LONELINESS.
I SUPPOSE there has never been an earnest worker, an enthusiast on any
subject, in this changeful world, but has been a victim at some time to
the dismalness of a reaction. The most forlorn little victim that could
be imagined was Flossy Shipley on that evening after the meetings, on
which her soul had fed so long, were closed.
Everything in nature and in circumstances conspired to sink her into her
desolate mood. In the first place it was raining. Now a rain closing in
upon a warm and dusty summer day is a positive delight; one can listen
to the pattering drops with a sense of eager satisfaction but a rain in
midwinter, after a day of sunless mist and fog, almost amounting to
rain, when the streets are that mixture of snow and water that can be
known only as "slush," when every opening of a door sends in gusts of
damp air that chill to one's very bones, this weather is a trial; at
least it seemed such to poor little Flossy.
She shivered over the fire in the coal grate. It glowed brightly, and
the room was warm and bright, yet to Flossy there was a sense of chill
in everything. She was all alone; and the circumstances connected with
that loneliness were not calculated to brighten the evening for her. The
entire family had gone out to a party, not one of those quiet little
entertainments which people had been so careful to explain and apologize
for during the meetings, but a grand display of toilet and supper, and
expenditure of all kinds.
Mrs. Westervelt, the hostess, being at all times noted for the display
of her entertainments, had lavished more than the usual amount of time
and money on the present ones, and waited for the meetings to close with
the most exemplary patience, in order that she might gain a very few
among her guests from those who felt the impropriety of mixing things
too much.
To be sure, the society in general which was admitted to Mrs.
Westervelt's parlors was not from that class who had any scruples as to
what time they attended parties, but there were two or three notable
exceptions, and those the lady had been anxious to claim.
Prominent among them had been the Erskines, it never seeming to occur to
Mrs. Westervelt's brains that there could be other excuse found for not
accepting her invitation save the meetings that Ruth had taken to
attending in such a frantic manner. Let me say, in passing, that neither
Ruth Erskine nor her father honored the invitation; they had other
matters to attend to.
Meantime, Flossy Shipley, had utterly disgusted her mother, and almost
offended her father, by giving a peremptory and persistent refusal. Such
a storm of talk as there had been over this matter almost exhausted the
strength of poor little Flossy, who did not like argument, and who yet
could persist in a most unaccountable firm manner when occasion
required.
"Such an absurd idea!" her sister Kitty said, flashing contemptuous
eyes on her. "I wonder what you think is going to become of you, Flossy?
Do you mean to mope at home all the rest of the winter? I assure you
that Mrs. Westervelt is not the only one who intends to give a party. We
are going to have an unusually gay season to revive us after so much
bell-tolling. Don't you mean to appear anywhere? You might as well
retire into a convent at once, if that is the case."
"People will be saying of me, as they do of Mrs. Treslam, soon, that I
do not allow you to appear in society while Kitty is still a young
lady." This Mrs. Shipley said, and her tone, if not as sharp as Kitty's,
had a note of grievance in it that was hard to bear.
Then Charlie had taken up the theme: "What is the use in turning mope,
Sis? I'm sure you can be as good as you like, and go to a party
occasionally."
"I don't mean to mope, Charlie," Flossy said, trying to speak
cheerfully, but there were tears in her eyes and a tremulous sound in
her voice. "I am truly happier at home than I am at those places; I
don't like to go. It is not entirely because I feel I ought not; it is
because I don't want to."
"She has risen above such follies," Kitty said, and it is impossible to
tell you what a disagreeable inflection there was to her voice. "Mother,
I am sorry that the poor child has to associate with such volatile
creatures as you and I. She ought to have some kindred spirit."
"I am sure I don't know where she will find any," Mrs. Shipley said,
with a sigh, "outside of that trio of girls, who among them have
contrived to make a perfect little slave of you. I am sure I don't know
who has any influence over you. I used to think you regarded your
mother's wishes a trifle, but I find I am mistaken."
"Oh, mother!" Flossy said, and this time the tears began to fall, "why
_will_ you talk so? I am sure I try to please you in every way that I
can. I did not know that you cared to have me go to parties, unless I
wanted to go."
Either the tears or something else made her brother indignant. "What a
scene about nothing," he said, irritably. "Why can't you let Flossy go
to parties or not, as she pleases? Parties are not such delightful
institutions that she need be expected to be in love with them. I should
be delighted if I never had to appear at another. Why not let people
have their fun in this world where they choose to find it? If Flossy has
lately discovered that hers can only be found in prayer-meeting, I am
sure it is a harmless enough diversion while the fit lasts."
Mrs. Shipley laughed. Her son could nearly always put her into good
humor. Besides, she didn't like to see tears on her baby's face; that
was her pet name for Flossy.
