thinking that it was unpremeditated; that it was the unexpected result of
some strong inward feeling. She looked like one who was justly indignant,
and, considering what Flossy had said, I felt that her anger was
righteous. That her disposition is unfortunate cannot be denied. She seems
already to be an Ishmaelite, for whenever she speaks it is to fling out a
remark so biting in its sarcasm, so bitter and satirical, that Flossy is
afraid of her, and Bronson reproves her with unnecessary severity, because
her offence is that of a grown person, which her childish stature mocks.
Other children both fear and hate her. They resent her cleverness. They
like to use her wits to organize their plays, but they never include her,
for she always wants to lead, feeling, doubtless, that she inherently
possesses the qualities of a leader, and chafing, as a heroic soul must,
under inferior management. Flossy makes her go out to play regularly with
them every day, but it is a pitiful sight, for she feels her unpopularity,
and children are cruel to each other with the cruelty of vindictive
dulness; so Rachel, after standing about among them forlornly for a while,
like a stray robin among a flock of little owls, comes creeping in alone,
and sits down in the library with a book. She is the loneliest child I
ever knew. If she cared, people would at least be sorry for her; but she
seems to love no one, never seeks sympathy if she is hurt, repels all
attempts to ease pain, and cures herself with her beloved books. I never
saw any one kiss or offer to pet her, but they make a great fuss over the
baby, and Rachel watches them with glittering eyes. I thought once that it
was jealousy, and, going up to her, laid my hand on her head, but she
shook it off as if it had been a viper, and ran out of the room.
I had grown very fond of my namesake, and used to go there when Flossy was
away, and sit in the nursery. The nurse told me once that Mrs. Herrick saw
so little of the baby that it was afraid, and cried at the sight of her. I
reproved her for speaking in that manner of her mistress, but she only
tossed her head knowingly, and I dropped the subject. Servants often are
aware of more than we give them credit for.
Saturday before Easter I stopped at Flossy's, but she was not at home. I
left some flowers for her, and asked to see the baby, but the nurse said
she was asleep.
Easter morning I did not go to church, and Rachel Percival came early in
the afternoon to see if I were ill. While she was here this note arrived
by a messenger:
"DEAR RUTH,--I know you will grieve for me when I tell you that our
baby went away from us quite suddenly this morning, while the
Easter bells were ringing so joyfully. They rang the knell of a
mother's heart, for they rang my baby's spirit into Paradise.
"I feel, through my tears, that it is better so, for she will bind
me closer to Heaven when I think that she, in her purity, awaits me
there.
"Hoping to see you very soon, I am
"Your loving FLOSSY.
"P.S.--Bronson seems to feel the baby's death to a truly
astonishing degree. F. H."
I flung the note across to Rachel, and, putting my head down on my two
arms, I cried just as hard as I could cry.
Rachel read it, then tore it into twenty bits, and ground her heel into
the fragments.
"Why, Rachel Percival! what is the matter?"
"She wasn't even at home. She was at church. She must have been. She told
me that Bronson was afraid to have her leave the baby, and wouldn't come
himself, but that she didn't think anything was the matter with it, and
wouldn't be tied down. Then such a note so soon afterwards! Ruth, what is
that woman made of?"
We went together to Flossy's. She came across the room to meet us,
supported by Bronson. She stumbled two or three times in the attempt.
Tears were running down Bronson's face, and he wiped them away quite
humbly, as if he did not mind our seeing them in the least. I could not
bear to watch him, so I slipped out of the room and went upstairs.
"In here, 'm," said the nurse; "and Miss Rachel is here too. She won't
move that far from the cradle, and she hasn't shed a tear."
Ruth lay peacefully in her little lace crib, covered with violets, and
beside her, rigid and white and tearless, stood Rachel. I was almost
afraid of the child as I looked at her. She turned her great eyes upon me
dumbly, with so exactly Bronson's expression in them that all at once I
understood her. I knelt down beside her, and gathering her little tense
frame all up in my arms, I began whispering to her. The tears rolled down
her cheeks, and soon she was crying hysterically. Bronson came bounding
upstairs at the sound, but she seized me more tightly around the neck and
held me chokingly. I motioned him back, and succeeded in carrying her away
to a quiet place, where I sat down with her in my arms, and made love to
her for hours.
