THE FIRST EVENING.
CANDACE ARDEN'S mother had not only been Mrs. Gray's cousin, but her
particular friend as well. The two girls had been brought up together,
had shared their studies and secrets and girlish fun, and had scarcely
ever been separated for a week, until suddenly a change came which
separated them for all the rest of their lives.
Pretty Candace Van Vliet went up to New Haven on her nineteenth birthday
to see what a college commencement was like, and at the President's
reception afterward met Henry Arden, the valedictorian of the graduating
class, a handsome fellow just twenty-one years old. He came of plain
farming-people in the hill country of Connecticut; but he was clever,
ambitious, and his manners had a natural charm, to which his four years
of college life had added ease and the rubbing away of any little rustic
awkwardness with which he might have begun. Candace thought him
delightful; he thought her more than delightful. In short, it was one of
the sudden love-affairs with which college commencements not
infrequently end, and in the course of a few weeks they engaged
themselves to each other.
Henry was to be a minister, and his theological course must be got
through with before they could marry. Three years the course should have
taken, but he managed to do it in a little more than two, being spurred
on by his impatient desire for home and wife, and a longing, no less
urgent, to begin as soon as possible to earn his own bread and relieve
his father from the burden of his support. No one knew better than he
with what pinching and saving and self-sacrifice it had been made
possible for him to get a college education and become a clergyman; what
daily self-denials had been endured for his sake in that old yellow
farm-house on the North Tolland hills. He was the only son, the only
child; and his father and mother were content to bear anything so long
as it gave him a chance to make the most of himself.
It is not an uncommon story in this New England of ours. Many and many a
farm-house could tell a similar tale of thrift, hard work, and parental
love. The bare rocky acres are made to yield their uttermost, the cows
to do their full duty, the scanty apples of the "off year" are carefully
harvested, every pullet and hen is laid under contribution for the great
need of the moment,--the getting the boys through college. It is both
beautiful and pitiful, as all sacrifices must be; but the years of
effort and struggle do not always end, as in the case of the Ardens,
with a disappointment and a grief so bitter as to make the self-spending
seem all in vain.
For the over-study of those two years proved too much for Henry Arden's
health. It was not hard study alone; he stinted himself in food, in
firing as well; he exacted every possible exertion from his mind, and
systematically neglected his body. The examinations were brilliantly
passed; he was ordained; he received a "call" to Little Upshire, the
village nearest to North Tolland; there was a pretty wedding in the old
Van Vliet mansion on Second Avenue, at which Kate Van Vliet, herself
just engaged to Courtenay Gray, acted as bridesmaid; and then the
cousins parted. They only met once again, when Mrs. Arden came down from
the country to see her cousin married. Henry did not come with her; he
was not very well, she explained, and she must hurry back.
That was the beginning of a long wasting illness. Some spring of
vitality seemed to have been broken during those two terrible years at
the theological seminary; and though Henry Arden lived on, and even held
his parish for several years, he was never fit for any severe study or
labor. The last three years of his life were spent in the old farm-house
at North Tolland, where his aunt Myra, a spare, sinewy, capable old
maid, was keeping house for his father. Mrs. Arden had died soon after
her son's illness began; her heart was "kind of broken," the neighbors
said, and perhaps it was.
And little Candace and her mother lived on with the old people after the
long, sorrowful nursing was done, and another gray headstone had been
placed beside the rest in the Arden lot in the North Tolland graveyard,
having carved upon it, "Sacred to the memory of the Rev. Henry Arden,
aged thirty-four. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed
be His Holy name." There seemed nothing else for them to do but to live
on where they were. Mrs. Gray was in China with her husband, who at that
time was the resident partner in a well-known firm of tea-importers.
Aunt Van Vliet had gone to Europe after her daughter's marriage. There
was no one to come to the aid of the drooping young widow, and carry her
away from the lonely life and the sad memories which were slowly killing
her. For her child's sake she did her best to rally; but her strength
had been severely taxed during her husband's illness, and dying was
easier than living; so she died when Candace was just eight years old,
and the little girl and the two old people were left alone in the yellow
farm-house.
A twelvemonth later, Grandfather Arden had a stroke of paralysis.--Don't
be too much discouraged, dear children; this is positively the last
death that I shall have occasion to chronicle in this story. But it
seemed necessary to show what sort of life Candace had lived, in order
to explain the sort of girl she was.--After her grandfather died, Aunt
Myra, aged sixty-nine, and little Cannie, aged nine, alone remained of
the once large household; and the farm-house seemed very big and empty,
and had strange echoes in all the unused corners.
