A GARDEN TEA.
It was on the same afternoon as that referred to, previous to the long
digression in the last chapter, but perhaps a trifle earlier, though
the torrid glare of mid-day had passed, and the cool shadows below the
trees had begun to creep eastward on the shaven lawn. The air was full
of warmth and sunshine, with just stir enough to move the aspen leaves
upon the tree, and scatter more faint and widely the scent of roses
beyond the alleys, where it hung in drowsy sweetness, mingling with
the droning of bees and inviting to mid-day sleep, that crowning
deliciousness of summer weather.
The Misses Stanley were in their grounds, and they had friends. They
were in their grounds, that is to say in a shady corner of the lawn by
the house, where three or four grand hemlocks, survivors of the
forest, spread out umbrageous arms over a glimmering arcade of gloom,
where never sunbeam stole, and the shady air was fresh with the
fragrant breath of resins drawn from the upper branches by the sun.
There, lounging on cane chairs and garden seats, they plied their
fans calmly, and chatted, but not too much or loud, in sociable
repose. It was early in July, when everything is green and fresh and
vigorous--bud, bloom, and spray instinct with brimming life, and not a
yellowing leaf to tell of memories or regret, all hope and promise and
delight in the flowery present and the fruitful days to come. Great
butterflies were tumbling in the brightness, and there was a low
continuous murmur in the grass from the thousand living things too
small to be separately or distinctly heard; and ever and anon from
around the banks of shrubs would come the gurgling laughter of
youthful voices, so lightsome in its freedom from care and adult
emotion.
There were six of them, those youthful ones, whose merry voices
disturbed the slumbrous heat, walking or running, heedless alike of
shade and sunshine, their hands full of roses. Muriel was one of them,
the ladies' niece, and Tilly Martindale, Miss Matilda's goddaughter,
and Betsey Bunce, a niece of the rector, and so a sort of cousin to
the family. There was Gerald Herkimer, Ralph's only child, whose
mother Martha was sitting with the ladies in the shade, and Randolph
Jordan, the son of Matilda's friend Amelia who was sitting by her at
that moment. And, last, there was Pierre Bruneau, a black-eyed
_habitant_ boy, the son of Jean, who managed the farm. He had been
working in the garden, and seeing Muriel, had found some small service
to render her, and had lingered near, unconscious of the sidelong
glances of her companions. She had given him her flowers to carry and
bade him bring them to the house, and he, intoxicated with their
fragrance, or rather, perhaps, at being permitted to carry them for
his mistress when the young gentlemen were by, joined gaily in the
general laughter, and even ventured to put in a jest in his queer
French-English, to the amusement and placation of the not over-well
pleased company.
They were all between fifteen and seventeen years old, all except
Muriel. Muriel was eleven, and all the promise of her babyhood, which
had dropped so unexpectedly into the ladies' arms, had been more than
fulfilled. The roses and the butterflies were pale dim things beside
her, as she skipped among the rest, her long hair shining like threads
of gold where it caught the light, and melting into a warm shadow
beneath the leaf of her spreading garden-hat, from beneath whose brim
there shone a pair of eyes luminous in their glee and innocency,
penetrating without sharpness and soft without being dull; lips short,
red, and parted, displaying teeth small, regular, well apart, like a
string of evenly-assorted pearls.
The fête was hers--her birthday it was called--and in reality it was
the anniversary of her appearance in her present life, on the night
after the thunderstorm, when the ladies had found her on their
doorsteps. Penelope, prudent and timid, would rather have left the day
unmarked, in case talk should arise; but Matilda, emboldened by
success in her plan of adoption, insisted that fears were now idle,
"that their darling must keep her birthday like other children, and
that it would be unthankful to the good Providence who had sent the
little one to brighten their humdrum lives, if they kept the feast on
any other day." Besides, what was there to fear? Every servant in the
house had been changed over and over in the ten years which had
intervened since then; even Smithers the nurse, who had stayed the
longest, was gone these three years, and she had not only been paid to
hold her tongue, but was too fond of the child to let slip a word
which could injure her. Only Bruneau and his family remained about the
place, and they were such quiet and respectful _habitants_ they would
not babble; and even if they would, who could understand them? The
servants did not understand French, and Jean's and his wife's English
was so awkward and hard to come, they never spoke to any of them if it
could be avoided. There was the boy Pierre, to be sure, "But remember,
sister, how respectful he has always been, even when, years ago, we
used to send for him to come and play with Muriel; and now that he has
grown big and able to work, he seems to pay far more attention to the
orders she gives him than to any of ours." So Penelope shrugged her
shoulders with a sigh, as she always did in the end when Matilda was
"positive," and yielded the point.
