CHAPTER XBROWNIE AT THE COOLIDGE MANSION
Mr. Coolidge glanced up with a smile of welcome, as Brownie, more beautiful than ever with the excitement of her little encounter with Miss Walton, entered the office.
“Miss Walton said you wished to see me, sir,” she said, simply.
“Yes, Miss Douglas, as we sail on Monday, I thought best to close your account with the firm to-night.”
“You have heard from Mr. Conrad, then, I suppose,” she said, taking it for granted, while her face became radiant with hope.
“No, Miss Douglas; I have not. I wrote immediately, but, receiving no reply, after waiting three days, I telegraphed, and his clerk returned word to-day that he had left town for a week.”
Brownie’s countenance fell, and she grew very pale.
All her bright hopes crumbled to dust, and nothing remained for her but to plod wearily along day by day.
“I am very sorry,” she said, regretfully. “Of course, it is settled that I am not to go with you.”
“Why not?” he asked, quickly adding: “You jump at conclusions, do you not? I told you, I believe, that, as we sailed on Monday, I wished to close your account to-night. That does not look much like not going, does it?”
She had forgotten his words, and her face lighted a trifle at this; but she asked:
“But would you be justified, sir, in taking me without a recommendation?”
“I think so, and I think you are over-sensitive upon that point. I never met a governess before without a recommendation who did not try to pass the circumstance over as lightly as possible,” returned the gentleman, with an amused smile.
“I only desire that you and Mrs. Coolidge should be entirely satisfied,” she said, with proud dignity.
“Miss Douglas,” he said, fixing a keen look upon her face, “I told you, when we first talked this matter over,that I considered it a mere form. I have been fully satisfied from the first that you are a lady, and amply qualified for the position I offer you. Now, if you will assure me that there has been nothing in your life, morally speaking, which would debar you from entering my family, I can rest satisfied, and there will be time enough in the future to write to Mr. Conrad.”
Anything in her life, morally speaking!
A little smile of scorn curled her red lips, and the color leaped again to her very brow; but she lifted her clear, truthful eyes to his, and he was answered, even before she said, with conscious pride:
“There is nothing, there has been nothing in my life which any one could question.”
“I knew it,” he answered; “and now I have a request to make, and that is, that you will allow me to send my carriage for you this evening. There remains only about a day and a half before we sail, and my family would like to become somewhat acquainted with you beforehand.”
Brownie shrank from this ordeal, but she knew it must come sooner or later, and the quicker it was over with the better for all parties.
“Very well, sir,” she answered.
“At what time shall I send for you?”
“An hour will give me ample time to make all needful preparations for the change.”
“It is five o’clock now. Then at six precisely the carriage shall call for you. We dine at half-past, when you will meet my family. Now, about this account; it is not a very large one, Miss Douglas,” he said, smiling, and turning to the books.
After a moment, he continued, with some hesitation:
“Allow me to give you a check on account. You may wish to make some purchases before leaving New York.”
Brownie drew herself up like a little princess.
“If you will please pay me what I have earned, sir, it will be all I require, thank you.”
He ran his eye quickly over the figures, and then paid her just sixteen dollars and a half, the amount of her earnings for three weeks and two days.
“Thank you; that is correct,” she said, after countingit; then, with a bow, she withdrew, a strange feeling of pride and independence in her heart that for three weeks she had supported herself by the labor of her own hands.
True, it would take about fourteen of it to pay for her board and washing, leaving her only two dollars and fifty cents surplus.
She was to receive a salary of five hundred dollars a year, and she smiled to think how large the sum looked to her now and besides there were her expenses and the opportunity of a year of travel in charming Europe.
Brownie arrived at the Coolidge mansion in season to be introduced to the family before dinner was served.
She did not feel particularly drawn toward either Mrs. Coolidge or her eldest daughter.
They were evidently worldlings, and received her with an air of superiority and patronage that was intensely galling to our proud-spirited little Douglas.
The younger girls, Viola and Alma, were more simple and affectionate, and, although somewhat hoidenish, yet she felt assured that they had kind hearts, and promised herself some pleasure with them.
After dinner the whole family repaired to the drawing-room, and the girls being anxious to know what the new governess could do, desired to hear her play and sing.
She gratified them, playing and singing for an hour, then tempting them from the piano, she made herself so sweet and engaging that they were charmed with her, while even Mrs. Coolidge and Miss Isabel relaxed their haughtiness somewhat, though they both considered her too pretty and polished for the latter’s interest. She wished no rival in the way at present.
“If only Wilbur will not lose his senses and fall in love with her at first sight,” Isabel said to her mother, when they had withdrawn to Mrs. Coolidge’s boudoir to discuss Brownie’s merits.
“Never fear, dear; Wilbur knows we would never tolerate a wife for him unless she was his equal in society,” replied the matron, complacently.
“But you know that sometimes young men fall in love with a pretty face, and become entangled before they know it.”
Miss Isabel was evidently very jealous of Brownie’s beauty and accomplishments.
She had not been at all pleased that her father should engage a governess without consulting her own and her mother’s pleasure.
This feeling was shared by Mrs. Coolidge, but she had learned wisdom from long experience, and did not openly oppose her liege lord’s authority upon any matter.
“I think you are worrying about nothing,” she said, in reply to her daughter. “I’m sure I can’t see anything so very beautiful about Miss Douglas,” and she cast a proud look at her own fashionable darling.
“Where are your eyes, mamma?” was the impatient reply. “Her features are perfect; she has the loveliest complexion and color I have ever seen in any face; her hands and feet are at least two sizes smaller than either mine or Viola’s, and her form just dainty enough to suit a fastidious young man like Wilbur.”
