MARY SELBY MEETS HER DAUGHTER.
Four years later, in a street in Montreal. It had snowed
uninterruptedly the day before, in fine dry particles, sifting
noiselessly through the air, and filling it with prickly points--not
the broad clammy flakes of an insular climate which loiter as they
fall, and feel damp and clay-like beneath the passer's feet; but
rather an attenuated sand or dust, dimming and pervading the day, and
heaping itself in drifts which overspread and bury while you watch,
yet cannot reckon how it is they grow. And then it is so dry in its
exceeding coldness that it will not wet, and springs and crackles
merrily under foot.
It was morning--not yet nine o'clock--and the snow shovellers were
only beginning here and there to relieve the encumbered footways, and
contribute another layer to the solidly-packed thicknesses of snow and
ice which winter had been building in the streets, a foot or two above
the neighbouring side walks. The snow had ceased to fall, and the
laden clouds which had brought it having burst and dissolved
themselves, the sky was a clear pale vault, filled with diffused and
dazzling brightness.
From a door there issued a young girl, trim and slight. She was
dressed in brown--brown close-fitting, warm and shaggy--muffled as to
ears and chin in a wisp of "cloud" of the same colour, out of which
there peered the daintiest little pink nose and a pair of eyes of
merry blue, shining as they looked out from under the edge of her
sealskin cap, with the gleeful twinkle of a squirrel's in the snugness
of his nest. I would have said they were like fawn's eyes, save that
it has a sentimental association which does not accord with Muriel
Stanley, now arrived at the age of fifteen--the border land between
child and woman--and fancy free. She stood on the doorsteps with a
roll of music under her arm, and her hands in the pockets of her
jacket. Muff she had none, it is in the way with active people who do
their five or six miles on snow-shoes of winter afternoons, and
"_toboggan_" down slopes in the moonlight.
The air was so chill it seemed to catch the breath on emerging from
the indoor warmth; but it was so transfused with brightness and
dancing sunshine that it sent the blood coursing quicker through the
veins, and prickled in the nostrils with an exhilarating joy, like the
sting of the air bubbles in effervescing wine.
The doorsteps were as yet unswept, and deep in snow, the shovellers
being still a good many doors off, and Muriel stood on the top looking
down and around ere she made the knee-deep plunge, when a voice
accosted her coming down the street.
"Miss Muriel! yet surely not, at this hour of the morning."
"Yes, it's me, Mr. Gerald," she said, turning round. "What would any
one stay indoors for on a jolly morning like this?"
"But you do not go out at this hour of the morning in general?"
"Neither do you; I know that much. We see the business people go
past--M. Petitôt and the Ferretings--about half-past eight, but you
gentlemen of the Stock Board never by any chance before half-past ten.
If I were a man, and lazy, I would be a stockbroker. No going back to
the office in the evening!"
"Ha, ha! you are severe this morning. Does that come of being out so
early?"
"That? Oh! I have to go for my music lesson this morning; if I am to
have one at all. Mr. Selby has fallen on the ice and sprained both his
ankle and his wrist. I have a note from him, written with his left
hand, asking me to come to his house, as he cannot come to me--written
with his left hand, actually; think of the trouble it must have cost
him!--so I could not refuse to go."
"Poor old Selby! I did not hear of that. He is my uncle, you know, or
at least he is married to my aunt. And Judy--Mrs. Bunce, I mean--is
there just now, with Betsey, to show her the gaieties of the city.
Nice house to see the gaieties from. They will consist of a _musicale_
at Counter Tenor's, the dry-goods man, and one or two select
performances of the Classical Quartette Club. Betsey's mind won't be
unsettled by the dissipation, I guess. She won't leave town thoroughly
dissatisfied with country life. Then again, what a pretty specimen of
musical culture poor Betsey must be for Selby to lead around. I can
imagine his being silently thankful for the sprain as an excuse to
stay at home. Just come in the nick of time. However, as my mother was
saying to me, though somehow it seems to have slipped out of my mind,
we must do what we can for Betsey. If she _is_ a rumpty-tumpty little
thing, with her hair always lying the wrong way, she can't help it,
and Uncle Bunce is not half bad--for a parson. I have it! I shall go
in with you now, if you don't mind, find them all at breakfast, like
an intimate and affectionate nephew--it will save more valuable time
in the afternoon--and offer to take Betsey to the Rink to-day at three
or four o'clock--that is, if you will promise to be there. But let me
see! Have I time? Ah, yes! Twenty minutes to spare before I am due at
Hammerstone's."
