"Yes," said Charles, looking at my hair with an expression that made me put my hand up to my head as if to hide it; I knew it was carelessly dressed.
I made a study that day of the girls' heads at school, and from that time improved in my style of wearing it, and I brushed it with zeal every day afterward. Alice had my room kept so neatly for me that it soon came to be a reproach, and I was finally taught by her example how to adjust chairs, books, and mats in straight lines, to fold articles without making odd corners and wrinkles; at last I improved so much that I could find what I was seeking in a drawer, without harrowing it with my fingers, and began to see beauty in order. Alice had a talent for housekeeping, and her talent was fostered by the exacting, systematic taste of her husband. He examined many matters which are usually left to women, and he applied his business talent to the art of living, succeeding in it as he did in everything else.
Alice told me that Charles had been poor; that his father was never on good terms with him. She fancied they were too much alike; so he had turned him off to shift for himself, when quite young. When she met him, he was the agent of a manufacturing company, in the town where her parents lived, and even then, in his style of living, he surpassed the young men of her acquaintance. The year before they were married his father died, and as Charles was his only child, he left his farm to him, and ten thousand dollars—all he had. The executors of the will were obliged to advertise for him, not having any clue to his place of residence. He sold the farm as soon as it was put in his hands, took the ten thousand dollars, and came back to be married. A year after, he went to Rosville, and built a cotton factory, three miles from town, and the cottage, and then brought her and Edward, who was a few months old, to live in it. He had since enlarged the works, employed more operatives, and was making a great deal of money. Morgeson's Mills, she believed, were known all over the country. Charles was his own agent, as well as sole owner. There were no mills beside his in the neighborhood; to that fact she ascribed the reason of his having no difficulties in Rosville, and no enmities; for she knew he had no wish to make friends. The Rosville people, having no business in common with him, had no right to meddle, and could find but small excuse for comment. They spent, she said, five or six thousand a year; most of it went in horses, she was convinced, and she believed his flowers cost him a great deal too. "You must know, Cassandra, that his heart is with his horses and his flowers. He is more interested in them than he is in his children."
She looked vexed when she said this; but I took hold of the edge of her finely embroidered cape, and asked her how much it cost. She laughed, and said, "Fifty dollars; but you see how many lapels it has. I have still a handsomer one that was seventy-five."
"Are they a part of the six thousand a year, Alice?"
"Of course; but Charles wishes me to dress, and never stints me in money; and, after all, I like for him to spend his money in his own way. It vexes me sometimes, he buys such wild brutes, and endangers his life with them. He rides miles and miles every year; and it relieves the tedium of his journeys to have horses he must watch, I suppose."
Nobody in Rosville lived at so fast a rate as the Morgesons. The oldest families there were not the richest—the Ryders, in particular. Judge Ryder had four unmarried daughters; they were the only girls in our set who never invited us to visit them. They could not help saying, with a fork of the neck, "Who are the Morgesons?" But all the others welcomed Cousin Alice, and were friendly with me. She was too pretty and kind-hearted not to be liked, if she was rich; and Cousin Charles was respected, because he made no acquaintance beyond bows, and "How-de-do's." It was rather a stirring thing to have such a citizen, especially when he met with an accident, and he broke many carriages in the course of time; and now and then there was a row at the mills, which made talk. His being considered a hard man did not detract from the interest he inspired.
My advent in Rosville might be considered a fortunate one; appearances indicated it; I am sure I thought so, and was very well satisfied with my position. I conformed to the ways of the family with ease, even in the matter of small breakfasts and light suppers. I found that I was more elastic than before, and more susceptible to sudden impressions; I was conscious of the ebb and flow of blood through my heart, felt it when it eddied up into my face, and touched my brain with its flame-colored wave. I loved life again. The stuff of which each day was woven was covered with an arabesque which suited my fancy. I missed nothing that the present unrolled for me, but looked neither to the past nor to the future. In truth there was little that was elevated in me. Could I have perceived it if there had been? Whichever way the circumstances of my life vacillated, I was not yet reached to the quick; whether spiritual or material influences made sinuous the current of being, it still flowed toward an undiscovered ocean.
Half the girls at the Academy, like myself, came from distant towns. Some had been there three years. They were all younger than myself. There never had been a boarding-house attached to the school, and it was not considered a derogatory thing for the best families to receive these girls as boarders. We were therefore on the same footing, in a social sense. I was also on good terms with Miss Prior. She was a cold and kindly woman, faithful as a teacher, gifted with an insight into the capacity of a pupil. She gave me a course of History first, and after that Physical Philosophy; but never recommended me to Moral Science. When I had been with her a few months, she proposed that I should study the common branches; my standing in the school was such that I went down into the primary classes without shame, and I must say that I was the dullest scholar in them. We also had a drawing master and a music-teacher. The latter was an amiable woman, with theatrical manners. She was a Mrs. Lane; but no Mr. Lane had ever been seen in Rosville. We girls supposed he had deserted her, which was the fact, as she told me afterward. She cried whenever she sang a sentimental song, but never gave up to her tears, singing on with blinded eyes and quavering voice. I laughed at her dresses which had been handsome, with much frayed trimming about them, the hooks and eyes loosened and the seams strained, but liked her, and although I did not take lessons, saw her every day when she came up to the Academy. She asked me once if I had any voice. I answered her by singing one of our Surrey hymns, "Once on the raging seas he rode." She grew pale, and said, "Don't for heaven's sake sing that! I can see my old mother, as she looked when she sang that hymn of a stormy night, when father was out to sea. Both are dead now, and where am I?"
She turned round on the music stool, and banged out the accompaniment of "O pilot, 'tis a fearful night," and sang it with great energy. After her feelings were composed, she begged me to allow her to teach me to sing. "You can at least learn the simple chords of song accompaniments, and I think you have a voice that can be made effective."