A VISIT TO THE WHITE HOUSE.
Hitherto Mr. Drummond had acknowledged his afternoon to be a success.
He had obtained a glimpse of the new-comers through Mrs. Crump's
screen of geraniums, and had listened with much interest to Colonel
Middleton's innocent gossip, while Miss Middleton had poured out their
tea. Indeed, his attention had quite flattered his host.
"Really, Drummond is a very intelligent fellow," he observed to his
daughter, when they were at last left alone,--"a very intelligent
fellow, and so thoroughly gentlemanly."
"Yes, he is very nice," returned Elizabeth; "and he seems wonderfully
interested in our new neighbors." And here she smiled a little
archly.
There was no doubt that Mr. Drummond had fully enjoyed his visit.
Nevertheless, as he left Brooklyn, and set his face towards the White
House, his manner changed, and his face became somewhat grave.
He had told himself that he owed it to his pastoral conscience to call
on Mrs. Cheyne; but, notwithstanding this monition, he disliked the
duty, for he always felt on these occasions that he was hardly up to
his office, and that this solitary member of his flock was not
disposed to yield herself to his guidance. He was ready to pity her if
she would allow herself to be pitied; but any expression of sympathy
seemed repugnant to her. Any one so utterly lonely, so absolutely
without interest in existence, he had never seen or thought to see;
and yet he could not bring himself to like her, or to say more than
the mere commonplace utterances of society. Though he was her
clergyman, and bound by the sacredness of his office to be specially
tender to the bruised and maimed ones of his flock, he could not get
her to acknowledge her maimed condition to him, or to do anything but
listen to him with cold attention, when he hinted vaguely that all
human beings are in need of sympathy. Perhaps she thought him too
young, and feared to find his judgments immature and one-sided; but
certainly his visits to the White House were failures. Mrs. Cheyne was
still young enough and handsome enough to need some sort of
chaperonage: and though she professed to mock at conventionality, she
acknowledged its claims in this respect by securing the permanent
services of Miss Mewlstone--a lady of uncertain age and uncertain
acquirements. It must be confessed that every one wondered at Mrs.
Cheyne and her choice, for no one could be less companionable than
Miss Mewlstone.
She was a stout, sleepy-looking woman, with a soft voice, and in
placidity and a certain cosyness of exterior somewhat resembled a
large white cat. Some people declared she absolutely purred, and
certainly her small blue eyes were ready to close on all occasions.
She always dressed in gray,--a very unbecoming color to a stout
person,--and when not asleep or reading (for she was a great reader)
she seemed always busy with a mass of soft fleecy wool. No one heard
her ever voluntarily conversing with her patroness. They would drive
together for hours, or pass whole evenings in the same room, scarcely
exchanging a word. "Just so, my dear," she would say, in return to any
observation made to her by Mrs. Cheyne. "Just so Mewlstone," a young
wag once nicknamed her.
People stared incredulously when Mrs. Cheyne assured them her
companion was a very superior woman. They thought it was only her
satire, and did not believe her in the least. They would have stared
still more if they had really known the extent of Miss Mewlstone's
acquirements.
"She seems so stupid, as though she cannot talk," one of Mrs. Cheyne's
friends said.
"Oh, yes, she can talk, and very well too," returned that lady,
quietly, "but she knows that I do not care about it; her silence is
her great virtue in my eyes. And then she has tact, and knows when to
keep out of the way," finished Mrs. Cheyne, with the utmost frankness;
and, indeed, it may be doubted whether any other person would have
retained her position so long at the White House.
Mrs. Cheyne was no favorite with the young pastor, nevertheless she
was an exceedingly handsome woman. Before the bloom of her youth had
worn off she had been considered absolutely beautiful. As regarded the
form of her features, there was no fault to be found, but her
expression was hardly pleasing. There was a hardness that people found
a little repelling,--a bitter, dissatisfied droop of the lip, a
weariness of gloom in the dark eyes, and a tendency to satire in her
speech, that alienated people's sympathy.
"I am unhappy, but pity me if you dare!" seemed to be written legibly
upon her countenance; and those who knew her best held their peace in
her presence, and then went away and spoke softly to each other of the
life that seemed wasted and the heart that was so hardened with its
trouble. "What would the world be if every one were to bear their
sorrows so badly?" they would say. "There is something heathenish in
such utter want of resignation. Oh, yes, it was very sad, her losing
her husband and children, but it all happened four or five years ago;
and you know"--And here people's voices dropped a little ominously,
for there were vague hints afloat that things had not always gone on
smoothly at the White House, even when Mrs. Cheyne had her husband.
She had been an only child, and had married the only survivor of a
large family. Both were handsome, self-willed young people; neither
had been used to contradiction. In spite of their love for each other,
there had been a strife of wills and misunderstandings from the
earliest days of their marriage. Neither knew what giving up meant,
and before many months were over the White House witnessed many
painful scenes. Herbert Cheyne was passionate, and at times almost
violent; but there was no malice in his nature. He stormed furiously
and forgave easily. A little forbearance would have turned him into a
sweet-natured man; but his wife's haughtiness and resentment lasted
long; she never acknowledged herself in the wrong, never made
overtures of peace, but bore herself on every occasion as a
sorely-injured wife, a state of things singularly provoking to a man
of Herbert Cheyne's irritable temperament.
