A TESTIMONIAL TO MISS LINKIN
Mrs. Webster and Miss Linkin had been much upset by Dan’s going to the
White House. Of course, it could have but one meaning. That “Canadian
minx” had laid snares for him. They would certainly lose their Dan.
Equally, of course, the marriage would be most unhappy.
“Why?” Isabel had asked when Aunt Lizzie had ventilated this opinion.
“Can the leopard mate with the lamb?” Miss Linkin had solemnly
demanded, and Isabel had burst forth into amused and aggravating
laughter.
“I don’t see the connection,” she had said.
But when Dan returned from his visit, he looked so utterly dejected,
that his mother and aunt took heart at once. It was only Isabel who
looked troubled and concerned.
As soon as an oppressive meal was ended, Isabel followed her brother to
his studio.
“What is it, Dan?” she asked anxiously, when Dan had lit the gas fire,
and drawn up two wicker chairs.
“Can’t you guess, Isabel?” he groaned.
“I think so, dear, but is it inevitable?”
“Quite.”
“Yet--one never knows--a woman sometimes says ‘No’ when she means
‘Yes.’”
“But not a woman like Aimée Le Breton.”
“I made too sure,” said Dan miserably. “I went up like a rocket--and I
have come down like a stick. Of course, she is miles too good for me. I
knew that all along.”
“Is there someone else?” asked Isabel.
“Oh, no,” answered Dan. “She is not going to marry. Oh! she is just
the sort of woman to remain a virgin--so pure--so beautiful. Our
Blessed Lady must have had a look like hers. Oh, if you could have
seen her!--her sweet compassion, her sublime dignity. She is not for
me, or for any man. What a blind fool I was! And I gave her pain. I
saw that she suffered to see me suffer. I ought to have known--yes, I
certainly ought to have spared her. I had a sense of having committed
sacrilege in offering myself to her. That was how I felt about it, how
I shall always feel about it. There are women who are like angels, and
to ask such to marry is a sacrilege. She--Miss Le Breton--is the kind
of woman who becomes a nun, and I was too blind to see it, though I, of
all people, ought to have known it, for I painted her very soul in my
Madonna. But I do not regret having met her, though it has well-nigh
broken my heart. I shall be a better man for having known such a
beautiful, pure nature. For her sake I shall live purely, and strive
for ideals. That she has done for me. So, sister mine, don’t shed
tears.”
Isabel was crying.
But in the sitting-room Miss Linkin was triumphant.
“She has refused him!” she cried exultantly to her sister.
“What a deliverance!” ejaculated Mrs. Webster devoutly. “Give me my
_nux vomica_, Lizzie; and do see that my hot-water bottle _is_ hot
to-night. Mary Ann does not boil the water. I am sure of it! Yes, it
is a deliverance! I think that Dan might wait till his poor mother is
underground before wanting to marry. It won’t be long, anyway.”
“Creaking doors hang the longest, Maria,” replied Miss Linkin. “You’ve
been a poor creature ever since Isabel was born, and you are not gone
yet!”
“That has nothing at all to do with it!” rejoined Mrs. Webster. “I’m
nearing my three-score years and ten--the allotted time of man.”
“You never were any good at arithmetic, Maria,” retorted her sister,
nodding and making the corkscrew curls dance. “You were fifty-four last
birthday.”
“That has nothing at all to do with it,” again asserted Mrs. Webster.
“Keep to the point, Lizzie. Dan might wait for a wife till his mother
is gone. What does he want with a wife? He has a comfortable home--well
looked after.”
The last clause had the effect of putting Miss Linkin in a good humor.
There were times--a great many times--when Mrs. Webster irritated her.
Mrs. Webster had never been much of a housekeeper even in her days of
health, while her sister had a born gift that way. She had a born gift,
too, for industry. She was never a moment idle. At this particular
moment she was putting fine darns into a damask table-cloth, which,
under Mrs. Webster’s _régime_, would have long since been consigned to
the rag-bag.
“Yes, Maria,” said Miss Linkin. “Dan’s home may not be exactly
luxurious, but it is well kept, and Dan is certainly getting on. He
has earned quite a lot of money with his portraits, and has a lot of
commissions.”
“That is all very well, Lizzie,” broke in Mrs. Webster querulously,
“but Dan’s eyes may go wrong again.”
“You always were a prophet of evil, Maria,” snapped Miss Linkin, whom
the last remark had irritated. “You never see the bright side of
anything.”
“What a wicked untruth!” rejoined Mrs. Webster. “Didn’t I see the
bright side of Dan’s disappointment?”
“Oh, _that_!” replied her sister scornfully.
“And now I suppose we shall have Dan moping about the place making
everybody miserable. I have no patience with that kind of thing. People
ought to consume their own smoke. I am sure this horrible November
weather gets into my joints most distressingly. If Dan had not gone in
for Art, he might have had enough money by now for me to winter in the
South of France. There is an awful draught from that window when the
door is open, and Mary Ann leaves it open every time she comes in.”
“It wants a new lock,” said Miss Linkin. “Dan says I can have it seen
to.”
