Judge Provost, whose wife and daughters were the leaders of fashion
in Hamilton, was himself a social Greatheart. Having brought to bear
upon various vexed domestic problems the force of his astute mind
and enlightened Christianity, he had arrived at a series of
conclusions equally creditable to both. The pertinence of his
deductions was so obvious to the impartial reasoner as to excite his
surprise, that the great body of good and sensible men and women did
not adopt and practise them. For example, he maintained first, that
the best way to keep men out of jails, was to provide them with
abodes so comfortable that they would prefer these to stone cells
and prison fare: secondly, as a modification of the same principle,
that, since amusements are necessary to the happiness of the young,
they should be provided with lawful diversions in their own homes,
lest they should seek unlawful abroad; thirdly, in unconscious
plagiarism of the wise and genial author of "Annals of a Country
Neighborhood," he held and believed for certain, that the surest way
to make an indifferent thing bad, was for good people to hold
themselves aloof from doing it.
Acting upon these principles, the eminent jurist built a
bowling-alley at the back of his garden; caused his eight children
to be instructed in music and dancing, and encouraged them to pursue
these recreations in his parlors,--where, also, lay backgammon and
chess board in full sight. Finally, he crowned their gratification
while he drew upon himself the reprobation of the zealots and
puritans among his neighbors, by throwing a wing out from his
already spacious residence, expressly for a billiard-room. It was a
pretty place, and a cheerful, with its green carpets and lounges,
tinted walls, and long French windows, and was, as may be supposed,
a popular resort with those of the college students who had the
_entree_, as well as with the young Provosts and their friends of
both sexes in the town. A happy, hospitable set were the young
Provosts--the four sisters and four brothers--affectionate to one
another, dutiful and loving to the parents to whose judicious
affection they owed their sunny childhood and youth. Jessie liked
them better than she did any other family in Hamilton, while Fanny,
the second daughter, had taken a fancy to her at first sight, which
was ripening into a cordial friendship.
The billiard-room was very bright with afternoon sunshine, and merry
with the chatter of gay voices, one day late in February, when a
party of six or eight girls was collected about the table--four
playing, the others looking on and talking, sometimes of the game
in progress, sometimes upon other subjects--all in a familiar yet
ladylike way.
"Somebody mark for me, please!" said a ruddy-cheeked damsel who had
never, by any chance, won a game, and whose principal points were
the point she made of missing every shot. "If I should hit anything
it would be a pity not to get credit for it. Now--all of you look
and learn!"
She poised the cue with a superabundance of caution, pursing up her
lips into an O, as she took aim; dashed at the white ball nearest
her, which flew frantically from side to side of the board,
rebounding twice from the cushion, and, at last, popping into a
distant pocket, having dodged every other ball with a malicious
ingenuity eminently illustrative of the proverbial perversity of
inanimate things.
"Better luck next time!" said the player, invincibly good-humored,
resigning her place. "If there is anything in perseverance and hope,
I shall do it yet, some day, and astonish you all."
The others laughed--with, rather than at her--and Jessie Kirke took
the stand she had vacated. All leaned forward to watch her play, her
skill being already an established fact. A touch--not a thrust--to
the white ball sent it against a red at such an angle that in the
rebound it hit another quite at the other end of the green table,
which latter rolled into a pocket. This, to the uninitiated,
meaningless process, being repeated by her, with trifling
variations, until she had made sixteen points, was considered a feat
among the embryo billiardists surrounding her.
"So much for a true eye and a sure touch!" said Fanny Provost. "You
shame us all, Jessie dear."
"So much for having a good teacher!" said another, less
complimentary. "If Mr. Wyllys would bestow as much care upon our
tuition as he has upon hers, we might be adepts, too."
"She has practised ten times as much with me as she has with him,"
answered Fanny, pleasantly. "So, I am entitled to the larger share
of the praise for her proficiency. I will not be cheated of my
laurels."
