Mrs. Hallam's companion; and The Spring Farm, and other tales

by Mary Jane Holmes

Both Desire and myself knew how useless it was to combat Keziah when her mind was made up. So we said nothing more about the child, and kept as much as possible out of Keziah’s way, for when she is disturbed she is not a pleasant person to meet in a tete-a-tete. We knew she wrote to Mr. Wilmot, and that he replied, and then, two days after, when we went down to breakfast, we found another letter for Keziah. It was from Doris, and Keziah read it aloud, while her voice and hands shook with wrath, and Desire and I exchanged glances of satisfaction and touched each other slyly with our feet in token of sympathy with the child, who dared write thus to one who had ruled us so long that we submitted to her now without a protest. It was a very saucy letter, but it showed the mettle of the girl, and I respected her for it, and my heart went out to her with a great pity when she said, “If you had shown the least sympathy for me I could have loved you so much, but you did not. You offered to care for me because you felt that you must, but you never sent me one word of pity or comfort.”

“Oh, Keziah,” I exclaimed at this point, “is that true? Did you write to Mr. Wilmot and say no word to the child?”

“I never say what I do not feel,” was Keziah’s answer, as she read on, and when she had finished the letter she added, “She is an ungrateful girl, fitter for a dressmaker or maid, no doubt, than for anything higher. But she is a Morton, and must not be suffered to do a menial’s work. I shall educate her in my own way, but shall not recognize her socially until I know the kind of woman into which she develops. Neither must you waste any sentimentality upon her, or make any advances in the shape of letters, for I will not have it. Let her stand alone awhile. She seems to be equal to it. And——” here she hesitated, while her pale cheek flushed a little, as she continued, “she is older than I supposed. She is fourteen,—very pretty, or beautiful, I think Mr. Wilmot said, and that does not commend her to me. You know how susceptible Grant is to beauty, and there must be no more mistakes. The time is too short for that. Grant is going to Andover, which is not far from Meadowbrook, and if he knew of this girl, who is his second cousin, nothing could keep him from seeing her, and there is no telling what complications might arise, for she is undoubtedly designing like her mother, who won Gerold from the woman he should have married. Consequently you are to say nothing to Grant of this girl; then, if he chances to meet her and trouble comes of it, I shall know the hand of fate is in it.”

“But, Keziah,” I remonstrated, “you surely cannot expect that Grant will never know anything of Doris? That is preposterous!”

“He need know nothing of her until matters are arranged between him and Dorothea, who is only fifteen now, while he is eighteen,—both too young as yet for an engagement. But it must be. It shall be!”

She spoke with great energy, and we, who knew her so well, felt sure that it would be, and knew that so far as Grant or any of us were concerned, Doris was to remain a myth until such time as Keziah chose to bring her home. But if we could not speak of her to Grant, Desire and I talked of her often between ourselves, and two or three times I began a letter to her, but always burned it, so great was my fear of Keziah’s displeasure should she find it out. We knew the girl was well cared for and happy, and that she stood high in all her classes, for the very best of reports came regularly from her teachers, both with regard to deportment and to scholarship. Perhaps I am wrong, but I cannot help thinking that Keziah would have been better pleased if some fault had been found in order to confirm her theory that blood will tell. But there has been none, and she was graduated with honor at the High School in Meadowbrook, and every arrangement was made for her to go to Madame De Moisiere’s school in Boston, where she particularly wished to go, when suddenly Keziah changed her mind in favor of Wellesley, where Doris did not wish to go. “She is bitterly disappointed, and I shall be glad if you can think best to adhere to your first plan,” Mr. Wilmot wrote, but did not move Keziah a whit. It was either Wellesley or some out-of-the-way place in Maine, which I do not recall. Doris has chosen Wellesley, of course, while Dizzy and I have put our wits to work to find the cause of the change, and I think we have found it. Dorothea has suddenly made up her mind to go to Madame De Moisiere.

“I don’t care for books, any way,” she wrote. “I am a dunce, and everybody knows it and seems to like me just as well. But old Gardy thinks I ought to go somewhere to be finished, and so I have chosen De Moisiere, where I expect to have no end of fun provided I can hoodwink the teachers, and I think I can. Besides, as you may suspect, the fact that Grant has finished Andover and is now in Harvard has a good deal to do with my choice, for he will call upon me, of course. I shall be so proud of him, as I hear he is very popular, and all the girls will be green with envy!”

“The dear rattle-brained child,” Keziah said, chuckling over the letter, as she would not have chuckled if it had been from Doris,—“the dear rattle-brained child! Of course Grant must call, and I shall write to the professors, giving my permission, and to Madame asking her to allow him to see her.”

Poor, innocent Kizzy! It is so many years since she was at boarding-school, where she was kept behind bars and bolts, and she knows so little how fast the world has moved since then, that she really believes young people are kept as closely now as they were forty years ago. What would she say if she knew how many times Grant was at Madame’s while he was at Andover and during his first year at Harvard, and how many flirtations he has had with the girls, whom he calls a jolly lot. All this he confided to Dizzy and myself, when at the vacation he came home, fresh and breezy and full of fun and frolic and noise, making our quiet house resound with his college songs and Harvard yells, which I think are hideous, and rather fast, if not low. But Kizzy never utters a word of protest, and pays without questioning the enormous bills sent to her, and seems gratified to know that his rooms are as handsome and his turnout as fine as any in Cambridge.

Grant has the first place in Kizzy’s heart, and Dorothea the next, and because she is going to Madame De Moisiere, Doris must not go, for naturally she would fall in with Dorothea, and through her with Grant, who would not be insensible to his pretty cousin’s charms, and who would resent his having been kept from her so long. Mr. Wilmot has written that she is exceedingly beautiful, with a manner which attracts every one, while some of her teachers have written the same. Dorothea, on the contrary, is rather plain. “Ugly as a hedge fence,” Grant once said of her in a fit of pique, declaring that if he ever married, it would be to a pretty face. And so he must not see Doris until he is engaged to Dorothea, as it seems likely he soon will be, and Doris is going to Wellesley, where Kizzy thinks Grant has never been and never can go without her permission! Deluded Kizzy! Grant knows at least a dozen Wellesley girls, each one of whom he designates a brick. Will he find Doris, I wonder? I cannot help hoping so. Ah, well, the world is a queer mixture, and nous verrons.