_Host._ Now, my young guest! methinks you're allycholy; I pray you,
why is it?
_Jul_. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Some nights after their arrival the doctor and Fleda were seated at tea in
the little snug old-fashioned back parlour, where the doctor's nicest of
housekeepers, Mrs. Pritchard, had made it ready for them. In general Mrs.
Pritchard herself poured it out for the doctor, but she descended most
cheerfully from her post of elevation whenever Fleda was there to fill it.
The doctor and Fleda sat cosily looking at each other across the toast and
chipped beef, their glances grazing the tea-urn which was just on one side
of their range of vision. A comfortable Liverpool-coal fire in a state of
repletion burned away indolently and gave everything else in the room
somewhat of its own look of sousy independence. Except perhaps the
delicate creature at whom the doctor between sips of his tea took rather
wistful observations.
"When are you going to Mrs. Evelyn?" he said breaking the silence.
"They say next week, sir."
"I shall be glad of it!" said the doctor.
"Glad of it?" said Fleda smiling. "Do you want to get rid of me,
uncle Orrin?"
"Yes!" said he. "This isn't the right place for you. You are too
much alone."
"No indeed, sir. I have been reading voraciously, and enjoying myself as
much as possible. I would quite as lieve be here as there, putting you out
of the question."
"I wouldn't as lieve have you," said he shaking his head. "What were you
musing about before tea? your face gave me the heart-ache."
"My face!" said Fleda, smiling, while an instant flush of the eyes
answered him,--"what was the matter with my face?"
"That is the very thing I want to know."
"Before tea?--I was only thinking,--" said Fleda, her look going back to
the fire from association,--"thinking of different things--not
disagreeably--taking a kind of bird's-eye view of things, as one does
sometimes."
"I don't believe you ever take other than a bird's-eye view of anything,"
said her uncle. "But what were you viewing just then, my little Saxon?"
"I was thinking of them at home," said Fleda smiling thoughtfully,--"and I
somehow had perched myself on a point of observation and was taking one of
those wider views which are always rather sobering."
"Views of what?"
"Of life, sir."
"As how?" said the doctor.
"How near the end is to the beginning, and how short the space between,
and how little the ups and downs of it will matter if we take the right
road and get home."
"Pshaw!" said the doctor.
But Fleda knew him too well to take his interjection otherwise than most
kindly. And indeed though he whirled round and eat his toast at the fire
discontentedly, his look came back to her after a little with even more
than its usual gentle appreciation.
"What do you suppose you have come to New York for?" said he.
"To see you, sir, in the first place, and the Evelyns in the second."
"And who in the third?"
"I am afraid the third place is vacant," said Fleda smiling.
"You are, eh? Well--I don't know--but I know that I have been inquired of
by two several and distinct people as to your coming. Ah, you needn't open
your bright eyes at me, because I shall not tell you. Only let me
ask,--you have no notion of fencing off my Queechy rose with a hedge of
blackthorn,--or anything of that kind, have you?"
"I have no notion of any fences at all, except invisible ones, sir," said
Fleda, laughing and colouring very prettily.
"Well those are not American fences," said the doctor, "so I suppose I am
safe enough. Whom did I see you out riding with yesterday?"
"I was with Mrs. Evelyn," said Fleda,--"I didn't want to go, but I
couldn't very well help myself."
"Mrs. Evelyn.--Mrs. Evelyn wasn't driving, was she?"
"No sir; Mr. Thorn was driving."
"I thought so. Have you seen your old friend Mr. Carleton yet?"
"Do you know him uncle Orrin?"
"Why shouldn't I? What's the difficulty of knowing people? Have you
seen him?"
"But how did you know that he was an old friend of mine?"
"Question?--" said the doctor. "Hum--well, I won't tell you--so there's
the answer. Now will you answer me?"
"I have not seen him, sir."
"Haven't met him in all the times you have been to Mrs. Evelyn's?"
"No sir. I have been there but once in the evening, uncle Orrin. He is
just about sailing for England."
"Well, you're going there to-night, aren't you? Run and bundle yourself up
and I'll take you there before I begin my work."
