounced, had paused at the room door to recover her breath, and had just time to do so and to fly downstairs again and out of the house without encountering anyone.
Caroline—for it was she—hurried round the corner; for her home was so near that she had dismissed her carriage. The house was empty and dark. Mrs. Neal had gone to spend the evening with one of her married daughters and had not thought it necessary to provide any dinner at home. There was no neglect in this. There were plenty of cousins at whose houses Caroline could have dined and welcome; or if she did not choose to do so, there was abundance in the larder, and if her teas had left her any appetite she had but to give the order herself and sit down alone to her cold meat and bread and butter. As we know, her teas had been feasts of Tantalus; but she did not feel hungry—for food. She hastened up to her room without a word to the maid, lighted her gas, took a key from her watch-chain, opened her writing-desk, and took out a letter which she read, not for the first time, with attention.
"Mount Vernon Street.
"My dear Miss Foster:
"You will, I am afraid, be surprised at what I am going to say. Perhaps you will blame me for writing it, and perhaps you will blame me for saying it at all. I know it is an act of presumption in me to ask one so beautiful, so young and untrammelled by care, to link her fortunes with mine: but I do it because I cannot help it. I love you so much that I am unable to turn my thoughts to my most pressing duties till I have at least tried my fate with you; and yet my hopes are so faint that I cannot venture to ask you in any way but this.
"Don't think I love you less because I have so many other claimants for my affections; any more than I love them less because I love you. My poor children have no mother; I could never ask any woman to take that place to them unless we could both feel sure that ours was no mere match of convenience; but I could not love anyone unless she had the tenderness of nature which belongs to a true mother. I never saw any girl in whom it showed so plainly as in you. Your angelic sweetness and gentleness are to me, who have seen something of the rough side of life, unspeakably beautiful. I know I am not worthy of you in any way; but it sometimes seems to me that appreciating you so thoroughly as I do must make me a little so.
"Your family will very likely object to me on the score of want of means. I am fully aware that I cannot give you such advantages in that respect as you have a right to expect, even if I were much richer than I am ever likely to be; but I am not so poorly off as they may suppose. I own the house in which I live, free of encumbrance, and I should like to settle it upon you. I do not know whether your property is secured to your separate use or not; but I should wish to have it so in any case. If my life and health are spared, I have no fears that I shall not be able to support my family in comfort. I know you will have to give up a great deal in the way of society; and I cannot promise that you shall have no cares, but I can and do promise that you will make us all very happy.
"I still fear my chances are but small; but do, I entreat you, take time to think over this. No matter what your answer may be, I am and ever shall be
"Your faithful and devoted
"Malcolm Johnson.
"December 8, 189-."
After Caroline had read this letter twice, she drew out another, spotless and freshly written, and breaking the seal, read:
"Beacon Street.
"My dear Mr. Johnson:
"I was very sorry to receive your letter this morning. Pray don't think I blame you for writing—but indeed you think much too highly of me. I am not at all fitted to assume such serious duties as being at the head of your family would involve, and it would only be a disappointment to you if I did. I have had no experience, and I should feel it wrong to undertake it, even if I could return your generous affection as it deserves. Indeed, I don't value money, or any of those things; but I do not want to give up my friends and all my own ways of life, unless I loved you. I am so sorry I can't—but surely you will not blame me, for I never dreamed of this, or I would have tried to let you know my thoughts sooner.
"I am sure my aunt would disapprove. Highly as she esteems you, she would think me too young, and not at all the right kind of wife for you. I shall not breathe a word to her or to anyone, and I hope you will soon forget this, and find some one who will really be a good wife to you and a devoted mother to your children. No one will be more delighted at this than
"Your sincere friend,
"Caroline Alice Foster.
"December 9, 189-."