It was a lonely place, and a lonely life for a child. Candace had few
enjoyments, and almost no young companions. She had never been used to
either, so she did not feel the want of them as most little girls would
have done. Aunt Myra was kind enough, and, indeed, fond of her in a
dry, elderly way; but she could not turn herself into a play-mate. It is
not often that a person who is as old as sixty-nine remembers how it
feels to play. Aunt Myra approved of Cannie especially, because she was
"such a quiet child;" but I think Cannie's mother would rather have had
her noisier.
"She's a nice girl as I want to see," Aunt Myra was wont to tell her
cronies. "She's likely-appearing enough,--and that's better than being
too pretty. And she's helpful about the house for such a young cretur,
and she's not a bit forth-putting or highty-tighty. I don't know how I
should have managed if Candace had turned out the sort of girl some of
'em are,--like those Buell girls, for instance, always raising Ned
because they can't get down to Hartford or Bridgeport to shop and see
the sights and have a good time. As if good times couldn't be had to
home as well as anywhere! Why, I reckon that Miss Buell has more fuss
and trouble in fitting out those girls every spring of her life than
I've had with Cannie since her mother died. She never makes one mite of
difficulty, or bothers with objections. She just puts on whatever I see
fit to get her; and she likes it, and there's the end."
This was not quite as true as Aunt Myra supposed. Candace wore whatever
it was ordained that she should wear, but she did not always "like" it.
From her mother she inherited a certain instinct of refinement and taste
which only needed the chance to show itself. But there was little chance
to exercise taste in the old yellow farm-house, and Candace, from
training and long habit, was submissive; so she accepted the inevitable,
and, as her great-aunt said, "made no difficulty."
Letters came now and then from "Cousin Kate," far away in China, and
once a little box with a carved ivory fan as fine as lace-work, a dozen
gay pictures on rice paper, and a scarf of watermelon-pink crape, which
smelt of sandalwood, and was by far the most beautiful thing that Cannie
had ever seen. Then, two years before our story opens, the Grays came
back to America to live; and a correspondence began between Mrs. Gray
and Aunt Myra, part of which Candace heard about and part she did not.
Mrs. Gray was anxious to know her cousin's child and be of use to her;
but first one thing and then another delayed their meeting. The first
winter the Grays spent at a hotel looking for a house; the second, they
were all in Florida on account of Mr. Gray's health. These difficulties
were now settled. A town house had been chosen, a Newport cottage leased
for a term of years, and Cannie was asked for a long summer visit.
It was Mrs. Gray's secret desire that this visit should lead to a sort
of adoption, that Cannie should stay on with them as a fourth daughter,
and share all her cousins' advantages of education and society; but
before committing herself to such a step, she wished to see what the
girl was like.
"It's so much easier to keep out of such an arrangement than to get out
of it," she told her husband. "My poor Candace was an angel, all
sweetness and charm; but her child has the blood of those stiff
Connecticut farmers in her. She may be like her father's people, and not
in the least like her mother; she may be hopelessly stupid or vulgar or
obstinate or un-improvable. We will wait and see."
This secret doubt and question was, I think, the reason why Mrs. Gray
was so pleased at Cannie's little speech about Miss Joy and her friend.
"That was the true, honorable feeling," she thought to herself; "the
child is a lady by instinct. It wasn't easy for her to say it, either;
she's a shy little thing. Well, if she has the instinct, the rest can be
added. It's easy enough to polish a piece of mahogany, but you may rub
all day at a pine stick and not make much out of it."
As these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, she stole her arm
across Candace's shoulders and gave them a little warm pressure; but all
she said was,--
"Dinner in twenty minutes, children. You would better run up at once and
make ready. Cannie, you and I will go to the library,--you haven't seen
my husband yet."
The library was a big, airy room, with an outlook to the sea. There were
not many books in it, only enough to fill a single low range of
book-shelves; but the tables were covered with freshly cut magazines and
pamphlet novels; there was a great file of "Punch" and other illustrated
papers, and that air of light-reading-in-abundance which seems to suit a
house in summer-time. A little wood-fire was snapping on a pair of very
bright andirons, and, June though it was, its warmth was agreeable.
Beside it, in an enormous Russia-leather armchair, sat Mr. Gray,--an
iron-whiskered, shrewd-looking man of the world, with a pair of
pleasant, kindly eyes, and that shining bald spot on his head which
seems characteristic of the modern business man.
"Court, here is our new child," said Mrs. Gray; "poor Candace's
daughter, you know."
Mr. Gray understood, from his wife's tone, that she was pleased with her
little visitor so far, and he greeted her in a very friendly fashion.
