The two elder Miss Hallecks were so much older than Olive, the youngest,
that they seemed to be of a sort of intermediary generation between her and
her parents, though Olive herself was well out of her teens, and was the
senior of her brother Ben by two or three years. The elder sisters were
always together, and they adhered in common to the religion of their father
and mother. The defection of their brother was passive, but Olive, having
conscientiously adopted an alien faith, was not a person to let others
imagine her ashamed of it, and her Unitarianism was outspoken. In her turn
she formed a kind of party with Ben inside the family, and would have led
him on in her own excesses of independence if his somewhat melancholy
indifferentism had consented. It was only in his absence that she had been
with her sisters during their summer sojourn in the White Mountains; when
they returned home, she vigorously went her way, and left them to go
theirs. She was fond of them in her defiant fashion; but in such a matter
as calling on Mrs. Hubbard she chose not to be mixed up with her family,
or in any way to countenance her family's prepossessions. Her sisters paid
their visit together, and she waited for Clara Kingsbury to come up from
the seaside. Then she went with her to call upon Marcia, sitting observant
and non-committal while Clara swooped through the little house, up stairs
and down, clamoring over its prettiness, and admiring the art with which so
few dollars could be made to go so far. “Think of finding such a bower on
Clover Street!” She made Marcia give her the cost of everything; and her
heart swelled with pride in her sex--when she heard that Marcia had put
down all the carpets herself. “I wanted to make them up,” Marcia explained,
“but Mr. Hubbard wouldn't let me,--it cost so little at the store.”
“Wouldn't let you!” cried Miss Kingsbury. “I should hope as much, indeed!
Why, my child, you're a Roman matron!”
She came away in agony lest Marcia might think she meant her nose. She
drove early the next morning to tell Olive Halleck that she had spent a
sleepless night from this cause, and to ask her what she _should_ do. “Do
you think she will be hurt, Olive? Tell me what led up to it. How did I
behave before that? The context is everything in such cases.”
“Oh, you went about praising everything, and screaming and shouting, and
my-dearing and my-childing her, and patronizing--”
“There, there! say no more! That's sufficient! I see,--I see it all! I've
done the very most offensive thing I could, when I meant to be the most
appreciative.”
“These country people don't like to be appreciated down to the quick, in
that way,” said Olive. “I should think Mrs. Hubbard was rather a proud
person.”
“I know! I know!” moaned Miss Kingsbury. “It was ghastly.”
“_I_ don't suppose she's ashamed of her nose--”
“Olive!” cried her friend, “be still! Why, I can't _bear_ it! Why, you
wretched thing!”
“I dare say all the ladies in Equity make up their own carpets, and put
them down, and she thought you were laughing at her.”
“_Will_ you be still, Olive Halleck?” Miss Kingsbury was now a large,
blonde mass of suffering, “Oh, dear, dear! What shall I do? It was
sacrilege--yes, it was nothing less than sacrilege--to go on as I did. And
I meant so well! I did so admire, and respect, and revere her!” Olive burst
out laughing. “You wicked girl!” whimpered Clara. “Should you--should you
write to her?”
“And tell her you didn't mean her nose? Oh, by all means, Clara,--by all
means! Quite an inspiration. Why not make her an evening party?”
“Olive,” said Clara, with guilty meekness, “I have been thinking of that.”
“_No_, Clara! Not seriously!” cried Olive, sobered at the idea.
“Yes, seriously. Would it be so very bad? Only just a _little_ party,”
she pleaded. “Half a dozen people or so; just to show them that I really
feel--friendly. I know that he's told her all about meeting me here, and
I'm not going to have her think I want to drop him because he's married,
and lives in a little house on Clover Street.”
“Noble Clara! So you wish to bring them out in Boston society? What will
you do with them after you've got them there?” Miss Kingsbury fidgeted in
her chair a little. “Now, look me in the eye, Clara! Whom were you going to
ask to meet them? Your unfashionable friends, the Hallecks?”
