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A short story by Agnes Blake Poor |
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A Little Fool |
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Title: A Little Fool Author: Agnes Blake Poor [More Titles by Poor] "What, my dear Marian! And do you really and truly mean to say you thought of taking the girl without going to ask her character!" "There are so many difficulties about it. You see, she lived last with Mrs. Donald Craighead for two years, and that would be quite enough for a character. They all went abroad in a great hurry on account of Mr. Craighead's health, and Mrs. Craighead promised to give her one, but forgot it, and she couldn't bear to bother them when they were all in such trouble. I know myself that all that about them is true." "So do I; but that does not prove that she ever lived with them. Cannot she refer to any of the family?" "No; she did nothing but laundry work there, and never saw any of their friends, I fancy; but she does have a written character from the family she lived with before them, very nice people in South Boston." "What's their name?" "I don't remember," said Miss Marian Carter, blushing, "but I have it written down at home." "I should certainly go there, if I were you." "It is so far off, and I never went there in my life." "Well, you ought. It sounds very suspicious. Of course there are a few nice people in South Boston; they have to live there because they own factories and things, and have to be near them; but then, again, there are such dreadful neighbourhoods there. Most likely she depends on your not taking the trouble, and you will find the number she gave you over some low grog-shop." "Oh, I should be so frightened! I really do not think I can go!" "You surely ought not to risk taking her without, and very likely have her turn out an accomplice of burglars, like that Norah of mine, through whom I lost so much silver." "I thought you had a character with her." "So I did, or I should not have taken her. I make it a principle not to. It only shows how great the danger is with a character; without one it amounts to a certainty." "She was such a nice-looking girl!" "That makes no difference. I always mistrust maids who look too nice. They are sure to have some story, or scrape, or something, like that Florence of mine, who looked so much of a lady, and turned out to be a clergyman's daughter, and had run away from her husband--a most respectable man. He came to the house after her, and gave no end of trouble." "But this girl did not look at all like that; not a bit above her place, but so neatly dressed, and with a plain, sensible way about her; and her name is Drusilla Elms--such a quaint, old-fashioned, American-sounding name, quite refreshing to hear." "It sounds very like an assumed name. The very worst woman I ever had was named Bathsheba Fogg; she turned out to have been a chorus girl at some low theatre, and must have picked it up from some farce or other." "Then you really think I ought to go to South Boston?" "I should do so in your place," replied Mrs. William Treadwell. This gave but scant encouragement, for Marian could not but feel that the result of her friend's going and that of her own, might be very different; and Mrs. Treadwell, as she watched her visitor off, smiled good-humouredly, but pityingly. "Poor dear Marian! What a little fool she is to swallow everything that she is told in that way! It is a wonder that the Carters ever have a decent servant in their house." However much of a wonder it might be, it was still a fact; but it did not occur to Marian, as she bent her way homeward, to revive her feeble self-confidence, crushed flat by her friend's scorn, with any recollection that such fearful tales as she had just heard were without a parallel in her own experience. It is to be feared that she was a little fool, though she kept her mother's house very well and carefully, if, indeed, it were her mother's house. Nobody but the tax-gatherer knew to whom it really belonged, and he forgot between each assessment. It stood on Burroughs street, Jamaica Plain, a neighbourhood that still boasts an air of dignified repose. It was without the charm of a really old-fashioned house, or even such as may be possessed by a modern imitation of one; indeed it bore the stamp of that unfortunate period which may be called the middle age of American architecture, extending, at a rough estimate, from 1820 to 1865; but it was a well-built house, and looked, as at present inhabited, a pleasant abode enough, of sufficient size to accommodate a numerous female flock--Marian's grandmother and her great-aunt, her mother and her aunt, her widowed sister and two children, a trained nurse who was treated as one of the family, three servants, and Marian herself to make up the round dozen. The grandmother had lost the use of her limbs, and the great-aunt that of her mind; the mother and the trained nurse were devoted to them, and the aunt to philanthropic objects, and the sister to her children; so the housekeeper's duties devolved on Marian, though she was still but a child in her elders' eyes, and were well discharged, as they all allowed, though qualifying their praise with the remark that it was "easy enough to keep a house without a man in it." As Marian Carter passed along bustling, suburban Centre Street, she looked a very flower of the Western world of feminine liberty; fine and fair, free and fearless, coming and going at her own pleasure, on foot or by the horse-cars, those levellers of privilege; no duenna to track her steps, no yashmak or veil to hide her charms. Yet the fact was that she knew less of men than if she had lived in a harem or a convent. She had no sultan, no father confessor. She could not, like Miss Pole of Cranford memory, claim to know the other sex by virtue of her father having been a man, for Marian's father had died before she was born. Her sister Isabel and she had had friends, and had gone into society in a mild way, and being pretty girls, had met with a little general attention, but nothing ever came of it. The family never entertained, except now and then an old friend to tea, their means and opportunity being small; nor could young men venture to call. The grandmother had been a great invalid before she lost the use of her