"What a pretty, graceful child Muriel is," said Mrs. Martindale,
Tilly's mother, a widow. They had come from Montreal for the fête.
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Jordan, "she will make a sensation in
Montreal when you bring her out, Matilda; but that is some years in
the future yet. The other girls had better make haste and arrange
themselves before she appears," and she glanced at Mrs. Martindale,
which was gratuitously unkind, seeing that Tilly, being only fifteen,
would not appear in the world for two winters to come, and she
promised to be a remarkably fine girl, and in quite a different style.
But then her boy Randolph had been essaying to pipe his first small
note for ladies' ears in those of the damsel, and she, though not yet
out, was grown woman enough to desiderate whiskers or a moustache in
an admirer, and to scorn with youth's uncompromising freedom the
advances of a callow swain of her own tender years. Ten years later,
how different her views will be! But so, in ten years' time, will his
be too--and the gentleman will have the pull then, as much as the lady
has it now. Wherefore, my dear Mrs. Amelia, you might very well have
forborne to resent the seeming slight upon your boy! But women are
such partisans, especially the good ones; and she who is not, even if
she be half a philosopher, is but half a woman--and not the best half
either.
And now the creaking of the entrance gate was heard, and the crunching
of wheels on the gravel; and presently from among the clumps of
shrubbery which screened them from the road there issued a _calèche_,
the French Canadian substitute for an American buggy, high set and
hung on leather straps instead of springs; and in it swung the rector
and his spouse, trundling along to the front of the house.
Mrs. Jordan lifted her _pince-nez_ to her eyes. "Ha! a calash! Mr.
Bunce, of course. Nobody else would get into such a thing."
"Do you know, I like them, and they are very much used down at
Quebec," observed Mrs. Martindale, rendered generally contradictious
by the tone of the other's recent remarks.
"They make me seasick. I feel as if I were in a cradle."
"Was that the effect your cradle had, Amelia dear? You have certainly
an uncommon memory to recollect so well; for surely you were in the
advanced class at Mrs. Jones' when I was learning my letters."
"Quite true, Louisa," said the other, biting her lip; "but you know
you were a backward child. Great talent is often slow in showing
itself, you know. What a droll pair those two make, swinging up there
in company--as contented as Darby and Joan carrying their eggs to
market. Ah, now they are out of sight--gone round to the front door. I
am told that on their wedding tour they were mistaken for mother and
son--and, strange to say, the error did not put them out in the
least."
"I think it nice, myself," said Penelope, "to see people so content to
be happy in their own way, and so indifferent to the world's idle
talk. It is idle talk, Amelia. When two people find each other's
company desirable, are they not foolish to give it up for fear that
somebody else will laugh? How much would that somebody else do to make
either of them happy? And how little he _could_ do. Perhaps you do not
know, Amelia, that Mr. Bunce is our cousin, and therefore we feel
bound to like him. At the same time he is your rector, of course,
while you are living at St. Euphrase, and I admit your right to
criticise him."
And here the clerical pair coming through a window from the
drawing-room descried the party in the shade and joined them, which
changed the conversation; at the same time the crunching gravel gave
notice of other arrivals. First, a waggonette carrying Jordan,
Considine and Ralph; and before these had time to alight and join the
rest, a rockaway, with the family from La Hache. Mrs. Martha Herkimer,
who had been enjoying the heat and the coolness and the buzz of talk
in a large lounging chair, with her fan drooping listlessly in her
hand, and her pose indicating enjoyment of the quiescent if not
somnolent kind, roused herself, shook out her skirts, and sat down
again bolt upright, ready to become acquainted with the French people
her husband so wished to know, as soon as possible.
