THERE was an influx of new blood in Yerbury, and it brought in fresh
ideas. A new railroad touched it at one edge, and real-estate dealers
left off fighting about Larch Avenue. The ancient stages were laid aside
for the more modern horse-cars: there was bustle and rivalry on every
hand. George Eastman began to be quoted, and his advice asked generally.
Mrs. Eastman held her head loftily. Then there came on the arena of
action a certain Horace Eastman, cousin to George, who had been abroad
as agent for a large firm, and who slipped into the place of general
manager of Hope Mills.
Plainly, F. De Woolfe Lawrence was not preparing to follow in his
father's steps. He had graduated with honors, and taken a prize essay,
and was now a fully-fledged modern young man. He was fond of discoursing
on abstruse subjects, he dabbled a little into art, wrote some mystical
poems, tied a cravat beyond criticism, and wore faultless gloves and
boots. His mother and Mrs. Eastman were extremely proud of him. His
father wondered a little what the young man's future would be.
"I have not decided upon a profession," he said, with a just perceptible
but extremely stylish drawl. "The next thing is going abroad. I want at
least two years of travel, and I should not wonder if I settled myself
at some German or Parisian university. We, as a nation, are so sadly
deficient in culture. Our country is crude, as I suppose all young
countries must be."
David Lawrence nodded slowly, and asked,--
"When did you think of going?"
"I may as well go at once, and have it over," returned the young man,
with the princely indifference he affected.
His father did not dissent. As well in Europe as here, or anywhere.
As for Jack, he was quite as much out of his reach as if the ocean
already rolled between. They used to pass each other quietly, nodding if
they came face to face, but often evading any kind of recognition. Was
the old regard dead?
Fred smiled rather pityingly on the boy who had been so blinded in his
first love.
"I used to think him such a hero, because he once thrashed a boy in my
behalf," mused the young man. "And how I used to fly at the girls, who
were always looking at the feet of clay my idol possessed! How I _did_
coax him to go to college!" and Fred gave a little rippling laugh. "I
must admit that he has good common sense,--he has found his place, and
keeps it. There could be nothing between us now, of course. My lines lie
in such different ways."
No moan for a lost ideal under all that self-complacency.
Jack Darcy took the defection in good part. He did see the utter
incongruity of keeping up even the semblance of the old dream. But,
where Fred had made dozens of new friends, Jack had admitted no one to
his vacant shrine. He liked, even now, to recall those old hours, so
bright and gay with childish whims and frolics. And he did envy Fred,
just a little, that ramble over Europe. Would it be a ramble? It was
Jack's turn to smile. Would it not be bits and pictures seen through
coach-windows, rather than getting close to Nature's heart? No, that
would not suit _him_.
And so glided by two more years. De Woolfe Lawrence--he had dropped the
initial now--returned home in a still higher state of cultivation, and
quite as undecided as to his future career. A life of leisure and
_belles-lettres_ looked the most tempting to him. He had read up a
little in medicine, but the practice would not please his fastidious
inclinations. Law had its objections. In fact, Mr. Lawrence had dropped
into that dilettante state into which extreme cultivation, without
genius or ambition, is apt to drift its possessor. He was nearing
twenty-four now,--handsome, aristocratic, the pride of his family, and
the distraction of young women in general. Invitations were showered
upon him, and the delicate flattery society loves to use, ministered to
his vanity.
Meanwhile what of Jack?
He had improved considerably through these years. The rough angularity
of twenty had softened. Tall, but robust and compact, no stooping
shoulders or slouching gait. The chestnut hair was no longer faded, but
still cropped close; and the eyes were so deep that they seemed to have
a blue-black tint, large, slow-moving, with that unutterable wistfulness
which makes one sad. The face was good, strong, and earnest; and, if his
manners were not those of a gentleman of leisure, they bore the impress
of something quite as noble, honor, tenderness, and sincerity. The old
restlessness had dropped out. Love, being larger than duty, hinted now
at no sacrifice. Grandmother Darcy, now grown quite feeble, leaned on
this strong arm, always outstretched, forgetting there had ever been any
wild dreams of youth.
And, though Yerbury had changed so much, they and the old street
remained unchanged. Mrs. Darcy was a little thinner and older, the light
hair just touched with silver. The garden was the same: wherever his
father's favorite flowers had died out, Jack had replaced them. Only the
honeysuckle was like great twisted ropes, and the syringas and lilacs
were trees instead of bushes.
