Boston Neighbours In Town and Out

by Agnes Blake Poor

Cousin Susan had rather dropped out of society, though the little she did keep up was of a very select order; and Mrs. Parke knew better than to expect her to take any trouble to introduce Margaret into it. The bare idea of having a young girl on her hands to take about would have sent her out of her senses. But she lived in her own very good house on West Cedar Street, and though she had let most of it to a physician, reserving rooms for herself and her maid, surely there was some little nook into which she could squeeze Margaret, if the girl, who had a pretty talent for drawing, could be sent to Boston to take a quarter at the Art School. Mrs. Manton assented, because refusing and excusing were too much trouble. Mrs. Parke had also written to an old school friend, now Mrs. David Underwood; a widow, too, but still better endowed, who had kept up with the world, and went out and entertained freely; the more, because her son, Ralph Underwood, a rising young stockbroker, was a distinguished member of the younger Boston society. Mrs. Underwood had visited the Parkes in her early widowhood, when Ralph was a little boy and Margaret a baby, and had been most hospitably entertained. Of course she would be only too glad to do all she could to show her friend's pretty daughter the world, and show her to it.

Now, if Mrs. Parke had sent Margaret down to Boston a year sooner or a year later, things would doubtless have taken quite another turn, and this history could never have been written. But the year before she was still feeding her family on stews and boiled rice, to lay up the money for Margaret's expenses, and working early and late to get up an outfit for her; which objects she achieved by the autumn of 188-. What baleful conjunction of planets was then occurring to make Mrs. Underwood mutter, as she read the letter, that she wished Mary Pickering had chosen any other time to fasten her girl upon them, while Ralph growled across the breakfast-table under his breath, "At any rate, don't ask her to stay with us," must be left for the future to disclose. Mrs. Underwood eagerly promised anything and everything her son chose to ask, and as he sauntered out of the house leaving his breakfast untouched, and she watched anxiously after him from the window, the important letter dropped unheeded from her hand, and out of her mind.

Margaret came down in due season, bright and expectant. Cousin Susan was rather taken aback at the girl's beauty, partly frightened at the responsibilities it involved, partly relieved by the thought that it would make Mrs. Underwood the more willing to assume them all. Margaret went to the Art School, and got on very well with her drawing. She was much admired by the other girls, who were never weary of sketching her. They were nice girls, though they did not move in the sphere of society in which they seemed to take it for granted that Margaret must achieve a distinguished success; and even though she was modest in her disclaimers, she could not help feeling that she might have what they called "a good time" under Mrs. Underwood's auspices.

Mrs. Underwood for more than a week gave no sign of life; then made a very short, very formal call, apologising for her tardiness by reason of her numerous engagements, and proffering no further civilities; and when Margaret, in a day or two, returned the call, she found Mrs. Underwood "very much engaged." But in another day or two there came a note from her, asking Margaret to a small and early dance at her house, and a card for a set of Germans at Papanti's Hall, of which she was one of the lady patronesses, and which Cousin Susan knew to be the set of the season. In her note she rather curtly stated that she had settled the matter of Margaret's subscription to the latter affairs, and that she would call and take her to the first, which was to come off three days after her own dance. Margaret was pleased, but a little frightened; there was something not very encouraging in the manner of Mrs. Underwood's note; though perhaps it was silly to mind that when the matter was so satisfactory,—only she did hate to go to her first dance alone. She longed even for Cousin Susan's chaperonage, though she knew her longings were vain; Mrs. Manton never went out in the evening under any circumstances, and told Margaret that there was no need of a chaperon at so small an affair at the house of an intimate friend, and that she should have that especially desirable cab and cabman that she honoured with her own custom, whenever she could make up her mind to leave the house. It would, of course, be charged on her bill; after which piece of munificence she washed her hands of the whole affair.

Margaret set out alone. It was a formidable ordeal for her to get herself into the house and up the staircase, and glad was she when she was safely landed in the dressing-room, though there was not a soul there whom she knew. Her dress was a pink silk that had been a part of her mother's trousseau; a good gown, though not at all the shade people were wearing now; but Mrs. Parke had made it over very carefully, and veiled it with white muslin. It had looked very nice to Margaret till it came in contact with the other girls' dresses. She hoped they would not look at it depreciatingly; and they did not,—they never looked at it at all, or at her either. She stood in the midst of the gayly greeting groups, less noticed than if she were a piece of furniture, on which at least a wrap or two might have been thrown. She found it easy enough, however, to get downstairs and into the reception-room in the stream, and up to Mrs. Underwood, who looked worried and anxious, said she was glad to see her, and it was a very cold evening; and then, as the waiting crowd pushed Margaret on, she could hear the hostess tell the next comer that she was glad to see him, and that it was a very warm evening. Margaret was softly but irresistibly urged on toward the door of the larger room where the dancing was to be; but that she had not the courage to enter alone, and coming across a single chair just at the entrance, she sat down in it and sat on for two hours without stirring. The men were bustling about to ask the girls who had already the most engagements; the girls were some of them looking out for possible partners, some on the watch for the men by whom they most wished to be asked to dance; but no one asked Margaret. The music struck up, and still she sat on unheeded.

The loneliness of one in a crowd has often been dwelt upon, as greater than that of the wanderer in the desert; but all pictures of isolation are feeble compared to that of a solitary girl in a ballroom. Margaret's seat was in such a conspicuous position that it seemed as if all the couples who crushed past her in and out of the ballroom must take in the whole fact of her being neglected. There were a few older ladies in the room, but these sat together in another part of it, and talked among themselves without paying any heed to her.

