Mrs. Reid called the next day with her son. She was a solid-looking
lady of rather severe aspect, with spectacles, as unlike as possible
to her thin, quick-witted son. Mordaunt was out, and Mrs. Frampton,
knowing that the American was the friend who had given him a good deal
of advice as to investments, tackled him at once, leaving his mother
to be entertained by Grace. Mrs. Frampton riddled him through with her
questions; but he was equal to the occasion, and came so triumphantly
out of the ordeal that she accepted with alacrity Mrs. Reid's verbal
invitation to dine with her the following day.
"You will not expect a large party"--Mrs. Reid trod heavily on each
word as she spoke--"my friend Lady Clydesdale, and one or two others,
will be with me. But as I understand your nephew purposes leaving
Boston in quite a few days, I was anxious to secure the pleasure of
receiving you, if possible."
At Lady Clydesdale's name Grace had frowned and shaken her head at her
aunt, but it was no use. Miss Ballinger even went so far as to say,
"I am afraid that _I_--"
But Mrs. Frampton nipped her in the bud.
"Nonsense! my dear. We have no engagement, and I can't possibly leave
you at home. My nephew would be extremely sorry to miss your hospitable
invitation, Mrs. Reid. We shall be delighted to dine with you."
And when they were gone, she said,
"I like that man. He is very shrewd. He may be valuable to Mordy. I
wouldn't miss dining with them for the world. As to your wanting to
refuse because Lady Clydesdale is to be there, it is too foolish! The
woman can't eat you."
"I should disagree with her if she did," laughed Grace. "Of course,
if you and Mordy both want to go, I am ready to sacrifice myself,
as I did, indeed, just now. You left me to Mrs. Reid's mercy, and
she has very little. Her son prepared me for her 'tall talk'; but
its height did not impress me so much as its weight. Between her and
Lady Clydesdale, you will carry home nothing of me but a few mangled
remains."
That same day two of their agreeable acquaintances of the previous
evening escorted them to the State House, with its gilded dome and
fine eighteenth-century decorations. They ascended a lofty tower,
and gained a comprehensive view of the city, the winding river, and
Charlestown, and beyond it the south coast and island-sprinkled sea. It
was a clear, brilliant day, though intensely cold. The dark boats on
the glittering river, the numerous vanes and pinnacles that rose above
the snow-bound city and caught the sunlight, the forest of masts in the
harbor and silhouettes of wide-armed elms upon the Common, the frozen
lake on which hundreds were skating and sliding merrily, and over all
a span of wind-swept sky, almost Florentine in its hard, blue depth,
startled the English travellers with unexpected beauty.
"This is really charming!" cried Mrs. Frampton. And after such an
admission there was nothing more to be said.
Then they visited several book-stores and the noble public library. At
last, when the sky was growing the color of a tea-rose, against which
church tower and steeple uprose in solid purple, they recrossed the
park, and Grace and Mordaunt hastened to dress for the Country Club
dinner.
At six o'clock a double sleigh drove to the door, with a great jingling
of bells, and servants fur capped and coated; and inside the open
shell-shaped carriage two figures--one, a bundle of Shetland veils and
sable, out of which Mrs. Courtly's silvery voice arose, the other, an
attenuated stroke of black, like a note of admiration, as he leaped
out and stood upright in the snow. This proved to be John Reid.
The brother and sister were equally pleased to find their brisk
American friend of the party, and Mrs. Courtly explained that he had
called on her late in the afternoon, when she had been so fortunate as
to find he could fill the seat left suddenly vacant. She added in a
whisper to Grace, while the two men were talking,
"His mother always tries to prevent his calling on me, if he is in
Boston when I happen to be here. She will be extremely angry at our
carrying him off to-night."
The moon had not yet risen, and the drive to the Country Club in the
dark would have seemed long but for the ball of talk tossed to and fro.
