"And you have really been to Dundee!" Jessie was saying, unconscious
that she was clinging to Mr. Wyllys' arm--very slightly, but
perceptibly to him, with the glad hold of one to whom something dear
and rare has been restored. "Was this a part of the original plan of
your journeyings?"
"No,--but my business led me within sight of Old Windbeam--('a
frosty pow' his is, just now!)--and it acted upon me as did the Iron
Mountain of the Arabian Nights upon the hapless ships that
approached it. It drew out the nails of doubt as to the best course
for me to pursue; the screws of resolution not to be turned aside by
memories of the Past and the allurements of the Present. To be
brief--I collapsed utterly! took the afternoon train to Dundee, and
passed, in that retreat from briefs and busybodies, the happiest
Sabbath I have known since last August."
"Euna wrote to me about it--the lovely, precise old darling! She
never indulges in extravagances upon any subject, but her concise
sentences mean much, and these said how she enjoyed the day--and
your music. I was envious of her, when I read of it--just for a
moment, of course. I have seen so much of you this winter it seemed
mean and selfish in me to grudge her one day of like pleasure."
"Envy so groundless could not but be evanescent," said Orrin, with
admirable gravity. "But tell me about yourself. What have you been
doing while I was away?"
"Cultivating envy, as I said--and, I am not positive, but wrath and
all uncharitableness, as well. Who is it that confesses to an
instant uprising of all that is wicked in his nature at the approach
of trouble, while visible blessing always moves him to thankful
piety? I am afraid I am similarly constituted. I have been dull and
'dumpish' for a week and more; choosing to quarrel with the three
peas under the fourteen feather-beds, rather than enjoy the good
that is certainly mine. You see I also am versed in fairy-lore."
"I remember that the disguised princess, at being asked why she was
haggard in the morning after the night spent in the forester's
cabin, betrayed her gentle breeding by complaining of the lumps in
her mountainous couch. Fourteen feather-beds! Think of it! To sleep
amid the waves of one of the Dutch abominations is enough to
engender dyspepsia, apoplexy, and spleen. But what were the three
peas in your bed of roses?"
"It has rained four days out of eight, my Germany letter was behind
time--and I missed my brother-cousin at every turn," responded
Jessie bravely, vexed that anything in the enumeration should make
her cheek put on the sudden flame of poppies.
"Two valid and sufficient reasons for _ennui_! As for the third, and
notably the least of all, I thank you for the welcome implied by it.
I have missed you, Jessie!"
"But not as I have you!" was the ingenuous response. "I have been
homesick, dismal, disagreeable,--_horrid_ generally. But I spare you
the recapitulation. I am very, very happy that you are back again in
health, and,"--faltering a little,--"in better spirits, than when
you left us."
"Mr. Wyllys!" interrupted a consequential personage--a young-old
bachelor. "Excuse me, Miss Kirke, but this is business of
importance!"
He spoke a sentence aside to Orrin, who replied briefly in the same
tone.
"Mr. Hurst is acting as master of ceremonies to-night, _comme a
l'ordinaire_," observed Wyllys, moving on with his companion. "How
will Hamilton parties get on after he dies--or marries--I wonder?
There has been an addition to the ranks of fashion during my
absence, I find. I had hardly finished my bow to Mrs. and Miss
Provost, when Warren Provost presented me forcibly to Miss Sanford.
I learned, before I went three steps farther, that this party is
given to Miss Sanford, and now Mr. Hurst tells me that I am
expected, presently, to dance with Miss Sanford. Who _is_ Miss
Sanford?"
Jessie comprehending, at once, that he shunned further reference to
the state of his spirits at their parting, followed his lead away
from the subject, with alacrity.
"Miss Sanford is the daughter of Judge Provost's sister, and _such_
an heiress! An American Miss Burdett Coutts, if half the stories in
circulation about her be true. She is the only child of a
five-millionaire, and has, besides, a million in her own right,
inherited from her mother. Poor thing! what a nuisance it must be to
be so _horribly_ rich!" commented the country girl who thought
herself wealthy with her mother's wedding-portion of ten thousand
dollars, carefully husbanded by her father against her majority or
marriage.
"If another woman than Jessie Kirke had said that, I should have
supposed she was in jest," said Orrin. "I believe you mean what you
say. But why? Many and sweet are the uses of money."
