much, and they make Mary so happy!"
"Oh, she'd be happy enough any way. You ought to look out a little for
yourself, child."
"Well, I do. Now, just look at the expense of going to parties. To
begin with, it annihilates all your dresses, at one fell swoop. If
I make up my mind, for instance, not to go to parties this winter,
I have dresses enough and pretty enough for all my occasions. The
minute I decide I must go, I have _nothing_, absolutely nothing, to
wear. There must be an immediate outlay. A hundred dollars would be a
small estimate for all the additions necessary to make me appear with
credit. Even if I take my old dresses as the foundation, and use my
unparalleled good taste, there are trimmings, and dressmaker's bills,
and gloves, and slippers, and fifty things; and then a carriage for
the evening, at five dollars a night, and all for what? What _does_
anybody get at a great buzzing party, to pay for all this? Then Harry
has to use all his time, and all his nerves, and all his strength on
his work. He is driven hard all the time with writing, making up the
paper, and overseeing at the office. And you know parties don't begin
till near ten o'clock, and if he is out till twelve he doesn't rest
well, nor I either--it's just so much taken out of our life--and we
don't either of us enjoy it. Now, why should we put out our wood fire
that we _do_ enjoy, and scrimp in our flowers, and scrimp in our home
comforts, and in our servant's comforts, just to get what we don't
want after all?"
"Oh, well, I suppose you are like other new married folks, you want to
play Darby and Joan in your chimney-corner," said Aunt Maria, "but,
for all that, I think there are duties to society. One cannot go out
of the world, you know; it don't do, Eva."
"I don't know about that," said Eva. "We are going to try it."'
"What! living without society?"
"Oh, as to that, we shall see our friends other ways. I can see Sophie
a great deal better in a quiet morning-call than an evening reception;
for the fact is, whoever else you see at a party you don't see your
hostess--she hasn't a word for you. Then, I'm going to have an evening
here."
"_You_ an evening?"
"Yes; why not? See if I don't, and we'll have good times, too."
"Why, who do you propose to invite?"
"Oh, all our folks, and Bolton and Jim Fellows; then there are a good
many interesting, intelligent men that write for the magazine, and
besides, our acquaintances on this street."
"In this street? Why, there isn't a creature here," said Aunt Maria.
"Yes, there are those old ladies across the way."
"What! old Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden and that Mrs. Benthusen? Well,
they belong to an ancient New York family, to be sure; but they are
old as Methuselah."
"So much the better, Aunty. Old things, you know, are all the rage
just now; and then there's my little Quaker neighbor."
"Why, how odd! They are nice enough, I suppose, and well enough to
have for neighbors; but he's nothing but a watchmaker. He actually
works for Tiffany!"
"Yes; but he is a very modest, intelligent young man, and very well
informed on certain subjects. Harry says he has learned a great deal
from him."
"Well, well, child, I suppose you must take your own way," said Aunt
Maria.
"I suppose we must," said Eva, shaking her head with much gravity.
"You see, Aunty, dear, a wife must accommodate herself to her husband,
and if Harry thinks this is the best way, you know--and he does think
so, very strongly--and isn't it lucky that I think just as he does?
You wouldn't have me fall in with those strong-minded Bloomer women,
would you, and sail the ship on my own account, independently of my
husband?"
Now, the merest allusion to modern strong-mindedness in woman was to
Aunt Maria like a red rag to a bull; it aroused all her combativeness.
"No; I am sure I wouldn't," she said, with emphasis. "If there's
anything, Eva, where I see the use of all my instructions to you,
it is the good sense with which you resist all such new-fangled,
abominable notions about the rights and sphere of women. No; I've
always said that the head of the woman is the man; and it's a wife's
duty to live to please her husband. She may try to influence him--she
ought to do that--but she never ought to do it _openly_. I never used
to oppose Mr. Wouvermans. I was always careful to let him suppose he
was having his own way; but I generally managed to get mine," and Aunt
Maria plumed herself and nodded archly, as an aged priestess who is
communicating to a young neophyte secrets of wisdom.
In her own private mind, Eva thought this the most terrible sort of
hypocrisy; but her aunt was so settled and contented in all her own
practical views, that there was not the least use in arguing the case.