"Is Mr. Wyllys, then, your best player?"
The querist was Miss Sanford, who "did not care about billiards,"
and had even remonstrated, at the beginning of her visit with her
cousin Fanny, with regard to her liking for the game--"such a queer
one for ladies! She would be afraid to touch a cue for fear she
might be called strong-minded." She had discovered, furthermore,
that her wrists were not stout enough to bear the weight of a cue
steadily, and took pleasure in publishing their genteel fragility.
Only that afternoon she had called attention to this by an
exclamation addressed to Jessie, as she drew up her cuffs in order
to be ready for her turn.
"Dear me! Miss Kirke! what wouldn't I give to be as robust as you
are! Look at her arms! They would make six of mine. What do you do
to develop your muscles so?"
Jessie smiled in quiet satisfaction with her own beautifully moulded
wrists.
"I am healthy, and I lead an active life," she said, laconically,
but politely.
Miss Sanford was not pleased either with smile or words, but there
was apparently nothing to resent, and she returned to her sofa. She
had attended a party the evening before, and was to-day "utterly
worn out." While the game went on, she toyed with her rings, slipped
her bracelets of dead gold and pearls up and down her thin arms, and
now and then yawned behind her hand. Mr. Wyllys' name awoke her from
the apathetic droning.
"Decidedly!" replied a looker-on, Selina Bradley by name--a
kind-hearted, talkative, and indiscreet girl whom everybody liked,
yet of whose tripping tongue many were afraid. "Decidedly the best
in town. Don't you think so, Fan?"
"There are not many who can equal him among our finest billiard
players," said Fanny. "I do not believe he has lost a game since Mr.
Fordham went away. _He_ played splendidly! His nerves were steady
and his judgment nice."
"Fordham!" repeated the heiress, quickly. "What was his first name?
Who is he?"
"Roy--and he is a professor in our college. He is now in Heidelberg,
Germany. Do you know him?" said Fanny, in surprise. "You must have
heard us speak of him before."
"Never! I used to know him," rejoined Miss Sanford, tossing her
head. "He was engaged to a very dear friend of mine. No! I didn't
know he was in Germany. I am glad of it!"
Selina, breathless with excitement, did not catch the meaning of the
latter sentences.
"Engaged! I thought he was love-proof! Fanny! Nettie! Sue! do you
hear this? Who do you guess is engaged to be married? No less a
personage than our invulnerable Professor Fordham!"
The girls crowded about Miss Sanford, forgetting the game in the
superior attractions of a love-story.
"To whom?"
"Who told you?"
"I don't believe it!" were the divers comments upon the
intelligence.
Jessie remained alone at the table, tapping the cushion opposite her
with her cue, her face flaming with indignant confusion. Taken
utterly by surprise, she could not at once rally to reply to the
false statement she had heard, or govern her countenance well enough
to seem indifferent.
The heiress bridled at the last remark, setting back her head in a
fashion she conceived was regal, whereas it was merely ungracefully
scornful.
"You are not asked to believe it, Miss Barnes! I said distinctly
that the gentleman was _formerly_ betrothed to my friend. I am
happy, on her account, to be able to state that the (to her)
unfortunate engagement was broken almost a year since."
"What do you mean? How did it happen? And to think we never heard a
breath of it! Go on! there's a darling! and tell us all about it!"
entreated Selina, sinking to the carpet at the feet of the in nowise
reluctant newsmonger.
"Perhaps you had rather not, Hester," suggested gentle Fanny to her
cousin. "Such stories are painful to those interested in either of
the parties to the engagement, and the telling does no good to any
one. The fewer people that hear of them the better, it seems to me."
