A DRIVE WITH A STRANGE GUIDE.
Two women—two of Mrs. Prymmer's chosen friends and satellites—were calling on Derrice. Mrs. Prymmer had sent a message to her room, and now sat smoothing her white apron, enjoyably anticipating the effect that Derrice's red silk and cashmere gown would produce on her callers, yet at the same time a prey to secret annoyance to think that she herself was only of secondary importance.
To her chagrin, the girl sauntered into the room in a dull brown walking suit, and with a single eyeglass mischievously fixed under one light eyebrow.
Mrs. Prymmer was speechless. Such a thing had never before been heard of in the length and breadth of Rossignol,—that one human being should, through a solitary piece of glass, dare to stare at, examine, and confuse another human being not blessed with a single piece of glass. "The girl was as full of tricks as a monkey," she indignantly reflected.
"Did you want me?" asked Derrice.
"Yes," stammered her mother-in-law, recoveringher breath, and she waved her hand toward the little dowdy widow in the black bonnet and bead cape, and the young woman in the painful green dress, who was her daughter, and the bride of a carpenter who lived around the corner.
"You have come to see me,—how kind in you," said Derrice, in her infantine manner, and with so much sweetness that the two visitors, who were not of her world and never would be, immediately fell into a profound conviction that they were her friends for life.
The little widow, who was a kind-hearted person, but of limited ideas and education, felt a strange flutter of interest as she regarded the beautiful, gracious girl, and, losing her first fear of the eyeglass, immediately expressed a hope that Derrice felt pretty smart after her journey.
"Oh, yes, thank you, I am used to travelling."
The carpenter's wife, who had, until Derrice's entrance into the room, been troubled with a nervous choking in her throat, now lost all embarrassment, and interrupted a remark of her mother by an eager inquiry as to whether Derrice would "appear out" next Sunday.
Derrice hesitated, and looked at her mother-in-law.
"She means," said Mrs. Prymmer, solemnly, "will you attend divine service? It is the custom for brides."
"Yes," chimed in the widow, "then they stay home for three days and receive visits. Will you do so, dear?"
"Well, I don't know," laughed Derrice. "Have you any saints' bones or other curiosities in your church?"
"No, dear, no dead saints. We've got plenty of live ones."
"I like them better dead. I haven't gone into a church for years except for sight-seeing."
"Why, ain't you a professor?" asked the carpenter's bride, and in her dismay she leaned forward and laid a cotton-gloved hand on Derrice's knee.
"No, I never taught anything. I suppose teachers do have to go to church. Mine always did."
"She means a professor of religion," interposed Mrs. Prymmer.
"Oh, like you," said Derrice, innocently. "No, I have not that honour."
"I wish you'd join our church," said the widow and her daughter in a breath.
"Perhaps I will some day, if I stay here long enough," said Derrice, amiably.
"We've got such a good preacher," said the younger woman, enthusiastically.
"Is it Mr. Huntington?" asked Derrice.
"Yes; did any one tell you about his conversion?"
"No, not yet."
"I wonder that you haven't, sister," said the widow, turning to Mrs. Prymmer, "but I suppose you haven't had time to tell everything yet. Oh, it was such a remarkable thing. He was a wild young fellow. He had a friend called Denham—"
"Yes, Mr. John Denham, I have met him," said Derrice.
The little widow's eyes flashed curiously, but she would not stop to ask questions now. She would tell her story first. "This Mr. Denham was always with him. They were two reckless, careless, godless, swearing, drinking young men—"
"Oh, not as bad as that," said Derrice, mildly.
"My dear, people has told us—Well, they was going on their ways of sin when one day there come a change. They was in a railroad accident, and poor Mr. Denham he was torn almost to pieces. He lived only a little while, but his mother come to him, and before he died he repented of his wild ways, he gave his heart to his Maker, and he begged Mr. Huntington to do the same. He was shocked most to death. After he buried his friend, he did change. He went to a theological seminary and studied for a while; then Mr. Negus died, and he was supplying for this church and we called him. Such sermons as he used to preach,—the church would be crowded twice a day and wagons standing all the way down tothe stables. Now the excitement's wearing away, because he's been with us for some time, but we had a powerful revival, didn't we, sister?" and she appealed to Mrs. Prymmer.
"Thank the Lord, yes,—ninety-five baptisms."
Derrice's face had grown white. "You say that Mr. Denham is dead?"
"Yes, dear, dead and buried. Was he a friend of yours?"
"Scarcely a friend; I did not know him as well as I knew Mr. Huntington. He was rather an acquaintance."
