Miss Anne Cooper was a maiden lady of forty-two; a satellite who was
well contented to revolve year after year round Madame Vincent, and
reflect her _golden_ rays. Madame Vincent had been a beauty in her day,
and was still tenacious of her claims to that title. It was Miss Anne's
constant study to foster this bump of self-conceit, and so cunningly did
she play her part, so indignantly did she deny the advances of Old Time,
that madame was flattered into the belief that he had really given her a
quit claim.
Miss Anne's disinterested care of the silver, linen, and store-room was
quite praiseworthy to those who did not know that she supplied a family
of her relatives with all necessary articles from the Vincent resources.
It was weary waiting for the expected codicil, and Miss Anne thought "a
bird in the hand was worth two in the bush;" so if she occasionally
abducted a pound or two of old Hyson or loaf-sugar, or a loaf of cake,
or a pair of pies, she reasoned herself into the belief that they were,
after all, only her lawful perquisites.
Yes, it was weary waiting for the codicil. Madame Vincent was an
invalid, 'tis true; but so she had been these twenty years, having one
of those india-rubber constitutions, which seem to set all medical
precedents at defiance. She might last along for ten years to come--who
knew?
Ten years! Miss Anne looked in the glass; the crow's-feet were planted
round her own eyes, and it needed no microscope to see the silver
threads in her once luxuriant black locks. Not that Miss Anne did not
smile just as sweetly on her patroness as if she would not at any time
have welcomed a call upon her from the undertaker. Miss Anne's voice, as
she glided through the house with her bunch of keys, had that oily,
hypocritical whine which is inseparable from your genuine toady, be it
man or woman.
Miss Anne sat in the "blue chamber" of the Vincent mansion--a chamber
that had once been occupied by young Master Vincent. Whether this gave
it a charm in the lady's eyes or no, Miss Anne never had said. It was
true that young Master Vincent, when he had nothing else to do, amused
himself with irritating Miss Anne up to the snapping-point. They scarce
met without a war of words, half jest, half earnest; but for all that,
young Vincent's every wish was anticipated by Miss Anne. It was she who
reinserted the enameled buttons in his vests, when they came from the
laundress; it was she who righted his room, and kept all his little
dandy apparatus (in the shape of perfumes, gold shirt-buttons, hair-oil,
watch-guards, rings, etc.) in their appropriate places.
Your D'Orsay abroad, is generally a brute at home; selfish, sarcastic,
ill-tempered, and exacting where he thinks it does not pay to be
otherwise. All this Miss Anne turned aside with the skill and tact of a
woman; occasionally quite quenching him with her witty replies, and
forcing him to laugh even in his most diabolical moods. To be sure he
would mutter some uncanonical words after it, and tell her to go to the
torrid zone; and Miss Anne would smile as usual, drop a low courtesy,
and glide from his presence; sometimes to go round making all sorts of
housekeeping blunders; sometimes to sit down in her room, with her hands
folded in her lap, and her great black eyes fixed immovably on the
carpet, for all the world just as if Miss Anne were in love.
Old maids have their little thoughts; why not?
On the present occasion, as I have said, Miss Anne sat in "the blue
chamber." She was paler than usual, and her Xantippe lips were closed
more firmly together. The thread of her thoughts seemed no smoother than
the thread between her fingers, beside breaking which she had broken six
of Hemming's best drilled-eyed needles. At length, pushing the stool
from beneath her feet, she threw down her work and strode impatiently up
and down the apartment.
"To be balked after serving this Leah's apprenticeship, by a baby! and
by _that_ baby! I could love it for its likeness to _him_, did it not
stand in my way. It was such doll faces as that baby's mother's which
could fascinate Vincent, hey?--soulless, passionless little automatons.
Ye gods! and how _I_ have loved him, let these sunken eyes and mottled
tresses bear witness," and Miss Anne looked at herself in the glass.
"That is all past now; thank heaven, that secret dies with me. Who would
ever suspect _me_ of falling in love?" and Miss Anne laughed
hysterically. "And now that hope died out, that baby is to come between
me and my expected fortune!
"Simple Chloe! She little thought, when she repeated to me what she
called 'her young mistress's crazy ravings,' that _I_ could 'find a
method in that madness.' Love is sharp-sighted; so is policy. That baby
shall never come here. It should not, at any rate, for the mother's
sake, pretty little fool!