“Really, Isabel, you must have spent considerable time inspecting the new governess to serve up such a catalogue of her charms,” remarked Mrs. Coolidge, contemptuously, adding: “Perhaps you are afraid she may attract others, and interfere with your own prospects.”
“She may; who knows?” replied the envious girl.
“Well, if you really think there is danger, I will try and persuade your father to get rid of her even now. But I am of the opinion that you have exaggerated her good looks; I see nothing so very noticeable about her, and I’m sure she dresses plainly enough to suit anybody. She does not wear a single ornament—nothing but those soft ruches at her neck and wrists.”
“Her dress is all right, but hers is a style of beauty that does not need dress to set it off. She would look lovely in anything. But it would never do to think of sending her away now. Papa is bewitched with her, and I do believe if grandpa was a young man he would fall in love with her himself; he has done nothing but sound her praises ever since he met her in the reading-room.”
“Pshaw! Isabel, how extremely foolish you are; do try and get such nonsense out of your head. But I promise I will take care that Wilbur does not see much of her,or any other young gentleman whom we may meet abroad,” said Mrs. Coolidge, resolutely.
“If you can only put that resolution in force she may prove very useful to us, after all. Her accent is every bit as pure as Monsieur Renaud’s, and I must confess that her music is perfectly bewildering. She will save all need of music-masters or teachers in the languages, which will be quite an item; it has cost me more than her salary every year for my music and French,” said Isabel.
“True, dear, and she will also be very valuable as an interpreter in our shopping and sightseeing expeditions abroad. But to turn to more agreeable things. I want you, Isabel, to do your utmost to make a brilliant match while we are in Europe. With your father’s purse, your face, figure, and appearance, I think you ought to win somebody worth having.”
“I hope I may, mamma; I should really enjoy being ‘lady’ somebody,” and the vain girl got up and sailed over to the full-length mirror to survey herself.
“Is it not time for Wilbur to come, mamma?” she asked, presently.
“Yes; he ought to have been here an hour ago,” answered Mrs. Coolidge, glancing at her watch.
Scarce were the words uttered when the doorbell gave forth a clamorous peal; another moment, and there was a manly step on the stair, a deep rich voice called “Mother!” “Isabel!” then the door swung open, and the only son and heir was received with open arms and joyous exclamations of greeting.
Wilbur Coolidge was an exceedingly handsome young man of twenty-two years, with a face that challenged all criticism—bright, careless, defiant, full of humor, and possessing a gleam of poetry—a face that girls judge instantly and always admire. He had a frank clear eye of deepest blue, brown hair tinged with gold, a smiling mouth, from which, when he spoke, there gleamed two rows of white, handsome teeth. Yet it was a mouth one could not quite trust—there was something wanting which made one feel that he lacked depth, that there was no great chivalry in his nature, no grand treasure of manly truth, no touch of heroism in his soul. There were fewwomen who would have read him thus critically, yet Brownie did at a glance, when, descending the stairs arm in arm with his sister Isabel, they met face to face, and she was obliged to present him to her.
“My brother, Miss Douglas,” she said, briefly and coldly, and with a haughty lifting of her head.
Miss Douglas greeted him with quiet politeness, and passed on; but not before she had caught his stare of surprise and look of admiration as his eyes for a moment rested on her face, then swept her dainty form from head to foot.
“And who is Miss Douglas?” he asked, after they had passed beyond her hearing.
“Oh, she is a young person whom grandpa came across in one of the public libraries, and persuaded papa to secure as governess to the girls,” Miss Isabel answered, with a yawn.
“Governess! Young person, indeed! Why, if I ever saw the mark of the true and cultured lady in any one, I do in her,” he replied, with enthusiasm.
“Nonsense, Wilbur! I hope you do not allow your head to be turned by every pretty face you chance to meet.”
“Not I,” and the young man tossed his head, with a gay laugh. “But this Miss Douglas is something more than pretty. Hers is a face which, if a man learned to love, he would gladly serve twice seven years for the sake of making its owner his wife.”
This was said partly to tease his sister, for he well knew her weak points; yet, it must be confessed, he had been startled by Brownie’s wondrous beauty.
“Pshaw! Wilbur, I shall get entirely out of patience with you if you run on like that; and let me warn you beforehand, if mamma discovers you are ‘sweet’ on the governess, it will prove most disastrous to the poor girl’s prospects, for she will post her off without any ceremony.”
“Don’t be disturbed, sister mine. We men, I admit, have an eye for the beautiful, be it in princess or maid. I suppose I may admire Miss Douglas from a distance, as one would admire a picture, with no thought of possessingit. By the way, to change the subject, what is father going to do with the horses while we are away?”
“Send them up to the farm, I think.”
“When do they go?”
“Monday morning, I think.”
“Let us go out to the stable, then, and take a farewell look at them,” proposed Wilbur, cunningly.
“Not I, thank you! I’ve no notion of being perfumed with the scent of the stable if any one should call. You can go if you choose, and I will wait for you in the drawing-room.”
The young man gladly availed himself of the permission, laughing meanwhile in his sleeve that his artifice had succeeded so well. He did not particularly enjoy atête-à-têtewith the frivolous girl.
He knew well enough that his fastidious sister would not accompany him to the stable, and he longed to be by himself, that he might feast upon the remembrance of that lovely face, which had flashed like a gleam from Paradise upon him.
“She is the loveliest girl I have ever met, and I will see more of her, Isabel and the maternal to the contrary notwithstanding,” was his mental resolve, as he paced absently back and forth in the stable, wholly unconscious of his stated object in visiting the place.