that I write such a confounded--such an execrable hand. Pray accept my
apologies for it."
"Oh, it was not a bad hand!--not at all! It was my own stupidity! I
suppose you really did give her the character, then?"
"In spite of your politeness, I am afraid I too plainly recognise the
bewildering effect of my own scrawl. I think I must have given her the
reference, though I don't remember doing so."
"The name is so peculiar----"
"Yes; but the fact is that our old Catherine, who has been cook here for
a longer time than I can reckon, generally engages our other maid for
us, and she dislikes to change the name, and calls them all Margaret. I
think we had a very nice Margaret two years ago, but I will go and ask
Catherine; she may recollect."
"Oh, don't trouble yourself! I have no doubt that you are quite
right--none at all!"
"But I have so many doubts, I should like to be a little surer; and if
you will excuse me for a moment--well! _What_, in the devil's name, are
you up to now?"
It must be explained that by this time he had reached the further door,
and that the sudden close of his speech was addressed, not to Marian,
but to some invisible person, or rather persons; for the subdued
laughter which responded, the very equivalent to a girlish giggle,
surely came from more than one pair of boyish lungs. Some stifled
speech, too, was heard, to which the master of the house replied, "Go to
----, then, and be quick about it!" as he closed the door behind him,
leaving Marian trembling with apprehension lest he might be mad or
drunk. And yet if this were swearing, and she feared it was, there was
something gratifying in the sound of a good, round, mouth-filling oath,
especially when contrasted with the extreme and punctilious deference of
his speech to her. He came back in a moment, and, standing before her
with head inclined, said, as if apologising for some misdeed of his own:
"I am very sorry, but Catherine is out, doing her marketing. She will
probably return soon, if you do not mind waiting."
"Oh, no!" said Marian, shocked with the idea that her presence might be
inconvenient; "I could not possibly wait! I am in a very great hurry."
"Then, if you will allow me to write what she says? I promise," he
added, with another humorous twinkle in his eye, "to try and write my
very best."
"Thank you, if it is not too much trouble," said Marian, rising, and
edging toward the door as if she had some hopes of getting off
unnoticed. It was confusing to have him follow her with an air of
expectation, she could not imagine of what, though she had a
consciousness, too, of having forgotten something, which made her
linger, trying to recollect it. He slowly turned the handle of the outer
door, and, opening it for her exit, seemed waiting for her to say
something--what, she racked her brains in vain to discover. He looked
amused again, and as if he would have spoken himself; but Marian, with a
sudden start, exclaimed, "Oh, dear, it rains!" She had not noticed how
dark the sky was growing, but to judge by the looks of the pavement, it
had been quietly showering for some time.
"So it does!" said he. "That is a pity. I fear you are not very well
protected against it."
"Oh, it doesn't matter!" cried Marian, recklessly; "it is only a step to
the horse-cars."
"Enough for you to get very wet, I am afraid."
"It isn't of the least consequence. I have nothing on that will
hurt--nothing at all!"
Mr. Hayward looked admiringly and incredulously at the lilacs on her
bonnet. "I can hardly suppose your flowers are real ones, though
certainly they look very much like them; if they are not, I fear a
shower will scarcely prove of advantage to them. You must do me the
honour of letting me see you to the car." As he spoke he extracted from
the stand an enormous silk umbrella with a big handle, nearly as large
as Marian herself.
"I could not think of it!" she cried, and hurried down the wet steps,
sweeping them with the dainty plaiting round the edge of her silvery
skirt.
"Oh, but you must!" he went on in a tone of lazy good humour, yet as one
not accustomed to be refused. There was something paternal in his manner
gratifying to her, for as he could not be much over fifty, he must think
her much younger than she really was.
"Don't hurry; there is a car every ten minutes, and a very good place to
wait in; there--take care of the wet box, please, with your dress, and
take my arm, if you don't mind."
"Oh, no, thank you! Really, I am very well covered!" protested Marian,
squeezing herself and her gown into the smallest possible space. The big
umbrella was up before she knew it, and he was hobbling along the brick
path by her side, in an old pair of yellow leather slippers as ill
fitted to keep out the wet as her own shining little shoes.
"I am very sorry you should have been caught in this way," he said
apologetically.
"Don't mention it."
