CHAPTER VI.
"Hark: I hear the sound of coaches,
The hour of attack approaches."
GAY.
Mrs. Pritchard had arrayed Fleda in the white muslin, with an amount of satisfaction and admiration that all the lines of her face were insufficient to express.
"Now," she said, "you must just run down and let the doctor see you, afore you take the shine off, or he wont be able to look at anything else when you get to the place."
"That would be unfortunate!" said Fleda, and she ran down, laughing, into the room where the doctor was waiting for her; but her astonished eyes encountering the figure of Dr. Quackenboss, she stopped short, with an air that no woman of the world could have bettered. The physician of Queechy, on his part, was at least equally taken aback.
"Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda.
"I I was going to say, Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor, with a most unaffected obeisance, "but a I am afraid, Sir, it is a deceptive influence!"
"I hope not," said Dr. Gregory, smiling; one corner of his mouth for his guest and the other for his niece. "Real enough to do real execution, or I am mistaken, Sir."
"Upon my word, Sir," said Dr. Quackenboss, bowing again, "I hope a Miss Ringgan will remember the acts of her executive power at home, and return in time to prevent an unfortunate termination!"
Dr. Gregory laughed heartily now, while Fleda's cheeks relieved her dress to admiration.
"Who will complain of her if she don't?" said the doctor. "Who will complain of her if she don't?"
But Fleda put in her question.
"How are you all at home, Dr. Quackenboss?"
"All Queechy, Sir," answered the doctor, politely, on the principle of 'first come, first served' "and individuals I shouldn't like to specify"
"How are you all in Queechy, Dr. Quackenboss?" said Fleda.
"I have the pleasure to say we are coming along as usual," replied the doctor, who seemed to have lost his power of standing up straight. "My sister Flora enjoys but poor health lately they are all holding their heads up at your house. Mr. Rossitur has come home."
"Uncle Rolf! Has he?" exclaimed Fleda, the colour of joy quite supplanting the other. "Oh, I'm very glad!"
"Yes," said the doctor "he's been home now I guess, going on four days."
"I am very glad!" repeated Fleda. "But wont you come and see me another time, Dr. Quackenboss? I am obliged to go out."
The doctor professed his great willingness, adding that he had only come down to the city to do two or three chores, and thought she might perhaps like to take the opportunity which would afford him such very great gratification.
"No, indeed, faire Una," said Dr. Gregory, when they were on their way to Mrs. Thorn's "they've got your uncle at home now, and we've got you; and I mean to keep you till I'm satisfied. So you may bring home that eye that has been squinting at Queechy ever since you have been here, and make up your mind to enjoy yourself; I shan't let you go till you do."
"I ought to enjoy myself, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, squeezing his arm gratefully.
"See you do," said he.
The pleasant news from home had given Fleda's spirits the needed spur, which the quick walk to Mrs. Thorn's did not take off.
"Did you ever see Fleda look so well, Mamma?" said Florence, as the former entered the drawing-room.
"That is the loveliest and best face in the room," said Mr.
Evelyn; "and she looks like herself to-night."
"There is a matchless simplicity about her," said a gentleman, standing by.
"Her dress is becoming," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"Why, where did you ever see her, Mr. Stackpole, except at our house?" said Constance.
"At Mrs. Decatur's I have had that pleasure and once at her uncle's."
"I didn't know you ever noticed ladies' faces, Mr. Stackpole," said Florence.
"How Mrs. Thorn does look at her!" said Constance, under her breath. "It is too much."
It was almost too much for Fleda's equanimity, for the colour began to come.
"And there goes Mr. Carleton!" said Constance. "I expect momentarily to hear the company strike up, 'Sparkling and Bright.' "
"They should have done that some time ago, Miss Constance," said the gentleman.
Which compliment, however, Constance received with hardly disguised scorn, and turned her attention again to Mr. Carleton.
"I trust I do not need presentation," said his voice and his smile at once, as he presented himself to Fleda.