Old neighbors had gone, and new ones come, but they were of the quiet,
steady kind. Miss Barry seemed smaller and frailer, but she was as
active as ever in her refined way. Sylvie no longer came to the gate for
milk: indeed, the wide-eyed Alderney had long been given up, and Sylvie
was a young woman. Irene Lawrence had been sent to a fashionable
boarding-school; but Sylvie had been educated at home, under her aunt's
eye, by a French governess who had proved something more than a mere
teacher. The coming of Madame Trépier served to cement more closely the
intimacy with the Darcy family. Indeed, Jack took a queer, half-shy
liking for madame, and began to study French. He had a great fondness
for music, and a fine, rich tenor-voice: so he and Sylvie sang duets
together, and often walked in the twilight with madame. Indeed, Miss
Barry would have kept her for friend and companion all the rest of her
life; but there came a very persistent wooer, and madame succumbed a
second time to the destiny of women.
Sylvie Barry was piquant rather than pretty: a soft peachy skin neither
dark nor fair, with a creamy tint; deep lustrous hazel eyes, that seemed
to change with her moods; hair that had barely shaken off the golden
tint, and clustered in rings about the low broad forehead; a passable
nose of no particular design, but a really beautiful mouth and chin, the
latter dimpled, the former with a short curved upper lip, displaying the
pearly teeth at the faintest smile; barely medium height, with a figure
that was slim yet not thin, rounded, graceful, pliant, with some of the
swift dazzling motions of a bird.
While Jack and Fred had drifted so apart, Sylvie and Irene still kept up
a curious friendship. On Sylvie's part there was no election: indeed,
Irene in her imperious fashion took Sylvie up as the mood seized her.
Mrs. Lawrence, now quite an invalid, was fond of Sylvie's bright face
and gay inspiriting voice. In Irene's absence she was often sending for
her. "Play me a little song before you go," she would say; or, "Read a
chapter in my book for me, will you not? You always make people seem so
real." Consequently Sylvie had never left off going to the great house.
Mrs. Eastman would fain have patronized her, but in her spirited way she
shook off the faintest attempt. But Irene flew to her, and insisted upon
a croquet-party or a drive, or a musical soirée.
"I can't do without you, you obstinate little thing," she would exclaim.
"I don't know why I take so much trouble about you; for I don't believe
you like me at all, but just tolerate me for the sake of old times.
There are twenty girls in Yerbury who would go wild with delight if I
were to ask them."
"Why do you not, then?" inquired Sylvie with a tantalizing light in her
eyes.
"Because I don't choose to, Miss Impertinence! Don't be cross now, and
torment me to death with your perverse ways."
"You surely need not be tormented."
"Sylvie, you are exasperating."
"Why do you ask me, then, or tease me to do any of these things? I would
rather stay at home to-day, and paint."
"But I shall not give you up. I'll stay here, and talk so that your wits
will wander!"
And so at last Sylvie would consent to her friend's demands.
One evening she came over to discuss a costume for a fancy-dress
garden-party. Mrs. Eastman had brought some fashion-plates up from New
York, but they did not altogether suit her fancy: so the carriage was
ordered, and in a few moments it rolled to Sylvie's door.
Sylvie and Jack were at the piano. There was a soft, drizzling,
summer-night rain, that made all the air fragrant without any noisy
patter. It was just the evening for an old Latin hymn; and Sylvie was
playing the strong, rich chords that had in them mysterious hints of
heavenly joy, coming up through waves of passionate suffering. Jack's
voice seemed toned to these sympathetic vibrations, and the grand old
words rolled out simply, with none of the vicious taste of the more
modern fashionable school. So engrossed were they, that they did not
hear the carriage stop; but Sylvie caught her aunt's voice.
They had reached the end of a verse. "Let me see what auntie wants,"
said Sylvie, running into the next room; and then it was, "Oh, Irene!
oh, Sylvie!"
"Singing to yourself in the twilight!" laughed Irene. "How romantic! I'm
going to interrupt you now, and put you in better business. I am just
loaded down with the excellent fripperies of this world, and unable to
make a choice. And the grand occasion is Mrs. Avery Langton's
garden-party. Now, be good-natured, and help me decide."
Uttering this in a rapid breath, she had walked through the sitting-room
to the parlor, and tumbled her parcel down on the great antique sofa,
whose edges everywhere were studded with brass nails. And there stood
Jack, thinking, if he had been quicker, he could have stepped out of the
window into Miss Sylvie's pretty flower-bed, now purple with odorous
heliotrope. But, as he had not, there was nothing to do but to stand his
ground manfully.
