MRS. EATON'S TRIBULATION.
"While I was lying in my room, shocked by the day I had spent, Mrs.
Eaton came in, sun-burned, excited, and panting for breath. 'Wasn't it a
terrible thing! Such an imposition. To pass himself off for a duke! I
declare I could kill him.'
"'But did he deceive you?' I asked.
"'Did he, why of course, the scamp! And poor Lucy liking him so much.
She wont believe it now, hardly. He looked so splendid taking up that
key and swinging his sword about like a Saracen, Lucy says, just to
tantalize me, when I know exactly what he is. But I come to ask a great
favor, Miss Crawford. You're the only person that I breathed a word to
about it. Supposing you just keep quiet, now, especially to James
Harrington. It might do mischief there if you said a word, and I'm sure
you wouldn't want to do that. Only think of a daughter of mine almost
falling in love with one of them matadore fellows. I tell you it makes
my blood boil--but you wont say a word. Poor Lucy would die of shame if
you did.'
"'I certainly shall not mention the man to any one,' I answered.
"'That's a good soul. I was sure we might depend on you. Now I'll go and
tell Lucy. She's been crying like a baby ever since we come home. I
wonder if the fellow will have the impudence to follow us again. The
Duke! The impostor, I say,--to look like a nobleman and not be one.'
"How fussy and disagreeable the woman is. But I am too weary for much
thought of her or any thing else indeed, yet I cannot sleep.
"Mrs. Harrington lay on the low couch which was her favorite resting
place during the day, and I sat beside her reading aloud a new English
novel that Miss Eaton had lent me. Presently James came in, and making
me a sign not to stop, sat down near one of the windows, as if to listen
to the story; but when I glanced at him, I saw by his face that his
thoughts were leagues away from any consciousness of the words my voice
pronounced.
"I suppose I had no right to wonder whither his fancies had strayed, but
I could not help it; and when I looked at him again, I knew that it was
no idle reverie which had possession of him, but stern, absorbing
thought, for his face looked hard and cold as it so often had done of
late.
"I almost lost the consciousness of what I was reading, in the rush of
odd fancies that came over my mind. My voice must have grown careless
and indistinct, for I heard Mrs. Harrington say:--
"'Don't read any more, Mabel; I am sure you are tired.'
"I felt myself start and color; I colored all the more from annoyance at
feeling my cheeks begin to glow, and I could hear that I answered
constrainedly:
"'No; I am not tired.'
"'I know by your voice, my dear,' Mrs. Harrington said with her usual
thoughtfulness for others. 'It was selfish in me, I should not have
allowed you to read so long, but I was so interested in the story that I
forgot.'
"I closed the book; it was always very difficult for me to read aloud
with any listener besides herself, but she seemed so troubled at what
she considered her selfishness, that I said truthfully enough:
"'I did not know that I was tired, it is such a beautiful book that one
forgets everything in the interest of the story.'
"'Yes, indeed,' Mrs. Harrington said, smelling at a little bouquet of
roses she held in her hand, 'James,' she called in a louder voice, 'have
you read it?'
"He started and exclaimed quickly--
"'Did you speak, mother? I beg your pardon, I did not know you were
talking to me.'
"'I only asked if you had read this new novel of Bulwer's, that Mabel
and I are so delighted with.'
"'Not yet,' he replied, settling back in his chair.
"I could see his face in the mirror; and the effort he made to collect
his thoughts and appear to listen while his mother went on talking about
the book, was perfectly plain to me.
"'You like it,' he said, absently.
"'My dear James,' she exclaimed, laughing in her pleasant, genial way,
'where are your thoughts this morning? I don't believe you have heard
one word I was saying.'
"'Oh yes,' he replied, 'you were saying how much you and Miss Crawford
were interested in the book.'
"'I had done with that,' said she, shaking her bouquet at him playfully,
'I was asking you the name of his last work.'
"'Whose? Ah! Bulwer's--I am stupid this morning, I must acknowledge.'
"I was sorry for the sort of embarrassment he displayed--something
unusual with him, so strong and self-centered, and I mentioned the name
of the romance that had preceded the one we were reading.
"'Of course,' said Mrs. Harrington, 'Mabel's memory never fails! Do you
know, James, the faculty she has of retaining names and dates is
something marvellous, especially to poor me, who sometimes can scarcely
recollect my own age and rightful appellation.
