The New Penelope, and Other Stories and Poems

by Frances Fuller Victor

"I thought you would a-told me to go, an' never come back," he said, stepping out into the moonlight with the elastic tread of twenty-five. He stopped and looked back at her, with a beaming countenance, like a boy's.

She was standing on the step above him, looking down at him with a pleasant but serious expression. "I am going to trust you never to repeat to me what you have said to-night. I know I can trust you."

"So be it, White Rose," he returned, with so rapid and involuntary a change of attitude, voice, and expression, that the pang of his hurt pierced her heart also. "But I know I can trust you," she repeated, as if she had not seen that shrinking from the blow. "And I am going to try to make your life a little pleasanter, and more like other people's. When you are dressed up, and ordered to behave properly, and made to look as handsome as you can, so that ladies shall take notice of you and flatter you with their eyes and tongues, and you come to have the same interest in the world that other men have—and why shouldn't you?—then your imagination will not be running away with you, or making angels out of common little persons like myself—how dreadfully prosy and commonplace you have no idea! And I forbid you to allow Willie to stick your hat full of flowers, when you go fishing together; and order you to make that young impudence respectful to you on all occasions—asserting your authority, if necessary. And, lastly, I prefer you should not call me Madame Rumway until I have a certified and legal claim to the title. Good-night."

He stood bareheaded, his face drooping and half-concealed, pulling the withered flowers out of his hat. Slowly he raised it, made a military salute, and placed it on his head. "It is for you to command and me to obey," he said.

"Breakfast at seven o'clock precisely," called out the tuneful voice of Mrs. Smiley after him, as he went down the garden-path with bent head, walking more like an old man than she had ever seen him. Then she went into the house, closed it carefully, after the manner of lone women, and went up to her room. But deliciously cool and fragrant as was the tiny chamber, Mrs. Smiley could not sleep that night. Nor did Chillis come to breakfast next morning.

A month passed away. Work was suspended on Mr. Rumway's house, the doors and windows boarded up, and the gate locked. Everybody knew it could mean but one thing—that Mrs. Smiley had refused the owner. But the handsome captain put a serene face upon it, and kept about his business industriously and like a gentleman. The fact that he did not return to his wild courses was remarked upon as something hardly to be credited, but greatly to his honor; for it was universally conceded, that such a disappointment as his was enough to drive almost any man to drink who had indulged in it previously; such is the generally admitted frailty of man's moral constitution.

Toward the last of August, Mrs. Smiley received a visit from Chillis. He was dressed with more than his customary regard to appearances, and looked a little paler and thinner than usual. Otherwise, he was just the same as ever; and, with no questions asked or answered on either side, their old relations were re-established, and Willie was rapturously excited with the prospect of more Saturday excursions. Yet there was this difference in their manner toward each other—that he now seldom addressed her as "White Rose," and never as "my lovely lady;" while it was she who made graceful little compliments to him, and was always gay and bright in his company, and constantly watchful of his comfort or pleasure. She prevailed upon him, too, to make calls with her upon other ladies; and gave him frequent commissions that would bring him in contact with a variety of persons. But she could not help seeing, that it was only in obedience to her wishes that he made calls, or mingled with the town-people; and when, one evening, returning together from a visit where he had been very much patronized, he had remarked, with a shrug and smile of self-contempt, "It is no use, Mrs. Smiley—oil an' water won't mix," she had given it up, and never more interfered with his old habits.

So the summer passed, and winter came again, with its long rains, dark days, and sad associations. Although Mrs. Smiley was not at all a "weakly woman," constant effort and care, and the absence of anything very flattering in her future, or inspiring in her present, wore upon her, exhausting her vitality too rapidly for perfect health, as the constantly increasing delicacy of her appearance testified. In truth, when the spring opened, she found herself so languid and depressed as to be hardly able to teach, in addition to her house-work. Then it was that the gossips took up her case once more, and declared, with considerable unanimity, that Mrs. Smiley was pining for the handsome Captain, after all, and, if ever she had refused him, was sorry for it—thus revenging themselves upon a woman audacious enough to refuse a man many others would have thought "good enough for them," and "too good for" so unappreciative a person.

With the first bright and warm weather, Willie went to spend a week with his friend, and Mrs. Smiley felt forced to take a vacation. A yachting-party were going over to the cape, and Captain Rumway was to take them out over the bar. Rumway himself sent an invitation to Mrs. Smiley—this being the first offer of amity he had felt able to make since the previous July. She laughed a little, to herself, when the note came (for she was not ignorant of the town-tattle—what school-teacher ever is?) and sent an acceptance. If Captain Rumway were half as courageous as she, the chatterers would be confounded, she promised herself, as she made her toilet for the occasion—not too nice for sea-water, but bright and pretty, and becoming, as her toilets always were.

So she sailed over to the cape with the "young folks," and, as widows can—particularly widows who have gossip to avenge—was more charming than any girl of them all, to others beside Captain Rumway. The officers of the garrison vied with each other in showing her attentions; and the light-house keeper, in exhibiting the wonders and beauties of the place, always, if unconsciously, appealed to Mrs. Smiley for admiration and appreciation. Yet she wore her honors modestly, contriving to share this homage with some other, and never accepting it as all meant for herself. And toward Captain Rumway her manner was as absolutely free from either coquetry or awkwardness as that of the most indifferent acquaintance. Nobody, seeing her perfectly frank yet quiet and cool deportment with her former suitor, could say, without falsehood, that she in any way concerned herself about him; and if he had heard that she was pining for him, he was probably undeceived during that excursion. Thus she came home feeling that she had vindicated herself, and with a pretty color in her face that made her look as girlish as any young lady of them all.