The eyeglass fell from under Derrice's brow. She seemed disinclined to talk, and her visitors rose to take leave. "You'll come see us, dear?" said the widow.
"Certainly; where do you live?"
"Here, dear, is a card,—Mrs. James, 38 Pownall."
"Pownall; is it street, avenue, square—?"
"Street, dear, always understood. Good-bye. I'm real glad to make your acquaintance," and squeezing her hand until the girl winced with pain, and recovered only to wince again under an alarming muscular pressure from the carpenter's bride, the little widow reluctantly tore herself away.
Mrs. Prymmer let them out at the street door, compressed her lips as the widow whispered, "Ain't she a beauty? What a pity she don't go to church!"and then moved slowly back in the direction of the parlour. She would address a remonstrance to Derrice on the subject of the eyeglass, but on her appearance the girl lost with such rapidity her sad, reflective attitude, and putting her glass in her eye fixed it with such a defiant expression on her mother-in-law, that that good lady was surprised and confused, and could only mutter a hasty, "Are you going out?"
"Yes," said Derrice, briefly, and she was just about to sweep by her when she was checked by a question from the hall in an animated voice, "Is Mrs. Mercer at home? Mrs. Mercer, not Mrs. Prymmer,—I don't want to see her."
Mrs. Prymmer heard the clearly spoken sentence, yet she rushed forward with outstretched hand, "Why, Miss Gastonguay, you're a sight for sore eyes."
"Am I?" said the lady, coolly, and overlooking the offered hand. "I don't think your eyes have ever beheld me with much favour since I sat on the bench behind you and the other small girls at school, and for the sake of example exposed your cheating at lessons to the master. Do go away, Hippolyta Prymmer,—you hate me, you know you do, and upon my word I've no love for you. What is the use of being sneaky when old age is creeping on you? We kept it up when we were young; do let us get through the death-dance honestly."
Mrs. Prymmer with an indignant face retreatedinto the hall, and left her daughter-in-law alone with her caller.
"That's the way to manage her, my dear," said Miss Gastonguay, shortly. "She is a born bully; if you don't bully her, she will bully you. She ought to have died in her cradle and gone a happy infant to paradise. Will you come and take a drive with me? My niece was to call this afternoon on you, but she is off somewhere gallivanting with the clergyman, so I thought I'd come myself. First I said I wouldn't, then I repented, like the man in the Bible. Come, put your hat on, child. I'm all right. You needn't distrust me, I'm Jane Gastonguay, spinster, and owner of half Rossignol. You couldn't sell this house you are standing in without my permission. Mr. Huntington sent me, so he will vouch for me. I'll neither upset you nor throw you in among the ice-blocks in the river. Come, I can't wait."
Derrice suppressed the surprise with which she at first surveyed the little, gentlemanly, short-legged lady in the broadcloth coat, and with a murmured, "You are very kind," hurried up-stairs and got a hat and jacket.
A few minutes later they were going side by side down the stone steps and across the snow-covered patch of lawn to the street.
"Have you seen Rossignol yet?" asked Miss Gastonguay.
"No, except for one or two short walks up and down this avenue."
"We don't call this an avenue, child, we call it a street, in spite of the magnificent elms," said Miss Gastonguay, stepping to the gutter and picking up a fur lap-robe. "Now where is that brat of a pony?" and putting two fingers in her mouth she whistled shrilly.
"Look at him coming from the parsonage," she went on, "his mouth full of bread and sugar and rattling my new cart over the gutters. I declare there is nothing bigger than his appetite but the public debt of Maine. Come here, you villain. You are worse than a dog, creeping around to back doors while your mistress is calling."
Derrice smiled as the fat white animal, with a mischievous roll of his light eyes at his mistress, hurried down the drive to the street, and, with the dexterity of a veteran, wheeled the cart directly in front of her.
Derrice got in, and Miss Gastonguay, after a soft slap on the animal's neck, followed her.
"It is 'jolly,' as English people say, that you have not seen the town," said Miss Gastonguay, picking up the lines. "I love to get hold of new people. Don't you know a thing about it? Hasn't your husband told you?"
"Well, really, I have slept the most of the timesince arriving. I was tired from my journey, and I have asked few questions."
"You don't want to be too communicative," said Miss Gastonguay, turning her sharp black eyes on her. "You are quite a woman of the world, baby though you seem. Well, I'll not bother you till after you have had a chance to ask some one if I am quite respectable and one to be encouraged, though it will be hard work for me to restrain myself, as I am little better than an interrogation point. You don't belong to New England?"
