BORN TO BE A BACHELOR.
"The truth is, Madame," began Lawrence Newt, addressing Mrs. Bennet,
"that I am ashamed of myself--I ought to have called a hundred times.
I ask your pardon, Sir," he continued, turning to Mr. Bennet, who was
standing irresolutely by the sofa, half-leaning upon the arm.
"Oh!--ah! I am sure," replied Mr. Bennet, with the nervous smile flitting
across his face and apparently breaking out all over him; and there he
remained speechless and bowing, while Mr. Newt hastened to seat himself,
that every body else might sit down also.
Mrs. Bennet said that she was really, glad to see the face of an old
friend again whom she had not seen for so long.
"But I see you every day in Gabriel, my dear Madame," replied Lawrence
Newt, with quaint dignity. Mother and son both smiled, and the father
bowed as if the remark had been addressed to him.
Amy seated herself by Gabriel and Ellen, and talked very animatedly with
them, while the parents and Mr. Newt sat together. She praised the roses,
and smelled them very often; and whenever she did so, her eyes, having
nothing in particular to do at the moment, escaped, as it were, under her
brows through the petals of the roses as she bent over them, and wandered
away to Lawrence Newt, whose kind, inscrutable eyes, by the most
extraordinary chance in the world, seemed to be expecting hers, and were
ready to receive them with the warmest welcome, and a half-twinkle--or
was it no twinkle at all? which seemed to say, "Oh! you came--did you?"
And every time his eyes seemed to say this Amy burst out into fresh
praises of those beautiful roses to her younger cousins, and pressed them
close to her cheek, as if she found their moist, creamy coolness
peculiarly delicious and refreshing--pressed them so close, indeed, that
she seemed to squeeze some of their color into her cheeks, which Gabriel
and Ellen both thought, and afterward declared to their mother, to be
quite as beautiful as roses.
Amy's conversation with her young cousins was very lively indeed, but it
had not a continuous interest. There were incessant little pauses, during
which the eyes slipped away again across the room, and fell as softly as
before, plump into the same welcome and the same little interrogation in
those other eyes, twinkling with that annoying "did you?"
Amy Waring was certainly twenty-five, although Gabriel laughed and jeered
at any such statement. But mamma and the Family Bible were too much for
him. Lawrence Newt was certainly more than forty. But the Newt Family
Bible was under a lock of which the key lay in Mrs. Boniface Newt's
bureau, who, in a question of age, preferred tradition, which she could
judiciously guide, to Scripture. When Boniface Newt led Nancy Magot to
the altar, he recorded, in a large business hand, both the date of his
marriage and his wife's birth. She protested, it was vulgar. And when the
bridegroom inquired whether the vulgarity were in the fact of being born
or in recording it, she said: "Mr. Newt, I am ashamed of you," and locked
up the evidence.
There was a vague impression in the Newt family--Boniface had already
mentioned it to his son Abel--that there was something that Uncle
Lawrence never talked about--many things indeed, of course, but still
something in particular. Outside the family nothing was suspected.
Lawrence Newt was simply one of those incomprehensibly pleasant,
eccentric, benevolent men, whose mercantile credit was as good as Jacob
Van Boozenberg's, but who perversely went his own way. One of these ways
led to all kinds of poor people's houses; and it was upon a visit to the
widow of the clergyman to whom Boniface Newt had given eight dollars for
writing a tract entitled "Indiscriminate Almsgiving a Crime," that
Lawrence Newt had first met Amy Waring. As he was leaving money with the
poor woman to pay her rent, Amy came in with a basket of comfortable
sugars and teas. She carried the flowers in her face. Lawrence Newt was
almost blushing at being caught in the act of charity; and as he was
sliding past her to get out, he happened to look at her face, and
stopped.
"Bless my soul! my dear young lady, surely your name is Darro!"
The dear young lady smiled and colored, and replied,
"No, mine is not, but my mother's was."
"Of course it was. Those eyes of yours are the Darro eyes. Do you think I
do not know the Darro eyes when I see them?"
And he took Amy's hand, and said, "Whose daughter are you?"
"My name is Amy Waring."
"Oh! then you are Corinna's daughter. Your aunt Lucia married Mr. Bennet,
and--and--" Lawrence Newt's voice paused and hesitated for a moment,
"and--there was another."
There was something so tenderly respectful in the tone that Amy, with
only a graver face, replied,
"Yes, there was my Aunt Martha."