How little he needed it, the flash of feeling which met his eyes said sufficiently well. But apparently the feeling was a little too deep, for the colour mounted, and the eyes fell, and the smile suddenly died on the lips. Mr. Thorn came up to them, and releasing her hand, Mr. Carleton stepped back and permitted him to lead her away.
"What do think of that face?" said Constance, finding herself a few moments after at his side.
" 'That' must define itself," said he, "or I can hardly give a safe answer."
"What face? Why, I mean, of course, the one Mr. Thorn carried off just now."
"You are her friend, Miss .Constance," he said, coolly. "May I ask for your judgment upon it before I give mine?"
"Mine? why, I expected every minute that Mr. Thorn would make the musicians play 'Sparkling and Bright,' and tell Miss Ringgan that to save trouble he had directed them to express what he was sure were the sentiments of the whole company in one burst."
He smiled a little, but in a way that Constance could not understand, and did not like.
"Those are common epithets," he said.
"Must I use uncommon?" said Constance, significantly.
"No; but these may say one thing or another."
"I have said one thing," said Constance; "and now you may say the other."
"Pardon me you have said nothing. These epithets are deserved by a great many faces, but on very different grounds; and the praise is a different thing, accordingly."
"Well, what is the difference?" said Constance.
"On what do you think this lady's title to it rests?"
"On what? why, on that bewitching little air of the eyes and mouth, I suppose."
"Bewitching is a very vague term," said he, smiling again, more quietly. "But you have had an opportunity of knowing it much better of late than I to which class of bright faces would you refer this one? Where does the light come from?"
"I never studied faces in a class," said Constance, a little scornfully. "Come from? a region of mist and clouds, I should say, for it is sometimes pretty well covered up."
"There are some eyes whose sparkling is nothing more than the play of light upon a bright bead of glass."
"It is not that," said Constance, answering in spite of herself, after delaying as long as she dared.
"There is the brightness that is only the reflection of outward circumstances, and passes away with them."
"It isn't that in Fleda Ringgan," said Constance, "for her outward circumstances have no brightness, I should think, that reflection would not utterly absorb."
She would fain have turned the conversation, but the questions were put so lightly and quietly that it could not be gracefully done. She longed to cut it short, but her hand was upon Mr. Carleton's arm, and they were slowly sauntering down the rooms too pleasant a state of things to be relinquished for a trifle.
"There is the broad day-light of mere animal spirits," he went on, seeming rather to be suggesting these things for her consideration than eager to set forth any opinions of his own "there is the sparkling of mischief, and the fire of hidden passions there is the passing brilliance of wit, as satisfactory and resting as these gaslights and there is now and then the light of refined affections out of a heart unspotted from the world, as pure and abiding as the stars, and, like them, throwing its soft ray especially upon the shadows of life."
"I have always understood," said Constance, "that cat's eyes are brightest in the dark."
"They do not love the light, I believe," said Mr. Carleton, calmly.
"Well," said Constance, not relishing the expression of her companion's eye, which, from glowing, had suddenly be come cool and bright "where would you put me, Mr. Carleton, among all these illuminators of the social system?"
"You may put yourself where you please, Miss Constance," he said, again turning upon her an eye so deep and full in its meaning, that her own and her humour fell before it; for a moment she looked most unlike the gay scene around her.
"Is not that the best brightness," he said speaking low, "that will last forever? and is not that lightness of heart best worth having which does not depend on circumstances, and will find its perfection just when all other kinds of happiness fail utterly?"
"I can't conceive," said Constance, presently rallying, or trying to rally herself "what you and I have to do in a place where people are enjoying themselves at this moment, Mr. Carleton!"