He had often seen Irene Lawrence in the carriage and on horseback; but
as she stepped into the room now, and stood there rather surprised, she
might have been a daughter of Juno. Tall, slender, arrowy straight, but
lithe and faultlessly rounded, her fleecy white shawl like a gossamer
web falling off her shoulders, her haughty carriage, her wealth of
purple-black hair coiled about her shapely head, a hundred times
handsomer than any artifice of dressing, her brilliant complexion, her
large eyes with their long sweeping lashes that veiled their depth, but
seemed to add a certain imperiousness, her coral-red lips that shaped
differently with every breath, her straight nose, with the nostrils thin
as a bit of shell, and the softly rounded chin, made her a picture that
Jack Darcy never forgot.
"Oh!" in a tone of surprise, "I thought you were alone: pardon me."
Sylvie was bringing in another lamp, and placed it on the great clawfoot
centre-table. Then it occurred to her that Irene might not know Jack.
She should recognize him here socially, anyhow.
"My friend Miss Lawrence," she said with a world of dignity, "Mr.
Darcy."
Jack bowed, in no wise abashed by this proud and handsome Miss Lawrence,
though as a child she had snubbed him many a time. And she glanced him
over with a sudden interest. It was a manly face and a manly figure; and
she wondered from what remote corner of the earth Sylvie Barry had
summoned this fair, stout giant, who made her think of the Norse gods of
her childish romances. She always liked strength: Sylvie was for
tenderness, pathos, and beauty.
"Good-evening," inclining her proud head. "Did I interrupt? You were
singing?"
"That is finished," returned Sylvie, with her peculiar manner, as if,
being hostess here, she should have proper respect paid to her position;
and each guest should be as deferent to the other as if she were a
little queen, and this her court.
She picked up a stray piece of music that had fallen to the floor,
seated Irene, and half turned to Jack. Any other woman might have been
awkward.
"I will leave you two ladies to yourselves," began Jack; but Irene
interrupted,--
"No, Mr. Darcy: I shall think I have driven you away;" with a beguiling
smile. "If you understand music, you may have a taste in the fine arts
of dress as well. At all events, look over these elegant women in their
party-gowns, and tell me which is fairest and rarest."
The honesty of the glance, although it was coquettish, told Jack that
Miss Irene did not remember him. For, of all the haughty Lawrence women,
she had the name of being the haughtiest. She gathered up her skirts in
other people's houses when the plebeian element came too near. Now she
waved him to a chair, and gently sank into another, her trailing robe of
thin filmy black with golden flecks falling about her like clouds in a
gusty sky.
He took the seat indicated. Some strange feeling moved him, an
enchantment that he had never before experienced. The very air about her
was filled with a subtle, indescribable perfume that he should always
associate with a tall, dark-eyed woman,--a glimpse of the Orient and its
sweetness, he fancied.
Sylvie took her place, and began to tumble over the colored plates.
"I'm so tired of those Watteau things!" began Miss Lawrence
disdainfully. "They all savor of bread-and-butter girls,--a shepherdess
with her crook,--bah! And I've been Marie Stuart so many times. If it
were a masquerade; but garden-parties are beginning to prove bores,
after all. There is nothing new about them, only to out-shine every
other woman. A high ambition, is it not, Mr. Darcy?"
"A temptation perhaps."
The tone had in it a bit of delicate homage. Irene understood. She knew
at once that this man was a little dazed by her beauty, just as many
other men had been. Puny, delicate, namby-pamby men she despised, and
always gave them a cut with her sharp tongue. Where had Sylvie picked up
this Saul among his peers?
They were all interested in the pictures, and soon fell to making merry
comments on them. Sylvie had a quick eye and a bright wit, and something
made Jack Darcy brilliant. They selected bits of fine taste here, they
made an elegant costume of no particular style, and Irene was struck
with what she knew would be its becomingness.
"Mr. Darcy, are you an artist?" She remembered just then what an odd way
the Barrys had of picking up people with some gift or grace.
"No," and Jack flushed boyishly.
"Then you must have a houseful of sisters."
"No, I never had a sister."
"When all things else fail with you, you can set up opposition to Worth.
I shall come to you for designs. Now, this will be a peculiar source of
gratification to me, because no one can possibly have the same
combination. And you never can depend upon a modiste. Mr. Darcy, what
makes women so faithless to one another?"
"Are they?" he asked with a man's simplicity.
She laughed gayly, and met Jack's fun-loving, shady blue eyes. How
handsome they were!
Miss Barry entered the room, and joined in the pleasant chat: then a
rumble of carriage-wheels was heard.
"It has stopped raining," said Sylvie, going to the window. "A few soft,
melancholy stars have come out."
"You have been very obliging, Sylvie," said Miss Lawrence. "Miss Barry,
I shall send the carriage over to-morrow. Good-night."
