It perhaps made little difference what Mrs. Sanford said in an argument of this kind, except that a reference to Mr. Putnam was the most infelicitous thing it were possible for her to utter. Patty had self-control enough not to speak the angry words which were on her tongue; but she hastened from the room, leaving her mother to reflect as she chose upon the results of the interview.
HadClarence Toxteth presented himself and his claims at the moment when the lady of his choice, panting and angry, had just escaped from the presence of her mother, his suit would have been disposed of in the most summary manner. It has been somewhere remarked, however, that women are creatures of changeable minds. By the time afternoon and the Toxteth equipage had arrived, the maiden's heart had so far relented, that she greeted her suitor as kindly as ever. As she rolled along in the luxurious carriage, her nimble fancy busied itself in picturing the future as it might be, if she chose to accept the man by her side. The very keenness of the senses, the fineness of perception which she possessed, made ready avenues by which temptations might enter. With tastes which demanded luxury, with at once the love and the knowledge of beauty, it was hard to deny herself the wealth which would put these things within her reach. To one who had been long the acknowledged leader among her associates, there was, too, a peculiar temptation to accept the hand of the wealthiest man in the village, making a brilliant match, and securing her position for thefuture. The weakness of Patty's nature that afternoon asserted itself; and all the way to Samoset she was rather silent, following in her mind a brilliant will-o'-the-wisp, which shone and glistened indeed, but led over dangerous morasses.
In the errand in relation to the costumes, the young people found themselves unexpectedly delayed; so that the short October twilight was already falling when they drove out of Samoset. By the time Wilk's Run was reached, it was so dark, that, in the shadow of the carriage-top, their faces were not visible to each other. As the gloom deepened, the courage of the young man increased; and when at length he could not see the eyes of his companion, he was able to speak the words which had all the afternoon been jostling each other in eagerness to obtain utterance. Unabashed with all others, Clarence found in Patty's clear glances a penetration against the embarrassment of which he strove in vain; but, that removed, he spoke.
"It may seem strange for me to say it," he began; "but I've quite made up my mind that we should get along nicely together."
"Have you?" she returned, laughing, but secretly uneasy. "We have never quarrelled, that I remember."
"Oh, no!" he answered, "of course not. I hope you don't think so meanly of me as to believe I'd quarrel with you."
"No," she said, smiling to herself; "but I might have quarrelled with you."
"I didn't mean that," said he. "But we get on so nicely together, that, I say, why shouldn't we be always together, you know?"
He could hardly have chosen a more unfortunate phrase in which to couch his proposal. There came over his companion a sickening sense of what it would be to live always with the man at her side. He attempted to embrace her with the arm not occupied with the reins; but she shrank back into the farthest corner of the carriage, filled with the bitterest self-contempt because she listened to him. This self-reproach was his salvation. The sense of her own weakness in letting him declare his passion, and of her dishonesty in keeping a silence which he might interpret favorably, so overwhelmed her with detestation for herself, that by contrast she for the moment almost regarded Clarence as an injured angel of honesty and devotion. From this odd mingling of feelings arose a sort of pity for her suitor; and, although she answered nothing, she suffered him to say on.
"I love you," he continued, "and I should be a fool if I didn't know that I have something to offer the girl who marries me."
"If I ever married," Patty answered in a constrained voice, "I shouldn't marry for what a man could give me."
"If that is true," she added to herself, "why am I listening to him at all? Oh, what a hypocrite I am!"
"Of course not," Toxteth said, answering theremark he heard. "But a man is no worse for having a few dollars, is he?"
"I suppose not."
"Then, why do you not say that you will marry me?" he demanded almost petulantly.
"I was not aware that you had asked me."
"I have, then. Will you?"
"I cannot tell," she said. "I cannot tell. Don't ask me to say more now."
"I must say," he retorted, rather offended, "that I can't be very much flattered by the way you talk."
"But you know how dreadfully sudden"—
The lie stuck in her throat, and refused to be uttered.
"Is it? How blind you must have been! Couldn't you see all summer that I was smashed?"