limbs, and the great-aunt a formidable person before she lost that of her mind, while Aunt Caroline from her youth upward had developed a great distaste for the society of men, even when viewed as objects of philanthropy. When Isabel was four and twenty she went to New York to visit some cousins, and though they lived very quietly, she made the acquaintance of a young civil engineer, at home on a vacation from his work in the United States of Colombia, who had married and borne her off after the briefest possible courtship, never to see her old home again till she came back, ten years after, a widow with two children, to eke out her small means by the shelter of the family abode. I cannot delay the humiliating confession, postponed as long as may be for the sake of the artistic unity of my picture, that the youngest of these children was a boy, if, as his mother was wont to plead, "a very little one." He was dressed in as unboyish a fashion as possible, and being christened Winthrop, was always called Winnie. He was a quiet, gentle child, kept down by his position; but though thus made the best of, he was felt to be an inconvenience and an encumbrance, if not now, certainly in the future. There was no end to the trouble it would make when Winnie grew older, and required a room to himself, and would be obliged to go to a boys' school, which might even lead up to the direful contingency of his "bringing home other boys." After Isabel's departure, Marian, though the prettier of the two, found it dull to go about alone. No one asked her to New York; the cousin had died, and the cousin's husband had married again; and when she grew past the dancing age, perhaps earlier than she need, she went nowhere where she had any chance of meeting any men but the husbands of one or two married friends, and she was such a little fool that she fancied they despised her for being an old maid. She knew she was five-and-thirty on her last birthday, and was foolish enough to be afraid and ashamed of owning to it. She need not have done so, for she did not look a day older than twenty-five; but the memories of her contemporaries were pitiless. She enjoyed her housekeeping, which gave her life some object, and her intercourse with her butcher, a fine young fellow who admired her hugely, was the nearest approach to a love-affair in which she had ever indulged, so much sentiment did he contrive to throw about the legs of mutton and the Sunday roast. Though honestly thinking herself happy, and her position a fortunate one, she relished a change, which seldom came, and was glad of the prospect of a visit to South Boston, now that she could conscientiously say she ought to go since Emma Treadwell had ordered it. The excitement of going off the beaten track was heightened by the mystery which invested the affair. Marian had not dared to confess to her managing friend that the "written character" to which she referred had struck her rather oddly when the neat, civil, young, but not too young woman whose appearance had so favourably impressed her had handed it to her with an air which seemed to indicate that nothing more need be said on the subject, although it only said, "Drusilla Elms refers by permission to ---- Hayward, City Point, South Boston," in a great, scrawling, masculine-looking hand. The name was easy enough to read, a painful effort having evidently been made to write thus much legibly; but the title, be it Mr., Mrs., or Miss, was so utterly unreadable that Marian, who dreaded, like most timid people, to put a direct question, ventured upon an indirect one: "Is--Mr. Hayward a widower?" "Oh, dear, no, ma'am!" replied Drusilla, emphatically. "And--they--still live there?" "Oh, dear, yes, ma'am!" Marian was very glad that the Saturday she chose for her expedition was Aunt Caroline's day for the Women's and Children's Hospital, and that Isabel had taken Minna and Winnie for a holiday trip into town to see the Art Museum, which left fewer people at home to whom to explain her errand, and to whose comments to reply. Mrs. Carter said it was silly to go so far, and if she couldn't be satisfied to take the girl without, she had better find some one near by. The trained nurse, who was slowly but surely getting the whole household under her control, said that Miss Carter's beautiful new spring suit would be ruined going all the way to South Boston in the horse-cars; and Mrs. Carter, who would never have thought of this herself, seconded her. Marian did not argue the point, but she wore the dress nevertheless. She never felt that anything she wore made any impression on any one she knew, but she could not help fancying that if she had the chance she might impress strangers. No one she knew ever called her pretty, and perhaps five-and-thirty was too old to be thought so; and yet, if there was any meaning in the word, it might surely be applied to the soft, shady darkness of her hair and eyes, and the delicate bloom of her cheeks and lips, set off by that silver-grey costume, with its own skilfully blended lights and shades of silk and cashmere, and the purple and white lilacs that were wreathed together on her small bonnet. She made a bad beginning, for while still enjoying the effect of her graceful draperies as she entered the horse-car for Boston, she carelessly caught the handle of her nice grey silk sunshade in the door, and snapped it short in the middle. She could have cried, though the man who always mended their umbrellas assured her, with a bow and smile, that it should be mended, when she called for it on her way back, "so that she would never know it;" but it deprived her costume of the finishing touch, and she really needed it on this warm sunny day; then, it was a bad omen, and she was foolish enough to believe in omens. Her disturbance prevented her from observing much of the route after she had drifted into a car for South Boston, and had assured herself that it was the right one. Perhaps this was as well, as the first part of the way was sufficiently uninviting to have frightened her out of her intention had she looked about her. When at last she did, they were passing along a wide street lined with sufficiently substantial brick buildings, chiefly devoted to business, crossed by narrower ones of small wooden houses more or less respectable in appearance; but surely no housemaid who