THE BASKET OF FRUIT.
"I should not have thought, by the way you parted, that you and Mr.
Bosworth were old friends."
Jessie seemed annoyed, and replied, with a flush on her cheek, "that it
was rather difficult to be demonstrative on horseback."
"At any rate, he's a splendid man," said the widow. "Rich or poor? Bond
or free? Tell us all about him. I never thought to inquire before, but
this looks serious."
"What strange questions you ask!" answered Jessie, and the color
deepened in her cheek.
"Well, well, but the answer?"
Here I interposed: "Mr. Bosworth is not very rich. At least I never
heard that he was."
"What a pity!" whispered the widow. "But the other questions?"
"If having no wife is to be free, you can hardly call him a bondman.
Yes."
"What has he ever done to distinguish himself, then? Can you tell me
that, Miss Hyde?"
"He is considered a man of brilliant parts, certainly," I answered; "but
at his age few men have won permanent distinction, I fancy."
"At his age! Why, the man must be over eight-and-twenty, and half the
great men that ever lived had made their mark in the world before they
reached that age."
"Well, that may be," I replied; "but in these times greatness is not so
easily won. The level of general intelligence, in our country at least,
is raised, and it requires great genius, indeed, to lift a man suddenly
above his fellows. In a dead sea of ignorance, superior ability looms up
with imposing conspicuousness. This is why the great men of past times
have cast the reflection of their minds on history;--not entirely
because they excelled men of the present age, but from the low grade of
popular intelligence that existed around them."
"Why, you talk like a statesman," said the widow, laughing. "I had no
idea that anything so near politics existed in the ladies of this
house."
"What is history but the politics of the past?" said Jessie. "What is
politics but a history of the present?"
"Perhaps you are right," said the widow, flinging off her careless
manner, and sitting down on one of the rustic chairs, where she began to
dust her skirt with the fanciful whip fastened to her wrist. "I have
often wondered why it should be considered unfeminine for an educated
woman to understand the institutions of her own or any other country."
Mrs. Dennison looked at me as she spoke. Was the woman playing with my
weakness? Or, did she really speak from her heart? If the former, she
must have been amused at my credulity, for I answered in honest
frankness:
"Nor I, either; except in evil, which is always better unknown. I can
fancy no case where ignorance is a merit. Imagine Queen Victoria pluming
herself on lady-like ignorance of the political state of her kingdom,
when she opens Parliament in person."
Mrs. Dennison laughed, and chimed in with, "Or the Empress of France
being appointed Regent of a realm, the position of which it was deemed
unwomanly to understand; yet, on the face of the earth, there are not
two females more womanly than Victoria of England, and Eugenie of
France."
"What true ideas this woman possesses!" I said to myself. "How could I
dislike her so? Really, the most charming person in the world is a woman
who, under the light, graceful talk of conventional society, cultivates
serious thought." While these reflections passed through my mind, the
widow was looking at me from under her eyelashes, as if she expected me
to speak again; so I went on,--
"It is not the knowledge of politics in itself of which refined people
complain; but its passion and the vindictive feelings which partisanship
is sure to foster. The woman who loves her country cannot understand it
too well. The unwomanliness lies in the fact that she sometimes plunges
into a turmoil of factions, thus becoming passionate and bitter."
"How plainly you draw the distinction between knowledge and prejudice!"
she said, with one of her fascinating smiles. "But you must have
discussed this subject often--with Mr. Lee, perhaps?"
"Yes, we talk on all subjects here. Nothing is forbidden, because few
things that are not noble and true ever present themselves."
"I was sure of it!" exclaimed the lady, starting up with enthusiasm. "I
have never been in a house where everything gave such evidence of
high-toned intelligence."
She sat down again thoughtfully, dusting her habit with the little whip.
"I have not yet seen my hostess, but that does not arise from increased
ill health, I trust. She seemed very feeble when we met on the
sea-shore, last season--somewhat consumptive, we all thought."
I did not like the tone of her voice. There was something stealthy and
creeping in it which checked the rising confidence in my heart.
"Mrs. Lee is very far from well," I answered, coldly.
"Not essentially worse, I trust."
She was looking at me keenly from the corners of her almond-shaped eyes.
It was only a glance, but a gleam of suspicion sprung from my heart and
met it half-way.
"It is difficult to tell. In a lingering disease like hers, one can
never be sure."
"Mr. Lee must find himself lonesome at times without his lady's society,
for she struck us all as a very superior person."
"On the contrary," I replied, with a quick impulse, for she still kept
that sidelong glance on my face; "on the contrary, he spends most of his
leisure time in her chamber, reads to her when she can bear it, and sits
gently silent when she prefers that. A more devoted husband I never
knew."
I saw that she was biting her red lips, but as my glance caught hers,
the action turned to a smile.
"There is Mr. Lee going to his wife's room now," I remarked, as that
gentleman passed the hall-door, with a little basket in his hand filled
with delicate wood-moss, in which lay two or three peaches, the first of
the season.
The exclamation that broke from Mrs. Dennison at the sight of the fruit
arrested his steps, and he turned into the hall, asking if either of us
had called.
She went forward at once, sweeping the cloth skirt after her like the
train of an empress.
"Oh, what splendid peaches--and the basket! The bijou!" She held out
both hands to receive the fruit, quite in a glow of pleasure.
"I am very sorry," said Mr. Lee, drawing back a step, "but this is--is
for my wife. She is an invalid, you know."
"You misunderstand," replied the lady, coloring to the temples. "I only
wish to admire the arrangement. It is really the prettiest fancy I ever
saw."
He hesitated an instant; then held out the basket and placed it between
her hands, with some little reluctance, I thought. Her side-face was
toward me; but the look, half grieved, half reproachful, which she
lifted to his face did not escape me.
"Shall I take the basket to Mrs. Lee?" I said, reaching out my hand.
"She must have heard the horses return some time ago, and will expect
some one."
"No," said the gentleman, bending his head, and taking the fruit. "I
cannot allow you to deprive me of that pleasure."
"And I," rejoined the widow, with animation, "I must take off this
cumbersome riding-dress."
I went to my room early that evening. Indeed, I had no heart to enter
the parlor. Anxieties that I could not define pressed heavily upon
me--so heavily that I longed for solitude. In passing through the hall,
I met Mrs. Dennison's mulatto maid, who had, I forgot to say, followed
our guest with the luggage. She was going to her mistress's chamber,
carrying something carefully in her hand. When she saw me, her little
silk apron was slyly lifted, and the burdened hand stole under it, but
in the action something was disturbed, and the half of a peach fell at
my feet.
I took up the cleft fruit very quietly, told the girl to remove her
apron, that I might see what mischief had been done, and discovered a
second basket filled with mossrose-buds from which the half peach had
fallen.
I laid the fruit in its bed, saw the girl pass with it to her lady's
chamber, and then went to my own room sick at heart. The half of a
peach, offered among the Arabs, means atonement for some offence. What
offence had Mr. Lee given to our guest in carrying a little fruit to his
invalid wife?