I never heard a more pitiful story than she told me, between strangling
sobs, of her hungry life. The child has been yearning for affection all
the time, but has unconsciously repelled it by her manner. She said nobody
on earth loved her except the baby, and now the baby was dead.
"There is no use of your trying to make things different," she said,
"especially with mamma. She wouldn't care if I was dead too. But papa
could understand, I think, if he would only try to love me. But I love
you--oh! I love you so much that it hurts me. Nobody ever came and hugged
me up the way you did, in my whole life. You have made things over for me,
and I'll love you for it till I die. Why is it that everybody gives mamma
and the baby so much love, when they never cared for it, and I care so
much and never get a single bit? Nobody understands me, and every
one--every one calls me bad. I'm not bad. I love plenty of people who
can't love me. I am not bad, I tell you!"
She cried herself nearly sick, and then, exhausted, fell asleep, with her
face pressed against mine. Thus Bronson found us. He offered to take her,
and I put her into his arms. Then I told him all that she had said, and
asked him to hold her until she wakened, and give her some of the love her
little heart was hungering for. He couldn't speak when I finished, and I
went down, to find Rachel bathing Flossy's head with cologne, and looking
worn and tired.
Percival came for Rachel, and one could see that the mere sight of him
rested her. She told him all about it, in her wonderfully comprehensive
way, and he felt the whole thing, and we were all very quiet and peaceful
and sad, as we drove home through the early darkness of that Easter day.
They left me at my door, and I went in alone, with the memory of that
grieving household--the lonely father, and the selfish mother, and the
unloved child--hallowed and made tender by the presence of the little dead
baby, asleep under its weight of violets.
I feel very much alone sometimes; but the Percivals carry their world with
them.
VII
A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE
"I am myself indifferent honest."
I have just made two startling discoveries. One is that I am not honest
myself, and the other is that I detest honesty in other people.
To-day I was sitting peacefully in my room, harming nobody, when I saw
little Pet Winterbotham drive up in her cart and come running up to the
door. I supposed she had come with a message from her sister, and went
down, thinking to be detained about ten minutes.
It seems but a few years ago since Pet was in the kindergarten. I was
surprised to see that she wore her dresses very long, and that she looked
almost grown up.
"My dear Pet," I exclaimed, "what is the matter?"
"Oh, Miss Ruth, I am in such a scrape," she answered me. "I hope you won't
think it's queer that I came to you, but the fact is, I've watched you in
church, and you always look as if you knew, and would help people if they
would ask you to; so I thought I'd try you.
"Ever and ever so long ago, when I was a little bit of a thing, and played
with other children, and you and sister Grace went out together, I used to
'choose' you from all the other young ladies, because you wore such lovely
hats, and always had on pearl-colored gloves. I suppose it is so long ago
that you were a young lady and had beaux that you've forgotten it. But I
know you used to have lovers, for I heard Mrs. Herrick and Mrs. Payson
Osborne talking about you once, and Mrs. Herrick said you seemed so
tranquil and contented that she supposed you never had had any really good
offers, or you would be all the time wishing you had taken one. And Mrs.
Osborne spoke up in her quick way, and said, 'Don't deceive yourself so
comfortably, my dear Flossy. I know positively that Ruth has had several
offers that you and I would have jumped at.' And then she turned away and
laughed and laughed, although I didn't see anything so very funny in what
she said, and neither did Mrs. Herrick.
"I do think Mrs. Osborne is the loveliest person I know. She is my ideal
young married woman. She always has a smile and a pretty word for every
one, and young men like her better than they do the buds. Why, your face
is as red as fire. I hope I haven't said anything unpleasant. Mamma says I
blunder horribly, but she always is too busy to tell me how not to
blunder.
"Now, I want to know which of these two men you would advise me to marry.
I've got to take one, I suppose."
"Marry!" I exclaimed, so explosively that Pet started. "Why, child, how
old are you?"
"I'm nineteen," she said, in rather an injured tone, "and I've always made
up my mind to marry young, if I got a good enough offer. I hate old maids.
Oh, excuse me. I don't mean you, of course. I wouldn't marry a clerk, you
understand, just to be marrying. I'm not so silly. I have plenty of
common-sense in other things, and I'm going to put some of it into the
marriage question. Don't you think I'm sensible?"