would suit them could ever have served in one of these. Great rattling drays squeezed past the car, and Chinese laundrymen noiselessly got in and out. The one landmark she had heard of in South Boston, and for aught she knew the reason of its existence, was the Perkins Institution for the Blind, which her Aunt Caroline sometimes visited. But she passed the Institution, and still went on and on. That the world extended so far in that direction was an amazement in itself; she knew that there must be something there to fill up, but she had had a vague idea that it might be water, which is so accommodating in filling up the waste spaces of the terrestrial globe. Finally the now nearly empty car came to a full stop at the foot of a hill, the track winding off around it, and the conductor, of whom she had asked her way, approached her with the patronising deference which men in his position were very apt to assume to her: "Lady, you'll have to get out here, and walk up the hill. Keep straight ahead, and you can't miss it." "And can I take the car here when I come back?" asked Marian, clinging as if to an ark of refuge. "Oh, yes," said the man, encouragingly; "we're along every ten minutes. It ain't far off." Marian slowly touched one little foot, and then another, to the unknown and almost foreign soil of South Boston. She looked wistfully after the car till it turned a corner, and left her stranded, before she began slowly to climb the hill. It was warm, and she missed her sunshade. "I shall be shockingly burned!" she thought. She looked about her, and acknowledged that the street was a pleasant, sunny one, and that its commonplace architecture gained in picturesqueness by its steep ascent. As she neared the top the houses grew larger, scattered among garden grounds, and she at last found the number she looked for on the gate-post of one of the largest. She walked up a brick-paved path to the front door between thick box borders, inclosing beds none too well weeded, but whose bowery shrubs and great clumps of old-fashioned bulbs and perennials had acquired the secure possession of the soil that comes with age. Behind them were grape-vines trained on trellises, over which rose the blossoming heads of tall old cherry-trees, and through the interstices in the flowery wall might be caught glimpses of an old garden where grass and flowers and vegetables mingled at haphazard. It dated from the days when people planted gardens with a view to what they could get out of them, regardless of effect; and the house, in like manner, had been built to live in rather than to look at. No one could say how it had looked before trees had shaded it and creepers enveloped it so completely. The veranda which ran around it was well sheltered from the street, fortunately, thought Marian, for the bamboo chairs and sofas, piled up with rugs and cushions, with which it was crowded, were heaped with newspapers, and hats, and tennis-rackets, and riding-whips, and garden-tools, and baskets, tossed carelessly about. On the door-mat lay a large dog, who flopped his tail up and down with languid courtesy as she approached. She was terribly afraid of him, but thought it safer to face him than to turn her back upon him, and edging by him, gave a feeble ring at the door-bell. No one came. She rang again with more energy, and then, after a brief pause, the door was opened by a half-grown boy. Marian only knew a very few families who aspired to have their doors opened by anything more than a parlour-maid, and these had butlers of unimpeachable respectability. But this young person had a bright, but roguish look, which accorded better with the page of farce than with one of real life. He seemed surprised to see her, though he bowed civilly. "Is Mrs. Hayward at home?" asked Marian, in the most dulcet of small voices; and as he looked at her with a stare that seemed as if it might develop into a grin, she added, "or any of the ladies of the family? I only wish to see one of them on business." "Walk in, please, ma'am, and I'll see," faltered the porter, appearing perplexed; and he opened the door, and ushered Marian across a wide hall with a great, old-fashioned staircase at the further end--a place that would have had no end of capabilities about it in a modern decorator's eyes, but which looked now rather bare and unfurnished, save for pegs loaded with hats and coats, and stands of umbrellas--into a long, low room that looked crowded enough. Low bookcases ran around the walls, and there were a great many tables heaped with books and magazines, and a piano littered with music in a most slovenly condition; a music-stand or two, and a violin and violoncello in their cases clustered about it. The walls over the books were hung with old portraits, which looked as if they might be valuable; among them were squeezed in whips, and long pipes on racks, and calendars, and over them were hung horns and heads of unknown beasts, whose skins lay on the floor. Over the fireplace hung a sword and a pair of pistols in well-worn cases, but they were free from dust, which many of the furnishings were not. The long windows at the side opened on to the veranda, which was even more carelessly strewed with the family possessions than at the front door, and from which steps led down to a tennis-court in faultless trim, the only orderly spot on the premises. What a poor housekeeper Mrs. Hayward must be! She must let the men of the family do exactly as they pleased, and there must be at least half a dozen of them, while not a trace of feminine occupation was to be seen. No servant from here could hope to suit the Carter household, no matter how good a character she brought. But somehow the intensely masculine air of the place had a wild fascination for Marian herself, in spite of warning remembrances of how much her family would be shocked. There was something delicious in the freedom with which letters and papers were tossed about, and books piled up anywhere, while their proper homes stood vacant, and in the soothing, easy tolerance with which persecuted dust was allowed to find a quiet resting-place. A pungent and pleasing perfume pervaded the premises, which seemed appropriate and agreeable to her delicate senses, even though she supposed it must be tobacco-smoke. She had smelled tobacco only as it exhaled from passers in the street, and