Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly
[Illustration: "You must steal in and not wake anybody"]
The Butterfly House
By
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Author of
"A Humble Romance," "A New England Nun,"
"The Winning Lady," etc.
With illustrations by
Paul Julien Meylan
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1912
Chapter I
Fairbridge, the little New Jersey village, or rather city (for it had
won municipal government some years before, in spite of the protest
of far-seeing citizens who descried in the distance bonded debts out
of proportion to the tiny shoulders of the place), was a misnomer.
Often a person, being in Fairbridge for the first time, and being
driven by way of entertainment about the rural streets, would
inquire, "Why Fairbridge?"
Bridges there were none, except those over which the trains thundered
to and from New York, and the adjective, except to old inhabitants
who had a curious fierce loyalty for the place, did not seemingly
apply. Fairbridge could hardly, by an unbiassed person who did not
dwell in the little village and view its features through the rosy
glamour of home life, be called "fair." There were a few pretty
streets, with well-kept sidewalks, and ambitious, although small
houses, and there were many lovely bits of views to be obtained,
especially in the green flush of spring, and the red glow of autumn
over the softly swelling New Jersey landscape with its warm red soil
to the distant rise of low blue hills; but it was not fair enough in
a general way to justify its name. Yet Fairbridge it was, without
bridge, or natural beauty, and no mortal knew why. The origin of the
name was lost in the petty mist of a petty past.
Fairbridge was tragically petty, inasmuch as it saw itself great. In
Fairbridge narrowness reigned, nay, tyrannised, and was not
recognised as such. There was something fairly uncanny about
Fairbridge's influence upon people after they had lived there even a
few years. The influence held good, too, in the cases of men who
daily went to business or professions in New York. Even Wall Street
was no sinecure. Back they would come at night, and the terrible,
narrow maelstrom of pettiness sucked them in. All outside interest
was as naught. International affairs seemed insignificant when once
one was really in Fairbridge.
Fairbridge, although rampant when local politics were concerned, had
no regard whatever for those of the nation at large, except as they
involved Fairbridge. Fairbridge, to its own understanding, was a
nucleus, an ultimatum. It was an example of the triumph of the
infinitesimal. It saw itself through a microscope and loomed up
gigantic. Fairbridge was like an insect, born with the conviction
that it was an elephant. There was at once something ludicrous, and
magnificent, and terrible about it. It had the impressiveness of the
abnormal and prehistoric. In one sense, it _was_ prehistoric. It was
as a giant survivor of a degenerate species.
Withal, it was puzzling. People if pinned down could not say why, in
Fairbridge, the little was so monstrous, whether it depended upon
local conditions, upon the general population, or upon a few who had
an undue estimation of themselves and all connected with them. Was
Fairbridge great because of its inhabitants, or were the inhabitants
great because of Fairbridge? Who could say? And why was Fairbridge so
important that its very smallness overwhelmed that which, by the
nature of things, seemed overwhelming? Nobody knew, or rather, so
tremendous was the power of the small in the village, that nobody
inquired.
It is entirely possible that had there been any delicate gauge of
mentality, the actual swelling of the individual in his own
estimation as he neared Fairbridge after a few hours' absence, might
have been apparent. Take a broker on Wall Street, for instance, or a
lawyer who had threaded his painful way to the dim light of
understanding through the intricate mazes of the law all day, as his
train neared his loved village. From an atom that went to make up the
motive power of a great metropolis, he himself became an entirety. He
was It with a capital letter. No wonder that under the circumstances
Fairbridge had charms that allured, that people chose it for suburban
residences, that the small, ornate, new houses with their perky
little towers and æsthetic diamond-paned windows, multiplied.
Fairbridge was in reality very artistically planned as to the sites
of its houses. Instead of the regulation Main Street of the country
village, with its centre given up to shops and post-office, side
streets wound here and there, and houses were placed with a view to
effect.
The Main Street of Fairbridge was as naught from a social point of
view. Nobody of any social importance lived there. Even the
physicians had their residences and offices in a more aristocratic
locality. Upon the Main Street proper, that which formed the centre
of the village, there were only shops and a schoolhouse and one or
two mean public buildings. For a village of the self-importance of
Fairbridge, the public buildings were very few and very mean. There
was no city hall worthy of the name of this little city which held
its head so high. The City Hall, so designated by ornate gilt letters
upon the glass panel of a very small door, occupied part of the
building in which was the post-office. It was a tiny building, two
stories high. On the second floor was the millinery shop of Mrs.
Creevy, and behind it the two rooms in which she kept house with her
daughter Jessy.
On the lower floor was the post-office on the right, filthy with the
foot tracks of the Fairbridge children who crowded it in a noisy
rabble twice a day, and perpetually red-stained with the shale of New
Jersey, brought in upon the boots of New Jersey farmers, who always
bore about with them a goodly portion of their native soil. On the
left, was the City Hall. This was vacant except upon the first Monday
of every month, when the janitor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who
eked out a scanty salary with divers other tasks, got himself to
work, and slopped pails of water over the floor, then swept, and
built a fire, if in winter.
Upon the evenings of these first Mondays the Mayor and city officials
met and made great talk over small matters, and with the labouring of
a mountain, brought forth mice. The City Hall was closed upon other
occasions, unless the village talent gave a play for some local
benefit. Fairbridge was intensely dramatic, and it was popularly
considered that great, natural, histrionic gifts were squandered upon
the Fairbridge audiences, appreciative though they were. Outside
talent was never in evidence in Fairbridge. No theatrical company had
ever essayed to rent that City Hall. People in Fairbridge put that
somewhat humiliating fact from their minds. Nothing would have
induced a loyal citizen to admit that Fairbridge was too small game
for such purposes. There was a tiny theatre in the neighbouring city
of Axminister, which had really some claims to being called a city,
from tradition and usage, aside from size. Axminister was an ancient
Dutch city, horribly uncomfortable, but exceedingly picturesque.
Fairbridge looked down upon it, and seldom patronised the shows (they
never said "plays") staged in its miniature theatre. When they did
not resort to their own City Hall for entertainment by local talent,
they arrayed themselves in their best and patronised New York itself.
New York did not know that it was patronised, but Fairbridge knew.
When Mr. and Mrs. George B. Slade boarded the seven o'clock train,
Mrs. Slade, tall, and majestically handsome, arrayed most elegantly,
and crowned with a white hat (Mrs. Slade always affected white hats
with long drooping plumes upon such occasions), and George B., natty
in his light top coat, standing well back upon the heels of his shiny
shoes, with the air of the wealthy and well-assured, holding a belted
cigar in the tips of his grey-gloved fingers, New York was most
distinctly patronised, although without knowing it.
It was also patronised, and to a greater extent, by little Mrs.
Wilbur Edes, very little indeed, so little as to be almost symbolic
of Fairbridge itself, but elegant in every detail, so elegant as to
arrest the eye of everybody as she entered the train, holding up the
tail of her black lace gown. Mrs. Edes doted on black lace. Her
small, fair face peered with a curious calm alertness from under the
black plumes of her great picture hat, perched sidewise upon a
carefully waved pale gold pompadour, which was perfection and would
have done credit to the best hairdresser or the best French maid in
New York, but which was achieved solely by Mrs. Wilbur Edes' own
native wit and skilful fingers.
Mrs. Wilbur Edes, although small, was masterly in everything, from
waving a pompadour to conducting theatricals. She herself was the
star dramatic performer of Fairbridge. There was a strong feeling in
Fairbridge that in reality she might, if she chose, rival Bernhardt.
Mrs. Emerston Strong, who had been abroad and had seen Bernhardt on
her native soil, had often said that Mrs. Edes reminded her of the
great French actress, although she was much handsomer, and so moral!
Mrs. Wilbur Edes was masterly in morals, as in everything else. She
was much admired by the opposite sex, but she was a model wife and
mother.
Mr. Wilbur Edes was an admired accessory of his wife. He was so very
tall and slender as to suggest forcible elongation. He carried his
head with a deprecatory, sidewise air as if in accordance with his
wife's picture hat, and yet Mr. Wilbur Edes, out of Fairbridge and in
his law office on Broadway, was a man among men. He was an exception
to the personal esteem which usually expanded a male citizen of
Fairbridge, but he was the one and only husband of Mrs. Wilbur Edes,
and there was not room at such an apex as she occupied for more than
one. Tall as Wilbur Edes was, he was overshadowed by that immaculate
blond pompadour and that plumed picture hat. He was a prime favourite
in Fairbridge society; he was liked and admired, but his radiance was
reflected, and he was satisfied that it should be so. He adored his
wife. The shadow of her black picture hat was his place of perfect
content. He watched the admiring glances of other men at his
wonderful possession with a triumph and pride which made him really
rather a noble sort. He was also so fond and proud of his little twin
daughters, Maida and Adelaide, that the fondness and pride fairly
illuminated his inner self. Wilbur Edes was a clever lawyer, but love
made him something bigger. It caused him to immolate self, which is
spiritually enlarging self.
In one respect Wilbur Edes was the biggest man in Fairbridge; in
another, Doctor Sturtevant was. Doctor Sturtevant depended upon no
other person for his glory. He shone as a fixed star, with his own
lustre. He was esteemed a very great physician indeed, and it was
considered that Mrs. Sturtevant, who was good, and honest, and portly
with a tight, middle-aged portliness, hardly lived up to her husband.
It was admitted that she tried, poor soul, but her limitations were
held to be impossible, even by her faithful straining following of
love.
When the splendid, florid Doctor, with his majestically curving
expanse of waistcoat and his inscrutable face, whirred through the
streets of Fairbridge in his motor car, with that meek bulk of
womanhood beside him, many said quite openly how unfortunate it was
that Doctor Sturtevant had married, when so young, a woman so
manifestly his inferior. They never failed to confer that faint
praise, which is worse than none at all, upon the poor soul.
"She is a good woman," they said. "She means well, and she is a good
housekeeper, but she is no companion for a man like that."
Poor Mrs. Sturtevant was aware of her status in Fairbridge, and she
was not without a steady, plodding ambition of her own. That utterly
commonplace, middle-aged face had some lines of strength. Mrs.
Sturtevant was a member of the women's club of Fairbridge, which was
poetically and cleverly called the Zenith Club.
She wrote, whenever it was her turn to do so, papers upon every
imaginable subject. She balked at nothing whatever. She ranged from
household discussions to the Orient. Then she stood up in the midst
of the women, sunk her double chin in her lace collar, and read her
paper in a voice like the whisper of a blade of grass. Doctor
Sturtevant had a very low voice. His wife had naturally a strident
one, but she essayed to follow him in the matter of voice, as in all
other things. The poor hen bird tried to voice her thoughts like her
mate, and the result was a strange and weird note. However, Mrs.
Sturtevant herself was not aware of the result. When she sat down
after finishing her papers her face was always becomingly flushed
with pleasure.
Nothing, not even pleasure, was becoming to Mrs. Sturtevant. Life
itself was unbecoming to her, and the worst of it was nobody knew it,
and everybody said it was due to Mrs. Sturtevant's lack of taste, and
then they pitied the great doctor anew. It was very fortunate that it
never occurred to Mrs. Sturtevant to pity the doctor on her account,
for she was so fond of him, poor soul, that it might have led to a
tragedy.
The Zenith Club of Fairbridge always met on Friday afternoons. It was
a cherished aim of the Club to uproot foolish superstitions, hence
Friday. It did not seem in the least risky to the ordinary person for
a woman to attend a meeting of the Zenith Club on a Friday, in
preference to any other day in the week; but many a member had a
covert feeling that she was somewhat heroic, especially if the
meeting was held at the home of some distant member on an icy day in
winter, and she was obliged to make use of a livery carriage.
There were in Fairbridge three keepers of livery stables, and
curiously enough, no rivalry between them. All three were natives of
the soil, and somewhat sluggish in nature, like its sticky red shale.
They did not move with much enthusiasm, neither were they to be
easily removed. When the New York trains came in, they, with their
equally indifferent drivers, sat comfortably ensconced in their
carriages, and never waylaid the possible passengers alighting from
the train. Sometimes they did not even open the carriage doors, but
they, however, saw to it that they were closed when once the
passenger was within, and that was something. All three drove
indifferent horses, somewhat uncertain as to footing. When a woman
sat behind these weak-kneed, badly shod steeds and realised that
Stumps, or Fitzgerald, or Witless was driving with an utter
indifference to the tightening of lines at dangerous places, and also
realised that it was Friday, some strength of character was doubtless
required.
One Friday in January, two young women, one married, one single, one
very pretty, and both well-dressed (most of the women who belonged to
the Fairbridge social set dressed well) were being driven by Jim
Fitzgerald a distance of a mile or more, up a long hill. The slope
was gentle and languid, like nearly every slope in that part of the
state, but that day it was menacing with ice. It was one smooth glaze
over the macadam. Jim Fitzgerald, a descendant of a fine old family
whose type had degenerated, sat hunched upon the driver's seat, his
loose jaw hanging, his eyes absent, his mouth open, chewing with slow
enjoyment his beloved quid, while the reins lay slackly on the rusty
black robe tucked over his knees. Even a corner of that dragged
dangerously near the right wheels of the coupé. Jim had not
sufficient energy to tuck it in firmly, although the wind was sharp
from the northwest.
Alice Mendon paid no attention to it, but her companion, Daisy Shaw,
otherwise Mrs. Sumner Shaw, who was of the tense, nervous type, had
remarked it uneasily when they first started. She had rapped
vigorously upon the front window, and a misty, rather beautiful blue
eye had rolled interrogatively over Jim's shoulder.
"Your robe is dragging," shrieked in shrill staccato Daisy Shaw; and
there had been a dull nod of the head, a feeble pull at the dragging
robe, then it had dragged again.
"Oh, don't mind, dear," said Alice Mendon. "It is his own lookout if
he loses the robe."
"It isn't that," responded Daisy querulously. "It isn't that. I don't
care, since he is so careless, if he does lose it, but I must say
that I don't think it is safe. Suppose it got caught in the wheel,
and I know this horse stumbles."
"Don't worry, dear," said Alice Mendon. "Fitzgerald's robe always
drags, and nothing ever happens."
Alice Mendon was a young woman, not a young girl (she had left young
girlhood behind several years since) and she was distinctly beautiful
after a fashion that is not easily affected by the passing years. She
had had rather an eventful life, but not an event, pleasant or
otherwise, had left its mark upon the smooth oval of her face. There
was not a side nor retrospective glance to disturb the serenity of
her large blue eyes. Although her eyes were blue, her hair was almost
chestnut black, except in certain lights, when it gave out gleams as
of dark gold. Her features were full, her figure large, but not too
large. She wore a dark red tailored gown; and sumptuous sable furs
shaded with dusky softness and shot, in the sun, with prismatic
gleams, set off her handsome, not exactly smiling, but serenely
beaming face. Two great black ostrich plumes and one red one curled
down toward the soft spikes of the fur. Between, the two great blue
eyes, the soft oval of the cheeks, and the pleasant red fullness of
the lips appeared.
Poor Daisy Shaw, who was poor in two senses, strength of nerve and
money, looked blue and cold in her little black suit, and her pale
blue liberty scarf was horribly inadequate and unbecoming. Daisy was
really painful to see as she gazed out apprehensively at the dragging
robe, and the glistening slant over which they were moving. Alice
regarded her not so much with pity as with a calm, sheltering sense
of superiority and strength. She pulled the inner robe of the coupé
up and tucked it firmly around Daisy's thin knees.
"You look half frozen," said Alice.
"I don't mind being frozen, but I do mind being scared," replied
Daisy sharply. She removed the robe with a twitch.
"If that old horse stumbles and goes down and kicks, I want to be
able to get out without being all tangled up in a robe and dragged,"
said she.
"While the horse is kicking and down I don't see how he can drag you
very far," said Alice with a slight laugh. Then the horse stumbled.
Daisy Shaw knocked quickly on the front window with her little,
nervous hand in its tight, white kid glove.
"Do please hold your reins tighter," she called. Again the misty blue
eyes rolled about, the head nodded, the rotary jaws were seen, the
robe dragged, the reins lay loosely.
"That wasn't a stumble worth mentioning," said Alice Mendon.
"I wish he would stop chewing and drive," said poor Daisy Shaw
vehemently. "I wish we had a liveryman as good as that Dougherty in
Axminister. I was making calls there the other day, and it was as
slippery as it is now, and he held the reins up tight every minute. I
felt safe with him."
"I don't think anything will happen."
"It does seem to me if he doesn't stop chewing, and drive, I shall
fly!" said Daisy.
Alice regarded her with a little wonder. Such anxiety concerning
personal safety rather puzzled her. "My horses ran away the other
day, and Dick went down flat and barked his knees; that's why I have
Fitzgerald to-day," said she. "I was not hurt. Nobody was hurt except
the horse. I was very sorry about the horse."
"I wish I had an automobile," said Daisy. "You never know what a
horse will do next."
Alice laughed again slightly. "There is a little doubt sometimes as
to what an automobile will do next," she remarked.
"Well, it is your own brain that controls it, if you can run it
yourself, as you do."
"I am not so sure. Sometimes I wonder if the automobile hasn't an
uncanny sort of brain itself. Sometimes I wonder how far men can go
with the invention of machinery without putting more of themselves
into it than they bargain for," said Alice. Her smooth face did not
contract in the least, but was brooding with speculation and thought.
Then the horse stumbled again, and Daisy screamed, and again tapped
the window.
"He won't go way down," said Alice. "I think he is too stiff. Don't
worry."
"There is no stumbling to worry about with an automobile," said
Daisy.
"You couldn't use one on this hill without more risk than you take
with a stumbling horse," replied Alice. Just then a carriage drawn by
two fine bays passed them, and there was an interchange of nods.
"There is Mrs. Sturtevant," said Alice. "She isn't using the
automobile to-day."
"Doctor Sturtevant has had that coachman thirty years, and he doesn't
chew, he drives," said Daisy.
Then they drew up before the house which was their destination, Mrs.
George B. Slade's. The house was very small, but perkily pretentious,
and they drove under the porte-cochère to alight.
"I heard Mr. Slade had been making a great deal of money in cotton
lately," Daisy whispered, as the carriage stopped behind Mrs.
Sturtevant's. "Mr. and Mrs. Slade went to the opera last week. I
heard they had taken a box for the season, and Mrs. Slade had a new
black velvet gown and a pearl necklace. I think she is almost too old
to wear low neck."
"She is not so very old," replied Alice. "It is only her white hair
that makes her seem so." Then she extended a rather large but well
gloved hand and opened the coupé door, while Jim Fitzgerald sat and
chewed and waited, and the two young women got out. Daisy had some
trouble in holding up her long skirts. She tugged at them with
nervous energy, and told Alice of the twenty-five cents which
Fitzgerald would ask for the return trip. She had wished to arrive at
the club in fine feather, but had counted on walking home in the
dusk, with her best skirts high-kilted, and saving an honest penny.
"Nonsense; of course you will go with me," said Alice in the calmly
imperious way she had, and the two mounted the steps. They had
scarcely reached the door before Mrs. Slade's maid, Lottie, appeared
in her immaculate width of apron, with carefully-pulled-out bows and
little white lace top-knot. "Upstairs, front room," she murmured, and
the two went up the polished stairs. There was a landing halfway,
with a diamond paned window and one rubber plant and two palms, all
very glossy, and all three in nice green jardinières which exactly
matched the paper on the walls of the hall. Mrs. George B. Slade had
a mania for exactly matching things. Some of her friends said among
themselves that she carried it almost too far.
The front room, the guest room, into which Alice Mendon and Daisy
Shaw passed, was done in yellow and white, and one felt almost sinful
in disturbing the harmony by any other tint. The walls were yellow,
with a frieze of garlands of yellow roses; the ceiling was tinted
yellow, the tiles on the shining little hearth were yellow, every
ornament upon the mantel-shelf was yellow, down to a china
shepherdess who wore a yellow china gown and carried a basket filled
with yellow flowers, and bore a yellow crook. The bedstead was brass,
and there was a counterpane of white lace over yellow, the muslin
curtains were tied back with great bows of yellow ribbon. Even the
pictures represented yellow flowers or maidens dressed in yellow. The
rugs were yellow, the furniture upholstered in yellow, and all of
exactly the same shade.
There were a number of ladies in this yellow room, prinking
themselves before going downstairs. They all lived in Fairbridge;
they all knew each other; but they greeted one another with the most
elegant formality. Alice assisted Daisy Shaw to remove her coat and
liberty scarf, then she shook herself free of her own wraps, rather
than removed them. She did not even glance at herself in the glass.
Her reason for so doing was partly confidence in her own appearance,
partly distrust of the glass. She had viewed herself carefully in her
own looking-glass before she left home. She believed in what she had
seen there, but she did not care to disturb that belief, and she saw
that Mrs. Slade's mirror over her white and yellow draped dressing
table stood in a cross-light. While all admitted Alice Mendon's
beauty, nobody had ever suspected her of vanity; yet vanity she had,
in a degree.
The other women in the room looked at her. It was always a matter of
interest of Fairbridge what she would wear, and this was rather
curious, as, after all, she had not many gowns. There was a certain
impressiveness about her mode of wearing the same gown which seemed
to create an illusion. To-day in her dark red gown embroidered with
poppies of still another shade, she created a distinctly new
impression, although she had worn the same costume often before at
the club meetings. She went downstairs in advance of the other women
who had arrived before, and were yet anxiously peering at themselves
in the cross-lighted mirror, and being adjusted as to refractory
neckwear by one another.
When Alice entered Mrs. Slade's elegant little reception-room, which
was done in a dull rose colour, its accessories very exactly
matching, even to Mrs. Slade's own costume, which was rose silk under
black lace, she was led at once to a lady richly attired in black,
with gleams of jet, who was seated in a large chair in the place of
honour, not quite in the bay window but exactly in the centre of the
opening. The lady quite filled the chair. She was very stout. Her
face, under an ornate black hat, was like a great rose full of
overlapping curves of florid flesh. The wide mouth was perpetually
curved into a bow of mirth, the small black eyes twinkled. She was
Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, who had come from New York to deliver her
famous lecture upon the subject: "Where does a woman shine with more
lustre, at home or abroad?"
The programme was to be varied, as usual upon such occasions, by
local talent. Leila MacDonald, who sang contralto in the church
choir, and Mrs. Arthur Wells, who sang soprano, and Mrs. Jack Evarts,
who played the piano very well, and Miss Sally Anderson, who had
taken lessons in elocution, all had their parts, besides the
president of the club, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, who had a brief address in
readiness, and the secretary, who had to give the club report for the
year. Mrs. Snyder was to give her lecture as a grand climax, then
there were to be light refreshments and a reception following the
usual custom of the club.
Alice bowed before Mrs. Snyder and retreated to a window at the other
side of the room. She sat beside the window and looked out. Just then
one of the other liverymen drove up with a carriage full of ladies,
and they emerged in a flutter of veils and silk skirts. Mrs. Slade,
who was really superb in her rose silk and black lace, with an artful
frill of white lace at her throat to match her great puff of white
hair, remained beside Mrs. Snyder, whose bow of mirth widened.
"Who is that magnificent creature?" whispered Mrs. Snyder with a gush
of enthusiasm, indicating Alice beside the window.
"She lives here," replied Mrs. Slade rather stupidly. She did not
quite know how to define Alice.
"Lives here in this little place? Not all the year?" rejoined Mrs.
Snyder.
"Fairbridge is a very good place to live in all the year," replied
Mrs. Slade rather stiffly. "It is near New York. We have all the
advantages of a great metropolis without the drawbacks. Fairbridge is
a most charming city, and very progressive, yes, very progressive."
Mrs. Slade took it rather hardly that Mrs. Snyder should intimate
anything prejudicial to Fairbridge and especially that it was not
good enough for Alice Mendon, who had been born there, and lived
there all her life except the year she had been in college. If
anything, she, Mrs. Slade, wondered if Alice Mendon were good enough
for Fairbridge. What had she ever done, except to wear handsome
costumes and look handsome and self-possessed? Although she belonged
to the Zenith Club, no power on earth could induce her to discharge
the duties connected herewith, except to pay her part of the
expenses, and open her house for a meeting. She simply would not
write a paper upon any interesting and instructive topic and read it
before the club, and she was not considered gifted. She could not
sing like Leila MacDonald and Mrs. Arthur Wells. She could not play
like Mrs. Jack Evarts. She could not recite like Sally Anderson.
Mrs. Snyder glanced across at Alice, who looked very graceful and
handsome, although also, to a discerning eye, a little sulky, and
bored with a curious, abstracted boredom.
"She is superb," whispered Mrs. Snyder, "yes, simply superb. Why does
she live here, pray?"
"Why, she was born here," replied Mrs. Slade, again stupidly. It was
as if Alice had no more motive power than a flowering bush.
Mrs. Snyder's bow of mirth widened into a laugh. "Well, can't she get
away, even if she was born here?" said she.
However, Mrs. George B. Slade's mind travelled in such a circle that
she was difficult to corner. "Why should she want to move?" said she.
Mrs. Snyder laughed again. "But, granting she should want to move, is
there anything to hinder?" she asked. She wasn't a very clever woman,
and was deciding privately to mimic Mrs. George B. Slade at some
future occasion, and so eke out her scanty remuneration. She did not
think ten dollars and expenses quite enough for such a lecture as
hers.
Mrs. Slade looked at her perplexedly. "Why, yes, she could I
suppose," said she, "but why?"
"What has hindered her before now?"
"Oh, her mother was a helpless invalid, and Alice was the only child,
and she had been in college just a year when her father died, then
she came home and lived with her mother, but her mother has been dead
two years now, and Alice has plenty of money. Her father left a good
deal, and her cousin and aunt live with her. Oh, yes, she could, but
why should she want to leave Fairbridge, and--"
Then some new arrivals approached, and the discussion concerning
Alice Mendon ceased. The ladies came rapidly now. Soon Mrs. Slade's
hall, reception-room, and dining-room, in which a gaily-decked table
was set, were thronged with women whose very skirts seemed full of
important anticipatory stirs and rustles. Mrs. Snyder's curved smile
became set, her eyes absent. She was revolving her lecture in her
mind, making sure that she could repeat it without the assistance of
the notes in her petticoat pocket.
Then a woman rang a little silver bell, and a woman who sat short but
rose to unexpected heights stood up. The phenomenon was amazing, but
all the Fairbridge ladies had seen Miss Bessy Dicky, the secretary of
the Zenith Club, rise before, and no one observed anything remarkable
about it. Only Mrs. Snyder's mouth twitched a little, but she
instantly recovered herself and fixed her absent eyes upon Miss Bessy
Dicky's long, pale face as she began to read the report of the club
for the past year.
She had been reading several minutes, her glasses fixed firmly (one
of her eyes had a cast) and her lean, veinous hands trembling with
excitement, when the door bell rang with a sharp peremptory peal.
There was a little flutter among the ladies. Such a thing had never
happened before. Fairbridge ladies were renowned for punctuality,
especially at a meeting like this, and in any case, had one been
late, she would never have rung the bell. She would have tapped
gently on the door, the white-capped maid would have admitted her,
and she, knowing she was late and hearing the hollow recitative of
Miss Bessy Dicky's voice, would have tiptoed upstairs, then slipped
delicately down again and into a place near the door.
But now it was different. Lottie opened the door, and a masculine
voice was heard. Mrs. Slade had a storm-porch, so no one could look
directly into the hall.
"Is Mrs. Slade at home?" inquired the voice distinctly. The ladies
looked at one another, and Miss Bessy Dicky's reading was unheard.
They all knew who spoke. Lottie appeared with a crimson face, bearing
a little ostentatious silver plate with a card. Mrs. Slade adjusted
her lorgnette, looked at the card, and appeared to hesitate for a
second. Then a look of calm determination overspread her face. She
whispered to Lottie, and presently appeared a young man in clerical
costume, moving between the seated groups of ladies with an air not
so much of embarrassment as of weary patience, as if he had expected
something like this to happen, and it had happened.
Mrs. Slade motioned to a chair near her, which Lottie had placed, and
the young man sat down.