Part 16 (2/2)
Phil, a hearty young man, who loved horses and dogs, who was quite helpless without his friends, and hated writing letters, responded tersely enough, inquiring what was the matter with him anyway. The correspondence died out. Mr. Sheridan tried to devote himself to books, but the long, unbroken hours of silence in the musty old library depressed him terribly. He took long walks, and long rides for exercise, but his own thoughts were dull company. He rode through the woods and the idle, untilled fields of his own estate, and was struck by the contrast between his own barren, unkempt lands with the thriving farms of his neighbors. It occurred to him to go in for farming in the spring, to plant corn and wheat, and to get cows and horses, to build barns and paddocks, and to rent out part of his land to some of the thrifty, shrewd young farmers, the newly married ones. The idea delighted him; he wanted to talk about it, to get the opinions of some of the intelligent land-owners of the neighborhood, and to air his own notions. But gradually his enthusiasm waned again. He was getting lazy and listless.
Every effort seemed useless to him. He began to feel very much abused because no one was interested in him. Miss Abbott had treated him very badly, even Peterson was as cross with him as the old servant's good manners would allow, Phil scolded him in his short dry letters, and finally had stopped writing altogether, and that bright little red-headed girl had never come to see him again. When he walked through the town he felt abused because everyone seemed to be having a better time than he. They all knew each other; the women stopped to chat on their way to market, the men talked local politics and business in the doorways of the warehouses; when he pa.s.sed they touched their hats respectfully, and stared after him curiously, as if he were something that had dropped from another planet. He was in a chronically bad humor.
That the world in general had taken him at his word, and left him entirely alone put him still more at odds with it, and the fact that he knew he was living idly and uselessly put him at odds with himself. If he had stopped to consider, he would have discovered very quickly that he was not heart-broken as he imagined at all; he was simply angry. He tried to excuse himself for his aimless existence by arguing that no one cared what he did, and that it was impossible for a man to keep up his enthusiasm about anything when there was no one to please but himself.
He told himself that everything was the fault of the heartless Miss Abbott; but as a matter of fact if he thought a great deal about Miss Abbott's unkind treatment, he thought surprisingly little about Miss Abbott herself. He was quite shocked one day to discover how blurred her very features had become in his memory. A lot of fair, curly hair-which somehow changed to smooth black tresses when he tried to represent it in his fancy-a rosy, coquettish face, and the arch, self-confident smile of a girl who had begun to learn when she was less than sixteen that she was beautiful and irresistible. But all the features of that pretty, imperious face were indistinct, and when he tried to picture it very clearly, he found to his dismay and amazement that he wasn't thinking of _that_ face at all. Another one had replaced it, a shy, demure little face, the features of which were very distinct indeed, so distinct that he could not doubt for a moment to whom it belonged. This was rather an alarming discovery to be made by a young man who had definitely decided that all women were henceforth to be indignantly and strictly avoided.
And it was with dismay that he found himself repeatedly thinking about a certain brief accidental conversation that he had had with the timid, black-haired maiden in the field.
”Dogs are so intelligent,”-and then they had spoken of the relative intelligence of cats. Not a very brilliant conversation, certainly, and it piqued him a little to think that he had not been able to say something more interesting and original; yet the girl had listened as intently as if every word he had uttered was a mine of wisdom.
On the other hand, it was certainly quite possible that _all_ girls were not as treacherous as the beautiful Miss Abbott. Here he pulled himself up short, and displeased at his own weakness, firmly resolved not to waste another thought on Lily. It was all the fault of that little red-headed Jane, who had popped in on his solitude, and roused his interest in Lily Deacon by flattering his vanity.
One morning, early in Christmas week, Peterson brought him a note. Mrs.
Webster had couched her invitation in the ceremonious, courtly style of her generation, reminding him of the friends.h.i.+p that had existed between her husband and his uncle, and expressing her hope that he would give them the pleasure of his company on New Year's Eve.
After the gloomiest Christmas that he had ever spent in his life, Mr.
Sheridan's determination to avoid human society wavered feebly under this hospitable attack; and after five or ten minutes reflection, this hardened misanthropist sat down, and accepted Mrs. Webster's invitation in a tone that fairly overflowed with grat.i.tude.
On New Year's Eve there was a full moon, a huge, silver-white disk that flooded the whole sky with light, riding high above the happy, festive little town. New fallen snow glistened on the roofs, lined the black branches of the trees, and flew up in a sparkling mist from the swift runners of the sleighs.
All Frederickstown was bound for the Webster's big farm. The streets were filled with the sounds of laughter, shouts, jovial singing, and the jingling of sleigh-bells. One horse sleighs and two horse sleighs, old ones with the straw coming through the worn felt covering of the seats, and new ones s.h.i.+ning with red paint and polished bra.s.s, all were crowded with holiday-makers. All the younger people, and even many of the older ones were in masquerade, under their burly overcoats and m.u.f.flers, and vast entertainment was derived from trying to guess who was who, as one sleigh pa.s.sed another, the occupants waving and shouting. And it was amusing to see that of the older people, it was usually the most serious and sedate who wore the most comic disguises, and the most grotesque masks; evidently bent upon showing for once in the year that they too had not forgotten how to frolic. There was old Mr. Pyncheon, with green pantaloons appearing from beneath his great bearskin coat, and a huge red false nose hiding his own thin, impressive eagle's beak; there was grave, bearded Professor Dodge with red Mephistophelean tights on his lean n.o.bby limbs, spryly tucking Miss Clementina into his little single-seated sleigh. (Miss Clementina, aged fifty-two, was representing ”Spring,” in pink tartalan with yards of green cotton vine leaves, and bunches of pink cotton roses garlanding her spare, bony little figure, though at present this delightfully symbolical costume was hidden under piles of cosy-jackets, m.u.f.flers, veils and cloaks.) And lastly, there was Mr. Lambert himself, representing a mediaeval astrologer, with a black sateen robe ornamented with silver-paper stars and crescents, a long white beard held in place with black tape, and a great pointed cap nearly a yard high. The entire Lambert family, by no means excluding either Granny or the twins was packed into the big three-seated sleigh.