At first she hardly took in the situation in all its significance; but as dance after dance began and ended, she began to feel puzzled and frightened. Did the Underwoods mean to be rude to her, or was this the way people in society always behaved, and ought she to have known it all along? Ought she to feel more indignant with them, or ashamed of herself? If she could only know what the proper sentiment for the occasion might be, it would be some relief to feel miserable in the proper way. Miserable her condition must be, since she was the only girl in it.

At last Mrs. Underwood brought up her son and introduced him. He was a tall, dark, well-grown young fellow, who might have been handsome but for a look of gloomy sulkiness which made his face repulsive. He muttered something indistinguishable and held out his arm, and Margaret, understanding it as an invitation to dance, mechanically rose, and allowed herself to be conducted to the ballroom. She made one or two remarks to which he never replied, and after pushing her once or twice round the room in as perfunctory a manner as if he were moving a table, watching the door over her head, meanwhile, with an attention which made him perpetually lose the step, he suddenly dropped her a little way from her former seat, on which she was glad to take refuge. She thought she must have made a worse figure on the floor than sitting down, and then a terrible fear rushed over her like a cold chill. Was there something very much amiss with her appearance? Had anything very shocking happened to her gown? She looked at it furtively; but just then the bustle of a late arrival diverted her thoughts a little, as a short, plump, black-eyed girl came laughing in, followed by a quiet, middle-aged lady, and a rather bashful-looking young man. Margaret thought her only rather pretty, not knowing that she was Miss Kitty Chester, the beauty of Boston for the past two seasons; however, she did observe that she had the most gorgeous gown, the biggest nosegay, and the highest spirits in the room. She hastened up to Mrs. Underwood, with an effusive greeting, which that lady seemed trying, not quite successfully, to return in kind. Half of the girls in the room, and most of the men, gathered round her in a moment; and a confused rattle of lively small talk arose, of which Margaret could make out nothing. She noticed, however, that the other girls, many of them momentarily deserted, appeared to regard the sensation with something of a disparaging air, and she heard one of them say, that it was a little too bad, even for Kitty Chester. What "it" might be remained a mystery, but there was no doubt that it contributed amazingly to the success of Mrs. Underwood's dance, which went on, Margaret thought, with redoubled zest, for all but herself; nor, indeed, did Ralph Underwood appear enlivened, for she caught a glimpse of him across the room, sulkier than ever. To her surprise, as he looked her way, a sort of satisfaction, it could not be called pleasure, suddenly dawned on his face. Surely she could never be the cause! And then for the first time she perceived that someone was standing behind her; and, as one is apt to do in such a consciousness, she turned sharply and suddenly around, the confusion which came too late to check her movement coloring her face. It was a relief to find that it was a very insignificant person on whom her glance fell, a small, plain man of indefinite age, who looked, as the girls phrase it, "common." He was dressed like the other men, but his clothes had not the set of theirs, and he had the air, if not of actual ill-health, of being in poor condition. In that one glance her eyes met his, which sent back a look, not of recognition, but of response. There was nothing which she could notice as an assumption of familiarity, but if anyone else had seen it they might have thought that she had been speaking to him. Of course, she could do nothing but turn as quickly back; but she was conscious that he still kept his place, and somehow it seemed a kind of protection to have him there. He stood near, but not obtrusively so; a little to one side, in just such a position that she could have spoken to him without moving, and they might have been thought to be looking on together, too much at their ease to talk. When people paired off for supper and nobody came for her, he waited till everyone else had left the room, so that he might have been thought her escort. He then disappeared; but in a moment Margaret was amazed by the entrance of a magnificent colored waiter, who offered her a choice of refreshments with the finest manners of his race. His subordinates rushed upon each other's heels with all the delicacies she wished, and more that she had never heard of, and their chief came again to see that she was properly served. Not a young woman at the ball had so good a supper as Margaret; but that is the portion of the entertainment for which young women care the least.

Just before the crowd surged back from the supper-room, her protector, as she could not help calling him to herself, had slipped back into his old place, so naturally that he might have been there all the time during the supper, whose remains the waiters were now carrying off with as much deference as they had brought it. Margaret wondered how a person who looked, somehow, so out of his sphere, could act as if he were so perfectly in it. Very few people seemed to know him, and though when one or two of the men spoke to him it was with an air of being well acquainted, he seemed rather to discourage their advances, and Margaret was glad, for she dreaded his being drawn away from her neighbourhood. While she was puzzling over the question as to whether he were a poor relation, or Ralph's old tutor, the wished-for, yet dreaded hour of her release sounded,—dreaded, for how to say her good-by and get out of the room. But somehow the unknown was close behind her, and one or two of a party who were going at the same time were speaking to him, so she might have been of, as well as in, the group. Mrs. Underwood looked worried and tired and had hardly a word for her, but seemed to have something to say to her companion of a confidential nature, by which, however, he would not allow himself to be detained, but excused himself in a few murmured words, which seemed to satisfy his hostess, and passed on, still close behind Margaret, to the door, where they came full against Ralph Underwood, who barely returned Margaret's bow, but exclaimed: "What, Al, going? Oh, come now, don't go."

"Al" said something in a low voice, as inexpressive as the rest of him, of which Margaret could only distinguish the words "coming back," and followed her on, waiting till she came down the stairs and out of the house. He did not offer to put her into the carriage, but somehow it was done without any exertion on her part, and as she drove off, she saw him on the steps looking after her.