There was a small party that evening at Mrs. Evelyn's. Fleda was very
early. She ran up to the first floor,--rooms lighted and open, but
nobody there.
"Fleda Ringgan," called out the voice of Constance from over the
stairs,--"is that you?"
"Yes," said Fleda.
"Well just wait till I come down to you.--My darling little Fleda, it's
delicious of you to come so early. Now just tell me,--am I captivating?"
"Well,--I retain self-possession," said Fleda. "I cannot tell about the
strength of head of other people."
"You wretched little creature!--Fleda, don't you admire my hair?--it's new
style, my dear,--just come out,--the Delancys brought it out with
them--Eloise Delancy taught it us--isn't it graceful? Nobody in New York
has it yet, except the Delancys and we."
"How do you know but they have taught somebody else?" said Fleda.
"I won't talk to you!--Don't you like it?"
"I am not sure that I do not like you in your ordinary way better."
Constance made a gesture of impatience, and then pulled Fleda after her
into the drawing-rooms.
"Come in here--I won't waste the elegancies of my toilet upon your dull
perceptions--come here and let me shew you some flowers--aren't those
lovely? This bunch came to-day, 'for Miss Evelyn,' so Florence will have
it it is hers, and it's very mean of her, for I am perfectly certain it is
mine--it's come from somebody who wasn't enlightened on the subject of my
family circle and has innocently imagined that _two_ Miss Evelyns could
not belong to the same one! I know the floral representatives of all
Florence's dear friends and admirers, and this isn't from any of them--I
have been distractedly endeavouring all day to find who it came from, for
if I don't I can't take the least comfort in it."
"But you might enjoy the flowers for their own sake, I should think," said
Fleda, breathing the sweetness of myrtle and heliotrope.
"No I can't, for I have all the time the association of some horrid
creature they might have come from, you know; but it will do just as well
to humbug people--I shall make Cornelia Schenck believe that this came
from my dear Mr. Carleton!"
"No you won't, Constance," said Fleda gently.
"My dear little Fleda, I shock you, don't I? but I sha'n't tell any
lies--I shall merely expressively indicate a particular specimen and say,
'My dear Cornelia, do you perceive that this is an English rose?'--and
then it's none of my business, you know, what she believes--and she will
be dying with curiosity and despair all the rest of the evening."
"I shouldn't think there would be much pleasure in that, I confess," said
Fleda gravely. "How very ungracefully and stiffly those are made up!"
"My dear little Queechy rose?" said Constance impatiently, "you are,
pardon me, as fresh as possible. They can't cut the flowers with long
stems, you know,--the gardeners would be ruined. That is perfectly
elegant--it must have cost at least ten dollars. My dear little Fleda!"
said Constance capering off before the long pier-glass,--"I am afraid I am
not captivating!--Do you think it would be an improvement if I put drops
in my ears?--or one curl behind them? I don't know which Mr. Carleton
likes best!--"
And with her head first on one side and then on the other she stood
before the glass looking at herself and Fleda by turns with such a
comic expression of mock doubt and anxiety that no gravity but her own
could stand it.
"She is a silly girl, Fleda, isn't she?" said Mrs. Evelyn coming up
behind them.
"Mamma!--am I captivating?" cried Constance wheeling round.
The mother's smile said "Very!"
"Fleda is wishing she were out of the sphere of my influence,
mamma.--Wasn't Mr. Olmney afraid of my corrupting you?" she said with a
sudden pull-up in front of Fleda.--"My blessed stars!--there's somebody's
voice I know.--Well I believe it is true that a rose without thorns is a
desideratum.--Mamma, is Mrs. Thorn's turban to be an invariable _pendant_
to your coiffure all the while Miss Ringgan is here?"
"Hush!--"
With the entrance of company came Constance's return from extravaganzas to
a sufficiently graceful every-day manner, only enough touched with high
spirits and lawlessness to free it from the charge of commonplace. But the
contrast of these high spirits with her own rather made Fleda's mood more
quiet, and it needed no quieting. Of the sundry people that she knew among
those presently assembled there were none that she wanted to talk to; the
rooms were hot and she felt nervous and fluttered, partly from encounters
already sustained and partly from a little anxious expecting of Mr.