"Oh, I don't know that it makes any serious difference," she said; "not
enough to spoil your eyes over, Flossy. I don't want you to go out with
us unless you want to; only it is rather embarrassing to be constantly
arranging regrets for you. Besides, I don't see what it is all coming
to. You will be a moping, forsaken creature; old before your time, if
this continues."
As for Mr. Shipley, he maintained a haughty silence, neither expressing
an opinion on that subject nor on any other, which would involve him in
a conversation with Flossy. She knew that he was more seriously
displeased with her than were any of the others; not so much about the
parties as about other and graver matters.
Col. Baker was the son of Mr. Shipley's old friend. For this reason, and
for several others, Mr. Shipley was very fond of him. It had long been
in accordance with his plans, that Flossy should become, at some future
time, Mrs. Col. Baker, and that the estates of the two families should
be thus united.
While he was not at all the sort of man who would have interfered to
push such an arrangement against the preferences of the parties
concerned, he had looked on with great and increasing satisfaction,
while the plans of the young people evidently tended strongly in that
direction.
That his daughter, after an absence from home of only two weeks, should
have come in contact with that which seemed to change all her tastes and
views and plans, in regard to other matters, but which had actually
caused her to turn, with a steady and increasing determination, away
from the friend who had been her acknowledged protector and attendant
ever since she was a child, was a matter that he did not understand nor
approve.
"I am not a tyrant," he would say sullenly, when Mrs. Shipley and
himself talked the matter over; when she, with the characteristics of a
mother, even while her child annoyed and vexed her, yet struggled to
speak a word for her when a third person came in to blame. "I never
ordered Flossy to be so exceedingly intimate with Col. Baker that their
names have been coupled together ever since she was a baby. I never
insisted on her accepting his attentions on all occasions. It was her
own free will. I own that I was pleased with the inclination she
displayed, and did what I could to make the way pleasant for her, but
the thing is not of my planning. What I am displeased with is this
sudden change. There is no reason for it and no sense in it. It is just
a mere baby performance, a girlish freak, very unpleasant for him and
very disagreeable for us. The child ought not to be upheld in it."
So they did their best not to uphold her, and succeeded among them in
making her life very disagreeable to her.
The matter had culminated on the evening before the party in question.
Col. Baker, despite the persistent and patient efforts on Flossy's part
to show him the folly of his course, had insisted on obliging her to
speak a decided negative to his earnestly pressed question. The result
was, an unusually unpleasant domestic scene, and a general air of gloom
and unhappiness.
Mr. Shipley had not ordered his daughter to marry Col. Baker. He would
have been shocked beyond measure at such a proceeding on the part of a
father. But he made her so unhappy, with a sense of his disappointment
and disapproval, that more than once she sighed wearily, and wished in
her sad little heart that all this living was over.
Finally, they all went off to Mrs. Westervelt's party, and left her
alone. She had never felt so much alone in her life. The blessed
meetings, which had been such a wealth of delight and helpfulness to her
heart, were closed. The sweet, and holy, and elevating influences that
had surrounded her outer life for so long were withdrawn. She missed
them bitterly.
It almost seemed to her as if everything were withdrawn from her.
Father, and mother, sister, and even her warm-hearted brother, were all
more or less annoyed at her course. Charlie had been betrayed into more
positive sharpness than this favorite sister had ever felt from him
before. He felt that his friend Col. Baker had been ill-treated.
There was a very sore spot about this matter for Flossy. The truth was,
she could not help seeing that in a sense her father was right; she had
brought it on herself; not lately, not since her utter change of views
and aims, but long before that. With what satisfaction had she allowed
her name to be coupled familiarly with that of Col. Baker; how much she
had enjoyed his exclusive attentions; not that she really and heartily
liked him, with a liking that made her willing to think of him as
belonging to her forever; she had chosen, rather, not to allow herself
to think of any such time; she had contented herself with saying that
she was too young to think of such things; that she was not obliged to
settle that question till the time came.
But, mind you, all the time she chose to allow, and enjoy, and encourage
by her smiles and her evident pleasure in them, very special
attentions, that gave other people liberty to speak of them almost as
one. To call it by a very plain name, which Flossy hated, and which made
her cheek glow as she forced herself to say it of herself, she had been
flirting with Col. Baker. It isn't a nice word; I don't wonder that she
hated it. Yet so long as young ladies continue to be guilty of the sort
of conduct that can only be described by that unpleasant and coarse
sounding word, I am afraid it will be used.
