AN AFTERNOON TEA.
Mrs. Stone’s room was fitted up in the latest, which I need not say is
far from being the newest fashion. It would indeed have been an insult
to her to say that anything in it was new. Mr. Morris had only just
begun to reign over the homes of the æsthetic classes; but Mrs. Stone
was well in advance of her age, and her walls were covered with a very
large pattern of acanthus-leaves in several shades of green, with
curtains as nearly as possible the same in design and color. She had a
number of plates hung about the walls instead of pictures, and here and
there gleaming shelves and little cabinets full of china, which were a
great relief and comfort to the eye. Her chairs were Chippendale, need
it be said? and held her visitors upright in a dignified height and
security. The room had but one window, which was large, but half-filled
with designs in glass, and half overshadowed with a great lime-tree,
which was delightful in summer, but in February not so delightful. The
fire was at the end of the room, and the room was somewhat dark,
especially in the afternoon. When the two girls went in several persons
were dimly visible seated in those large and solemn Chippendalian
chairs, with hands reposing upon the arms of them, ranged against the
walls like Egyptian gods. The color of one of those figures, though
faint in the gloom, was that of Miss Southwood’s gray velveteen, her
ordinary afternoon dress, and therefore recognizable; but the others in
masculine black clothes, with only a vague whiteness for their faces,
were mysterious as Isis and Osiris; and so was a lady with her veil over
her face, who sat at the other side of the fireplace, with the air of a
chairwoman at a meeting, high and stately; though she caught a little of
the pale afternoon daylight upon her, yet her dark dress and seal-skin
coat and veil prevented any distinctness of revelation. In this correct
and carefully arranged parlor there was one weak point. A woman who is
without caprice is unworthy of being called a woman. Instead of herself
occupying a Chippendale chair, and having her tea-tray placed upon the
tall slender-limbed Queen Anne table, which stood in readiness against
the wall, Mrs. Stone chose to make herself the one anachronism in the
place. Her chair was a low one in front of the fire; her teatable was in
proportion--a bit of debased nineteenth-century comfort in the midst of
the stately grace which she professed to think so much more delightful.
Why was this? It was Mrs. Stone’s pleasure, and there was no more to be
said. She, with her pretty white cap upon her handsome head, seated at
the feet of all her silent guests in their high chairs, was not only the
central light in the picture, but a kind of humorous commentary upon it;
but whether this proceeded from any sense of the joke in her, or was
merely the expression of her own determination to please herself, were
it even in flat rebellion to her own code, no one could tell.
“You are just in time,” she said, “Lucy and Katie, to give our friends
some tea. Don’t interfere, Frank. I like girls to hand tea. It comes
within their province; and it is a pretty office, which they do far more
prettily than you can.”
“That I don’t dispute for a moment,” said a large round manly barytone,
enthroned on high in one of the Chippendale chairs, “and I don’t deny
that I like to be served by such hands when it is permitted.”
“That is one of the popular fallacies about women,” said Mrs. Stone,
“and involves the whole question. Our weak surrender of our rights for
the pleasure of being waited upon in public, was, I suppose, one of the
consequences of chivalry. According to my theory, it is the business of
women to serve. You shoot the birds or kill the deer, Mr. Rushton, as
you best can, and we cook it and carve it, and serve it up to you.”
“If this beatitude depends upon my ability to kill the deer or shoot the
birds, my dear lady!” said another good-natured voice, which added
immediately, “Why, this is Lucy Trevor! I am very glad to see you. My
dear, this is Lucy Trevor. Since she has been at the White House we have
scarcely seen her. You girls are made too happy when you get under the
charge of Mrs. Stone.”
“Is it you, Lucy?” said the lady with the veil; “come and speak to me,
dear. I think it is a year since I have seen you. You have grown up,
quite grown up in the time. How these young creatures change! A year
does not make much difference in us; but this child has shot up! And
Raymond--you remember your playfellow, Lucy--why, he is a man, as old as
his father, giving us advice, if you please! It is something wonderful.
I catch myself laughing out when I hear him discoursing about law.
Raymond giving his opinion, my little boy, my baby! And I dare say
little Lucy has begun to give her opinion, too.”
“Lucy is a very good girl,” said Mrs. Stone; “she never takes anything
upon her. Katie now and then favors us with her ideas as to how the
world should be governed.”
“That is right,” said Mr. Rushton, from the darker side. “I like to know
what the young people think. It is they who will have it all in their
hands one day.”
“But, thank Heaven, they will have changed their minds before that
time.”
This was from Miss Southwood, who emphasized her exclamation by getting
up to sweep off into the fire-place a few crumbs from her gray velveteen
gown.
