MRS. THEODORE KINGFISHER AT HOME. _On dansera._
Society stared when it beheld Miss Hope Wayne entering the drawing-room
of Mrs. Theodore Kingfisher.
"Really, Miss Wayne, I am delighted," said Mrs. Kingfisher, with a smile
that might have been made at the same shop with the flowers that nodded
over it.
Mrs. Kingfisher's friendship for Miss Wayne and her charming aunt
consisted in two pieces of pasteboard, on which was printed, in German
text, "Mrs. Theodore Kingfisher, St. John's Square," which she had left
during the winter; and her pleasure at seeing her was genuine--not that
she expected they would solace each other's souls with friendly
intercourse, but that she knew Hope to be a famous beauty who had held
herself retired until now at the very end of the season, when she
appeared for the first time at her ball.
This reflection secured an unusually ardent reception for Mrs. Dagon, who
followed Mrs. Dinks's party, and who, having made her salutation to the
hostess, said to Mr. Boniface Newt, her nephew, who accompanied her,
"Now I'll go and stand by the pier-glass, so that I can rake the rooms.
And, Boniface, mind, I depend upon your getting me some lobster salad at
supper, with plenty of dressing--mind, now, plenty of dressing."
Perched like a contemplative vulture by the pier, Mrs. Dagon declined
chairs and sofas, but put her eye-glass to her eyes to spy out the land.
She had arrived upon the scene of action early. She always did.
"I want to see every body come in. There's a great deal in watching how
people speak to each other. I've found out a great many things in that
way, my dear, which were not suspected."
Presently a glass at the other end of the room that was bobbing up
and down and about at everybody and thing--at the ceiling, and the
wall, and the carpet--discovering the rouge upon cheeks whose ruddy
freshness charmed less perceptive eyes--reducing the prettiest lace
to the smallest terms in substance and price--detecting base cotton with
one fell glance, and the part of the old dress ingeniously furbished to
do duty as new--this philosophic and critical glass presently encountered
Mrs. Dagon's in mid-career. The two ladies behind the glasses glared at
each other for a moment, then bowed and nodded, like two Chinese idols
set up on end at each extremity of the room.
"Good-evening, dear, good Mrs. Winslow Orry," said the smiling eyes of
Mrs. Dagon to that lady. "How doubly scraggy you look in that worn-out
old sea-green satin!" said the smiling old lady to herself.
"How do, darling Mrs. Dagon?" said the responsive glance of Mrs. Orry,
with the most gracious effulgence of aspect, as she glared across the
room--inwardly thinking, "What a silly old hag to lug that cotton lace
cape all over town!"
People poured in. The rooms began to swarm. There was a warm odor of kid
gloves, scent-bags, and heliotrope. There was an incessant fluttering of
fans and bobbing of heads. One hundred gentlemen said, "How warm it is!"
One hundred ladies of the highest fashion answered, "Very." Fifty young
men, who all wore coats, collars, and waistcoats that seemed to have been
made in the lump, and all after the same pattern, stood speechless about
the rooms, wondering what under heaven to do with their hands. Fifty
older married men, who had solved that problem, folded their hands behind
their backs, and beamed vaguely about, nodding their heads whenever they
recognized any other head, and saying, "Good-evening," and then, after a
little more beaming, "How are yer?" Waiters pushed about with trays
covered with little glasses of lemonade and port-sangaree, which offered
favorable openings to the unemployed young men and the married gentlemen,
who crowded along with a glass in each hand, frightening all the ladies
and begging every body's pardon.
All the Knickerbocker jewels glittered about the rooms. Mrs. Bleecker Van
Kraut carried not less than thirty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds
upon her person--at least that was Mrs. Orry's deliberate conclusion
after a careful estimate. Mrs. Dagon, when she heard what Mrs. Orry
said, merely exclaimed, "Fiddle! Anastatia Orry can tell the price of
lutestring a yard because Winslow Orry failed in that business, but she
knows as much of diamonds as an elephant of good manners."
The Van Kraut property had been bowing about the drawing-rooms of New
York for a year or two, watched with palpitating hearts and longing eyes.
