Volume Ii Part 10 (2/2)
? half coming to the conclusion that her place henceforth was only at the last, and that the world and she had nothing to do with each other. The tide of life and gaiety seemed to have thrown her on one side, as something that could not swim with it, and to be rus.h.i.+ng past too strongly and swiftly for her slight bark ever to launch upon it again. Perhaps the sh.o.r.e might be the safest and happiest place; but it was sober in the comparison; and, as a stranded bark might look upon the white sails flying by, Fleda saw the gay faces and heard the light tones with which her own could so little keep company.
But as little they with her. Their enjoyment was not more foreign to her than the causes which moved it were strange.
Merry? ? she might like to be merry, but she could sooner laugh with the north wind than with one of those vapid faces, or with any face that she could not trust. Conversation might be pleasant, but it must be something different from the noisy cross-fire of nonsense that was going on in one quarter, or the profitless barter of nothings that was kept up on the other side of her. Rather Queechy and silence, by far, than New York and _this!_
And through it all, Miss Tomlinson talked on and was happy.
”My dear Fleda! what are you back here for?” said Florence, coming up to her.
”I was glad to be at a safe distance from the fire.”
”Take a screen ? here! Miss Tomlinson, your conversation is too exciting for Miss Ringgan; look at her cheeks! I must carry you off; I want to show you a delightful contrivance for transparencies that I learned the other day.”
The seat beside her was vacated, and, not casting so much as a look towards any quarter whence a possible successor to Miss Tomlinson might be arriving, Fleda sprang up and took a place in the far corner of the room by Mrs. Thorn, happily not another vacant chair in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Thorn had shown a very great fancy for her, and was almost as good company as Miss Tomlinson ? not quite, for it was necessary sometimes to answer, and therefore necessary always to hear.
But Fleda liked her; she was thoroughly amiable, sensible, and good-hearted; and Mrs. Thorn, very much gratified at Fleda's choice of a seat, talked to her with a benignity which Fleda could not help answering with grateful pleasure.
”Little Queechy, what has driven you into the corner?” said Constance, pausing a moment before her.
”It must have been a retiring spirit,” said Fleda.
”Mrs. Thorn, isn't she lovely?”
Mrs. Thorn's smile at Fleda might almost have been called that, it was so full of benevolent pleasure. But she spoiled it by her answer. ”I don't believe I am the first one to find it out.”.
”But what are you looking so sober for?” Constance went on, taking Fleda's screen from her hand and fanning her diligently with it ? ”you don't talk. The gravity of Miss Ringgan's face casts a gloom over the brightness of the evening. I couldn't conceive what made me feel chilly in the other room till I looked about and found that the shade came from this corner; and Mr. Thorn's teeth, I saw, were chattering.”
”Constance,” said Fleda, laughing and vexed, and making the reproof more strongly with her eyes ? ”how can you talk so?”
”Mrs. Thorn, isn't it true?”
Mrs. Thorn's look at Fleda was the essence of good humour.
”Will you let Lewis come and take you a good long ride to- morrow?”
”No, Mrs. Thorn, I believe not ? I intend to stay perseveringly at home to-morrow, and see if it is possible to be quiet a day in New York.”
”But you will go with me to the concert to-morrow night? ?
both of you ? and hear Truffi; ? come to my house and take tea, and go from there? will you, Constance?”
”My dear Mrs. Thorn,” said Constance, ”I shall be in ecstasies, and Miss Ringgan was privately imploring me last night to find some way of getting her to it. We regard such material pleasures as tea and m.u.f.fins with great indifference, but when you look up after swallowing your last cup you will see Miss Ringgan and Miss Evelyn, cloaked and hooded, anxiously awaiting your next movement. My dear Fleda, there is a ring!” ?
And giving her the benefit of a most comic and expressive arching of her eyebrows, Constance flung back the screen into Fleda's lap, and skimmed away.
Fleda was too vexed for a few minutes to understand more of Mrs. Thorn's talk than that she was first enlarging upon the concert, and afterwards detailing to her a long shopping expedition in search of something which had been a morning's annoyance. She almost thought Constance was unkind, because she wanted to go to the concert herself, to lug her in so unceremoniously, and wished herself back in her uncle's snug, little, quiet parlour, unless M. Carleton would come.
And there he is, said a quick beat of her heart, as his entrance explained Constance's ”ring.”
Such a rush of a.s.sociations came over Fleda that she was in imminent danger of losing Mrs. Thorn altogether. She managed, however, by some sort of instinct, to disprove the a.s.sertion that the mind cannot attend to two things at once, and carried on a double conversation with herself and with Mrs. Thorn for some time very vigorously.
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