However, she couldn't help saying, innocently,
"But, Aunty, I should be afraid sometimes he would have found me out,
and then he'd be angry."
"Oh, no; trust me for that," said Aunt Maria, complacently. "I never
managed so bunglingly as that. Somehow or other, he didn't exactly
know how, he found things coming round my way; but I never opposed him
openly--I never got his back up. You see, Eva, these men, if they _do_
get their backs up, are terrible, but _any_ of them can be led by the
nose--so I'm glad to find that you begin the right way. Now, there's
your mother--I've been telling her this morning that it's her duty to
make your father go back into business and retrieve his fortunes. He's
got a good position, to be sure--a respectable salary; but there's no
sort of reason why he shouldn't die worth his two or three millions
as well as half the other men who fail, and are up again in two or
three years. But Nellie wants force. She is no manager. If I were your
father's wife, I should set him on his feet again pretty soon. Nellie
is such a little dependent body. She was saying this morning how would
she ever have got along with her family without me! But there are some
things that even I can't do--nobody but a wife could, and Nelly isn't
up to it."
"Poor, dear little mamma," said Eva. "But are you quite sure, Aunt
Maria, that her ways are not better adapted to papa than any one's
else could be? Papa is very positive, though so very quiet. He is
devoted to mamma. Then, again, Aunty, there is a good deal of risk in
going, into speculations and enterprises at papa's age. Of course, you
know I don't know anything about business or that sort of thing; but
it seems to me like a great sea where you are up on the wave to-day
and down to-morrow. So if papa really _won't_ go into these things,
perhaps it's all for the best."
"But, Eva, it is so important now for the girls, poor things, just
going into society--for you know they can't keep out of it, even if
you do. It will affect all their chances of settlement in life--and
that puts me in mind, Eva, something or other must be done about Alice
and Jim Fellows. Everybody is saying if they're not engaged they ought
to be."
"Oh, Aunty, how exasperating the world is! Can't a man and woman have
a plain, honest friendship? Jim has shown himself a true friend to our
family. He came to us just in all the confusion of the failure, and
helped us heart and hand in the manliest way--and we _all_ like him.
Alice likes him, and I don't wonder at it."
"Well, are they engaged?" said Aunt Maria, with an air of statistical
accuracy.
"How should I know? I never thought of asking. I'm not a police
detective, and I always think that if my friends have anything they
want me to know, they'll tell me; and if they don't want me to know,
why should I ask them?"
"But, Eva, one is responsible for one's relations. The fact is, such
an intimacy stands right in the way of a girl's having good offers--it
keeps other parties off. Now, I tell you, as a great secret, there
is a very fine man, immensely rich, and every way desirable, who is
evidently pleased with Alice."
"Dear me, Aunty! how you excite my curiosity. Pray who is it?" said
Eva.
"Well, I'm not at liberty to tell you more particularly; but I _know_
he's thinking about her; and this report about her and Jim would
operate very prejudicially. Now shall I have a talk with Alice, or
will you?"
"Oh, Aunty dear, don't, for pity's sake, say a word to Alice. Young
girls are so sensitive about such things. If it _must_ be talked of,
let me talk with Alice."
"I really thought, if I had a good chance, I'd say something to the
young man himself," said Aunt Maria, reflectively.
"Oh, good heavens! Aunty, don't _think_ of it. You don't know Jim
Fellows."
"Oh, you needn't be afraid of me," said Aunt Maria. "I am a great deal
older and more experienced than you, and if I do do anything, you may
rest assured it will be in the most discreet way. I've managed cases
of this kind before you were born."
"But Jim is the most peculiar"--
"Oh, I know all about him. Do you suppose I've seen him in and out in
the family all this time without understanding him perfectly?"
"But I don't really think that there is the least of anything serious
between him and Alice."
"Very likely. He would not be at all the desirable match for Alice. He
has very little property, and is rather a wild, rattling fellow; and I
don't like newspaper men generally."
"Oh, Aunty, that's severe now. You forget Harry."
"Oh, well, your husband is an exception; but, as a general rule, I
don't like 'em--unprincipled lot _I_ believe," said Aunt Maria, with a
decisive nod of her head. "At any rate, Alice can do better, and she
ought to."
The ringing of the lunch bell interrupted the conversation, much to
the relief of Eva, who discovered with real alarm the course her
respected relative's thoughts were taking.