"Hammerstone's? Professor Hammerstone's? Is it a breakfast? Do you
attend scientific breakfasts?"
"No. But I study the sciences, though perhaps you would not think it.
You see we have so much to do with mineral lands, mines, metals, and
that sort of thing, that the governor thinks it is worth while for me
to try and find out what it all means. Those sharks, the experts,
impose on you so abominably if you do not know something of what they
are talking about. So I go to Hammerstone for an hour three mornings
in the week, if I get up in time; and really it is more interesting
than you would suppose. It is settled, then, that you will be on the
Rink this afternoon?"
"I scarcely think it. Mr. Considine is coming to drive us out this
afternoon."
"Considine! Phew--But gooseberries are not in season at this time of
year! He! he!"
"I do not understand. I said we were going for a sleigh ride."
"With Considine? Will it not be rather cold work sitting with your
back to the horses while the old chap makes--conversation--to the Miss
Stanleys?"
"Aunt Penelope is afraid to venture out these cold days."
"Just what I said about wholesome summer fruit. That old Considine
must be a sad bore, running out and in so much to one's house--like a
tame cat."
"Mr. Considine is very nice. I like him. He is so good-natured, and he
never says a word against people in their absence."
"One for me! But he _is_ a good fellow, and I fancy you are not the
only Miss Stanley who thinks so."
"How slippery it is! You turn off here, I think, to go to Professor
Hammerstone's, do you not? I hope you will not be late. Thanks for
carrying my music; I will take it now."
"But I mean to carry your music all the way, Miss Muriel. As I told
you, I am going to look in on my three aunts at breakfast, and ask
them for a cup of hot coffee. That will have a good effect on my aunt
Judy, who I fear suspects me of being not very steady. She is a great
promoter of coffee taverns. Tried to start one at St. Euphrase, I
believe, and had to drink all the coffee herself because the
_habitants_ would not buy it. She will say I am an improving character
if I ask for a cup of coffee."
When Muriel had finished her music lesson and was resuming her gloves
and cloud, she found herself caught from behind by a pair of short fat
arms in a sort of hug, accompanied by a little scream of enthusiasm.
"Muriel! And were you going away without ever asking to see me?"
Muriel turned in surprise. "Betsey Bunce! But I did not know you were
in town till an hour ago. You know you never wrote."
"Wrote! What is there to write about at St. Euphrase?--unless I were
to walk up to the farm and ask Bruneau about your cows and chickens.
But you knew an hour ago, you say, and yet you were going away without
asking for me. I call it real unkind."
"It is only ten o'clock, you know--far too early an hour for calling."
"You are so particular! Just like an old woman--and a stiff
old-country woman, too--Miss Penelope all over."
"I hope so. Aunt Penelope is always right."
"Come in now, anyway, and take off your things. I am dying for
somebody to talk to, after sitting round the stove for three days with
three old women. What with Mr. Selby's bandages, and embrocations, and
Miss Susan's neuralgia, and Mrs. Selby's poor health, this house is
worse than a hospital. Auntie likes it first-rate; she enjoys giving
people physic, and says it was a Providence which brought her here at
this time; but I find it real lonesome. I have read through the only
two novels I can find, and I declare my back aches with sitting still
and doing nothing. Couldn't we go down town by-and-by and look at the
shops? Let me help you off with your jacket. Fur-lined, I do declare!
Cost twenty dollars, I dare say. Thirty was it? You're the lucky
girl! Never mind fixing up before the glass, you're all right--here's
a pin if you want one. Wherever did you pick up that cunning
neck-ribbon?--lady bugs and grasshoppers--I call it sweet. It would
just suit my geranium-coloured poplin! By-the-way, do you think that
will do for evening wear, if I am asked anywhere? It is made with a
tablier--looked scrumptious the night they gave charades at Madame
Podevin's boarding-house. Mdlle. Ciseau cut it out for me, and I run
it on the machine myself--fits like a glove. But your city fashions
are so different, one never can be sure. We will go upstairs and look
at it; but first you must come into the Snuggery and see the old
ladies."