Mrs. Courtly was in her brightest and youngest mood, ready to enjoy,
and therefore to make others enjoy, everything. They drove at length
through some gates into a small park, and, at the tail of several other
sleighs, alighted at a long house, surrounded by a wide balcony or
"piazza," into which all the rooms on the ground floor opened. None
were very large, and in nearly all small round tables were laid for
dinner, so as to accommodate parties of four and six separately. Some
were already occupied; some were awaiting the descent of the ladies
from their tiring-chamber.
Nearly every one had arrived, and the whole place was alive with
light and bustle, greetings in merry, high-pitched voices; waiters,
heavily laden, charging to and fro through the crowd; men with frozen
moustaches thawing before the bright wood-fires; nymphs in procession
down the stairs, emerging miraculously fresh from their hoods and
mantles.
The dinner was excellent, and the spirit in which it was evident
that every one sat down to it was that proper to all entertainment,
but which so often with the English is conspicuous by its absence.
They came, young and old, with the resolute intention of amusing
themselves. If they had not "felt like" amusing themselves, they would
have stayed away. Look round the room, and you could see nowhere that
air of resignation--that air which says, "Though I should drop with
fatigue and _ennui_, I will go through with it, never fear!"--which is
so piteous on the faces, nay, on the very backs--of so many British
chaperons. It is true there were but few of these. Two and three girls
could come with one matron, leaving their respective mothers at home.
If the mothers came, it was because they liked it; in some instances,
because they meant to dance themselves. This gayety of temperament
and power of enjoyment was, of course, yet more remarkable when, after
dinner--and a little interval for digestion, coffee, and cigars--men
and women reassembled in a pretty ball-room upstairs. The hilarity
then seemed infectious. Mordaunt had not appeared so animated since
he had parted from Clare Planter. He danced with all the prettiest
girls, was pronounced to be "too nice for anything," and encountered,
in consequence, some scowls from jealous swains. At first it was only
the young who "took the floor." But soon elderly gentlemen and mature
dowagers were to be seen advancing, and receding, and gyrating, in
the complicated movements of the waltz and polka, as naturalized in
America. Mrs. Courtly, after presenting half a dozen men to Grace,
was carried off by a youth, renowned for his dancing, and who always
declared that no one waltzed like her. This was followed by "Dancing in
the Barn," which Mordaunt had been taught at Brackly, and which he and
Mrs. Courtly now performed greatly to their own satisfaction and that
of the few spectators who were not themselves prancing round the room.
Among those few were Grace and John Reid.
"Wouldn't my mother be down on Mrs. Courtly, if she could see her?" he
said, laughing.
"What for? For making herself and others happy?"
"Why, yes, in _a way_," he replied, still chuckling. "You see, she is
kinder severe, as we Yankees say, on Mrs. Courtly, who, _she_ declares,
tries to captivate every man she comes near. I tell her it wants no
trying--we all take to Mrs. Courtly as ducks do to water. That makes my
mother mad."
"I hope Boston is not very censorious?"
"Well, you see, I don't live in Boston," he replied, with becoming
caution. "There are quite a number of sets here, and, as in other big
cities, I suppose, they sit on each other--rather. My mother belongs
to the earnest set. 'There are no flies on _her_.' (Have you heard the
Salvation Army hymn? Well, I won't repeat it. It would shock you.)
She is a real good woman, and spends all her time rummaging about at
committees, and schools, and hospitals. The trouble is, she expects
every one to have the same tastes, and can't tolerate what she calls
'frivolity.'"
"Then she will not tolerate _me_. I do nothing useful. Do you come
often to Boston?"
"Once or twice a year, for a few days. In the summer my mother meets me
at Newport, or we cross the ocean together. I allow I like that better
than coming here, where my mother's friends are--well, not quite my
style."