Until that was disposed of, nothing else could win a glance. There were
several single hundreds of thousands openly walking about the same rooms,
but while they were received very politely, they were made to feel that
two millions were in presence and unappropriated, and they fell humbly
back.
Fanny Newt, upon her debut in society, had contemplated the capture of
the Van Kraut property; but the very vigor with which she conducted the
campaign had frightened the poor gentleman who was the present member for
that property, in society, so that he shivered and withdrew on the dizzy
verge of a declaration; and when he subsequently encountered Lucy Slumb,
she was immediately invested with the family jewels.
"Heaven save me from a smart woman!" prayed Bleecker Van Kraut; and
Heaven heard and kindly granted his prayer.
Presently, while the hot hum went on, and laces, silks, satins, brocades,
muslins, and broadcloth intermingled and changed places, so that Arthur
Merlin, whom Lawrence Newt had brought, declared the ball looked like a
shot silk or a salmon's belly--upon overhearing which, Mrs. Bleecker Van
Kraut, who was passing with Mr. Moultrie, looked unspeakable things--the
quick eyes of Fanny Newt encountered the restless orbs of Mrs. Dinks.
Alfred had left town for Boston on the very day on which Hope Wayne
had learned the story of her engagement. Neither his mother nor Hope,
therefore, had had an opportunity of asking an explanation.
"I am glad to see Miss Wayne with you to-night," said Fanny.
"My niece is her own mistress," replied Mrs. Dinks, in a sub-acid tone.
Fanny's eyes grew blacker and sharper in a moment. An Indian whose life
depends upon concealment from his pursuer is not more sensitive to the
softest dropping of the lightest leaf than was Fanny Newt's sagacity to
the slightest indication of discovery of her secret. There is trouble,
she said to herself, as she heard Mrs. Dinks's reply.
"Miss Wayne has been a recluse this winter," remarked Fanny, with
infinite blandness.
"Yes, she has had some kind of whim," replied Mrs. Dinks, shaking her
shoulders as if to settle her dress.
"We girls have all suspected, you know, of course, Mrs. Dinks," said Miss
Newt, with a very successful imitation of archness and a little bend of
the neck.
"Have you, indeed!" retorted Mrs. Dinks, in almost a bellicose manner.
"Why, yes, dear Mrs. Dinks; don't you remember at Saratoga--you know?"
continued Fanny, with imperturbable composure.
"What happened at Saratoga?" asked Mrs. Dinks, with smooth defiance
on her face, and conscious that she had never actually mentioned any
engagement between Alfred and Hope.
"Dear me! So many things happen at Saratoga," answered Fanny, bridling
like a pert miss of seventeen. "And when a girl has a handsome cousin,
it's very dangerous." Fanny Newt was determined to know where she was.
"Some girls are very silly and willful," tartly remarked Mrs. Dinks.
"I suppose," said Fanny, with extraordinary coolness, continuing the
_rôle_ of the arch maid of seventeen--"I suppose, if every thing one
hears is true, we may congratulate you, dear Mrs. Dinks, upon an
interesting event?" And Fanny raised her bouquet and smelled at it
vigorously--at least, she seemed to be doing so, because the flowers
almost covered her face, but really they made an ambush from which she
spied the enemy, unseen.
The remark she had made had been made a hundred times before to Mrs.
Dinks. In fact, Fanny herself had used it, under various forms, to assure
herself, by the pleased reserve of the reply which Mrs. Dinks always
returned, that the lady had no suspicion that she was mistaken. But this
time Mrs. Dinks, whose equanimity had been entirely disturbed by her
discovery that Hope was not engaged to Alfred, asked formally, and not
without a slight sneer which arose from an impatient suspicion that Fanny
knew more than she chose to disclose--
"And pray, Miss Newt, what do people hear? Really, if other people are as
unfortunate as I am, they hear a great deal of nonsense."
Upon which Mrs. Budlong Dinks sniffed the air like a charger.