Madame Rouget led by her lord, hat in hand, and followed by her
daughter, all smiles and sweetness, fluttered through the window to
the grass, where her hostesses met her and exchanged salutations eked
out with gesture, in which gloves a little brighter and eyebrows a
trifle more arched than the Anglo-Saxon pattern bore an important
part. Madame's English was not fluent; the Misses Stanley, with the
backwardness of their nation, did not venture to use French, and there
was some obscurity and delay in the opening phrases, during which M.
Rouget stood benevolently by, still uncovered and regardless of sun
and sunstroke. In time they reached the grateful shade of the
hemlocks, where the newcomers inhaled the perfumed coolness with
infinite relish, after the glare and dust of their recent drive; and
then there came presentations of the lately come neighbours, with
profuse explanations from Madame, "that her English so _difficile_ had
made her delay, till she was so _comblée_ of confusions, that---- Ah,
well! she prayed the ladies to excuse;" and she smiled very
graciously, and pressed the hands of Amelia and Martha, lisping hopes
to be better acquainted; meaning, no doubt, as with Penelope and her
sister, the exchange of half-yearly visits, which, in view of
differences of church as well as language, was as much as could be
expected. That church counted for a great deal became evident when
"Mrs. Bunce, the wife of my cousin the rector," was next presented.
The smile died out of Madame's face, and the _empressement_ faded from
her manner as she bowed more deeply than before with eyes fastened on
the ground. "The _bêtise_," as she said to her daughter afterwards,
"of those English! To introduce the wife of one of their married
priests to me, the niece of My Lord the Archbishop!"
"But he is of their family, we must recollect, my mother," replied
this judicious young person. "And perhaps they do not know of my great
uncle the Archbishop. At least the ladies intended to be kind, and
Monsieur Gerald Herkimaire, and Monsieur Randolphe are both _trés
comme il faut?_" On which Madame patted the precocious utterer of so
much wisdom--she was not yet sixteen--with her fan, and laughed
heartily. But this did not occur till the following morning.
Penelope was not slow to perceive that the last presentation had not
been a success, and came promptly to the rescue, by asking Mrs. Bunce
a question, while Matilda drew off the attention of the others by
asking Mademoiselle if she would not join the young people, and
leading her away, while the mother and the rest fell into conversation
with the gentlemen.
The young ones by this time had sent Pierre to the house with their
flowers, and were lingering on Muriel's croquet ground until Miss
Martindale should persuade herself that she was not too grown up to
play, a conclusion which she speedily arrived at on the appearance of
the new comer, who was quite as advanced as herself and seemed eager
to begin.
"How your niece is most _gracieuse_, and so prettee!" said the
Frenchwoman to Matilda when she rejoined the elders.
"Yes, indeed!" said Mrs. Martindale, "she is one of the very nicest
little girls I know; and so clever. You should hear her play. It is
more like a grown person's performance than a child's. And to think
she should never have had any governess but dear Matilda here! I call
it quite remarkable."
"Ah!" said Madame sympathetically. It is always a safe observation to
make, especially in reply to what has not been very clearly
understood, and the inflection of the voice can make it stand for so
many things, that if it is only uncertain it will mean whatever the
hearer likes best.
"It is a loss to society that women like you should be independent,
Matilda," said Amelia. "What a governess you would have made! You need
not shrug; it is a compliment, and one which very few people can
claim. If you knew the troubles of governess-ridden mothers, you would
understand me; so few are worth much, and those few keep one in
constant dread of their growing dissatisfied and leaving, till the
mother's life becomes a burden. I am so glad my family consists only
of a boy, and it is Jordan's business to think what is to become of
him," glancing at the croquet players.
"That young gentleman," said Madame, following the direction of the
other's eyes. "_Distingué!_ What joy to have one so fine son!"
Mrs. Jordan smiled her gratification and could not help glancing
across at Mrs. Martindale, whose daughter's depreciation of the
paragon must have ruffled her maternal plumage not a little.
"Yes," she said, "he is a dear boy--so manly and yet so affectionate,"
and her eyes drooped, and her voice fell, as it will when one talks of
something near the heart; and there were signs--woman of the world
though she was--of her maundering on upon the same sweet theme, if
only there were an attentive silence.
