Part 27 (1/2)
Nan had dropped a painful subject, and she would not revive it in her brother's presence. There would be plenty of time for her to call and talk it over with them quietly. Help them!--of course she would help them. They should have her new silk dress that Uncle Conway had just sent her. It was a risk, for perhaps they might spoil it; but such fine creatures should have a chance. At present she would only enjoy the nice tea, and talk to poor little frightened Dulce, who seemed unable to open her lips after her sister's disclosure.
Archie could not emulate her ease: a man is always at a disadvantage in such a case. His interest had sustained no shock: it was even stimulated by what he had just heard; but his sympathy seemed all at once congealed, and he could find no vent for it. In spite of his best efforts his manner grew more and more constrained every moment.
Nan looked at him more than once with reproachful sweetness. She thought they had lost caste in his eyes; but Phillis, who was shrewd and sharp-set in her wits, read him more truly. She knew--having already met a score of such--how addicted young Englishmen are to _mauvaise honte_, and how they will hide acute sensibilities under blunt and stolid exteriors; and there was a certain softness in Mr.
Drummond's eye that belied his stiffness. Most likely he was very sorry for them, and did not know how to show it; and in this she was right.
Mr. Drummond was very sorry for them; but he was still more grieved for himself. The Oxford fellow had not long been a parish priest, and he could not at all understand the position in which he found himself,--taking tea with three elegant young dressmakers who talked the purest English and had decided views on tennis and horticulture.
He had just been congratulating himself on securing such companions.h.i.+p for his sister and himself. Being rather cla.s.sical-minded, he had been calling them the gray-eyed Graces, and one of them at least ”a daughter of the G.o.ds,--divinely tall and most divinely fair;” for where had he seen anything to compare with Nan's bloom and charming figure? Dressmakers!--oh, if only Grace were at hand, that he might talk to her, and gain her opinion how he was to act in such case!
Grace had the stiff-necked Drummond pride as well as he, and would hesitate long behind the barriers of conventionality. No wonder, with all these thoughts pa.s.sing through his mind, that Nan, with her bright surface talk, found him a little vague.
It was quite a relief to all the party when Mattie gave the signal for departure and the bell was rung for Dorothy to show them out.
”Well, Nan, what do you think of our visitors?” asked Phillis, when the garden-door had clanged noisily after them, and she had treated Nan to the aforesaid hugs; ”for you were so brave, darling, and actually took the wind out of my sails!” exclaimed the enthusiastic Phillis. ”Miss Drummond is not so bad, after all, is she, in spite of her dowdiness and fussy ways?”
”No; she means well; and so does her brother. He is very nice, only his self-consciousness spoils him,” returned Nan, in a calm, discursive tone, as though they were discussing ordinary visitors.
It was impossible for these young girls to see that their ordinary language was not humble enough for their new circ.u.mstances. They would make mistakes at every turn, like Dorothy, who got out the best china and brewed her tea in the melon-shaped silver teapot.
Phillis opened her eyes rather widely at this. Nan was not often so observant. It was true: self-consciousness was a torment to Archibald Drummond, a Frankenstein of his own creation, that had grown imperceptibly with his growth to the fell measure of his manhood, as inseparable as the shadow from the substance. Phillis had recognized it at once; but then, as she said, no one was faultless; and then, he was so handsome. ”Very handsome” chimed in Dulce, whose opinions were full-fledged in such matters.
”Is he? Well, I never cared for a man with a long fair beard,”
observed Nan, carelessly. Poor Archie! how his vanity would have suffered if he had heard her! for, in a masculine way, he prided himself excessively on the soft silky appendage that Grace had so often praised. A certain boyish countenance, with kindly honest eyes and a little sandy moustache, was more to Nan's taste than the handsome young Anglican.
”Oh, we all know Nan's opinion in such matters,” said Dulce, slyly; and then Nan blushed, and suddenly remembered that Dorothy was waiting for her in the linen-closet, and hurried away, leaving her sisters to discuss their visitors to their hearts' content.
CHAPTER XIX.
ARCHIE IS IN A BAD HUMOR.
”Oh, Archie, I was never more astonished in my life!” exclaimed Mattie, as she tried to adapt her uneven trot to her brother's long swinging footsteps; and then she glanced up in his face to read his mood: but Archie's features were inscrutable and presented an appalling blank. In his mind he was beginning his letter to Grace, and wondering what he should say to her about their new neighbors.
”Writing is such a nuisance when one wants to talk to a person,” he thought, irritably.
”Oh, Archie, won't you tell me what we are to do?” went on Mattie, excitedly. She would not take Archie's silence as a hint that he wanted to keep his thoughts to himself. ”Those poor girls! oh, how nice and pretty they all are, especially the eldest! and is not the youngest--Dulce, I think they called her--the very image of Isabel?”
”Isabel! not a bit. That is so like you, Mattie. You always see likenesses when other people cannot trace the faintest resemblance,”
for this remark was sure to draw out his opposition. Isabel was a silly flirting little thing in her brother's estimation, and, he thought, could not hold a candle to the youngest Miss Challoner.
”Oh dear! now I have made you cross!” sighed poor Mattie, who especially wanted to keep him in good humor. ”And yet every one but you thinks Isabel so pretty. I am sure, from what Grace said in her last letter, that Mr. Ellis Burton means to propose to her.”
”And I suppose you will all consider that a catch,” sneered Archie.
”That is so like a parcel of women, thinking every man who comes to the house and makes a few smooth-tongued speeches--is, in fact, civil--must be after a girl. Of course you have all helped to instill this nonsense into the child's head.”
”Dear me, how you talk, Archie!” returned Mattie, feeling herself snubbed as usual. Why, Archie had been quite excited about it only the other day, and had said quite seriously that with seven girls in a family, it would be a great blessing if Isabel could make such a match; for it was very unlikely that Laura and Susie, or even Clara, would do much for themselves in that way, unless they decidedly improved in looks.
”Well, it is nothing to me,” he returned in a chilling manner; ”we all know our own mind best. If an angular lantern-jawed fellow like Burton, who, by the bye, does not speak the best English, is to Isabel's taste, let her have him by all means: he is well-to-do, and I dare say will keep a carriage for her by and by: that is what you women think a great advantage,” finished Archie, who certainly seemed bent on making himself disagreeable.
Mattie heaved another great sigh, but she did not dare to contradict him. Grace would have punished him on the spot by a dose of satire that would have brought him to reason and good nature in a moment; but Mattie ventured only on those laborious sighs which she jerked up from the bottom of her honest little heart.