This letter, which Caroline had spent three hours in writing, and copied six times, she now tore into small pieces and threw them into the fireplace. The fire was out, and the grate was black, so she lighted a match and watched till every scrap was consumed to ashes, when she sat down at her desk and, heedless of the chilly room, wrote with a flying pen:
"Beacon Street.
"My dear Mr. Johnson:
"Pray forgive me that I have been so long in answering your letter. I could not decide such an important matter in haste. Indeed you think more highly of me than you ought; but if such a foolish, ignorant girl as I am can make you happy, and you are sure you are not mistaken, I will try to return your love as it deserves. I have not much experience with children; but I will do my best to make yours love me, and it will surely be better for the dear little things than to have no mother at all.
"I dare say my aunt will think me very presumptuous to undertake so responsible a position; but she will not oppose me when she knows my heart is concerned,—and I am of age, and have a right to decide for myself. I shall be so glad of some real duties to make my idle, aimless life really useful to someone. I don't care for wealth, and as for society, I am heartily tired of it. The only fear I have is that you are over-rating me; but it is so pleasant to be loved so much that I will not blame you for it.
"I am ever yours sincerely,
"Caroline Alice Foster.
"December 10, 189-."
If Caroline, by writing this letter, constituted herself a lunatic in the judgment of all her friends, it must be allowed, as Miss Caldwell had said, that she was not quite lacking in sense. Unlike either a fool or the heroine of a novel, she rang the bell for no servant, sent for no messenger, but when she had sealed and stamped her letter she tripped downstairs with it and, having slipped back the latch as she opened the door, walked as far as the nearest post-box and dropped it in herself.
THE TRAMPS' WEDDING
"They know no country, own no lord.
Their home the camp, their law the sword."
"Who is it?" asked Mrs. Reed, as her husband entered her sitting-room; with some curiosity, pardonable in view of the fact that a stranger had for some time been holding an interview with him in his study.
"Why," replied the Reverend Richard Reed, looking mildly absent, as was his custom when interrupted of a Saturday morning, "it is a Mr. Perley Pickens—the man, you know, who has taken the Maynard place for the summer."
"Indeed! what did he want?" cried the lady, interested at once. The Maynard house was the great house of the place, and the Maynard family the magnates of the First Parish, and the whole town of Rutland. Their going abroad for a year or two had been felt as a public loss, and when, somewhat to the general surprise, it transpired that their house was let, it was at once surmised that it could only be to "nice" people, though the new occupants had never been heard of, and were rarely seen.
"Oh, his daughter is to be married, and he wants the ceremony to take place in our church."
"You don't say so? and he wants you to marry them?"
"Certainly."
"Why, we haven't had a wedding in the church for quite a while! It will be very nice, won't it?"
"Yes, my dear; but excuse me, I am in a hurry just now. Mr. Pickens is waiting. He wants you to give him a few addresses. I gave him the sexton's——"
"It will be a good thing for poor Langford," said Mrs. Reed, benevolently.
"Yes—" drawled the Reverend Richard, still abstractedly, "very good; and he wants a Boston caterer, and a florist. I know nothing about such things, and I told him I'd ask you, though I did not believe you did, either."
"Oh, yes, I do! Mrs. Maynard always has Rossi, and as for a florist, they must have John Wicks, at the corner here. He's just set up, and it will be such a chance for him."
"Do you think he will do? Mr. Pickens said that expense was no object—that everything must be in style, as he phrased it."
"Oh, he'll do! Anyone will do, at this season. Why, they could decorate the church, and house too, from their own place; but I shan't suggest that."
"Very well, my dear—but I am keeping Mr. Pickens waiting."
"I'll go and speak to him myself," said the lady, excitedly; and she tripped into the study, where the guest was sitting, with his hat on his knees; a tall, narrow-shouldered man, with a shifty eye. Somehow the sight of him was disappointing, she could hardly tell why, for he rose to greet her very politely, and thanked her effusively.
"My wife will be most grateful, I am sure—most grateful for your kindness. It will save her so much trouble."