"Very," I answered; but I didn't, Tabby. I thought she was a goose.
"Well now," proceeded my young caller, settling her ribbons with a pretty
air of importance, and looking at me out of the most innocent eyes in the
world, "my sister Grace married Brian Beck because he had such a lot of
money. But you know he is dissipated, and at first Grace almost went
distracted. Then she made up her mind to let him go his own gait, and she
has as good a time as she can on his money. His Irish name Brian is her
thorn in the flesh, and he teases her nearly out of her wits about it. We
have great fun on the yacht every summer. Brian is awfully good to me, and
invites nice men to take with us; still, much as I like Brian as a
brother-in-law, I shouldn't care to have a husband like him. Now, I
suppose you wonder why on earth I am telling you these things, and why I
don't tell one of the girls I go with."
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed in protest.
"Of course. I see you think it wouldn't be safe. Girls just can't help
telling, to save their lives. Sometimes they don't intend to, and then
it's bad enough. But sometimes they do it just to be mean, and you can't
help yourself. I have plenty of confidence in you though, and you don't
look as if you'd be easily shocked. You look as though you could tell a
good deal if you wanted to. You're an awfully comfortable sort of a
person. Now, let me tell you. I have two offers. One is from Clinton
Frost, and the other is from Jack Whitehouse. You have seen me with Mr.
Frost, haven't you? A dark, fierce, melancholy man, with black eyes and
hair, and very distinguished looking.
"I think he has a history. He throws out hints that way. He is gloomy with
everybody but me, and Brian will do nothing but joke with him. There is
nothing Mr. Frost dislikes as much as to laugh or to see other people
laugh. Brian calls him 'Pet's nightmare,' and threatens to give him ink to
drink.
"I believe Mr. Frost hates Brian. He says the name of our yacht, _Hittie
Magin_, is unspeakably vulgar. Nothing pleases Brian more than to force
Mr. Frost or Grace to tell strangers the name of it. Their mere speaking
the words throws Brian into convulsions of laughter. Then, if people
comment on it, he tells them that the name is of his wife's selection, in
deference to his Irish family. And Grace almost faints with mortification.
Mr. Frost says he will give me a yacht twice as good as Brian's. He adores
me. He says I am the only thing in life which makes him smile."
I felt that I could sympathize with Mr. Frost on this point.
"Then there's Jack Whitehouse, Norris Whitehouse's nephew. Mr. Norris
Whitehouse is a great friend of yours, isn't he? Do you know, I never
think of him as an 'eligible,' although he is a bachelor. I should as soon
think of a king in that light. He impresses me more than any man I ever
knew. Don't you consider him odd? No? I do. He is so clever that you would
be afraid of him, if it wasn't for his lovely manners, which make you
feel as though what you are saying is just what he has been wanting to
know, and he is so glad he has met some one who is able to tell him.
Actually he treats me with more respect than some of the young men do. He
makes me feel as if I were a woman, and he had a right to expect something
good of me. I never said that to anybody before, but I can talk to you and
feel that you understand me. I like to feel that people think there is
something to me, even if I know that it isn't much. Mrs. Asbury says that
Mr. Whitehouse is the courtliest man she knows. You know the story of the
Whitehouse money, don't you? Jack told it to me with tears in his eyes,
and I don't wonder at it. You know Jack's father and mother died when he
was very young. Norris was his father's favorite, and the old gentleman
made a most unjust will, leaving only a life interest in the property to
Jack's father; then it all went to his favorite younger son, Norris. Now,
you know what most men would do under the circumstances. They would
acknowledge the injustice of the will, but they would keep the money.
This proves to me what an unusual man Mr. Norris Whitehouse is, for he
immediately made over to his little nephew Jack one half of the
property--just what his father ought to have been able to leave him--and
Jack is to come into that when he is twenty-five. Don't you think that was
noble? Jack worships him. He says no father could have been more devoted
to an only son than his uncle Norris has been to him. He travelled with
him, and gave up years of his life to superintending Jack's education.
"Now, whoever marries Jack will really be at the head of that elegant
house, for you know it hasn't had a mistress since Jack's mother died,
years ago. I should like that, although I do wish more of the expense was
in furniture instead of in pictures and tapestries. But that is his
uncle's taste.