Patty was conscious of a wild desire to strangle her lover, and then fling herself under the wheels of the carriage. She longed to get possession of the whip, and lash the gray span into a gallop.
"I am fearfully cold and hungry," she said, feigning a shiver. "Do drive faster."
Clarence was ill pleased with the result of his wooing; yet the fact that he had not been absolutely refused made it needful for him to restrain his impatience. He whipped up his horses, and the carriage bowled along the road in a way that at another time would have filled Patty with delight. As it was, she was conscious of a passing thought that it lay in her power to become the mistress of this dashingequipage, and with the thought came fresh self-condemnation. At her gate she was only coldly civil to Clarence, who drove away, and relieved his feelings by swearing at his horses.
Patty ran up the path to the cottage like a hunted deer. She wanted to get away from Toxteth, to escape as far as possible from the sound of his voice, from the touch of his hand. On the piazza she encountered Tom Putnam, who had been calling at the house.
"How late you are!" he said, taking both her hands in his. "How you tremble! Do you think it prudent to ride in so thin wraps? We have all been worrying about you."
"Let me go!" she exclaimed, snatching her hands from his grasp, and half beside herself with shame and self-loathing. "Let me go! I hate you!"
And she darted into the house.
Itis hardly to be wondered at that the sleep of Tom Putnam was not of the soundest that night. He recalled with painful minuteness the details of his relations with Patience, reviewing every word, every look, every gesture, from the evening of the thunder-storm until her passionate exclamation as she encountered him upon the piazza. It was not strange that he did not understand how that fierce declaration of hatred arose from love. When Patty suddenly found herself face to face with her lover, a sudden inner gleam, as with a lightning's flash, showed her clearly her own heart. With swift and terrible distinctness she saw how deep and strong was her love for him, and the miserable way in which she had been paltering with her own happiness and truth. With this came an equally rapid revulsion of feeling. She rebelled against this man for holding her heart in bondage, for constraining her love. Most of all she hated her own weakness; and upon him she wreaked her self-contempt. Knowing nothing of her mental combat, her lover could only wonder gloomily how he had deserved or provoked this bitterness, and in the watches of the night arraigned himself for a thousand fancied shortcomings which in love are crimes.
He fell into a troubled sleep towards morning, and awoke to find the sun staring in at his windows, astonished to find him so late in bed.
October this year was unusually warm and pleasant; and when, after breakfast, Mr. Putnam rode over to Mullen House, whither he had been summoned, he found the air soft and mild as in August. The place was a mile and a half from his home, standing a little out of the village, by itself. The leaves along the way were falling rapidly from the trees, and the sharp teeth of the frost had bitten the wild grapes and nightshade at the roadside. In some moist places the elms still remained full and green, while the brilliant sumach-clusters ran like a crimson line along the way.
The crickets chirped merrily like the little old men they are in the night-time, if the old fairy-tale be true. The asters and golden-rod flaunted their bright blooms over the stone walls. The distant hills looked blue and far.
The house to which the lawyer had been summoned was as singular as it was pretentious. In the lifetime of its builder it had been vulgarly dubbed "Mullen's Lunacy,"—a name not quite forgotten yet. It was of stone, chiefly granite, although in a sort of tower which had been built later than the rest, the material used was a species of conglomerate. The building apparently had been modelled somewhat inexactly after some old English manor-house, and was a very noticeable object in a straggling modern village like Montfield. Mr. Mullen, its builder, had inherited, with a large property, a studious disposition, and a will as remarkablefor its firmness as for its eccentricity. He had given his life to study, which came to nothing as far as the world was concerned, since it resulted in no productiveness. He had attained a high degree of scholarly culture, but manifested it chiefly in ways fairly enough regarded by his acquaintances and neighbors as affectations. He wore the dress of the Englishman of letters fifty years before his day,—an anachronism less striking then than now, it is true, but significantly symbolical of his habit of looking to the past rather than the present or future for mental nourishment. His mansion was furnished largely with antique furniture obtained in Europe, and was always associated, in the mind of Patty and Will Sanford, with the mediæval romances they had pored over in the old library in childhood. The Sanfords were among the very few Montfielders who were admitted at Mullen House, as the proprietor chose to style his dwelling, upon any thing like terms of equality. The doctor's family-tree struck its roots deeper into the past than did that upon which the eccentric scholar prided himself; and the two families had been friends for generations. The children had been made welcome to the childless mansion; and, when Ease Apthorpe came home to her grandfather's house, she found the brother and sister already almost as much domesticated there as at home. After the death of Mr. Mullen, the visits of the young people were less frequent; but the close friendship formed with Ease had never been loosened.
