A DINNER-PARTY.
A week later Miss Gastonguay was giving a dinner-party. She had begged
the favour of Mr. and Mrs. Mercer's company, and Derrice at the present
moment was standing before her husband's wardrobe.
"Don't you have an evening suit, Justin?"
"No, little girl."
"You must get one," and she surveyed his light trousers and black frock
coat.
"Do I look badly?" he asked, in some anxiety.
"No, you are very manly and good-looking, and your feet are
well-shaped, though the soles of your boots are a trifle thick, but I
shall have to change my gown."
"That overpowering creation," and he stared admiringly at her cream
satin dress,--a triumph of some foreign dressmaker's art.
"Yes; we are too strong a contrast. I shall not be long."
"I am sorry to give you this trouble, Derrice."
"It is not a trouble. I am satisfied since you have seen how grand I
am," and laughing gaily, she caught up her train and ran away from him.
Justin in the utmost satisfaction descended to the hall and put on
his overcoat. Derrice was becoming more and more in love with him
every day. He certainly was a very happy man, and in beatific silence
he gazed at his mother, who was standing in the dining-room doorway,
divided between gratification at his invitation to French Cross and
annoyance that she should not be included in it.
"I suppose you know this is prayer-meeting night," she said.
"Yes, mother."
"You can't go to it."
"Why not?"
"Why, you are going to a party."
"I can leave the party."
"Will she go?" and Mrs. Prymmer designated Derrice, who was coming
down-stairs.
"I think not."
"Well, I'll see you there," and she went back to her well-spread table,
where Captain White was rioting among supper enough for a dozen men.
"Has the carriage come?" asked Derrice, when her husband, after running
his eye approvingly over her ruffled muslin gown, laid his fingers on
the door-knob.
He blushed slightly. "I did not order one. I thought perhaps you would
not mind taking a car."
She laid her hand on his arm with a pretty, confiding gesture, and
said, as they passed out the doorway, "You have some reason for wishing
to economise."
He reluctantly admitted that he had.
"Tell me," she whispered.
He hesitated. "You will be sure to learn of it."
"I wish you to tell me."
She was sweet and womanly, yet insistent. How she was developing, this
young wife of his, and pressing her little hand closer to his heart, he
said. "There are some debts hanging over me."
"Whose debts?"
"My late stepfather's,--Zebedee Prymmer. He was a lawyer here, who made
a failure of the end of his life."
"In what way?"
"He ran away," said Justin, as hurriedly as if the words scorched his
lips. "He invested trust money in speculations of his own and lost. He
would have been prosecuted had he remained."
"And you are trying to return this money to people who gave it to him?"
"To their heirs."
"And he was only your stepfather?"
"My mother's husband."
"He was a villain," said Derrice, with animation.
"A semi-villain. He hoped to return the money."
"That is villainy."
"Yes, of a certain kind."
"Some of those people in the Bible were also villains. Jacob was a
sneak, David was a murderer, and Solomon ought to have been shut up in
prison."
Her tone was severe, and Justin forbore to answer her.
"Yet God loved them," she went on, reverently. "Justin, how wicked can
we be, and yet escape consequences?"
The wind was bitterly cold, and he paused to wrap her cloak more
closely about her before answering. "We must not consider that
question. One can love and serve God, fall into sin, and repent. Our
finite minds cannot take in the depths of his compassion."
"Did your stepfather repent?"
"It is not for me to judge him, but if he did, we received no word of
it. His attitude was that of an injured man, and when he died, after a
few years of exile, he left us his body as a precious legacy. We had
him brought home and buried, and I hope his soul is with God."
"Curious," said the girl, under her breath. "Justin, are we all links
in a chain? I must walk to-night to help pay the debts of a man I never
saw."
"You shall not walk if you had rather drive."
"Hush, my husband, and put up your hand to stop that car."
Not many minutes later they were walking briskly up the avenue
leading to French Cross. The old château was brilliantly lighted.
Miss Gastonguay loved to entertain the people who pleased her, and
Prosperity, throwing the door wide open to Derrice and her husband,
begged them to walk up-stairs, where his brother Tribulation smilingly
assigned them to respective dressing-rooms, and presented Derrice with
a loosely tied bunch of carnations.