Mr. Lambert mounted in front, with Aunt Gertrude beside him, and Minie between them, snapped his whip in a positively das.h.i.+ng fas.h.i.+on, and off lumbered the two fat old horses. Sledges flew out from the side lanes, joining the lively procession, and of course there were races and near accidents, and once indeed the Todd's sleigh overturned into a big drift depositing most of its occupants head downwards into the snow.
”There's Miss Lily, right in front of us!” cried Jane, ”and I do believe that she's wearing her Spanish costume after all!”
The Deacons, mother and daughter, were in fact being driven along by old Mr. Buchanan, who had gallantly placed its sleigh at the service of the two ladies. At the same time, to judge from Mrs. Deacon's face, there seemed to be some reason for uneasiness in the chesterfieldian old man's very zeal. He was an ardent, if not an exactly comfortable driver; he shouted to his horses and the two lean, s.h.a.ggy animals alternately stopped short, and leapt forward with terrific suddenness and speed; and at each jolt, Mrs. Deacon groaned in suppressed alarm. She had begun to suspect that her escort had already been celebrating the coming New Year, and, indeed, it was not unlikely; for the poor old bachelor was as noted for his convivial temperament as for his gallantry.
”Pray, Mr. Buchanan, would it not be as well to drive less rapidly?”
suggested Mrs. Deacon, as casually as she could. But Mr. Buchanan would not hear of this; he felt that she hinted at a veiled doubt as to his ability for managing his fiery steeds.
”Have no fears, ma'am. You may place entire confidence in me, ma'am. I may seem reckless-and there's dash of the old Harry in my nature, I won't deny-but there ain't a man in Frederickstown, I may say in the whole _county_, ma'am, as understands this team of horses like me. Why I was drivin' this here Jerry and Tom afore you was born, Miss-er-ma'am;-it's the living truth. Why, they are like my own children-they love me, and I l-o-ove them, like they was my own brothers!” And the tenderness of his emotion so wrought upon Mr.
Buchanan's spirit, that large tears stood in his childish blue eyes. It cannot be said that even these a.s.surances calmed Mrs. Deacon's fears; but if to her that five mile drive was a thing of sudden alarms and constant terrors, to Lily it was an unmixed delight. It was not often that Lily was able to take part in the various merry-makings of the town; there always seemed to be so many other things for her to do, and she was far oftener spending her hours in company with her mother's serious-minded friends than with the lively boys and girls of her own age. She attended innumerable meetings of the Ladies' Civic Uplift Society, she made innumerable red flannel petticoats with feather-st.i.tched hems for little heathen girls, she prepared innumerable sandwiches for various parish entertainments, she made innumerable calls on fretful invalids; but she did not very often find a chance to have simply a good time.
Now, snuggling down into a corner of the rickety old sleigh, with the musty moth-eaten old bearskin robe pulled up to her chin, she sat lost in complete rapture. The fresh, cold air, stinging her cheeks, the brilliant moon, the sweetly dissonant jingling of the sleigh-bells, and the sc.r.a.ps of singing carrying back from the jolly groups ahead of her, the wide, free stretches of snow-covered fields, glistening under moonlight so bright that one could detect a rabbit track across their smooth expanse-all filled her with unutterable delight. She was very glad that she hadn't gone with any of the others; then she would have had to talk, and she wasn't ready to talk yet. It was too nice just to be able to sit still, and enjoy it all, and think. Her thoughts must have been pleasant ones. Pleasant? That is not the word, but then there is no word that can describe the timid, bold, incoherent, romantic and beautifully absurd thoughts of an eighteen-year old girl. It is enough to say that her s.h.i.+ning eyes were filled with them, that the dimples came, and that when she smiled to herself, she bent her head so that no one would be able to see that smile, and perhaps read its meaning.
Mrs. Deacon had been persuaded to permit the Spanish costume, and under her scarfs and furs, Lily was very das.h.i.+ng indeed, with the high comb, and the clocked stockings, the spangled fan, and the scarlet heels. And she pictured herself navely as the belle of the ball; yes, all the young men should besiege her-but she didn't care about that in itself.
What she longed for was to appear fascinating and irresistible, just so that-well, just so that, _he_ could see. Dolly had told her that he would be there. Would he recognize her? Would he dance with her? Well, it might be this way; he would see her of course, but she would pretend not to see him, and he would think that she had forgotten all about him.
Then perhaps he might ask someone to present him, but still she would pretend to have forgotten all about that day in the field; then he would ask her to dance with him; but already someone would have claimed that dance. Then-what if he did not ask her again? Suppose he should just bow, and go away. There was a possibility.
”What a silly girl I am!” thought Lily, unconsciously shaking her head.
Just then she was flung violently to one side, her mother half tumbling upon her. At breakneck speed, and with a great flourish of his whip, Mr.
Buchanan had just negotiated the abrupt and difficult turn into the gate of the Webster's farm.
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