"Oh! I don't mind it in the least _now_!" Hester hastened to
re-assure her. She settled the voluminous skirt of her purple
cashmere peignoir about her; disposed her rings upon her fingers,
and her fingers upon her lap to her liking; sighed profoundly, and
looked smirkingly sentimental. "There was a time when I could not
allude to it, or even think of it, without tears. My disposition is
_so_ sympathetic! But time deadens all griefs, and my poor friend
acknowledges herself that it was best the affair should have
terminated as it did. She met Mr. Fordham at the seashore summer
before last--was with him there for a week or so. It was long enough
for him to fall violently in love with her. He couldn't help being
taken by her appearance, for she is just perfectly lovely! a blonde,
with blue eyes, and a red rose-bud of a mouth, and golden hair, and
the _sweetest_ smile!"
"She must be a real beauty!" sighed Selina, in an ecstasy of
admiration.
"She is. People pretend to see a resemblance between us. I have
actually been mistaken for her more than once--but that is all
nonsense," said Hester, modestly. "I should be just too happy if I
were half as handsome as Maria. But I love her too dearly to be
envious. We are like twin sisters in heart. I dare say that is the
reason we are called so much alike. We go out so much together, you
see, that the sight of one reminds people of the other, you know.
But as I was saying, this Mr. Fordham pretended to be smitten with
her, and, early in the winter, visited her at her own home. Her
parents liked him exceedingly. He is rather an imposing man, you
know, and has some reputation as a scholar. So, when he paid a
second visit at Christmas, and offered himself, there was no
objection raised to the match. Poor, dear, deluded Maria! how happy
she was! All went swimmingly for about six weeks, when, without
warning, he broke the engagement. And why, do you suppose? He had
heard that one of her sisters had died of consumption several years
before he knew her, and he 'could not be hampered by a sickly
wife!'"
She waited until the chorus of reprobation subsided, then resumed:
"He wrote to her. Iron man as he was, he was afraid to trust himself
in her presence. He 'regretted the necessity that forced him to this
unpleasant step,' he said, 'but he owed a duty to himself which was
not to be lightly put aside. He should always remain her friend,'
and all that sort of rubbish, you know. The broken-hearted creature
stooped to argue with him. She loved him devotedly, and she had had
no other love. If I had been in her place, I would have died sooner
than let him know how I suffered; but she was _such_ a lamb-like,
gentle creature! and her spirit was utterly crushed. She wrote to
him, imploring him not to leave her, representing that there was not
a sign of hereditary consumption in the family; that her parents
were living, and that her grand-parents on both sides had all died
from other diseases. But he was obstinate. He 'would never,' he
replied, 'in any circumstances, marry a woman who was not, in his
opinion, perfectly sound in mind and body, or who had any
predisposition to scrofula, consumption, or insanity.' He pretended
to believe still that she had the seeds of a fatal malady in her
system, and went so far as to allude to her beautiful color--just
the sweetest pink and white you ever saw!--as a hectic flush.
_That's_ the history of Mr. Roy Fordham's love-scrape!"
"And did she break a blood-vessel, or go into a decline?" asked Sue
Barnes, her round face ludicrously elongated, while her eyelids
twinkled away a sympathizing tear.
"Well--no!" Miss Sanford hesitated, then made the admission
unwillingly, evidently appreciating the damage her mournful recital
must sustain through the want of this orthodox sequel. "But she was
in a sad way for awhile. Her family kept the miserable affair as
quiet as possible for her sake. The truth was communicated to nobody
except a few very intimate and dearest friends. But you can't wonder
that I have hated the sound of Professor Fordham's name ever since."
"Very natural, I am sure!" murmured the plastic Sue.
Hester made a parade of wiping her eyes with a lace handkerchief.
"Not that I ever liked him. Poor Maria brought him around to our
house, one evening, on purpose to have me see him. And the next
morning she was in, bright and early, to ask what I thought of him.
