A MOTHER'S CARES.
Mrs Naylor went back to her chair to digest the information she had
received. Pork and Pugwash were not ideas attractive to her refined
imagination; but if there was money! The sons of "first families" in
the East were sent West at times, she knew. Why not to Pugwash as well
as other places? If Mr Aurelius Sefton were indeed well off, even
Pugwash might be an endurable place to live in. Millinery is sent from
New York by express all over the country, and railways have brought
Everywhere within reach of civilisation. "Yes; if the man had his hair
cut, and his manners chastened down by a judicious mother-in-law, he
really was not ill-looking. She would find out brother Joseph, and bid
him have an eye on the man, and try what he could find out about him
from the other people in the house. It did seem, to see the pair still
circling cheerfully together, as if something might be brought to
pass, if that were desirable. Yet, if it were not, she must see that
the girl did not compromise herself, and get classed with the easily
accessible." "Ah!" she said to herself, "the anxieties of a fond
mother! How are my poor nerves to stand the strain of settling those
two girls?" She realised how good she was, feeling strengthened
thereby, and almost heroic, as she rose and moved slowly round the
outskirts of the dance in search of her brother-in-law.
The company was more numerous than usual that evening. A brass band
from Lippenstock stood on the verandah, and brayed waltzes in through
the open windows; and three or four omnibus-loads of strangers from
Blue Fish Creek, some miles along the shore, had arrived to assist.
The rooms were full, and it was not easy to pick out any one in the
crowd. She made her way from doorway to doorway and past the windows,
outside which the men not actively engaged were wont to lounge; but no
Joseph could she see--though it was in such situations that he
generally stood watching the gambols he no longer cared to join. She
walked along the neighbouring galleries; but these seemed taken
possession of by dancers cooling off, and sauntering in the moonlight
till they were ready for another start.
At last, in the shadow of a pillar and leaning on the balustrade, she
came upon a pair looking out seaward, in intimate talk. She thought
she recognised something in the gentleman's back, and figure, and
close-cropped hair. She almost fancied she knew him; yet who could he
be? The lady wore a dress less simple than the attire of the other
girls that evening. There was a shimmer of satin here and there among
the dimness of thinner fabric--
"Like glints of moonshine in a clouded sky"--
and the suggestion of pale yellow, with a bunch of crimson on the
shoulder, where it reached beyond the shadow which fell on the rest of
the figure.
Mrs Naylor was a woman; and while she might not be able to recall the
back of her own father, a gown once seen was imprinted on her memory,
and she recognised it at once. "Miss Hillyard," she said to herself,
"the heroine--in her lovely Paris dress. I wonder whom she has got
there. That is not the contradictious Scotch schoolmaster, at any
rate, with his awkward knees and elbows. The men seem wild about her.
Natural, that, in the men. But a little unfeminine," she could not
help thinking, "in a lady to swim so well. And it would have been in
better taste if she had dressed more quietly for this once, after
making herself so remarkable in the morning. But then she is a Yankee,
and perhaps not altogether a lady. One never knows how to class those
people. Best let them alone;" and her thoughts reverted to Mr Sefton
of Pugwash, and she felt much inclined to return to the ball-room and
get Lucy away from him without further seeking enlightenment.
At that moment the gentleman in shadow began to speak more loudly,
pointing to where the moonlight made a patch of flickering lustre on
the hazy sea.
"How bright the moonlight lies out yonder on the water! Every ripple
catches it a moment and throws it back, till the surface seems to
burn.... How different it was this morning! How different it must be
down deep below, and how easily I might be there now--cold and stiff,
rolling amongst the sea-weed, and slime, and things nibbling in the
darkness! It is a horrible reflection, and it would have come true if
it had not been for you."
The lady demurred, and moved, and asked if they had not better go in
now; and Mrs Naylor beheld her brother-in-law turn round and lead his
companion back among the dancers.
She could scarcely believe her eyes. Joseph was forty-seven. She knew
the date of his birth. He had never cared to dance within her
recollection, and she had known him almost since her marriage. She
remembered his coming home from sea about that time, a sad-eyed youth,
who avoided company, and lived in a sort of patient gloom, finding his
sole distraction in close application to business. Her husband
whispered that he had met with a disappointment into which they must
not pry, but rather strive by unspoken sympathy and kindness to
reconcile him to his lot, and wean him from his sorrow.