"No,—to New York more than any place, but I have no home. My mother died when I was a baby, and my father has had me travelling with him almost ever since, though sometimes he would put me in a school for awhile."
"You must miss him."
"I do," said Derrice, quietly.
"You won't like living here if you have been a globe-trotter."
"Perhaps I may."
"My child,—you know you can think of nothing more dismal."
"I will not say that, Miss Gastonguay."
"But you feel it. I can look into the minds of my fellow beings. The time before this when I was reincarnated, I was a witch."
Derrice looked at her in irresistible amusement.
"Come now, Miss or Mrs. New Yorker," said Miss Gastonguay, vivaciously, "tell me what is your idea of New England."
"I don't know that I have ever formulated anything. I have been in Boston once or twice. I liked it."
"But you avoided the smaller places."
"Yes; though my father often spoke to me of Rossignol. What a fine street this is!"
"Isn't it?" and Miss Gastonguay requested her pony to slacken his pace. One large white or yellow house succeeded another. All stood back from the street, nearly all were perched on high banks with flights of steps approaching them, and over all hung bare yet graceful and luxuriant elms. "Ah, the New England elms, how I love them!" said Miss Gastonguay, enthusiastically. "Do you know that this country was all a forest one hundred and fifty years ago?"
"I suppose it was,—I don't know much about the history of this State."
"It seems strange now to think of those days. This lovely river had only Indians on its banks. Then, just after plucky Jacob Buswell, in 1769, ascended through the wilderness beyond here, and hewed out a place for his log cabin on a spot where a cathedral now stands in Bangor, Louis Gastonguay, a Frenchman, and relative of theBaron de St. Castin, came here, and founded Rossignol."
"How interesting!"
"You must go to Bangor when summer comes. We go up to it as the people about Boston and New York go up to those cities. Rossignol is a dear little place, but small. Strangers get tired of it. Mind yourself now, Fairy Prince."
The white pony was gathering his feet cautiously together preparatory to going down a steep hill. They were leaving the stately street behind them, and were approaching the business portion of the town.
"There is our post-office," said Miss Gastonguay, "and our hotel, and lounging on the veranda is our smartest lawyer, Captain Sam Veevers, half Southerner, half Yankee,—a good combination. He lives in the hotel, and he has just been having a holiday in the woods, fishing through the ice. If you and Chelda make friends, you'll often see him up at our house. I think he is an admirer of hers, but I am not sure, for he is about as much of a sphinx as she is. Now there is our Bay, isn't it a beauty?"
They had turned a corner, and Derrice had a complete view of the town and its surroundings. It was spread over a plain by the river bank. Hills dominated it on either side, and a little beyond the town the river, that had gathered itself together andnarrowed visibly to rush by shops and houses, expanded into a wide and gemlike bay.
"It looks like a lake," said Miss Gastonguay, "this enlargement of the river, but there is an opening in the apparent lake,—the sea is but a short distance away. We call it Merry Meeting Bay, because out there are five little rivers leaping merrily down to the sea. In summer the hotels out there beyond the big sardine factories are opened. Lumber and fishing and the sardine industry keep Rossignol going, you know. Isn't the view lovely?"
"It is indeed," murmured Derrice, and she paused in silent admiration.
"Look at the ice-cakes, shouldering and smashing against each other to get first to the Bay, where they will be ground to powder or sucked to pieces. Just like human beings in their race through the world."
"Have you much society here?" asked Derrice.
"My dear, we are governed socially by the seven Mrs. Potts. Have you ever heard of those ladies?"
"Never."
"Where has she been raised—this young person—that she has never heard of the seven Mrs. Potts of the town of Rossignol by Merry Meeting Bay?" exclaimed Miss Gastonguay, in comical dismay. "Look across the river at those seven domed mansions standing in solitary grandeur on thoseseven small hills. Talk about the seven hills of Rome! They pale before the distinction of these hills."
Derrice laughed at the exaggeration of her tone, and in much interest gazed across the semi-frozen river at the glittering pinnacles and roof-tops of the seven pretentious dwellings of the seven Mrs. Potts.
"They own all that side of the river. When we want to pay court to them, or when they deign to honour the town with a visit, they drive over that bridge. But here comes rather an interesting girl that I would like you to meet. Halt, voice from the wilderness!"
The street of the prosperous little town was full of pedestrians, and numerous wagons were drawn up beside the pavement, yet, among the several passers-by who heard the salutation, a girl readily detached herself from a group and approached the cart. Derrice surveyed her with interest. She was tall and of a singular fragility and thinness of appearance, her expression was nervous and strained, and her china-blue eyes scanned the stranger's face with an eagerness that approached intensity.