The "Snuggery" was at the back of the house, a sort of family room in
which strangers were not received. It had been the chief apartment of
the old log homestead which preceded the existing dwelling. The logs
had been found so sound and the chamber so desirable that it had been
suffered to remain, and been incorporated with the "frame" building
erected in front, which it promised to survive, and last on in solid
stability when the lighter structure of posts and boards should have
fallen to pieces. It was cooler than the rest of the house in warm
weather, and warmer in cold; built of twelve inch logs carefully
jointed together, plastered on the outside, panelled and ceiled within
with red pine highly varnished, and floored with parquetry of
different native woods. It had a window on each of three sides,
flanked by heavy curtains. There was no fire-place, but in the centre
an old-fashioned box-stove, capable of holding billets from two to
three feet long, and whose great black smoke-pipe pierced the roof
like a pivot for the family life to revolve on.
A bear skin and rugs lay about the floor, sofas and tables stood by
the walls, and round the domestic altar, the blazing stove, were the
rocking-chairs of the three sisters, gently oscillating like pendulums
in a clockmaker's shop, and making the wooden chamber feel like the
cabin of a ship, heaving and swinging on a restless tide.
Muriel was greeted effusively by Mrs. Bunce, who looked more fidgety
and alert than ever in that reposeful place, and then she was
presented to the sisters. Miss Susan, swathed in quilted silk and webs
of knitting, a bundle rather than a person, and immersed in her own
misery far too deeply to feel or to excite interest in a stranger,
merely bowed and shuddered at the breath of cooler air which entered
from without; but to the other, Mrs. Selby, Muriel felt strongly
drawn, and pleased in a strange and restful way to feel the gentle
eyes of the sick and rather silent lady dwelling on her with wistful
kindness. She was tall and pale, and in the cross light of windows
admitting the dazzling reflections from the snow, and among the browns
and yellows of the wainscoting, there was a lambent whiteness which
associated itself in Muriel's mind with those "shining ones" she had
read of when a child in the "Pilgrim's Progress," and filled her with
pleasant reverence.
The lady scarcely spoke, spoke only the necessary words of welcome to
a stranger, and then withdrew from the hurry of Betsey's and Judith's
eager talk, sitting silently by and looking on the new comer with
gentle earnest eyes. In the focus of streaming daylight and backed by
russet shadows she sat and looked, wrapped in her white knitted shawl,
and with hair like frosted silver, features and hands delicate,
transparent, and colourless like wax, and eyes which had the weary
faded look which comes of sleepless nights and many tears. She found
it pleasant to sit and rest her eyes on Muriel, so elastic and freshly
bright, as she chatted with the others; she felt as when a breath of
spring comes rustling through the dead and wintry woods, through
sapless withered twigs and fallen leaves, whispering of good to come,
and sweet with springing grass and opening buds.
She scanned the girl's face and guessed her age, and then her thoughts
went back across the years, the weary sunless years which had come and
gone since her joys had withered, and she could not but think that had
her own lost daughter been spared, she would have been nearly of that
age now, and perhaps she would have been gay and bright and sweet as
this one was before her. Her eyes grew moist, but it was with a
softer, less harrowing regret than she had hitherto known, more
plaintive and almost soothing in its sadness. The girl looked so
innocent and free of care, with low sweet laughter coming from a heart
that had never known sorrow or unkindness. It did her good to watch,
and made her feel more patient in her long and weary grief.
For the others, they had their own affairs to make busy with, and it
was not every day they came to town. What interest, either, for them,
could there be in the emotional variations of their silent and always
sorrowful hostess? She had suffered--though it was fourteen years
since then--and of course they "felt" for her; but there is a limit to
sympathy as to all things human--if there were not, life would be
unbearable--and to see her after so many years still cherishing the
olden sorrow had grown tedious, if yet touching after a sort, and the
family had grown to disregard it as a settled melancholy or monomania,
to be pitied and passed over, like the deafness, old age, or palsy of
family friends. So Betsey and her aunt had settled themselves one on
either side of Muriel "for a good old talk," as Betsey said, and they
talked accordingly.
"I shall come round to-morrow morning to see your aunts," said Mrs.
Bunce, "and spend a long forenoon with them," and so on _ad
infinitum_.
A letter was brought in while the talk was in full swing.
"An invitation!" cried Judith. "Mrs. Jordan--requests the pleasure--a
juvenile party. Well--I declare!--Betsey, we forgot to bring your
pinafores--or should it have been a certificate of the date of your
birth? A very strange way to pay attention to their rector's wife and
niece! I thought Mrs. Jordan would have known better."
"Aunt Matilda and I are going," said Muriel in astonishment. "It was
very nice last time. More than a hundred, big and little. They had the
band, a splendid supper and lots of fun. Indeed, Aunt Penelope was
almost unwilling I should go this time; it was so late when we got
home."