There was injudicious partisanship as regarded their children: while
Mrs. Cheyne idolized her boy, her husband lavished most of his
attentions on the baby girl,--"papa's girl," as she always called
herself in opposition to "mother's boy."
Mrs. Cheyne really believed she loved her boy best, but when
diphtheria carried off her little Jane also, she was utterly
inconsolable. Her husband was far away when it happened: he had been a
great traveller before his marriage, and latterly his matrimonial
relations with his wife had been so unsatisfactory that virtual
separation had ensued. Two or three months before illness, and then
death, had devastated the nursery at the White House, he had set out
for a long exploring expedition in Central Africa.
"You make my life so unbearable that, but for the children, I would
never care to set foot in my home again," he had said to her, in one
of his violent moods; and, though he repented of this speech
afterwards, she could not be brought to believe that he had not meant
it, and her heart had been hard against him even in their parting.
But before many months were over she would have given all she
possessed--to her very life--to have recalled him to her side. She was
childless, and her health was broken; but no such recall was possible.
Vague rumors reached her of some miserable disaster: people talked of
a missing Englishman. One of the little party had already succumbed to
fever and hardship; by and by another followed; and the last news that
reached them was that Herbert Cheyne lay at the point of death in the
kraal of a friendly tribe. Since then the silence had been of the
grave: not one of the party had survived to bring the news of his last
moments: there had been illness and disaster from the first.
When Mrs. Cheyne recovered from the nervous disorder that had
attacked her on the receipt of this news, she put on widow's mourning,
and wore it for two years; then she sent for Miss Mewlstone, and set
herself to go through with the burden of her life. If she found it
heavy, she never complained: she was silent on her own as on other
people's troubles. Only at the sight of a child of two or three years
of age she would turn pale, and draw down her veil, and if it ran up
to her, as would sometimes happen, she would put it away from her
angrily, pushing it away almost with violence, and no child was ever
suffered to cross her threshold.
The drawing-room at the White House was a spacious apartment, with
four long windows opening on the lawn. Mrs. Cheyne was sitting in her
low chair, reading, with Miss Mewlstone at the farther end of the
room, with her knitting-basket beside her; two or three grayhounds
were grouped near her. They all rushed forward with furious barks as
Mr. Drummond was announced, and then leaped joyously round him. Mrs.
Cheyne put down her book, and greeted him with a frosty smile.
She had laid aside her widow's weeds, but still dressed in black, the
sombreness of her apparel harmonizing perfectly with her pale, creamy
complexion. Her dress was always rich in material, and most carefully
adjusted. In her younger days it had been an art with her,--almost a
passion,--and it had grown into a matter of custom.
"You are very good to come again so soon, Mr. Drummond," she said, as
she gave him her hand. The words were civil, but a slight inflection
on the word "soon" made Mr. Drummond feel a little uncomfortable. Did
she think he called too often? He wished he had brought Mattie; only
last time she had been so satirical, and had quizzed the poor little
thing unmercifully; not that Mattie had found out that she was being
quizzed.
"I hardly thought I should find you at home, it is so fine an
afternoon; but I made the attempt, you see," he continued, a little
awkwardly.
"Your parochial conscience was uneasy, I suppose, because I was
missing at church?" she returned, somewhat slyly. "You would make a
capital overseer, Mr. Drummond,"--with a short laugh. "A headache is a
good excuse, is it not? I had a headache, had I not, Miss Mewlstone?"
"Yes, my dear, just so," returned Miss Mewlstone. She always called
her patroness "my dear."
"Miss Mewlstone gave me the heads of the sermon, so it was not quite
labor lost, as regards one of your flock. I am afraid you think me a
black sheep because I stay away so often,--a very black sheep, eh, Mr.
Drummond?"
"It is not for me to judge," he said, still more awkwardly. "Headaches
are very fair excuses; and if one be not blessed with good
health----"
"My health is perfect," she returned, interrupting him ruthlessly. "I
have no such convenient plea under which to shelter myself. Miss
Mewlstone suffers far more from headaches than I do. Don't you, Miss
Mewlstone?"
"Just so; yes, indeed, my dear," proceeded softly from the other end
of the room.
"I am sorry to hear it," commenced Mr. Drummond, in a sympathizing
tone of voice. But his tormentor again interrupted him.
"I am a sad backslider, am I not? I wonder if you have a sermon ready
for me? Do you lecture your parishioners, Mr. Drummond, rich as well
as poor? What a pity it is you are so young! Lectures are more
suitable with gray hair; a hoary head might have some chance against
my satire. A woman's tongue is a difficult thing to keep in order, is
it not? I dare say you find that with Miss Mattie?"