Mr. Mullen's youth had vanished early; but he had remained single until well towards middle life. Scandalhad made free with his name in connection with Mrs. Smithers, both before and after he had married a timid wife, whom, after the fashion of Browning's Duke, he expected
"To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seenAt the proper place, in the proper minute,And die away the life between."
"To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seenAt the proper place, in the proper minute,And die away the life between."
A sweet woman, who lived again in her grand-daughter Ease, was Mrs. Mullen,—a flower requiring sunshine and love, and who was as surely chilled to death by the frosty smiles of her husband as the four-o'clocks by the rime of autumn. Dying she left him two children,—Tabitha, the eldest, "a little faithful copy of her sire;" and Agnes, quite as true to the mother-type. Tabitha the father had kept at home, and educated himself. She grew up so like him, that she almost seemed an image into which had been breathed his spirit.
Tabitha Mullen was a woman of stately presence, with keen black eyes, and hair which had been like a raven's wing until time began to whiten it. She dressed always richly, wearing sumptuous apparel, rather because it was in keeping with her state as the only remaining representative of her name, than as if impelled thereto by any womanly vanity. She ruled her household with a rod of iron; and, from the boy who drove the cows afield, to the stately butler, the servants all stood in awe of her. This butler had once been a great scandal to the worthy people of Montfield; and even time had done little to change theirfeelings. He was one of Mr. Mullen's English innovations; and besides this objection, and the outrage of being a man-servant for indoor service, the butler was, in the minds of the village people, connected with the very questionable inversion of the natural order of things caused by five-o'clock dinners, and the still more outrageous habit of having wine at that meal. Miss Tabitha drank wine at dinner, and had it served by a butler in livery, because her father had done so before her. That Montfielders were shocked was a matter for which she cared no more than she did what missionary the King of Borrioboola-Gha ate for his breakfast. The absurdity of attempting to keep up the state of an old English mansion in a New-England village was a matter which the mistress of Mullen House did not choose to see; and that to which she chose to be blind she would not have perceived if illuminated by the concentrated light of a burning universe. So Mullen House and its mistress, its life and its state, existed in strange anachronism in the midst of the work-a-day world of Montfield.
Not an easy woman to live with was Tabitha Mullen, as her niece had found. Agnes Mullen, the younger daughter, had been reared by the sister of her mother; had married a young music-teacher with no fortune save the
"LandsHe held of his lute in fee."
"LandsHe held of his lute in fee."
Very happy had they been together, and perhaps,for that reason, had held but loosely to life, departing nearly together, as they believed to a better existence, soon after the birth of little Ease.
The orphan had grown up, snowdrop like, in the gloomy state of Mullen House,—a slender, graceful maiden, gentle and shy. Of yielding disposition, the Mullen strength of will had somehow been tempered in her to a firmness of principle. Hers was one of those natures which hold to what they believe true and pure with the same despairing clasp a drowning man fastens upon a floating spar, clinging with the strength of one who struggles for very existence. Desiring to yield every thing asked of her, she found the approval of conscience a necessity,—a character to make life in adverse circumstances hard but high, bitter but pure.
In some respects Ease's surroundings were fortunate for her peculiar disposition. The Episcopal form of worship which Miss Tabitha affected as most nearly like the Church of England was particularly suited to the needs of her niece, since it gave color and richness to a faith otherwise too sombre. The young girl's companionship with the Sanfords also had been of a nature calculated to brighten her life.