"Poor Jack talks so beautifully about his young mother, whom he can
scarcely remember. He says his uncle has kept her alive to him. He is
perfectly lovely with other fellows' mothers, and with mine. He treats
them all, he says, as he should like to have had others treat his mother.
Of course it is only sentiment with him. If she had lived, he might have
given her as much trouble as other boys give theirs. She must have been
lovely. Mamma says she was. But I'd just as soon not have any
mother-in-law to tell me to wrap up, and wear rubbers if it looked like
rain. You know there isn't a bit of sentiment in me. I'm practical. My
father says if I had been a boy he would have taken me into business at
fifteen. Jack thinks I am all sentiment. He says nobody could have a face
like mine and not possess an innate love of the beautiful in art and
poetry and all that. I have forgotten just what he said about that part of
it. But I know he meant to praise me. I didn't say anything in reply, but
I smiled to myself at the idea of Pet Winterbotham being credited with
fine sentiment.
"Jack is horribly young--only twenty-two--so he won't have his money for
three years, and Mr. Frost is thirty-nine. Jack has curly hair, and when
he wears a white tennis suit and puts his cap on the back of his head and
holds a cigarette in his hand, he looks as if he had just stepped out of
one of the pictures in _Life_. He looks so 'chappie.' He is a good deal
easier to get along with than Mr. Frost, and will have more money some
day, although Mr. Frost has enough. Now, which would you take?"
"Why, my dear Pet," I said in an unguarded moment, "which do you love?"
I shrivelled visibly under the look of scorn she cast upon me.
"I don't love either of them. I've had one love affair and I don't care
for another until I make sure which man I'm going to marry."
"Can you fall in love to order?" I asked in dismay.
"Not exactly. 'To order!' Why, no. Anybody would think you were having
boots made. But it's being with a man, and having him awfully good to you,
and admiring everything you say, and having lots of good clothes, and not
being in love with any other fellow, that makes you love a man. I'm sure
from your manner that you like Jack Whitehouse the best, so I think I'll
take him. You are awfully sweet, and not a bit like an old maid. I tell
everybody so."
"Am I called an Old Maid?" I asked quickly. I could have bitten my tongue
out for it afterwards.
"Oh, yes indeed, by all the younger set. You see you belonged to Grace's
set and they are all married. It makes you seem like a back number to us,
but you don't look like an old maid. I suppose you can look back ages and
ages and remember when you had lovers, can't you? Or have you forgotten? I
can't imagine you ever getting love-letters or flowers or any such things.
I hope I haven't offended you. I am horribly honest, you know. I say just
what I think, and you mustn't mind it. Mamma says I am too truthful to be
pleasant. But I like honesty myself, don't you?"
And with that, Tabby, she went away.
How terrible the child is! Now, Pet is one of those persons who go about
lacerating people and clothing their ignorance, or their insolence, in the
garb of honesty.
"I am honest," say they, "so you must not be offended, but is it true that
your grandfather was hanged for being a pirate?" Or, "I believe in being
perfectly honest with people. How cross-eyed you are!"
This is why honesty is so disreputable. When you say of a woman, "She is
one of those honest, outspoken persons," it means that she will probably
hurt your feelings, or insult you in your first interview with her.
I don't like to admit it even to you, Tabby, but I am horribly shaken up.
After all these years of talking about myself to you as an Old Maid, and
knowing that I am one, to hear myself called such, and to catch a glimpse
of the way I appear to the oncoming generation, shakes me to the
foundation of my being. Soon _I_ shall be pushed to the wall, as something
too worn out to be needed by bright young people. Soon _I_ shall be one of
the old people whom I have so dreaded all my life. Dear Tabby-cat! You can
remember when Missis received love-letters, can't you? They are not all in
the japanned box, are they? Do I seem old to you, kitty? Why, there is
actually a tear on your gray fur. Dear me, what a silly Old Maid Missis
is!
You see, after all, I have not been honest, even with myself. And, just
between you and me, I will say that I abominate honesty in other people.
There!
VIII
A GAME OF HEARTS
"Man proposes, but Heaven disposes."
Tabby, did you ever hear me speak of Charlie Hardy? No, of course not.