"I remember all. She is gone; my dear young lady, you will forgive me,
but your face recalls other years." Then turning to the widow, he said,
"Mrs. Simmer, I am sure that you could have no kinder, no better friend
than this young lady."
The young lady looked at him with a gentle inquiry in her eyes as who
should say, "What do you know about it?"
Lawrence Newt's eyes understood in a moment, and he answered:
"Oh, I know it as I know that a rose smells sweet."
He bowed as he said it, and took her hand.
"Will you remember to ask your mother if she remembers Lawrence Newt, and
if he may come and see her?"
Amy Waring said Yes, and the gentleman, bending and touching the tips of
her fingers with his lips, said, "Good-by, Mrs. Simmer," and departed.
He called at Mrs. Waring's within a few days afterward. He had known her
as a child, but his incessant absence from home when he was younger had
prevented any great intimacy with old acquaintances. But the Darros were
dancing-school friends and partners. Since those days they had become
women and mothers. He had parted with Corinna Darro, a black-eyed little
girl in short white frock and short curling hair and red ribbons. He met
her as Mrs. Delmer Waring, a large, maternal, good-hearted woman.
This had happened two years before, and during all the time since then
Lawrence Newt had often called--had met Amy in the street on many
errands--had met her at balls whenever he found she was going. He did not
ask her to drive with him. He did not send her costly gifts. He did
nothing that could exclude the attentions of younger men. But sometimes
a basket of flowers came for Miss Waring--without a card, without any
clue. The good-hearted mother thought of various young men, candidates
for degrees in Amy's favor, who had undoubtedly sent the flowers. The
good-hearted mother, who knew that Amy was in love with none of them,
pitied them--thought it was a great shame they should lose their time in
such an utterly profitless business as being in love with Amy; and when
any of them called said, with a good-humored sigh, that she believed her
daughter would never be any thing but a Sister of Charity.
Sometimes also a new book came, and on the fly-leaf was written, "To Miss
Amy Waring, from her friend Lawrence Newt." Then the good-hearted mother
remarked that some men were delightfully faithful to old associations,
and that it was really beautiful to see Mr. Newt keeping up the
acquaintance so cordially, and complimenting his old friend so delicately
by thinking of pleasing her daughter. What a pity he had never married,
to have had daughters of his own! "But I suppose, Amy, some men are born
to be bachelors."
"I suppose they are, mother," Amy replied, and found immediately after
that she had left her scissors, she couldn't possibly remember where;
perhaps in your room, mamma, perhaps in mine.
They must be looked for, however, and, O how curious! there they lay in
her own room upon the table. In her own room, where she opened the new
book and read in it for half an hour at a time, but always poring on the
same page. It was such a profound work. It was so full of weighty matter.
When would she ever read it through at this rate, for the page over which
she pored had less on it than any other page in the book. In fact it had
nothing on it but that very commonplace and familiar form of words, "To
Miss Amy Waring, from her friend Lawrence Newt."
Amy was entirely of her mother's opinion. Some men are undoubtedly born
to be bachelors. Some men are born to be as noble as the heroes of
romances--simple, steadfast, true; to be gentle, intelligent, sagacious,
with an experience that has mellowed by constant and various intercourse
with men, but with a heart that that intercourse has never chilled, and
a faith which that experience has only confirmed. Some men are born to
possess every quality of heart, and mind, and person that can awaken and
satisfy the love of a woman. Yes, unquestionably, said Amy Waring in her
mind, which was so cool, so impartial, so merely contemplating the
subject as an abstract question, some men--let me see, shall I say like
Lawrence Newt, simply as an illustration?--well, yes--some men like
Lawrence Newt, for instance, are born to be all that some women dream of
in their souls, and they are the very ones who are born to be bachelors.
It might be very sad not to be aware of it, thought Amy. What a profound
pity it would be if any young woman should not see it, for instance,
in the case of Lawrence Newt. But when a young woman is in no doubt at
all, when she knows perfectly well that such a man is not intended by
nature to be a marrying man, and therefore never thinks of such a thing,
but only with a grace, and generosity, and delicacy beyond expression
offers his general homage to the sex by giving little gifts to her, "why,
then--then," thought Amy, and she was thinking so at the very moment when
she sat with Gabriel and Ellen, talking in a half wild, lively,
incoherent way, "why, then--then," and her eyes leaped across the room
and fell, as it were, into the arms of Lawrence Newt's, which caressed
them with soft light, and half-laughed "You came again, did you?"--"why,
then--then," and Amy buried her face in the cool, damp roses, and did not
dare to look again, "then she had better go and be a Sister of Charity."