The relation between Ease and Will Sanford had never been quite the same as before since that Sunday afternoon at Wilk's Run. The young man felt no longer towards Ease as a dear friend simply. The presence of a rival had awakened in his heart the passion which had long lain there dormant. Love ceased to be a dream coldly ideal, and sprang up aliving fire. He was conscious now of a keen delight in Ease's presence, very different from the negative pleasure her companionship had hitherto afforded him. The touch of her hand, the brushing of her dress against him, suddenly became events to be watched for and remembered.
This changed very little their outward demeanor, save that they might have seemed to an observer to have become somewhat reserved toward each other. The smallest chances had suddenly assumed too great an importance to be lightly indulged in. A virgin shyness enveloped Ease, which Will had not yet dared break through by the caresses he longed to bestow.
But all this has little to do, directly at least, with the visit of Tom Putnam to Mullen House. He had been not a little surprised by the summons, since no very cordial feeling existed between himself and Miss Mullen; and he had speculated, as he drove along, upon the possible nature of the business involved. His surprise was not lessened, when, after the slightest exchange of civilities compatible with very scant hospitality, Miss Tabitha suddenly came at once to the point by an abrupt question.
"Why," she asked, "have you brought that Smithers woman into the neighborhood?"
"Brought her into the neighborhood?" he echoed in astonishment.
"Yes, brought her into the neighborhood. She is living in your stone cottage at this moment. If you haven't any care for my feelings, you might have considered your own reputation."
"My reputation!" he repeated, puzzled. "What has that to do with it?"
"Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Shankland and Mrs. Sanford could tell you," she retorted with a scornful smile.
He was silent. Wrongly, it is true, but with the weight of a certainty, it flashed upon him that here was the key to Patty's sudden hatred. He turned sick at the thought of the gossip she must have heard; then, with a quick throb of pride, he raised his head in wonder that the woman he loved could believe this of him. He rose at once, and stepped towards the door.
"If you had hinted at your business," he said, "it would have saved my coming over. Whatever cause you may have to be sensitive in regard to Mrs. Smithers, I certainly have none; and you will allow, I think, that the stone cottage belongs to me."
Nor could Miss Mullen's persuasions move him. The thrust she had given his pride, thinking thereby the more surely to accomplish her object, had turned against her. He felt that to send away the woman who had become his tenant would appear an acknowledgment of the truth of the slander against him.
But it was with a heavy heart that he rode homewards.
Miss Flora Sturtevantwas walking slowly along a lovely forest-road. It was near sunset, and the rays of light shot long bars of dusky gold between the tree-trunks. The robin, the thrush, and the oriole, still delaying through the warm autumnal weather, sang by starts amid the branches. The bright knots of ribbon upon Flora's dress, and the scarlet poppies in her hat, were touched and lighted by the glow, making all the hundred lights and gleams of the wood seem to centre about her figure. She carried in her hand a bunch of ferns and grasses, mingled with a few bright leaves; and she sauntered with the careless air of having come out merely for enjoyment.
The road had once been the county turnpike, but had long ago fallen into disuse. Now the trees met overhead, the grass and ferns had obliterated the marks of wheels, and, except for hunters or loitering pleasure-seekers, the way remained untrodden.
But Miss Sturtevant, idle and leisurely as was her mien, was not simply sauntering to enjoy the pleasure of nature. She was upon a diplomatic errand. Frank Breck had conducted her hither, and had turned back, that she might be alone to encounter a man whoBreck knew was soon to pass this way. The lady was perfectly cool and collected. The idea of meeting in the forest a man to whom she had never spoken, and whose character she knew to be bad, seemed not to give her the slightest concern. Perhaps she expected Breck to remain within call; possibly her strong self-reliance made her insensible to fear.
At length the barking of a dog rang through the woods, and soon sounds of some one approaching were heard. Miss Sturtevant's lips closed with an expression of firmness, over which, however, instantly spread the veil of a smile. Shading her eyes with her hand, and half-turning where she stood, she looked off through the leafy spaces towards the setting sun, conscious that the first glimpse the new-comer caught of her would give him her figure at its best. So absorbed was she in gazing at the sunset, that she apparently did not hear the approaching stranger until he was within half a dozen feet of her. Then she turned suddenly, just as the dog ran up to her. She uttered a little exclamation of surprise.
