MR. BURKE ACCEPTS A RESPONSIBILITY
Willy Croup was very much pleased with Mr. Burke, and she was glad that
she had allowed herself to be persuaded to sit at table with such a fine
gentleman.
He treated her with extreme graciousness of manner, and it was quite
plain to her that if he recognized her in her silk gown as the person
who, in a calico dress, had opened the front door for him, he had
determined to make her feel that he had not noticed the coincidence.
He was a good deal younger than she was, but Willy's childlike
disposition had projected itself into her maturer years, and in some
respects there was a greater sympathy, quickly perceived by both,
between her and Mr. Burke than yet existed between him and Mrs. Cliff.
After some of the amusing anecdotes which he told, the visitor looked
first towards Willy to see how she appreciated them; but it must not be
supposed that he was not extremely attentive and deferential to his
hostess.
If Willy had known what a brave, gallant, and daring sailor he was, she
would have made a hero of him; but Mrs. Cliff had never said much about
Burke, and Willy simply admired him as the best specimen of the urbane
man of the world with whom she had yet met.
The two women talked a good deal about their visitor that evening, and
Mrs. Cliff said that she hoped he was not going to leave town very soon,
for it was possible that she might be of help to him if he wanted to
settle down in that part of the country.
The next morning, soon after breakfast, when Willy opened the front gate
of the yard and stepped out upon the street with a small covered basket
in her hand, she had gone but a very little distance when she met Mr.
Burke, with his furs, his cane, and his silk hat. The latter was lifted
very high as its owner saluted Miss Croup.
Willy, who was of a fair complexion, reddened somewhat as she shook
hands with the gentleman, informed him, in answer to his questions, that
Mrs. Cliff was very well, that she was very well; that the former was at
home and would be glad to see him, and that she herself was going into
the business part of the town to make some little purchases.
She would have been better pleased if she had not been obliged to tell
him where she was going, but she could not do otherwise when he said he
supposed she was walking for the benefit of the fresh morning air. He
added to her discomfiture by requesting to be allowed to walk with her,
and by offering to carry her basket. This threw Willy's mind into a good
deal of a flutter. Why could she not have met this handsomely dressed
gentleman sometime when she was not going to the grocery store to buy
such things as stove-blacking and borax?
It seemed to her as if these commodities must suggest to the mind of any
one rusty iron and obtrusive insects, and as articles altogether outside
the pale of allusion in high-toned social intercourse.
It also struck her as a little odd that a gentleman should propose to
accompany a lady when she was going on domestic errands; but then this
gentleman was different from any she had known, and there were many ways
of the world with which she was not at all acquainted.
Mr. Burke immediately began to speak of the visit of the day before. He
had enjoyed seeing Mrs. Cliff again and he had never sat down to a
better dinner.
"Yes," said Willy, "she likes good eatin', and she knows what it is, and
if she had a bigger dining-room she would often invite people to dinner,
and I expect the house would be quite lively, as she seems more given to
company than she used to be, and that's all right, considerin' she's
better able to afford it."
Mr. Burke took a deep satisfied breath. The opportunity had already come
to him to speak his mind.
"Afford it!" said he. "I should think so! Mrs. Cliff must be very rich.
She is worth, I should say--well, I don't know what to say, not knowing
exactly and precisely what each person got when the grand division was
made."
Willy's loyalty to Mrs. Cliff prompted her to put her in as good a light
as possible before this man of the world, and her own self-esteem
prompted her to show that, being a friend and relative of this rich
lady, she was not ignorant of her affairs in life.
"Oh, she's rich!" said Willy. "I can't say, of course, just how much she
has, but I'm quite sure that she owns at least--"
Willy wished to put the amount of the fortune at one hundred thousand
dollars, but she was a little afraid that this might be too much, and
yet she did not wish to make the amount any smaller than could possibly
be helped. So she thought of seventy-five, and then eighty, and finally
remarked that Mrs. Cliff must be worth at least ninety thousand dollars.