Carleton's appearance. The Evelyns had not said he was to be there but she
had rather gathered it; and the remembrance of old times was strong enough
to make her very earnestly wish to see him and dread to be disappointed.
She swung clear of Mr. Thorn, with some difficulty, and ensconced herself
under the shadow of a large cabinet, between that and a young lady who was
very good society for she wanted no help in carrying on the business of
it. All Fleda had to do was to sit still and listen, or not listen, which
she generally preferred. Miss Tomlinson discoursed upon varieties, with
great sociableness and satisfaction; while poor Fleda's mind, letting all
her sense and nonsense go, was again taking a somewhat bird's-eye view of
things, and from the little centre of her post in Mrs. Evelyn's
drawing-room casting curious glances over the panorama of her
life--England, France, New York, and Queechy!--half coming to the
conclusion that her place henceforth was only at the last and that the
world and she had nothing to do with each other. The tide of life and
gayety seemed to have thrown her on one side, as something that could not
swim with it; and to be rushing past too strongly and swiftly for her
slight bark ever to launch upon it again. Perhaps the shore might be the
safest and happiest place; but it was sober in the comparison; and as a
stranded bark might look upon the white sails flying by, Fleda saw the gay
faces and heard the light tones with which her own could so little keep
company. But as little they with her. Their enjoyment was not more foreign
to her than the causes which moved it were strange. Merry?--she might like
to be merry; but she could sooner laugh with the North wind than with one
of those vapid faces, or with any face that she could not trust.
Conversation might be pleasant,--but it must be something different from
the noisy cross-fire of nonsense that was going on in one quarter, or the
profitless barter of nothings that was kept up on the other side of her.
Rather Queechy and silence, by far, than New York and _this!_
And through it all Miss Tomlinson talked on and was happy.
"My dear Fleda!--what are you back here for?" said Florence coming
up to her.
"I was glad to be at a safe distance from the fire."
"Take a screen--here! Miss Tomlinson, your conversation is too exciting
for Miss Ringgan--look at her cheeks--I must carry you off--I want to
shew you a delightful contrivance for transparencies, that I learned the
other day--"
The seat beside her was vacated, and not casting so much as a look towards
any quarter whence a possible successor to Miss Tomlinson might be
arriving, Fleda sprang up and took a place in the far corner of the room
by Mrs. Thorn, happily not another vacant chair in the neighbourhood. Mrs.
Thorn had shewn a very great fancy for her and was almost as good company
as Miss Tomlinson; not quite, for it was necessary sometimes to answer and
therefore necessary always to hear. But Fleda liked her; she was
thoroughly amiable, sensible, and good-hearted. And Mrs. Thorn, very much
gratified at Fleda's choice of a seat, talked to her with a benignity
which Fleda could not help answering with grateful pleasure.
"Little Queechy, what has driven you into the corner?" said Constance
pausing a moment before her.
"It must have been a retiring spirit," said Fleda.
"Mrs. Thorn, isn't she lovely?"
Mrs. Thorn's smile at Fleda might almost have been called that, it was so
full of benevolent pleasure. But she spoiled it by her answer.
"I don't believe I am the first one to find it out."
"But what are you looking so sober for?" Constance went on, taking Fleda's
screen from her hand and fanning her diligently with it,--"you don't talk!
The gravity of Miss Ringgan's face casts a gloom over the brightness of
the evening. I couldn't conceive what made me feel chilly in the other
room, till I looked about and found that the shade came from this corner;
and Mr. Thorn's teeth, I saw, were chattering."
"Constance!" said Fleda laughing and vexed, and making the reproof more
strongly with her eyes,--"how can you talk so!"
"Mrs. Thorn, isn't it true?"
Mrs. Thorn's look at Fleda was the essence of good-humour.
"Will you let Lewis come and take you a good long ride to-morrow?"
"No, Mrs. Thorn, I believe not--I intend to stay perseveringly at home
to-morrow and see if it is possible to be quiet a day in New York."
"But you will go with me to the concert to-morrow night?--both of
you--and hear Truffi;--come to my house and take tea and go from there?
will you, Constance?"
