A RECOGNITION AND A DINNER
It was Sunday. The inevitable May cold spell was over. Like
half-perished insects, the Lawtons gathered on the porch and basked in
the early sunshine. Presently John Lawton, who was sensitive to heat,
particularly on Sundays, remarked that by the calendar it was May, but
by his feelings it was late June. And Sybil dabbed at his forehead with
her wisp of a handkerchief, and answered, with affectionate
impertinence: "Well, it's not excessive originality of thought that
wears you out, papa, for yesterday you made the dignified and impressive
statement that the calendar said it was May, but your feelings told you
it was November. No, don't apologize, dear," and she gave him an
explosive kiss, "but put your little calendar idea away now for a
while--say till fall, and it'll come out quite bright and useful."
Mrs. Lawton exclaimed: "Sybil!" then, in an excusing tone, "Ah! if we
had our former surroundings I'm sure your manners and words would be
quite in consonance with them!"
"No doubt of it!" promptly acquiesced Sybil, while Dorothy cried: "Papa,
positively you ought to take strong measures with Syb, even though she
is as tall as you are--you should shake her!" And the utter absurdity
of the suggestion sent them indoors in a gale of laughter that Mrs.
Lawton denounced from behind the coffee urn as "absolutely heretical."
Instantly Sybil, with lance in rest, came charging at her mother:
"Ho--ho! To the rescue! The English language is in danger! Mamma, had I
so misused a word, you would have rapped me on the head with your
thimble, _a la_ governess Anna Smith, of evil memory."
Mrs. Lawton pushed up the quite dry bandage from her brows--that bandage
was generally visible on Sunday mornings till after church bells ceased
their troubling--and said: "'Pon my word, Sybil, your conduct sometimes
approaches the contumacious! Dorothy, a smile may degenerate into a
grin, and what amuses you is beyond my power of vision. I do know,
however, that my English is unassailable."
"But," Dorothy tremulously ventured, "but, by heretical laughter, mamma,
did you not mean instead that our noise was inappropriate, or----?"
"Miss!" broke in Letitia Lawton, "I meant what I said. It's Sunday, and
it's heresy to laugh aloud on that day! Pass your father the cream-jug;
I've lived with him in honorable wedlock for twenty years, but I can't
sugar or cream his coffee right to this day."
"But, mamma," said Sybil, crunching a tiny radish, "is not heresy an
unsound opinion----"
"Well, it's got to be an opinion opposed to Scripture!" and Mrs. Lawton
hammered the words to the table with her knife-handle.
"Not necessarily," mildly objected John Lawton, as he pushed his cup
toward the deity behind the urn. "People have committed heresy against
other things than the Scriptures. You can have an unsound opinion
without its being a religious one."
"There! That's just what I said!" cried Mrs. Lawton. "Immoderate
laughter on Sunday is ill-bred, and is, therefore, unsound religious
conduct, which is worse than unsound opinion, which you, yourself
declare to be heresy. Thank you, John, you seldom back me up so readily.
Why! those girls have scarcely tasted breakfast, and there they go
rushing upstairs. Oh, well, the walk is rather long to St. John's, and I
suppose they wish to take their time over it!" And she settled down
contentedly to her own dilly-dallying meal, while Mr. Lawton, with a
very red face, silently drank his second cup of coffee.
After the girls had gone churchward, and Lena was in full control of the
apartment, which Mrs. Lawton always referred to till three o'clock as
the breakfast-room, and afterward as the dining-room, father and mother
again resorted to the porch, each occupying one of its corners. Mrs.
Lawton, who prided herself upon the propriety of her attitude toward the
church, sat with the prayer-book open at the lesson for the day, feeling
that the bandage on her brow so fully justified her absence from the
church that she was exceptionally devout in thus following the service
at the correct moment, and making her responses distinctly a few times,
so that she might properly impress her dangerously lax husband.
Then--well, the book seemed to be a long way off--the printed words ran
together, jumped apart, whirled round about, a warm haze closed softly
down--she, she could not see. She slept, while over in the other corner
Mr. Lawton sat by the Sunday paper that itself occupied an entire chair,
and in its bulky entirety might well have required the ice-man's tongs
to carry it up the hill. And in St. Johns, that church, picturesque and
time-honored, that, gathering the little town about its knees, stands
with it in the very centre of a hill-girdled hollow, and is in May
already greenly veiled with tender ivy and young clambering rose, there
sat none more devoutly attentive to the stately service than those two
fair sisters from the old White house. Both were used to attracting more
or less attention; therefore, when they rose for the Gospel, Sybil's
"Glory be to Thee!" died away in her throat from sheer astonishment at
the burning blush she saw sweeping over Dorothy's face from chin to
down-bent brow. With swift, indignant eyes she searched for the cause of
her sister's embarrassment, and no sooner had she found the guilty man,
who stood at gaze, wrapped in what truly seemed unconscious admiration
for that sweet face, than she gave a violent start of recognition; then,
with sharp question in her eye, turned back to Dorothy, to find that
blush even hotter, redder than it was before, and knew instinctively
that she, too, had recognized the grave young man of the city car--he
who had frustrated Mr. Bulkley's plan; and with a sudden swelling of the
throat the conviction came to her that these two had fallen in love at
sight, and in a very passion of tenderness for her sister Sybil
whispered to herself, "Dorrie! little Dorrie! what are you doing, dear?