Derrice, in secret amusement, was obliged to summon her husband to her
assistance, in arranging a refractory ruffle.
"Why is it," she whispered as he gropingly tried to fasten a pin over
one of her smooth shoulder-blades, "that one sees no women servants
about this house?"
"Because," he whispered back, "Miss Gastonguay is a rabid champion for
men. She says one hears nothing but arrangements for women's homes and
asylums, and women's work of all kinds, and she believes in looking out
for some of the neglected ones."
Derrice put her flowers to her diverted face, and together they went
down-stairs.
The night was an unpleasant one, and the sight in the drawing-room was
one calculated to cheer two people who had just struggled through the
mud of the avenue.
The long room was flooded with soft lamplight. Chelda, sinuous and
graceful, was standing on the white fur hearth-rug, talking to a tall,
lanky young man with a sallow face, whom Derrice knew to be Capt. Sam
Veevers,--his title a legacy from a brief time of service in one of the
regiments of his native State of Kentucky.
Mr. Huntington was in a far corner of the room, his hands crossed
behind him, his resplendent head shining against a white window
curtain, as he talked to Aurelia Sinclair.
Derrice was glad that she had not worn her gleaming satin. Neither Mr.
Huntington nor Captain Veevers was in evening dress. Aurelia wore an
old-fashioned, high-necked purple "silk shiver" gown, Miss Chelda one
of figured velvet, while Miss Gastonguay had on a kind of men's smoking
jacket.
"Well, young people," she said, coming forward, watch in hand, "you are
five minutes late. A bad way to begin your married life."
"We are five minutes early," said Justin, seriously, but respectfully,
as he drew out his own watch.
"You are a bold lad," said the maiden lady, "to try to beard a lioness
in her own den."
"I appeal to the rest of the company," said Justin.
Captain Veevers and Mr. Huntington drew out their watches. Miss
Gastonguay would not believe them until she had had all the clocks in
the house consulted. Then she admitted herself mistaken, and asked
Justin's pardon.
"You are one of those uncomfortable people," she said, wagging her head
at him, "that one always finds in the right. I should hate to live with
you--don't you?" and she wheeled suddenly toward Derrice.
Derrice, to her husband's mingled delight and anxiety lest others
should perceive the resemblance, wagged her light head in the same
fashion that the old lady wagged her grizzled one. "Yes, but I cannot
get away from him."
The girl's tone was so ludicrous that every one smiled except Chelda,
who favoured her with a long and searching glance. She wished to
discover whether she loved her husband. She could not tell. Justin was
impassive, and Derrice was conventionally girlish. She would leave the
question open for future consideration.
"Come, let's go to dinner," said Miss Gastonguay. "There is Prosperity
swaying his head like a Chinese idol. Give me your arm, Justin Mercer.
We will pretend we are royalties and go ahead. The others may follow."
Justin was not comfortable during the dinner, although he went through
it with a composed face. His life hitherto had been so quiet, his
wants so simple, that this elaborately served meal made him impatient,
almost irritated. He begrudged the length of time spent at the table,
and inwardly disapproved of the amount of money represented by the
hand-painted china, the gold and silver dinner service, and yet, when
he glanced at his wife's happy face, he became calm.
"Some men would spoil her," said Miss Gastonguay, in an undertone, "you
will discipline her."
Justin did not look up from the plate on which he was eating something
out of season, he scarcely knew what it was.
Miss Gastonguay was gnawing a chicken bone with her strong, white
teeth, although she would have warmly recommended any one else who
should do such a thing to leave the table.
"And she will discipline you," she went on, in the same tone. Then, as
he did not reply, she became impatient with the bone, and, dropping it
on her plate, called for a fresh napkin to wipe her fingers.
"She looks like a doll," she continued, after a time, "but if she is
what you say she is, you'll not find any doll's blood in her."
Justin smiled. "She is brimful of character; she reminds me of--"
"Well?" said his hostess, picking up her napkin and holding it over the
lower part of her face.
"Of you."
