A DRIVE WITH A STRANGE GUIDE.
Two women--two of Mrs. Prymmer's chosen friends and satellites--were
calling on Derrice. Mrs. Prymmer had sent a message to her room, and
now sat smoothing her white apron, enjoyably anticipating the effect
that Derrice's red silk and cashmere gown would produce on her callers,
yet at the same time a prey to secret annoyance to think that she
herself was only of secondary importance.
To her chagrin, the girl sauntered into the room in a dull brown
walking suit, and with a single eyeglass mischievously fixed under one
light eyebrow.
Mrs. Prymmer was speechless. Such a thing had never before been heard
of in the length and breadth of Rossignol,--that one human being
should, through a solitary piece of glass, dare to stare at, examine,
and confuse another human being not blessed with a single piece of
glass. "The girl was as full of tricks as a monkey," she indignantly
reflected.
"Did you want me?" asked Derrice.
"Yes," stammered her mother-in-law, recovering her breath, and she
waved her hand toward the little dowdy widow in the black bonnet and
bead cape, and the young woman in the painful green dress, who was her
daughter, and the bride of a carpenter who lived around the corner.
"You have come to see me,--how kind in you," said Derrice, in her
infantine manner, and with so much sweetness that the two visitors,
who were not of her world and never would be, immediately fell into a
profound conviction that they were her friends for life.
The little widow, who was a kind-hearted person, but of limited ideas
and education, felt a strange flutter of interest as she regarded the
beautiful, gracious girl, and, losing her first fear of the eyeglass,
immediately expressed a hope that Derrice felt pretty smart after her
journey.
"Oh, yes, thank you, I am used to travelling."
The carpenter's wife, who had, until Derrice's entrance into the
room, been troubled with a nervous choking in her throat, now lost
all embarrassment, and interrupted a remark of her mother by an eager
inquiry as to whether Derrice would "appear out" next Sunday.
Derrice hesitated, and looked at her mother-in-law.
"She means," said Mrs. Prymmer, solemnly, "will you attend divine
service? It is the custom for brides."
"Yes," chimed in the widow, "then they stay home for three days and
receive visits. Will you do so, dear?"
"Well, I don't know," laughed Derrice. "Have you any saints' bones or
other curiosities in your church?"
"No, dear, no dead saints. We've got plenty of live ones."
"I like them better dead. I haven't gone into a church for years except
for sight-seeing."
"Why, ain't you a professor?" asked the carpenter's bride, and in her
dismay she leaned forward and laid a cotton-gloved hand on Derrice's
knee.
"No, I never taught anything. I suppose teachers do have to go to
church. Mine always did."
"She means a professor of religion," interposed Mrs. Prymmer.
"Oh, like you," said Derrice, innocently. "No, I have not that honour."
"I wish you'd join our church," said the widow and her daughter in a
breath.
"Perhaps I will some day, if I stay here long enough," said Derrice,
amiably.
"We've got such a good preacher," said the younger woman,
enthusiastically.
"Is it Mr. Huntington?" asked Derrice.
"Yes; did any one tell you about his conversion?"
"No, not yet."
"I wonder that you haven't, sister," said the widow, turning to Mrs.
Prymmer, "but I suppose you haven't had time to tell everything yet.
Oh, it was such a remarkable thing. He was a wild young fellow. He had
a friend called Denham--"
"Yes, Mr. John Denham, I have met him," said Derrice.
The little widow's eyes flashed curiously, but she would not stop to
ask questions now. She would tell her story first. "This Mr. Denham was
always with him. They were two reckless, careless, godless, swearing,
drinking young men--"
"Oh, not as bad as that," said Derrice, mildly.
"My dear, people has told us--Well, they was going on their ways of sin
when one day there come a change. They was in a railroad accident, and
poor Mr. Denham he was torn almost to pieces. He lived only a little
while, but his mother come to him, and before he died he repented
of his wild ways, he gave his heart to his Maker, and he begged Mr.
Huntington to do the same. He was shocked most to death. After he
buried his friend, he did change. He went to a theological seminary
and studied for a while; then Mr. Negus died, and he was supplying for
this church and we called him. Such sermons as he used to preach,--the
church would be crowded twice a day and wagons standing all the way
down to the stables. Now the excitement's wearing away, because he's
been with us for some time, but we had a powerful revival, didn't we,
sister?" and she appealed to Mrs. Prymmer.
"Thank the Lord, yes,--ninety-five baptisms."
Derrice's face had grown white. "You say that Mr. Denham is dead?"
"Yes, dear, dead and buried. Was he a friend of yours?"
"Scarcely a friend; I did not know him as well as I knew Mr.
Huntington. He was rather an acquaintance."