Of old she had learned that the only result of arguing a point with
her was to make her more set in her own way, and she therefore bent
all her forces of agreeableness to produce a diversion of mind to
other topics. On the principle that doctors apply mustard to the
feet, to divert the too abundant blood from the head, Eva started
a brisk controversy with Aunt Maria on another topic, in hopes, by
exhausting her energies there, to put this out of her mind. With what
success her strategy was crowned, it will remain to be seen.
_CHAPTER VI._
THE SETTLING OF THE WATERS.
It will not be doubted by those who know the ways of family dictators
that Mrs. Maria Wouvermans left Eva's house after her day's visit in a
state of the most balmy self-satisfaction, as one who has done a good
day's work.
"Well, I've been up at Eva's," she said to her sister, as she looked
in on returning, "and really it was well I went in. That Mary of hers
is getting careless and negligent, just as all old servants do, and I
just went over the whole house, and had a plain talk with Mary. She
flew up about it, and was impertinent, of course; but I put her down,
and I talked plainly to Eva about the way she's beginning with her
servants. She's just like you, Nellie, slack and good-natured, and
needs somebody to keep her up. I told her the way she is beginning--of
petting Mary, and fussing up her room with carpet and pictures, and
everything, just like any other--wouldn't work. Servants must be kept
in their places."
Now, Mrs. Van Arsdel had a spirit of her own; and the off-hand,
matter-of-fact manner in which her sister was accustomed to speak
of her as no manager touched a vital point. What housekeeper likes
to have her capacity to guide a house assailed? Is not that the
spot where her glory dwells, if she has any? And it is all the more
provoking when such charges are thrown out in perfect good nature, not
as designed to offend, but thrown in _par parenthèse_, as something
everybody would acknowledge, and too evident to require discussion.
While proceeding in the main part of a discourse Mrs. Wouvermans was
quite in the habit of these frank side disclosures of her opinion of
her sister's management, and for the most part they were submitted to
in acquiescent silence, rather than to provoke a controversy; but to
be called "slack" to her face without protest or rejoinder was more
than she could bear; so Mrs. Van Arsdel spoke up with spirit:
"Maria, you are always talking as if I don't know how to manage
servants. All I know is that you are always changing, and I keep mine
years and years."
"That's because you let them have their own way," said her sister.
"You can keep servants if you don't follow them up, and insist on it
that they shall do their duty. Let them run all over you and live like
mistresses, and you can keep them. For my part, I like to change--new
brooms always sweep clean."
"Well, it's a different thing, Maria--you with your small family, and
mine with so many. I'd rather bear anything than change."
"Oh, well, yes; I suppose there's no help for it, Nellie. Of course I
wasn't blaming you, so don't fire up about it. I know you can't make
yourself over," said Aunt Maria. This was the tone with which she
usually settled discussions with those who differed from her on modes
and measures. After all, they could not be like her, so where was the
use of talking?
Aunt Maria also had the advantage in all such encounters of a
confessed reputation as an excellent manager. Her house was always
elegant, always in order. She herself was gifted with a head for
details that never failed to keep in mind the smallest item, and a
wiry, compact constitution that never knew fatigue. She held the
keys of everything in her house, and always turned every key at the
right moment. She knew the precise weight, quantity, and quality of
everything she had in possession, where it was and what it might be
used for; and, as she said, could go to anything in her house without
a candle in the darkest night. If her servants did not love, they
feared her, and had such a sense of her ever vigilant inspection
that they never even tried to evade her. For the least shadow of
disobedience she was ready to send them away at a moment's warning,
and then go to the intelligence office and enter her name for another,
and come home, put on apron and gloves, and manfully and thoroughly
sustain the department till they came.
Mrs. Wouvermans, therefore, was celebrated and lauded by all her
acquaintances as a perfect housekeeper, and this added sanction and
terror to her _pronunciamentos_ when she walked the rounds as a police
inspector in the houses of her relations.
It is rather amusing to a general looker-on in this odd world
of ours to contrast the serene, cheerful good faith with which
these constitutionally active individuals go about criticising,
and suggesting, and directing right and left, with the dismay and
confusion of mind they leave behind them wherever they operate.