surely this fine, ineffable aroma came from a different source than theirs! While she daintily inhaled it as she looked curiously about, her ears became aware of singular sounds--a subdued scuffling and scraping at the door at the further end of the room, and a breathing at its keyhole, which gave her an unpleasant sensation of being watched; and she instantly sat stiffly upright and looked straight before her, her heart beating with wonder and affright lest the situation might prove actually dangerous. The sounds suddenly ceased, and in a moment more a halting step was heard outside, and a gentleman came in at the other door--a tall man, whose hair was thick, but well sprinkled with grey; whose figure, lean and lank, had a certain easy swing about its motions, in spite of a very perceptible limp; and whose face, brown and thin, and marred by a long scar right across the left cheek, had something attractive in its expression as he came forward with a courteous, expectant look. Marian could only bow. "I beg your pardon; did you wish to see me?" inquired the stranger, in a deep, low voice that sounded as if it might be powerful on occasion. "Oh, I am very sorry to trouble you! I only wanted to see the mistress of the house, if she is able----" "I am afraid I am the only person who answers to that description." There was a good-natured twinkle in his eye, and he had a pleasant smile, but his evident amusement abashed her. "I keep my own house," he went on. "Oh, I beg your pardon! I thought there was a Mrs. Hayward!" "I am sorry to say that there is none. But I am Mr. Hayward, and shall be very glad if I can be of any service to you." "I don't want to disturb you," said Marian, blushing deeply, while Mr. Hayward, with, "Will you allow me?" drew up a chair and sat down, as if to put her more at her ease. "It is only--only--" here she came to a dead stop. "I do not want to take up so much of your time," she confusedly stammered. "Not at all; I shall be very happy--" he paused too, not knowing how to fill up the blank, and waited quietly, while Marian sought frantically in her little bag for a paper which was, of course, at the very bottom. "It is only," she began again--"only to ask you about the character of a chambermaid named Drusilla--yes, Drusilla Elms. I think it must be you she refers to; at least I copied the address from the reference she showed me; here it is," handing him the slip of paper; and as he took out his eyeglass to study it, "only I couldn't tell--I didn't know--whether it was Mr., or Mrs., or what it was before the name, I am very sorry." "So am I. It has been the great misfortune of my life, I assure you, that I write such a confounded--such an execrable hand. Pray accept my apologies for it." "Oh, it was not a bad hand!--not at all! It was my own stupidity! I suppose you really did give her the character, then?" "In spite of your politeness, I am afraid I too plainly recognise the bewildering effect of my own scrawl. I think I must have given her the reference, though I don't remember doing so." "The name is so peculiar----" "Yes; but the fact is that our old Catherine, who has been cook here for a longer time than I can reckon, generally engages our other maid for us, and she dislikes to change the name, and calls them all Margaret. I think we had a very nice Margaret two years ago, but I will go and ask Catherine; she may recollect." "Oh, don't trouble yourself! I have no doubt that you are quite right--none at all!" "But I have so many doubts, I should like to be a little surer; and if you will excuse me for a moment--well! What, in the devil's name, are you up to now?" It must be explained that by this time he had reached the further door, and that the sudden close of his speech was addressed, not to Marian, but to some invisible person, or rather persons; for the subdued laughter which responded, the very equivalent to a girlish giggle, surely came from more than one pair of boyish lungs. Some stifled speech, too, was heard, to which the master of the house replied, "Go to ----, then, and be quick about it!" as he closed the door behind him, leaving Marian trembling with apprehension lest he might be mad or drunk. And yet if this were swearing, and she feared it was, there was something gratifying in the sound of a good, round, mouth-filling oath, especially when contrasted with the extreme and punctilious deference of his speech to her. He came back in a moment, and, standing before her with head inclined, said, as if apologising for some misdeed of his own: "I am very sorry, but Catherine is out, doing her marketing. She will probably return soon, if you do not mind waiting." "Oh, no!" said Marian, shocked with the idea that her presence might be inconvenient; "I could not possibly wait! I am in a very great hurry." "Then, if you will allow me to write what she says? I promise," he added, with another humorous twinkle in his eye, "to try and write my very best." "Thank you, if it is not too much trouble," said Marian, rising, and edging toward the door as if she had some hopes of getting off unnoticed. It was confusing to have him follow her with an air of expectation, she could not imagine of what, though she had a consciousness, too, of having forgotten something, which made her linger, trying to recollect it. He slowly turned the handle of the outer door, and, opening it for her exit, seemed waiting for her to say something--what, she racked her brains in vain to discover. He looked amused again, and as if he would have spoken himself; but Marian, with a sudden start, exclaimed, "Oh, dear, it rains!" She had not noticed how dark the sky was growing, but to judge by the looks of the pavement, it had been quietly showering for some time. "So it does!" said he. "That is a pity. I fear you are not very well protected against it." "Oh, it doesn't matter!" cried Marian, recklessly; "it is only a step to the horse-cars." "Enough for you to get very wet, I am afraid." "It isn't of the least consequence. I have nothing on that will hurt--nothing at all!" Mr. Hayward looked admiringly and incredulously at the lilacs on her bonnet. "I can hardly suppose your flowers are real ones, though certainly they look very much like them; if they are not, I fear a shower will scarcely prove of advantage to them. You must do me the honour of letting me see