AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY.
Patty and her sisters very nearly had their first quarrel over Paul
Brion. Patty said he was impertinent and patronising, that he presumed
upon their friendless position to pay them insulting attentions--that,
in short, he was a detestable young man whom she, for one, would have
nothing more to do with. And she warned Elizabeth, in an hysterical,
high-pitched voice, never to invite him into their house unless
she wished to see her (Patty) walk out of it. Elizabeth, supported
by Eleanor, took up the cudgels in his defence, and assured Patty,
kindly, but with much firmness, that he had behaved with dignity
and courtesy under great provocation to do otherwise. They also
pointed out that he was his father's representative; that it would be
ungracious and unladylike to reject the little services that it was
certainly a pleasure to him to render, and unworthy of them to assume
an independence that at present they were unable to support. Which was
coming as near to "words" as was possible for them to come, and much
nearer than any of them desired. Patty burst into tears at last, which
was the signal for everything in the shape of discord and division to
vanish. Her sisters kissed and fondled her, and assured her that they
sympathised with her anxiety to be under obligations to nobody from the
bottom of their hearts; and Patty owned that she had been captious and
unreasonable, and consented to forgive her enemy for what he hadn't
done and to be civil to him in future.
And, as the days wore on, even she grew to be thankful for Paul Brion,
though, of course, she would never own to it. Their troubles were many
and various, and their helpless ignorance more profound and humiliating
than they could have believed possible. I will not weary the reader
by tracing the details of the process by which they became acquainted
with the mode and cost of living "as other people do," and with the
ways of the world in general; it would be too long a story. How Patty
discovered that the cleverest fingers cannot copy a London bonnet
without some previous knowledge of the science of millinery; how she
and her sisters, after supplying themselves grudgingly with the mere
necessaries of a modern outfit, found that the remainder of their
"furniture money," to the last pound note, was spent; how, after weary
trampings to and fro in search of a habitable house in a wholesome
neighbourhood, they learned the ruinous rates of rent and taxes and
(after much shopping and many consultations with Mrs. M'Intyre) the
alarming prices of furniture and provisions; how they were driven to
admit, in spite of Patty, that that landlady on the premises, whom
Eleanor had declared was not to be thought of, might be a necessary
safeguard against worse evils; and how they were brought to ask each
other, in surprise and dismay, "Is it possible that we are poor people
after all, and not rich, as we supposed?"--all these things can be
better imagined than described. Suffice it to say, they passed through
much tribulation and many bitter and humbling experiences during the
early months of their sojourn in Melbourne; but when at last they
reached a comparatively safe haven, and found themselves once more
secure under their own control, able to regulate their needs and
their expenditure, and generally to understand the conditions and
possibilities of their position, Elizabeth and Eleanor made a solemn
declaration that they were indebted for this happy issue to the good
offices and faithful friendship of Paul Brion alone, and Patty--though
she turned up her nose and said "Pooh!"--though she hated to be
indebted to him, or to anybody--agreed with them.
They settled down to their housekeeping by very slow degrees. For
some time they stayed with Mrs. M'Intyre, because there really seemed
nothing else to do that was at all within their means; and from
this base of operations they made all those expeditions of inquiry
into city habits and customs, commercial and domestic, which were
such conspicuous and ignominious failures. As the sense of their
helplessness grew upon them, they grudgingly admitted the young man
(who was always at hand, and yet never intruded upon or pestered
them) to their counsels, and accepted, without seeming to accept, his
advice; and the more they condescended in this way the better they
got on. Gradually they fell into the habit of depending on him, by
tacit consent--which was the more easy to do because, as his father
had promised, he did not presume upon their confidence in him. He was
sharp and brusque, and even inclined to domineer--to be impertinent, as
Patty called it--when they did submit their affairs to his judgment;
but not the smallest suspicion of an unauthorised motive for his
evident devotion to their interests appeared in his face, or voice, or
manner, which were those of the man of business, slightly suggesting
occasionally the imperious and impartial "nearest male relative."