“My friends, the Hallecks, of course.”
“And Mr. Atherton, your legal adviser?”
“I had thought of asking Mr. Atherton. You needn't say what he is, if you
please, Olive; you know that there's no one I prize so much.”
“Very good. And Mr. Cameron?”
“He has got back,--yes. He's very nice.”
“A Cambridge tutor; very young and of recent attachment to the College,
with no local affiliations, yet. What ladies?”
“Miss Strong is a nice girl; she is studying at the Conservatory.”
“Yes. Poverty-stricken votary of Miss Kingsbury. Well?”
“Miss Clancy.”
“Unfashionable sister of fashionable artist. Yes?”
“The Brayhems.”
“Young radical clergyman, and his wife, without a congregation, and hoping
for a pulpit in Billerica. Parlor lectures on German literature in the mean
time. Well?”
“And Mrs. Savage, I thought.”
“Well-preserved young widow of uncertain antecedents tending to grassiness;
out-door _protégée_ of the hostess. Yes, Clara, go on and give your party.
It will be _perfectly safe_! But do you think it will _deceive_ anybody?”
“Now, Olive Halleck!” cried Clara, “I am not going to have you talking to
me in that way! You have no right to do it, and you have no business to do
it,” she added, trying to pluck up a spirit. “Is there anybody that I value
more than I do you and your sisters, and Ben?”
“No. But you don't value us _just in that way_, and you know it. Don't you
be a humbug, Clara. Now go on with your excuses.”
“I'm not making excuses! Isn't Mr. Atherton in the most fashionable
society?”
“Yes. Why don't you ask some other fashionable people?”
“Olive, this is all nonsense,--perfect nonsense! I can invite any one I
like to meet any one I like, and if I choose to show Mr. Hubbard's wife a
little attention, I can do it, can't I?”
“Oh, of course!”
“And what would be the use of inviting fashionable people--as you call
them--to meet them? It would just embarrass them, all round.”
“Perfectly correct, Miss Kingsbury. All that I want you to do is to
face the facts of the case. I want you to realize that, in showing Mr.
Hubbard's wife this little attention, you're not doing it because you
scorn to drop an old friend, and want to do him the highest honor; but
because you think you can palm off your second-class acquaintances on
them for first-class, and try to make up in that way for telling her
she had a hooked nose!”
“You _know_ that I didn't tell her she had a hooked nose.”
“You told her that she was a Roman matron,--it's the same thing,” said
Olive.
Miss Kingsbury bit her lip and tried to look a dignified resentment. She
ended by saying, with feeble spite, “I shall have the little evening for
all you say. I suppose you won't refuse to come because I don't ask the
whole Blue Book to meet them.”
“Of course we shall come! I wouldn't miss it for anything. I always like to
see how you manage your pieces of social duplicity, Clara. But you needn't
expect that I will be a party to the swindle. No, Clara! I shall go to
these poor young people and tell them plainly, 'This is not the _best_
society; Miss Kingsbury keeps that for--'”
“Olive! I think I never saw even you in such a teasing humor.” The tears
came into Clara's large, tender blue eyes, and she continued with an appeal
that had no effect, “I'm sure I don't see why you should make it a question
of anything of the sort. It's simply a wish to--to have a little company of
no particular kind, for no partic--Because I want to.”
“Oh, that's it, is it? Then I highly approve of it,” said Olive. “When is
it to be?”
“I sha'n't tell you, now! You may wait till I'm ready,” pouted Clara, as
she rose to go.
“Don't go away thinking I'm enough to provoke a saint because _you've_ got
mad at me, Clara!”
“Mad? You know I'm not mad! But I think you might be a _little_ sympathetic
_some_times, Olive!” said her friend, kissing her.
“Not in cases of social duplicity, Clara. My wrath is all that saves you.
If you were not afraid of me, you would have been a lost worldling long
ago.”
“I know you always really love me,” said Miss Kingsbury, tenderly.
“No, I don't,” retorted her friend, promptly. “Not when you're humbugging.