"My dear Mrs. Thorn!" said Constance,--"I shall be in ecstacies, and Miss
Ringgan was privately imploring me last night to find some way of getting
her to it. We regard such material pleasures as tea and muffins with great
indifference, but when you look up after swallowing your last cup you will
see Miss Ringgan and Miss Evelyn, cloaked and hooded, anxiously awaiting
your next movement. My dear Fleda!--there is a ring!--"
And giving her the benefit of a most comic and expressive arching of
her eyebrows, Constance flung back the screen into Fleda's lap and
skimmed away.
Fleda was too vexed for a few minutes to understand more of Mrs. Thorn's
talk than that she was first enlarging upon the concert, and afterwards
detailing to her a long shopping expedition in search of something which
had been a morning's annoyance. She almost thought Constance was unkind,
because she wanted to go to the concert herself to lug her in so
unceremoniously; and wished herself back in her uncle's snug little quiet
parlour,--unless Mr. Carleton would come.
And there he is!--said a quick beat of her heart, as his entrance
explained Constance's "ring."
Such a rush of associations came over Fleda that she was in imminent
danger of losing Mrs. Thorn altogether. She managed however by some sort
of instinct to disprove the assertion that the mind cannot attend to two
things at once, and carried on a double conversation, with herself and
with Mrs. Thorn, for some time very vigorously.
"Just the same!--he has not altered a jot," she said to herself as he came
forward to Mrs. Evelyn;--"it is himself!--his very self--he doesn't look a
day older--I'm very glad!--(Yes, ma'am--it's extremely tiresome--) How
exactly as when he left me in Paris,--and how much pleasanter than anybody
else!--more pleasant than ever, it seems to me, but that is because I have
not seen him in so long; he only wanted one thing. That same grave eye--
but quieter, isn't it,--than it used to be?--I think so--(It's the best
store in town, I think, Mrs. Thorn, by far,--yes, ma'am--) Those eyes are
certainly the finest I ever saw--How I have seen him stand and look just
so when he was talking to his workmen--without that air of consciousness
that all these people have, comparatively--what a difference! (I know
very little about it, ma'am;--I am not learned in laces--I never bought
any--) I wish he would look this way--I wonder if Mrs. Evelyn does not
mean to bring him to see me--she must remember;--now there is that curious
old smile and looking down! how much better I know what it means than Mrs.
Evelyn does--(Yes, ma'am, I understand--I mean!--it is very convenient--I
never go anywhere else to get anything,--at least I should not if I lived
here--) She does not know whom she is talking to.--She is going to walk
him off into the other room! How very much more gracefully he does
everything than anybody else--it comes from that entire high-mindedness
and frankness, I think,--not altogether, a fine person must aid the
effect, and that complete independence of other people.----I wonder if
Mrs. Evelyn has forgotten my existence!--he has not, I am sure--I think
she is a little odd--(Yes, ma'am, my face is flushed--the room is very
warm--)"
"But the fire has gone down--it will be cooler now," said Mrs. Thorn.
Which were the first words that fairly entered Fleda's understanding. She
was glad to use the screen to hide her face now, not the fire.
Apparently the gentleman and lady found nothing to detain them in the
other room, for after sauntering off to it they sauntered back again and
placed themselves to talk just opposite her. Fleda had an additional
screen now in the person of Miss Tomlinson, who had sought her corner and
was earnestly talking across her to Mrs. Thorn; so that she was sure even
if Mr. Carleton's eyes should chance to wander that way they would see
nothing but the unremarkable skirt of her green silk dress, most unlikely
to detain them. The trade in nothings going on over the said green silk
was very brisk indeed; but disregarding the buzz of tongues near at hand
Fleda's quick ears were able to free the barrier and catch every one of
the quiet tones beyond.
"And you leave us the day after to-morrow?" said Mrs. Evelyn.
"No, Mrs. Evelyn,--I shall wait another steamer."
The lady's brow instantly revealed to Fleda a trap setting beneath to
catch his reason.
"I'm very glad!" exclaimed little Edith who in defiance of
conventionalities and proprieties made good her claim to be in the drawing
room on all occasions;--"then you will take me another ride, won't you,
Mr. Carleton?"