“Do you think it is a good thing they should have changed their minds?
It seems to me rather a pity. That is why we never have anything new. We
all fall into the same jog-trot about the same age.”
“The new is always to be avoided. Don’t tell me about jog-trot-- I wish I
were half as sensible as my mother.”
“And so do I, Ellen,” said Mrs. Stone, taking up the discussion in her
own manner with that soft little half blow to begin with. Nobody could
tell whether it was directed at her sister, or was an echo of her wish,
not even Lucy, who knew her so well, and who stood between her and Mrs.
Rushton, listening to their talk, but without any impulse on her own
part to rush into it as Katie would have done. Katie in the meantime had
got out of that graver circle. She had given the large barytone his cup
of tea, and now was holding the cake-basket while he selected a piece.
Katie was in the light, so much light as there was. She was a
fair-haired girl, with just the touch of warmth and color that Lucy
wanted--a little gold in her hair, a deeper blue in her eyes, a tinge of
rose on her cheeks; and she had a far warmer sense of fun than Lucy, who
would have carried the cake-basket quite demurely without any smile.
“I hope you will not think this is my fault,” Mrs. Stone’s nephew said
in a low tone. “I am bound to obey, as I suppose every one is here;
otherwise I should not sit still and allow myself to be served; it is
not my way, I assure you. And I keep you standing so long. I can not
make up my mind which piece to take. This has the most plums, but that
is the larger piece. It always turns out so in this life; I wonder if
you have found that out in your experience, or if things are better
managed here.”
“We are not supposed to have any experience at school,” said Katie,
demurely. It was pretty to see her holding the cake-basket. And the rest
of the company was occupied with their own conversation. Besides, how
was he to know which of them was the heiress?
“We met you on the common just now with your friend. It is not a very
amusing walk, but it is better than going out in procession, I suppose.
Does my aunt make you do that? is it part of a young lady’s education,
as cricket is of a man’s?”
“Yes,” said Katie. “We are trained to put up with everything that is
disagreeable, just as boys are trained to everything that is pleasant.”
“Do you think cricket then so pleasant?”
“Not to me, but I suppose it is to boys; and boating and everything of
the kind. On our side we are taught quite differently. If there is
anything more tiresome than another, more tedious, less likely to please
us, that is what we are made to do.”
“My poor aunt! is she a tyrant then with her pupils? She is not a
tyrant for her relations; or at least a very charming, delightful
tyrant.”
“I did not mean Mrs. Stone; she is very kind--even to me; but I have
been at other schools. I suppose it is for our good,” said Katie, with a
sigh; “everything that is very disagreeable is for our good; though I
wonder sometimes why the boys should not have a little trial of the
same--for I suppose they too have got to put up with things that are
disagreeable in their life.”
“We are supposed,” said the barytone, who was becoming quite visible to
her, enthroned in his Chippendale chair, “to have most of the
disagreeables of life, while you ladies who dwell at home at ease--”
“Ah!” cried Katie, setting down the cake-basket, “if you would but quote
correctly. The man who wrote the song knew a great deal better. It is
the gentlemen who live at home at ease. ‘To all you ladies now on land,’
is what he says; he knew better. We don’t go out to sea like him, but we
go through just as much on land, you may be sure,” cried the girl with a
sudden flush over her face; “it was not to us he said, ‘How little do
you think upon the dangers of the seas.’ I have got a little brother a
sailor,” she added, half under her breath.
“I have evidently chosen my illustration badly,” said the other, with
prompt good-humor and a sympathetic tone. “If you have a little brother
I have a big one at sea, so here is something to fraternize upon. Mine
is the captain of a big merchantman, an old salt and does not mind the
dangers of the sea.”
“Ah, but mine is a little middy,” said Katie, with a smile in her eyes
and a tear trembling behind it, “he minds a great deal. He does not like
it at all. And mamma and I feel the wind go through and through us
whenever it blows.”
“I see,” said the gentleman, “these are the disagreeables of life you
speak of--imaginary. Probably when he is in a gale you know nothing
about it, and the winds that make you tremble have nothing to do with
him; but these are very different, you must acknowledge, from real
troubles.”
Katie did not condescend to answer this speech. She gave him a look
only, but that spoke volumes. The superiority of experience in it was
beyond words. How could he know, a man, well dressed, and well off
apparently, with a heavy gold chain to his watch, and handsome studs,
how could he know one tithe of the troubles that had come her way in
that poverty which only those who know it can fathom? She withdrew
behind the tea-table, just as Mrs. Stone called to her nephew.