Don't expect it, for you won't get it.” She followed Clara with a
triumphant laugh as she went out of the door; and except for this parting
taunt Clara might have given up her scheme. She first ordered her _coupé_
driven home, in fact, and then lowered the window to countermand the
direction, and drove to Bartley's door on Clover Street.
It was a very handsome equipage, and was in keeping with all the outward
belongings of Miss Kingsbury, who mingled a sense of duty and a love of
luxury in her life in very exact proportions. When her _coupé_ was not
standing before some of the wretchedest doors in the city, it was waiting
at the finest; and Clara's days were divided between the extremes of
squalor and of fashion.
She was the only child of parents who had early left her an orphan. Her
father, who was much her mother's senior, was an old friend of Olive's
father, and had made him his executor and the guardian of his daughter.
Mr. Halleck had taken her into his own family, and, in the conscientious
pursuance of what he believed would have been her father's preference, he
gave her worldly advantages which he would not have desired for one of his
own children. But the friendship that grew up between Clara and Olive
was too strong for him in some things, and the girls went to the same
fashionable school together.
When his ward came of age he made over to her the fortune, increased by his
careful management, which her father had left her, and advised her to put
her affairs in the hands of Mr. Atherton. She had shown a quite ungirlish
eagerness to manage them for herself; in the midst of her profusion she had
odd accesses of stinginess, in which she fancied herself coming to poverty;
and her guardian judged it best that she should have a lawyer who could
tell her at any moment just where she stood. She hesitated, but she did as
he advised; and having once intrusted her property to Atherton's care, she
added her conscience and her reason in large degree, and obeyed him
with embarrassing promptness in matters that did not interfere with her
pleasures. Her pleasures were of various kinds. She chose to buy herself a
fine house, and, having furnished it luxuriously and unearthed a cousin of
her father's in Vermont and brought her to Boston to matronize her, she
kept house on a magnificent scale, pinching, however, at certain points
with unexpected meanness. When she was alone, her table was of a Spartan
austerity; she exacted a great deal from her servants, and paid them as
small wages as she could. After that she did not mind lavishing money upon
them in kindness. A seamstress whom she had once employed fell sick, and
Miss Kingsbury sent her to the Bahamas and kept her there till she was
well, and then made her a guest in her house till the girl could get back
her work. She watched her cook through the measles, caring for her like a
mother; and, as Olive Halleck said, she was always portioning or burying
the sisters of her second-girls. She was in all sorts of charities, but she
was apt to cut her charities off with her pleasures at any moment, if she
felt poor. She was fond of dress, and went a great deal into society: she
suspected men generally of wishing to marry her for her money, but with
those whom she did not think capable of aspiring to her hand, she was
generously helpful with her riches. She liked to patronize; she had long
supported an unpromising painter at Rome, and she gave orders to desperate
artists at home.
The world had pretty well hardened one half of her heart, but the other
half was still soft and loving, and into this side of her mixed nature she
cowered when she believed she had committed some blunder or crime, and came
whimpering to Olive Halleck for punishment. She made Olive her discipline
partly in her lack of some fixed religion. She had not yet found a religion
that exactly suited her, though she had many times believed herself about
to be anchored in some faith forever.
She was almost sorry that she had put her resolution in effect when she
rang at the door, and Marcia herself answered the bell, in place of the one
servant who was at that moment hanging out the wash. It seemed wicked to
pretend to be showing this pretty creature a social attention, when she
meant to palm off a hollow imitation of society upon her. Why should she
not ask the very superfinest of her friends to meet such a brilliant
beauty? It would serve Olive Halleck right if she should do this, and leave
the Hallecks out; and Marcia would certainly be a sensation. She half
believed that she meant to do it when she quitted the house with Marcia's
promise that she would bring her husband to tea on Wednesday evening, at
eight; and she drove away so far penitent that she resolved at least to
make her company distinguished, if not fashionable. She said to herself
that she would make it fashionable yet, if she chose, and as a first move
in this direction she easily secured Mr. Atherton: he had no engagements,
so few people had got back to town. She called upon Mrs. Witherby,
needlessly reminding her of the charity committees they had served on
together; and then she went home and actually sent out notes to the
plainest daughter and the maiden aunt of two of the most high-born families
of her acquaintance. She added to her list an artist and his wife, (“Now
I shall _have_ to let him paint me!” she reflected,) a young author whose
book had made talk, a teacher of Italian with whom she was pretending to
read Dante, and a musical composer.