"Why do I regard it as a misfortune for a woman to be immensely
rich? Because she can never be sure of true friend or lover. Because
she seldom escapes one of two evils, dupedom or misanthropy. It must
be almost an impracticable task for a great heiress to satisfy
herself that she is not wooed _pour les beaux yeux de ses ecus_."
"But if there are no other _beaux yeux_ in the case--her own being,
we will say, leaden--should she not congratulate herself that she
has one talisman that will win attention and regard?"
"Regard!" echoed Jessie, incredulously.
"And why not? She typifies bank stock, real estate, ready money, to
the adorer of these. He worships _them_, it is true, but through
her, as discriminating Romanists try to make us believe that they
adore the Virgin Mary by the help of her images."
"And as Dr. Baxter told me, the other day, Aaron and his crew of
apostate ingrates bowed down to the molten calf--as the
representative of the Egyptian Apis," put in Jessie, sarcastically.
"If a woman can content herself with that sort of worship, put
herself on a par with the goose that laid the golden egg, she wants
neither affection nor pity."
"Yet I'll warrant that the famous goose preened herself alongside of
the most gorgeous peacock in the barnyard; accounted herself the
equal of the stateliest swans. There are as many purse-proud women
as men. Millionnaires of both sexes do not scorn the court paid to
their money through themselves. On the contrary, they would be
piqued and offended if their dollars were not duly appreciated.
Novels and sentimentalists tell us that the unhappy possessors of
princely fortunes desire to be loved and sought for their intrinsic
virtues, whereas the great mass--especially of women--who are wedded
for their riches, are quite alive to the truth that this is so, and
are far from being wounded thereby. They are neither dupes nor
misanthropes, but sensible practical bodies who regard their
property as a part of themselves--soul of their soul--and
unhesitatingly appropriate all the advantages it buys, pluming
themselves, as a rule, upon their ability to command service and
fidelity. You shake your head? Let me illustrate from real life. I
was talking, some time ago, with a married lady whom nobody had
ever, in my hearing, called weak-minded, even behind her back. I had
known her for many years, and she opened up her mind to me freely,
with regard to her courtship by, and marriage to, the man of her
choice. 'I feared, at one time, that I had lost him forever,' she
said. 'He was, quite assiduous in his attention to another young
lady who was pretty, elegant, and accomplished. I was very unhappy,
for he had never declared his intentions to me. But she had not
money enough to suit his notions of the fitness of things,'--I quote
literally. 'So he came back to me. Wasn't I thankful then that my
dear father had provided for me handsomely and thus secured my
happiness for life?'"
"A clever anecdote--considering it is impromptu!" said wilful
Jessie, with an air of superb disbelief. "If I could credit it, and
you--"
"You would cease to commiserate heiresses!" finished Wyllys. "For
myself, I have an antipathy to the whole class. All whom I have had
the misery of knowing were sordid, self-conceited, and rapacious of
admiration to a degree that passed understanding and disgust."
He dropped his voice, for the crowd immediately about them had grown
still and attentive.
Miss Sanford was going to sing. Jessie and her escort chanced to be
near the piano, and had a fine view of her as she was led to the
instrument by an ambitious senior, whom she loaded down with her
bouquet, gloves, fan, handkerchief, and gold vinaigrette. She was
probably about twenty-five years of age, but this was a difficult
point to determine from her appearance; her hair, eyebrows, and
complexion being so light, that, as Jessie afterwards said to Mrs.
Baxter, she looked as if she might have lain for forty-eight hours
in a bath of caustic soda and water--the preliminary process in the
preparation of the phantom bouquets the President's lady was skilled
in arranging. Miss Sanford was thin and bony. "Scraggy," one would
have termed her, had she belonged to the so-called inferior animals.
Her eyes were a pale, fixed blue, like those of a china doll; her
lips met scantily over teeth that were unpleasantly prominent; she
had a receding chin, a sharp nose, and a low forehead. A homely,
shrewish-looking girl to the uninstructed eye. Yet her air showed
that she was accustomed to receive court from the sophisticated
multitude, the many who were awake to the fact that she was the
undoubted mistress of charms not to be adequately expressed by less
than seven figures. Her dress was a walking advertisement of her
pretensions to this intelligent homage, being mauve satin, flounced
with point lace. It was cut too low upon the flat chest and
prominent shoulder-blades, but the region thus left bare was made
interesting to feminine eyes by a magnificent diamond necklace.