Then a man came up and claimed Grace's hand for "the german," and she
had no further opportunity of hearing Mr. Reid's views. The dance was
over at eleven o'clock; and now began once more a rapid eclipse of all
the meteors, in their shining array, under soft but solid clouds of
fur; and outside there was a jingling of bells, a champing of bits, and
stamping of hoofs on the frozen snow, and the white moonlight streamed
down over all, glistening like silver on the icicles that depended from
the balcony, and articulating every object in blue-black shadow on the
snow.
The drive back was like a fairy dream, with this advantage, it was
exhilarating; while dreams often enervate, leaving their recipient, on
waking, less well able to cope with hard, prosaic fact. They flew along
in procession, with their clanging bells, over the burnished snow,
every leafless twig told out in tracery of shadow on the roadway, every
"sentinel pine," equipped in white fur, standing erect and motionless
against the still, blue night. The moon was at its full, and smote the
foreheads of the little painted wooden houses with its blinding light,
and flooded the distant country, lifting blue hills, on the horizon,
into that prominence which vagueness lends to outlines, from which the
eye in sunlight is distracted by a thousand small intervening details.
"It was perfect enchantment!" said Grace to her aunt the next morning
at breakfast.
"Yes, it was awfully jolly," said her brother. "And then Reid is such
a good sort. We were lucky to have him with us. Some of these young
chaps, I find, are very jealous of one. Such rot, you know. I overheard
one of them say to a girl whom I had asked to dance, 'Of course we have
none of us any chance _now_. You'll want to dance with the Englishman
all the time!' I should like to have kicked him."
"Never mind about _them_; they don't interest me," said Mrs. Frampton.
"Tell me what Mr. Reid said. Did you ask him anything about 'Readings'
or 'Central Pacifics'?"
"Bless you! no, Aunt Su. Fancy talking of investments _en partie
carrée_ with Mrs. Courtly. She would have stopped the sleigh, and have
begged us to get out."
Mrs. Reid's dinner that evening, in her magnificent house in
Commonwealth Avenue, was as typical, in its way, as Mrs. Courtly's had
been. There were six guests, besides Lady Clydesdale, invited to meet
our English friends, and most of them appeared to be persons devoted,
body and soul, to some one scientific, religious, or philanthropic
cause. Genuine enthusiasm about anything is too rare for me to indulge
in a little cheap satire about it. Four of these guests struck both
Mrs. Frampton and Grace as kindly, honest-minded men and women, not
stuck-up with the vanity of well-doing, but with intelligence perhaps
a little unduly inflamed over the propagation or extermination of
something or other. The fifth was Miss Lobb, who was as drastic, as
universal, and as unrelenting in her questions as she had been on
board the _Teutonic_. The sixth was a merry little spinster of forty,
with a cropped head and eyebrows like circumflex accents, who seemed
strangely out of place in that serious assembly, until it transpired
that she wrote for the daily papers--was what is called an "editor,"
which only means the caterer of certain branches of information. Being
a _protégée_ of Mrs. Reid's, she was invited to her table whenever
there was "copy" to be picked up. Her name was Pie, which gave rise
to a number of facile jokes among her friends--and she had many. For
she was always good-humored, never wounded any one by her writing, and
was often extremely serviceable to Mrs. Reid and others in airing the
views and projects they desired to make public. Mordaunt, who took Mrs.
Reid in to dinner, had Miss Pie on his other side. Mrs. Reid naturally
sat at the head of her table; but, the party consisting of twelve, it
was impossible, in the alternation of guests, that her son should sit
opposite her. He took Lady Clydesdale in to dinner, and placed her on
his left, facing Mrs. Reid. Grace, on his right, found, to her extreme
annoyance, that she was not only next but one to Lady Clydesdale, but,
from her position close to the angle, could not avoid conversation with
her countrywoman if it was thrust upon her.
Next to Grace was an ancient bachelor, of great wealth and boundless
liberality, who had founded and endowed several charitable
institutions, and whose purse-strings were so readily untied that he
was attacked by every promoter of beneficence in turn. He took Mrs.