Olive came late, as if to get a whole effect of the affair at once; and her
smile revealed Clara's failure to her, if she had not realized it before.
She read there that the aristocratic and aesthetic additions which she had
made to the guests Olive originally divined had not sufficed; the party
remained a humbug. It had seemed absurd to invite anybody to meet two such
little, unknown people as the Hubbards; and then, to avoid marking them as
the subjects of the festivity by the precedence to be observed in going out
to supper, she resolved to have tea served in the drawing-room, and to make
it literally tea, with bread and butter, and some thin, ascetic cakes.
However sharp he was in business, Mr. Witherby was socially a dull man; and
his wife and daughter seemed to partake of his qualities by affinition and
heredity. They tried to make something of Marcia, but they failed through
their want of art. Mrs. Witherby, finding the wife of her husband's
assistant in Miss Kingsbury's house, conceived an awe of her, which Marcia
would not have known how to abate if she had imagined it; and in a little
while the Witherby family segregated themselves among the photograph albums
and the bricabrac, from which Clara seemed to herself to be fruitlessly
detaching them the whole evening. The plainest daughter and the maiden aunt
of the patrician families talked to each other with unavailing intervals of
the painter and the author, and the radical clergyman and his wife were
in danger of a conjugal devotion which society does not favor; the
unfashionable sister of the fashionable artist conversed with the young
tutor and the Japanese law-student whom he had asked leave to bring with
him, and whose small, mouse-like eyes continually twinkled away in pursuit
of the blonde beauty of his hostess. The widow was winningly attentive,
with a tendency to be confidential, to everybody. The Italian could not
disabuse himself of the notion that he was expected to be light and
cheerful, and when the pupil of the Conservatory sang, he abandoned himself
to his error, and clapped and cried bravo with unseemly vivacity. But he
was restored to reason when the composer sat down at the piano and
played, amid the hush that falls on society at such times, something from
Beethoven, and again something of his own, which was so like Beethoven that
Beethoven himself would not have known the difference.
Mr. Atherton and Halleck moved about among the guests, and did their best
to second Clara's efforts for their encouragement; but it was useless. In
the desperation which owns defeat, she resolved to devote herself for the
rest of the evening to trying to make at least the Hubbards have a good
time; and then, upon the dangerous theory, of which young and pretty
hostesses cannot be too wary, that a wife is necessarily flattered by
attentions to her husband, she devoted herself exclusively to Bartley, to
whom she talked long and with a reckless liveliness of the events of his
former stay in Boston. Their laughter and scraps of their reminiscence
reached Marcia where she sat in a feint of listening to Ben Halleck's
perfunctory account of his college days with her husband, till she could
bear it no longer. She rose abruptly, and, going to him, she said that it
was time to say good-night. “Oh, so soon!” cried Clara, mystified and a
little scared at the look she saw on Marcia's face. “Good night,” she added
coldly.
The assembly hailed this first token of its disintegration with relief; it
became a little livelier; there was a fleeting moment in which it seemed as
if it might yet enjoy itself; but its chance passed; it crumbled rapidly
away, and Clara was left looking humbly into Olive Halleck's pitiless eyes.
“Thank you for a _delightful_ evening, Miss Kingsbury! Congratulate you!”
she mocked, with an unsparing laugh. “Such a success! But why didn't you
give them something to eat, Clara? Those poor Hubbards have a one-o'clock
dinner, and I famished for them. I wasn't hungry myself,--_we_ have a
two-o'clock dinner!”