"You have your mother's eyes," he said. "I recollect her perfectly,
though we only met two or three times, and that was seventeen--let me
see--nearly eighteen years ago it must have been. Her hair, too, I
should say," glancing at Cannie's chestnut mop; "it was very thick, I
remember, and curled naturally."
"Aunt Myra always says that my hair is the same color as mother's,"
replied Candace.
"It is almost exactly the same. Do you remember her at all, Cannie?"
asked Mrs. Gray.
"Just a little. I recollect things she used to wear, and where she used
to sit, and one or two things she said. But perhaps I don't recollect
them, but think I do because Aunt Myra told them to me."
"Is there no picture of her?"
"Only a tin-type, and it isn't very good. It's almost faded out; you
can hardly see the face."
"What a pity!"
"Le diner est servi, Madame," said the voice of Frederic at the door.
"We won't wait for the girls. They will be down in a moment," said Mrs.
Gray, as she led the way to the dining-room. The sound of their feet on
the staircase was heard as she spoke; and down they ran, the elder two
in pretty dresses of thin white woollen stuff, which Candace in her
unworldliness thought fine enough for a party.
People in North Tolland did not dine in the modern sense of the word.
They took in supplies of food at stated intervals, very much as a
locomotive stops for wood and water when it cannot go on any longer
without such replenishment; but it was a matter of business and
necessity to do so rather than of pleasure.
Candace, who had sat down opposite Aunt Myra every day as long as she
could remember at the small pine table in the yellow-painted kitchen,
with always the same thick iron-stone ware plates and cups, the same
little black tray to hold the tea-things, the same good, substantial,
prosaic fare, served without the least attempt at grace or decoration,
had never dreamed of such a dinner as was usual at the Grays'. She said
not a word to express her astonishment; but she glanced at the thick
cluster of maiden-hair ferns which quivered in the middle of the table
from an oval stand of repousse brass, at the slender glasses of
tea-roses which stood on either side, at the Sevres dishes of fruit,
sweet biscuits, and dried ginger, and wondered if this were to be all
the dinner. Did fashionable people never eat anything more substantial
than grapes and crackers? She felt very hungry, and yet it seemed coarse
not to be satisfied when everything was so pretty.
"Consomme, Mademoiselle?" murmured Frederic in her ear, as he placed
before her a plate full of some clear liquid which smelt deliciously,
and offered a small dish of grated cheese for her acceptance.
"Oh, thank you, sir," said Candace, wondering confusedly if cheese in
soup was the correct thing.
Mrs. Gray's quick ear caught the "sir." She did not even turn her head,
but she mentally added another to the hints which must be administered
to Candace as soon as she was sufficiently at home to bear them.
Spanish mackerel was the next course. Candace inadvertently took up the
steel knife placed beside her plate, instead of the silver one meant for
use with fish. The result was that when the saddle of mutton was served,
she had no usable knife. Mr. Gray observed her difficulty, and directed
Frederic to bring a steel knife for Mademoiselle, which Frederic did,
first casting a scrutinizing glance about as if in search of something;
and again Candace felt that she was somehow out of the way.
The climax of her discomfort came with the pretty tinted fruit plates
and finger-bowls. Candace's tumbler was empty, and without particularly
thinking about the matter she took a drink out of her finger-bowl,
which she mistook for some sort of lemonade, from the bit of lemon which
floated in the water.
The moment after, she was conscious of her blunder. She saw Georgie
dabbling her fingers in her bowl. She saw Gertrude with difficulty
keeping back a smile which would flicker in her eyes, though her lips
were rigidly grave. Little Marian giggled outright, and then relapsed
into a frightened solemnity. Candace felt utterly miserable. She looked
toward Mrs. Gray apprehensively, but that lady only gave her an
encouraging smile. Mr. Gray put a bunch of hot-house grapes on her
plate. She ate them without the least idea of their flavor. With the
last grape a hot tear splashed down; and the moment Mrs. Gray moved,
Candace fled upstairs to her own room, where she broke down into a fit
of homesick crying.
How she longed for the old customary home among the hills, where nobody
minded what she did, or how she ate, or "had any manners in particular,"
as she phrased it to her own mind, or thought her ignorant or awkward.
And yet, on sober second thought, did she really wish so much to go
back? Was it not better to stay on where she was, and learn to be
graceful and low-spoken and at ease always, like her cousin Kate, if she
could, even if she had to undergo some mortification in the process?
Candace was not sure.
She had stopped crying, and was cooling her eyes with a wet towel when
she heard a little tap at the door. It was Mrs. Gray herself.