Jack Darcy handed her out, pushing aside a trailing rose that it might
not catch her shawl. Then she half turned, and said "Good-night" in a
softer tone.
Sylvie was standing on the porch. "It has been as good as a play, Jack,"
she said with her gay-humored laugh. "I don't believe she ever
thought"--
"That I worked in her father's mill!" and Jack laughed; but it was a
rather pained, jarring sound.
"Jack--why do you? You are a puzzle to me!" and Sylvie's voice sharpened
unconsciously. "You do not like it. Why did you not go on at the
academy, or"--
"Raise myself in the social scale? That's what you mean, Sylvie;
although we pass just as pleasant hours as if I were a prince, and you
the lady of high degree. Well, we have gone over the ground a good many
times, and it is always the same thing. I have no fancy for a
profession; I have no genius for art, though Miss Lawrence suggests that
I might become a man-milliner--is that what you call it? You know, I am
staying here because mother and grandmother will not go anywhere else.
And I dare say I make as much money as young Dr. Romer or Ned Remington.
And somehow, now that I'm in it, I go on with a stubborn, plucky
feeling. Some day I'll be a great manufacturer."
This time his laugh was cheerful and ringing.
"You see, Sylvie, your good-nature places you on the debatable ground.
You and your aunt could be hand-in-glove with all these great people,
and yet you open your generous heart to take in everybody."
"No, not everybody, Jack. And what a little coward I am just this
minute! No, it is not that either. Jack, you _do_ know that I should
never be a bit ashamed of you before any one. I feel vexed when I think
that you could take the high places, and yet you let people put you
down,--people not half as worthy or half as good as you. There's Horace
Eastman. He came here a comparatively poor man; and now he owns half
Yerbury, and talks of the mill-hands as if they were--well, a flock of
sheep."
"An apt comparison, Sylvie. To my mind, they are shorn pretty close to
make broadcloth for their masters."
"And there is Fred--have you seen him since his return?"
"Not to speak to him, of course." And then Jack flushed deeply, with a
little hurt feeling.
"And what friends you were! Is it the way of the world? Then it is a
mean, hateful world!"
"Sylvie, you are talking wildly. Don't you see there is no point of
union in our lives? Now, I do not feel so badly over an outgrown
friendship. When I was a little boy, I remember having a wonderful fancy
for Tom Deane. We traded jack-knives; we told each other of the best
nut-trees; we hunted squirrels; we coasted together; and, I dare say, he
was as much of a hero in my childish eyes as I used to be in Fred's. But
think of any friendship between us now! There isn't a greater loafer in
all Yerbury than Tom Deane. Why, we have not a feeling in common."
"Still I think it is rather different," and a shade of annoyance passed
over her face. If Jack only would not call up these people below him, if
he would not identify himself so strongly with that common brotherhood!
He had so many nice tastes, such a clean, pure, honest soul. And, young
as Sylvie was, she knew this was not always the result of culture or
wealth or ambition.
Jack guessed what was passing in her mind. From his father he had
inherited a kind of womanish intuition. A pleasant-tempered man Bernard
Darcy had always been called, but it was that delicate tact, the
intuitive knowledge of what would be pleasant to others.
"What else can I do here, Sylvie?" Jack cried with sudden heat. "If the
chance ever comes, I shall be fitted for a good business man. You may
think there is no worthy ambition in that, but wait. Do not judge me too
hastily."
"I am impatient at times, I know; but it is because I see your
capabilities, and I can't bear to think of your going through the world
unappreciated."
"Do not worry about that. Good-night!" rather abruptly. "Miss Barry, I
have forgotten myself. Pleasant dreams!"
"And we did not have our old hymn, after all," said Sylvie regretfully.
Jack took the short cut across the garden. There was a dim light in the
sitting-room; and his mother lay in the hammock on the latticed porch,
her favorite evening resort. She came in now, and Jack bolted the doors.
Then, with a good-night kiss, he went to his room, and in ten minutes
was asleep. Sylvie, on the other hand, girl-like, tossed and tumbled.
Why was the world so queer and awry and obstinate? After all, you could
do so little with it. Your plans came to nought so easily. Lizzie Wise,
in her Sunday-school class, preferred going in the mill, and buying
herself cheap finery, because the other girls did it. And so all
through. You tried to train some one, and he or she followed the _ignis
fatuus_ more readily than any high, ennobling truth. It was hard lifting
people out of their old grooves.
How bright and entertaining Jack had been this evening! Of course Irene
had not remembered him. Would she be vexed, Sylvie wondered,--she who
held herself up so high, and believed in a separate world as it were?