"Well, Aurelia," said Miss Gastonguay, agreeably, "if you haven't gone mad yet, let me introduce you to our latest gain in the way of arrivals,—Mrs. Justin Mercer."
The two girls shook hands, and Miss Gastonguay,taking advantage of the moment that they were engaged with each other, tried to lift the cover of the basket on Miss Sinclair's arm. When she found that it was tied down, she said, "What have you got in there, Aurelia Sinclair?"
"Eggs."
"For whom?"
"Old Mrs. Graile up at the poorhouse,—she's dying."
"Old humbug, she ought to have died long ago. You only want to be admired for superior sanctity to go ploughing through the mud up there. Come and have afternoon tea with me."
Aurelia shook her head.
"Then tell this young lady that I am a person to be trusted. Otherwise she will think I am a kind of ogress luring her to my den."
Aurelia's face at once took a rapt expression. Delicate waves of colour flowed over it, and in a sweet, thin tone of intense admiration she extended one hand in Miss Gastonguay's direction, and exclaimed, "I admire to give the character of such a woman to a stranger. Mrs. Mercer, this is the favourite of the town. Everybody loves her, everybody trusts her. She will speak sharply, but her tongue is always honest, and even when it is giving deserved reproof there will be tears in her kind eyes. I am proud to have this chance of telling Miss Gastonguay thatI love her for her goodness to the poor of this town.—She is—"
"Pony," cried Miss Gastonguay, with a furiously red face, and jigging at the lines, "will you get up?"
The pony, however, had found some delectable morsel in the gutter, and while nosing it refused to budge, thereby forcing his mistress to listen to the tide of Aurelia's eloquence, which was not easily stopped.
"When there is sickness or death," she went on, rapidly, "who is first at the bedside? Always Miss Gastonguay. She pretends not to care,—she laughs at the ministers and rarely goes to church,—but she is, I verily believe, one of the best Christians in the town. She obeys the commands of Christ,—some day she will own herself a humble follower of the One who came to minister to the lowly."
"Pony," cried Miss Gastonguay, in despair, "now I am going to beat you for the first time in my life," and leaning over the dashboard she whacked him so soundly with her umbrella that, after giving one startled glance behind, he fled madly down the street, overturning a heap of tin pans on the curbstone, and frightening a number of people who fancied that a runaway was upon them.
Derrice, clutching her hat, gave one glance behind, and saw Aurelia still standing on the sidewalk, her hand outstretched, her lips moving, her attitude that of an inspired prophetess.
Miss Gastonguay's face was still red to her ears, and she did not speak until they had passed several churches, two schoolhouses, a theatre, many shops, and the city hall, and had entered on a road bordered by shabby houses. Then she waved her hand, and said, briefly, "Our neighbours, the mill hands, the most honest people in town, but, like the Gastonguays, not fashionable; and there is our house," she went on, when they reached a place where four roads met, and the car line stopped.
"You have a charming situation," replied Derrice, keenly interested in the long, narrow house, built after the fashion of a French château.
"Not according to the Rossignol people. It is the thing to live down the river, up on Blaine Street where you do, or across it, as near the Potts as they will let you. No one lives up here but ourselves and the poor cottagers who work in the mills farther up. But then the Gastonguays never do things like other people," and she admonished the pony to take them through the gates of the avenue, instead of stopping short and staring into the cart, to see if he could find an explanation for the unexpected blow he had received in the town.
"It is curious,—the limitations in choosing a home," said Derrice. "A stranger coming into a place does not understand."
Miss Gastonguay did not reply. She had beenstruck with sudden taciturnity, and, throwing down the lines, allowed the pony to guide them to the spot where he chose that they should alight. It happened to be in front of the lowest of the steps leading to the house, and Derrice, observing him narrowly, remarked, "This seems to be an intelligent animal."
"He isn't an animal," said Miss Gastonguay, abruptly, "he is a fairy prince. One day when I was a witch he offended me, and I changed him from a beautiful young man into this shape. Then I forgot the charm and couldn't effect the transformation, so I keep him about, hoping I may some day remember it. Here, prince, help me off with my coat," and slipping the bit from the animal's mouth, she extended an arm.
To Derrice's amusement the small animal daintily nodded his head, then deliberately drawing off the man's coat from Miss Gastonguay's shoulders, held it in his teeth, and politely extended it to her. "Now run away to the stable," she said, and lightly turning the cart on one wheel, he trotted down the drive.