"Here are the addresses you want," said Mrs. Reed, hastily scratching them off at her husband's desk, "and if Mrs. Pickens wants any others, I shall be happy to be of use to her."
"Thank you! thank you! You see, she's a stranger here, and doesn't know anything about it."
"You have not been in this part of the country before?"
"No—oh, no, I come from Clarinda, Iowa. At least, I always register from there, though I haven't any house there now; and my present wife was a Missouri woman, though she's never lived in the State much. I had to be in Boston on business this summer, so thought I'd take a place outside, and Mr. Bowles, the real estate agent, said this was the handsomest going, and the country first-rate; but my wife's a little disappointed."
"I suppose, if she has travelled so much, she has seen a great deal of fine scenery—but this is generally thought a pretty place."
"Yes, certainly—very rustic, though, ain't it?"
"I suppose so," said his hearer, a little puzzled, while for the first time her husband looked up, alert and amused. "I will call on Mrs. Pickens," she hastened to say, "if she would like to see me."
"Yes, certainly; delighted, I'm sure; yes, she'd be delighted to see you, and so would Miss Minnie, too."
"What a very queer man!" thought Mrs. Reed. But she only smiled sweetly, and made a little move, as if the interview were fairly over. Her visitor, however, did not seem inclined to depart, and after a moment's silence began again.
"And there's another thing; if you would be so very kind as to recommend—I mean, introduce—we know so few people here, and Miss Minnie wants everything very stylish; perhaps you know some nice young men who would like to be ushers; I believe that is what they are called. It would be a good thing for them to be seen at; everything in first-class style, you know."
The Reverend Richard, whose attention was now thoroughly aroused, beamed full on the speaker a guileless smile, while his wife thoughtfully murmured, "Let me see; do you expect a great many people?"
"Oh, no, we don't know many round here; but if you and your family, and the ushers and their families, would come to the house, it would make quite a nice little company. As to the church—anyone that liked—it would be worth seeing."
"I can find some ushers," said Mrs. Reed, still musing; "two at least; that will be enough, I should think."
"And then," murmured Mr. Pickens, as if checking off a mental list, "there is a young man to go with the bridegroom, I believe. I never had one, but Miss Minnie says it's the fashion."
"Oh, yes, a 'best man!'" explained his hostess, "but—the bridegroom usually selects one of his intimate friends for that."
"I don't believe Mr. MacJacobs has any friends; round here, that is. He came from Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, but he's never been there since he was a boy. He's been in New Orleans, and then in Europe, as travelling agent for MacVickar & Company. I suppose you've heard of them."
"I dare say I can find a best man."
"Thank you. You are very kind; yes, very kind indeed, I'm sure."
"I presume," interposed the host, in bland accents, "you wish to give away the bride yourself?"
"Yes!" said Mr. Pickens, starting; "oh, yes, I suppose I can, if there's not too much to do. Should I have to say anything?"
"Scarcely," replied the clergyman, reassuringly. "I ask a question to which you are supposed to reply, but a nod will be quite sufficient. The bridegroom is generally audible, and sometimes the bride, but I have never heard a sound proceed from the bride's father."
"Very good—very good; it will be very pleasant to join in your service, I am sure. Many thanks to you for your kind advice. I will now take my leave," and after a jerking bow or two he departed, with a sort of fluttering, bird-like step. The pastor laughed, but his wife looked sober.
"Our friend is as amusing a specimen as I ever encountered," he began.
"Amusing! I call him disgusting, with his 'Miss Minnie 'and 'take his leave.' He can't be a gentleman; there is something very suspicious about the whole affair."
"Indeed! and what do you suspect?"
"I don't believe there's a wedding at all. Perhaps he's an impostor who wants to get in here to steal."
"Do you miss anything?"
"No," said the lady, after a peep into her dining-room. "I can't say I do. But he may come back on this pretended wedding business. Are you sure that he really is Mr. Perley Pickens?"