He smiled at that, and led her out of it into the conservatory, close to which they found themselves. It was a large and fine one, terminating the suite of rooms in this direction. Few people were there; but, at the far end stood a group, among whom Fleda and Mr. Thorn were conspicuous. He was busying himself in putting together a quantity of flowers for her; and Mrs. Evelyn and old Mr. Thorn stood looking on; with Mr. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole was an Englishman, of certainly not very prepossessing exterior, but somewhat noted as an author, and a good deal sought after in consequence. At present he was engaged by Mrs. Evelyn. Mr. Carleton and Constance sauntered up towards them, and paused at a little distance to look at some curious plants.
"Don't try for that, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, as the gentleman was making rather ticklish efforts to reach a superb fuchsia that hung high. "You are endangering sundry things besides yourself."
"I have learned, Miss Fleda," said Thorn, as with much ado he grasped the beautiful cluster, "that what we take the most pains for is apt to be reckoned the best prize a truth I should never think of putting into a lady's head if I believed it possible that a single one of them was ignorant of its practical value."
"I have this same rose in my garden at home," said Fleda.
"You are a great gardener, Miss Fleda, I hear," said the old gentleman. "My son says you are an adept in it."
"I am very fond of it, Sir," said Fleda, answering him with an entirely different face.
"I thought the delicacy of American ladies was beyond such a masculine employment as gardening," said Mr. Stackpole, edging away from Mrs. Evelyn.
"I guess this young lady is an exception to the rule," said old Mr. Thorn.
"I guess she is an exception to most rules that you have got in your note-book, Mr. Stackpole," said the younger man. "But there is no guessing about the garden, for I have with my own eyes seen these gentle hands at one end of a spade, and her foot at the other a sight that, I declare, I don't know whether I was most filled with astonishment or admiration."
"Yes," said Fleda, half laughing and colouring, "and he ingenuously confessed in his surprise that he didn't know whether politeness ought to oblige him to stop and shake hands, or to pass by without seeing me; evidently showing that he thought I was about something equivocal."
The laugh was now turned against Mr. Thorn, but he went on cutting his geraniums with a grave face.
"Well," said he at length, "I think it is something of very equivocal utility. Why should such gentle hands and feet spend their strength in clod-breaking, when rough ones are at command?"
There was nothing equivocal about Fleda's merriment this time.
"I have learned, Mr. Thorn, by sad experience, that the rough hands break more than the clods. One day I set Philetus to work among my flowers; and the first thing I knew, he had pulled up a fine passion-flower which didn't make much show above ground, and was displaying it to me with the grave commentary, 'Well! that root did grow to a great haigth!' "
"Some mental clod-breaking to be done up there, isn't there?" said Thorn, in a kind of aside. "I cannot express my admiration at the idea of your dealing with those boors, as it has been described to me."
"They do not deserve the name, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda. "They are many of them most sensible and excellent people, and friends that I value very highly."
"Ah! your goodness would make friends of everything."
"Not of boors, I hope," said Fleda, coolly. "Besides, what do you mean by the name?"
"Anybody incapable of appreciating that of which you alone should be unconscious," he said, softly.
Fleda stood impatiently tapping her flowers against her left hand.
"I doubt their power of appreciation reaches a point that would surprise you, Sir."
"It does indeed if I am mistaken in my supposition," he said, with a glance which Fleda refused to acknowledge.
"What proportion, do you suppose," she went on, "of all these roomfuls of people behind us without saying anything uncharitable what proportion of them, if compelled to amuse themselves for two hours at a bookcase, would pitch upon Macaulay's Essays, or anything like them, to spend the time?"
"Hum really, Miss Fleda," said Thorn, "I should want to brush up my Algebra considerably before I could hope to find x, y, and z in such a confusion of the alphabet."
"Or extract the small sensible root of such a quantity of light matter," said Mr. Stackpole.
"Will you bear with my vindication of my country friends? Hugh and I sent for a carpenter to make some new arrangement of shelves in a cupboard where we kept our books; he was one of these boors, Mr. Thorn, in no respect above the rest. The right stuff for his work was wanting, and while it was sent for, he took up one of the volumes that were lying about, and read perseveringly until the messenger returned. It was a volume of Macaulay's Miscellanies; and afterwards he borrowed the book of me."