"You do not flatter us with a very long stay," pursued Mrs. Evelyn.
"Quite as long as I expected--longer than I meant it to be," he answered
rather thoughtfully.
"Mr. Carleton," said Constance sidling up in front of him,--"I have been
in distress to ask you a question, and I am afraid----"
"Of what are you afraid, Miss Constance?"
"That you would reward me with one of your severe looks,--which would
petrify me,--and then I am afraid I should feel uncomfortable--"
"I hope he will!" said Mrs. Evelyn, settling herself back in the corner of
the sofa, and with a look at her daughter which was complacency
itself,--"I hope Mr. Carleton will, if you are guilty of any
impertinence."
"What is the question, Miss Constance?"
"I want to know what brought you out here?"
"Fie, Constance!" said her mother. "I am ashamed of you. Do not answer
her, Mr. Carleton."
"Mr. Carleton will answer me, mamma,--he looks benevolently upon my
faults, which are entirely those of education! What was it, Mr. Carleton?"
"I suppose," said he smiling, "it might be traced more or less remotely to
the restlessness incident to human nature."
"But _you_ are not restless, Mr. Carleton," said Florence, with a glance
which might be taken as complimentary.
"And knowing that I am," said Constance in comic impatience,--"you are
maliciously prolonging my agonies. It is not what I expected of you, Mr.
Carleton."
"My dear," said her father, "Mr. Carleton, I am sure, will fulfil all
reasonable expectations. What is the matter?"
"I asked him where a certain tribe of Indians was to be found, papa, and
he told me they were supposed originally to have come across Behring's
Straits one cold winter!"
Mr. Evelyn looked a little doubtfully and Constance with so unhesitating
gravity that the gravity of nobody else was worth talking about.
"But it is so uncommon," said Mrs. Evelyn when they had done laughing,
"to see an Englishman of your class here at all, that when he comes a
second time we may be forgiven for wondering what has procured us such
an honour."
"Women may always be forgiven for wondering, my dear," said Mr.
Evelyn,--"or the rest of mankind must live at odds with them."
"Your principal object was to visit our western prairies, wasn't it, Mr.
Carleton?" said Florence.
"No," he replied quietly,--"I cannot say that. I should choose to give a
less romantic explanation of my movements. From some knowledge growing out
of my former visit to this country I thought there were certain
negotiations I might enter into here with advantage; and it was for the
purpose of attending to these, Miss Constance, that I came."
"And have you succeeded?" said Mrs. Evelyn with an expression of
benevolent interest.
"No, ma'am--my information had not been sufficient."
"Very likely!" said Mr. Evelyn. "There isn't one man in a hundred whose
representations on such a matter are to be trusted at a distance."
"'On such a matter'!" repeated his wife funnily,--"you don't know what the
matter was, Mr. Evelyn--you don't know what you are talking about."
"Business, my dear,--business--I take only what Mr. Carleton said;--it
doesn't signify a straw what business. A man must always see with his
own eyes."
Whether Mr. Carleton had seen or had not seen, or whether even he had his
faculty of hearing in present exercise, a glance at his face was
incompetent to discover.
"I never should have imagined," said Constance eying him keenly, "that Mr.
Carleton's errand to this country was one of business and not of romance,
_I_ believe it's a humbug!"
For an instant this was answered by one of those looks of absolute
composure in every muscle and feature which put an effectual bar to all
further attempts from without or revelations from within; a look Fleda
remembered well, and felt even in her corner. But it presently relaxed,
and he said with his usual manner,
"You cannot understand then, Miss Constance, that there should be any
romance about business?"
"I cannot understand," said Mrs. Evelyn, "why romance should not come
after business. Mr. Carleton, sir, you have seen American scenery this
summer--isn't American beauty worth staying a little while longer for?"
"My dear," said Mr. Evelyn, "Mr. Carleton is too much of a philosopher to
care about beauty--every man of sense is."
"I am sure he is not," said Mrs. Evelyn smoothly. "Mr. Carleton,--you are
an admirer of beauty, are you not, sir?"