"Why, yes. I have never spoken to him before, but I have seen him at the post-office, opening his box, and again at the station. I cannot be mistaken in that walk of his."
"Well, he may be the head of a gang of thieves, and have taken the house and got up this scheme of a wedding for some end of his own."
"Such as what?"
"Why, to cheat somebody, somehow. I am sure you will never get a wedding fee for it; and he may not pay any of the bills, and the people may bother us."
"He gave me the name of his Boston bankers, May & Maxwell, to whom he said I could refer the tradespeople, if they wished it, 'being a stranger here himself,' as he justly remarked. But whom, my dear, do you expect to provide for ushers or best man?"
"Oh, for ushers, the Crocker boys will do. They will be glad of something to amuse them in vacation."
"Are they not rather young? Fred can hardly be eighteen yet."
"Well! he is six feet and over. One needn't tell his age; and as for best man, I think William Winchester wouldn't mind it—to oblige me."
"But why, my love, since you are so distrustful, are you so anxious to be of use in this matter?"
"Why!" echoed his wife, triumphantly; "it's the best way to encourage them to go on, and then, don't you see? if they have any dishonest designs, they'll be the sooner exposed; and then—I do want to see what the end of it all will be—don't you?"
In pursuance of these ideas, Mrs. Reed, next afternoon, put on her best bonnet, and went to call on the ladies of the Pickens family. The gardens and shrubberies of the Maynard house, always beautiful, yet showed already the want of the master's eye. The servant who opened the door was of an inferior grade, and the drawing-room, stripped of Mrs. Maynard's personal belongings, looked bare and cold. Mrs. Reed sat and sighed for her old friend full quarter of an hour, before a pale, slim, pretty girl, much dressed, and with carefully crimped locks, came in with, "It's very kind in you to call. Aunt Delia's awfully sorry to keep you waiting, but she'll be down directly."
"I am very glad to see you," said Mrs. Reed, looking with some attention at the probable bride-elect.
"Aunt Delia was sitting in her dressing-sack. She generally does, day-times. It's so much trouble to dress, she thinks. Now I think it's something to do; there isn't much else, here."
"This is a lovely place. I always admire it afresh every time I come here."
"It's lonesome; but then, it's pleasant enough for a little while. I never care to stay long in any one place. I've lived in about a hundred since I can recollect; and I wouldn't take a house in any one of 'em for a gift, if I had to live in it."
"Perhaps you may feel differently when you have a house of your own."
"Well, that's one of the things Mr. MacJacobs and I quarrel about. I want to board, and he wants to take a flat. I tell him I'll do that, if he'll get one where we can dine at the table d'hote. That's about as easy as boarding. As like as not, when we get settled, he'll have to go off somewhere else; but if he is willing to pay for it himself, why, let him! Here's Aunt Delia," she suddenly added, as a fresh rustle announced the entrance of a stout lady, also very handsomely attired, and carrying a large fan, which she waved to and fro, slowly but steadily, gazing silently over it at her visitor, whom Minnie introduced with some explanation, after which she remarked that it was "awfully hot."
"It is warm; but I have not found it unpleasant. I really enjoyed my walk here."
"Did you walk?" asked her hostess, with more interest.
"Oh, yes; it is not more than a mile here from the church; and the parsonage is but a step farther."
"A mile!"
"I am very glad," said Mrs. Reed, well trained, as became her position, in the art of filling gaps in talk, and striking out on new lines, "to find you at home, and Miss—I beg your pardon, but I have not heard your niece's name. Mr. Reed thought she was your daughter."
"Oh, Minnie isn't my niece!" exclaimed the hostess, laughing, as if roused to some sense of amusement, which Minnie shared; "she's an adopted daughter of Mr. Webb's second wife!"
"My name's Minnie Webb, though pa never approved of it, and when he married again, we thought it would be easier to say Aunt Delia, to distinguish her from ma, you know."
