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[Illustration: "HE TOOK OUT HIS EYEGLASS TO STUDY IT."]
BOSTON NEIGHBOURS
IN TOWN AND OUT
BY AGNES BLAKE POOR
[Illustration]
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1898
COPYRIGHT, 1898
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
OUR TOLSTOI CLUB 1
A LITTLE FOOL 41
WHY I MARRIED ELEANOR 83
THE STORY OF A WALL-FLOWER 123
POOR MR. PONSONBY 187
MODERN VENGEANCE 239
THREE CUPS OF TEA 274
THE TRAMPS' WEDDING 300
* * * * *
The author and the publishers desire to make acknowledgment to the
publishers of the _Century Magazine_ and of the _New England Magazine_
for their courtesy in permitting the re-issue of certain stories which
were originally published in these periodicals.
[Illustration]
OUR TOLSTOI CLUB
I should be glad to tell a story if I only knew one, but I don't. Some
people say that one experience is as interesting as another, and that
any real life is worth hearing about; but I think it must make some
little difference who the person is. But if I really must tell one, and
since you all have told yours, and such nice ones, and anything is
better than nothing when we are kept in all the morning by a pouring
rain, with nothing to do, because we came only for a week, and did not
expect it to rain, I will try and tell you about our Tolstoi Club,
because that was rather like a story--at least it might have been like
one if things had turned out a little differently.
You know I live in a suburb of Boston, and a very charming, delightful
one it is. I cannot call it by its real name, because I am going to be
so very personal; so I will call it "Babyland," which indeed people
often do in fun. There never was such a place for children. The
population is mostly under seven years old, for it was about seven years
ago that young married people began to move into it in such numbers,
because it is so healthy; but it was always a great place for them even
when it was small. The old inhabitants are mostly grandfathers and
grandmothers now, and enjoy it very much; but they usually go into town
in the winter, with such unmarried children as they have left, to get a
little change; for there is no denying that there is a sameness about
it--the sidewalks are crowded with perambulators every pleasant day, and
at our parties the talk is apt to run too much on nursery-maids, and
milkmen and their cows, and drains, to be very interesting to those who
have not learned how terribly important such things are. So in winter
we--I mean the young married couples, of whom I am half a one--are left
pretty much to our own devices.
Though we are all so devoted to our infant families, we are not so much
so as to give up all rational pleasures or intellectual tastes; we could
not live so near Boston, you know, and do that. Our husbands go into
town every day to make money, and we go in every few days to spend it,
and in the evenings, if they are not too tired, we sometimes make them
take us in to the theatres and concerts. We all have a very nice social
circle, for Babyland is fashionable as well as respectable, and we are
asked out more or less, and go out; but for real enjoyment we like our
own clubs and classes the best. We feel so safe going round in the
neighbourhood, because we are so near the children, and can be called
home any time if necessary. There is our little evening dancing-club,
which meets round at one another's houses, where we all exchange
husbands--a kind of grown-up "puss-in-the-corner"; only, as the supply
of dancing husbands is not quite equal to that of wives, we have to get
a young man or two in if we can; and for the same reason we don't ask
any girls, who, indeed, are not very eager to come. Then there is the
musical club, and the sketching-club, and we have a great many morning
clubs for the women alone, where we bring our work (and it is splendid
to get so much time to sew), and read, or are read to, and then talk
over things. Sometimes we stay to lunch, and sometimes not; and we would
have an essay club, only we have no time to write the papers.
Now, many of these clubs meet chiefly at Minnie Mason's--Mrs. Sydney
Mason's. She gets them up, and is president: you see, she has more time,
because she has no children--the only woman in Babyland who hasn't, and
I don't doubt she feels dreadfully about it. She is not strong, and has
to lie on the sofa most of the time, and that is another reason why we
meet there so often; and then she lives right in the midst of us all,
and so close to the road that we can all of us watch our children, when
they are out for their airings, very conveniently. Minnie is very kind
and sympathetic, and takes such an interest in all our affairs, and if
she is somewhat inclined to gossip about them, poor dear, it is very
natural, when she has so few of her own to think about.
Well, in the autumn before last, Minnie said we must get up a Tolstoi
Club; she said the Russians were the coming race, and Tolstoi was their
greatest writer, and the most Christian of moralists (at least she had
read so), and that everybody was talking about him, and we should be
behindhand if we could not. So we turned one of our clubs, which had
nothing particular on hand just then, into one; and, besides Tolstoi, we
read other Russian novelists, Turgenieff and--that man whose name is so
hard to pronounce, who writes all about convicts and--and other
criminals. We did not read them all, for they are very long, and we can
never get through anything long; but we hired a very nice lady
"skimmer," who ran through them, and told us the plots, and all about
the authors, and read us bits. I forget a good deal, but I remember she
said that Tolstoi was the supreme realist, and that all previous
novelists were romancers and idealists, and that he drew life just as it
was, and nobody else had ever done anything like it, except indeed the
other Russians; and then we discussed. In discussion we are very apt to
stray off to other topics, but that day I remember Bessie Milliken
saying that the Russians seemed very queer people; she supposed that if
every one said these authors were so true to life, they must be, but she
had never known such an extraordinary state of things. Just as soon as
ever people were married--if they married at all--they seemed wild to
make love to some one else, or have some one else make love to them.
