Boston Neighbours In Town and Out

by Agnes Blake Poor

"We certainly do not," said Blanche Livermore. "I think the reason must be that we have no time. I have scarcely time to see anything of my own husband, much less to fall in love with any one else's."

We all laughed, but we felt that it was odd. In Babyland all went on in an orderly and respectable fashion. The gayest girls, the fastest young men, as soon as they were married and settled there, subsided at once into quiet, domestic ways. At our dances each of us secretly thought her own husband the most interesting person present, and he returned the compliment, and after a peaceful evening of passing them about we were always very thankful to get them back to go home with. Were we, then, so unlike the rest of humanity?

"Are we sure?" asked Minnie Mason, always prone to speculation. "It is not likely that we are utterly different from the rest of the world. Who knows what dark tragedies lie hidden in the recesses of the heart? Who knows all her neighbour's secret history?" This was being rather personal, but no one took it home, for we never minded what Minnie said; and as many of the club were, as always occurred, detained at home by domestic duties, we thought it might apply to one of them. But I can't deny that we, and especially Minnie, who had a relish for what was sensational, and was pleased to find that realistic fiction, which she had always thought must be dull, was really exciting, felt a little ashamed at our being so behind the age—"provincial," as Mr. James would call it; "obsolete," as Mr. Howells is fond of saying—at Babyland as not to have the ghost of a scandal among us. None of us wished to give cause for the scandal ourselves; but I think we might not have been as sorry as we ought to be if one of our neighbours had been obliging enough to do so. We did not want anything very bad, you know. Of course none of us could ever have dreamed of running away with a fascinating young man—like Anna Karenina—because in the first place we all liked our husbands, and in the next place, who could be depended upon to go into town to do the marketing, and to see that the children wore their india-rubbers on wet days? But anything short of that we felt we could bear with equanimity.

That same fall we were excited, though only in our usual harmless, innocent way, by hearing that the old Grahame house was sold, and pleased—though no more than was proper—that it was sold to the Williamses. It was a pretty, old farm-house which had been improved upon and enlarged, and had for many years been to let; and being as inconvenient as it was pretty, it was always changing its tenants, whom we despised as transients, and seldom called upon. But now it was bought, and by none of your new people, who, we began to think, were getting too common in Babyland. We all knew Willie Williams: all the men were his old friends, and all the women had danced with him, and liked him, and flirted with him; but I don't think it ever went deeper, for somehow all the girls had a way of laughing at him, though he was a handsome fellow, and had plenty of money, and was very well behaved, and clever too in his way; but we could not help thinking him silly. For one thing, he would be an artist, though you never saw such dreadful daubs as all his pictures were. It was a mercy he did not have to live by them, for he never sold any; he gave them away to his friends, and Blanche Livermore said that was why he had so many friends, for of course he could not work off more than one apiece on them. He was very popular with all the other artists, for he was the kindest-hearted creature, and always helped those who were poor, and admired those who were great; and they never had anything to say against him, though they could not get out anything more in his praise than that he was "careful and conscientious in his work," which was very likely true. Then he was vain; at least he liked his own good looks, and, being æsthetic in his tastes, chose to display them to advantage by his attire. He wore his hair, which was very light, long, and was seldom seen in anything less fanciful than a boating-suit, or a bicycle-suit, though he was not given to either exercise, but wanted an excuse for a blouse, and knee-breeches, and tights, and a soft hat—and these were all of a more startling pattern than other people's; while as to the velvet painting-jackets and brocade dressing-gowns, in which he indulged in his studio, I can only say that they made him a far more picturesque figure than any in his pictures. It was a shame to waste such materials on a man. Then he lisped when he was at all excited, which he often was; and he had odd ways of walking, and standing, and sitting, which looked affected, though I really don't think they were.