Mrs. Reed paused before these complicated relationships, and skilfully executed another tack; "I hope you find it pleasant here."
"It's a pretty place here, but it's awful dull," said Mrs. Pickens, "and it's so much trouble; I never kept house before. I've always boarded, and mostly in hotels."
"I am afraid it may seem quiet here to a stranger," said Mrs. Reed, apologetically. "You see when anyone takes a house here for the summer, people are rather slow to call; they suppose that you have your own friends visiting you, and that you don't care to make new acquaintances for so short a time. I am sorry I have not been able to call before. I was not sure that you went to our church."
"I don't go much to church; it is so much trouble. But Minnie says yours is the prettiest for a wedding," said Mrs. Pickens, smiling so aimlessly that it was impossible to suppose any rudeness intended. Mrs. Reed could only try to draw out the more responsive Minnie. "Is there anything else that I can do to help you about the wedding?"
"Why, yes—only, you've been so kind. I most hate to ask you for anything more."
"Well, then, if you could think of any girl that would do for a bridesmaid."
"A bridesmaid?"
"Oh, yes, there ought to be one bridesmaid; a pretty one I should want, of course, and just about my size. You see, I have her dress all ready, for when I ordered my own gown in Paris, Madame Valerie showed me the proper bridesmaid's gown to go with it, and it looked so nice I told her I would take it. I thought, if the worst came to the worst, I could wear it myself; but it would be a shame not to have it show at the wedding. Of course," said Minnie, impressively, "I mean to give the young lady the dress—for her own, to keep!"
Mrs. Reed, at last, was struck fairly speechless, and her resources failed. "Suppose," said the bride, in coaxing tones, "you just step up and look at the gowns; if it would not be too much trouble."
The sight of the dresses was a mighty argument. At any rate, people with such garments could be planning no vulgar burglary. It might be a Gunpowder Treason, or an Assassination Plot, and that was romantic and dignified, while at the same time it was a duty to keep it under observation.
"I think," said Mrs. Reed, slowly, "I know a girl—a very pretty one—who would just fit this dress."
"What's her name?"
"Muriel Blake."
"Oh, how sweet! I wish it was mine! Who is she?"
"She—she teaches school—but they're of very good family. She's very pretty—but they're not at all well off. She's a very sweet girl." Mrs. Reed balanced her phrases carefully, not knowing whether it would be better to present her young friend in the light of a candidate for pity or admiration. But Minnie smiled, and said she had no doubt it would do, and that Mrs. Reed was very good; and even Mrs. Pickens wound herself up to remark that it was very kind in her to take so much trouble.
Mrs. Reed hastened home overwhelmed with business. The Crocker boys were easily persuaded to take the parts assigned them, and even her elegant and experienced friend, William Winchester, though he made a favour of his services, gave them at last, "wholly to oblige her."
"Any bridesmaids?" asked Reggie Crocker.
"She wants me to ask Muriel Blake."
"What, the little beauty of a school teacher! Well, there will be sport!" cried his brother, and even William Winchester asked with some interest, if she supposed Miss Blake would consent. "I think so," said Mrs. Reed; but her hopes were faint as she bent her way to the little house where Mrs. Blake, an invalid widow with scarce a penny, scraped out a livelihood by taking the public-school teachers to board, while her Muriel did half the housework, and taught, herself, in a primary school, having neither time nor talents to fit herself for a higher grade. Never was there a girl who better exemplified the old simile of the clinging vine than she; only no support had ever offered itself for her to cling to, and she had none of that instinctive skill which so many creepers show in striking out for, and appropriating, an eligible one. Mrs. Blake, a gentlewoman born and bred, gave at first a most decided refusal to her daughter's appearance in the character proposed. But Mrs. Reed, warming as she met with obstacles, pressed her point hard. She said a great deal more in favour of the respectability of the Pickenses than she could assert from her own knowledge, dwelt with compassion on their loneliness, and touched, though lightly, on the favour to herself; both ladies knowing but too well that the claims to gratitude were past counting. Mrs. Blake faltered, perhaps moved somewhat by a wistful look, which through all doubts and excuses, would rise in her daughter's eyes. As for Muriel's own little childish objections, they were swept away by her patroness like so many cobwebs. There was a gown ready and waiting for her, and Mrs. Reed would arrange about her absence from school.