All that was over now, at least it was over as much as Flossy could make
it; but there remained an uncomfortable sense that she had wronged a man
who honestly loved her; not intentionally--no decent woman does
that--but thoughtlessly; so many silly girls do that. She had lost her
influence over him now; rather, she had been obliged to put herself in a
position to lose all influence. She might have been his true, faithful
friend now, and helped him up to a higher manhood, only by her former
folly she had put it out of her power. These were not pleasant
reflections. Then there was no denying that she felt very desolate.
"A forlorn friendless creature," her mother had said she would become,
or words to that effect. The thought lingered with her. She looked over
her list of friends; there was always those three girls, growing dearer
by every day of association; yet their lives necessarily ran much apart;
it would naturally grow more and more so as the future came to them.
Then, too, she was equally intimate with each of them; they were all
equally dear to her.
Now a woman can not have three friends who shall all fill that one place
in her heart which she finds. She thought of her home ties; strong they
certainly were; growing stronger every day. There were few things that
she did not feel willing to do for her father; but the one thing that he
wanted just now was that she should marry Col. Baker; she could not do
that even to please him.
He would recover from that state of feeling, of course; but would not
other kindred states of feeling constantly arise, both with him and with
her mother? Could she not foresee a constant difference of opinion on
almost every imaginable topic? Then there was her sister Kitty. Could
any two lives run more widely apart than hers and Kitty's were likely
to? Had they a single taste in common?
As for Charlie, Flossy turned from that subject; it was too sore and too
tender a spot to be probed. She trembled for Charlie; he was walking in
slippery places; the descent was growing easier; she felt that rather
than saw it; and, she felt, too, that his friend Col. Baker was the
leader; and she felt, too, that her intimacy with Col. Baker had greatly
strengthened his.
No wonder that the spot was a sore one. Grouping all these things
together and brooding over them, with no sound breaking the silence save
the ceaseless drip, drip of the rain, and the whirls of defiant wind,
sitting there in her loneliness, the large arm-chair in which she
crouched being drawn up before that glowing fire, is it any wonder that
the firelight revealed the fact that great silent tears were slowly
following each other down Flossy's round smooth cheek? She felt like a
pitiful, lonely, forsaken baby.
It was not that she was utterly miserable; she recognized even then the
thought that she had an almighty, everlasting, unchanging Friend. She
rejoiced even then at the thought, not as she might have rejoiced, not
as it was her privilege to do, but I mean she knew that all these
trials, and mistakes, and burdens, were but for a moment. She knew that
to-morrow, when the sun shone again, she would be able to come out from
behind these clouds and grasp some of the brightness of her life, and
endure with patience the little annoyances that were to be borne;
remembering that she was still very young, and that there was a chance
for a great deal of brightness for her, even on this side.
But, in the meantime, her intensely human heart craved human
companionship and sympathy; craved it to such a degree, that if it had
not been for the rain and the darkness, and the growing lateness of the
hour, she would have gone out then after one of those three girls to
share her mood with her.
Into the midst of this state of dismal journeying into the valley of
gloom there pealed the sound of the bell. It did not startle her; the
callers in their circle would be sure to be engaged at the party, and to
suppose that she was. Besides, it was hardly an evening for ordinary
callers--something as important as a party was, would be expected to
call out people to-night. It was some one with a business message for
father, she presumed; and she did not arouse from her curled-up position
among the cushions of that great chair.
Half listening, half giving attention to her own thoughts, she was
conscious that a servant came to answer the bell, that the front door
opened and shut, that there was a question asked and answered in the
hall. Then she gave over attending to the matter. If she were needed the
girl knew she was in the library. Yes, she was to be summoned for
something, to receive the message probably, for the library door quietly
unclosed.
"What is it, Katie?" she asked, in a sort of muffled undertone, to hide
the traces of disturbance in her voice, and not turning her head in that
direction; she knew there were tears on her cheeks.
"Suppose it should not be Katie, may any one else come in and tell you
what it is?" This was the sentence wherewith she was answered. What a
sudden springing up there was from that chair! Even the tears were
forgotten; and what a singular ring there was to Flossy's voice as she
whirled round to full view of the intruder, and said, "Oh, Mr. Roberts!"
Now, dear friends of this little lonely Flossy, are you so stupid that
you need to be told that in less than half an hour from that moment she
believed that there could never again come to her an absolutely lonely
hour? That whatever might come between them, whether of life or of
death, there would be that for each to remember that would make it
impossible ever to be desolate again. For there is no desolation of
heart to those who part at night to meet again in the morning; there may
be loneliness and a reaching out after, and sometimes an unutterable
longing for the morning, but to those who are sure, _sure_ beyond the
possibility of a doubt, that the eternal morning _will_ dawn, and dawn
for them, there is never again a desolation.
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