The eyeglass fell from under Derrice's brow. She seemed disinclined to
talk, and her visitors rose to take leave. "You'll come see us, dear?"
said the widow.
"Certainly; where do you live?"
"Here, dear, is a card,--Mrs. James, 38 Pownall."
"Pownall; is it street, avenue, square--?"
"Street, dear, always understood. Good-bye. I'm real glad to make your
acquaintance," and squeezing her hand until the girl winced with pain,
and recovered only to wince again under an alarming muscular pressure
from the carpenter's bride, the little widow reluctantly tore herself
away.
Mrs. Prymmer let them out at the street door, compressed her lips as
the widow whispered, "Ain't she a beauty? What a pity she don't go to
church!" and then moved slowly back in the direction of the parlour.
She would address a remonstrance to Derrice on the subject of the
eyeglass, but on her appearance the girl lost with such rapidity her
sad, reflective attitude, and putting her glass in her eye fixed it
with such a defiant expression on her mother-in-law, that that good
lady was surprised and confused, and could only mutter a hasty, "Are
you going out?"
"Yes," said Derrice, briefly, and she was just about to sweep by her
when she was checked by a question from the hall in an animated voice,
"Is Mrs. Mercer at home? Mrs. Mercer, not Mrs. Prymmer,--I don't want
to see her."
Mrs. Prymmer heard the clearly spoken sentence, yet she rushed forward
with outstretched hand, "Why, Miss Gastonguay, you're a sight for sore
eyes."
"Am I?" said the lady, coolly, and overlooking the offered hand. "I
don't think your eyes have ever beheld me with much favour since I sat
on the bench behind you and the other small girls at school, and for
the sake of example exposed your cheating at lessons to the master. Do
go away, Hippolyta Prymmer,--you hate me, you know you do, and upon my
word I've no love for you. What is the use of being sneaky when old age
is creeping on you? We kept it up when we were young; do let us get
through the death-dance honestly."
Mrs. Prymmer with an indignant face retreated into the hall, and left
her daughter-in-law alone with her caller.
"That's the way to manage her, my dear," said Miss Gastonguay, shortly.
"She is a born bully; if you don't bully her, she will bully you. She
ought to have died in her cradle and gone a happy infant to paradise.
Will you come and take a drive with me? My niece was to call this
afternoon on you, but she is off somewhere gallivanting with the
clergyman, so I thought I'd come myself. First I said I wouldn't,
then I repented, like the man in the Bible. Come, put your hat on,
child. I'm all right. You needn't distrust me, I'm Jane Gastonguay,
spinster, and owner of half Rossignol. You couldn't sell this house you
are standing in without my permission. Mr. Huntington sent me, so he
will vouch for me. I'll neither upset you nor throw you in among the
ice-blocks in the river. Come, I can't wait."
Derrice suppressed the surprise with which she at first surveyed the
little, gentlemanly, short-legged lady in the broadcloth coat, and with
a murmured, "You are very kind," hurried up-stairs and got a hat and
jacket.
A few minutes later they were going side by side down the stone steps
and across the snow-covered patch of lawn to the street.
"Have you seen Rossignol yet?" asked Miss Gastonguay.
"No, except for one or two short walks up and down this avenue."
"We don't call this an avenue, child, we call it a street, in spite of
the magnificent elms," said Miss Gastonguay, stepping to the gutter
and picking up a fur lap-robe. "Now where is that brat of a pony?" and
putting two fingers in her mouth she whistled shrilly.
"Look at him coming from the parsonage," she went on, "his mouth full
of bread and sugar and rattling my new cart over the gutters. I declare
there is nothing bigger than his appetite but the public debt of Maine.
Come here, you villain. You are worse than a dog, creeping around to
back doors while your mistress is calling."
Derrice smiled as the fat white animal, with a mischievous roll of his
light eyes at his mistress, hurried down the drive to the street, and,
with the dexterity of a veteran, wheeled the cart directly in front of
her.
Derrice got in, and Miss Gastonguay, after a soft slap on the animal's
neck, followed her.
"It is 'jolly,' as English people say, that you have not seen the
town," said Miss Gastonguay, picking up the lines. "I love to get hold
of new people. Don't you know a thing about it? Hasn't your husband
told you?"
"Well, really, I have slept the most of the time since arriving. I was
tired from my journey, and I have asked few questions."
"You don't want to be too communicative," said Miss Gastonguay, turning
her sharp black eyes on her. "You are quite a woman of the world,
baby though you seem. Well, I'll not bother you till after you have
had a chance to ask some one if I am quite respectable and one to be
encouraged, though it will be hard work for me to restrain myself, as I
am little better than an interrogation point. You don't belong to New
England?"
