CHAPTER XXVI.HOW THEY RECEIVED HER.
On their return from the cottage the previous night, Alice and Emma found that during their absence a telegram had come from Colonel Schuyler, who said he should be home the following day, and asked that the carriage might meet him at the station.
Miss Rossiter, of course, did not sleep a wink, and came down to breakfast looking frightfully haggard and yellow, while Julia was pale and subdued, and Emma showed traces of tears. It was almost as bad as the day of the first Mrs. Schuyler’s funeral, and only Mrs. Tiffe and Perry showed any signs of interest in the coming event.
But as the day wore on the girls brightened up, and Alice and the governess made some bouquets for the dinner table, and put one in Godfrey’s room, but none in those of the bride. Flowers were not for her, a woman of forty with a squint and a limp and glasses! So they only opened the windows of her rooms and let in the soft air of early September, and Emma cried a little as she looked across the lawn to where her mother slept, and wondered if she knew, or knowing, cared that another was in her place. And then she went to her Aunt Christine and told her it was time to dress, and asked if she was coming down. Miss Rossiter had the headache and lay upon the couch, and said she must be excused. She could not meet the woman that night; she must wait till morning, when she hoped to be stronger and better able to bear it. So Emma dropped the shades and brought the camphor to her aunt and smoothed herhair a moment, and almost wished she, too, had the headache, and then went to Alice and Julia, who were dressing, and who gave her a meaning look as she entered.
“What,blackthis warm day?” Emma exclaimed, as she saw Julia had chosen a plain black grenadine, which, with the simple white band about her neck, gave her the look of one in mourning.
“Yes, black,” Julia replied. “I do not feel like decking myself as for a festival. This is no holiday to us, and Kitty has brought out your plain grenadine for you.”
“And I am horrid in black,” Emma said, plaintively; but she usually submitted to the stronger will of her sister, and so she donned the black dress which made her look so like a nun that, braving Julia’s displeasure, she ventured to tie a bit of lavender ribbon in her hair, and was delighted at the effect.
“Look, isn’t it becoming?” she said. “Surely half-mourning is admissible on the occasion of the new mother’s advent.”
Even Julia admitted that the effect was good, and as she was herself an ardent lover of dress and had adopted her plain garb more from resentment to the living than respect for the dead, she too tried the effect of lavender, and fastened at her throat a pretty bow of ribbon, which brightened her up wonderfully. Alice, who had nothing to resent, and who wished to be as attractive as possible to Godfrey after his long absence, indulged her taste to its fullest extent, and succeeded in getting her hair higher than she had ever gotten it before. Godfrey was of course accustomed to the very latest styles of Parisian hair-dressing, and she did not wish to appear singular to him, she said, when Emma exclaimed:
“Why, Alice, how funny you do look!”
Taken as a whole, she was frightfully and fashionably dressed, and very much pleased with hertout ensemble, and certain she should completely overawe and confound the plain woman of forty, who was momentarily expected. The barouche had been sent for the colonel according to his orders, and Godfrey’s buggy had been sent for him, as he might bring a friend with him, his telegram said. But Robert Macpherson was not quite readyto leave New York, and preferred coming to the country a few days later. So Godfrey drove home alone, choosing a shorter road than that taken by the barouche, and reaching the house some ten minutes earlier than his father.
“Oh, girls, girls, there is Godfrey!” Emma cried, as she caught sight of her brother driving up to the rear of the house; and rushing out to meet him she threw her arms around him and burst into tears.
“Why, Emma, you dear little goose,” he said, as he bent his tall figure down to kiss her, “what are you crying about? Sorry to get your scamp of a brother back, eh?”
“No, no, Godfrey. I’m so glad to have you, only I dread that woman! Is she so very horrid?”
“Horrid! Who horrid?” Godfrey asked, while every muscle of his face twitched with suppressed mirth. “Do you mean the new mother? You must not mind her looks; beauty is only skin deep, and she is like a singed cat, better than she looks. You are sure to like her. Ah, Julia, my darling, how like a sister of charity you look!” he continued, as he released Emma, and kissing his other sister affectionally, he wound an arm around each of the girls, and walked to the house, where Alice was waiting for him, and scanning him curiously.