He looks brave and gentle, and--and exacting, and--you dear little
idiot, you are conscious of nothing but his gaze! And he, grave as he
is, has quite lost track of any other presence here but Dorrie's--my
little Dorrie, who is barely done with dolls!" And Sybil's dark eyes
were dimmed with tears for a little time.
While they were sitting through the sermon, the dozing Letitia and John
were being sorely confused and disturbed by the unexpected arrival of
the oppressively opulent Mr. Bulkley. Poor Mrs. Lawton had been the last
to awaken, and the glittering trap and big high-stepping sorrel with the
wickedly rolling eye were coming up the unused grass-grown driveway
before her eyes opened. She could not fly; she was fairly caught in
bedroom slippers and bandaged head. There was but one thing to do, she
decided, as John Lawton with drowsy eyes went forward to welcome his
guest; she must hide her feet and play up to the bandage. In pursuance
of this plan she instantly became very languid in manner and patiently
enduring in expression; nor did she forget the bright bloom on her
cheeks, but touching their cool surface with the back of her hand
announced resignedly that she supposed her fever was coming on again.
And Mr. Bulkley frowned at the trees and talked malaria and quinine and
thinning out; and finding the young ladies absent, decided to await
their return. And so the evil moment came when Mr. Lawton had to confess
himself unable to offer hospitality to the fretting sorrel, who was
fidgeting and stamping and throwing gravel all over the place. And Mr.
Bulkley had ordered his man to take the horse back the road a bit to a
stable attached to a road-house they had passed and put him up there;
and as Letitia heard him add, "You can also get your dinner at the
house, Dolan," her heart sank like lead before a vision of her almost
empty pantry.
As the returning girls stepped aside to let the horse and trap pass out
they heard Mr. Bulkley's big laugh from the porch, and in an instant two
frightened blue eyes were staring into two troubled dark ones, while
both girls exclaimed, in absolute terror: "Dinner!"
To those who have lived in the midst of plenty all their days, this
dinner question may seem very amusing or very absurd, but the genteel
poor understand it well. They know the humiliation and torture the
sensitive hostess feels in trying to entertain the uninvited stranger
within her gates; and here was this great, flaunting, high-feeding old
man! There were people to whom the girls could have frankly offered
bread and butter and tea, or crackers and cheese and a cup of coffee,
but not to this "big animal," as Sybil called him. Dorothy laid her hand
on her sister's arm and whispered: "Let us climb through the break in
the wall and go up to the orchard and signal Lena to come to us, and
there arrange what we are to do."
"Good idea, that!" agreed Sybil, "for you--er--I mean, we shall never be
able to escape papa's ponderous friend after we once make our appearance
upon the scene." So in the orchard the sorely troubled three held secret
conclave.
"Uf id vasn't Suntay!" Lena kept groaning, "or uf id vas breakfas'
alretty instet of dinner, ven tings get chopped all up mit demselves so
peoples don't know vat tings dey com' eat; but der dinner, Himmel! Und
dat old mans, he eat--ach! I know he eat like dot great hop-up-on-to-mus
at der park! Himmel!"
And Sybil threatened. "Dorrie! Dorrie! stop laughing this moment! Don't
you dare grow hysterical! Lena, hold your tongue, and only answer direct
questions. One chicken, you say? Only one? For five people? Dear heaven!
But, Lena, has mamma her head bandaged up yet? Yes? Oh, joy! She need
have no helping, then! She will be too sick, you see!"
"Nein! nein!" cried Lena, "der mistress lofes der dinner too mooch!"
"Yes, I know all that," sternly answered Sybil, "but she will restrain
her appetite to-day for the reputation of her house! Dorrie, you _must_
manage that mamma demands in her most plaintive tone some very thin
toast and some tea, and she must shiver daintily at the merest
suggestion of dinner. Promise her eggs for late supper, to comfort her."
Lena was for broiling their solitary chicken, but a cry of condemnation
burst from Dorothy. "Broil it? Never! It must be eked out in some way.
Lena, you can fry it--can't you? And make a great deal of cream sauce,
and have some diamonds of toast around the edge of the dish to make it
look full?"
"Ja!" nodded the willing Lena, "but dat young hens only make four goot
pieces for all dat gravy sauce; und you can't be sick too, my Miss
Ladies!"
"Oh!" cried Sybil. "Listen, Dorrie, listen! Lena, was there not a bit of
veal left from dinner yesterday?"
"Ja!" answered Lena, "but dat goes mit de oder scraps to be chopped for
der breakfas'!"