They grew to trust him--for his father's sake, they said, but there
was nothing vicarious about it; and that they had the rare fortune
to be justified in doing so, under such unlikely circumstances, made
up to them for whatever ill luck they might otherwise have seemed to
encounter in these days. It was he who finally found them their home,
after their many futile searches--half a house in their own street and
terrace, vacated by the marriage and departure to another colony of the
lady who played the piano that was out of tune. No. 6, it appeared,
had been divided into flats; the ground floor was occupied by the
proprietor, his wife, and servant; and the upper, which had a gas stove
and other kitchen appliances in a back room, was let unfurnished for
£60 a year. Paul, always poking about in quest of opportunities, heard
of this one and pounced upon it. He made immediate inquiries into the
character and antecedents of the landlord of No. 6, the state of the
drains and chimneys, and paint and paper, of the house; and, having
satisfied himself that it was as nearly being what our girls wanted
as anything they would be likely to find, called upon Elizabeth, and
advised her to secure it forthwith. The sisters were just then adding
up their accounts--taking stock of their affairs generally--and coming
to desperate resolutions that something must be done; so the suggested
arrangement, which would deliver them from bondage and from many of
their worst difficulties, had quite a providential opportuneness about
it. They took the rooms at once--four small rooms, including the
improvised kitchen--and went into them, in defiance of Mrs. M'Intyre's
protestations, before they had so much as a bedstead to sleep upon;
and once more they were happy in the consciousness that they had
recovered possession of themselves, and could call their souls their
own. Slowly, bit by bit, the furniture came in--the barest necessaries
first, and then odds and ends of comfort and prettiness (not a few
of them discovered by Paul Brion in out-of-the-way places, where he
"happened" to be), until the new little home grew to look as homelike
as the old one. They sent for the bureau and the piano, which went
a long way towards furnishing the sitting-room; and they bought a
comfortable second-hand table and some capacious, cheap, wickerwork
chairs; and they laid a square of matting on the floor, and made some
chintz curtains for the window, and turned a deal packing-case into
an ottoman, and another into a set of shelves for their books; and
over all these little arrangements threw such an air of taste, such
a complexion of spotless cleanliness and fastidious neatness, as are
only seen in the homes of "nice" women, that it takes nice people to
understand the charm of.
One day, when their preparations for regular domestic life were fairly
completed, Patty, tired after a long spell of amateur carpentering,
sat down to the piano to rest and refresh herself. The piano had
been tuned on its arrival in Melbourne; and the man who tuned it had
stared at her when she told him that it had been made to her mother's
order, and showed him the famous name above the key-board. He would
have stared still more had he heard what kind of magic life she could
summon into the exquisite mechanism boxed up in that poor-looking
deal case. All the sisters were musicians, strange to say; taught by
their mother in the noble and simple spirit of the German school, and
inheriting from her the sensitive ear and heart to understand the
dignity and mystery, if not the message (which nobody understands) of
that wonderful language which begins where words leave off. To "play
the piano" was no mere conventional drawing-room performance with them,
as they themselves were no conventional drawing-room misses; a "piece"
of the ordinary pattern would have shocked their sense of art and
harmony almost as much as it might have shocked Mozart and Mendelssohn,
and Schubert and Schumann, and the other great masters whose pupils
they were; while to talk and laugh, either when playing or listening,
would have been to them like talking and laughing over their prayers.
But, of the three, Patty was the most truly musical, in the serious
meaning of the word, inasmuch as her temperament was warmer than those
of her sisters, her imagination more vivid, her senses generally more
susceptible to delicate impressions than theirs. The "spirits of the
air" had all their supernatural power over her receptive and responsive
soul, and she thrilled like an Æolian harp to the west wind under the
spell of those emotions that have no name or shape, and for which no
imagery supplies a comparison, which belong to the ideal world, into
which those magic spirits summon us, and where the sacred hours of our
lives--the sweetest, the saddest, the happiest--are spent.