But this Mrs. Martha's patience could not yield. She saw nothing so
remarkable in the Jordan boy "for that affected French woman to make a
fuss about. If it had been her Gerald now, there might have been some
sense in it--with his delicate fair skin like a girl's, and his sturdy
broad shoulders. It was true young Jordan had the advantage in height;
but what matters half an inch? And as to the manliness----" And again
she seemed to be standing in an upper window of her town house,
securely hid behind a curtain, looking down on the two boys in a
tussle. How her boy tumbled the other over, let him get up and knocked
him down again, and pummelled him till he had had enough. And she? Had
she been a right-minded person--taken in the abstract--of course she
would have interfered; but being only a woman and a mother, and seeing
it was her side which played the winning game, she merely stood and
looked on. Lady lecturers and authors often tell us of the higher
moral plane from which the gentle sex surveys the world's affairs, but
for honest old-world delight in sheer physical force and muscular
prowess, can a woman be equalled? It must be a survival from the days
of savagery and marriage by capture. The learned professor's wife may
expect to be led out to dinner before plain mistress, but as likely as
not she is innocent of even a smattering of the "ology" on which her
husband's reputation is built; but she whom good fortune has wed to a
Victoria Cross knows every detail of his achievements and believes
herself married to a demigod.
But this is digression. It seemed to Martha that Amelia was about to
moralize aloud upon her boy, and having a kindness for her and being
unwilling that she should make herself absurd, she broke the momentary
silence with
"And really. Miss Matildy now"--Martha was a lady 'Noo
Hampshire'--"doo tell! Have you taught the child her letters and
pothooks and some of the multiplication table all by yourself; and you
not married? Well, now, I call it real smart--you might almost do for
a school marm. That you might, with just taking pains--at least, if
you, had begun earlier."
Ralph was standing within earshot, and it is not unlikely that he
wished his wife had not spoken. She was a good soul, he well knew. She
had been a beauty, and once there had seemed a quaint charm in the
direct and high-pitched utterances which stole from between those
coral lips. But that was years ago. The lips were withered now; it was
on account of her poor health they had come to live at St. Euphrase,
and only the unusual and impolite utterances remained to wound the
sensibilities of polished ears--now, too, when he had become rich, and
he could buy her whatever she wanted, and would have bought her some
conventional refinement as gladly as her diamonds from Tiffany's. It
was Matilda, however, who replied in support of her own achievements.
"Letters and pothooks, my dear Mrs. Herkimer? Muriel can read the
newspapers and even 'Paradise Lost' perfectly well. She reads me to
sleep every Sunday afternoon with 'Paradise Lost' or Young's 'Night
Thoughts.' I think poetry is improving for the child, you know, and I
enjoy it myself. It soothes me. And, by-the-way, it was she who wrote
asking you to come here to-day."
"Well now! You don't----" ejaculated Martha; but Matilda, though
mollified, ran on: "Indeed, I believe I have gained quite as much as
Muriel by her lessons. One must know a thing in order to teach it. I
found my own education had grown sadly rusty, and needed brushing up.
I had no idea there was so much interesting information to be got from
'Mangnall's Questions' and 'The Child's History of England' till I
went over them with Muriel. As to music, I used to play, but was
getting out of practice; she has revived my interest in it, and now we
both play and sing together--in a mild way, my dear Amelia; pray do
not look apprehensive, I am not meditating an exhibition. But I was
going to say, I think Muriel needs better teaching than mine, now; so
we propose going to Montreal for the winter. I cannot teach languages,
and her voice seems worth cultivating."
"Take her to Selby, Miss Matildy," cried the worthy Martha, little
dreaming how her husband and his aunt wished her a lockjaw. "He is
married to a sister of Judy's there--plays the organ at St.
Wittikind's--does it beautiful, my dear, but you will have heard
him--and if there is any sing in the child it is he will bring it out.
He'd make the kettle sing."
"We can all do that," said Judith disgusted. "Put another stick in the
stove, that's all it wants. And this is little Muriel's birthday. Miss
Matilda? How old is she today? Twelve? Ah--Pretty child, but not very
tall. But that is in the family, I suppose. Dionysius is almost short,
and Betsey there is really stumpy. But I do not see much resemblance
in her to Betsey."