"Where are you, Cannie?" she said, looking about the room with her
short-sighted eyes. "You are so dark here that I cannot see you."
"I'm here by the washstand," faltered Candace; and then, to her dismay,
she began to cry again. She tried to subdue it; but a little sob, which
all her efforts could not stifle, fell upon her cousin's observant ear.
"My dear child, you are crying," she exclaimed; and in another minute
Candace, she scarcely knew how, was in Mrs. Gray's arms, they were
sitting on the sofa together, and she was finishing her cry with her
head on the kindest of shoulders and an unexpected feeling of comfort at
her heart. Anything so soft and tender as Cousin Kate's arms she had
never known before; there was a perfume of motherliness about them which
to a motherless girl was wholly irresistible. Gertrude declared that
mamma always stroked people's trouble away with those hands of hers, and
that they looked just like the hands of the Virgin in Holbein's Madonna,
as if they could mother the whole world.
"Now, tell me, Cannie, tell me, dear child," said Mrs. Gray, when the
shower was over and the hard sobs had grown faint and far between, "what
made you cry? Was it because you are tired and a little homesick among
us all, or were you troubled about anything? Tell me, Cannie."
"Oh, it's only because I'm so stupid and--and--countrified," said
Candace, beginning to sob again. "I made such horrid mistakes at
dinner, and Gertrude wanted to laugh,--she didn't laugh, but I saw her
want to,--and Marian did laugh, and I felt so badly."
"Marian is such a little girl that you must forgive her this once," said
Mrs. Gray, "though I am rather ashamed of her myself. I saw all your
'mistakes,' as you call them, Cannie, even one or two that you didn't
see yourself. They were very little mistakes, dear, not worth crying
about,--small blunders in social etiquette, which is a matter of minor
importance,--not failures in good feeling or good manners, which are of
real consequence. They did not make anybody uncomfortable except
yourself."
"Cousin Kate," Candace ventured to ask, "will you tell me why there is
such a thing as etiquette? Why must everybody eat and behave and speak
in the same way, and make rules about it? Is it any real use?"
"That is rather a large question, and leads back to the beginning of
things," said Mrs. Gray, smiling. "I don't suppose I quite understand
it myself, but I think I can make you understand a part of it. I
imagine, when the world was first peopled, in the strange faraway times
of which we know almost nothing except the hints we get in the Bible,
that the few people there were did pretty much as they liked. Noah and
his family in the ark, for instance, probably never set any tables or
had any regular meals, but just ate when they were hungry, each one by
himself. Savage tribes do the same to this day; they seize their bone or
their handful of meat and gnaw it in a corner, or as they walk about.
This was the primitive idea of comfort. But after a time people found
that it was less trouble to have the family food made ready at a certain
time for everybody at once, and have all come together to eat it.
Perhaps at first it was served in one great pot or dish, and each one
dipped in his hand or spoon. The Arabs still do this. Then, of course,
the strongest and greediest got the most of everything, and it may have
been some weak or slow person who went hungry in consequence, who
invented the idea of separate plates and portions."
"But that is not etiquette," objected Cannie. "People have plates and
set tables everywhere now,--in this country, I mean."
"Yes, but can't you imagine a time when to have a bowl or a saucer to
yourself was considered finical and 'stuck up,' and when some rough
Frank or Gaul from the mountains looked on disapprovingly, and said that
the world was coming to a pretty pass if such daintiness was to be
allowed? A bowl to one's self was etiquette then. All sorts of things
which to us seem matter of course and commonplace, began by being
novelties and subjects for discussion and wonderment. Remember that tea,
potatoes, carpets, tobacco, matches, almost all our modern conveniences,
were quite unknown even so lately as four or five hundred years ago. As
the world grew richer, people went on growing more refined. The richest
folks tried to make their houses more beautiful than the houses of their
neighbors. They gave splendid feasts, and hired sculptors and artists
to invent decorations for their tables, and all kinds of little elegant
usages sprang up which have gradually become the custom of our own day,
even among people who are not rich and do not give feasts."
"But do they mean anything? Are they of any real use?" persisted Cannie.
"I confess that some of them do not seem to mean a great deal. Still, if
we look closely, I think we shall find that almost every one had its
origin in one of two causes,--either it was a help to personal
convenience, or in some way it made people more agreeable or less
disagreeable to their neighbors. We have to study, and to guess a little
sometimes, to make out just why it has become customary to do this or
that, for the original reason has been forgotten or perhaps does not
exist any longer, while the custom remains."