"I know it--it is really dreadful," returned Fanny Newt. "People do say
the most annoying and horrid things. But this time, I am sure, there can
be nothing very vexatious." And Miss Newt fanned herself with persistent
complacency, as if she were resolved to prolong the pleasure which Mrs.
Dinks must undoubtedly have in the conversation.
Hitherto it had been the policy of that lady to demur and insinuate,
and declare how strange it was, and how gossipy people were, and finally
to retreat from a direct reply under cover of a pretty shower of ohs!
and ahs! and indeeds! and that policy had been uniformly successful.
Everybody said, "Of course Alfred Dinks and his cousin are engaged, and
Mrs. Dinks likes to have it alluded to--although there are reasons why
it must be not openly acknowledged." So Field-marshal Mrs. Dinks
outgeneraled Everybody. But the gallant young private, Miss Fanny Newt,
was resolved to win her epaulets.
As Mrs. Dinks made no reply, and assumed the appearance of a lady who,
for her own private and inscrutable reasons, had concluded to forego the
prerogative of speech for evermore, while she fanned herself calmly, and
regarded Fanny with a kind of truculent calmness that seemed to say,
"What are you going to do about that last triumphant move of mine?" Fanny
proceeded in a strain of continuous sweetness that fairly rivaled the
smoothness of the neck, and the eyes, and the arms of Mrs. Bleecker Van
Kraut:
"I suppose there can be nothing very disagreeable to Miss Wayne's friends
in knowing that she is engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks?"
Alas! Mrs. Dinks, who knew Hope, knew that the time for dexterous
subterfuges and misleadings had passed. She resolved that people, when
they discovered what they inevitably soon must discover, should not
suppose that she had been deceived. So, looking straight into Fanny
Newt's eyes without flinching--and somehow it was not a look of profound
affection--she said,
"I was not aware of any such engagement."
"Indeed!" replied the undaunted Fanny, "I have heard that love is blind,
but I did not know that it was true of maternal love. Mr. Dinks's mother
is not his confidante, then, I presume?"
The bad passions of Mr. Dinks's mother's heart were like the heathen, and
furiously raged together at this remark. She continued the fanning, and
said, with a sickly smile,
"Miss Newt, you can contradict from me the report of any such
engagement."
That was enough. Fanny was mistress of the position. If Mrs. Dinks were
willing to say that, it was because she was persuaded that it never would
be true. She had evidently discovered something. How much had she
discovered? That was the next step.
As these reflections flashed through the mind of Miss Fanny Newt, and her
cold black eye shone with a stony glitter, she was conscious that the
time for some decisive action upon her part had arrived. To be or not to
be Mrs. Alfred Dinks was now the question; and even as she thought of it
she felt what must be done. She did not depreciate the ability of Mrs.
Dinks, and she feared her influence upon Alfred. Poor Mr. Dinks! he was
at that moment smoking a cigar upon the forward deck of the _Chancellor
Livingston_ steamer, that plied between New York and Providence. Mr.
Bowdoin Beacon sat by his side.
"She's a real good girl, and pretty, and rich, though she is my cousin,
Bowdoin. So why don't you?"
Mr. Beacon, a member of the upper sex, replied, gravely, "Well, perhaps!"
They were speaking of Hope Wayne.
At the same instant also, in Mrs. Kingfisher's swarming drawing-rooms,
looking on at the dancers and listening to the music, stood Hope Wayne,
Lawrence Newt, Amy Waring, and Arthur Merlin. They were chatting together
pleasantly, Lawrence Newt usually leading, and Hope Wayne bending her
beautiful head, and listening and looking at him in a way to make any
man eloquent. The painter had been watching for Mr. Abel Newt's entrance,
and, after he saw him, turned to study the effect produced upon Miss
Wayne by seeing him.
But Abel, who saw as much in his way as Mrs. Dagon in hers, although
without the glasses, had carefully kept in the other part of the rooms.
He had planted his batteries before Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut, having
resolved to taste her, as Herbert Octoyne had advised, notwithstanding
that she had no flavor, as Abel himself had averred.
But who eats merely for the flavor of the food?
That lady clicked smoothly as Abel, metaphorically speaking, touched her.