"No,--to New York more than any place, but I have no home. My mother
died when I was a baby, and my father has had me travelling with him
almost ever since, though sometimes he would put me in a school for
awhile."
"You must miss him."
"I do," said Derrice, quietly.
"You won't like living here if you have been a globe-trotter."
"Perhaps I may."
"My child,--you know you can think of nothing more dismal."
"I will not say that, Miss Gastonguay."
"But you feel it. I can look into the minds of my fellow beings. The
time before this when I was reincarnated, I was a witch."
Derrice looked at her in irresistible amusement.
"Come now, Miss or Mrs. New Yorker," said Miss Gastonguay, vivaciously,
"tell me what is your idea of New England."
"I don't know that I have ever formulated anything. I have been in
Boston once or twice. I liked it."
"But you avoided the smaller places."
"Yes; though my father often spoke to me of Rossignol. What a fine
street this is!"
"Isn't it?" and Miss Gastonguay requested her pony to slacken his pace.
One large white or yellow house succeeded another. All stood back
from the street, nearly all were perched on high banks with flights
of steps approaching them, and over all hung bare yet graceful and
luxuriant elms. "Ah, the New England elms, how I love them!" said Miss
Gastonguay, enthusiastically. "Do you know that this country was all a
forest one hundred and fifty years ago?"
"I suppose it was,--I don't know much about the history of this State."
"It seems strange now to think of those days. This lovely river had
only Indians on its banks. Then, just after plucky Jacob Buswell,
in 1769, ascended through the wilderness beyond here, and hewed out
a place for his log cabin on a spot where a cathedral now stands in
Bangor, Louis Gastonguay, a Frenchman, and relative of the Baron de
St. Castin, came here, and founded Rossignol."
"How interesting!"
"You must go to Bangor when summer comes. We go up to it as the people
about Boston and New York go up to those cities. Rossignol is a dear
little place, but small. Strangers get tired of it. Mind yourself now,
Fairy Prince."
The white pony was gathering his feet cautiously together preparatory
to going down a steep hill. They were leaving the stately street behind
them, and were approaching the business portion of the town.
"There is our post-office," said Miss Gastonguay, "and our hotel, and
lounging on the veranda is our smartest lawyer, Captain Sam Veevers,
half Southerner, half Yankee,--a good combination. He lives in the
hotel, and he has just been having a holiday in the woods, fishing
through the ice. If you and Chelda make friends, you'll often see him
up at our house. I think he is an admirer of hers, but I am not sure,
for he is about as much of a sphinx as she is. Now there is our Bay,
isn't it a beauty?"
They had turned a corner, and Derrice had a complete view of the town
and its surroundings. It was spread over a plain by the river bank.
Hills dominated it on either side, and a little beyond the town the
river, that had gathered itself together and narrowed visibly to rush
by shops and houses, expanded into a wide and gemlike bay.
"It looks like a lake," said Miss Gastonguay, "this enlargement of the
river, but there is an opening in the apparent lake,--the sea is but a
short distance away. We call it Merry Meeting Bay, because out there
are five little rivers leaping merrily down to the sea. In summer the
hotels out there beyond the big sardine factories are opened. Lumber
and fishing and the sardine industry keep Rossignol going, you know.
Isn't the view lovely?"
"It is indeed," murmured Derrice, and she paused in silent admiration.
"Look at the ice-cakes, shouldering and smashing against each other to
get first to the Bay, where they will be ground to powder or sucked to
pieces. Just like human beings in their race through the world."
"Have you much society here?" asked Derrice.
"My dear, we are governed socially by the seven Mrs. Potts. Have you
ever heard of those ladies?"
"Never."
"Where has she been raised--this young person--that she has never heard
of the seven Mrs. Potts of the town of Rossignol by Merry Meeting Bay?"
exclaimed Miss Gastonguay, in comical dismay. "Look across the river
at those seven domed mansions standing in solitary grandeur on those
seven small hills. Talk about the seven hills of Rome! They pale before
the distinction of these hills."
Derrice laughed at the exaggeration of her tone, and in much interest
gazed across the semi-frozen river at the glittering pinnacles and
roof-tops of the seven pretentious dwellings of the seven Mrs. Potts.
"They own all that side of the river. When we want to pay court to
them, or when they deign to honour the town with a visit, they drive
over that bridge. But here comes rather an interesting girl that I
would like you to meet. Halt, voice from the wilderness!"
The street of the prosperous little town was full of pedestrians, and
numerous wagons were drawn up beside the pavement, yet, among the
several passers-by who heard the salutation, a girl readily detached
herself from a group and approached the cart. Derrice surveyed her with
interest. She was tall and of a singular fragility and thinness of
appearance, her expression was nervous and strained, and her china-blue
eyes scanned the stranger's face with an eagerness that approached
intensity.