"But, if I am bridesmaid, I ought to make her a present," she said at last, "and I am afraid——"
"That need not matter," said her mother, loftily, "I will give her one of my India China plates. That will be present enough for anybody; and I have several left."
This, Mrs. Reed correctly augured, was the preface to surrender; and she walked Muriel off to call on Miss Webb, before any more objections should arise.
"Well!" cried that young lady at the first sight of her bridesmaid, "Well! I beg your pardon, but you are—" and even Mrs. Pickens regarded the young girl with languid admiration. Muriel Blake's golden curls, and azure eyes, and roseate bloom flashed on the eye much as does a cardinal flower in a wayside brook. No one could help noticing her charms; but no one had ever gone farther than to notice them, and they were about as useful in her daily duties as diamonds on the handle of a dustpan. Minnie looked at her rather doubtfully for a moment; but her good humour returned during the pleasing task of arraying the girl in her costume, and she even insisted on Miss Blake's assuming the bridal dress herself.
"Well, I'm sure! What a bride you would make! You aren't engaged, are you?"
"No."
"You ought to travel. You'd be sure to meet someone. Well, we'll take it off. I'm glad I'm going to wear it, and not you. You look quite stunning enough in the other."
"It is lovely—too handsome for me."
"I had a complete outfit made in Paris this spring, though I wasn't engaged then; but I guessed I should be before the things went out of fashion."
"You knew Mr. MacJacobs very well then?"
"No—oh, no. I'd never seen him. Ma was anxious I should marry a foreign gentleman."
"Does your mother live abroad?"
"Yes—that is, she's not my real mother. I never knew who my real father and mother were. Ma wanted to adopt a little girl, and, she took me from the Orphan Asylum at Detroit, because I had such lovely curls. They were as light as yours, then, but they've grown dark, since. Is there anything you put on yours to keep the colour?"
"No—nothing."
"Well, pa was very angry when he found out what ma had done. He didn't want to adopt a child; but ma said she would, and she could, because she had money of her own. But he was always real kind to me. They were both very nice, only they would quarrel. Well, when I was sixteen, ma said she would take me abroad to finish my education. We'd travelled so much, I never had much chance to go to school. Pa said it was nonsense, but she would go. But I didn't go to school there, either. We went to Germany to look at one we'd heard of, and there a German gentleman, Baron Von Krugenstern, proposed to me. He thought I was going to be awfully rich. But when he found out how things really were, and that ma had the money, he changed about and proposed to her. They are so fond of money, those foreigners, you know!"
"Did your father die while you were abroad?"
"Oh, dear, no! He wasn't dead! He was over here, all right. But ma got a divorce from him without any trouble. She and I and the Baron came over and went to Dakota, and it was all arranged, and they were married in six weeks. She got it for cruelty. I could testify I'd seen him throw things at her. She used to throw them back again, but no one asked me about that. Well, pa never heard about it till it was all over, and then he was awfully mad; but I guess he didn't mind much, for he soon married Aunt Delia, and they always got along very pleasantly. I made them a visit after they were married, and then I went abroad with ma and the Baron. But pa told me if I wasn't happy there, I could come back any time."
"Were you happy there?"
"No, I can't say I was. They lived in an awfully skimpy way, in a flat, three flights up, and no elevator. Baron Von Krugenstern didn't like ma's having brought me, till pa died, and that made a change. Pa left half his money to Aunt Delia, and the other half to me. Now, don't you call that noble of him?"