"They don't seem to do so here," said Fanny Deane.
"_We_ certainly do not," said Blanche Livermore. "I think the reason
must be that we have no time. I have scarcely time to see anything of my
own husband, much less to fall in love with any one else's."
We all laughed, but we felt that it was odd. In Babyland all went on in
an orderly and respectable fashion. The gayest girls, the fastest young
men, as soon as they were married and settled there, subsided at once
into quiet, domestic ways. At our dances each of us secretly thought
her own husband the most interesting person present, and he returned the
compliment, and after a peaceful evening of passing them about we were
always very thankful to get them back to go home with. Were we, then, so
unlike the rest of humanity?
"Are we sure?" asked Minnie Mason, always prone to speculation. "It is
not likely that we are utterly different from the rest of the world. Who
knows what dark tragedies lie hidden in the recesses of the heart? Who
knows all her neighbour's secret history?" This was being rather
personal, but no one took it home, for we never minded what Minnie said;
and as many of the club were, as always occurred, detained at home by
domestic duties, we thought it might apply to one of them. But I can't
deny that we, and especially Minnie, who had a relish for what was
sensational, and was pleased to find that realistic fiction, which she
had always thought must be dull, was really exciting, felt a little
ashamed at our being so behind the age--"provincial," as Mr. James would
call it; "obsolete," as Mr. Howells is fond of saying--at Babyland as
not to have the ghost of a scandal among us. None of us wished to give
cause for the scandal ourselves; but I think we might not have been as
sorry as we ought to be if one of our neighbours had been obliging
enough to do so. We did not want anything very bad, you know. Of course
none of us could ever have dreamed of running away with a fascinating
young man--like Anna Karenina--because in the first place we all liked
our husbands, and in the next place, who could be depended upon to go
into town to do the marketing, and to see that the children wore their
india-rubbers on wet days? But anything short of that we felt we could
bear with equanimity.
That same fall we were excited, though only in our usual harmless,
innocent way, by hearing that the old Grahame house was sold, and
pleased--though no more than was proper--that it was sold to the
Williamses. It was a pretty, old farm-house which had been improved upon
and enlarged, and had for many years been to let; and being as
inconvenient as it was pretty, it was always changing its tenants, whom
we despised as transients, and seldom called upon. But now it was
bought, and by none of your new people, who, we began to think, were
getting too common in Babyland. We all knew Willie Williams: all the men
were his old friends, and all the women had danced with him, and liked
him, and flirted with him; but I don't think it ever went deeper, for
somehow all the girls had a way of laughing at him, though he was a
handsome fellow, and had plenty of money, and was very well behaved,
and clever too in his way; but we could not help thinking him silly. For
one thing, he would be an artist, though you never saw such dreadful
daubs as all his pictures were. It was a mercy he did not have to live
by them, for he never sold any; he gave them away to his friends, and
Blanche Livermore said that was why he had so many friends, for of
course he could not work off more than one apiece on them. He was very
popular with all the other artists, for he was the kindest-hearted
creature, and always helped those who were poor, and admired those who
were great; and they never had anything to say against him, though they
could not get out anything more in his praise than that he was "careful
and conscientious in his work," which was very likely true. Then he was
vain; at least he liked his own good looks, and, being aesthetic in his
tastes, chose to display them to advantage by his attire. He wore his
hair, which was very light, long, and was seldom seen in anything less
fanciful than a boating-suit, or a bicycle-suit, though he was not given
to either exercise, but wanted an excuse for a blouse, and
knee-breeches, and tights, and a soft hat--and these were all of a more
startling pattern than other people's; while as to the velvet
painting-jackets and brocade dressing-gowns, in which he indulged in
his studio, I can only say that they made him a far more picturesque
figure than any in his pictures. It was a shame to waste such materials
on a man. Then he lisped when he was at all excited, which he often was;
and he had odd ways of walking, and standing, and sitting, which looked
affected, though I really don't think they were.
He made enthusiastic, but very brief, love to all of us in turn. I don't
know whether any of us could have had him; if one could, all could; but,
supposing we could, I don't believe any of us would have had the courage
to venture on Willie Williams. But we expected that his marriage would
be romantic and exciting, and his wedding something out of the common.
Opinions were divided as to whether his ardent love-making would induce
some lovely young Italian or Spanish girl of rank to run away from a
convent with him, or whether he would rashly take up with some artist's
model, or goose-girl, or beggar-maid. We were much disappointed when,
after all, he married in the most commonplace manner a very ordinary
girl named Loulie Latham.