"And you lent it to him?" said Constance.
"Most assuredly; and with a great deal of pleasure."
"And is this no more than a common instance, Miss Ringgan?" said Mr. Carleton.
"No, I think not," said Fleda; the quick blood in her cheeks again answering the familiar voice and old associations; "I know several of the farmers' daughters around us that have studied Latin and Greek; and philosophy is a common thing; and I am sure there is more sense "
She suddenly checked herself, and her eye which had been sparkling grew quiet.
"It is very absurd!" said Mr. Stackpole.
"Why, Sir?"
"Oh, these people have nothing to do with such things do them nothing but harm!"
"May I ask again, what harm?" said Fleda, gently.
"Unfit them for the duties of their station, and make them discontented with it."
"By making it pleasanter?"
"No, no not by making it pleasanter."
"By what then, Mr. Stackpole?" said Thorn, to draw him on, and to draw her out, Fleda was sure.
"By lifting them out of it."
"And what objection to lifting them out of it?" said Thorn.
"You can't lift every body out of it," said the gentleman, with a little irritation in his manner "that station must be filled there must always be poor people."
"And what degree of poverty ought to debar a man from the pleasures of education and a cultivated taste, such as he can attain?"
"No, no, not that," said Mr. Stackpole; "but it all goes to fill them with absurd notions about their place in society, inconsistent with proper subordination."
Fleda looked at him, but shook her head slightly, and was silent.
"Things are in very different order on our side the water," said Mr. Stackpole, hugging himself.
"Are they?" said Fleda.
"Yes we understand how to keep things in their places a little better."
"I did not know," said Fleda, quietly, "that it was by design of the rulers of England that so many of her lower class are in the intellectual condition of our slaves."
"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing, "what do you say to that, Sir?"
Fleda's face turned suddenly to him with a quick look of apology, which she immediately knew was not needed.
"But this kind of thing don't make the people any happier," pursued Mr. Stackpole; "only serves to give them uppish and dissatisfied longings that cannot be gratified."
"Somebody says," observed Thorn, "that 'under a despotism all are contented, because none can get on, and in a republic, none are contented, because all can get on.' "
"Precisely," said Mr. Stackpole.
"That might do very well if the world were in a state of perfection," said Fleda. "As it is, commend me to discontent and getting on. And the uppishness, I am afraid, is a national fault, Sir; you know our state motto is 'Excelsior.' "
"We are at liberty to suppose," said Thorn, "that Miss Ringgan has followed the example of her friends, the farmers' daughters? or led them in it?"
"It is dangerous to make surmises," said Fleda, colouring.
"It is a pleasant way of running into danger," said Mr. Thorn, who was leisurely pruning the prickles from the stem of a rose.
"I was talking to a gentleman once," said Fleda, "about the birds and flowers we find in our wilds; and he told me afterwards gravely, that he was afraid I was studying too many things at once! when I was innocent of all ornithology but what my eyes and ears had picked up in the wood, except some childish reminiscences of Audubon."
"That is just the right sort of learning for a lady," said Mr. Stackpole, smiling at her, however; "women have nothing to do with books."
"What do you say to that, Miss Fleda?" said Thorn.
"Nothing, Sir; it is one of those positions that are unanswerable."
"But, Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't like that doctrine, Sir. I do not believe in it at all."
"That is unfortunate for my doctrine," said the gentleman.
"But I do not believe it is yours. Why must women have nothing to do with books? what harm do they do, Mr. Stackpole?"
"Not needed, Ma'am; a woman, as somebody says, knows intuitively all that is really worth knowing."
"Of what use is a mine that is never worked?" said Mr.
Carleton.
"It is worked," said Mr. Stackpole. "Domestic life is the true training for the female mind. One woman will learn more wisdom from the child on her breast than another will learn from ten thousand volumes."
"It is very doubtful how much wisdom the child will ever learn from her," said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
"A woman who never saw a book," pursued Mr. Stackpole, unconsciously quoting his author, "may be infinitely superior, even in all those matters of which books treat, to the woman who has read, and read intelligently, a whole library."