She dropped the napkin. "You want to flatter me, and I--old fool--like
to hear you." In her interest she raised her voice, and every one at
the table looked at her except Chelda, who, with the briefest, most
surreptitious flash of her eyelids, continued an animated flow of talk
addressed to Captain Veevers.
"Nothing, good friends, nothing for general entertainment," said Miss
Gastonguay, waving her hand. "My voice ran up because I thought I heard
Captain Veevers make a remark, and I wished to drown him."
Every one looked amused but Derrice. Captain Veevers's taciturnity
was a standing joke in Rossignol, and it was said that only the
general-in-chief of an army, or the chief judicial officer of the
nation, could wring a whole sentence from him.
The Southerner subdued the slight crease that formed itself about his
silent lips, then he again turned his sallow face toward his brilliant
neighbour. He was deliberately and calmly in love with her, and his
chief pleasure in life was to hear her talk.
Miss Gastonguay could not help discussing Derrice, who had been thrown
like a bombshell into her quiet life. "What a contrast she is to
Chelda," she purred in Justin's ear. "My niece is a woman of the world;
your wife is an emancipated baby. Chelda is devoted to me, and will be
jealous of any attention I bestow on an outsider. I wish they could be
friends. I suppose we could not tell her?" And the wistfulness of an
advancing old age that would fain lean upon youth crept into her tone.
Justin was alarmed. He had confided his secret to Miss Gastonguay
as he would have confided it to another man. He had supposed her
strong-mindedness to be invulnerable, and now she was proposing to
unfold this secret to some one against whom he had a secret and
unconquerable prejudice.
"Most decidedly not," he replied.
"You are a time-seeking, mercenary young man," said Miss Gastonguay,
slapping about on her plate an unoffending morsel of potato. "You
favoured me with your great mystery in order that I might remember your
wife in my will. I shall do nothing of the sort."
"Any one who shirks a duty is sure to suffer for it sometime or
another," he said, calmly, "but I am not afraid of your forgetting that
my wife has an equal claim on you with your niece."
"Well, I shall have a thorny road to travel," said Miss Gastonguay,
with unexpected submission. "Chelda will rebel."
"I beg that you will give her no cause to do so. My appeal was made
to you for protection in the event of my death. There is no favour
I am willing for my wife to accept from you now, beyond a friendly
recognition. You can understand that I wish her to lead a quiet life."
"I like her," said Miss Gastonguay, stubbornly. "I shall do what I
please for her."
Aurelia Sinclair, who was Justin's left-hand neighbour, suddenly turned
to him with some curiosity painted on her transparent face, and warned
that he was carrying on a dangerous conversation, he abruptly addressed
a question to her.
"Where is the pudding?" said Miss Gastonguay, suddenly.
The joints had been removed, and a long and awkward pause had ensued.
Tribulation stood in the doorway, trying to hide behind and restrain
his brother, until Miss Gastonguay's lordly, "Come forward," brought
them near the table.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "Has the cat run away with the creams
and the ices?"
"It's O'Toole, ma'am," said Prosperity, readily.
"Well, what about him? Come, speak out. We have no secrets in this
house."
"He's under the kitchen stove," blurted Prosperity, "and the pudding's
with him, and we don't know what he's done with the shapes."
"Did you ever hear of the Maine liquor law, my dear?" asked Miss
Gastonguay, addressing Derrice with suspicious sweetness.
"Never," said the girl.
"Well, it is a peculiar law. You know there are some States that try to
restrain the sale of intoxicants. We don't here. They are as free as
water. My cook can order them over the telephone. Unfortunately, he has
a weakness for them."
A suppressed smile went around the table, and Derrice saw that some
sarcasm was intended.
"There's fruit, I suppose," said Miss Gastonguay to Prosperity; "get us
some, if O'Toole hasn't taken it under the stove; and you had better
get him out and put him to bed. Chelda, you go look after things, will
you?"
The young lady left her seat, and as serenely and gracefully as if
intoxicated cooks were every-day occurrences made her way kitchenwards.
"Now what is the matter with you?" said Miss Gastonguay, directing her
attention to Justin, who had risen, and was standing beside her.