you to the car." As he spoke he extracted from the stand an enormous silk umbrella with a big handle, nearly as large as Marian herself. "I could not think of it!" she cried, and hurried down the wet steps, sweeping them with the dainty plaiting round the edge of her silvery skirt. "Oh, but you must!" he went on in a tone of lazy good humour, yet as one not accustomed to be refused. There was something paternal in his manner gratifying to her, for as he could not be much over fifty, he must think her much younger than she really was. "Don't hurry; there is a car every ten minutes, and a very good place to wait in; there--take care of the wet box, please, with your dress, and take my arm, if you don't mind." "Oh, no, thank you! Really, I am very well covered!" protested Marian, squeezing herself and her gown into the smallest possible space. The big umbrella was up before she knew it, and he was hobbling along the brick path by her side, in an old pair of yellow leather slippers as ill fitted to keep out the wet as her own shining little shoes. "I am very sorry you should have been caught in this way," he said apologetically. "Don't mention it." "I hope you have not far to go." "Oh, no, indeed! That is--yes, rather far; but when I get into the car, I am all right, because it meets--I mean, I can take a cab. It is very easy to get about in town, you know." She turned while he opened the gate, and caught sight of the front windows, thronged, like the gates of Paradise Lost, with faces which might indeed have served as models for a very realistic study, in modern style, of cherubim, being those of healthy boys of all ages from twelve to twenty, each wearing a broad grin of delight. "Confound 'em!" muttered her conductor in a low tone, but Marian caught the words, and the accompanying grimace which he flung back over his shoulder. Could his remarkable house be a boys' school? If so, he was the very oddest teacher, and his discipline the most extraordinary, she had ever heard of; it was too easy of egress, surely, to be a private lunatic asylum, a thought which had already excited her fears. "Please lower your head a little, Miss--" he paused for the name, but she did not fill up the gap; "the creepers hang so low here," and he carefully held the umbrella so as best to protect her from the dripping sprays. "How very pretty your garden is!" she said as he closed the gate. "It is a sad straggling place; we all run pretty wild here, I am afraid." "But it is so picturesque!" "Picturesque it may be, and we get a good deal of fruit and vegetables out of it; it isn't a show garden, but it is a comfort to have any breathing-place in a city." "This seems a very pleasant neighbourhood." "Hum! well, yes; I think it pleasant enough. It is my old home; near the water, too, and the boys like the boating. It's out of the way of society, but then, we have no ladies to look after. It is easy enough, you know, for men to come and go anyhow." "Coming and going anyhow" rang with a delicious thrill of freedom in Marian's ears, and in the midst of her alarm at possible consequences she revelled in her adventure, such a one as she had never had before, and probably never should again; and there was the car tinkling on its early way. Mr. Hayward signed to it to stop, and waded in his slippers through the wet dust, for it could not be called mud yet, to hand her deferentially in. "You are sure you can get along now?" he asked, as the car came to a stop. "Oh, yes, indeed! Thank you so much; I am very sorry----" "No need of it, I assure you. I am sorry I cannot do more." He looked at the big umbrella doubtfully, and so did she; but the idea of offering it to her was too absurd, and they both laughed, which Marian feared was improperly free and easy for her. Then, as she turned on the step to bow her farewell, he added, "I beg your pardon; but you have forgotten to leave me your address. I should be very glad to write in case Catherine----" "Mrs. W. Cracker, 40 Washington Street," stammered Marian, frightened out of her little sense, and rattling off the first words that came into her head, suggested in part by a baker's cart which passed at the moment. She should never dare to give her real address! Anything better than to have those dreadful boys know who she was! He looked puzzled, then laughed; but it was of no use for him to say anything, for the car had started, and swept her safely beyond his reach at once. She could see him looking after it till it turned out of sight, and was thankful he had not followed her, as he might perhaps have done if he had not had on those old slippers. Marian did not go directly home, but stopped at Mrs. William Treadwell's till the spring shower was over, that she might be able to tell her family that she had been there, and thus avoid over-curious questioning as to where she had been caught in it. She briefly informed them that she could obtain no satisfactory account of Drusilla Elms--the people to whom she referred seemed to have forgotten her--and wrote to the girl that she had made other arrangements. She waited in fear for a few days, lest something might happen to bring her little adventure to light; but nothing did, and her fears subsided, with a few faint wishes as well. What a pleasant world, she wistfully thought, was the world of men--a world where conventionalities and duty calls gave way to a delicious, free, Bohemian existence of boating and running about; where even housekeeping was a thing lightly considered, and where dogs jumped on sofas, and people threw their things around at pleasure--nay, even smoked and swore, regardless of consequences temporal or eternal! About a fortnight after her wild escapade, the household of Freeman-Robbins-Carter-Dale, to use the collective patronymic of the female dynasty which reigned there, was agitated by the unusual phenomenon of an evening visitor who called himself a man, though but in his freshman year at Harvard University. It was the son of their deceased cousin in New York, whose husband, though married again, retained sufficient sense of kinship to insist that the boy should call on his mother's relatives, which duty the unhappy youth had postponed from week to week, and from month to month, until the awkwardness of introducing himself was doubled. He had struggled through this ordeal, and now sat, the