He made enthusiastic, but very brief, love to all of us in turn. I don't know whether any of us could have had him; if one could, all could; but, supposing we could, I don't believe any of us would have had the courage to venture on Willie Williams. But we expected that his marriage would be romantic and exciting, and his wedding something out of the common. Opinions were divided as to whether his ardent love-making would induce some lovely young Italian or Spanish girl of rank to run away from a convent with him, or whether he would rashly take up with some artist's model, or goose-girl, or beggar-maid. We were much disappointed when, after all, he married in the most commonplace manner a very ordinary girl named Loulie Latham.

We all knew Loulie too; she went to school at Miss Woodberry's, in the class next below mine; and she was a nice girl, and we all liked her well enough, but there never was a girl who had less in her. She was not bad-looking, but no beauty; not at all the kind of looks to attract an artist. Blanche Livermore said that he might have married her for her red hair if only there had been more of it. The Lathams were very well connected, and knew everybody, and she went about with the other girls, and had a fair show of attention at parties; but she never had friends or lovers. She had not much chance to have any, indeed, for she married very young.

She was a very shy, quiet girl, and I used to think that perhaps it was because she was so overcrowed by her mother. Mrs. Latham was a large, striking-looking if not exactly handsome, lady-like though loud, woman, who talked a great deal about everything. She was clever, but eccentric, and took up all manner of fads and fancies, and though she was a thoroughly good woman, and well born and well bred, she did know the very queerest people—always hand in glove with some new crank. Hygiene, as she called it, was her pet hobby. Fortunately she had a particular aversion to dosing; but she dieted her daughter and herself, which, I fear, was nearly as bad. All her bread had husks in it, and she was always discovering that it was hurtful to eat any butter or drink any water, and no end of such notions. She dressed poor Loulie so frightfully that it was enough to take all the courage out of a girl: with all her dresses very short in the skirt, and big at the waist, and cut high, even in the evening, and thick shoes very queerly shaped, made after her own orders by some shoemaker of her own, and loose cotton gloves, and a mushroom hat down over her eyes. Finally she took up the mind-cure, and Loulie was to keep thinking all the time how perfectly well she was, which, I think, was what made her so thin and pale. Mrs. Latham always said that no one ever need be ill, and indeed she never was herself, for she was found dead in her bed one morning without any warning.

This happened at Jackson, New Hampshire, where they were spending the summer. Of course poor Loulie was half distracted with the shock and the grief. There was no one in the house where they were whom she knew at all, or who was very congenial, I fancy, and Willie Williams, whom they knew slightly, was in the neighbourhood, sketching, and was very kind and attentive, and more helpful than any one would ever have imagined he could be. He saw to all the business, and telegraphed for some cousin or other, and made the funeral arrangements; and the end of it was that in three months he and Loulie Latham were married, and had sailed for Europe on their wedding tour.

This was ten years ago, and they had never come back till now. They meant to come back sooner, but one thing after another prevented. They had no children for several years, and they thought it a good chance to poke around in the wildest parts of Southern Europe—Corsica, and Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles, and all that—and made their winter quarters at Palermo. Then for the next six years they lived in less out-of-the-way places. They had four children, and lost two; and one thing or another kept them abroad, until they suddenly made up their minds to come home.

We had not heard much of them while they were gone. Loulie had no one to correspond with, and Willie, like most men, never wrote letters; but we all were very curious to see them, and willing to welcome them, though we did not know how much they were going to surprise us. Willie Williams, indeed, was just the same as ever—in fact, our only surprise in him was to see him look no older than when he went away; but as for Mrs. Williams, she gave us quite a shock. For my part, I shall never forget how taken aback I was, when, strolling down to the station one afternoon with the children, with a vague idea of meeting Tom, who might come on that train, but who didn't, I came suddenly upon a tall, splendidly shaped, stately creature, in the most magnificent clothes; at least they looked so, though they were all black, and the dress was only cashmere, but it was draped in an entirely new way. She wore a shoulder-cape embroidered in jet, and a large black hat and feather set back over great masses of rich dark auburn hair; and, though so late in the season, she carried a large black lace parasol. To be sure, it was still very warm and pleasant. I never should have ventured to speak to her, but she stopped at once, and said, "Perhaps you have forgotten me, Mrs. White?"