Bracelets to match loaded her meagre wrists, and were pushed up
ostentatiously before she put her fingers upon the key-board, with a
coquettish grimace at her cavalier.
"I don't sing ballads," Jessie and Orrin heard her say, tossing her
head one-sidedly--a frequent trick with her, since it set her
ear-rings to dancing until the precious stones seemed to emit sparks
of real fire. "Ballad music is considered so low in refined circles.
I have never cultivated any but the classical style--operas, you
know, bravuras and arias, and all that, you know. Let me treat you
to my favorite--just the _sweetest_ thing you ever heard, from La
Traviata. I perfectly dote upon it!"
She played a thumping prelude and accompaniment in villainous time;
her voice was shallow and shrill; she made audacious dashes at
trills and cadenzas, her feeble pipe breaking down upon the
ascending, and breaking up upon the descending scale. A more
lamentable and witless travestie of operatic execution could hardly
have been conceived of. The Italian words were made a thing of no
account whatever.
"Her resources are wonderful," said Orrin, under cover of the buzz
of compliments and thanks that succeeded the song. "When she forgot
what came next she substituted something of her own composition--in
the Kaffir dialect, I think--with a readiness and coolness truly
astounding. Honor bright, now," laughing down mischievously into his
companion's eyes--"what has this little scene reminded you
of--something you have hitherto viewed as a caricature?"
"I won't tell you!"
But Jessie's face was alive with fun. It might not be--it certainly
was not altogether kind or well-bred in her to join in ridiculing
the host's niece, but it was "only Orrin," and so long as his
comments were for her ear alone, no harm was done.
"You need not! Miss Swartz has arisen above such 'low style' as
'Blue-eyed Mary' and 'That Air from the Cabinet,' but she can still
'sing Fluvy du Tajy if she had the words.' Indeed, being bent upon
fascination, she sings it, words or no."
He had found Jessie and Mrs. Baxter deep in "Vanity Fair" one
evening, had taken the book and read aloud several chapters,
including "The quarrel about an heiress."
"Yet you will not let me say, 'Poor Miss Swartz!'" said Jessie.
"Certainly not. She is in Paradise. Reserve your pity for me, who am
doomed to ask her to waltz so soon as this part of the exhibition is
over. Hark! another sweet selection! This time from _Der
Freischuetz_--Agatha's prayer, done into boarding-school German
_patois_, varied by the amazing improvisations aforesaid. For
Heaven's sake! come away into the conservatory. Even 'when music,
heavenly maid, was _very_ young,' a baby in the cradle, she never
squalled like that!"
Jessie could not help laughing at his whimsical impatience. Mirth
came easily to-night. The surprise and joy of her friend's return
had exhilarated her. The very freedom of his comments upon others
made her feel the entireness of their mutual confidence. His talking
to her in this strain was a direct compliment to her discretion. It
was delightful to see him gay once more--to believe that his light
rattle was the overflow of a heart as full and happy as her own.
He lingered with her in the conservatory until the indefatigable Mr.
Hurst came to hunt him up.
"You will let me take you in to supper?" said Wyllys, pulling
himself up with graceful unwillingness from the fantastic root seat
beside the fountain. "Where shall I find you, if I survive the next
half hour?"
"Here!" glancing up brightly. "It is cool and quiet, and my feet
ache with standing. Don't send anybody to me, please! I shall sit
here, and rest and think--ponder seriously upon the miseries of the
rich, the compensations of the poor."
Orrin had chosen their resting-place in the leafy boudoir with his
habitual sagacity, having an eye both to ease and the semi-privacy
which confidential friends find so enjoyable in the neighborhood of
a crowd. An osier frame overrun with ivy, screened Jessie on the
left from any save very prying eyes; a barricade of lemon and orange
trees towered at the back; in front, the fountain, showering from
peak and sides of a rock-work pyramid, cast a shimmering veil
between her and the archway, closing up a vista of vines and shrubs,
through which issued music and the hum of many voices with the
rhythmical beat of feet. Jessie listened to the merry din, the
nearer dash of the glittering drops into the basin at her feet; and
inhaling the perfume of the exotics behind her, smiled a happy
little smile in remembrance of her scornful weariness in predicting
the flirtations among the oleanders and lemon-trees. She had no
pre-vision then that she should sit here with one chosen companion,
talking freely and gladly of all that was in her heart; none of the
gentle and lovely reverie to which he had left her.