We all knew Loulie too; she went to school at Miss Woodberry's, in the
class next below mine; and she was a nice girl, and we all liked her
well enough, but there never was a girl who had less in her. She was not
bad-looking, but no beauty; not at all the kind of looks to attract an
artist. Blanche Livermore said that he might have married her for her
red hair if only there had been more of it. The Lathams were very well
connected, and knew everybody, and she went about with the other girls,
and had a fair show of attention at parties; but she never had friends
or lovers. She had not much chance to have any, indeed, for she married
very young.
She was a very shy, quiet girl, and I used to think that perhaps it was
because she was so overcrowed by her mother. Mrs. Latham was a large,
striking-looking if not exactly handsome, lady-like though loud, woman,
who talked a great deal about everything. She was clever, but eccentric,
and took up all manner of fads and fancies, and though she was a
thoroughly good woman, and well born and well bred, she did know the
very queerest people--always hand in glove with some new crank. Hygiene,
as she called it, was her pet hobby. Fortunately she had a particular
aversion to dosing; but she dieted her daughter and herself, which, I
fear, was nearly as bad. All her bread had husks in it, and she was
always discovering that it was hurtful to eat any butter or drink any
water, and no end of such notions. She dressed poor Loulie so
frightfully that it was enough to take all the courage out of a girl:
with all her dresses very short in the skirt, and big at the waist, and
cut high, even in the evening, and thick shoes very queerly shaped, made
after her own orders by some shoemaker of her own, and loose cotton
gloves, and a mushroom hat down over her eyes. Finally she took up the
mind-cure, and Loulie was to keep thinking all the time how perfectly
well she was, which, I think, was what made her so thin and pale. Mrs.
Latham always said that no one ever need be ill, and indeed she never
was herself, for she was found dead in her bed one morning without any
warning.
This happened at Jackson, New Hampshire, where they were spending the
summer. Of course poor Loulie was half distracted with the shock and the
grief. There was no one in the house where they were whom she knew at
all, or who was very congenial, I fancy, and Willie Williams, whom they
knew slightly, was in the neighbourhood, sketching, and was very kind
and attentive, and more helpful than any one would ever have imagined he
could be. He saw to all the business, and telegraphed for some cousin or
other, and made the funeral arrangements; and the end of it was that in
three months he and Loulie Latham were married, and had sailed for
Europe on their wedding tour.
This was ten years ago, and they had never come back till now. They
meant to come back sooner, but one thing after another prevented. They
had no children for several years, and they thought it a good chance to
poke around in the wildest parts of Southern Europe--Corsica, and
Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles, and all that--and made their winter
quarters at Palermo. Then for the next six years they lived in less
out-of-the-way places. They had four children, and lost two; and one
thing or another kept them abroad, until they suddenly made up their
minds to come home.
We had not heard much of them while they were gone. Loulie had no one to
correspond with, and Willie, like most men, never wrote letters; but we
all were very curious to see them, and willing to welcome them, though
we did not know how much they were going to surprise us. Willie
Williams, indeed, was just the same as ever--in fact, our only surprise
in him was to see him look no older than when he went away; but as for
Mrs. Williams, she gave us quite a shock. For my part, I shall never
forget how taken aback I was, when, strolling down to the station one
afternoon with the children, with a vague idea of meeting Tom, who might
come on that train, but who didn't, I came suddenly upon a tall,
splendidly shaped, stately creature, in the most magnificent clothes;
at least they looked so, though they were all black, and the dress was
only cashmere, but it was draped in an entirely new way. She wore a
shoulder-cape embroidered in jet, and a large black hat and feather set
back over great masses of rich dark auburn hair; and, though so late in
the season, she carried a large black lace parasol. To be sure, it was
still very warm and pleasant. I never should have ventured to speak to
her, but she stopped at once, and said, "Perhaps you have forgotten me,
Mrs. White?"
"No--oh, no," I said, trying not to seem confused; "Mrs.--Mrs. Williams,
I believe?"
"You knew me better as Loulie Latham," she said pleasantly enough; but I
cannot say I liked her manner. There was something in it, though I could
not say what, that seemed like condescension, and she hardly mentioned
my children--and most people think them so pretty--though I saw her look
at them earnestly once or twice.
Willie was the same good-hearted, hospitable fellow as ever, and begged
us to come in, and go all over his house, and see his studio that he had
built on, and his bric-a-brac. And a lovely house it was, full of
beautiful things, for he knew them, if he could not paint them, and
indeed he had a great talent for amateur carpentering. We wished he
would come to our houses and do little jobs to show his good-will,
instead of giving us his pictures; but we tried to say something nice
about them, and the frames were most elegant. Of course we saw a good
deal of Mrs. Williams, but I don't think any of us took to her. She was
very quiet, as she always had been, but with a difference. She was
perfectly polite, and I can't say she gave herself airs, exactly; but
there was something very like it in her seeming to be so well satisfied
with herself and her position, and caring so little whether she pleased
us or not. Of course we all invited them, and they accepted most of our
invitations when they were asked together, though she showed no great
eagerness to do so; but she would not join one of our morning clubs, and
had no reason to give. It could not be want of time, for we used to see
her dawdling about with her children all the morning, though we knew
that she had brought over an excellent, highly trained, Protestant North
German nurse for them. When we asked her to the dancing-class, she said
she never danced, and we had better not depend on her, but Mr. Williams
enjoyed it, and would be glad to come without her. We did not relish
this indifference, though it gave us an extra man, and Minnie Mason said
that it was not a good thing for a man to get into the way of going
about without his wife.