"I hope you have not far to go."
"Oh, no, indeed! That is--yes, rather far; but when I get into the car,
I am all right, because it meets--I mean, I can take a cab. It is very
easy to get about in town, you know." She turned while he opened the
gate, and caught sight of the front windows, thronged, like the gates of
Paradise Lost, with faces which might indeed have served as models for a
very realistic study, in modern style, of cherubim, being those of
healthy boys of all ages from twelve to twenty, each wearing a broad
grin of delight.
"Confound 'em!" muttered her conductor in a low tone, but Marian caught
the words, and the accompanying grimace which he flung back over his
shoulder. Could his remarkable house be a boys' school? If so, he was
the very oddest teacher, and his discipline the most extraordinary, she
had ever heard of; it was too easy of egress, surely, to be a private
lunatic asylum, a thought which had already excited her fears.
"Please lower your head a little, Miss--" he paused for the name, but
she did not fill up the gap; "the creepers hang so low here," and he
carefully held the umbrella so as best to protect her from the dripping
sprays.
"How very pretty your garden is!" she said as he closed the gate.
"It is a sad straggling place; we all run pretty wild here, I am
afraid."
"But it is so picturesque!"
"Picturesque it may be, and we get a good deal of fruit and vegetables
out of it; it isn't a show garden, but it is a comfort to have any
breathing-place in a city."
"This seems a very pleasant neighbourhood."
"Hum! well, yes; I think it pleasant enough. It is my old home; near the
water, too, and the boys like the boating. It's out of the way of
society, but then, we have no ladies to look after. It is easy enough,
you know, for men to come and go anyhow."
"Coming and going anyhow" rang with a delicious thrill of freedom in
Marian's ears, and in the midst of her alarm at possible consequences
she revelled in her adventure, such a one as she had never had before,
and probably never should again; and there was the car tinkling on its
early way. Mr. Hayward signed to it to stop, and waded in his slippers
through the wet dust, for it could not be called mud yet, to hand her
deferentially in.
"You are sure you can get along now?" he asked, as the car came to a
stop.
"Oh, yes, indeed! Thank you so much; I am very sorry----"
"No need of it, I assure you. I am sorry I cannot do more." He looked
at the big umbrella doubtfully, and so did she; but the idea of offering
it to her was too absurd, and they both laughed, which Marian feared was
improperly free and easy for her. Then, as she turned on the step to bow
her farewell, he added, "I beg your pardon; but you have forgotten to
leave me your address. I should be very glad to write in case
Catherine----"
"Mrs. W. Cracker, 40 Washington Street," stammered Marian, frightened
out of her little sense, and rattling off the first words that came into
her head, suggested in part by a baker's cart which passed at the
moment. She should never dare to give her real address! Anything better
than to have those dreadful boys know who she was! He looked puzzled,
then laughed; but it was of no use for him to say anything, for the car
had started, and swept her safely beyond his reach at once. She could
see him looking after it till it turned out of sight, and was thankful
he had not followed her, as he might perhaps have done if he had not had
on those old slippers.
Marian did not go directly home, but stopped at Mrs. William Treadwell's
till the spring shower was over, that she might be able to tell her
family that she had been there, and thus avoid over-curious questioning
as to where she had been caught in it. She briefly informed them that
she could obtain no satisfactory account of Drusilla Elms--the people to
whom she referred seemed to have forgotten her--and wrote to the girl
that she had made other arrangements. She waited in fear for a few days,
lest something might happen to bring her little adventure to light; but
nothing did, and her fears subsided, with a few faint wishes as well.
What a pleasant world, she wistfully thought, was the world of men--a
world where conventionalities and duty calls gave way to a delicious,
free, Bohemian existence of boating and running about; where even
housekeeping was a thing lightly considered, and where dogs jumped on
sofas, and people threw their things around at pleasure--nay, even
smoked and swore, regardless of consequences temporal or eternal!