Muriel assented.
"As soon as they found that out, the whole family were awfully polite to me; they wanted me to marry his younger brother, Baron Stanislaus. But I wrote to Aunt Delia; she'd married Uncle Perley by that time, and come to Europe for a wedding tour. They were in Paris; and Uncle Perley was very kind, and sent back word for me to come to them, and I set off all alone; all the Von Krugensterns thought it was perfectly dreadful. I bought my trousseau in Paris, for I hadn't quite decided I wouldn't have Baron Stanislaus, after all. But Uncle Perley advised me strongly against it; he said American husbands were a great deal the best, and I conclude he was right. And then, on the voyage home, we met Mr. MacJacobs."
"I suppose you are very glad you came away?"
"Oh, yes, I am quite satisfied—quite. Baron Stanislaus was six feet three and a half inches high; but I don't think height goes for so much in a man; do you?"
Muriel looked at the little nomad with some wonder, but without the reprobation which might have been expected from a young person carefully brought up under the teachings of the Reverend Richard Reed. She rather regarded Minnie in the aspect of—to quote the hymn familiar to her childhood—"a gypsy baby, taught to roam, and steal her daily bread;" and no matter how carefully guarded the infant mind, the experiences of the gypsy will kindle a flame of interest. She, too, like Mrs. Reed, felt eager to see the end of the story.
The wedding preparations went on apace. The tradesmen worked briskly, for they had received information, on the application of some of the doubting among them to Messrs. May & Maxwell, that Mr. Pickens's credit was good for a million at least, not counting the very handsome banking accounts of his two ladies. Miss Webb made all the arrangements for her bridal, as Mr. MacJacobs could not come till the evening before.
"I only hope he'll come at all," carelessly suggested William Winchester, one evening at the Parsonage.
"Why! do you think there is any danger of his giving it up?" cried Mrs. Reed, in consternation.
"I rather begin to think that there is no such person. MacJacobs! What a name! Can it possibly be real?"
"The name has a goodly ring of wealth about it," said the parson. "Scotch and Hebrew! 'tis a rich combination, indeed! Still, if it were as you suggest, it is a comfort to know that the remedy is at hand. You have done so much for them, Emma, my dear, that you cannot fail them now. They will ask you to find some nice young man for a bridegroom, rather than have the whole thing fall through, and I hope William is prepared to see it in the proper light, and offer his services 'purely to oblige you.'"
"I shall have an answer ready," said William, coolly, "I shall say that I am already bespoken."
"And can you produce the proof? It will have to be a pretty convincing one."
"Perhaps in such an emergency I might find a very convincing one," said William, with a glance at Muriel, who had been looking confused, and who now coloured deeply. It was more with displeasure than distress; but then it was, for the first time, that she struck him as being something more than a merely pretty girl.
MacJacobs, came, punctual to his time, a small but sprightly individual, with plenty to say as a proof of his existence. He brought neat, if not over-expensive, scarf-pins for his gentlemen attendants, and a bracelet in corresponding style for Miss Blake. The wedding went off to general admiration. The church was full, and if the company at the house was scanty, there was no scarcity in the banquet. And when the feast was over, and Mrs. MacJacobs, on the carriage-step, turned to take her last farewell; while Muriel's handkerchief was ready in her hand, and the Crocker boys were fumbling among the rice in their pockets, and William Winchester himself was feeling in his for the old shoe—"I am sure," she said, "it has gone off beautifully, and I shall never, never forget your kindness, as long as I live! I did so want to have a pretty wedding—such as I've read about!"
If these last words roused dismal forebodings in the minds of the bridal train, to be verified by a perusal of the next day's Boston papers, they were forgiven as soon as they were uttered; for the light patter of Minnie's voice died away in a quaver of genuine feeling; and a shower of real tears threw for once a veil of sweetness over her little inexpressive face.