Mr. Burke looked up at the sky and wanted to whistle.
"Ninety thousand dollars!" he said to himself. "I know positively that
it was at least four millions at the time of the division, and she says
she's richer now than she was then, which is easy to be accounted for by
the interest coming in. I see her game! She wants to keep shady about
her big fortune because her neighbors would expect her to live up to it,
and she knows it isn't in her to live up to it. Now, I'm beginning to
see through the fog." "It seems to me," said he, "that Mrs. Cliff ought
to have a bigger dining-room."
This remark pulled up the flood-gate to Willy's accumulated sentiments
on the subject, and they poured forth in a rushing stream.
Yes, indeed, Mrs. Cliff ought to have a bigger dining-room, and other
rooms to the house, and there was the front fence, and no end of things
she ought to have, and it was soon made clear to Mr. Burke that Willy
had been lying awake at night thinking, and thinking, and thinking about
what Mrs. Cliff ought to have and what she did not have. She said she
really and honestly believed that there was no reason at all why she did
not have them, except that she did not want to seem to be setting
herself up above her neighbors. In fact, Mrs. Cliff had told Willy two
or three times, when there had been a discussion about prices, that she
was able to do anything she wanted, and if she could do that, why did
she not do it? People were all talking about it, and they had talked and
talked her fortune down until in some families it was not any more than
ten thousand dollars.
On and on talked Willy, while Mr. Burke said scarcely a word, but he
listened with the greatest attention. They had now walked on until they
had reached the main street of the little town, gone through the
business part where the shops were, and out into the suburbs. Suddenly
Willy stopped.
"Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "I've gone too far! I was so interested in
talking, that I didn't think."
"I'm sorry," said Mr. Burke, "that I've taken you out of your way. Can't
I get you what you want and save you the trouble?"
Now Willy was in another flutter. After the walk with the fur-trimmed
coat, and the talk about dollars by thousands and tens of thousands, she
could not come down to mention borax and blacking.
"Oh no, thank you!" said she, trying her best to think of some other
errand than the one she had come upon. "I don't believe it's finished
yet, and it's hardly worth while to stop. There was one of those big
cushion covers that she brought from Paris, that was to be filled with
down, but I don't believe it's ready yet, and I needn't stop."
Mr. Burke could not but think it a little odd that such a small basket
should be brought for the purpose of carrying home a large down cushion,
but he said nothing further on the subject. He had had a most gratifying
conversation with this communicative and agreeable person, and his
interest in Mrs. Cliff was greatly increased.
When he neared the hotel, he took leave of his companion, saying that he
would call in the afternoon; and Willy, after she had looked back and
was sure he was out of sight, slipped into the grocery store and got her
borax and blacking.
Mr. Burke called on Mrs. Cliff that afternoon, and the next morning, and
two or three times the day after. They came to be very much interested
in each other, and Burke in his mind compared this elderly friend with
his mother, and not to the advantage of the latter. Burke's mother was a
woman who would always have her own way, and wanted advice and counsel
from no one, but Mrs. Cliff was a very different woman.
She was so willing to listen to what Burke said--and his remarks were
nearly always on the subject of the proper expenditure of money--and
appeared to attach so much importance to his opinions, that he began to
feel that a certain responsibility, not at all an unpleasant one, was
forcing itself upon him.
He did not think that he should try to constitute himself her director,
or even to assume the position of professional suggester, but in an
amateur way he suggested, and she, without any idea of depending upon
him for suggestions, found herself more and more inclined to accept them
as he continued to offer them.
She soon discovered that he was the only person in Plainton who knew her
real fortune, and this was a bond of sympathy and union between them,
and she became aware that she had succeeded in impressing him with her
desire to live upon her fortune in such a manner that it would not
interfere with her friendships or associations, and her lifelong ideas
of comfort and pleasure.