"Why not?" said Mrs. Williams, opening her great eyes with such an air
of utter ignorance that it was impossible to explain. It was easy to see
that she need not be afraid of trusting her husband out of her sight,
for a more devoted and admiring one I never saw, whether with her or
away from her talking of "Loulou" and her charms, as if sure of
sympathy. But we had our doubts as to how much she returned his
attachment, and Minnie said it was easy to see that she only tolerated
him; and we all thought her unappreciative, to say the least. He was
very much interested in her dress, and spent a great deal of time in
choosing and buying beautiful ornaments and laces and stuffs for her,
which she insisted on having made up in her own way, languidly remarking
that it was enough for Willie to make her a fright on canvas, without
doing so in real life. Blanche Livermore said she must have some
affection for him, to sit so much to him, for he had painted about a
hundred pictures of her in different styles, each one worse than the
last. You would have thought her hideous if you had only seen them; but
Willie's artist friends, some of them very distinguished, had painted
her too, and had made her into a regular beauty. Opinions differed about
her looks; but those who liked her the least had to allow that she was
fine-looking, though some said it was greatly owing to her style of
dress. We all called it shockingly conspicuous at first, and then went
home and tried to make our things look as much like hers as we possibly
could, which was very little; for, as we afterwards found out, they came
from a modiste at Paris who worked for only one or two private
customers, and whose costumes had a kind of combination of the
fashionable and the artistic which it seemed impossible for any one here
to hit. We used to wonder how poor Mrs. Latham would feel, could she
rise from her grave, to behold her daughter's gowns, tight as a glove,
and in the evening low and long to a degree, her high-heeled French
shoes, and everything her mother had thought most sinful. Her hair had
grown a deeper, richer shade abroad, and she had matched it to
perfection, and one of Willie's pictures of her, with the real and false
all down her back together, looked like the burning bush. She was in
slight mourning for an old great-uncle who had left her a nice little
sum of money; and we thought, if she were so inimitable now, what would
she be when she put on colours?
We did better in modelling our children's clothes after hers, and I must
say she was very good-natured about lending us her patterns. She had a
boy and girl, beautiful little creatures, but they looked rather
delicate, which she did not seem to realise at all; she was very amiable
in her ways to them, but cool, just as she was to their father.
It must be confessed that we spent a great deal of time at our clubs in
discussing her, especially at the Tolstoi Club; for, as Minnie remarked,
she seemed very much in the Russian style, and it was not disagreeable,
after all, to think that we might have such a "type," as they call it,
among us.
Just as we had begun to get accustomed to Mrs. Williams's dresses, and
her beauty, and her nonchalance, and held up our heads again, she
knocked us all over with another ten-strike. It was after a little
dinner given for them at the Millikens', and a good many people had
dropped in afterward, as they were apt to do after our little dinners,
to which of course we could not ask all our set, however intimate. Mrs.
Reynolds had come out from Boston, and as she was by way of being very
musical, though she never performed, she eagerly asked Willie Williams,
when he mentioned having lived so long in Sicily, whether he had ever
seen Giudotti, the great composer, who had retired to the seclusion of
his native island in disgust with the world, which he thought was going,
musically speaking, to ruin. We listened respectfully, for most of us
did not remember hearing of the great Giudotti, but Willie replied
coolly:
"Oh, yes; we met him often; he was my wife's teacher. Loulou, I wish you
would sing that little thing of Mickiewicz, '_Panicz i Dziewczyna_,'
which Giudotti set for you."
Loulie was leaning back on a sofa across the room, lazily swaying her
big black lace fan. She had on a lovely gown of real black Spanish lace,
and a great bunch of yellow roses on her bosom, which you would not have
thought would have looked well with her red hair; but they suited her
"Venetian colouring," as her husband called it--
"Ni blanche ni cuivree, mais doree
D'un rayon de soleil."
Willie's strong point, or his weak point, as you may consider it, was in
quotations. She did not seem any too well pleased with the request, and
replied that she hardly thought people would care to hear any music; it
seemed a pity to stop the conversation--for all but herself were
chattering as fast as they could. But of course we all caught at the
idea, and the hostess was pressing, and after every mortal in the room
had entreated her, she rose, still reluctantly, and walked across the
room to the piano, saying that she hoped they really would not mind the
interruption.