“He certainly has improved in looks, and there is quite a foreign air about him, and his clothes are Paris made,” she thought, and her spirits rose proportionately as she advanced leisurely to meet him.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Alice,” he exclaimed. “Comment vous portez vous,” and kissing her loudly on both cheeks he continued: “Que pensez-vous de cela?Doesn’t itsmackof foreign travel?”
Alice had not quite expected this, but the French delighted her, though she inly pronounced the accent horrid, and the hearty kisses pleased her, even if they were wet and loud, and she blushed very becomingly, and called him a “dear, naughty boy,” and kept hold of his hand until he freed it from her, thinking to himself that she was unusually gushing, and not a whit pretty either.
“By George, Allie,” he began, as his eyes rested on her hair. “No, I don’t mean that. I’ve quit slang,” he added, with a thought of Gertie Westbrooke; “but, Allie, whatisthat on the top of your head? It looks like the door-knob, and makes me think of that picture of William Tell’s boy with the big apple on his head. Got a story above the style this time. Should think you’d take cold in the back of your neck. They don’t wear it so inPar-ee.”
And with his light badinage he demolished Alice’s hopes of admiration, and struck a blow at the wonderful structure she had spent so much time in rearing.
“Godfrey, Godfrey,” Julia cried in a tremor of distress and agitation as she caught the sound of wheels, and felt that the catastrophe so dreaded was coming at last. “Tell us true, is she so fearfully ugly?”
“She’s wonderful, and you may as well bring out your smelling salts and camphor,” Godfrey replied; and then grasping Julia by the shoulder and calling to his other sister: “Come, Em, and see the elephant,” he led the way to the front door, where Edith stood looking eagerly about her, not limping nor squinting, nor ugly, nor old, but a marvellously beautiful woman, with ease and grace in every motion, and no sign of embarrassment or awkwardness about her.
There was a flush on her cheek and a glitter in her eyes, but otherwise she was calm and self-possessed when her husband took her hand and led her up the steps to the group of astonished and bewildered girls, who had looked this way and that, and then, under their breath, had ejaculated, hurriedly:
“Why—what—who—oh—oh—Godfrey,Godfrey, youWRETCH!”
And that last word embodied Julia’s feelings, as, with one glance at her brother, who stood choking with laughter, she went to meet the stranger.
“Julia, my eldest daughter; Mrs. Schuyler, your new mother, and I hope you will love each other,” the colonel said.
And then Julia felt her hand taken in one as soft, and small, and perfectly formed as her own, and a sweet voice said, asif to relieve her from any embarrassment respecting the mother:
“We will be sisters, I am sure. Kiss me, Julia.”
This was not what the young lady had expected. No thought of kissing had entered her mind. Indeed, she meant to freeze the adventuress by her formality and dignity, and lo, the woman was dictating terms to her, saying they would be sisters and asking for a kiss! But it was not hard to kiss the smooth, round cheek offered to her, and, when the sweet voice said again, “You will love me, Julia, I am sure, and let me love you,” the haughty girl answered involuntarily, “Yes, I will,” and then, with a tear actually wetting her eyelashes, stood back to give place to Emma, who, more impulsive than herself, went headlong into the arms which Edith held toward her, and cried like a little child.
Miss Creighton came next, bowing almost to the ground and offering the tips of her fingers to the lady, who received her just as coldly, though with far more ease and graceful breeding perceptible in her manner.
They were in the hall by this time, and Mrs. Tiffe stood waiting to greet her new mistress, her black silk rustling at every step and her yellow lace showing age and cost, as with her gold-bowed glasses in her hand and her bunch of keys jingling suggestively on the chain at her side, she paid her respects to madame, and thought as she did so how she would like to thrash the scapegrace, Godfrey, who had so misled them. He was choking with laughter just outside the door, where his sisters were going through with a pantomime of threatening gestures for the trick played upon them.