About a fortnight after her wild escapade, the household of
Freeman-Robbins-Carter-Dale, to use the collective patronymic of the
female dynasty which reigned there, was agitated by the unusual
phenomenon of an evening visitor who called himself a man, though but in
his freshman year at Harvard University. It was the son of their
deceased cousin in New York, whose husband, though married again,
retained sufficient sense of kinship to insist that the boy should call
on his mother's relatives, which duty the unhappy youth had postponed
from week to week, and from month to month, until the awkwardness of
introducing himself was doubled. He had struggled through this ordeal,
and now sat, the centre of an admiring female circle who were trying to
hang upon his words. Winnie, whose presence might have given him some
support, had been sent to bed; but his sister was privileged to remain
up longer, and being a serious child, and wise beyond her years, she
fixed him with her solemn gaze, while one great-aunt remarked over and
over again on his resemblance to his grandfather, and the other as often
inquired who he was, though his name and pedigree were carefully
explained each time by the nurse. Mrs. Carter addressed him as "Freddy,
dear!" and Miss Caroline asked what he was studying at college, and his
cousin Isabel pressed sweet cake upon him. Only his cousin Marian sat
silent in the background. He thought her very pretty, and not at all
formidable, though so old--not that he had the least idea how old she
really was.
"Did you bolt the front door, Marian, when you let Trippet out?" asked
her mother. Trippet was the family cat, who had shown symptoms of alarm
at the aspect of the unwonted guest.
"I--I think so."
"You had better go and look," said her sister. "It would be no joke if
Freddy's nice overcoat and hat were to be taken by a sneak-thief. They
are very troublesome just now in the suburbs," she continued; "but we
never leave anything of value in our front hall, and we always make it a
rule to bolt as well as lock the door as soon as it grows dusk. There is
no harm in taking every precaution."
"Sneak-thieves and second-floor thieves have quite replaced the
old-fashioned midnight burglar," said Miss Caroline.
"They are just as bad," said Mrs. Dale.
"Women--ladies--are taking to it now," said Master Frederick. "I heard
the funniest story about one the other day." He paused, and grew red at
the drawing upon himself the fire of eight pairs of eyes, but plucked up
his courage and resumed the theme, not insensible to the possible
delight of terrifying those before whom he had quailed. "It was in Ned
Hayward's family, my classmate; he and his brother Bob--he's a
junior--live in South Boston with their uncle, Colonel Hayward--the
celebrated Colonel Hayward, you know, who was so distinguished in the
war, and--and everything; perhaps you know him?"
"We have heard of him," said Mrs. Carter, graciously.
"Well, I've been out there sometimes with him, and it's no end of
jolly--I mean, it is a pleasant place to visit in. The Colonel's an old
bachelor, and brings his nephews up, because, you know, their father's
dead." He stopped short again, overwhelmed with the sound of so long a
speech from himself.
"But about the thief? Oh, do tell us," murmured the circle,
encouragingly.
"Well," began Fred, seeing his retreat cut off, and gathering courage as
the idea struck him that the topic, if skilfully dwelt on, might last
out the call, "it happened this way. Bob was at home a few weeks ago to
spend Sunday, and took a lot of fellows--I mean a large party of his
classmates; and there were some boys there playing tennis with his
brothers--it was on a Saturday morning--and a woman came and asked for
the lady of the house; that's a common dodge of theirs, you know. Well,
of course, the Colonel went in to see her. The boys wanted to see the
fun, so they all took turns in looking through the keyhole; and Bob says
she was stunning--I mean very pretty--and looked like a lady, and
dressed up no end; but she seemed very confused and queer, and as if she
hardly knew what to say, and she pretended to have come to ask for the
character of a servant with the oddest name, I forget what; but most
likely she made it up, for none of them could remember it. Well, she
hung on ever so long, looking for a chance to hook something, I
suppose, and at last, just as she was going, it began to rain, and she
seemed to expect him to lend her an umbrella. But he wasn't as green as
all that comes to; he said he would see her to the car himself; so off
he walked with her as polite as you please. Bob says it's no end of fun
to see his uncle with a lady; he doesn't see much of them, and when he
does he treats 'em like princesses. He took her to the car, and put her
in, and just as it started he asked her address, and she told him--"
here an irrepressible fit of laughter interrupted his tale--"she told
him that it was Mrs. W. Cracker, 40 Washington Street. Did you ever hear
such stuff? Of course there's no such person, for the Colonel wasted
lots of time taking particular pains to find out. Bob says they're all
sure she was a thief, except his uncle, who was awfully smashed on her
pretty face, and he sticks to it she was only a little out of her head.