"Neither do I."
"But one would expect to see a family-likeness."
"Between second cousins? I do not see the necessity."
"Blood always tells, you know. Yet she is not even like
Dionysius----no trace of his square intellectual forehead, or
anything."
"Your niece and her uncle are Bunces, perhaps, and Muriel a Stanley."
"But she is not like you either."
"I confess I never was clever about seeing likenesses, but I am sure I
could not be fonder of the child if she were ever so like me.
Penelope, do you not think we might have tea, now?"
Considine had heard Martha's mention of Selby. It was the first time
in years that he had heard the name. It awoke recollections which had
long been asleep. Jordan, his co-trustee in the Herkimer fortune had
no doubt told him the family story on his return to Montreal, but at
that time his mind was full of his own cares, and since then the mere
periodical investment of dividends had not called for a recurrence to
the subject. Though, doubtless, he remembered his old attachment, and
would still have felt a kindness for its object had his thoughts
wandered that way, the preoccupations of business led them in other
directions; the tender passages were relegated to the same limbo as
the memories of childhood, and his _ante bellum_ possessions wiped out
of existence by the event of war. Love-dreams, longings, the yearnings
of what we call our "hearts," are luxuries of the well-to-do, living
at their ease. When the wolf comes to the door, and the means of
subsistence are in doubt or danger, Cupid, the ethereal sprite,
feeding daintily on sighs and idle fancies, wings himself way; and in
the turmoil of hard material facts, he is not missed. It is best so.
The heart wounds, forgotten, skin over and heal, where head and arms
are in danger from the blows of fortune; and so the undivided energies
are free for the combat. But now, his personal affairs having arranged
themselves in an easy well-to-do routine which gave no anxiety, his
mind was open to other interests, and of these there were not enough
to engage it. He often felt dull and lonely. He would now and then
accompany Ralph to St. Euphrase, remaining over night and returning to
town in the morning, thereby killing a long afternoon, as on the
present occasion; but this could be only an occasional palliation. The
"planting" years of his youth, as he called them, and the fighting
years which followed, had not been the apprenticeship to make him take
an undivided interest in business for its own sake after he had
secured income sufficient for his needs. He had outlived his relish
for the society of young men--young men of business, at least--the
middle-aged had withdrawn into domestic life, and he found himself a
good deal alone.
The mention of Selby's name stirred old associations which time and
adventure had long deprived of bitterness; and now he looked back with
only a plaintive yearning to the happiness which might have been, if
he had had his way, and pitied himself in his solitary estate. If he
had married, what wealth of love was his to have bestowed! And how he
could have enjoyed being cosseted and purred to by a wife of his own,
instead of depending on hirelings whose servile smile betrayed the
hollowness of their attentions. The smoking-room at his club, and his
own rooms at the hotel rose before his eye in their dull solid
unsatisfying comfort, and he could not but compare them with the
clean, unsmoky freshness and brightness of the woman's world around
him, and confess the two as different and apart as the close warm
stuffiness of a winter sick-room, from the clear keen day out of doors
in early spring.
"What ails you, gineral? You look that glum you might have been
hearing of your brother's death," said Martha, making room for him on
the garden seat where she sat.
"I am well, madam. I heard you allude just now to a Mr. Selby as
having married the sister of Mrs. Bunce. Are you acquainted with the
lady?"
"To be sure I am. She is Ralph's aunt. A dear good soul as ever lived,
but real sorrowful-like and sickly now--she that used to be as peart
and blooming as the flowers in May. It's heart-breaking to see her.
She has never got over the loss of her child ten years ago, and it has
fairly broke her up. Her hair is white like a woman of sixty. She
might be older than Judy, there; and yet she is just one age with
Ralph--not forty yet."
"I recollect her very distinctly in her brother Gerald's lifetime--a
beautiful young lady. That was before the war; the first time I was in
Canada."
"Were you in Canady then? But to be sure you were! You were Gerald's
friend, and are a trustee of his property. Ah, yes! I recollect. And
you were----"
But she did not say any more; only she looked in his face with a new
interest, and what would have been a kind and sympathizing smile if
good manners had not restrained the manifestation. Nothing awakens the
interest of a good woman so warmly as a story of true enduring love.