To-day she sat down, suddenly prompted by the feeling that she was
fagged and tired, and began to play mechanically a favourite Beethoven
sonata; but in five minutes she had played her nerves to rest, and was
as steeped in dreams as the great master himself must have been when
he conceived the tender passages that only his spiritual ears could
hear. Eleanor, who had been sewing industriously, by degrees let her
fingers falter and her work fall into her lap; and Elizabeth, who had
been arranging the books in the new book-shelves, presently put down
her duster to come and stand behind the music-stool, and laid her
large, cool hands on Patty's head. None of them spoke for some time,
reverencing the Presence in their quiet room; but the touch of her
sister's palms upon her hair brought the young musician out of her
abstractions to a sense of her immediate surroundings again. She laid
her head back on Elizabeth's breast and drew a long sigh, and left off
playing. The gesture said, as plainly as words could have said it, that
she was relieved and revived--that the spirit of peace and charity had
descended upon her.
"Elizabeth," she said presently, still keeping her seat on the
music-stool, and stroking her cheek with one of her sister's hands
while she held the other round her neck, "I begin to think that Paul
Brion has been a very good friend to us. Don't you?"
"I am not beginning," replied Elizabeth. "I have thought it every
day since we have known him. And I have wondered often how you could
dislike him so much."
"I don't dislike him," said Patty, quite amiably.
"I have taken particular notice," remarked Eleanor from the hearthrug,
"and it is exactly three weeks since you spoke to him, and three weeks
and five days since you shook hands."
Patty smiled, not changing her position or ceasing to caress her cheek
with Elizabeth's hand. "Well," she said, "don't you think it would be
a graceful thing to ask him to come and have tea with us some night?
We have made our room pretty"--looking round with contentment--"and
we have all we want now. We might get our silver things out of the
bureau, and make a couple of little dishes, and put some candles about,
and buy a bunch of flowers--for once--what do you say, Nelly? He has
_never_ been here since we came in--never farther than the downstairs
passage--and wouldn't it be pleasant to have a little house warming,
and show him our things, and give him some music, and--and try to make
him enjoy himself? It would be some return for what he has done for
us, and his father would be pleased."
That she should make the proposition--she who, from the first, had not
only never "got on" with him, but had seemed to regard him with active
dislike--surprised both her sisters not a little; but the proposition
itself appeared to them, as to her, to have every good reason to
recommend it. They thought it a most happy idea, and adopted it with
enthusiasm. That very evening they made their plans. They designed the
simple decorations for their little room, and the appropriate dishes
for their modest feast. And, when these details had been settled, they
remembered that on the following night no Parliament would be sitting,
which meant that Paul would probably come home early (they knew his
times of coming and going, for he was back at his old quarters now,
having returned in consequence of the departure of the discordant
piano, and to oblige Mrs. M'Intyre, he said); and that decided them to
send him his invitation at once. Patty, while her complaisant mood was
on her, wrote it herself before she went to bed, and gave it over the
garden railing to Mrs. M'Intyre's maid.
In the morning, as they were asking which of them should go to town to
fetch certain materials for their little _fête_, they heard the door
bang and the gate rattle at No. 7, and a quick step that they knew. And
the slavey of No. 6 came upstairs with Paul Brion's answer, which he
had left as he passed on his way to his office. The note was addressed
to "Miss King," whose amanuensis Patty had carefully explained herself
to be when writing her invitation.
"MY DEAR MISS KING,--You are indeed very kind, but I fear
I must deny myself the pleasure you propose--than which, I
assure you, I could have none greater. If you will allow
me, I will come in some day with Mrs. M'Intyre, who is very
anxious to see your new menage. And when I come, I hope you
will let me hear that new piano, which is such an amazing
contrast to the old one.--Believe me, yours very truly,
"PAUL BRION."
This was Paul Brion's note. When the girls had read it, they stood
still and looked at each other in a long, dead silence. Eleanor was
the first to speak. Half laughing, but with her delicate face dyed in
blushes, she whispered under her breath, "Oh--oh, don't you see what he
means?"
"He is quite right--we must thank him," said Elizabeth, gentle as ever,
but grave and proud. "We ought not to have wanted it--that is all I am
sorry for."
But Patty stood in the middle of the room, white to the lips, and
beside herself with passion. "That we should have made such a
mistake!--and for _him_ to rebuke us!" she cried, as if it were more
than she could bear. "That _I_ should have been the one to write that
letter! Elizabeth, I suppose he is not to blame--"
"No, my dear--quite the contrary."
"But, all the same, I will never forgive him," said poor Patty in the
bitterness of her soul.