They poke no end of fun at him about it, but it really was no joke for
him, for he walked with her down to the car in his old slippers in the
wet, and caught cold in the leg where he was wounded; he's always lame
in it, and when he takes cold it brings on his rheumatic gout. He was
laid up a fortnight; he's always so funny when he's got the gout; he
can't bear to have any of the boys come near him, and flings boots at
their heads when they do, for of course they have to wait on him some,
and he swears so. Bob says he's sorry for him, for of course it hurts,
but he can't help laughing at the queer things he says. He always swears
some when he's well, but when he's sick it fairly takes your head off."
"Dear me! dear me!" said Mrs. Carter; "swearing is a sad habit. I hope,
Freddy, dear, that you will not catch it. Colonel Hayward is a very
distinguished officer, and they have to, I suppose, on the battle-field;
but there is no war now, and it is not at all necessary."
"Oh, he won't let the boys do it! He swears at them like thunder if they
do, but they don't mind it. He's awfully good-natured, and lets them
rough him as much as they please, and they've done it no end about the
pretty little housebreaker. Bob has made a song about her to the tune of
_Little Annie Rooney_--that's the one his uncle most particularly hates.
Phil had a shy at her with his kodak, but what with the rain and the
leaves, you can't see much of her."
"It is a pity," said Miss Caroline; "it might be shown to the police,
who could very likely identify her. I dare say she has been at Sherborne
Prison, and there we photograph them all. If it were not that Mary
Murray is in for a two years' sentence, I should say it answered very
well to her description."
Some more desultory conversation went on, while the hands of the clock
ran rapidly on toward eleven. The youthful Minna silently stole away at
a sign from her mother, without drawing attention upon herself. Ten
o'clock was the latest hour at which these ladies were in the habit of
being up; but how hint to a guest that he was staying too long? They
guessed that it might not seem late to him, and feared that he was
acquiring bad habits in college.
The poor fellow knew perfectly well that he was making an unconscionably
long call; but how break through the circle? And then he was remembering
with affright into how much slang he had lapsed in the course of his
tale, and was racking his brains for some particularly proper farewell
speech which should efface the recollection of it. Suddenly his eyes
were caught by Marian's face. Her look of abject misery he could
attribute only to her extreme fatigue, and he made a desperate rally:
"I'm afraid, Miss Dale, I mean Mrs. Robbins, that I'm making a terribly
long call. I am very sorry."
"Oh, not at all! Not at all! Pray do not hurry! You must come often; we
shall be delighted to see you."
"It seems a very long way," murmured Freddy, conscious that he was
saying something rude, but unable to help himself; and he finally
succeeded in escaping, under a fire of the most pressing invitations to
"call again," for, as Mrs. Carter said, "we must show some hospitality
to poor Ellen's boy. Marian, you look tired. I hope you did not let him
see it. Do go to bed directly. I must confess I feel a little sleepy
myself." But the troubles which Marian bore with her to the small room
which she shared with her little niece were of a kind for which bed
brought no solace, and she lay awake till almost dawn, only thankful
that Minna slumbered undisturbed by her side.
To Marian every private who had fought in the war was an angel, and
every officer an archangel _ex officio_. That she should have been the
cause of an attack of rheumatic gout to a wounded hero filled her with
remorse, especially as this particular hero was the most delightful man
she had ever met. She wept bitterly from a variety of emotions--pity,
and shame, too--for what must he think of her? That last misery, at any
rate, she could not and would not endure, and before breakfast she had
written the following letter:
"BURROUGHS STREET, JAMAICA PLAIN.
"DEAR COLONEL HAYWARD,
"I was very, very sorry to hear that you had taken cold and
been ill in consequence of that unfortunate call of mine on
Saturday, three weeks ago. I really came on the errand I
said I did; but I don't wonder you thought otherwise, after
I had behaved so foolishly. I did not know who you were, nor
where I had been, and I gave the wrong name because I was
frightened. But I cannot let you think so poorly of me, or
believe I had the least intention of giving you so much pain
and trouble. I can remember the war" [this was a mortifying
confession for Marian to make, but she felt that the proper
atonement for her fault demanded an unsparing sacrifice of
her own feelings], "and I know how much gratitude I, and
every other woman in our country, owe to you. Begging your
pardon most sincerely, I am,
"Yours very truly,
"MARIAN R. CARTER.
