“And I, too, if she will have me. I’d rather live anywhere than at Uncle Calvert’s,” Alice said; “and I hope the house will be near the Park. Won’t it be nice, though?”
“Yes, I mean to have it nice,” Miss Rossiter said, warming into something like enthusiasm as she thought of a home of her own. “I shall furnish it elegantly, and have a reception every week, with little recherché dinner parties for our circle.”
Julia began to be interested, and hoped she should see a little society before she was quite forty, while Alice resolved to be married from that house near the Park, instead of “Uncle Calvert’s poky little bandbox down on Washington Square.”
And while the three ladies planned and talked of the new house in the city, each was conscious of a pang as she thought of leaving the delightful place, where was so much of comfort and luxury, with no shadow of care or trouble. And of the three, Miss Rossiter felt it the most keenly. Naturally indolent and fond of her ease, she had enjoyed her sister’s house, and hated much to leave it, but the fiat had gone forth.
There was to be a new mistress at Schuyler Hill, whose name was not Rossiter, and she must go. She settled that point at once, and then said to the young girls by way of caution, for pride in her brother-in-law was still strong within her:
“I think it will be better not to mention Godfrey’s letter,—that is, not to speak of the woman’s personal appearance, which may not be so bad as we fear. Let her show for herself what she is. We must tell, of course, of the expected marriage, but we need say nothing further.”
In this reasonable advice all three of the girls concurred, and yet through some agency it was soon rumored all over Hampstead that the new lady of Schuyler Hill was deformed, and homely and poor, and the hired companion of the late Mrs. Sinclair, and that Miss Rossiter had declared war to the knife, while Julia talked of poison, and Emma cried day and night and would not be comforted. Who told all this, nobody knew. Possibly it was the governess, and possibly Mrs. Tiffe, who bristled all over those days with importance and secret exultation over her routed and discomfited foe, poor Miss Rossiter. Mrs. Tiffe had had her letter from Col. Schuyler, and Perry, her son, had his also, in which were numerous instructions with regard to the refurnishing of the rooms in the south wing. “All the rooms,” the colonel had said, and he was minute in his directions with regard to the corner room with the bay-window overlooking the river and the mountains beyond. This was to be Mrs. Schuyler’s boudoir, or private sitting-room, and was to be fitted up in drab and pale rose pink, while the sleeping-room, which was separated from it by bath-room and dressing-closet, was to be furnished with blue, and the little room beyond, where the colonel kept his books and private papers, was to be green and oak.
“Let everything be new and in the latest style,” the colonel wrote to Perry. “You can get men up from New York who will know just what is needful, while the ladies and your mother will give you the benefit of their advice and good taste, so I shall expect to find everything perfect when I come.”
To Mrs. Tiffe the colonel wrote, saying that from past experience he knew he could rely upon her, and hoped she would give the matter her own personal supervision, in which case it would be right. Thus flattered and trusted and deferred to, Mrs. Tiffe espoused the cause of the new wife, and hurrahed for the coming change of government at Schuyler Hill. Anything was preferable to Miss Rossiter, and Mrs. Tiffe cared little whether Edith walked with two crutches or one, provided she freed her from the enemy.
“My son will obey orders to the letter,” she said, crisply, when Julia asked what Perry meant to do. “If the colonel says the south wing must be cleared and refurnished, it will be, and Miss Rossiter may as well vacate to-day as to-morrow. There’s no time to be lost in dawdling.”