From a great globe of ground glass overhead, effulgence like that of
a midsummer moon streamed down upon the falling water; the trailing
grasses and clinging mosses upon the stones were threaded with tiny
brilliants; the broad wet leaves of the aquatic plants overhanging
and growing within the marble reservoir were washed with silver. A
single lily arose, pure and proud, from a clump of luxuriant flags.
Tall ferns standing motionless on the thither margin, made a
miniature brake of an alley that stretched away into cool green
dimness. A bed of musk-plant yielded up languorous sighs to the
warmed air. All that was sensuous in temperament and artistic in
taste made response to the influence of the place and hour. Jessie
gave herself up to it without resistance, laid her head against the
tortuous scroll-work of the high back of the settee, and dreamed.
The evening had been triumphant, intoxicating to her. The evening
she would have preferred to spend with dolorous Mariana!
She whispered the familiar lines to herself:
"'All day, within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creaked;
The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
Or, from the crevice peered about,--'
But that was nothing! I dare say the Grange was a commodious,
respectable family mansion; that it would have been as beautiful as
the Alhambra to the poor girl, had the faithless lover kept his
tryst. '"He cometh not," she said!' That was the key to the
desolation without and within. I had not believed that I could be so
glad to see any one except Roy, as I am to meet Orrin again. He has
a look like his cousin sometimes. I never noticed it before as I
have to-night;--a look that gives me a sense of safety and
companionship when with him, which makes sadness and home-sickness
impossibilities. It is _good_ to have a friend upon whom I can lean
my whole weight without fear of causing weariness--in whose society
I can be frankly, fearlessly, joyously, _myself_!"
There were but two or three couples in the conservatory besides
herself, and they, too, seemed to be lulled into silent musing by
the subdued lights and odorous airs of the fairy-like haunt. Perhaps
some of the dancers found fault with the draught from the archway,
for Jessie saw Warren Provost and Mr. Hurst let down the damask
curtains which had been looped back from it. She drew a deeper
breath of content in the feeling of increased seclusion. Now that
the music, the babble of human tongues, and the tramp of a hundred
waltzers were muffled, a mocking-bird from his concealed cage in an
acacia tree began to sing. First came a chirp of alarm as if he had
just awakened from dreams of tropical skies and magnolia
groves--then a trial trill, a gush of liquid melody, clear and soft
as the ripple of a mountain rivulet. Next, he whistled, still
softly, but with marvellous correctness and sweetness, a flute waltz
Jessie had heard Orrin Wyllys play last summer. She smiled and
murmured in her trance,--
"Everything associated with him is pure pleasure!"
Nobody could be moody or dull when he chose to please and interest.
To her, his coming was like the spreading of the sun rays down the
mountain sides and through the valley on summer mornings, steeping
the commonplace in beauty; making of native loveliness a witching
miracle. Dear, _dear_ Roy! She owed this great happiness also to
him. He had reckoned wisely and lovingly in committing her to the
care of this guardian.
The band struck up a march. The blare of the instruments burst
unwelcomely upon her rosy dreams. She aroused herself with a start
to see the curtains pulled back. The mocking-bird ceased his song
abruptly. The waltzers, panting and flushed, thronged the narrow
aisles of the conservatory; chattered and flitted among the foliage
like bright-plumaged, loud-voiced parrots. Miss Sanford was
conspicuous among them, leaning palpably upon her escort's arm. Her
affected laugh grated unpleasantly upon Jessie's ears, every few
seconds. She was in exuberant spirits; in high good-humor with
herself, and, presumably, with her partner.
"Oh! that darling beauty of a lily!" she cried, pushing roughly past
the ivied screen, to get a closer view of the proud, pale princess
of the fountain. "I wanted you should see it! Fanny Provost, my
cousin, goes just crazy over it. It was brought to her all the way
from the Nile, or the Ganges, or the Amazon, or some other of those
stupid rivers in Europe, whose names I always forget--by her beau.
You know she is engaged to Lieutenant Averill of the Navy? Everybody
who is anybody announces engagements nowadays, as soon as the
matter is settled by what my uncle, Judge Provost, calls the high
contracting parties. It is a nice fashion. Don't you think so? I
_do_ think an engagement must be just the cunningest, sweetest thing
in the world!"
"That depends, in a great measure, upon who the high contracting
parties are, I suppose," replied Orrin, with the slightest
imaginable glance in the direction of the concealed spectator, but
one in which she read a drollery of appeal that wrought irresistibly
upon her risibles.