“Godfrey Schuyler, how could you?” Julia began in a whisper, while Godfrey suddenly remembering that he had not seen his Aunt Christine, stepped back into the hall and asked where she was.
On being told she had a headache, he said:
“I must go up and see her,” and with a sign for Julia and Alice to follow, he ran up the stairs in the direction of Miss Rossiter’s room.
But Emma was there before them. As soon as the first moment of amazement was over she had gone swiftly to her aunt’s chamber, and rushing in unannounced, had exclaimed:
“Oh, Aunt Christine, she is the most beautiful woman you ever looked upon. It was all a fib he wrote us. She is splendid and hasn’t a bit of a limp nor anything, and looks about twenty. Do get up, auntie, and go to dinner.”
Miss Rossiter was amazed, and sitting up on the side of her bed, was trying to knot her long black hair under her net, while she put some questions to Emma, when the door burst open a second time, and Godfrey himself came in full of life, and health, and vigor, and by his very presence doing more to dissipate the lady’s headache than all the drugs in her closet.
“Hallo, Aunt Christine,” he said; “done up in camphor and herbs, as usual? Let’s try what a little exercise will do for you.”
And taking her in his arms he waltzed gayly about the room, the girls laughing and the lady protesting and struggling to get free, until she had danced her hair down and a bright color into her face.
“There, auntie, you are real handsome now,” Godfrey said, as he released her with a hearty kiss, and leading her to the couch, seated himself beside her, with his arm around her waist. “Now, girls, pitch in; I’m ready for you,” he said; as they began to accuse him of deceit in its most aggravating form, asking how he could do it.
“Do what?” he asked. “What are you making such a fuss about?”
“I should think you’d ask,” Julia replied. “Telling us she was forty and had a glass eye, and a squawk in her voice, and everything else that is bad.”
“I never told you any such thing,” Godfrey answered, with great gravity; and the three girls exclaimed, in chorus:
“Oh, Godfrey Schuyler! You did, you did. We have the letter. You wrote, ‘Think of father’s marrying a woman of forty with a glass eye, and——’”
“Oh, yes, well, of course, that’s a different thing,” Godfreyreplied. “I did tell you tothink of it, I know, and you evidently have thought of it, and had a good time at it, but I never said it was so. I told you ‘she would take your breath away when you saw her,’ and she did. You all three opened your eyes and mouths and stared at her as if you never saw a handsome woman before. And she is handsome, isn’t she? Now, confess it, girls; and say she is the loveliest creature you ever saw——”
“Oh, Godfrey, I do believe you are half in love with her yourself,” Alice said, a little reproachfully, and the young man replied:
“To be sure I am; and if she had been younger there’s no telling what I might have done, but when I subtracted eighteen from twenty-eight, I said to myself, ‘that will never do; a man may not marry his grandmother;’ and then, Alice, I knew there was a little pug nose over the sea, which would get very red and ugly looking if I did that,” he added, mischievously, as he saw the disturbed look on Alice’s face, and knew why it was there.
“Is she twenty-eight? She does not look it,” Emma said, while Julia and Alice declared she did; and then as women, especially envious ones, will do, they picked her to pieces, from her head to her feet, and putting her together again, decided that though they had seen much finer faces and prettier, too, hertout ensemblewas very good, and they were so much relieved, as they had expected something horrid, of which even the villagers would make fun.
“Wait till you see her in her dinner dress,” Godfrey said. “I tell you her gowns are elegant, Paris made, too. I’ve seen them. I know. I’ve travelled.” (This with a wink at Alice.) “And that reminds me, Jule and Em, why are you rigged out in black, this warm, pleasant day? You look as if you were in mourning. I believe you did it on purpose too, but I tell you she is stunning in her dinner costumes, and if you don’t wish to be thrown quite in the shade, I’d take off those black things, and put on something fluffy and light and airy and becoming; and you, auntie, certainly do not mean to stay mewed up hereon toast and oatmeal, while we are at dinner. Take a big drink from every bottle in the closet, and if that don’t do, try some of your lightning. I’ll fix the battery; and then dress yourself and go down, and look handsome and bright. Why, I think you’ve grown pretty and young while I was gone, and I want that beauty to see that all the good looks are not on her side. The Schuylers have some of it. Come, girls, hurry up.”