'I don't fancy him in the least, my dear child,' I said to her,
candidly. 'He has a cold, severe eye, and a stubborn mouth. He is
quiet in manner because he is unfeeling. If you marry him, he will
rule you with a rod of steel, and make your life a burden.' It was a
trial to say it, but I knew it was my duty, and I didn't turn back,
you know. She cried her eyes out over what she said was my
unkindness, and left me in a tremendous huff. She would neither
speak to me, nor hear my name mentioned in her presence, until the
rupture came. Then she sent right away for me, and fell upon my
neck, begging my pardon. 'If I had been as clear-sighted as you,
Hester, what wretchedness I would have been spared!' she sobbed. I
am very acute in my perception of character. My grandmother, Mrs.
General Deane--my mother's mother--said to her dying day that my
skill in seeing through people--especially sheep in wolves'
clothing--I mean wolves in sheep's clothing--was--well! the most
astonishing thing she had ever seen."
Jessie was knocking the balls to and fro, in reckless disregard of
the laws controlling the game, but the sharp click of the ivory
spheres did not distract general attention from Miss Sanford.
"I never was more amazed in all my born days!" said Selina,
conscientiously reserved with respect to her pre-natal experience.
"Mr. Fordham is so pleasant, yet so dignified, and ranks so high in
the Faculty and the church, and has so much influence among the
students! Who could ever have thought of his behaving in such an
inhuman and ungentlemanly manner?"
"Why, people in Hamilton--everybody--out of the college as well as
in, consider him a piece of perfection!" added Sue.
"He is a detestable snake in the grass, then!" Hester said,
vehemently, her energy so disproportionate to the occasion, that
doubts would have arisen, in an unbiassed mind, of her own belief in
the affecting narration she had glibly poured forth.
"Take care, dear!" cautioned Fanny. "There may be extenuating
circumstances of which we are ignorant. Mr. Fordham's character as a
gentleman and a Christian is not to be lightly disputed. Every
question has two sides, papa says, and those are wisest who suspend
judgment until both are heard. I am morally certain there is some
mistake about all this, which Mr. Fordham could clear up, if he were
here."
The heiress sniffed haughtily, and her light skin was dappled with
fiery red spots to the roots of her hair; her faint eyebrows met in
a viragoish frown.
"I thank you for the inference, Miss Provost! Would I repeat a story
unless I was sure--'morally certain,' as you say, that it was true
in every particular? If you question my veracity, you can ask dozens
of her acquaintances in her native place, who will confirm my
statement. And you may be thankful if you don't, at the same time,
hear some other ugly facts about your Christian gentleman, that I
have chosen to omit. If I have a fault, it is that I am too
charitable in my judgment of human nature. I am perpetually being
imposed upon."
The cue that had been stationary while Fanny put in her plea for
mercy to the absent perjurer, was restless again, red balls and
white chasing one another aimlessly across the green cloth.
"To tell the truth," said Nettie Fry, another of the listening
group, propitiatory of the mistress of a million in her own
right,--"I never admired Mr. Fordham so much as many pretend to do.
He was always so cool and lofty--so unapproachable and unlike other
young men of his age. And as Miss Sanford says, he looked as if he
might, when married, grow into a kind of Bluebeard."
"For my part, I thought him grand and good," confessed Selina. "And
I liked him a hundred times better than I did the modern young
gentleman, with his flattering speeches and unmeaning attentions. I
didn't think he _could_ trifle with a woman's affections. I am
dreadfully disappointed! I wonder if Mr. Wyllys knows anything about
this shocking business!"
"Of course he doesn't! How should he?" retorted Hester, tartly.
"There are not three people besides myself, even in our city, who
ever heard of it."
"You said 'dozens,' just now, Hester!" ventured merciful Fanny, in
gentle rebuke.
Selina averted the burst of anger portended by the darkening visage
of the moneyed belle.
"I thought Mr. Wyllys would be more likely to hear Mr. Fordham's
side of the story than anybody else," she said, timidly. "You know
they are own cousins."
"You don't say so!" ejaculated Hester, horrified; and by a
simultaneous conviction of their indiscretion, the entire party was
moved to glance at Jessie.