centre of an admiring female circle who were trying to hang upon his words. Winnie, whose presence might have given him some support, had been sent to bed; but his sister was privileged to remain up longer, and being a serious child, and wise beyond her years, she fixed him with her solemn gaze, while one great-aunt remarked over and over again on his resemblance to his grandfather, and the other as often inquired who he was, though his name and pedigree were carefully explained each time by the nurse. Mrs. Carter addressed him as "Freddy, dear!" and Miss Caroline asked what he was studying at college, and his cousin Isabel pressed sweet cake upon him. Only his cousin Marian sat silent in the background. He thought her very pretty, and not at all formidable, though so old--not that he had the least idea how old she really was. "Did you bolt the front door, Marian, when you let Trippet out?" asked her mother. Trippet was the family cat, who had shown symptoms of alarm at the aspect of the unwonted guest. "I--I think so." "You had better go and look," said her sister. "It would be no joke if Freddy's nice overcoat and hat were to be taken by a sneak-thief. They are very troublesome just now in the suburbs," she continued; "but we never leave anything of value in our front hall, and we always make it a rule to bolt as well as lock the door as soon as it grows dusk. There is no harm in taking every precaution." "Sneak-thieves and second-floor thieves have quite replaced the old-fashioned midnight burglar," said Miss Caroline. "They are just as bad," said Mrs. Dale. "Women--ladies--are taking to it now," said Master Frederick. "I heard the funniest story about one the other day." He paused, and grew red at the drawing upon himself the fire of eight pairs of eyes, but plucked up his courage and resumed the theme, not insensible to the possible delight of terrifying those before whom he had quailed. "It was in Ned Hayward's family, my classmate; he and his brother Bob--he's a junior--live in South Boston with their uncle, Colonel Hayward--the celebrated Colonel Hayward, you know, who was so distinguished in the war, and--and everything; perhaps you know him?" "We have heard of him," said Mrs. Carter, graciously. "Well, I've been out there sometimes with him, and it's no end of jolly--I mean, it is a pleasant place to visit in. The Colonel's an old bachelor, and brings his nephews up, because, you know, their father's dead." He stopped short again, overwhelmed with the sound of so long a speech from himself. "But about the thief? Oh, do tell us," murmured the circle, encouragingly. "Well," began Fred, seeing his retreat cut off, and gathering courage as the idea struck him that the topic, if skilfully dwelt on, might last out the call, "it happened this way. Bob was at home a few weeks ago to spend Sunday, and took a lot of fellows--I mean a large party of his classmates; and there were some boys there playing tennis with his brothers--it was on a Saturday morning--and a woman came and asked for the lady of the house; that's a common dodge of theirs, you know. Well, of course, the Colonel went in to see her. The boys wanted to see the fun, so they all took turns in looking through the keyhole; and Bob says she was stunning--I mean very pretty--and looked like a lady, and dressed up no end; but she seemed very confused and queer, and as if she hardly knew what to say, and she pretended to have come to ask for the character of a servant with the oddest name, I forget what; but most likely she made it up, for none of them could remember it. Well, she hung on ever so long, looking for a chance to hook something, I suppose, and at last, just as she was going, it began to rain, and she seemed to expect him to lend her an umbrella. But he wasn't as green as all that comes to; he said he would see her to the car himself; so off he walked with her as polite as you please. Bob says it's no end of fun to see his uncle with a lady; he doesn't see much of them, and when he does he treats 'em like princesses. He took her to the car, and put her in, and just as it started he asked her address, and she told him--" here an irrepressible fit of laughter interrupted his tale--"she told him that it was Mrs. W. Cracker, 40 Washington Street. Did you ever hear such stuff? Of course there's no such person, for the Colonel wasted lots of time taking particular pains to find out. Bob says they're all sure she was a thief, except his uncle, who was awfully smashed on her pretty face, and he sticks to it she was only a little out of her head. They poke no end of fun at him about it, but it really was no joke for him, for he walked with her down to the car in his old slippers in the wet, and caught cold in the leg where he was wounded; he's always lame in it, and when he takes cold it brings on his rheumatic gout. He was laid up a fortnight; he's always so funny when he's got the gout; he can't bear to have any of the boys come near him, and flings boots at their heads when they do, for of course they have to wait on him some, and he swears so. Bob says he's sorry for him, for of course it hurts, but he can't help laughing at the queer things he says. He always swears some when he's well, but when he's sick it fairly takes your head off." "Dear me! dear me!" said Mrs. Carter; "swearing is a sad habit. I hope, Freddy, dear, that you will not catch it. Colonel Hayward is a very distinguished officer, and they have to, I suppose, on the battle-field; but there is no war now, and it is not at all necessary." "Oh, he won't let the boys do it! He swears at them like thunder if they do, but they don't mind it. He's awfully good-natured, and lets them rough him as much as they please, and they've done it no end about the pretty little housebreaker. Bob has made a song about her to the tune of Little Annie Rooney--that's the one his uncle most particularly hates. Phil had a shy at her with his kodak, but what with the rain and the leaves, you can't see much of her." "It is a pity," said Miss Caroline; "it might be shown to the police, who could very likely identify her. I dare say she has been at Sherborne Prison, and there we photograph them all. If it were not that Mary Murray is in for a two years' sentence, I should say it answered very well to her description." Some more desultory conversation went