Frampton in to dinner, upon whose left sat an eminent doctor. Then
came Mrs. Reid, dominating the table; and on the other side, next to
Miss Pie, a Unitarian minister, naturally voluble, but utterly quelled
by Miss Lobb, who was next him. The individual who sat between this
terrible lady--before whom most men fled--and Lady Clydesdale was a
business man, to whom she devoted most of her attention during dinner.
It had not advanced far when the hostess, placing her heavy artillery
into position, directed a slow shot at Mrs. Frampton.
"I regret that, during your too brief stay here, you should not have
come into contact with the higher educational and progressive life of
Boston, Mrs. Frampton. I have been deploring to Sir Mordaunt Ballinger
that he should have seen only the frivolous side of our society. There
is another--that of culture, that of philosophical investigation, that
of enthusiasm for humanity. These are not to be found at Country Club
balls."
"No. They would be rather out of place there. But you have given us
enough of all those good things here to-night to readjust the balance,
I fancy."
And Mrs. Frampton said this with a pleasant smile, which--probably to
all but Miss Pie--robbed the rejoinder of any latent satire.
The benevolent old bachelor on her left here claimed her attention
with a remark, which left Mrs. Reid no choice but to withdraw her
field-pieces. She turned to her right.
Mordaunt had been talking for the last few minutes to the bright little
spinster. He found a hand laid heavily upon his arm, and a voice
hurtled past him,
"My dear Pie, I cannot allow you to monopolize Sir Mordaunt _entirely_.
She is a savory Pie, but must be cut sometimes. (You forgive my
little joke, dear?) I was going to tell you, Sir Mordaunt, of my
disappointment in not having secured the most delightful woman to meet
you this evening--the person of all others who is a representative of
what is noblest, most cultivated, most advanced, among American women."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mordaunt, maliciously. "Of course I know whom you mean.
That description can only refer to _one_ woman."
"Do you mean that you have _met_ her?"--this with heavy-eyed surprise.
"Of course I have. Mrs. Courtly and I are great friends."
She threw up her hands, and at the same moment caught Lady Clydesdale's
eye by inclining her head a little to one side.
"That woman!" she almost groaned. Then she leaned forward, and said,
down the table, with solemnity,
"My dear Lady Clydesdale, will you tell your countryman here that
we have nobler types of womanhood than Mrs. Courtly; that in our
earnest seeking after the light we entirely repudiate that class of
persons--worldly pleasure-seekers, whose influence over the youth of
both sexes we hold to be very pernicious."
John Reid and Mordaunt exchanged glances, and in John's was the
faintest indication of a twinkle.
"I should not esteem this country as I do if it were made up of Mrs.
Courtlys!" said Lady Clydesdale, severely.
"Widows, who only think of ensnaring men!" cried Miss Lobb.
"Come, my dear," said the merry little Pie, "you and I do just the
same, all the time, only we don't succeed as well."
There was some natural laughter at this, but Mrs. Reid could not
encourage levity on so grave a subject.
"At her time of life," she said, "still to court the society of the
young and giddy--to dance and flirt as she does! Mrs. Frampton, I trust
you understand that is not the stamp of woman _we_ approve of."
"Really? Well, it is very difficult to please every one. She seems to
please a great many."
"_Too_ many! That is the trouble,"--this with an ominous shake of the
head. "Men are so easily deluded!"
"She does not only charm men," said Grace, who felt it was cowardly
to remain longer silent; "she can delight women also. She is the most
many-sided person I have ever met--with a great deal more depth than
people give her credit for."
"My! what bravery!" chuckled Miss Pie, under her breath.
"No one doubts her _depth_," rejoined Lady Clydesdale, sarcastically;
"but every one knows you have peculiar opinions, Miss Ballinger, about
conduct, both in men and women. If you like people, you defend them, no
matter what they do."