"I hope so, Mrs. Evelyn," he said smiling,--"but perhaps I shall shock you
by adding,--not of _beauties_."
"That sounds very odd," said Florence.
"But let us understand," said Mrs. Evelyn with the air of a person solving
a problem,--"I suppose we are to infer that your taste in beauty is of a
peculiar kind?"
"That may be a fair inference," he said.
"What is it then?" said Constance eagerly.
"Yes--what is it you look for in a face?" said Mrs. Evelyn.
"Let us hear whether America has any chance," said Mr. Thorn, who
had joined the group and placed himself precisely so as to hinder
Fleda's view.
"My fancy has no stamp of nationality, in this, at least," he said
pleasantly.
"Now for instance, the Miss Delancys--don't you call them handsome, Mr.
Carleton?" said Florence.
"Yes," he said, half smiling.
"But not beautiful?--Now what is it they want?"
"I do not wish, if I could, to make the want visible to other eyes
than my own."
"Well, Cornelia Schenck,--how do you like her face?"
"It is very pretty-featured."
"Pretty-featured!--Why she is called beautiful. She has a beautiful smile,
Mr. Carleton?"
"She has only one."
"Only one! and how many smiles ought the same person to have?" cried
Florence impatiently. But that which instantly answered her said forcibly
that a plurality of them was possible.
"I have seen one face," he said gravely, and his eye seeking the
floor,--"that had I think a thousand."
"Different smiles?" said Mrs. Evelyn in a constrained voice.
"If they were not all absolutely that, they had so much of freshness and
variety that they all seemed new."
"Was the mouth so beautiful?" said Florence.
"Perhaps it would not have been remarked for beauty when it was perfectly
at rest; but it could not move with the least play of feeling, grave or
gay, that it did not become so in a very high degree. I think there was no
touch or shade of sentiment in the mind that the lips did not give with
singular nicety; and the mind was one of the most finely wrought I have
ever known."
"And what other features went with this mouth?" said Florence.
"The usual complement, I suppose," said Thorn. "'Item, two lips
indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one neck,
one chin, and so forth.'"
"Mr. Carleton, sir," said Mrs. Evelyn blandly--"as Mr. Evelyn says women
may be forgiven for wondering, won't you answer Florence's question?"
"Mr. Thorn has done it, Mrs. Evelyn, for me."
"But I have great doubts of the correctness of Mr. Thorn's description,
sir--won't you indulge us with yours?"
"Word-painting is a difficult matter, Mrs. Evelyn, in some
instances;--if I must do it I will borrow my colours. In general, 'that
which made her fairness much the fairer was that it was but an
ambassador of a most fair mind.'"
"A most exquisite picture!" said Thorn, "and the original don't stand so
thick that one is in any danger of mistaking them. Is the painter
Shakspeare?--I don't recollect--"
"I think Sidney, sir--I am not sure."
"But still, Mr. Carleton," said Mrs Evelyn, "this is only in general--I
want very much to know the particulars;--what style of features belonged
to this face?"
"The fairest, I think, I have ever known," said Mr. Carleton. "You
asked me, Miss Evelyn, what was my notion of beauty;--this face was a
good illustration of it. Not perfection of outline, though it had that
too in very uncommon degree;--but the loveliness of mind and character
to which these features were only an index; the thoughts were
invariably telegraphed through eye and mouth more faithfully than words
could give them."
"What kind of eyes?" said Florence.
His own grew dark as he answered,--
"Clear and pure as one might imagine an angel's--through which I am sure
my good angel many a time looked at me."
Good angels were at a premium among the eyes that were exchanging glances
just then.
"And Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn,--"is it fair to ask--this
paragon--is she living still?"
"I hope so," he answered, with his old light smile, dismissing the
subject.
"You spoke so much in the past tense," said Mrs. Evelyn apologetically.
"Yes, I have not seen it since it was a child's."
"A child's face!--Oh," said Florence, "I think you see a great many
children's faces with that kind of look."
"I never saw but the one," said Mr. Carleton dryly.
So far Fleda listened, with cheeks that would certainly have excited Mrs.