Louis Wilkottle, her cavalier, slipped away from her he could not tell
how: he merely knew that Abel Newt was in attendance, vice Wilkottle,
disappeared. So Wilkottle floated about the rooms upon limp pinions for
sometime, wondering where to settle, and brushed Fanny Newt in flying.
"Oh! Mr. Wilkottle, you are just the man. Mr. Whitloe, Laura Magot, and
I were just talking about Batrachian reptiles. Which are the best toads,
the fattest?"
"Or does it depend upon the dressing?" asked Mr. Whitloe.
"Or the quantity of jewelry in the head?" said Laura Magot.
Mr. Wilkottle smiled, bowed, and passed on.
If they had called him an ass--as they were ladies of the best
position--he would have bowed, smiled, and passed on.
"An amiable fellow," said Fanny, as he disappeared; "but quite a
remarkable fool."
Mr. Zephyr Wetherley, still struggling with the hand problem, approached
Miss Fanny, and remarked that it was very warm.
"You're cool enough in all conscience, Mr. Wetherley," said she.
"My dear Miss Newt, 'pon honor," replied Zephyr, beginning to be very
red, and wiping his moist brow.
"I call any man cool who would have told St. Lawrence upon the gridiron
that he was frying," interrupted Fanny.
"Oh!--ah!--yes!--on the gridiron! Yes, very good! Ha! ha! Quite on the
gridiron--very much so! 'Tis very hot here. Don't you think so? It's
quite confusing, like--sort of bewildering. Don't you think so, Miss
Newt?"
Fanny was leveling her black eyes at him for a reply, but Mr. Wetherley,
trying to regulate his hands, said, hastily,
"Yes, quite on the gridiron--very!" and rapidly moved off it by moving
on.
"Good evenin', Mrs. Newt," said a voice in another part of the room.
"Good-evenin', marm. I sez to ma, Now ma, sez I, you'd better go to Mrs.
Kingfisher's ball. Law, pa, sez she, I reckon 'twill be so werry hot to
Mrs. Kingfisher's that I'd better stay to home, sez she. So she staid.
Well, 'tis dreadful hot, Mrs. Newt. I'm all in a muck. As I was a-puttin'
on my coat, I sez, Now, ma, sez I, I hate to wear that coat, sez I.
A man does git so nasty sweaty in a great, thick coat, sez I. Whew! I'm
all sticky."
And Mr. Van Boozenberg worked himself in his garments and stretched his
arms to refresh himself.
Mrs. Boniface Newt, to whom he made this oration, had been taught by her
husband that Mr. Van Boozenberg was an oaf, but an oaf whose noise was to
be listened to with the utmost patience and respect. "He's a brute, my
dear; but what can we do? When I am rich we can get rid of such people."
On the other hand, Jacob Van Boozenberg had his little theory of Boniface
Newt, which, unlike that worthy commission merchant, he did not impart to
his ma and the partner of his bosom, but locked up in the vault of his
own breast. Mr. Van B. gloried in being what he called a self-made man.
He was proud of his nasal twang and his want of grammar, and all
amenities and decencies of speech. He regarded them as inseparable
from his success. He even affected them in the company of those who were
peculiarly elegant, and was secretly suspicious of the mercantile paper
of all men who were unusually neat in their appearance, and who spoke
their native language correctly. The partner of his bosom was the
constant audience of his self-glorification.
A little while before, her lord had returned one day to dinner, and said,
with a tone of triumph,
"Well, ma, Gerald Bennet & Co. have busted up--smashed all to pieces.
Always knew they would. I sez to you, ma, a hundred times--don't you
remember?--Now, ma, sez I, 'tain't no use. He's been to college, and he
talks grammar, and all that; but what's the use? What's the use of
talkin' grammar? Don't help nothin'. A man feels kind o' stuck up when
he's been to college. But, ma, sez I, gi' me a self-made man--a man what
knows werry well that twice two's four. A self-made man ain't no time for
grammar, sez I. If a man expects to get on in this world he mustn't be
too fine. This is the second time Bennet's busted. Better have no grammar
and more goods, sez I. You remember--hey, ma?"