“Frank,” she said. (“So he is Frank, _too_,” said Katie to herself.) “I
have not presented you to my young friends. Mr. Frank St. Clair, Miss
Russell (I see you have made acquaintance already), and Miss Trevor.
Lucy, do you remember I once told you of a boy who was to me what your
little Jock is to you? There he stands,” for Frank had risen to bow to
his new acquaintance, and stood with his back to the window, shutting
out what little light there was.
“You were a very young aunt, certainly,” he said, “but I refuse to
believe that Miss Trevor has anything to do with a second generation.”
“Youth does not matter in that respect,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I was an
aunt when I was three. There are a great many younger aunts than Lucy;
but, as it happens, it is a little brother we are thinking of. And _à
propos_, my dear, how _is_ little Jock? has he gone to school? it must
be time he were at school.”
“When you are ready, Lucy,” said Mr. Rushton, “I am going with you to
see your father. Not to say a word against my good old friend Trevor, he
is full of whims. Now, what is his fancy about that child? He will not
bring him up as you have been brought up, Lucy.”
“Because he has nothing to do with the money,” said Lucy, simply. “Papa
thinks that a very good reason. I wish you would persuade him, Mr.
Rushton; I can’t.”
“And he tells you so!” said Mrs. Rushton, shaking her head; “he talks to
you about your money, Lucy?”
“Oh, yes, a great deal,” said Lucy. She spoke with perfect calm and
composure, and they all looked at her with subdued admiration. Six pairs
of eyes thus turned to her in the partial gloom. An heiress! and not
ashamed of it, nor excited by it--taking it so calmly. Sighs that were
all but prayers burst from, at least, three bosoms. Oh, that she but
knew my Raymond! thought one; and, if Frank will but play his cards as
he ought! breathed another; while Mr. St. Clair himself said within
himself robustly and without any disguise, I wish I had it! There was no
sentiment in the latter aspiration. Katie, for her part, looked across
the tea-table at her friend with one of her sudden blushes, feeling her
cheeks tingle. What were her feelings in respect to Lucy? In her case
the wonder and interest were dashed with contempt, yet warmed by
affection. Katie thought she despised money--not the abuse of it, nor
the pride of it--but itself. Her soft little lip curled (or, at least,
she tried to make it curl) with disdain at this meretricious advantage.
She had said a hundred times that Lucy would be a very nice girl, the
nicest girl in the school, if it were not for that money. She looked at
her with a kind of angry love--half disposed to cry out, in Lucy’s
defense, that she was far better than her fortune; and half to throw a
gibe at her because she was rich. If they had been alone she would have
done the latter. As it was, amid this party of people, with Mrs. Stone
close by, and Miss Southwood’s little dark eyes twinkling at her out of
the shadows, Katie was prudent and said nothing at all. As for Lucy, she
did not in the least perceive the covetousness which--in some instances,
so mingled with other feelings that its baseness was scarcely
visible--flamed in the eyes of the irreproachable people who surrounded
her. Mrs. Rushton was a kind, good woman, who would not have harmed a
fly. Mrs. Stone was better even, she was high-minded, generous in her
way. And yet they both devoured Lucy in their thoughts--gave her over to
the destroyer. How fortunate that she never suspected them as she stood
there tranquilly between the two, acknowledging that she knew a great
deal about her money! Mrs. Rushton was still shaking her head at that
avowal.
“My dear,” she was saying, and with perfect sincerity, “you must not let
it turn your head. Money can do a great deal, but there are many things
it can not do. It can not make you happy--or good.”
“Lucy is good in spite of it,” Mrs. Stone said, she too in all
sincerity; “and I don’t think she lets her mind dwell upon it. But it is
a very equivocal advantage for a girl,” she added, with a sigh.
All this Frank St. Clair listened to with a grin upon his good-looking
countenance. What humbugs! he said to himself--not being capable of
understanding that these women were much more interesting as well as
more dangerous in not being humbugs at all. He, for his part, waited for
an opportunity of making himself agreeable to the little heiress in
perfect good faith--_brutalement_ as the French say. He wanted to please
her frankly for her fortune’s sake. Not that he could have been unkind
to her had he happened to strike her fancy, or would waste her fortune,
or do anything unbecoming an honest Englishman. But an honest Englishman
with a light purse may surely look after a girl with money without
compromising his character. When he asked her to marry him he would not
let her see that her money had anything to do with it. He would fall in
love with her as a matter of course. It is not difficult to fall in
love with a pretty young girl of seventeen. Well, perhaps, not strictly
pretty--not nearly so pretty, for example, as that little Poverty by her
side, the foil to her wealth; but still very presentable, and not
unattractive in her own simple person. Thus the cautious eyes that
surrounded Lucy, the hearts that beat with eagerness to entrap and seize
her, did not recognize themselves as inflamed by evil passions. They
were aware, perhaps, that a little casuistry would be necessary to make
the outer world aware of the innocence of their intentions, but there
was no aspect of the case in which they could not prove that innocence
to themselves.