She appreciated the extreme awkwardness of the pause; felt that
their eyes were directed, like so many burning-glasses, to a focus
that was herself, and mechanically went on playing with her cue and
balls. Only Fanny Provost was in a position from which she could see
that while her features were steady, and her eyes seemed to follow
the red and white spheroids in their windings and doublings, one
swollen vein in her throat was beating like a clock, and the nails
were bloodless where they pressed upon the cue.
"Come! we must finish our game!" said the young hostess, going back
to the table. "Jessie has been perfecting her skill by a bit of
private practice, while we were making havoc of our neighbors'
characters."
At heart she was exceedingly displeased with the tale-bearer, but
the courtesy of hospitality forbade her more emphatic expression of
disapproval.
Jessie threw down the slender rod, and tried, very unsuccessfully,
to laugh.
"I have done nothing except spoil your game for you. I thought you
had found an occupation so far preferable that you would not care to
go on with this. I give up my cue and my place. You must choose
other partners and commence anew. I have forgotten how the balls
were set up when we stopped to listen to Miss Sanford's thrilling
romance. I must go now, Fanny. My time is up!"
Bowing a general "Good afternoon," she made her way to the library
where she had left her hat and cloak. Fanny accompanied her.
"You will join us again this evening, I hope," she said, kindly.
"Mr. Wyllys is to give us some music. Hester has never heard him
sing. By a somewhat strange series of mischances, she has never
happened to be present when he gave the rest of us this pleasure.
She cannot endure contradiction, as you see; so when she insisted I
should ask him for to-night, I complied, I am often thankful,
Jessie, that I am not an only child, when I see how restless and
irritable so much notice and petting has made her. It is a downright
misfortune to be so wealthy as she is. Everything and everybody
conspires to spoil her. She is more to be pitied than blamed, poor
girl!"
Jessie said nothing in rejoinder to this ingenious apology for her
cousin's ill-natured tattling, and Fanny was obliged to proceed
directly to the point.
"I am sorry if you are leaving thus early on account of anything
Hester has said," she continued, genuine concern depicted in her
countenance--"sorry if the slur cast by the idle talk of a party of
thoughtless girls upon the character of your--of our friend, Mr.
Wyllys' cousin--has wounded or displeased you. Hester does not mean
to exaggerate or misrepresent, but she has a wild, careless fashion
of talking sometimes. I am convinced that there is some great
mistake in the story we have heard. In details and in general
bearing, it is not in keeping with Mr. Fordham's well-established
character. If you knew him, you would agree with me in discrediting
it, _in toto_."
"I do know him, and I quite agree with you!"
Jessie was tying on her hat, and the action might have caused the
slight quaver and weakness in her voice. It was firmer when she
spoke again. Fanny, in consternation at the unexpected disclosure,
and the manner which said that more was behind the mere statement,
could not summon words for reply.
"Mr. Wyllys' cousin"--with unconscious emphasis, Fanny imagined was
disdainful--"is not a stranger to me. I have known him a long time.
But say nothing to your friends about the acquaintanceship. They
might fear they had offended me by their strictures. I will--I may
tell you more some other time. You will comprehend then why certain
things which were said just now, have excited me more than I care to
show. You are always just and tender-hearted, and I thank you for
speaking when I could not. Good-by!"
Her lips were set and hard to Fanny's soft kiss, and her eyes glowed
dangerously as the latter attended her to the front door. The
peace-maker, noting this, refrained from further endeavors to heal
the breach between her relative and her new friend. Hester had been
shockingly, shamefully imprudent, even if what she stated were true.
Jessie was hurt and angry, and she had a right to be. Yet she,
Fanny, dared not advance another step without a more distinct
understanding of the case. For the present it was beyond her art.
She tried to content herself by a cordial invitation to "run in
to-morrow forenoon for a quiet billiard-practice--only you and
myself--if you do not think better of your refusal to come
to-night," and let her visitor go.