It sounded fine to have something specially composed for her, but we
were accustomed to hear Fanny Deane, the most musical one among us, sing
things set for her by her teacher--indeed, rather more than we could
have wished; and I thought now to hear something of the same sort--some
weak little melody all on a few notes, in a muffled little voice, with a
word or two, such as "weinend," or "veilchen," or "fruehling," or
"stella," or "bella," distinguishable here and there, according as she
sang in German or Italian. So you may imagine how I, as well as all the
rest, was struck when, without a single note of prelude, her deep, low
voice thrilled through the whole room:
"Why so late in the wood,
Fair maid?"
I never felt so lonely and eery in my life; and then in a moment the
wildly ringing music of the distant chase came, faint but growing nearer
all the time from the piano, while her voice rose sweeter and sadder
above it, till our pleasure grew more delicious as it almost melted into
pain. The adventures of the fair maid in the wood were, to say the
least, of a very compromising description; but we flattered ourselves
that our course of realistic fiction had made us less provincial and
old-fashioned, and we knew that nobody minded this sort of thing
abroad, especially the Russians, of whom we supposed Mickiewicz was one
till somewhat languidly set right by Mrs. Williams.
After that her singing made a perfect sensation all about Boston, the
more because it was so hard to get her to sing. Her style was peculiar,
and was a good deal criticised by those who had never heard her. She
never sang anything any one else did--that is, anybody you might call
any one, for I have heard her sometimes sing something that had gone the
rounds of all the hand-organs, and make it sound new again; but many of
her songs were in manuscript, some composed for her by Giudotti, and
others old things that he had picked up for her--folk-songs, and
ballads, and such. She always accompanied herself, and never from any
notes, and very often differently for the same song. Sometimes she would
sing a whole verse through without playing a note, and then improvise
something between. She always sang in English, which we thought queer,
when she had lived so long abroad; but she said Giudotti had told her
always to use the language of her audience, and Willie, who had a pretty
turn for versifying, used to translate for her. We felt rather piqued
that she should ignore the fact that we too had studied languages, but
we all agreed that she knew how to set herself off, and indeed we
thought she carried her affectation beyond justifiable limits. She had
to be asked by every one in the room, and was always saying that it was
not worth hearing, and that she hoped people would tell her when they
had enough of it, though, indeed, she could rarely be induced to sing
more than twice. If her voice was praised, she said she had none; and
when she was asked to play, she would say she could not--she could only
accompany herself. A likely story--as if any one who could do that as
she could, could not play anything!--and we used to hear her, too, when
she was in her own house, with nobody there but her husband. As for him,
he overflowed with pride and delight in her music, and evidently much
more than pleased her, and sometimes he even made her blush--a thing she
rarely did--by his remarks, such as that if we really wanted to know how
Loulou could sing, we must hide in the nursery. It was while singing to
her baby, it appeared, that the great Giudotti had chanced to hear her,
and immediately implored the privilege of teaching her, for anything or
nothing.
Minnie Mason said that it was impossible that a woman could sing like
that unless she had a history; and she spent much of her time and all of
her energy for several weeks in finding out what the history could be.
It was wonderful how ingeniously she put this and that together, until
one day at the club she told us the whole story, and we wondered that we
had never thought of it before. It seems that before Loulie Latham was
married there had been a love-affair between her and Walter Dana. It is
not known exactly how far it went, but her feelings were very much
involved. She was too young, poor thing, and too simple, to know that
Walter Dana was not at all a marrying man; he could not have afforded
it, if he had wanted to ever so much. He was the sort of young man, you
know, who never does manage to afford to marry, though in other respects
he seemed to get on well enough. He had passed down through several
generations of girls, and was now rather attentive, in a harmless,
general sort of way, to the married women, and came to our dances.
"And then," said Minnie, "when he did not speak, and she was so suddenly
left alone, and nearly penniless, after her mother's death, and Willie
Williams was so much in love with her, and so pressing--though I don't
believe he was ever in love with her more than he was with a dozen other
girls, only the circumstances were such, you know, that he could hardly
help proposing, he's so generous and impulsive. But he is not exactly
the sort of man to fall in love with, and his oddities have evidently
worn upon her; and now she feels with bitter regret how different her
life might have been if she could have waited till her uncle left her
this money. Walter has got on better, and might be able to marry her
now, and she is young still--only twenty-nine. It is the wreck of two
lives, perhaps of three. Willie is most unsuspicious, but should he ever
find out----"
We all shuddered with pleasurable horror at the thought that we were to
be spectators of a Russian novel in real life.
"I have seen them together," went on Minnie, "and their tones and looks
were unmistakable. Surely you remember that Eliot Hall german he danced
with her, the winter before her mother's death--the only winter she ever
went into society; and I recollect now that he seemed very miserable
about something at the time of her marriage, only I never suspected why
then."
"How very sad!" murmured Emmie Richards, a tender-hearted little thing.
"It is sad," said Minnie, solemnly; "but love is a great and terrible
factor in life, and elective affinities are not to be judged by
conventional rules."