on, while the hands of the clock ran rapidly on toward eleven. The youthful Minna silently stole away at a sign from her mother, without drawing attention upon herself. Ten o'clock was the latest hour at which these ladies were in the habit of being up; but how hint to a guest that he was staying too long? They guessed that it might not seem late to him, and feared that he was acquiring bad habits in college. The poor fellow knew perfectly well that he was making an unconscionably long call; but how break through the circle? And then he was remembering with affright into how much slang he had lapsed in the course of his tale, and was racking his brains for some particularly proper farewell speech which should efface the recollection of it. Suddenly his eyes were caught by Marian's face. Her look of abject misery he could attribute only to her extreme fatigue, and he made a desperate rally: "I'm afraid, Miss Dale, I mean Mrs. Robbins, that I'm making a terribly long call. I am very sorry." "Oh, not at all! Not at all! Pray do not hurry! You must come often; we shall be delighted to see you." "It seems a very long way," murmured Freddy, conscious that he was saying something rude, but unable to help himself; and he finally succeeded in escaping, under a fire of the most pressing invitations to "call again," for, as Mrs. Carter said, "we must show some hospitality to poor Ellen's boy. Marian, you look tired. I hope you did not let him see it. Do go to bed directly. I must confess I feel a little sleepy myself." But the troubles which Marian bore with her to the small room which she shared with her little niece were of a kind for which bed brought no solace, and she lay awake till almost dawn, only thankful that Minna slumbered undisturbed by her side. To Marian every private who had fought in the war was an angel, and every officer an archangel ex officio. That she should have been the cause of an attack of rheumatic gout to a wounded hero filled her with remorse, especially as this particular hero was the most delightful man she had ever met. She wept bitterly from a variety of emotions--pity, and shame, too--for what must he think of her? That last misery, at any rate, she could not and would not endure, and before breakfast she had written the following letter:
Marian found no time to copy this letter over again before she took it with her on her morning round of errands, to slip into the first post-box, and she would not keep it back for another mail, although she feared by turns that it was improperly forward, and chillingly distant. Posted it was, and she could not get it back. She did not know whether she wanted him to answer it or not. It would be kind and civil in him to do so, but she felt that she could hardly bear the curiosity of the family, as his letter was passed from hand to hand before it was opened to guess whom it could be from, or handed round again to be read. There was no more privacy in the house than there was in an ant-hill. She had not long to speculate, for the very next afternoon, as the family were all sitting in grandmamma's room downstairs, their common rallying-ground, as it was the pleasantest one in the house, and the old lady, who disliked being left alone, rarely went into the drawing-room till evening, the parlour-maid brought in a card, which went the rounds immediately:
"Very likely to see me on business," said Aunt Caroline. "It must be Colonel Hayward," said Isabel, remembering Frederick's tale. "It was Miss Marian he wanted to see," said Katy. "How very strange!" said Miss Caroline. But Mrs. Carter, dimly remembering Marian's South Boston errand, till now forgotten, and bewildered with the endeavour to weave any coherent theory out of her scattered recollections, was silent; and Marian glided speechless out of the room, and up the back stairs to her own for one hasty peep at her looking-glass, and then down the front stairs again. "Aunt Marian!" shouted Winnie from a front upper window, and she started at his tone, grown loud and boyish in a moment; "the gentleman came on a horse, and tied it to a post, and it is black, and it is stamping on the sidewalk; just hear it!" But Marian, whose pet he was, passed him without a word. She lingered so little that the Colonel had no more time to examine her abode than she had had his, and here the subject was more complex. The room was not very small, but it was very full, and everything in it, so to speak, was smothered. The carpet was covered with large rugs, and those again with small ones, and all the tables with covers, and those with mats. Each window had four different sets of curtains, and every sofa and chair was carefully dressed and draped. The very fireplace was arrayed in brocaded skirts like a lady, precluding all possibility of lighting a fire therein without causing a conflagration, and, indeed, those carefully placed logs were daily dusted by the parlour-maid. Every available inch of horizontal space was crowded with small objects, and what could not be squeezed on that was hung on the walls. The use of most of these was an enigma to the Colonel; he had an idea that they might be designed for ornament, and some, as gift books and booklets and Christmas cards, appealed to a literary taste; but he was a little overwhelmed by them, especially as there were a number of little boxes and bags and baskets about, trimmed and adorned in various fashions, which might contain as many more. There were a great many really pretty things there, if one could have taken them in; but they were utterly swamped, owing to the fatal habit which prevailed in the family of all giving each other presents on every Christmas and birthday. The Colonel felt terribly big and awkward among them. He sat down on a little chair with gilded frame and embroidered back and seat. It cracked beneath him, and he sprang hastily up and took another, from which he could see out of a window, and into a trim little garden where plants were bedded out in small beds neatly cut in shaved green turf. A few flowers were allowed in the drawing-room, discreetly quarantined on a china tray, though there were any number of empty vases, and from above he could hear the cheerful warble of a distant canary-bird, which woke no answering life in the stuffed corpses of his predecessors standing about under glass shades. The room looked