In time the cloud upon his spirits had seemed to lift. He was too
kind-hearted not to take interest in the people among whom he lived;
and, sympathising with them in their joys, his own depression by
degrees was lightened. A man's capacity, even for suffering, is
limited. Divide his attention, and you mitigate the intensity of his
woes. It is the self-centred egotist whose troubles kill him, or may
drive him mad, because he is incapable of distraction. To Joseph the
better part of his life had seemed over, and work his only remaining
resource. Yet he had never closed his heart against the cares and
pleasures of his fellows, and he felt a wholesome interest in all that
went on around him, like a father watching the opening hopes of
children, who have not learnt to misgive, or dread the nipping frosts
of disappointment.
His sister-in-law, not being addicted to moral analysis, probably did
not consider this; but she had seen his despondency clear away, and
knew that he was the kindest, most cheerful, and most popular man she
had ever met--ready to join in every pastime, and differing from the
rest only in a premature middle-aged benevolence, setting in before he
was thirty, which found pleasure in amusing others, without seeking
anything for himself. He had seemed impervious to female charms
through all the years she had known him, and especially he had avoided
dances--or if by chance he found himself at one, only joining when
charity led him to the side of some neglected wallflower. And here he
was to-night, when there was no benevolent occasion for it whatever,
leading out the best-dressed woman in the room, with an ardour which
would have seemed more natural in him twenty years before. True, the
lady had saved his life; but it seemed a droll way of manifesting
gratitude to _dance_ with her, at his age. Her eyebrows made a
satirical twitch upwards, and she sighed impatiently at men's lack of
common-sense. The present was no time to unburden her anxieties--that
was plain; and meanwhile she would saunter round the crowd, and watch
him in his new character of middle-aged youngster.
The evening was warm, but in the dancing-room it was positively hot.
The atmosphere quivered with the blare of sounding brass, and the
whirling figures, chasing the fleeting strains, raised a sirocco of
sultry air and dust. Still the young people seemed to like it, and Mrs
Naylor looked on in wonder, forgetting that she had once been young
herself. But who were those in the farthest corner, keeping themselves
so well clear of the hurrying hubbub?--revolving dreamily on the
outer edge, in perfect sympathy and time, and in an orbit of their
own--avoiding collision with the meteors and comets of the greater
system, spinning calmly and smoothly on the flood of sound, engrossed
with themselves, and indifferent to all the world beside.
She looked again. The girl was her own daughter Margaret; but who was
the man in whose arms she was so restfully and intimately revolving?
Her self-reliant daughter was not wont to dance in that clinging
fashion, and she could not imagine what dweller at Clam Beach could
have won her to such unaccustomed softness. What masterful bird could
so have won upon the fancy of her favourite chick? Was he one of the
proper sort? But Margaret was too high-spirited to take up with a
cross-breed, and she felt less solicitous than had it been that
featherhead Lucy. Still she was curious to know who could have tamed
proud Meg to so mild a demeanour. It was not young Petty. She could
have wished that it had been. This one was not so tall, neither was he
raw-looking, as--candour compelled the admission--was Mr Walter
Petty--just a little; but then he was young yet, and it would soon
wear off, with his prospects and assured position. This one was
thoroughly in possession of himself and all his limbs. How deftly he
steered and threaded their way, without stop or collision, among the
less skilful dancers! How strong he looked, and calm, without
heaviness! She could have wished herself young again, to be danced
with by a partner such as he. In their continuous whirling, and the
perpetual intervening of other couples, she could not make out or
recognise his face. After a while they stopped, and she moved from
where she had been standing, to get a better view. How intimately
Margaret stood up to him and talked, with her flapping fan interposed
between them and the rest of the world!
Mrs Naylor's curiosity increased, and she drew nearer. "What!" she
almost cried out aloud. "Walter Blount! How comes he here? This must
not be!" And flushing, and tightening her lips, she walked across to
where they stood. To think that after all the management she had
expended in making her brother-in-law bring them to the seaside, and
so remove her girl for a while beyond the reach of the "detrimental"
whose fascinations threatened to ruin her prospects, the aggravating
youth should have followed them! It was too provoking. She sniffed
indignantly, and bore down on the offenders, tightening her lace shawl
about her shoulders, and looking tall and stately with all her might.
"Margaret, my dear," she said, "you are dancing a great deal too much.
You will be knocked up to-morrow, and I mean you to accompany me to
Boston."
Margaret was taken aback. Her mother's habitual seat was in the
conversation-room, at the other end of the suite, with two pairs of
folding-doors and all the dancers between. It was to avoid her
observation that they had been confining their career to this far-off
corner, and her sweeping thus down on them was altogether unexpected.