“I think, considering my health, it might have been seen to before,”
Mrs. Webster complained, “and my chair is just opposite the door.”
“Well, why not have your chair moved to the other side?” inquired Miss
Linkin, not unnaturally.
“I am used to this side of the fireplace,” said Mrs. Webster. “People
at my time of life don’t like changes. I want to go to the South of
France.”
“You just said you didn’t like changes,” her sister reminded her.
“That has nothing at all to do with it,” replied Mrs. Webster
conclusively.
Miss Linkin sniffed.
Mrs. Webster glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece and remarked:
“Dan and Isabel have been away in that studio three-parts of an hour.
I must say, my children are not much comfort to me! You would have
thought that Dan would have tried to entertain me a little after being
away enjoying himself; but no, he must needs go to that studio with
Isabel. My company is not sufficiently entertaining, I suppose.”
At that very moment Dan came in, followed by Isabel. He was making a
valiant effort to appear cheerful.
“Oh, _please_ close the door, Dan!” were Mrs. Webster’s first words.
Then as he was about to obey she added: “But never mind! I am just
going to bed.”
“But you don’t usually go to bed so early,” said Dan. “I hope you are
not feeling less well?”
“I am never well,” replied his mother.
“But not worse to-night, I hope?” said Dan, pulling up a chair near her.
“More tired--tired of waiting,” she answered.
“Waiting? Do you mean for us?” asked Dan. “I am so sorry. If I had had
an idea----”
“That is just it, Dan. Modern sons and daughters never seem to have an
idea. When your Aunt Lizzie and I were girls, we were _devoted_ to our
parents.”
Dan looked troubled.
Isabel spoke:
“Oh, don’t talk like that, mother! No son could be more devoted than
Dan!”
“That is your way of looking at it,” said Mrs. Webster. “Dan has been
with you nearly an hour, and he comes to sit with his mother just at
bed-time.”
Miss Linkin jerkily folded up her work, remarking something about
“silly nonsense.”
“Don’t go to bed yet, mother,” said Dan, ignoring her reproaches. “I
want to tell you about my visit to Gissing. It will amuse you.”
“I am past being amused,” said Mrs. Webster. “When I die I should like
to be buried where----”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake!” broke out Dan.
“Well, Dan!” said Mrs. Webster, “all I can say is, that you Catholics
are shockingly profane.”
“Dear mother, let us talk of something else,” said Dan. “For instance,
the drives you are going to have. I can afford them now, and you must
go out and get the air.”
“November air! Dulwich November air! How can you talk of it, Dan! This
part of the village is full of damp and fog,” Mrs. Webster complained
ungraciously. “If I could be in the South of France----”
“I wonder if it could be managed?” said Dan. “We must go into figures.
I don’t see why you couldn’t go.”
“But I should have to take your Aunt Lizzie to look after me, and there
would be no one to take care of the house. If Isabel had not been
so obstinate about doing school work she might have attended to her
mother.”
“You are tired and ill, or you would not talk so, mother,” Dan told
her. “You know how pluckily Isabel went out to earn, because I made so
little. But she need not now.”
Isabel intervened.
“I shall not leave the James Allen, Dan, however much you get on. I
like my independence too well to give it up. Moreover, Aunt Lizzie
looks after mother far better than I could. There is no reason why
mother and Aunt Lizzie should not go to the South of France if you can
manage it. Mary Ann can look after us well enough.”
Mrs. Webster began to shed tears at this point.
“It is hard that my children should want to get rid of me, and banish
me to a foreign land,” she said in a faltering voice. “You both want to
get me far away. Well, I suppose I am a trouble. The house would be a
lot brighter without me. Let me go, and if my bones have to be laid in
a foreign soil, I suppose it won’t much matter, though I have picked
the spot in Norwood Cemetery where I would desire to be laid.”
“Maria! come to bed!”
Miss Linkin spoke with some severity.
Mrs. Webster rose, obedient to the voice of her sister, and walked with
bent head towards the door.
“Your Aunt Lizzie is the only one who troubles much about me,” she
said, as she quitted the room without even a good-night to her children.
“Take care, Maria, how you walk. You are treading on the front of your
dress,” Miss Linkin said in a loud voice, as the sisters mounted the
staircase.
Dan and Isabel exchanged despairing glances.
The scene which had just been enacted was not new to them. A little
real ill-health, and a great deal of imaginary ill-health, had made
Mrs. Webster a most unreasonable and aggravating woman. Yet both Isabel
and Dan knew that she loved them both.
“It is poor Aunt Lizzie who has most to bear,” said Isabel to her
brother. “Both you and I get away from it all. But Aunt Lizzie has it
night and day and every night and every day. Aunt Lizzie ought to have
no purgatory, she has had it here. I could never put up with it without
a break as she does. I can’t help admiring her. She never varies. Every
day she goes through her self-imposed tasks. She has nothing whatever
to brighten her drab life, and she never grumbles. I don’t think any of
us know quite what a heroine she has been through the years.”
“Quite true,” agreed Dan. “We can all be patient and heroic by fits and
starts, but Aunt Lizzie keeps on being patient and heroic. She puts
some of us to shame.”