They are often what the world calls well-meaning people, animated
by a most benevolent spirit, and have no more intention of giving
offense than a nettle has of stinging. A large, vigorous, well-growing
nettle has no consciousness of the stings it leaves in the delicate
hands that have been in contact with it; it has simply acted out
its innocent and respectable nature as a nettle. But a nettle armed
with the power of locomotion on an ambulatory tour, is something the
results of which may be fearful to contemplate.
So, after the departure of Aunt Maria our little housekeeper, Eva,
was left in a state of considerable nervousness and anxiety,
feeling that she had been weighed in the balance of perfection and
found wofully wanting. She was conscious, to begin with, that her
characteristic virtues as a housekeeper, if she had any, were not
entirely in the style of her good relative. She was not by nature
statistical, nor given to accounts and figures. She was not sharp and
keen in bargains; she was, she felt in her inmost, trembling soul, a
poor little mollusk, without a bit of a shell, hiding in a cowardly
way under a rock and ready at any time to be eaten up by big fishes.
She had felt so happy in her unlimited trust in Mary, who knew more
than she did about housekeeping--but she had been convicted by her
aunt's cross-questions of having resigned the very signet ring and
scepter of her house into her hands. Did she let Mary go all over the
house? Did she put away the washing? Did Eva allow her to open her
drawers? Didn't she count her towels and sheets every week, and also
her tea-spoons, and keep every drawer and cupboard locked? She ought
to. To all these inquiries Eva had no satisfactory response, and began
to doubt within herself whether she had begun aright. With sensitive,
conscientious people there is always a residuum of self-distrust after
discussions of the nature we have indicated, however vigorously and
skillfully they may have defended their courses at the time.
Eva went over and over in her own mind her self-justifications--she
told herself that she and her aunt were essentially different people,
incapable of understanding each other sympathetically or acting in
each other's ways, and that the well-meant, positive dicta of her
relative were to be let go for what they were worth, and no more.
[Illustration: TALKING IT OVER.
"_Come now, Puss, out with it. Why that anxious brow? What domestic
catastrophe?_"--p. 73.]
Still she looked eagerly and anxiously for the return of her husband,
that she might reinforce herself by talking it over with him. Hers was
a nature so transparent that, before he had been five minutes in
the house, he felt that something had gone wrong; but, the dinner-bell
ringing, he retired at once to make his toilet, and did not open the
subject till they were fairly seated at table.
"Well, come now, Puss--out with it! Why that anxious brow? What
domestic catastrophe? Anything gone wrong with the ivies?"
"Oh, no; the ivies are all right, growing beautifully--it isn't that--"
"Well, then, what is it? It seems there is something."
"Oh, nothing, Harry; only Aunt Maria has been spending the day here."
Eva said this with such a perplexed and woful face that Harry leaned
back in his chair and laughed.
"What a blessing it is to have relations," he said; "but I thought,
Eva, that you had made up your mind not to care for anything Aunt
Maria says?"
"Well, she has been all over the house, surveying and reviewing as if
she owned us, and she has lectured Mary and got her into hysterics,
and talked to me till I am almost bewildered--wondering at everything
we mean to do, and wanting us to take her ways and not ours."
"My dearest child, why need you care? Take it as a rain-storm, when
you've been caught out without your umbrella. That's all. Or why can't
you simply and firmly tell her that she must not go over your house or
direct your servants?"
"Well, you see, that would never do. She would feel so injured and
abused. I've only just made up and brought things to going smoothly,
and got her pacified about our marriage. There would be another fuss
if I should talk that way. Aunt Maria always considered me her girl,
and maintains that she is a sort of special guardian to me, and I
think it very disagreeable to quarrel with your relations, and get on
unpleasant terms with them."
"Well, _I_ shall speak to her, Eva, pretty decidedly, if you don't."
"Oh, don't, don't, Harry! She'd never forgive you. No. Let me manage
her. I have been managing her all day to keep the peace, to keep her
satisfied and pleased; to _let_ her advise me to her heart's content,
about things where I can take advice. Aunt Maria is a capital judge of
linens and cottons, and all sorts of household stuffs, and can tell
to a certainty just how much of a thing you'd want, and the price
you ought to pay, and the exact place to get it; and I have been
contriving to get her opinion on a dozen points where I mean to take
it; and I think she has left, on the whole, highly satisfied with her
visit, though in the main I didn't give in to her a bit about our
plans."