"Unquestionably; and it is, likewise, beyond question, that a silver sixpence may be worth more than a washed guinea."
"But a woman's true sphere is in her family in her home duties, which furnish the best and most appropriate training for her faculties pointed out by nature itself."
"Yes!" said Mr. Carleton "and for those duties, some of the very highest and noblest that are entrusted to human agency, the fine machinery that is to perform them should be wrought to its last point of perfectness. The wealth of a woman's mind, instead of lying in the rough, should be richly brought out and fashioned for its various ends, while yet those ends are in the future, or it will never meet the demand. And, for her own happiness, all the more because her sphere is at home, her home stores should be exhaustless the stores she cannot go abroad to seek. I would add to strength beauty, and to beauty grace, in the intellectual proportions, so far as possible. It were ungenerous in man to condemn the best half of human intellect to insignificance, merely because it is not his own."
Mrs. Evelyn wore a smile of admiration that nobody saw, but Fleda's face was a study while Mr. Carleton was saying this. Her look was fixed upon him with such intent satisfaction and eagerness, that it was not till he had finished that she became aware that those dark eyes were going very deep into hers, and suddenly put a stop to the inquisition.
"Very pleasant doctrine to the ears that have an interest in it," said Mr. Stackpole, rather discontentedly.
"The man knows little of his own interest," said Mr. Carleton, "who would leave that ground waste, or would cultivate it only in the narrow spirit of a utilitarian. He needs an influence in his family not more refreshing than rectifying; and no man will seek that in one greatly his inferior. He is to be pitied who cannot fall back upon his home with the assurance that he has there something better than himself."
"Why, Mr. Carleton, Sir," said Mrs. Evelyn, with every line of her mouth saying funny things "I am afraid you have sadly neglected your own interest have you anything at Carleton better than yourself?"
Suddenly cool again, he laughed, and said, "You were there,
Mrs. Evelyn."
"But, Mr. Carleton," pursued the lady, with a mixture of insinuation and fun "why were you never married?"
"Circumstances have always forbade it," he answered, with a smile, which Constance declared was the most fascinating thing she ever saw in her life.
Fleda was arranging her flowers, with the help of some very unnecessary suggestions from the donor.
"Mr. Lewis," said Constance, with a kind of insinuation very different from her mother's, made up of fun and dating, "Mr. Carleton has been giving me a long lecture on botany, while my attention was distracted by listening to your spirituel conversation."
"Well, Miss Constance?"
"And I am morally certain I sha'n't recollect a word of it if I don't carry away some specimens to refresh my memory, and in that case he would never give me another."
It was impossible to help laughing at the distressful position of the young lady's eyebrows, and, with at least some measure of outward grace, Mr. Thorn set about complying with her request. Fleda again stood tapping her left hand with her flowers, wondering a little that somebody else did not come and speak to her, but he was talking to Mrs. Evelyn and Mr. Stackpole. Fleda did not wish to join them, and nothing better occurred to her than to arrange her flowers over again; so, throwing them all down before her on a marble slab, she began to pick them up one by one, and put them together, with, it must be confessed, a very indistinct realization of the difference between myrtle and lemon blossoms; and as she seemed to be laying acacia to rose, and disposing some sprigs of beautiful heath behind them, in reality she was laying kindness alongside of kindness, and looking at the years beyond years where their place had been. It was with a little start that she suddenly found the person of her thoughts standing at her elbow, and talking to her in bodily presence. But while he spoke with all the ease and simplicity of old times, almost making Fleda think it was but last week they had been strolling through the Place de la Concorde together, there was a constraint upon her that she could not get rid of, and that bound eye and tongue. It might have worn off, but his attention was presently claimed again by Mrs. Evelyn, and Fleda thought best, while yet Constance's bouquet was unfinished, to join another party, and make her escape into the drawing-rooms.