"_May 5th, 1885_."
Marian found no time to copy this letter over again before she took it
with her on her morning round of errands, to slip into the first
post-box, and she would not keep it back for another mail, although she
feared by turns that it was improperly forward, and chillingly distant.
Posted it was, and she could not get it back. She did not know whether
she wanted him to answer it or not. It would be kind and civil in him to
do so, but she felt that she could hardly bear the curiosity of the
family, as his letter was passed from hand to hand before it was opened
to guess whom it could be from, or handed round again to be read. There
was no more privacy in the house than there was in an ant-hill.
She had not long to speculate, for the very next afternoon, as the
family were all sitting in grandmamma's room downstairs, their common
rallying-ground, as it was the pleasantest one in the house, and the old
lady, who disliked being left alone, rarely went into the drawing-room
till evening, the parlour-maid brought in a card, which went the rounds
immediately:
"MR. ROBERT HAYWARD,
"City Point, South Boston."
"What can he want?" said Mrs. Dale.
"Very likely to see me on business," said Aunt Caroline.
"It must be Colonel Hayward," said Isabel, remembering Frederick's tale.
"It was Miss Marian he wanted to see," said Katy.
"How very strange!" said Miss Caroline. But Mrs. Carter, dimly
remembering Marian's South Boston errand, till now forgotten, and
bewildered with the endeavour to weave any coherent theory out of her
scattered recollections, was silent; and Marian glided speechless out of
the room, and up the back stairs to her own for one hasty peep at her
looking-glass, and then down the front stairs again.
"Aunt Marian!" shouted Winnie from a front upper window, and she started
at his tone, grown loud and boyish in a moment; "the gentleman came on a
horse, and tied it to a post, and it is black, and it is stamping on the
sidewalk; just hear it!" But Marian, whose pet he was, passed him
without a word.
She lingered so little that the Colonel had no more time to examine her
abode than she had had his, and here the subject was more complex. The
room was not very small, but it was very full, and everything in it, so
to speak, was smothered. The carpet was covered with large rugs, and
those again with small ones, and all the tables with covers, and those
with mats. Each window had four different sets of curtains, and every
sofa and chair was carefully dressed and draped. The very fireplace was
arrayed in brocaded skirts like a lady, precluding all possibility of
lighting a fire therein without causing a conflagration, and, indeed,
those carefully placed logs were daily dusted by the parlour-maid. Every
available inch of horizontal space was crowded with small objects, and
what could not be squeezed on that was hung on the walls. The use of
most of these was an enigma to the Colonel; he had an idea that they
might be designed for ornament, and some, as gift books and booklets
and Christmas cards, appealed to a literary taste; but he was a little
overwhelmed by them, especially as there were a number of little boxes
and bags and baskets about, trimmed and adorned in various fashions,
which might contain as many more. There were a great many really pretty
things there, if one could have taken them in; but they were utterly
swamped, owing to the fatal habit which prevailed in the family of all
giving each other presents on every Christmas and birthday.
The Colonel felt terribly big and awkward among them. He sat down on a
little chair with gilded frame and embroidered back and seat. It cracked
beneath him, and he sprang hastily up and took another, from which he
could see out of a window, and into a trim little garden where plants
were bedded out in small beds neatly cut in shaved green turf. A few
flowers were allowed in the drawing-room, discreetly quarantined on a
china tray, though there were any number of empty vases, and from above
he could hear the cheerful warble of a distant canary-bird, which woke
no answering life in the stuffed corpses of his predecessors standing
about under glass shades.
The room looked stuffy, but it was not; the air was very sweet and clean
and clear, and the Colonel felt uncomfortably that he was scenting it
with tobacco. There could be no dust beneath those rugs, no spot on the
glass behind those curtains. There was a feminine air of neatness, and
even of fussiness, that pleased him; everything was so carefully
preserved, so exquisitely cared for. It would be nice to have some one
to look after one's things like that; he knew that the rubbish at home
was always getting beyond him somehow.
And now came blushing in his late visitor, even more daintily pretty
than he had thought her before.