They could not withstand Godfrey, especially when he mingled a little seasonable flattery with his persuasions, and both Julia and Emma went to their rooms to change their dress, while Miss Rossiter expressed her willingness to go down if she could be ready in time.
“I’ll help you. I can do it first-rate,” Godfrey said, mischievously, but Miss Rossiter declined his services, and ringing for Kitty, sent him from the room, telling him he might as well attend to his own toilet.
“That’s a fact,” he said. “But my dressing won’t take long. Come, Alice, let’s go out on the balcony awhile;” and leading Miss Creighton to the glass door at the end of the hall, he brought her a chair and seated her in it. “You won’t have to dress, and can talk with me. You’ve got yourself up stunningly, especially that ball on the top of your head. Couldn’t have put that a peg higher if you tried, could you? I say, Alice, why do you want to make yourself such a fright? Do you think it is the style? It isn’t. I saw a few shop-girls and bar-maids with their heads tricked out like yours, but not one lady. I believe you would wear a boot-jack if you thought it was the fashion in Paris!”
“Oh, Godfrey, don’t, please, and you just come home, too,” Alice said, with a tremor in her voice and tears in her eyes.
It hurt her that he should find fault with her personal appearance within an hour of his return after so long an absence, especially as she had taken so much pains to dress for him. Godfrey saw she was hurt, and said to her, coaxingly, as he put his arm around her:
“Never mind, Alice. You are real stylish anyway, and I’mso glad to see you again. I am, upon my word, and you used to write to me such nice, sisterly letters. Do you find me improved?”
“Yes, Godfrey, ever so much. I knew you would be. Travel always does that,” Alice said, her spirits a good deal lightened by his few words of commendation. “And, Godfrey,” she continued, “I guess I’ll go and fix my hair now. There will be time.”
She choked a little, for “fixing her hair” was a vast amount of trouble, but if Godfrey was suited, she did not care.
“Nonsense,” he said, tightening the grasp of his arm about her waist, “your hair is well enough for once. Stay with me and let’s talk. Only think how long it is since you had a chance to lecture me except by letter, which does not go for much, and I’m real glad to see you, Allie. I am, by Jo——. No, I mean I am, Allie; I am trying to quit my slang, though it is like pulling teeth sometimes.”
“Yes, Godfrey,” and folding her small, fat hands on her lap, Alice looked happy, and content, and satisfied. “Yes, Godfrey, I knew that trip abroad would effect great things for you.”
“Oh, bother, Allie, it isn’t that. I heard just as much slang, and saw just as many clowns, and snobs, and fools abroad as I ever saw here; and more too. Travel didn’t improve my mind or manners; it was a little girl. Oh! don’t look so disturbed,” he added, as Alice bridled at the mention of a girl. “You needn’t be jealous at all. She isn’t bigger than my thumb, and is only twelve years old. She was on the ship with us and awful sick, and so was I. I tell you what, I have been down to the very depths and felt deep calling unto deep in a way I never wish to hear it call again. Ugh! the very thought of that cold creep which begins at the toes and ends in the spittoon makes me dizzy; and with a swaying motion Godfrey rocked from side to side until his head rested on Alice’s shoulder.
But she moved away from him with dignified propriety, saying:
“Yes, I know, I have been sea-sick too; it is dreadful; but what of the little girl, and who was she?”
“Oh, yes, I was telling you about her. She had been sick, and was sitting on deck, all wrapped up in shawls and blankets, and looking so like some pure white pond lily, that I kissed her right on the mouth!”