For my own part, I thought Willie Williams a great deal nicer and more
attractive than Walter Dana, except, to be sure, that Walter did talk
and look like other people. Perhaps, I said, things were not quite so
bad as Minnie made them out. It was to be hoped that poor Loulie would
pause at the brink. A great many such stories, especially American ones,
never come to anything, except that the heroine lives on, pining, with a
blighted life; and I thought, if that were all, Willie was not the kind
of man who would mind it much. Very likely he would never know it.
Blanche Livermore said the idea of a woman pining all her days was
nonsense. All girls had affairs, but after they were married the cares
of a family soon knocked them all out of their heads. To be sure,
Blanche's five boys were enough to knock anything out; but Minnie told
us all afterward, separately, in confidence, that it was a little
jealousy on her part, because she had been once rather smitten with
Walter Dana herself. This seemed very realistic; and I must say my own
observations confirmed the truth of Minnie's story. Mrs. Williams did
look at times conscious and disturbed. One night, too, Tom and I called
on them to make arrangements about some concert tickets. Willie welcomed
us in his usual cordial fashion, saying Loulou would be down directly;
and in ten minutes or so down she came, in one of her loveliest evening
dresses, white embroidered crape, with a string of large amber beads
round her throat.
"I am afraid you are going out, Mrs. Williams; don't let us detain you."
"Not at all," she said, with her usual indifference. "We are not going
anywhere. I was waiting upstairs to see the children tucked up in their
beds."
It seemed like impropriety of behaviour in no slight degree to fag out
one's best clothes at home in that aimless way, but when in ten minutes
more Mr. Walter Dana walked in, her guilt was more plainly manifest, and
I shuddered to think what a tragedy was weaving round us. Only a day or
two after, I met her alone, near nightfall, hurrying toward her home,
and with something so odd about her whole air and manner that I stopped
short and asked, rather officiously perhaps, if Mr. Williams and the
children were well.
"Oh, yes; very--very well, indeed!" she threw back, in a quick, defiant
tone, very unlike her usual self; and then, as I looked at her, I
perceived to my dismay, that she was crying bitterly. I felt so awkward
that I did not know what to say, and I stood staring, while she pulled
down her veil with a jerk, and hurried on. I could not help going into
Minnie's to ask her what she thought it could mean. Minnie, of course,
knew all about it.
"She has been in here, and I have been giving her a piece of my mind. I
hope it will do her good. Crying, was she? I am very glad of it."
"But, Minnie! how could you? how did you dare to? how did you begin?" I
asked in amazement, heightened by the disrespectful way in which Minnie
had dealt with elective affinities.
"Oh, very easily. I began about her children, and said how very delicate
they looked, and that we all thought they needed a great deal of care."
"But she does seem to take a great deal of care of them. She has them
with her most of the time."
"Yes; that's just it. She always has them, because she wants to use them
for a cover. I am sure she takes them out in very unfit weather, and
keeps them out too long, just for a pretext to be strolling about with
him."
"You certainly have more courage than I could muster up," I said. "What
else did you say?"
"I did not say anything else out plainly; but I saw she understood
perfectly well what I meant."
"I don't see how you ever dared to do it."
"It is enough to make one do something to live next door to her as I do.
You know that Walter Dana has not been at either of the two last
dancing-classes. Well, it is just because he has been there, spending
the whole evening with her alone. I have been kept at home myself, and
have seen him with my own eyes going away before Mr. Williams gets home.
I can see their front gate from where I sit now, and the electric light
strikes full on every one who comes and goes."
I thought this was about enough, but we were to have yet more positive
proof. One evening, soon after, we were all at the Jenkses'. It was a
large party, and the rooms were hot and crowded. The Williamses were
there, and Walter Dana; but he did not go near Loulie; he paid her no
more attention in company than anybody else--from motives of policy,
most probably--and she was even quieter than usual, and seemed weary and
depressed. Mrs. Jenks asked her to sing, and she refused with more than
her ordinary decision. "She would rather not sing to-night, if Mrs.
Jenks did not mind," and this refusal she repeated without variation.
But Mrs. Jenks did mind very much; she had asked some people from a
distance, on purpose to hear Mrs. Williams, and when she had implored in
vain, and made all her guests do so too, she finally, in despair,
directed herself to Mr. Williams, who seemed in very good spirits, as he
always did in company. It was enough for him to know that Professor
Perkins and Judge Wheelwright depended on hearing his wife, to rouse
his pride at once, and I heard him say to her coaxingly:
"Come, Loulou, don't you think you could sing a little?"
Loulou said something in so low a tone that I could not catch a word.
"Yes, dear, I know; but I really don't think there's any reason for
it--and they have all come to hear you, and it seems disobliging not
to."
Again Loulie's reply was inaudible, all but the last words, "Cannot get
through with it."
"Oh, yes, you will. Come, darling, won't you? Just once, to oblige me.
It won't last long."
Loulie still looked most unwilling, but she rose, more as if too tired
to contest the point than anything else, and walked over to the piano.