She let go her partner's arm, and with drooping eye and pouting lip
prepared to follow her mother, like a naughty child detected in the
act.
"Mrs Naylor," said Blount, "will you not speak to me?"
"How d'ye do, Mr Blount? I was not aware you were at Clam Beach."
"It used to be 'Walter,' and you allowed me to call you aunt. Why this
change?"
"That was nonsense. We are not related. You are not a stripling now,
Mr Blount, and my daughters have grown to be young women since then."
"That does not make me feel the less regard for you and them, dear Mrs
Naylor. It is not our fault that we grow older."
"Why have you left your farm? These haunts of idleness and dissipation
are no good place for a young man who should be making his fortune.
Your stock will be straying and breaking down fences; and how is your
harvest-work to go on in your absence? I am sure your friends would
not approve if they knew."
"I have sold the farm--sold it very well--and I shall soon be looking
out for another."
"I am sorry to hear you are becoming unsettled. Roving from place to
place is the sure way for a young man to ruin himself. Remember the
proverb about rolling stones.... Now, Margaret, if you are ready we
will go." And drawing her daughter's arm through her own, she sailed
away, leaving Blount disconsolate.
"I am amazed, Margaret, at your want of common-sense and proper
feeling," she began, as she led the captive back by the gallery
towards the place where she was wont to sit. But she got no further
with her harangue. Mr Peter Wilkie, coming through a window,
intercepted her retreat, requesting Margaret for the favour of a
dance.
Margaret was declining with thanks, being in no mood for further
exercise; but her mother, whose brow had cleared at once on the
new-comer's appearance, interposed.
"Indeed, Margaret, I think a dance would do you good. What an
oppressive evening, Mr Wilkie! We came out here for a breath of
coolness, but I do think it is better for young people not to yield.
The more you give way to the heat, Margaret, my dear, the limper you
will become. A dance with a good partner is far the best way of
throwing off the oppression."
Margaret felt a little doubtful about the goodness of the partner, but
she said nothing, and took Mr Peter's arm without further demur. What
did it matter? Her evening was irretrievably spoilt. Besides, her
mother meant to be disagreeable--that was abundantly plain--and she
had better accept the offered deliverance. She accompanied Peter back
into the room. She laid her hand on his shoulder and they began to
dance.
If there is no method of motion more perfect than a good waltz, there
is no purgatory so grievous as a bad one. Racing, stumbling, jolting,
and running into other couples, with the danger of getting entangled
among the feet and knees of her partner at every stride, and her ear
outraged by his disregard of the music, Margaret could only liken
their progress to a hurdle-race at a country fair, as they broke
through the bars of the music, or cleared them helter-skelter. At
length she was able to stop, and Mr Peter, somewhat giddy, and holding
on till his head grew steady, drew a long breath.
"Heh! that was fine! The best dance I've had to-night. You and me suit
one another splendid, Miss Margaret. Let's have another turn. Are you
ready?"
"Really, Mr Wilkie, you must let me rest a moment, I am quite out of
breath;" and she fanned herself industriously, taking care, however,
not to include the partner this time. "How oppressive it is here! Do
you not think a breath of fresh air on the gallery would be pleasant?"
and Mr Wilkie, without at all intending it, found himself promenading
in the moonlight, when he would rather have been regaling the company
with his antics in the dance. Like other rugged and ungraceful men, he
had a high opinion of his personal graces; and his doting mother, who
worshipped his very shadow, had conspired with his natural vanity to
breed a self-admiration which tempted him in expansive moments to
display himself before an admiring world. He would have liked to
exhibit under the lights in the crowded ball-room, with this fine girl
hung gracefully on his shoulder, as he knew she could pose herself;
but if that was not to be, at least she was a young person of
intelligence who could appreciate a man of talent. He resigned himself
to the comparative seclusion, stroked his chin, and cleared his voice,
preparatory to saying something smart.
What the observation was to have been, nobody knows. It is in Limbo
with other good things which have missed their opportunity. It was
Margaret who spoke--
"Mr Blount! You out here! Found it too warm inside? So did we. How
pleasant it is here!"
At that moment the music ceased. The dance was ended, and Mr Peter
Wilkie, his smart saying unsaid, found himself exchanging a
valedictory smile with his companion, who somehow had become detached
from him, and, before he well understood the situation, was wafting
away with Mr Blount, leaving him alone with his handsome shadow in the
moonlight.