Miss Sanford tittered. "I declare I am afraid of you, Mr. Wyllys!
You are _so_ sarcastic! Of course, that was what I meant. One takes
that for granted always. But it must be just _too_ sweet for two
people who are devoted to one another, and who are of suitable ages
and prospects, and all that, you know, to promise that they will
just perfectly adore one another, till death, you know. At least,
that is the way _I_ look at it. I am _so_ womanly, Mr. Wyllys! I
often tremble at the thought of buffeting the world. Everybody is so
absorbed in their own selfish interests. My cousin, Mrs. Morris--the
ex-Chancellor's lady, you know--says I am a sensitive plant, not fit
to meet the rough winds of life."
With the ventriloquial knack that belongs to the genuine slayer of
hearts, Orrin made his reply inaudible to any one but the woman at
his side, who flushed up eagerly, and fanned herself in naive
agitation.
"I wish I could think so, Mr. Wyllys! It is ever so kind in you to
wish it, I am sure. But men--and I am ashamed to say it--women,
too, are such awful flatterers! And appearances are _so_
deceitful! Nobody would believe, for instance, that I, with
everything--comparatively speaking you know--to make me happy,
should pine for a kindred heart--one that would beat responsive to
mine. True, one person cannot have everything, you know--There! I've
torn my lace flounce upon that ugly cactus! Just see, Mrs.
Saville!"--to a lady who was passing, revealing the extent of the
rent. "The first time I have ever worn it, too! I don't know what my
careful papa will say. It was a present from him. But, la! who
cares? If he scolds, I'll punish him by paying for it myself. That
will just break his heart. Nothing puts him out so much as for me to
remind him that I can be independent of him if I choose. That is the
way with all you gentlemen--isn't it, Mr. Wyllys?" staring
boldly--she fancied engagingly--up at him. "You would have us owe
everything to you. Bless me! can that be supper? And just as we are
having such a sweet, romantic time! Isn't this just the most
delicious bower in Christendom? I tease my cousin Fanny by insisting
that Lieutenant Averill couldn't help proposing when once she had
got him in here. Not that it can compare in size with our
conservatory. Ours is connected, too, with the graperies, which
makes it perfectly _immense_. Where can Mr. Romondt be? He saw me
come in here, I am certain, for we passed him in the door. He was to
take me in to supper, but I am not in the habit of waiting for my
escorts. It would be just _too_ funny if _I_--of all the women
here--should be thrown upon your protection in the character of the
deserted maiden--wouldn't it?"
"The bliss of succoring you is not to be mine, at present, it
seems," said Orrin, with an adroit, backward bow, as Mr. Romondt
hurried upon the scene, full of apologies, to claim his convoy.
A new caprice seized the belle.
"I protest _he_ ought to be the deserted one, in punishment for his
tardiness!" regaining her hold of Mr. Wyllys' elbow, and making a
resentful _moue_ at the derelict gallant. "I have half a mind to go
off with you and leave him to solitary regrets. Suppose, if I trust
myself to him, my barque should be shipwrecked on the journey?"
It was an awkward moment. The heiress' look and action plainly
testified that hers was no "half mind" to commit herself to the
pilotage of the man who had not invited such a display of
confidence. Wyllys extricated himself promptly and creditably, and
as if her proposal were entirely decorous and ladylike. He had too
much sense and tact ever to patronize one of his own sex, and owed
much of his popularity to the air of respectful _bonhommie_ with
which he now turned to the perspiring and rebuked Romondt.
"Do not try fallible humanity beyond endurance, Miss Sanford! It is
hard to be just and magnanimous in the face of such a temptation,
but right is right. Mr. Romondt! grant me the honor of becoming your
security for the safe and pleasant transfer of _la reine du bal_ to
the supper-room."
Jessie was quivering with merriment in her sheltered nook.
"I have been in mortal terror lest I should not be launched at all,
but be left high and hungry upon the stocks!" she cried gayly, at
her attendant's approach. "And supper is one of the substantial
blessings of life, when one has a good appetite."
Orrin feigned to wipe the dews of exhaustion from his brow with a
despairing flourish of his handkerchief.
"At last I am at your service. You must stay me with flagons (of
champagne), and comfort me with (pine) apples;" he said, profanely
enough, "for I am sick of heiresses!"