Mr. Drummond was literally on thorns. He had no repartee ready. She
was secretly exasperating him as usual, making his youth a reproach,
and rendering it impossible for him to be his natural frank self with
her. In her presence he was always at a disadvantage. She seemed to
take stock of his learning and to mock at the idea of his pastoral
claims. It was not the first time she had called herself a black
sheep, or had spoken of her scanty attendances at church. But as yet
he had not dared to rebuke her; he had a feeling that she might fling
back his rebuke with a jest, and his dignity forbade this. Some day he
owed it to his conscience to speak a word to her,--to tell her of the
evil effects of such an example; but the convenient season had not yet
arrived.
He was casting about in his own mind for some weighty sentence with
which to answer her; but she again broke in upon his silence:
"It seems that I am to escape to-day. I hope you are not a lax
disciplinarian; that comes of being young. Youth is more tolerant,
they say, of other people's errors: it has its own glass houses to
mind."
"You are too clever for me, Mrs. Cheyne," returned the young man, with
a deprecating smile that might have disarmed her. "No, I have not come
to lecture: my mission is perfectly peaceful, as befits this lovely
afternoon. I wonder what you ladies find to do all day?" he continued,
abruptly changing the subject, and trying to find something that would
not attract her satire.
Mrs. Cheyne seemed a little taken aback by this direct question; and
then she drew up her beautiful head a little haughtily, and laughed.
"Ah, you are cunning, Mr. Drummond. You found me disposed to take the
offensive in the matter of church-going, and now you are on another
track. There is a lecture somewhere in the background. How doth the
little busy bee, etc. Now, don't frown,"--as Mr. Drummond knitted his
brows and really looked annoyed: "I will not refuse to be
catechised."
"I should not presume to catechise you," he returned, hastily. "I
appeal to Miss Mewlstone if my question were not a very innocent
one."
"Just so; just so," replied Miss Mewlstone; but she looked a little
alarmed at this appeal. "Oh, very innocent; oh, very so."
"With two against me I must yield," returned Mrs. Cheyne, with a curl
of her lip. "What do we do with our time, Miss Mewlstone? Your
occupation speaks for itself: it is exquisitely feminine. Don't tell
Miss Mattie, Mr. Drummond, but I never work. I would as soon arm
myself with a dagger as a needle or a pair of scissors. When I am not
in the air, I paint. I only lay aside my palette for a book."
"You paint!" exclaimed Archie, with sudden interest. It was the first
piece of information he had yet gleaned.
"Yes," she returned, indifferently: "one must do something to kill
time, and music was never my forte. I sketch and draw and paint after
my own sweet will. There are portfolios full of my sketches in
there,"--with a movement of her hand towards a curtained recess. "No,
I know what you are going to say: you will ask to see them; but I
never show them to any one."
"For what purpose, then, do you paint them?" were the words on his
lips; but he forbore to utter them. But she read the question in his
eyes.
"Did I not say one must kill time?" she returned, rather irritably:
"the occupation is soothing: surely that is reason enough."
"It is a good enough reason, I suppose," he replied, reluctantly, for
surely he must say a word here; "but one need not talk about killing
time, with so much that one could do."
Then there came a gleam of suppressed mischief in her eyes:
"Yes, I know: you may spare me that. I will listen to it all next
Sunday, if you will, when you have it your own way, and one cannot sin
against decorum and answer you. Yes, yes, there is so much to do, is
there not?--hungry people to be fed, and sick to visit,--all sorts of
disagreeables that people call duties. Ah, I am a sad sinner! I only
draw for my own amusement, and leave the poor old world to get on
without me. What a burden I must be on your conscience, Mr.
Drummond,--heavier than all the rest of your parish. What, are you
going already? and Miss Mewlstone has never given you any tea."
Then Archie explained, very shortly, that he had partaken of that
beverage at Brooklyn, and his leave-taking was rather more formal than
usual. He was very much surprised, as he stood at the hall door, that
always stood open in the summer, to hear the low sweep of a dress over
the tessellated pavement behind him, and to see a white pudgy hand
laid on his coat-sleeve.
"My dear Miss Mewlstone, how you startled me!"
"Just so; yes, I am afraid I did, Mr. Drummond; but I just wanted to
say, never mind all that nonsense; come again: she likes to see you;
she does, indeed. It is only her way to talk so; she means no harm,
poor dear,--oh, none at all!"
"Excuse me," returned Archie, in a hurt voice, "but I think you are
mistaken. Mrs. Cheyne does not care for my visits, and shows me she
does not: if it were not my duty, I should not come so often."
"No, no; just so, but all the same it rouses her and does her good. It
is a bad day with her, poor dear!--the very day the darlings were
taken ill, four years ago. Now, don't go away and fancy things, don't,
there's a dear young man; come as often as you can, and try and do her
good."
"Oh, if I only knew how that is to be done!" returned Archie, slowly;
but he was mollified in spite of himself. There were tears in Miss
Mewlstone's little blue eyes: perhaps she was a good creature after
all.
"I will come again, but not just yet," he said, nodding to her
good-humoredly; but as he walked down the road he told himself that
Mrs. Cheyne had never before made herself so disagreeable, and that it
would be long before he set foot in the White House again.