Your mother must have been a kitten when I knew Charlie the best. He is a
nice boy. Boy! What am I talking about? He is as old as I am. But he is
the kind of man who always seems a boy, and everybody who has known him
two days calls him Charlie.
Rachel Percival never thought much of him. She said he was weak, and
weakness in a man is something Rachel never excuses. She says it is
trespassing on one of the special privileges of our sex. Thus she disposed
of Charlie Hardy.
"Look at his chin," said Rachel; "could a man be strong with a chin like
that?"
"But he is so kind-hearted and easy to get along with," I urged.
"Very likely. He hasn't strength of mind to quarrel. He is unwilling, like
most easy-going men, to inflict that kind of pain. But he could be as
cruel as the grave in other ways. Look at him. He always is in hot water
about something, and never does as people expect him to do."
"But he doesn't do wrong on purpose, and he makes charming excuses and
apologies."
"He ought to; he has had enough practice," answered Rachel, with her
beautiful smile. "He has what I call a conscience for surface things. He
regards life from the wrong point of view, and, as to his always intending
to do right--you know the place said to be paved with good intentions. No,
no, Ruth. Charlie Hardy is a dangerous man, because he is weak. Through
such men as he comes very bitter sorrow in this world."
That conversation, Tabby, took place, if not before you were created, at
least in your early infancy--the time when your own weight threw you down
if you tried to walk, and when ears and tail were the least of your
make-up.
All these years Charlie has never married, but was always with the girls.
He dropped with perfect composure from our set to Sallie Cox's--was her
slave for two years, though Sallie declares that she never was engaged to
him. "What's the use of being engaged to a man that you can keep on hand
without?" quoth Sallie. But Charlie bore no malice. "I didn't stand the
ghost of a show with a girl like Sallie, when she had such men as Winston
Percival and those literary chaps around her. It was great sport to watch
her with those men. You know what a little chatterbox she is. By Jove!
when that fellow Percival began to talk, Sallie never had a word to say
for herself. It must have been awfully hard for her, but she certainly let
him do all the talking, and just sat and listened, looking as sweet as a
peach. Oh! I never had any chance with Sallie."
Nevertheless, he was usher at her wedding, then dropped peacefully to the
next younger set, and now is going with girls of Pet Winterbotham's age.
I thoroughly like the boy, but I can't imagine myself falling in love with
him. If I were married to another man--an indiscreet thing for an Old Maid
to say, Tabby, but I only use it for illustration--I should not mind
Charlie Hardy's dropping in for Sunday dinner every week, if he wanted to.
He never bothers. He never is in the way. He is as deft at buttoning a
glove as he is amiable at playing cards. You always think of Charlie Hardy
first if you are making up a theatre party. He serves equally well as
groomsman or pall-bearer--although I do not speak from experience in
either instance. He never is cross or sulky. He makes the best of
everything, and I think men say that he is "an all-round good fellow."
I depend a great deal upon other men's opinion of a man. I never
thoroughly trust a man who is not a favorite with his own sex. I wish men
were as generous to us in that respect, for a woman whom other women do
not like is just as dangerous. And I never knew simple jealousy--the
reason men urge against accepting our verdict--to be universal enough to
condemn a woman. There always are a few fair-minded women in every
community--just enough to be in the minority--to break continuous
jealousy.
Be that as it may, the man I am talking about has kept up his acquaintance
with Rachel and Alice Asbury and me in a desultory way, and occasionally
he grows confidential. The last time I saw him he said:
"Sometimes I wish I were a woman, Ruth, when I get into so much trouble
with the girls. Women never seem to have any worry over love affairs. All
they have to do is to lean back and let men wait on them until they see
one that suits them. It is like ordering from a _menu_ card for them to
select husbands. You run over a list for a girl--oysters, clams, or
terrapin--and she takes terrapin. In the other case she runs over her own
list--Smith, Jones, or Robinson--and likewise takes the rarest. But she is
not at all troubled about it. Marrying is so easy for a girl. It comes
natural to her."
Tabby, I did wish that he knew as much of the internal mechanism of the
engagements that you and I have participated in, by proxy, as we do--if he
would understand, profit by, and speedily forget the knowledge.
But, like the hypocrite I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for
women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller
ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit,
Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their
lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making
up their minds." You see I uphold my own sex at all hazards--to men.