"I am due at a prayer-meeting."
"A prayer-meeting! What did you accept my invitation for if you
couldn't stay?"
"I will come back if you will permit me," he said, in a manner quite
courtly.
"Well, go. You will graciously allow your wife to remain?"
"Certainly; we should not have come if she had not decided to do so,"
and, with a bow, he left the room.
"What about you, Mr. Huntington?" asked Miss Gastonguay.
He shrugged his shoulders. "To tell the truth, I forgot about it when
you sent me your note to-day. However, it is only a young people's
meeting. I do not need to go."
There was a slight levity in his tone, and Miss Gastonguay, after a
keen scrutiny of his flushed face, turned to Derrice. "Do you ever go
to prayer-meetings?"
"I was at one last evening."
"What did you think of it?"
"It was very interesting."
"Come, now, tell me what it was like."
"There was a large room under a church," said Derrice, seriously, "with
seats. Mr. Huntington was there," and she indicated him as he sat
gazing with a softened expression at her.
"Of course; what next?"
"He read a hymn and some one played an organ accompaniment and the
people sang."
"'Hark from the tombs a doleful sound,' I suppose, or, 'High o'er my
soul damnation's waves do roll.'"
"Miss Gastonguay," interposed Aurelia, "those are very old hymns; no
one sings them now."
"What did you sing?" persisted Miss Gastonguay.
"We sang something beginning 'Jesus, lover of my soul,'" murmured
Derrice.
"Never mind the rest. Tell me how the meeting impressed you. It was
your first, I suppose."
"Yes, I never was at anything of the kind before. May I speak freely?"
and she doubtfully scanned her audience.
"Of course," said her hostess.
"I am new to what is called religious life. It seemed marvellous to me
that men could get up one after another--and even women--and talk so
openly of what was in their hearts."
"Cant,--a great lot of it, cant and rubbish. They would cheat you the
next day."
"My husband would not cheat," said Derrice, mildly.
"He is an exception."
"I will tell you what I thought," said the girl, encouraged by
Aurelia's breathless admiration and Mr. Huntington's subdued interest.
"It seemed to me that they were out of themselves,--that their strength
to reveal their faults was supernatural. I never before heard people
say, 'I am imperfect,--I do not lead as holy a life as I might,' and
they were very full of pity. They spoke of doing more good to others."
"Words only, not deeds."
"My husband visits the poor," said Derrice, sturdily.
"Well now, young lady, what do you think of me? I am not religious, I
play cards all day on Sunday if I choose. I do not believe in what you
call revealed religion. What is to become of me?"
"It would be hard for me to believe anything against you," replied
Derrice, with quiet grace.
"But what will become of me when I die? Your preachers send me right
down, down, down,--direct. What do you think about it?"
Derrice silently appealed to Mr. Huntington, but he would not reply,
though his kind smile urged her on.
"Where am I going?" pursued Miss Gastonguay.
"How can I tell?"
"But you have your little narrow creed all made up. Saints this way,
sinners that. I am no saint, yet I am not an out-and-out sinner."
Derrice stirred uneasily in her seat, and earnestly longed for her
husband. At last a solution of the difficulty occurred to her. "What
kind of people do you like to be with in this world, Miss Gastonguay?"
Her hostess looked around the table. The way of sinners, the seat of
the scornful, had never been hers. These people about her board were
all serious, thoughtful, and worthy of respect.
"If you like good people," said Derrice, "then you will be with them in
the world to come."
"Child, you are too liberal, too generous for your creed. Morality
does not save,--I have had that shrieked in my ears ever since I was
born. You must have religion."
"Perhaps you have it and do not know it."
"What is religion, according to you?"
"I know very little. I have not learned much yet. Is it not that one
must have faith in the Bible, and believe in one God and in his Son?"
"I do not believe in the inspiration of the Bible; it was written by
men like ourselves."
Derrice shrank back. "But would you be happy in heaven, then?"
"But would I be happy!" muttered Miss Gastonguay, "and this is the
girl I am to remember in my will," and she closed the conversation and
abruptly turned to her niece, who had just come in, and was taking her
place with an amused, cynical expression of countenance.