"Well, Aurelia," said Miss Gastonguay, agreeably, "if you haven't
gone mad yet, let me introduce you to our latest gain in the way of
arrivals,--Mrs. Justin Mercer."
The two girls shook hands, and Miss Gastonguay, taking advantage of
the moment that they were engaged with each other, tried to lift the
cover of the basket on Miss Sinclair's arm. When she found that it was
tied down, she said, "What have you got in there, Aurelia Sinclair?"
"Eggs."
"For whom?"
"Old Mrs. Graile up at the poorhouse,--she's dying."
"Old humbug, she ought to have died long ago. You only want to be
admired for superior sanctity to go ploughing through the mud up there.
Come and have afternoon tea with me."
Aurelia shook her head.
"Then tell this young lady that I am a person to be trusted. Otherwise
she will think I am a kind of ogress luring her to my den."
Aurelia's face at once took a rapt expression. Delicate waves of
colour flowed over it, and in a sweet, thin tone of intense admiration
she extended one hand in Miss Gastonguay's direction, and exclaimed,
"I admire to give the character of such a woman to a stranger. Mrs.
Mercer, this is the favourite of the town. Everybody loves her,
everybody trusts her. She will speak sharply, but her tongue is always
honest, and even when it is giving deserved reproof there will be
tears in her kind eyes. I am proud to have this chance of telling
Miss Gastonguay that I love her for her goodness to the poor of this
town.--She is--"
"Pony," cried Miss Gastonguay, with a furiously red face, and jigging
at the lines, "will you get up?"
The pony, however, had found some delectable morsel in the gutter,
and while nosing it refused to budge, thereby forcing his mistress to
listen to the tide of Aurelia's eloquence, which was not easily stopped.
"When there is sickness or death," she went on, rapidly, "who is first
at the bedside? Always Miss Gastonguay. She pretends not to care,--she
laughs at the ministers and rarely goes to church,--but she is, I
verily believe, one of the best Christians in the town. She obeys the
commands of Christ,--some day she will own herself a humble follower of
the One who came to minister to the lowly."
"Pony," cried Miss Gastonguay, in despair, "now I am going to beat
you for the first time in my life," and leaning over the dashboard
she whacked him so soundly with her umbrella that, after giving one
startled glance behind, he fled madly down the street, overturning a
heap of tin pans on the curbstone, and frightening a number of people
who fancied that a runaway was upon them.
Derrice, clutching her hat, gave one glance behind, and saw Aurelia
still standing on the sidewalk, her hand outstretched, her lips moving,
her attitude that of an inspired prophetess.
Miss Gastonguay's face was still red to her ears, and she did not speak
until they had passed several churches, two schoolhouses, a theatre,
many shops, and the city hall, and had entered on a road bordered
by shabby houses. Then she waved her hand, and said, briefly, "Our
neighbours, the mill hands, the most honest people in town, but, like
the Gastonguays, not fashionable; and there is our house," she went
on, when they reached a place where four roads met, and the car line
stopped.
"You have a charming situation," replied Derrice, keenly interested in
the long, narrow house, built after the fashion of a French château.
"Not according to the Rossignol people. It is the thing to live down
the river, up on Blaine Street where you do, or across it, as near
the Potts as they will let you. No one lives up here but ourselves
and the poor cottagers who work in the mills farther up. But then the
Gastonguays never do things like other people," and she admonished the
pony to take them through the gates of the avenue, instead of stopping
short and staring into the cart, to see if he could find an explanation
for the unexpected blow he had received in the town.
"It is curious,--the limitations in choosing a home," said Derrice. "A
stranger coming into a place does not understand."
Miss Gastonguay did not reply. She had been struck with sudden
taciturnity, and, throwing down the lines, allowed the pony to guide
them to the spot where he chose that they should alight. It happened
to be in front of the lowest of the steps leading to the house, and
Derrice, observing him narrowly, remarked, "This seems to be an
intelligent animal."
"He isn't an animal," said Miss Gastonguay, abruptly, "he is a fairy
prince. One day when I was a witch he offended me, and I changed him
from a beautiful young man into this shape. Then I forgot the charm
and couldn't effect the transformation, so I keep him about, hoping I
may some day remember it. Here, prince, help me off with my coat," and
slipping the bit from the animal's mouth, she extended an arm.
To Derrice's amusement the small animal daintily nodded his head,
then deliberately drawing off the man's coat from Miss Gastonguay's
shoulders, held it in his teeth, and politely extended it to her. "Now
run away to the stable," she said, and lightly turning the cart on one
wheel, he trotted down the drive.