When the hour of tea was over Mr. Rushton walked home with Lucy to see
his old friend. John Trevor was not Mr. Rushton’s equal, nor did he
treat him as such. The old school master had taught him arithmetic, that
neglected branch of education, thirty or forty years ago, before he went
to the public school, where it was not taught; and the prosperous
lawyer, who was town clerk, and one of the principal men in Farafield,
had always shown a great regard for his old master. “I should never have
known more than two times two but for you, Trevor,” he would say,
patting the old man on the shoulder, not very respectful, yet with
genuine kindness. He went into the blue and white drawing-room, and
seated himself in front of the fire, and talked for an hour to old
Trevor, liberating Lucy, who hurried away to Mrs. Ford’s parlor, and
with enviable confidence in her digestion, had another cup of tea to
please Jock, who had been watching for her eagerly from the window. Then
she was made to sit down in a creaking basket-work chair beside the fire
and tell him stories. Mrs. Ford’s parlor was not æsthetic, like that of
Mrs. Stone; but its horse-hair and mahogany furniture produced an effect
not much unlike. Mrs. Ford, in a black arm-chair, was elevated as high
above the heads of the younger people as if she had been seated in a
genuine Chippendale chair. And she crossed her hands on her black silk
apron, and sitting back in the shadow, listened well pleased, but half
in a drowse of comfort, to Lucy’s stories. She had a little rest in her
own person when Lucy stepped into the breach; though Mrs. Ford was not
at all certain that Lucy’s stories were Sunday stories worthy of the
name.
Old Trevor had the will spread out before him when Mr. Rushton
entered--not adding to it, however, which he would have certainly
disapproved of as improper Sunday work--but reading it over, some times
aloud, sometimes under his breath, sometimes with mutterings of
criticism. He pushed it away a his visitor entered, and rose tottering
to welcome him.
“Always going on with it, always going on with it,” the new-comer said,
shaking his hand.
“Yes, I always go on with it,” cried old Trevor, with a chuckle; “it’s
my _magnum opus_, Mr. Rushton. I add a bit most days, and on Sunday I
read over my handiwork, and study how I can mend it. I have put you in,”
he added, with a great many nods of his head.
“What, for a legacy, Trevor?” said Mr. Rushton, with an easy laugh.
“For a legacy if you like,” said old Trevor, “though I don’t suppose a
hundred pounds would be much to you. No, not for money, but for the care
of my girl, who is money. Ford down-stairs is always dinning into my
ears that somebody will marry her for her fortune. I hope Lucy has more
sense; but still, in case of anything happening, I want her to have
friends to advise her.”
“Oh, I will advise her,” said Mr. Rushton, lightly, “though I think
perhaps my wife would do it better. Fortune-hunters, yes, there are
always fortune-hunters after an heiress. Your best plan would be to
choose some one for her yourself, and get her married off in your
lifetime, Trevor. Lucy is a good girl, and would content herself with
her father’s choice.”
“Do you think so?” said the old man, with a gleam of pleasure; “but, no,
no,” he added, “I am not in the same world that Lucy will be in. I
couldn’t choose for her; and besides she’s only seventeen, and I’m not
long for this world.”
“Seventeen is not too young to be married; and you’re hale and hearty,
my old friend,” said his visitor, once more slapping him on the
shoulder. This demonstration of friendliness was almost too much for old
Trevor, standing up feebly on his trembling old legs in honor of this
distinguished acquaintance. He shook his head, but the voice was shaken
out of him, and he was not capable of any further reply. When, however,
Mr. Rushton encountered Ford outside at the gateway of the Terrace he
took a much less jovial tone. “I hope he has got everything signed and
sealed,” he said, “and all his affairs in order: these papers he is
always pottering over--codicils, I suppose--you should get them signed,
too, and made an end of. He is not long for this world, as he himself
says.”
“I don’t see much difference,” said Ford, with that eagerness, half
sorrow for the impending event, half impatience to have it over, which
even the most affectionate of friends often feel in spite of
themselves, in respect to a long anticipated, often retarded ending.
“But then I see him every day. Do you really think--”
“You should see that everything is settled and in order,” said the
lawyer, as he walked away.