The people of the town talked a great deal about the fine gentleman at
the hotel, but they knew he was one of the people who had become rich in
consequence of Captain Horn's discovery; and some of them, good friends
of Mrs. Cliff, felt sorry that she had not profited to as great a degree
by that division as this gentleman of opulent taste, who occupied two of
the best rooms in the hotel, and obliged Mr. Williams to send to
Harrington, and even to Boston, for provisions suitable to his epicurean
tastes, and who drove around the country with a carriage and pair at
least once a day.
When Burke was ready to make his suggestions, he thought he would begin
in a mild fashion, and see how Mrs. Cliff would take them.
"If I was in your place, madam," said he, "the first thing I would do
would be to have a lot of servants. There's nothin' money can give a
person that's better than plenty of people to do things. Lots of them on
hand all the time, like the crew of a ship."
"But I couldn't do that, Mr. Burke," said she; "my house is too small. I
haven't any place for servants to sleep. When I enlarge my house, of
course, I may have more servants."
"Oh, I wouldn't wait for that," said he; "until then you could board
them at the hotel."
This suggestion was strongly backed by Willy Croup, and Mrs. Cliff took
the matter to heart. She collected together a domestic establishment of
as many servants as she thought her establishment could possibly provide
with work, and, although she did not send them to be guests at the
hotel, she obtained lodging for them at the house of a poor woman in the
neighborhood.
When she had done this, she felt that she had made a step in the
direction of doing her duty by her money.
Mr. Burke made another suggestion. "If I was you," said he, "I wouldn't
wait for times or seasons, for in these days people build in winter the
same as in summer. I would put up that addition just as soon as it could
be done."
Mrs. Cliff sighed. "I suppose that's what I should do," said she. "I
feel that it is, but you know how I hate to begin it."
"But you needn't hate it," said he. "There isn't the least reason in the
world for any objection to it. I've a plan which will make it all clear
sailin'. I've been thinkin' it out, and this is the way I've thought
it." Mrs. Cliff listened with great attention.
"Now then," said Burke, "next to you on the west is your own lot that
you're going to put your new dining-room on. Am I right there?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Cliff, "you are right there."
"Well, next to that is the little house inhabited by a family named
Barnard, I'm told, and next to that there's a large corner lot with an
old house on it that's for sale. Now then, if I was you, I'd buy that
corner lot and clear away the old house, and I'd build my dining-room
right there. I'd get a good architect and let him plan you a
first-class, A number one, dining-room, with other rooms to it, above it
and below it, and around it; with porticos, and piazzas, and little
balconies to the second story, and everything that anybody might want
attached to a first-class dining-room."
Mrs. Cliff laughed. "But what good would it be to me away up there at
the corner of the next street?"
"The reason for putting it there," said Burke, "is to get clear of all
the noise and dirt of building, and the fuss and bother that you dislike
so much. And then when it was all finished, and painted, and papered,
and the carpets down, if you like, I'd have it moved right up here
against your house just where you want it. When everything was in order,
and you was ready, you could cut a door right through into the new
dining-room, and there you'd be. They've got so in the way of slidin'
buildings along on timbers now that they can travel about almost like
the old stage coaches, and you needn't have your cellar dug until you're
ready to clap your new dining-room right over it."
Mrs. Cliff smiled, and Willy listened with open eyes. "But how about the
Barnard family and their house?" said she.
"Oh, I'd buy them a lot somewhere else," said he, "and move their house.
They wouldn't object if you paid them extra. What I'd have if I was in
your place, Mrs. Cliff, would be a clear lot down to the next street,
and I'd have a garden in it with flowers, and gravel walks, and
greenhouses, and all that sort of thing."
"All stretching itself out in the sunshine under the new dining-room
windows!" cried Willy Croup, with sparkling eyes.
Mrs. Cliff sat and considered, a cheerful glow in her veins. Here,
really, was an opportunity of stemming the current of her income without
shocking any of her social instincts!