"How you startled me!" she said, stooping to caress the dog, a handsome pointer. "What a lovely dog you are!"
"He is a kind o' handsome pup," the hunter said, replying to the remark addressed to his dog,—"handsome for a pup, that is," he added guardedly.
"Oh!" cried Flora, catching sight of the game which the man carried. "Oh, how perfectly lovely the necks of those birds are! What are they? What a fine shot you must be!"
"Well, middlin'," he answered, evidently flattered. "Them partridges was terrible shy."
"I've wanted a heron all summer," remarked she, still admiring the glossy necks of the birds. "The feathers, I mean; but I didn't know anybody who could shoot one."
"Herons ain't none too plenty round here," he said, "and it's all-fired hard to get a shot at one."
"Haven't I seen you before?" asked Flora, letting her trimly-gloved hand rest upon the dog's head. "Did you ever live in Boston?"
"I guess I did!" he returned. "I lived with Breck there for most seven years."
"Oh! then, you are Mr. Mixon. It is wonderful that I happened to meet you here. I've wanted to see you for a long time. Do you know who I am?"
"You must be Miss Sturtevant, ain't you?—the one who was so deused smart about the Branch stock."
"Did you hear of that?" she asked, laughing. "I suppose I am the one; but I didn't know I was so smart."
"All-fired smart is what I say," Mixon affirmed with emphasis. "What did you want of me?"
"You may think it strange," she said reflectively; "yes, I'm sure you will think it very strange that I know any thing about it; but you have some papers that I want to see."
Mixon's face instantly assumed an expression of intensest cunning. He leaned upon his gun, bending his head towards his companion. The dog stoodbetween the strangely-matched pair, turning his intelligent face from one to the other. Flora pushed her hat back from her face as if for coolness, but in reality because she knew it was more becoming so. Her blue eyes shot persuasive glances upon the man before her; while her fingers toyed with the long silken ears of the pointer.
"Papers!" Mixon said. "What sort of papers?"
"Papers that old Mr. Mullen"—She left her sentence unfinished, not wishing to risk displaying her ignorance of the real nature of the documents in question. Mixon regarded her sharply.
"Do you know Frank Breck?" he asked. "Maybe, now, he might ha' mentioned this to you."
"I know a great many people besides Frank Breck," she returned, smiling. "I didn't need to go to him for information."
"It's mighty strange," Peter said in a deliberative way, "how many folks thinks I have papers they want. There's Breck; he's always at me. And Miss Mullen—she's sent for me a sight more times than I've been. And then Hannah Clemens, she thought I might have something would put her into her rights. Then there was Tabitha Mullen's lawyer"—
"Mr. Wentworth?" questioned Flora eagerly.
"Yes, that's him. He mittened on to me the other day."
"But I didn't know he had been here."
"He only came down one train," said Peter; "an' he went back on the next. Miss Mullen sent after me to see him. And now you take it up, and want somevaluable papers. I wish I could supply you all; but I can't."
"But you can at least let me see"—Flora began. But Mixon interrupted.
"I can't let you see what I hain't got, can I? Somebody must ha' lost an awful precious dociment to make all this stir.—Come, Trip."
"Honestly," Miss Sturtevant said, in her fear that he would escape her, going so far as to lay her fingers upon his arm,—"honestly, haven't you those papers?"
"Naturally I wouldn't want to speak too positively," he returned coolly, "not knowing what you want. But I guess it's safe enough to say no.—Come, Trip."
"Wait," said Flora, retaining the hold she had taken upon Mixon's coat-sleeve. "I didn't mean to put you to trouble without paying you for it."
"Well, that's business. How much, now, should you say was a fair sum, if I had the papers, and would let you see 'em?"
"You might make your own terms," she said quickly, more and more convinced of the value of the mysterious papers. "You'd be the best judge of what it was worth."
