Those Dale Girls

by Frances Carruth Prindle

Mrs. Driscoe was not a reasonable woman, never had been reasonable, had no desire to be reasonable; it was therefore not to be expected that she would take a reasonable attitude toward Sidney Renshawe when he went down to Virginia early that spring and asked her for her Nannie. In vain did he argue and cajole, in vain did the dear Colonel remonstrate, in vain did little Nannie cry and plead; to one and all she turned a deaf ear. It was no—no—no then and forever.

The County discussed the situation freely and wondered that so worldly a mother should frown upon so eligible a parti. Sidney Renshawe was well born, fairly rich, rising steadily in his profession; all the County knew that much, though it is doubtful if any one of them had ever been in Radnor. What if Renshawe’s hair was red and his mustache a trifle bristly? Didn’t that add a touch of strength to his face and suggest a resemblance to a certain Prisoner of Zenda, who, though only a man in a book, as every one said, was, nevertheless, the most idolized of heroes. As for poor little Nannie, it was plainly to be seen she was losing flesh over the situation.

As she wrote the girls, she was “torn by conflicting emotions,” using the well-worn phrase because the poor little thing had no words of her own in which to express her feelings. She had never had complex feelings before. Hitherto her life had consisted in loving and being loved, which led her naturally enough into a similar state of things with Sidney Renshawe, who came, saw and conquered her girlish heart. The Colonel was her stanch friend and ally. He liked Renshawe and felt he was just the man to whom he could trust his little girl when the time came to give her up. And that was not necessarily imminent, for if Mrs. Driscoe was unreasonable Renshawe certainly was not and was willing to wait one, two, three years if need be. But Mrs. Driscoe remained obdurate and the household was plunged into a state of strained atmospheric conditions such as had never been known before.

“I can’t help loving him and it isn’t wrong to love him, is it?” little Nannie would say appealingly to the Colonel.

“No, no, Puss, be patient. We’ll win her over soon.” It is doubtful if the Colonel believed this cheerful prophecy, but the child had to be comforted.

Renshawe had remained two weeks with his friends at the plantation adjacent to the Driscoes, seeing Nannie every day. Mrs. Driscoe did not refuse him this boon but, declined to receive him herself and intimated so plainly that the man’s room was preferable to his company that the girl took little pleasure in his visits and agreed with him that it was far better he should go away. Without her mother’s permission she refused to become engaged but the night previous to his departure she allowed him to slip on her finger a certain simple little ring which he reminded her he had been carrying in his pocket since the night they met. The next day he went north leaving his heart in Virginia, with a delicious sense of its security in Nannie’s keeping. The consciousness was strong within him that the winning of such as she was worth the waiting.

And Mrs. Driscoe all this while went about with the aggrieved air of one whose troubles were scarcely to be understood by an unsympathetic world. If she had been put to it she could have given no reason for her opposition to Renshawe, for she had none and had shown him marked favor at the beginning. But that was before, as she told the Colonel, “her suspicions were aroused.” From the moment they were, Renshawe was made unpleasantly conscious of it.

While Nannie, sustained by the Colonel and the County’s backing, got what solace she could out of the days that were so long and oh! so lonely after Sidney left her, he, back in Radnor, turned for comfort to the Dale girls, who took him into their hearts for Nannie’s sake and soon learned to like him for his own. He became a frequent visitor, calling usually Sunday afternoons when he felt he would be less likely to disturb them, and he wrote Nannie that except a certain little girl in Virginia whose name he would never divulge, they were the sweetest girls he had ever known and the bravest. But he did not tell Nannie how as he came to observe them more closely he discovered in their faces little careworn lines which told a tale their lips never would have disclosed and how about Julie, especially, there was a subdued, almost intense manner, as if she were holding herself in a vise. They never spoke of their work or their cares to him or any one else and made light of any passing reference to their business. Indeed, as far as Sidney might have known from them, they lived quite like other girls.

In regard to his friend Grémond’s previous connection with them or of his call on Julie, Renshawe knew nothing. The Frenchman left town the day following that on which he had seen Julie and had not referred to the Dales in any way either to him or Dr. Ware, who was left to draw his own conclusions. This was not so simple as might be supposed, for while in one light the man’s sudden disappearance looked as if Julie might have given him his congé, viewed from another point, especially taken in connection with a certain happy light in Julie’s eyes these days when he caught her glance, it led him to believe that perhaps the girl had given him her promise but required that he should wait yet a longer time to claim her. The Doctor longed to know and wearied himself with imagining why she did not confide in him. But since she did not, delicacy forbade his mentioning Grémond’s name.

Another person who did some speculating over Grémond was Mrs. Lennox, but being a woman she arrived at her conclusions quickly and decided that his precipitous flight to France when he had been booked for some weeks in Radnor, argued ill for the result of his trip across the country. She was not at home the one time he had called on her and the fact that he was not at more pains to seek her out and continue the confidential relations established in her sanctum on his previous visit, satisfied her that he could not have found what he was so eagerly seeking. Being a sympathetic woman she was sorry, but she would have thought more of him had he chosen to tell her the outcome of his affairs. As he did not, she dismissed him from her mind altogether, having agreed with Miss Marston one day when they were discussing him, that he was a clever man but after all a trifle too self-centered. To tell the truth Mrs. Lennox had been mistaken in her analysis of his character and it annoyed her.