Part 1 (2/2)
Indeed he has taken it upon himself to criticise me somewhat; thinks I am too slim, as he expresses it, and that my head might be improved if it had a more snarly appearance. Daisy, of course, stands for his model, and her hair does not look as if it had been combed in a month, and yet Zillah spends hours over it. She,-that is, Daisy,-was pleased with her boudoir, and gave vent to sundry exclamations of delight when she entered it, skipped around like the child she is, and said she was so glad it was blue instead of that indescribable drab, and that room is almost the only thing she has expressed an opinion about since she has been here. She does not talk much except to Zillah, and then in French, which I do not understand. If I were to write just what I think I should say that she had expected a great deal more grandeur than she finds. At all events, she takes the things which I think very nice and even elegant as a matter of course, and if we were to set up a style of living equal to that of the queen's household, I do believe she would act as if she had been accustomed to it all her life, or, at least, that it was what she had a right to expect. I know she imagines Guy a great deal richer than he is; and that reminds me of something which troubles me.
Guy has given his name to d.i.c.k Trevylian for one hundred thousand dollars. To be sure it is only for three months, and d.i.c.k is worth three times that amount, and is an old friend and every way reliable and honest. And still I did not want Guy to sign. I wonder why it is that women always jump at a conclusion without any apparent reason. Of course, I could not explain it, but when Guy told me what he was going to do, I felt in an instant as if he would have it all to pay, and told him so, but he only laughed at me and called me nervous and fidgety, and said a friend was good for nothing if he could not lend a helping hand occasionally. Perhaps that is true, but I was uneasy and shall be glad when the time is up and the paper canceled.
Our expenses since Daisy came are double what they were before, and if we were to lose one hundred thousand dollars now we should be badly off.
Daisy is a luxury Guy has to pay for, but he pays willingly and seems to grow more and more infatuated every day. ”She is such a sweet-tempered, affectionate little puss,” he says; and I admit to myself that she is sweet-tempered, and that nothing ruffles her, but about the affectionate part I am not so certain. Guy would pet her and caress her all the time if she would let him, but she won't.
”O, please don't touch me. It is too warm, and you muss my dress,” I have heard her say more than once when he came in and tried to put his arm about her or take her in his lap.
Indeed, her dress seems to be uppermost in her mind, and I have known her to try on half a dozen different ones before she could decide in which she looked the best. No matter what Guy is doing, or how deeply he is absorbed in his studies, she makes him stop and inspect her from all points, and give his opinion, and Guy submits in a way perfectly wonderful to me who never dared to disturb him when shut up with his books.
Another thing, too, he submits to which astonishes me more than anything else. It used to annoy him terribly to wait for anything or anybody.
_He_ was always ready, and expected others to be, but Daisy is just the reverse. Such dawdling habits I never saw in any person. With Zillah to help her dress she is never ready for breakfast, never ready for dinner, never ready for church, never ready for anything, and that, in a household accustomed to order and regularity, does put things back so, and make so much trouble.
”Don't wait breakfast for me, please,” she says, when she has been called for the third or fourth time, and if she can get us to sit down without her she seems to think it all right, and that she can be as long as she likes.
I wonder that it never occurs to her that to keep the breakfast table round, as we must, makes the girls cross and upsets the kitchen generally. I hinted as much to her once when the table stood till ten o'clock, and she only opened her great blue eyes wonderingly, and said mamma had spoiled her she guessed, for it did not use to matter at home when she was ready, but she would try and do better. She bade Zillah call her at _five_ the next morning, and Zillah called her, and then she was a half hour late. Guy doesn't like that, and he looked daggers on the night of the reception, when the guests began to arrive before she was dressed! And she commenced her toilet too, at three o'clock! But she was wondrously beautiful in her bridal robes, and took all hearts by storm. She is perfectly at home in society, and knows just what to do and say so long as the conversation keeps in the fas.h.i.+onable round of chit-chat, but when it drifts into deeper channels she is silent at once, or only answers in monosyllables. I believe she is a good French scholar, and she plays and sings tolerably well, and reads the novels as they come out, but of books and literature, in general, she is wholly ignorant, and if Guy thought to find in her any sympathy with his favorite studies and authors he is terribly mistaken.
And yet, as I write all this, my conscience gives me sundry p.r.i.c.ks as if I were wronging her, for in spite of her faults I like her ever so much, and like to watch her flitting through the house and grounds like the little fairy she is, and I hope the marriage may turn out well, and that she will improve with age, and make Guy very happy.