"How ought I to behave when I hear _you_ abused, Lady Clydesdale?" she
asked, white with anger, for she had a premonition of what was coming.
"Time enough for that when I have done something to forfeit public
esteem," she replied, with perfect coolness. "At present I trust my
conduct needs no defence. Have you heard, by the bye, anything more of
that terrible story about Mr. Ivor Lawrence. You knew him, I think,
rather well?"
"Yes, I did," Grace replied, flaming up, and looking straight into
her antagonist's eyes. "I knew him to be an honorable man, utterly
incapable of the meanness of which he is accused!"
"You think so? I hope you may not be mistaken; but I fear there is no
doubt of his guilt. It is only another instance of human frailty."
"The worst human frailty is repeating and believing such falsehoods!"
returned the girl, in a voice tremulous with indignation.
"We _all_ knew him rather well," Mordaunt called out from the other
end of the table, coming, like a gallant gentleman as he was, to his
sister's rescue. "We are sure he will be proved innocent of the
charge, but in the meantime we avoid the subject, don't you know."
"I can quite understand _that_," replied Lady Clydesdale, with a very
peculiar inflection. "It is so very difficult sometimes to speak the
truth about--one's friends. He was no friend of mine--so I can do it."
"We shall find no difficulty in doing that about you, Lady Clydesdale.
I know you are truth itself, and you will supply us with all the
details."
Mrs. Reid, who saw that the relations between her English guests were
strained, here swooped down upon the young man, while her son, at the
other end of the table, diverted Lady Clydesdale's attention to the
congenial subject of female suffrage.
* * * * *
After dinner, in the drawing-room, Miss Pie came and sat beside Grace.
"I admired you so much standing up for your friends at dinner--Mrs.
Courtly and that Englishman. Lady Clydesdale is a very able
woman--quite a pioneer for our sex. But she is a little apt to lay down
the law."
"It would be a bad thing if the law was what she lays down. I think she
is more likely to do harm than good to any cause she sustains."
"My! I am afraid you are not very advanced, Miss Ballinger," said the
little lady, with a twinkling eye. "Here we have to keep going all
the time, or we get unhooked, and the train goes on without us. Lady
Clydesdale is a powerful engine. Some of her opinions, from a member
of the British aristocracy, have been an eye-opener to us. But we of
the press, of course, are bound to catch on, and support her in her
levelling views--whether we quite believe them or not," she added,
laughing.
"In some ways you seem to be more 'respecters of persons' than we,"
said Grace. "If the 'level' you preach is the broad humanity level,
irrespective of wealth, or brains, or race, how are you going to
reconcile your attitude towards negroes, whom you will not associate
with, nor even allow to sit down at a public table with you?"
"Well, there _are_ reasons for _that_," returned Miss Pie, nodding her
cropped head vigorously. "But, apart from other considerations, the
prejudices of race are not to be argued about. They may be just as
irrational as the repugnance some people have to snakes, some to cats,
some to spiders. But you were asking what 'level' we preach. Why, the
level of success and prosperity, to be sure! We say one man is as good
as another, if he is only successful; and if we educate the poor, and
fire them with ambition, why should not every one be prosperous? Why
should there be those terrible inequalities of fortune?"
"Unless you can establish an equality of brain, of physical strength
and energy, how is it possible that all men shall be equal? It was
never so from the beginning of time. Were Cain and Abel equal? Your
country being comparatively new, there is a greater demand for laborers
in every field--a greater space for labor. It is not so with us; it
will not be so with you some day. And to my thinking Lady Clydesdale's
socialistic doctrines are calculated to make people dissatisfied with
'that state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call' them."
The little lady rubbed her hands, and laughed.
"I am quite satisfied with mine--especially to-night. It has been real
nice to have a talk with you, Miss Ballinger. We get into such a groove
of thinking! You take one right off the line, back into the tracks of
the Old World."
And then some man came up, and the conversation ended.