If the love have been unrequited, its constancy seems but the more
rarely and touchingly beautiful. It is something to be dealt with
delicately, and spoken to in low, soft, ambiguous words that may
soothe but will not flutter the tender thing. It was such love that
Martha dreamed of in her youth, and humbly hoped for; and when Ralph,
young, eager and impetuous, found her in the New England homestead,
she dreamed the divine influence had descended to stir the hushed and
waiting waters of her life. She cheerfully left home and kindred to
dwell with the man who loved her, and she had been his true and
devoted wife. Yet often when she recalled the enthusiasm of that early
time it seemed to her that the love-feast had been but a Barmecide's
banquet after all, or like the husks with which another adventurer had
to stay his hunger when he left the shelter of the paternal home. She
lavished the wealth of her own affection, but the return had seemed
but slender and humdrum to her high-wrought expectations. The young
couple went to housekeeping, which is something quite different from
the life of the hummingbirds among the flowers: Love's dainty fare of
sighs and kisses gave place to the grosser nourishment of bread and
beef. The bread had to be earned, the house had to be kept, and very
soon the pair of Arcadians found themselves toilers like the rest of
the world. He toiled with a will, nay with a relish; it was what he
was better fitted for than the fantastic joys of feeling; and she did
her part at least without repining. It was what she had promised, and
she did it loyally, if wearily at times, in the colourless greyness of
daily life, when she recalled the rosy dawn of maiden love, with the
heavens above all shining and the world sparkling with dew. So Eve,
mayhap, looked back on Paradise when she was sent forth with her lord
into common life, and doubtless she would sigh at times to remember
it, even with her boys growing up around her. And so with Martha in
her prosperity, to fancy Considine cherishing the ashes of a blighted
love, stirred feelings not dead, but long since grown to be a mere
luxurious pain--a poignancy of plaintive delight.
"Yes," said Considine, after allowing time for the completion of
Martha's interrupted sentence, "yes, I believe it was to Miss Mary's
adherence to her own choice in the matter of a husband that I owe my
association with Jordan as trustee under that eccentric will. People
cannot control their likings, I suppose, and I do think the young lady
was hardly dealt with. I hope the marriage she was so set on has
turned out well. Is she in good circumstances?"
"They are very comfortable; but not rich, of course. People do not
make fortunes in Selby's profession; but when a woman throws away one
fortune she has no right to expect another. However they'd have done
well enough if it had not been for losing the child. That has fairly
broke them up. They live retired, and don't care to see anybody. Mary
keeps her room half the time, and if it was not for Susan, who lives
with them since Judy married, I don't know what they would do. But it
gives me the dumps to think of them. Is this not a nice place,
gineral? And how do you like the ladies? Seems to me Miss Matildy is
just too altogether awful nice for anything."
And so she ran on, good soul. She was bent on withdrawing Considine
from what she considered his "just too beautiful" contemplation of an
ancient grief, and resolved to find him a suitable consoler. The
consoler, indeed, was already fixed upon in her own mind, and ere she
went home that afternoon, she had already begun to depict the
interesting bachelor in colours which, but for the incipient baldness
above his temples, the shaggy moustache, and the absence of wings,
might have stood for the Cupid on an old-fashioned valentine.
Her auditor was quite interested, in a pleasant heart-whole way, and
much as she might have been over a new variety of Brahmah or other
fowl; for besides her lively sensibility, Matilda had a considerable
fund of sober sense, though she was scarcely herself aware of it.
Nevertheless, it _was_ interesting to hear of the vanquished hero.
Martha dwelt much on his warlike exploits, and his cherishing
through years and battles the memory of his old attachment. Captain
Lorrimer--who knew?--might have done the same, and Matilda still
thought kindly of him, though she had never read his name in any list
of killed or wounded, and she had seen or heard nothing of him since
he marched his men on board the steamer to the strains of "The girl I
left behind me," amid the waving handkerchiefs of the ladies on the
wharf; and henceforth Matilda felt very friendly and exerted herself
to be pleasant whenever she found herself in Considine's company.