"I wonder," said Cannie, whose mind was still running on her own
mishaps, "why people mustn't cut fish with a steel knife. I read in a
book once that it was not genteel to do so, and I couldn't think why.
And then to-night I didn't see the little silver one--"
"I imagine that in the first instance some old _gourmet_ discovered or
fancied that a steel knife gave a taste to fish which injured it. So
people gave up using knives, and it grew to be said that it was vulgar
and a mark of ignorance to cut fish with them. Then, later, it was found
not to be quite comfortable always to tear your bit of fish apart with a
fork and hold it down with a piece of bread while you did so, and the
custom arose of having a silver knife to cut fish with. It is a
convenient custom, too, for some reasons. Waiting on table is quite an
art, now-a-days, when there are so many changes of plates, and a good
waiter always tries to simplify what he has to do, by providing as much
as possible beforehand. You can see that if each person has beside his
plate a silver knife for fish and a steel knife for meat and two forks
these two courses will go on more easily and quietly than if the waiter
has to stop and bring a fresh knife and fork for each person before he
helps to the dish, whatever it is."
"But why is there nothing on the table but flowers and pretty little
things? And why do they put lemon-peel in the bowls of water?"
"Well, the lemon is supposed to take the smell of dinner away from the
fingers. And it isn't always lemon. Frederic is apt to drop in a
geranium leaf or a sprig of lemon-verbena, and those are nicer. As for
the other thing, it is more convenient for many reasons not to have the
carving done on the table; but aside from that, I imagine that in the
first instance the custom was a matter of economy."
"Economy!" repeated Candace, opening wide her eyes.
"Yes, economy, though it seems droll to say so. In the old days, when
the meat came on in a big platter, and the vegetables each in its large
covered dish, people had to put more on table than was really wanted,
for the sake of not looking mean and giving their neighbors occasion for
talk. Now, when everything is carved on a side-table and a nice little
portion carried to each person, you are able to do with exactly what is
needed. There need not be a great piece of everything left over for
look's sake. One chicken is enough for four or five people if it is
skilfully carved, but the chicken would look rather scanty on a platter
by itself; don't you think so?"
"Yes," said Cannie, with a little laugh. She had forgotten her troubles
in the interest of the discussion.
"A dish containing one mutton-chop and a spoonful of peas for each
person would be called a stingy dish in the country, where every one
sees his food on the table before him," continued Mrs. Gray; "but it is
quite enough for the single course it is meant to be at a city dinner.
There is no use in having three or four chops left over to toughen and
grow cold."
"I see," said Cannie, thoughtfully; "what else did I do that was wrong,
Cousin Kate?"
"You called Frederic 'sir,'" replied her cousin, with a smile. "That was
not wrong, but not customary. Servants are expected to say 'sir' and
'ma'am' to their employers as a mark of respect; and people not servants
use the word less frequently than they formerly did. They keep such
terms for elderly or distinguished persons, to whom they wish to show
special deference."
"But Aunt Myra always _made_ me say 'sir' and 'ma'am' to her and
grandpapa. She said it was impolite not to."
"She was quite right; for she and your grandfather were a great deal
older than yourself, and it was only respectful to address them so. But
you need not use the phrase to everybody to whom you speak."
"Not to you?"
"Well, I would quite as soon that in speaking to me you said, 'Yes,
Cousin Kate,' as 'Yes, ma'am.' That is what I have taught my children to
do. They say, 'Yes, mamma;' 'Did you call me, papa?' I like the sound
of it better; but it is only a matter of taste. There is no real right
or wrong involved in it."
Candace sat for a moment in silence, revolving these new ideas in her
mind.
"Cousin Kate," she said timidly, "will you tell me when I make little
mistakes, like that about the knife? I'd like to learn to do things
right if I could, and if it wouldn't trouble you too much."
"Dear Cannie,"--and Mrs. Gray kissed her,--"I will, of course; and I am
glad you like to have me. Your mother was the sweetest, most refined
little lady that I ever knew. I loved her dearly; and I should love to
treat you as I do my own girls, to whom I have to give a hint or a
caution or a little lecture almost every day of their lives. No girl
ever grew into a graceful, well-bred woman without many such small
lessons from somebody. If your mother had lived, all these things would
have come naturally to you from the mere fact of being with her and
noticing what she did. You would have needed no help from any one else.
But are you sure," she went on, after a little pause, "that you won't
end by thinking me tiresome or interfering or worrisome, if I do as I
say?"
"No, indeed, I won't!" cried Candace, to whom this long talk had been
like the clearing up after a thunder-shower. "I think it would be _too_
mean if I felt that way when you are so kind."