"'One has the opportunity of admiring so many splendid qualities in Miss
Crawford,' he answered, in the distant, ceremonious way which he so
often employed toward me of late.
"I felt absolutely hurt, silly and childish as it was to care for so
slight a thing. I suppose my tell-tale face showed it, for Mrs.
Harrington said, teasingly--
"'Really, James, you are very stately and magnificent, this morning!
that speech sounded grand and stilted enough to have suited Sir Charles
Grandison.'
"He laughed a little, but it sounded so forced that I wondered Mrs.
Harrington did not observe it.
"'I told you that I was stupid,' he said, 'so you need not be severe on
my poor attempt at a compliment.'
"'I assure your lordship that Mabel does not care for compliments,'
continued his mother. 'Do you, my pretty Queen Mab?'
"'I think they are a very poor substitute for real kindness between
friends,' I said.
"I could hear that my voice sounded somewhat irritable, but I could not
resist speaking, though the instant after, I could have bitten my tongue
off for showing so plainly any annoyance at his manner and words. Mrs.
Harrington did not notice my little ebullition--was it wounded
selfishness and pride, I wonder? She took my remark quite as a matter of
course.
"'You are perfectly right,' she said. 'Please to remember that, master
James.'
"I saw that he was looking earnestly at me--perhaps he thought that he
had hurt me, but I was determined to make no more silly self betrayals.
I forced my face to look indifferent, and sat playing carelessly with
the bronze paper cutter in my hand.
"'I am sure Miss Crawford knows that I should be only too proud to be
acknowledged as her friend, and that I value her intellect too highly
for an attempt at empty compliments,' James observed, gravely.
"'Ah, _viola l'amende honorable_!" laughed Mrs. Harrington. 'Mabel is
appeased, and I am content with your explanation.'
"There was a brief silence; I could feel that James was still looking at
me, and did not raise my eyes. Mrs. Harrington was playing with her
flowers, and when she spoke again had forgotten the whole matter--the
merest trifle to her, indeed to anybody possessed of a grain of common
sense, but of so much importance to ridiculous, fanciful me.
"'This is so perfect a day,' she said, 'that I think we must go out to
drive. Will you go with us, James?'
"'I fear that I shall be unable,' he replied, 'I have several letters to
write, and the American mail goes out to-day.'
"'Then we will ask Miss Eaton, Mabel,' said Mrs. Harrington, 'she always
likes to go with us.'
"I could have dispensed with this young lady's society, but of course I
did not say so, and I had the decency to be ashamed of my unaccountable
feeling toward her. She was so very beautiful that to anybody less
captious than I had grown, even nonsense from such lips as hers would
have been more graceful and acceptable than the wisest remark from
almost any other woman.
"'I am sorry you can't go, James,' Mrs. Harrington was saying, when I
had finished my little mental self-flagellation for all my misdemeanors
and evil thoughts, and could listen to what they were saying.
"'Are you particularly anxious to have me go with you, this morning,
_petite mia_?' James asked, with more animation than he had before
displayed.
"'Indeed I am! I feel babyish to-day, and want to be petted! If you
don't go, I shall think you are beginning to tire of this poor invalid
woman who is so great a trouble to you all.'
"'My mother could never think that,' he said hastily, rising, and moving
close to her sofa, where he stood gently smoothing her beautiful hair
with his hand.
"'Besides,' she went on, 'these women are just no party at all. Mabel's
head is full of the book, and between us, poor little Miss Eaton will
have a wearisome drive of it.'
"'I shall go with you,' James answered, 'my letters can wait till the
next mail.'
"'We have conquered, Mabel!' cried Mrs. Harrington, with that air of
triumph so many women show on such occasions,--a feeling which, I
confess, has always been a mystery to me.
"But just now Mrs. Harrington made a sad mistake when she said that we
had conquered--as if either of us had anything to do with Mr. James'
change of determination! The moment she had announced her intention of
inviting our beautiful neighbor, he had discovered that it was easy for
him to let his correspondence lie over. Either Mrs. Harrington was very
blind, or she chose to ignore a fact that was as palpable as if he had
given utterance to it.
"I felt tired and moody, and half inclined to make that ordinary
feminine fib, a headache, a plea for not making one of the party. I do
not know what I might have said; I dare say something I should have been
sorry for, because I felt strangely perverse and irritable."