"Madame will 'adopt' the baby, forsooth! She will fill the house with
bibs and pinafores, and install me as head nurse, and to _that_ child!
All my fine castles to be knocked down by a baby's puny hand! We shall
see.
"That old dotard, to adopt a baby at _her_ time of life, when she ought
to be thinking of her shroud."
"Ah, Anne, you there," said a voice at the door, "and busy as usual?"
"Yes, dear madame, work for you is only pastime."
"You were always a good creature, Anne," and madame tapped her
affectionately on the shoulder.
"How very well you are looking to-day," said Anne. "Mourning is
uncommonly becoming to you. Becky and I were saying this morning, as you
passed through the hall, that no one would suppose you to be more than
thirty."
"S-i-x-t-y, my dear, s-i-x-t-y," replied the old lady, cautiously
closing the door; "but you should not flatter, Annie."
"It is not flattery to speak the truth," said Anne, with a mock-injured
air.
"Well, well, don't take a joke so seriously, child; what everybody says
_must_ be true, I suppose," and madame looked complacently in the glass.
"Anne, do you know I can not think of any thing but that beautiful
child? Don't you think his resemblance to our Vincent very remarkable?"
"Very, dear madame, I am not at all surprised at your fancying him. He
is quite a charming little fellow."
"Isn't he, though?" exclaimed madame, with a pleased laugh; "do you know
Anne I have about made up my mind to adopt him? I shall call him Vincent
L'Estrange Vincent."
"How charming!" said Anne, "how interesting you will look; you will be
taken for his mother."
"Very likely," said madame. "I recollect we were quite an object of
attraction the day we rode out together; I think I _am_ looking youthful
Anne."
"No question of it, my dear madame--here--let me rearrange this bow in
your cap; that's it; what execution you must have done in your day,
madame."
"I had _some_ lovers," replied the sexegenarian widow, with mock
humility, as she twisted a gold circlet upon her finger.
"If report speaks true, their name was legion; I dare say there is some
interesting story now, connected with that ring," suggested Anne.
"Poor Perry!" exclaimed madame--"I _didn't_ treat him well; I wonder
what ever came of him; _how_ he used to sigh! What beautiful bouquets he
brought me--how jealous he was of poor dear Vincent. I was a young,
giddy thing then; and yet, I was good-hearted, Anne, for I remember how
sorry I used to be that I couldn't marry _all_ my lovers. I told Perry
so, one day when he was on his knees to me, but he did not seem as much
pleased as I expected. I don't think he always knew how to take a
compliment.
"Poor Perry!
"I couldn't help liking him, he had such a dear pair of whiskers, quite
à-la-corsair--but Vincent had the money, and I always needed such a
quantity of dresses and things, Anne.
"Well--on my wedding-day, Perry walked by the house, looking handsomer
than ever. I believe the creature did it on purpose to plague me. He had
on white pants, and yellow Marseilles vest, salmon-colored neck-tie, and
_such_ a pretty dark-blue body-coat, with brass buttons; _such_ a fit! I
burst out a crying; I never saw any thing so heart-breaking as that
coat; there was not a wrinkle in it from collar to tail. I don't think I
should ever have got over it, Anne, had not my maid Victorine just then
brought me in a set of bridal pearls from Vincent; they were really
sumptuous.
"Poor dear Perry!
"Well--I was engaged to him just one night; and I think the moon was to
blame for that, for as soon as the sun rose next morning, I knew it
would not do. He was poor, and it was necessary I should have a fine
establishment, you know. But poor Perry! I never shall forget that blue
body-coat, never--it was such a fit!"
"The old fool!" exclaimed Anne, dismissing the bland smile from her face
as the last fold of madame's dress fluttered through the door; "after
all, she might do worse than to adopt this child. I could easier get rid
of that baby than her second husband. I must rein up a little, with my
flattery, or she may start off on that track.
"Poor Perry, indeed!" soliloquized Anne, "what geese men are! how many
of them, I wonder, have had reason to thank their stars, that they did
not get what their hearts were once set on. Well--any will-o'-the-wisp
who trips it lightly, can lead any Solomon by the nose; it is a
humiliating fact;" and Miss Anne took a look at herself in the glass;
"sense is at a discount; well, it is the greatest compliment the present
generation of men could have paid me, never to have made me an offer."