Thorn's alarm if she had not been happily engrossed with Miss Tomlinson's
affairs; though up to the last two minutes the idea of herself had not
entered Fleda's head in connection with the subject of conversation. But
then feeling it impossible to make her appearance in public that evening,
she quietly slipped out of the open window close by, which led into a
little greenhouse on the piazza, and by another door gained the hall and
the dressing-room.
When Dr. Gregory came to Mrs. Evelyn's an hour or two after, a figure all
cloaked and hooded ran down the stairs and met him in the hall.
"Ready!" said the doctor in surprise.
"I have been ready some time, sir," said Fleda.
"Well," said he, "then we'll go straight home, for I've not done my
work yet."
"Dear uncle Orrin!" said Fleda, "if I had known you had work to do I
wouldn't have come."
"Yes you would!" said he decidedly.
She clasped her uncle's arm and walked with him briskly home through the
frosty air, looking at the silent lights and shadows on the walls of the
street and feeling a great desire to cry.
"Did you have a pleasant evening?" said the doctor when they were
about half way.
"Not particularly, sir," said Fleda hesitating.
He said not another word till they got home and Fleda went up to her
room. But the habit of patience overcame the wish to cry; and though the
outside of her little gold-clasped Bible awoke it again, a few words of
the inside were enough to lay it quietly to sleep.
"Well," said the doctor as they sat at breakfast the next morning,--"where
are you going next?"
"To the concert, I must, to-night," said Fleda. "I couldn't help myself."
"Why should you want to help yourself?" said the doctor. "And to Mrs.
Thorn's to-morrow night?"
"No sir, I believe not."
"I believe you will," said he looking at her.
"I am sure I should enjoy myself more at home, uncle Orrin. There is very
little rational pleasure to be had in these assemblages."
"Rational pleasure!" said he. "Didn't you have any rational pleasure
last night?"
"I didn't hear a single word spoken, sir, that was worth listening to,--at
least that was spoken to me; and the hollow kind of rattle that one hears
from every tongue makes me more tired than anything else, I believe;--I am
out of tune with it, somehow."
"Out of tune!" said the old doctor, giving her a look made up of humourous
vexation and real sadness,--"I wish I knew the right tuning-key to take
hold of you!"
"I become harmonious rapidly, uncle Orrin, when I am in this pleasant
little room alone with you."
"That won't do!" said he, shaking his head at the smile with which this
was said,--"there is too much tension upon the strings. So that was the
reason you were all ready waiting for me last night?--Well, you must tune
up, my little piece of discordance, and go with me to Mrs. Thorn's
to-morrow night--I won't let you off."
"With you, sir!" said Fleda.
"Yes," he said. "I'll go along and take care of you lest you get drawn
into something else you don't like."
"But, dear uncle Orrin, there is another difficulty--it is to be a large
party and I have not a dress exactly fit."
"What have you got?" said he with a comic kind of fierceness.
"I have silks, but they are none of them proper for this occasion--they
are ever so little old-fashioned."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing, sir," said Fleda; "for I don't want to go."
"You mend a pair of stockings to put on," said he nodding at her, "and
I'll see to the rest."
"Apparently you place great importance in stockings," said Fleda laughing,
"for you always mention them first. But please don't get anything for me,
uncle Orrin--please don't! I have plenty for common occasions, and I don't
care to go to Mrs. Thorn's."
"I don't care either," said the doctor, working himself into his great
coat. "By the by, do you want to invoke the aid of St. Crispin?"
He went off, and Fleda did not know whether to cry or to laugh at the
vigorous way in which he trod through the hall and slammed the front door
after him. Her spirits just kept the medium and did neither. But they were
in the same doubtful mood still an hour after when he came back with a
paper parcel he had brought home under his arm, and unrolled a fine
embroidered muslin; her eyes were very unsteady in carrying their brief
messages of thankfulness, as if they feared saying too much. The doctor,
however, was in the mood for doing, not talking, by looks or otherwise.
Mrs. Pritchard was called into consultation, and with great pride and
delight engaged to have the dress and all things else in due order by the
following night; _her_ eyes saying all manner of gratulatory things as
they went from the muslin to Fleda and from Fleda to Dr. Gregory.