Her cheeks were burning, but I saw her shiver as she sat down. Her
husband followed her, looking a little anxious, and I wondered if they
had been having a scene. Surely the course of dissimulation she was
keeping up must have its inevitable effect on her nerves and temper, but
her voice rang out as thrilling and triumphant as ever. She sang an
English song to the old French air _Musette de Nina_. It was a silly,
sentimental thing, all about parted loves and hopeless regrets; but the
most foolish words used to sound grandly expressive as she gave them.
When she came to the last line, "The flowers of life will never bloom
more," at "never" her accompaniment stopped, her voice shook, struggled
with the next words, paused, and a look of despair transformed her whole
face. I followed the direction of her eyes, and caught sight of Walter
Dana, just visible in the doorway, and, like every other mortal in the
room, gazing on her in rapt attention. It was like looking on a soul in
torture, and we all shuddered as we saw it. What must it have been for
him? He grew crimson, and made an uneasy movement, which seemed to break
the spell; for, Loulie, rousing herself with an effort, struck a ringing
chord, and taking up the words on a lower note, carried them through to
the end, her voice gaining strength with the repetition that the air
demanded. No one asked her to sing again; and when she rose Walter Dana
had disappeared, and the Williamses left very soon afterward.
Things had come to such a pass now that we most sincerely repented our
desire for a Tolstoi novel among us; and if this was life as it was in
Russia, we heartily wished it could be confined to that country. We felt
that something shocking was sure to happen soon, and so it did; but if
you go through with an earthquake, I am told, it never seems at all like
what you expected, and this came in a most unlooked-for way. It was on
a day when our Tolstoi Club met at Minnie Mason's, and she looked really
ill and miserable. She said she had enough to make her so; and when we
were all assembled, she asked one of us to shut all the doors, lest the
servants should hear us, and then took out, from a locked drawer in her
desk, a newspaper. It was the kind of paper that we had always regarded
as improper to buy, or even to look at, and we wondered how Minnie had
ever got hold of it; but she unfolded it nervously, and showed us a
marked passage:
"It is rumoured that proceedings for a divorce will soon be
taken by a prominent Boston artist, whose lovely wife is
widely known in first-class musical circles. The
co-respondent is an old admirer of the lady's, as well as an
intimate friend of her husband's."
We all read these words with horror, and Emmie Richards began to cry.
"We ought to have done _something_ to prevent it," said Blanche,
decidedly.
"What could we do?" said I.
"Poor Willie hasn't a relation who could look after those children,"
murmured Bessie Milliken.
We all felt moved to offer our services upon the spot, but just then
there came a loud ring at the door-bell. We all started. It could not be
a belated member of the club, for we always walked right in. Minnie had
given orders, as usual, to be denied to any chance caller; but in a
moment the door opened, and the maid announced that Mr. Williams was in
the hall, and wished to see Mrs. Mason.
"Ask Mr. Williams, Ellen, if he will please to leave a message; tell him
I am engaged with my Tolstoi Club."
"I did, ma'am; but he says he wishes to see the club. He says it is on
very particular business, ma'am," as Minnie hesitated, and looked for
our opinion. Our amazement was so great that it deprived us of words,
and Minnie, after a moment, could only bow her head in silent
affirmation to the girl, who vanished directly. Could Mrs. Williams have
eloped, and had her husband rushed round to claim the sympathy of his
female friends, among whom were so many of his old flames? It was a most
eccentric proceeding, but we felt that if any man were capable of it, it
was poor Willie. But even this conjecture failed, and our very reason
seemed forsaking us, as Mr. Williams walked into the room, followed by
Mr. Walter Dana, who looked rather awkward on the occasion, while
Willie, on the contrary, was quite at his ease, and was faultlessly
dressed in a London walking-suit of the newest cut; for he had plenty of
such things, though he hated to wear them. He carried a large note-case
in his hand.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Mason," he began, "good-morning--" with a bow that
took us all in; and without an invitation, which Minnie was too confused
to give, he comfortably settled himself on a vacant chair, which
proceeding Mr. Dana imitated, though with much less self-assurance,
while his conductor, as he appeared to be, went on: "I beg your pardon
for disturbing you; but I am sorry to find that you have been giving
credence, if not circulation, to some very unpleasant and utterly false
rumours concerning my wife's character. I do not know, nor do I care to
know, how they originated, but I wish to put a stop to them; and as Mr.
Dana is the other person chiefly concerned in them, I have brought him
with me."
I believe we felt as if we should like to sink into the earth; nay, it
seemed to me that we must have done so, and come out in China, where
everything is different. Willie Williams, without a lisp, without a
smile, grave as a judge, and talking like a lawyer opening a case--it
was a transformation to inspire any one with awe. He saw that we were
frightened, and proceeded in a milder tone, but one equally strange in
our ears.