"No, no!" interrupted Sybil, "put them on the platter with the chicken;
cover them well with sauce and drop a tiny morsel of parsley on each
piece to mark it; and we will coach papa, Dorrie, to help us to the
parsley marked portions without letting the old dear know just why, and
with a little care on our part no one need guess we are not eating
chicken. That will leave the whole of it for the gentlemen, and Mr.
Bulkley can have the second helping he will want, for you can cook a
chicken a la Maryland as well as any aunty, Lena!" Then they agreed that
neither one of them would care for salad that day, but might freely
indulge in coffee, though sharing very delicately in dessert. And so,
patting Lena's sturdy shoulder in sign of their trust and gratitude,
they picked up from the grass their shabby old prayer-books, and
presently made demure appearance, coming slowly up the steep path that
led to the weary, sagging, old porch.
And William Henry Bulkley, who for the last half hour had been calling
himself every kind of a fool, ran his greedy old eyes over the tempting
loveliness of Dorothy and changed his mind suddenly, feeling that the
boredom caused by John and Letitia Lawton was not too high a price to
pay for the pleasure of loitering by the side of this wonderful girl.
And so he made his devoirs in most expansive fashion; cast dust in Mr.
Lawton's mild blue eyes by referring, in quite a fatherly tone, to his
daughters as little Dorrie and Sybbie, was deferential in the extreme to
Sybil, and confessed to a distinct recollection of every horse, every
equipage, of Mrs. Lawton's ownership in the past, even to one or two she
had owned only in her imagination. But never, she observed, did he for
one moment lose sight of Dorothy.
At last Sybil, like a pitying angel, placed herself between Mr. Bulkley
and her mother's slippers, and covered that lady's retreat to her own
room to arrange herself for dinner. And it was Sybil who had sternly to
replace the bandage and coach the hungry and irate mother in her part of
delicate sufferer, closing the scene with the words: "I know, darling,
you're too proud to allow anyone to guess at the straits we are in."
Then, kissing the hungry tears from her mother's eyes, she added: "Just
say to yourself, now and then, 'Eggs! eggs!' and that will keep your
courage up--that and the knowledge that you are the only woman alive who
can wear a handkerchief about her forehead and yet look pretty."
And Letitia simpered, and sprinkled a little bay-rum on her hair to
suggest headache; ate a handful of crackers to take off the sharp edge
of her keen appetite, and languidly descended to the distinctly musty
parlor.
Dorothy had desired to go for a few wild flowers for the table, but she
had not escaped from William Henry Bulkley. In all the immaculate glory
of his spring attire, as tightly trussed up as a large fowl ready for
the oven, he walked at her side when the path permitted, and breathed
stertorously behind her when it wouldn't. And when with a cry of joy she
discovered that a twisted old hawthorn had actually hung out some
garlands of snowy blossoms, he nearly had an apoplexy from his frantic
efforts to obtain them for her. He loaded her with fulsome compliments,
and he looked so strangely at her that the poor child hurried back to
the house, vowing it was the last time she would go out with him, if he
were papa's friend twenty times over; and passing him over to mamma in
the parlor, she hastily arranged her handful of blossoms for the centre
of the table, and captured her father and instructed him as to the
serving of the chicken. As she spoke a trembling came upon his weak
mouth, and his pained blue eyes looked away over her head. She put a
pink-tipped forefinger on his lip and said, low: "Don't, papa, don't!
It's all right, only dear, dear papa, you won't forget, will you
now--for Syb and me the portions with the bits of green--you understand,
papa?"
And he sighed and answered bitterly: "Yes, I understand! God knows I
understand!"
At last, then, they sat at table. Sybil, holding her hatchet behind her
in temporary amity, glowed and sparkled, cheerfully proclaimed her
interest in the cult of delicate feeding, and boldly challenged judgment
on the principal dish before them, the chicken _a la_ Maryland, sorely
frightening her family by her reckless daring. But Mr. Bulkley, with
Dorothy's wistful blue eyes upon him, without hesitation gallantly
declared it could not be equalled this side of Mason and Dixon's line;
and, to poor Lena's sorrow, proved his sincerity by accepting a second
helping, which was hard on that help-maiden, who had not even eggs to
look forward to later on.
But Mrs. Lawton's shiver of repulsion at the offered soup and her faint
consent to the making of a little thin toast--"oh, very, _very_
thin"--were so cleverly done that both girls mentally promised her a hug
and a kiss by and by. And William Henry Bulkley, who lived solely for
physical comfort and mental excitement, and was enjoying both at that
moment, beamed and sympathized and complimented and ogled, and finally
left the table swept so bare of food that the very locusts of Egypt
might have gained points from the completeness of his ravages. And when
with grateful hearts the Lawtons saw his red face smiling "good-by" from
the gorgeous trap, as it went glittering down the drive, John went
directly to his beloved willow, Letitia flew to the dining-room, but
Sybil, dashing her fist upon the porch railing, cried, with white lips:
"Oh, what a tawdry farce life has become for us! Dorothy Lawton, I go to
Miss Morrell's to-morrow! If she helps me--good! If she does not, I'll
kill myself! I swear I will! Oh, mamma--Lena! Come quick! Dorrie has
fainted!"