stuffy, but it was not; the air was very sweet and clean and clear, and the Colonel felt uncomfortably that he was scenting it with tobacco. There could be no dust beneath those rugs, no spot on the glass behind those curtains. There was a feminine air of neatness, and even of fussiness, that pleased him; everything was so carefully preserved, so exquisitely cared for. It would be nice to have some one to look after one's things like that; he knew that the rubbish at home was always getting beyond him somehow. And now came blushing in his late visitor, even more daintily pretty than he had thought her before. The Colonel made a long call, as all the family, anxious to see the great man, dropped in one after the other; but the situation was not unpleasing to him, and he even exerted himself to win their liking, which was the easiest thing in the world. He told Mrs. Carter that he had come on behalf of his quondam servant, Drusilla Elms, whose name, he was sorry to say, his cook had forgotten; but now she remembered it, and could give her the very highest character, and he should be sorry if their carelessness had lost the poor girl so excellent a place. He listened to the tale of the grandmother's rheumatism, and even made some confidences in return about his own. He talked about the soldiers' lending libraries with Aunt Caroline, and promised to write to a friend of his in the regulars on the subject. In his imposing presence the great-aunt sat silently attentive. He had met Isabel's late husband, and he took much notice of her children. He said Winnie was a fine little lad, but would be better for a frolic with other boys. Could he not come over and spend a Saturday afternoon with them at South Boston, and his boys would take him on the water? Oh, yes; they were very careful, and quite at home in a boat. Yes, he would go with them himself, if Mrs. Dale would prefer it; and then the invitation was given and accepted--no unmeaning, general one, but a positive promise for Saturday next, and the one after if it rained. Of course, he should be charmed to have some of the ladies come, too. Miss Carter would, perhaps, for she knew the way. He did not take leave till his horse, to Winnie's ecstatic delight, had pawed a large hole in the ground; and a chorus of praise arose behind him from every tongue but Marian's. Colonel Hayward said nothing about his visit at home; but as he stood after returning from his long ride, for which the boys had observed that he had equipped himself with much more than ordinary care, smoking a meditative cigar before the crackling little fire which the afternoon east wind of a Boston May rendered so comfortable, he was roused by his nephew Bob's voice: "Really, Uncle Rob, our bachelor housekeeping is getting into a hopeless muddle!" Then, as his uncle said nothing: "I am afraid--I am really afraid that one of us will have to marry." "Marry yourself, then, you young scamp, and be hanged to you; you have my full consent if you can find a girl who will be fool enough to take you." "Of course, I could not expect you to make the sacrifice; but though I am willing--entirely for your sake, I assure you--I shall not render it useless by asking some giddy and inexperienced girl. I shall seek some mature female, able and willing to cope with them----" "Them?" "The spiders. I have long known that they spun webs of immense size in and about our unfortunate dwelling; but I was not prepared to find that they attached them to our very persons." As he spoke he drew into sight a fabric hanging to the back of his uncle's coat. It was circular in shape, about the size of a dinner-plate, white in colour, and ingeniously woven out of thread in an open pattern with many interstices, by one of which it had fastened itself to the button at the back of the Colonel's coat as firmly as if it grew there. "What the ----!" I spare my readers the expletives which, with the offending waif, the Colonel hurled at his nephew as the young man and his brothers exploded in laughter. * * * * * "I never was so surprised!" cried Mrs. Treadwell. "I did not think anything in the matrimonial line could surprise you!" cried her husband. "Not often; but Colonel Hayward and Marian Carter! I could hardly believe it. Mrs. Carter herself seems perfectly amazed, though of course she's delighted. I suppose she had given up all idea of Marian's marrying." "She is a sweet little thing," said Mr. Treadwell; "I wonder she has not been married long ago." "I thought he was a confirmed old bachelor," said the lady; "I wonder where he met her! I wonder whatever made him think of her! I hope they'll be happy, but I don't know. Marian is a good girl, but she has so little sense!" "I should think any man ought to be happy with Miss Carter," said the gentleman, warmly; "I only hope he'll make her happy. Hayward's a very good fellow, but he'll frighten that little creature to death the first time he swears at her." "Colonel Hayward is a gentleman, William; he would never swear before a lady." "I wouldn't trust him--when she's his wife." * * * * * Nevertheless, Mrs. Robert Hayward has not yet been placed in danger of such a catastrophe, not even when her husband has been laid up with rheumatic gout. To be sure, her ministrations on those occasions were more soothing than those of the boys. Perhaps she was even a little disappointed in her craving for excitement, and her new household ran almost too smoothly. The boys gave no trouble, though they were aghast on first hearing that the Colonel really contemplated matrimony, and Bob reproached himself in no measured terms for having drawn attention to the "work of Arachne," and driven his uncle to rush madly upon fate. But Marian made it her particular request that things should go on as before, which pleased her bridegroom, though he had never dreamed of any change; and when they came to know her, she pleased the boys as well. "It's easy enough to get on with Aunt Marian," Bob would say; "she's such a dear little fool! She swallows everything men tell her, no matter how outrageous, and thinks if we want the moon, we must have it. If only Minna would turn out anything like her! But no; they are ruining all the girls now with their colleges. I doubt if Aunt Marian isn't the last of her day and generation." [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |