Volume I Part 12 (1/2)
”It did me good all the same, my dear; and I won't forget your kindness givin' it to me. And if ever I can say a good word for you, I'll do it, ye may rely;” and the old thing actually winked, to Rose's no small indignation--on which Lettice Deane gave her a pinch in the arm, and ran away to hide her uproarious laughter.
Mrs Wilkie having dispensed her morsel of patronage, drew herself up and coughed behind her finger-tips; then, thinking that perhaps she had shown too marked a preference among candidates, she turned to Mrs Petty and inquired for Miss Ann, observing that she thought her a nice girl.
Mrs Naylor led Margaret a life which afforded her ample opportunity to repent her perverseness, had that been possible. From the time she left her room in the morning, she kept the girl at her side, to read to her when she sat, or support her with an arm when she took a walk.
In the evening she kept her still at her elbow; and though she sometimes allowed her to dance, she had her back again at her side the moment the dance was ended. The other ladies were charmed and impressed by these signs of so devoted an attachment between mother and daughter, and both rose immensely in public esteem, which perhaps consoled them in their utter boredom with one another. In her heart, the mother would have liked to whip the intractable girl, while the girl, in hers, was sorely tempted to run away; but public opinion and the conventions kept both up to their pretty behaviour--and the artist's satisfaction in doing a thing really well, and being applauded for it, was a.s.suredly an alleviation in the long and weary game of make-believe.
Mrs Wilkie praised Margaret as a good biddable girl, and confided to every one who cared to listen, ”that she would be quite pleased if Peter would take a fancy to her; though, to be sure, there was that Miss Hillyard, a most superior person,--and it was doubtful to which he would incline.” Mrs Petty thought her the sweetest-tempered heiress she had ever seen, wished she could secure her for her boy Walter, and became the inseparable companion of mother and daughter.
By the third day of Mrs Naylor's sickness, she found herself the recipient of so much attention, that she became quite reconciled to her _role_--liked it almost--and might, I suppose, be taken as of that curious cla.s.s of people of whom it is recorded in newspapers that they ”enjoy poor health.” Mrs Petty fairly laid siege to the regard of mother and daughter, and old Mrs Wilkie sought the society of the two mothers, who paid her unlimited attention in return, each protesting to the other that it was quite a lark to quiz the simple soul, while both were devoutly hoping that she would accept their blandishments in good faith, and influence her son accordingly. Soon other ladies joined the coterie--Mrs Deane with Lettice and Rose, and others; and then bachelors began to hover on the confines of the circle--till the sick lady's chair became a centre for whatever was going on.
Walter Blount growled at being of those outside, and was very down-hearted, though he struggled his best. He cultivated his favoured rival Walter Petty, waylaid Lucy, who was not under surveillance, several times a-day, and intrusted her with messages to her sister.
There was Joseph, too, from whom he could extract sympathy at least; and then there was the sight of his charmer's back hair, always in view at the dinner-table, reminding him how near she was, ”if still so far”--which was something, but not enough; and after a week, he removed his base of operations to Lippenstock, a few miles along the coast, where, being out of sight, he could mitigate the severity of Margaret's durance, though still within touch of whatever went on at Clam Beach.
He might have had others, who would have been happy to distract his thoughts, but he could think only of the one, and was indifferent to other society; whence it arose that he spent a good deal of his time alone, and interested many a tender heart in his behalf.
”Who can he be?” f.a.n.n.y Payson asked Lettice Deane. ”And what is the matter with him? Did you ever see so young a fellow, so handsome and so down in the mouth, at a watering-place before? _I_ never did. He should turn hermit, or join the Shakers. They live quite near. He is no sort of use here, and quite out of place. He minds n.o.body, and I am sure I have given him every chance.”
”He is not altogether a stranger. He has friends here. He knows the Naylors. I see him sometimes with Lucy, and he is often with the uncle, whom Rose Hillyard has chosen to inthral. I suspect he is only a retiring young man, and painfully shy. What would you say to our taking him in hand, and teaching him how nice he might become? He is a fine manly-looking fellow, and our hands are not very full just now.
It would make us feel 'kind o' useful in our generation,' as my uncle Zebedee says, to draw him out. Suppose you and I form ourselves into a Geneva Red Cross Branch Society, to cure his bashfulness, and teach him how to flirt.”
”It can't be done, Lettice. I have tried, and I guess you'll allow I'm a qualified pract.i.tioner. The trouble I've taken! And all for nothing.
I should feel downright mean about it, if I wasn't sure the man's a loon.”
”What brings him to Clam Beach, I wonder?”
”That I can't imagine. But he's of no account here. He evidently believes his eyes were only given him to see with; as for _looking_, he has no more notion of it than a stone wall. I have given him the very nicest and most varied opportunities--you know he sits opposite me at table. I have tried every variety of a.s.sault, from pensive up to arch, and he seems absolutely impervious. I doubt even if he could distinguish me from the chair I sit on, and yet I have gone so far as actually to ask him to pa.s.s the b.u.t.ter. He just looks steadily past me, as if his attention was fixed on what went on at the table behind.”
Maida Springer likewise observed the young misanthrope, felt interested in him, and discussed him with Mrs Denwiddie. ”He has a history, that young man,” she would say; and she would sigh as she said it, as if to imply that there were others who had histories as well. ”It's a heart history too, and not a happy one; and he has just come here, I do believe, to try if he can't learn to bear it. He is seeking to drown memory with sounds of mirth and fas.h.i.+onable dissipation; but he finds it a hollow mockery, just as others have done, and he wanders down upon the wave-beat sh.o.r.e, and listens to the ever-sounding sea, and it kind o' calms him, and he comes back feelin'
better--just like the rest. Ah yes!--as I have done myself.”
”You, my dear, with a history? Ah yes! to be sure. You mentioned it one day. Your friend went away without proposin', I think you said?
It may have been mean of him--I can't say; or it may have been a mistake of your own. Girls are so ready to fool themselves that way.
It don't folly that the man was in fault. If a man only pa.s.ses them the apple-sa.r.s.e with a smile, there are women who will call it a particular attention.”
”I didn't mention anything of the kind,” the other answered tartly, turning to go away; but no one of her friends whom she could join was in sight, so she changed her intention, and proceeded to bestow on her cross-grained companion ”a bit of her mind.”
”You appear to think it a grand thing to have been able to get yourself married, Mrs Denwiddie, and you seem disposed to look down on every young woman who is still single; but you don't tell what _kind_ of man you got, and you forget that if everybody was willing to take what offered, there would be no single folks left. We may have been too particular, we single women, but the married ones have no call to despise us for that.”
”No offence, my dear,” said Mrs Denwiddie, who really could not afford to quarrel with her chief intimate. ”I was just speaking in the gineral.”
”And so was I, ma'am; and don't you forget it. I'm going home on Friday, and as there's few you are likely to pick up with much when I'm gone, except the single ladies, I would strongly recommend you to respect their feelin's, and not brag too much about havin' been married. They could have been married too, if they'd have took what offered--like some others.”
”Hoity-toity, my dear! I said 'no offence.' But you're all that tetchy, you old--hm--but never mind. I'm sorry you're going. I for one will miss you. I did not think the schools at Montpelier took up so soon. I expected that you and me would have been leaving at the same time, in about three weeks.”
”I have arrangements to make at our ladies' college. They are adding a cla.s.s of Metaphysics and Political Economy, and Miss Rolph, our princ.i.p.al, says I would get it if I wasn't so young.”
”And well you would teach economy too, my dear, to judge by the neat way your gloves and slippers is mended. And it's a thing girls have much need to learn, if only there was some one who knew it; but the mothers of town-bred girls are ez extravagant mostly ez themselves.
But how old must a woman be before she is qualified to teach economy?