"Don't think I mean to blame you. I know women will talk, and I do not
believe any of you meant the least harm, or dreamed of things going as
far as they have. Indeed, Louise [!] attaches no importance to
it whatever. She says it is only idle gossip, and will die out if let
alone, and she did not wish me to take any notice of it; but I felt that
I must do so on my own account, if not on hers. I don't care what trash
gets into such journals as that," and he looked scornfully at the
unhappy newspaper, which we wished we had never touched with a pair of
tongs; "but I do not want our friends and neighbours to think more
meanly of me than I deserve, when I have it in my power to put a stop to
it at once. Mr. Dana, is it true that you and Mrs. Williams were ever in
love with each other?"
"It is not," replied Mr. Dana, who began to take courage under the
skilful peroration of his chief. "I was never on any terms with Mrs.
Williams, when she was Miss Latham, but those of the very slightest,
and, of course, most respectful acquaintance. I don't believe we ever
exchanged a dozen words."
"I believe you," murmured Blanche Livermore, who sat next to me, and
whose unruly tongue nothing could long subdue; and indeed we had none
of us supposed that Loulie Latham conducted her love-affairs by means of
conversation.
"Did you dance the german with her at the Eliot Hall Assembly on January
4, 188-?"
"I regret very much that I never had the pleasure of dancing the german
with Mrs. Williams. At the party to which you refer I danced with Miss
Wilmerding."
We all remembered Alice Wilmerding and her red hair, just the shade of
Loulie Latham's, but which had not procured her an artist for a husband;
indeed, it had not procured any at all, for she was still single.
"Neither," pursued Willie Williams, "is there any truth in the report
that Louise was obliged to marry me for a support. She had no need to do
so, being possessed of very sufficient means of her own, as I can show
by her bank-account at that date."
How he had got hold of every scrap we had said to one another, and even
of all we had thought, we could not imagine then, but we afterward found
out that he had procured every item from the editor of that horrid
paper, under threats of instant personal and legal attack; and as to how
this person happened to know so much, I can only advise you not to say
or think anything you would be ashamed to have known while there are
such papers in existence.
"The only reason that Loulou and I married each other," went on Loulou's
husband, "is that we loved each other; and we love each other now, if
possible, twice as much as we did then. If you think she does not care
for me because she is not demonstrative in company, you are mistaken.
She gives me as much proof of it as I want. We all have our
peculiarities, and I know I have a great many which she puts up with
better than most women would. Of course I don't expect her to be without
hers either; but they don't trouble me any more than mine do her, and,
besides, most of what has struck you as singular in her behaviour can be
easily explained. You have thought she was conceited about her music,
but it's no such thing; she has not an atom of conceit in her; indeed,
she thinks too humbly of herself. She has heard so much music of the
highest class that she thinks little of any drawing-room performance,
her own or anybody else's, and her reluctance to sing is genuine, for
she has a horror of being urged or complimented out of mere politeness.
You are not pleased, I hear" [_how_ could he know that?], "that she
refused to join all your clubs and classes; one reason was that she
really did not care to. Every one has a right to one's own taste; she
has met a great deal of artistic and literary society abroad, and has
become accustomed to live among people who are doing something; and it
is tedious to her to go about so much with people who are always talking
about things, as we are given to do here. She is really fond of hard
reading, as but few women are; and she likes better, for instance, to
stay at home and spend her time in reading Dante by herself in the
original, than to go to a club and hear him talked over, with a little
skimming from a translation interspersed. She dresses to please me and
herself, and not to be envied or admired; and if she has a fondness for
pretty clothes for their own sake, that is not surprising, when she had
so little chance to indulge it when she was a girl."
Here he paused, and it was high time, for we were growing restive under
the catalogue of his wife's virtues; but in a moment he resumed.
"There is another reason, too, why she has not been more sociable with
you all. You don't know how unhappy Loulou is about her children; but
you do know, perhaps, that we have lost two,"--here his voice faltered
slightly, with some faint suggestion of the Willie Williams of our old
acquaintance,--"and she is terribly afraid that the others will not live
to grow up. I don't think them as fragile as she does; but they do look
delicate, there's no denying it. We came home, and here, very much on
their account; but yours are all so healthy and blooming that it's
almost too much for poor Loulou sometimes, especially when people--" he
was considerate enough not to look at Minnie--"tell her that they look
poorly, and that she ought to be more careful of them. How can she be?
She is always with them--more than is good for her; but she has an idea
that they won't eat as much as they ought, or go to sleep when they
should, without her; and she never leaves them at lunch, which is, of
course, their dinner. I think she is a little morbid about them, but I
can't torment her to leave it off; and I hope, as they get older and
stronger, she'll be more cheerful. It is this that makes her out of
spirits sometimes, and not any foolish nonsense about being in love with
anybody else."
"_Mon ane parle, et meme il parle bien!_" whispered the incorrigible
Blanche, and though I don't think it fair to call Willie Williams an ass
at any time, our surprise at his present fluency was nearly as great as
the prophet's. He seemed now to have made an end of what he wished to
say, but Mr. Dana, whose presence we had nearly forgotten, looked at him
meaningly, as if in request.