“Godfrey!” Alice exclaimed, indignantly; while he rejoined:
“You are not half as angry as she was. I never saw anything like the gleam in her blue eyes. Had I really insulted her she could not have taken it worse than she did, or reproached me more sharply. I never heard anything like the way she talked to me. Why, I felt as ashamed as a dog, and when she attacked my slang, as she called my free style of talk, I promised her I would break myself of it and try to come up to her idea of a gentleman.”
“Heridea,” Alice said. “Who was she, pray, that she should presume to lecture you?”
“I tell you, there’s no need to be jealous,” Godfrey replied. “Not of her, at least. She is only a child,—not in ‘our set,’—no pretension,—no family,—though I believe she does boast a grandmother and forty pounds a year.”
“Oh, I know,—Gertie Rogers, that yellow-haired girl down at the cottage!” Alice exclaimed, with a tone of irritation in her voice.
“And so you have seen Gertie. Isn’t she a beauty?” Godfrey said.
Before Alice could reply there was the rustle of a dress and the sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs. The colonel and Edith were coming down, and they went into the drawing-room, where Godfrey and Alice joined them, the latter scanning the bride curiously, and mentally acknowledging her to be the most elegant woman she had ever seen, both in face, and manner, and dress. How exquisitely beautiful Edith was in the grayish silk, with the pink tinge, which fitted her fine form as only a Paris-made garment can fit. The silk was of the richest texture, while the lace upon it was in itself a fortune, and the bertha was the most exquisite thing of the kind Alice had ever seen.
“How can she be so easy and self-possessed, and she only a hired companion?” Alice thought, as she saw how wholly unembarrassedEdith was, even when Mrs. Rossiter swept into the room in her long trailing dress of black tissue, with her scarlet scarf around her, and a few geranium leaves in her hair.
Miss Rossiter usually wore black when in full dinner dress. She knew it became her better than any other color, especially when relieved with scarlet or white, and she was handsome now as she came in with a half-eager, half-wondering look upon her face.
“Ah, Christine, I am glad to see you and find you looking so well,” Col. Schuyler said, as he went hastily forward to meet her. “Let me present you to my wife. Mrs. Schuyler, this is Miss Rossiter, my sister,—or rather,—yes,—the sister of my wife; that is, I mean,—the late lamented Emily,—yes.”
“That’s what I call a very remarkable introduction,” Godfrey whispered to Alice, who turned away to hide her laughter, while the faintest resemblance of a smile lurked in Edith’s eyes and about the corners of her mouth as she extended her hand to the sister of the lamented Emily!
Otherwise she was perfectly collected, and did not seem to notice that only the tips of two fingers were given her, and that though the thin lips of Miss Rossiter moved, the words they uttered were wholly inaudible. Miss Rossiter had seen at a glance that the lady’s beauty was not exaggerated, but she could not feel altogether cordial toward one whom she considered an intruder, and she purposely threw as much coldness and haughtiness as possible into her manner, hoping thus to impress the stranger with a sense of the vast difference there was between the Rossiters and the Lyles. But Edith did not seem in the least affected by the lady’s hauteur, and inquiring kindly if her head was better, suggested that she sit down, as she must feel rather weak, and set the example by sitting down herself.
“If she is not assuming therôleof mistress and patronizing me so soon,” was Miss Rossiter’s mental comment, and resolving not to be patronized she remained standing as straight as an arrow and almost as stiff, talking to her brother-in-law until the bell rang for dinner, and Julia and Emma came in, dressed inwhite and looking infinitely better than when Godfrey criticised them so severely.
The dining-room at Schuyler Hill was one of the pleasantest rooms in the house, and it looked beautifully now with its glass and silver and flowers, and Edith felt a pardonable glow of pride and satisfaction in the thought that this pleasant home, with all its luxury, was hers, the gift of the man who led her so proudly to her seat at the head of his table, and pressing her hand as he relinquished it and went back to his post of honor as master of the house. The colonel, who was inclined to be a little stiff in his manners among strangers, appeared well at home and especially well at his own table, and Edith, as she looked at him presiding with so much dignity and ease, thought what a handsome gentleman he was, and felt herself blessed in the possession of him.