"Then why so tragic and tired-looking?"
"Oh, well, after all, when Aunt Maria talks, she says a great many
things that have such a degree of sense in them that it worries me.
Now, there's a good deal of sense in what she said about trusting too
much to servants, and being too indulgent. I know mamma's girls used
to get spoiled so that they would be perfect tyrants. And yet I cannot
for the life of me like Aunt Maria's hard, ungracious way of living
with servants, as if they were machines."
"Ah, well, Eva, it's always so. Hard, worldly people always have
a good deal of what looks like practical sense on their side, and
kindness and unselfishness certainly have their weak points; there's
no doubt of that. The Sermon on the Mount is open to a great deal of
good hard worldly criticism, and so is every attempt to live up to it
practically; but, never mind. We all know that the generous way is the
strong way, and the best way, in the long run."
"And then you know, Harry, I haven't the least talent for being hard
and sharp," said Eva, "and so I may as well take the advantages of my
sort of nature."
"Certainly you may; people never succeed out of their own line."
"Then there's another trouble. I'm afraid Aunt Maria is going to
interfere with Alice, as she tried to do with me. She said that
everybody was talking about her intimacy with Jim, and that if _I_
didn't speak to Alice _she_ must."
"Confound that woman," said Harry; "she's an unmitigated old fool!
She's as bad as a runaway steam engine; somebody ought to seize and
lock her up."
"Come, sir, keep a civil tongue about my relations," said Eva,
laughing.
"Well, I must let off a little to you, just to lower steam to the
limits of Christian moderation."
"Alice isn't as fond of Aunt Maria as I am, and has a high spirit of
her own, and I'm afraid it will make a terrible scene if Aunt Maria
attacks her, so I suppose I must talk to her myself; but what do you
think of Jim, Harry? Is there anything in it, on his part?"
"How can I say? you know just as much as I do and no more, and you are
a better judge of human nature than I am."
"Well, would you like it to have Alice take Jim--supposing there were
anything."
"Why, yes, very well, if she wants him."
"But Jim is such a volatile creature--would you want to trust him?"
"He is constant in his affections, which is the main thing. I'm sure
his conduct when your father failed showed that; and a sensible,
dignified woman like Alice might make a man of him."
"It's odd," said Eva, "that Alice, who is so prudent, and has such a
high sense of propriety, seems so very indulgent to Jim. None of his
escapades seem to offend her."
"It's the doctrine of counterparts," said Harry; "the steady sensible
nature admires the brilliancy and variety of the volatile one."
"For my part," said Eva, "I can't conceive of Jim's saying anything
in serious earnest. The very idea of his being sentimental seems
funny--and how can anybody be in love without being sentimental?"
"There are diversities of operation," said Harry. "Jim must make love
in his own way, and it will probably be an original one."
"But, really now, do you know," persisted Eva, "I think Alice might
be mated with a man of much higher class than Jim. He is amiable, and
bright, and funny, and agreeable. Yet I don't deny but Alice might do
better."
"So she might, but the perversity of fate is that the superior man
isn't around and Jim _is_; and, ten to one, if the superior man were
in the field, Alice would be perverse enough to choose Jim. And, after
all, you must confess, give Jim Fellows a fortune of a million or two,
a place in Newport, and another on the North River, and even you would
call it a brilliant match, and think it a fortunate thing for Alice."
"Oh, dear me, Harry, that's the truth, to be sure. Am I so worldly?"
"No; but ideal heroes are not plentiful, and there are few gems that
don't need rich setting. The first questions as to a man are, is
he safe, has he no bad habits, is he kind and affectionate in his
disposition and capable of constant affection? and, secondly, does
the woman feel that sort of love that makes her prefer him even to men
that are quite superior? Now, whether Alice feels in that way toward
Jim is what remains to be seen. I'm sure I can't tell. Neither can I
tell whether Jim has any serious intentions in regard to her. If they
were only let alone, and not watched and interfered with, I've no
doubt the thing would adjust itself in the natural course of things.
"But see here, I must be going to my club, and, now I think of it,
I've brought some Paris letters from the girls for you, to pass the
evening with."