CHAPTER II.-EXTRACTS FROM GUY'S JOURNAL.
September 20th, 18-.
Three months married. Three months with Daisy all to myself, and yet not exactly to myself either, for of her own accord she does not often come where I am, unless it is just as I have shut myself up in my room, thinking to have a quiet hour with my books. Then she generally appears, and wants me to ride with her, or play croquet or see which dress is most becoming, and I always submit and obey her as if I were the child instead of herself.
She _is_ young, and I almost wonder her parents allowed her to marry.
Fan hints that they were mercenary, but if they were they concealed the fact wonderfully well, and made me think it a great sacrifice on their part to give me Daisy. And so it was; such a lovely little darling, and so beautiful. What a sensation she created at Saratoga! and still I was glad to get away, for I did not fancy some things which were done there.
I did not like so many young men around her, nor her dancing those abominable round dances which she seemed to enjoy so much. ”Square dances were poky,” she said, even after I tried them with her for the sake of keeping her out of that vile John Britton's arms. I have an impression that I made a spectacle of myself, hopping about like a magpie, but Daisy said, ”I did beautifully,” though she cried because I put my foot on her lace flounce and tore it, and I noticed that after that she always had some good reason why I should not dance again. ”It was too hard work for me; I was too big and clumsy,” she said, ”and would tire easily. Cousin Tom was big and he never danced.”
By the way, I have some little curiosity with regard to that Cousin Tom who wanted Daisy so badly, and who, because she refused him, went off to South America. I trust he will stay there. Not that I am or could be jealous of Daisy, but it is better for cousins like Tom to keep away.
Daisy is very happy here, though she is not quite as enthusiastic over the place as I supposed she would be, knowing how she lived at home. The McDonalds are intensely respectable, so she says; but her father's practice cannot bring him over two thousand a year, and the small brown house they live in, with only a gra.s.s-plot in the rear and at the side, is not to be compared with Elmwood, which is a fine old place, every one admits. It has come out gradually that she thought the house was brick and had a tower and billiard-room, and that we kept a great many servants, and had a fish-pond on the premises, and velvet carpets on every floor. I would not let Fan know this for the world, as I want her to like Daisy thoroughly.
And she does like her, though this little pink and white pet of mine is a new revelation to her, and puzzles her amazingly. She would have been glad if I had married Julia Hamilton, of Boston; but those Boston girls are too strong-minded and positive to suit me. Julia is nice, it is true, and pretty, and highly educated, and Fan says she has brains and would make a splendid wife. As Fan had never seen Daisy she did not, of course, mean to hint that she had not brains, but I suspect even now she would be better pleased if Julia were here, but I should not. Julia is self-reliant; Daisy is not. Julia has opinions of her own and a.s.serts them, too; Daisy does not. Julia can sew and run a machine; Daisy cannot. Julia gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night; Daisy does neither. n.o.body ever waits for Julia; everybody waits for Daisy.
Julia reads scientific works and dotes on metaphysics; Daisy does not know the meaning of the word. In short, Julia is a strong, high-toned, energetic, independent woman, while Daisy is-a little innocent, confiding girl, whom I would rather have without brains than all the Boston women like Julia with brains!
And yet I sometimes wish she did care for books, and was more interested in what interests me. I have tried reading aloud to her an hour every evening, but she generally goes to sleep or steals up behind me to look over my shoulder and see how near I am to the end of the chapter, and when I reach it she says: ”Excuse me, but I have just thought of something I must tell Zillah about the dress I want to wear to-morrow.
I'll be back in a moment;” and off she goes and our reading is ended for that time, for I notice she never returns. The dress is of more importance than the book, and I find her at ten or eleven trying to decide whether black or white or blue is most becoming to her. Poor Daisy! I fear she had no proper training at home. Indeed, she told me the other day that from her earliest recollection she had been taught that the main object of her life was to marry young and to marry money.
Of course she did not mean anything, but I would rather she had not said it, even though I know she refused a millionaire for me who can hardly be called rich as riches are rated these days. If d.i.c.k Trevylian should fail to meet his payment I should be very poor, and then what would become of Daisy, to whom the luxuries which money buys are so necessary?
[Here followed several other entries in the journal, consisting mostly of rhapsodies on Daisy, and then came the following:]
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