Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

Thus the news came to Harley's Mills not only that the Feltons would return the middle of April because the disturbed state of the South had made their usual journey impossible, but that John Angus, who had been running up at odd times all the month, was going to remodel his place for the reception of his bride in June; while following on the heels of this report, house-painters, paperers, masons, and a landscape-gardener came to confirm it. So it fell out that, for a time, the lady baby, who remained unclaimed at Oliver Gilbert's, became a thing of secondary interest to every one but the postmaster and Satira Pegrim, until the full month having gone, the village was again excited, this time by the news that Gilbert had taken the final steps toward adopting the child.

Immediately several impromptu debating societies of villagers took up the merits of the case for and against the adoption. The women of the Hospital Aid Society vowing, as they rolled bandages and scraped lint, that a man of Gilbert's age was no fit guardian for a female child, especially as Satira Pegrim might be relied on to take her second at any time he should come to hand, which might easily happen in a post-office, and leave her brother in the lurch.

The men did their talking in the blacksmith's shop, a place where Gilbert was not likely to appear suddenly, their objections being impersonal and based chiefly on the fact that it wasn't a good plan to encourage the leaving of stray children on people's stoops, also that the presence of the mysterious child might be prejudicial to his official position; next the three ministers of the town, Episcopal, Congregational, and Methodist, had all made friendly calls at the post-office house and asked, according to their different methods, whether Gilbert recognized the responsibility he was contemplating. Meanwhile, in the thick of the discussion, the Misses Felton and Mr. Esterbrook arrived. Not all together, it is true, for Miss Emmy, being a trifle delicate and disliking the mixed air, crowds, and jolting of the cars, always drove from New York in the family carriage, a spacious landau, lined with rose satin and swung high upon C springs, the journey of fifty odd miles being broken for luncheon and a change of horses, the sedate family grays having been sent on to this point the day previous. Mr. Esterbrook accompanied Miss Emmy on this excursion; Nora, maid and general factotum, making the third.

As for Miss Felton, this means of progress was too slow. She took the train with the other maids and Caleb, the colored man-servant; but even this method of progression was far from rapid, as the cars were pulled singly by horses from the station in East Twenty-sixth Street, a little above the Feltons' house on Madison Square, through Fourth Avenue until, the press of traffic left behind, the cars were united and an engine attached. Still, journey as they might, the family group that parted after breakfast in the great high-ceiled house facing the square would meet at a flower-decked supper table in a new and healthier atmosphere, without hurry or disarrangement, so harmonious was Miss Felton's housekeeping in the subduing of annoying details.

Not to understand the component parts of the household that lived, or, one might almost say, reigned, at Felton Manor would be to have little understanding of the conditions of the life and surroundings into which the lady baby bid fair to be adopted. The Felton ladies were Bostonians by birth and education, their father having been a prominent judge. Failing of sons, he had, after being some years a widower, virtually adopted and educated a cousin's son to be his confidential secretary, and afterward appointed him in his will as a sort of guardian and adviser to his daughters, who were left at the respective ages of eighteen and twenty with a large property for those days. This man was William Esterbrook, ten years the senior of Elizabeth Felton.

When Squire Felton died, the combination household continued as before, except that the Boston house was given up for one in New York, as the east winds were bad for Miss Emmy's throat. Miss Felton, however, took her Aunt Lucretia's place at the helm. Strangers sometimes remarked upon the peculiarity of the household arrangements, where William Esterbrook, in a house not his own, filled the old-world position of guardian over attractive and marriageable wards. The family friends, however, saw nothing more than a brotherly and sisterly arrangement, and this was the view that the trio thought they held themselves. The real fact was that the kinship, so remote as to be merely a shadow, had kept them all three from leading the normal life that was their due.

Twenty years had passed, years full of event and social intercourse with the best that either came to or lived in the land, and still it was the Misses Felton that bought a picture from a rising but struggling artist; gave the young poet or musician a chance to be heard; entertained the sedate at dinner or the opera, and, though they no longer joined in it, gave the young a chance to dance in their great rooms, or sit out the dances on stairs or in the trim conservatory. For, motherless and young as they had been at the time of their father's death, they realized the true social and moral responsibility of their wealth. Miss Felton was independent, I had almost said masculine, of action; without being brusque, she was direct and to the point, comprehended financial questions, and had an accurate judgment in real estate. Tall and of elegant proportions, she wore dark rich silks of simple lines, a plain linen collar and brooch, while her splendid hair, without a thread of gray, was drawn loosely over the ears and braided close to her head. She did not seem to make any exertion to follow the fashions, and yet was always distinguished.

Miss Emmy, having been the younger, and the pet of her father in addition, was of the spontaneous, romantic, and feminine type that, while it seems very yielding, has quite fixed ideas. She was but a trifle above medium height, with large gray eyes and light brown hair, that at forty was either heaped high in puffs, gathered in a netted "waterfall" at the back of her head, or let loose in a shower of ringlets as the whim of the moment required. She loved everything dainty, in people as well as in clothes; her skirts rippled with ribbons and lace as she trailed slowly along, her sunshades were of the daintiest, and her flowery hats bits of art that almost defied nature. Lyric music was her passion, and in spite of her years she still had a pretty voice, quite the size for ballads. Small wonder that between these two opposites William Esterbrook, who, though of somewhat superfine tastes combined with an undeveloped sense of responsibility, was still a man, stood undecided.

Twenty years before, his interests had centred upon Miss Felton, and together they had regarded pretty, kittenish Emmy as a child, a plaything. This aspect soon ceased, when Emmy, coming into the social world, had taken the sedate man of thirty-two for her cavalier quite as a matter of course, and alternately bullied him and turned to him in every strait. Once only he had come face to face with his manhood and resolved to make the plunge and propose to Emmy, but an over-estimate of the effect it might have upon Elizabeth held him back, and so the three had drifted through the best years of life, loyal to each other, yet too supremely and evenly comfortable to ever know the highest happiness.

If the trio had been separated even by a season of travel, they might have discovered their real selves, for absence is often quite necessary to give the perspective for rightly judging the feelings and relations with one another.