The rest of the day was, not books, but needlefuls of thread; and from the
confusion of laces and draperies Fleda was almost glad to escape and go to
the concert,--but for one item; that spoiled it.
They were in their seats early. Fleda managed successfully to place the
two Evelyns between her and Mr. Thorn, and then prepared herself to wear
out the evening with patience.
"My dear Fleda!" whispered Constance, after some time spent in restless
reconnoitring of everybody and everything,--"I don't see my English rose
anywhere!"
"Hush!" said Fleda smiling. "That happened not to be an English rose,
Constance."
"What was it?"
"American, unfortunately; it was a Noisette; the variety I think that they
call 'Conque de Venus.'"
"My dear little Fleda, you're too wise for anything!" said Constance with
a rather significant arching of her eyebrows. "You mustn't expect other
people to be as rural in their acquirements as yourself. I don't pretend
to know any rose by sight but the Queechy," she said, with a change of
expression meant to cover the former one.
Fleda's face, however, did not call for any apology. It was
perfectly quiet.
"But what has become of him?" said Constance with her comic
impatience.--"My dear Fleda! if my eyes cannot rest upon that development
of elegance the parterre is become a wilderness to me!"
"Hush, Constance!" Fleda whispered earnestly,--"you are not safe--he may
be near you."
"Safe!--" ejaculated Constance; but a half backward hasty glance of her
eye brought home so strong an impression that the person in question was
seated a little behind her that she dared not venture another look, and
became straightway extremely well-behaved.
He was there; and being presently convinced that he was in the
neighbourhood of his little friend of former days he resolved with his own
excellent eyes to test the truth of the opinion he had formed as to the
natural and inevitable effect of circumstances upon her character; whether
it could by possibility have retained its great delicacy and refinement
under the rough handling and unkindly bearing of things seemingly foreign
to both. He had thought not.
Truffi did not sing, and the entertainment was of a very secondary
quality. This seemed to give no uneasiness to the Miss Evelyns, for if
they pouted they laughed and talked in the same breath, and that
incessantly. It was nothing to Mr. Carleton, for his mind was bent on
something else. And with a little surprise he saw that it was nothing to
the subject of his thoughts,--either because her own were elsewhere too,
or because they were in league with a nice taste that permitted them to
take no interest in what was going on. Even her eyes, trained as they had
been to recluse habits, were far less busy than those of her companions;
indeed they were not busy at all; for the greater part of the time one
hand was upon the brow, shielding them from the glare of the gas-lights.
Ostensibly,--but the very quiet air of the face led him to guess that the
mind was glad of a shield too. It relaxed sometimes. Constance and
Florence and Mr. Thorn and Mr. Thorn's mother were every now and then
making demands upon her, and they were met always with an intelligent
well-bred eye, and often with a smile of equal gentleness and character;
but her observer noticed that though the smile came readily, it went as
readily, and the lines of the face quickly settled again into what seemed
to be an habitual composure. There were the same outlines, the same
characters, he remembered very well; yet there was a difference; not grief
had changed them, but life had. The brow had all its fine chiselling and
high purity of expression; but now there sat there a hopelessness, or
rather a want of hopefulness, that a child's face never knows. The mouth
was sweet and pliable as ever, but now often patience and endurance did
not quit their seat upon the lip even when it smiled. The eye with all its
old clearness and truthfulness had a shade upon it that nine years ago
only fell at the bidding of sorrow; and in every line of the face there
was a quiet gravity that went to the heart of the person who was studying
it. Whatever causes had been at work he was very sure had done no harm to
the character; its old simplicity had suffered no change, as every look
and movement proved; the very unstudied careless position of the fingers
over the eyes shewed that the thoughts had nothing to do there.
On one half of his doubt Mr. Carleton's mind was entirely made up;--but
education? the training and storing of the mind?--how had that fared? He
would know!--
Perhaps he would have made some attempt that very evening towards
satisfying himself; but noticing that in coming out Thorn permitted the
Evelyns to pass him and attached himself determinately to Fleda, he drew
back, and resolved to make his observations indirectly and on more than
one point before he should seem to make them at all.