When, a little while afterward, Mr. Bennet applied for a situation as
book-keeper in the bank of which Mr. Van Boozenberg was president, that
officer hung, drew, and quartered the English language, before the very
eyes of Mr. Bennet, to show him how he despised it, and to impress him
with the great truth that he, Jacob Van Boozenberg, a self-made man, who
had no time to speak correctly, nor to be comely or clean, was yet a
millionaire before whom Wall Street trembled--while he, Gerald Bennet,
with all his education, and polish, and care, and scrupulous neatness and
politeness, was a poverty-stricken, shiftless vagabond; and what good had
grammar done him? The ruined gentleman stood before the president--who
was seated in his large armchair at the bank--holding his hat
uncertainly, the nervous smile glimmering like heat lightning upon
his pale, anxious face, in which his eyes shone with that singular,
soft light of dreams.
"Now, Mr. Bennet, I sez to ma this very mornin'--sez I, 'Ma, I s'pose Mr.
Bennet 'll be wantin' a place in our bank. If he hadn't been so wery
fine,' sez I, 'he might have got on. He talks be-youtiful grammar, ma,'"
said the worthy President, screwing in the taunt, as it were; "'but
grammar ain't good to eat,' sez I. 'He ain't a self-made man, as some
folks is,' sez I; 'but I suppose I'll have to stick him in somewheres,'
sez I--that's all of it."
Gerald Bennet winced. Beggars mustn't be choosers, said he, feebly, in
his sad heart, and he thankfully took the broken victuals Jacob Van
Boozenberg threw him. But he advised Gabriel, as we saw, to try Lawrence
Newt.
Mrs. Newt agreed with Mr. Van Boozenberg that it was very warm.
"I heerd about you to Saratogy last summer, Mrs. Newt; but you ain't been
to see ma since you come home. 'Ma,' sez I, 'why don't Mrs. Newt call and
see us?' 'Law, pa,' sez she, 'Mrs. Newt can't call and see such folks as
we be!' sez she. 'We ain't fine enough for Mrs. Newt,'" said the great
man of Wall Street, and he laughed aloud at the excellent joke.
"Mrs. Van Boozenberg is very much mistaken," replied Mrs. Newt,
anxiously. "I am afraid she did not get my card. I am very sorry. But
I hope you will tell her."
The great Jacob knew perfectly well that Mrs. Newt had called, but he
liked to show himself how vast his power was. He liked to see fine ladies
in splendid drawing-rooms bowing, down before his ungrammatical throne,
and metaphorically kissing his knobby red hand.
"Your son, Abel, seems to enjoy himself werry well, Mrs. Newt," said Mr.
Van Boozenberg, as he observed that youth, in sumptuous array, dancing
devotedly with Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut.
"Oh dear, yes," replied Mrs. Newt. "But you know what young sons are, Mr.
Van Boozenberg.'"
The conversation was setting precisely as that gentleman wished, and as
he had intended to direct it.
"Mercy, yes, Mrs. Newt! Ma sez to me, 'Pa, what a boy Corlear is! how he
does spend money!' And I sez to ma, 'Ma, he do.' Tut, tut! The bills. I
have to pay for that bay--! I s'pose, now, your Abel don't lay up no
money--ha! ha!"
Mr. Van Boozenberg laughed again, and Mrs. Newt joined, but in a low and
rather distressed way, as if it were necessary to laugh, although nothing
funny had been said.
"It's positively dreadful the way he spends money," replied she. "I don't
know where it will end."
"Oh ho! it's the way with all young men, marm. I always sez to ma she
needn't fret her gizzard. Young men will sow their wild oats. Oh, 'tain't
nothin'. Mr. Newt knows that werry well. Every man do."
He watched Mrs. Newt's expression as he spoke. She answered,
"I don't know about that; but Mr. Newt shakes his head dismally nowadays
about something or other, and he's really grown old."
In uttering these words Mrs. Newt had sealed the fate of a large offering
for discount made that very day by Boniface Newt, Son, & Co.