"Very proper, my dear; I quite approve. Young people should keep early
hours; but, you know, Betsey is a little older than you are. Not
much," she added, as prudence pointed to the day, only a year or two
ahead, when it would suit Betsey, if still a young lady, to be no
older than Muriel--"still she is in long dresses, and it seems odd to
invite her the first time to a child's party."
"They are not all children. Tilly Martindale, for instance, is as old
as Betsey. So is Randolph Jordan himself and Gerald Herkimer."
"Will _they_ be there?" cried Betsey kindling into interest. "We'd
better go, auntie, there's no slight. I see the sort of thing it is;
there are a few little girls--_big_ little girls though, all the
same--to give it the name of juvenile and take off the stiffness. Just
like the candy pulling we had at Farmer Belmore's. You know Farmer
Belmore's, Muriel? He lives just across the river and down below the
island at St. Euphrase. His son's family from Michigan were with him
in the fall, and his wife and daughters are too _dévotes_ to meet
their neighbours, and are only waiting his death to go off to the
convent. However, the old man--and a good Protestant he is--was
determined the children should have a good time, so he gave--a candy
pulling and invited everybody for miles round--said it was for the
children. So we all went--drove across the river on the first ice of
the season--whether we knew Mrs. Belmore or no. And, Muriel, we had
just the most too-too time you can imagine. The daughters sat in the
back-room with one or two old French women, away from everybody, and
the eldest granddaughter received the guests. There was a fiddle, and,
oh, just a lovely time! Joe Webb and I pulled the whitest hank of
candy in the room, and we danced eight-hand reels and country dances,
till one of my shoes gave way and I had to sit out with Joe Webb. It
was something beyond, I tell you!"
"Tush, Betsey!" said her aunt. "You are in the city now and must not
go into raptures over rustic frolics, or people will think you know no
better. I shall ask the Miss Stanleys about this, when I see them
to-morrow. They will be able to tell me if we had better go, and how
you should dress."
"Dress! Haven't I my geranium poplin?"
"But this is _town_, my dear, which may make a difference; one never
knows. In _my_ young days, now, I always wore white muslin and a blue
sash! And you cannot think how many civil speeches I used to get"
added the old lady, bridling, with a spot of pink on either cheek and
a toss which set the treacle-coloured curls quivering. The war-horse
is never too old to prance and champ his bit at the sound of the
trumpet, though he may be so old that no one can remember his ever
having been in action.
"I do not remember ever seeing geranium poplin at a party," said
Muriel, looking to Betsey; but her eyes fell before the glance of
displeased superiority she met there.
"You have not seen my dress, or you would speak more guardedly.
Besides, you are not out yet, and cannot be expected to know what goes
on at fashionable gatherings."
"No," said Muriel, meekly, "I am only a little girl, I know that.
Still, at the juvenile parties I go to--Mrs. Jordan's, Mrs.
Herkimer's, and the rest--and at our parties at home, though _they_
are not balls by any means--quite small affairs--the people dress very
nicely--velvet, satin, lace, and so on--but I never saw a geranium
poplin."
"No! Poplin is only coming in! I know that from 'Godey's Magazine.' It
was just a mere chance Quiproquo of St. Euphrase having one dress
piece. I bought it, and you cannot think how rich it looks. Cut
square!--they are all cut square in the higher circles this year--with
elbow sleeves and a fall of rich lace at twenty-five cents a yard."
Muriel held her breath at the catalogue of rustic splendour. She would
have liked to say a word in mitigation of the fright she feared Betsey
was intending to make of herself, but dreaded to have her youth flung
in her face again. The young are so ashamed of their youth while they
have it; it is only after it has fled, that, like flowers drooping in
the midday heat, they sigh for the dried-up dews of morning which
erewhile weighed down their heads with mistaken shame.
There followed more talk of millinery, and then it was time for Muriel
to go, after effusive farewells and appointments for future meeting.
Mrs. Selby came forward last, when the more boisterous adieux were
over. She would have liked to take this young girl in her arms; she
felt so strongly drawn to her, and knew not why; but she restrained
herself, and only begged her to come often while Betsey remained, and
to be sure to come to the family room in passing, next time she came
for a music lesson. And Muriel, looking in the face of the whitened
lady, so venerable and sweet, not only promised--as in good nature she
could not avoid--but really intended to fulfil, promising herself
pleasure in doing it.