"Well, that's generous, almost too all-fired generous. I'm sorry I can't accommodate you; but I can't. Good-night, marm."
And, followed by Trip, Mixon strode off down the rustic way, already dusky in the fast deepening twilight.
A verymixed audience filled to overflowing the town-hall of Montfield. In the front-seats, which had been cleverly reserved for them by a small advance in price, were seated theéliteof the village, complacently chatting together of the weather, the exhibition, their servants, and such small gossip as serves to savor the somewhat insipid existence of a country village. Behind these sat the farmers with their wives and daughters; the former regarding the curtain with a species of awe, while the latter indulged in clumsy flirtations with the rustic swains, who offered them delicate attentions in the shape of lozenges and peanuts. The talk here among the elders was chiefly of the crops and of cattle; while the youths and maidens speculated, giggling, upon the prospects of a dancing-school for the winter.
The relatives of the performers were chiefly in the reserved seats, and exhibited more or less nervousness according to their temperaments; all alike, however, endeavoring the most preternatural semblance of indifference.
"I have half regretted," Miss Tabitha Mullen remarked to Dr. Sanford, next whom she chancedto be seated, "that I allowed Ease to take part in this. It scarcely seems the thing with such a mixed audience. But all her associates were concerned in it, and I did not wish to seem over particular."
"You mustn't be too strict with Ease," Mrs. Sanford began to reply for her husband, when the tinkling of a bell announced the rise of the curtain, and she left her remark unfinished.
The young people of Montfield were accustomed at intervals to give theatrical performances, finding this the easiest method of raising funds for charitable purposes. They had accumulated quite a respectable collection of scenery and stage-properties, all more or less primitive, but answering sufficiently well for their purposes. "The Faithful Jewess" required chiefly forest scenery; and of this they possessed quite a variety, amateur talent being apt to run to the rustic drama. The tragedy proceeded smoothly enough, the back-seats understanding little of it, but liking it rather better on that account, besides being amused by the costumes and the high-sounding blank verse. Mr. Putnam was certainly not an accomplished actor; but of a part like that of the patriarch he made as much as the character would admit. The scenes between himself and Patty were really impressive, and won the admiration even of Miss Mullen, who prided herself upon her taste, and was nothing unless critical.
It is probable that both actors played the better for the presence of a deep feeling towards each other. The lawyer was conscious of a thrill whenever hishand touched hers; and, if Patience was less moved, it was because she was more truly an actor, and more completely identified with her part.
At the later rehearsals the young lady had ignored the presence of any misunderstanding between herself and her lover, and had been outwardly her usual self, bright and gay. She had avoided any approach to sentiment, alike with Toxteth and with Putnam. She had given herself up to the arrangements for the exhibition, attending to those thousand details of which no one else ever thought. She enjoyed the excitement, and that most seductive of all forms of flattery, the self-consciousness of being a motive-power and a leader. She had put aside every thing else to be thought of and met after this evening; and the feverish excitement arising from this undercurrent of feeling buoyed her up to-night.
Her dress, setting off her fine form to advantage, was in color and arrangement admirably adapted to her beauty, and never had she looked so superbly handsome. No wonder that to-night her lovers were more deeply enamoured than ever.
Among her lovers, be it said here, was no longer to be numbered Burleigh Blood. The transfer of his allegiance to Flossy Plant, which Patty had first attempted in half-jest, had become deep earnest; and the giant was the humble slave of the little lady he might almost have balanced upon his extended palm.
"The Faithful Jewess," with its "ring-round-rosy" situations, its harrowing dialogue, and long-winded soliloquies, at last reached its tragic climax. Theactors strung themselves before the curtain in answer to the vigorous applause of hands horny with holding the plough, and then retired to the dressing-rooms to prepare for "The Country Wooing." The Montfield orchestra, under the lead of old Gustave Harlakenden, the German shoemaker, plunged precipitately into the mazes of a wonderfulpot-pourriof popular melodies; while the audience rustled and buzzed.
Tom Putnam, who was not in the cast for the second play, having resumed his ordinary clothing, emerged from his dressing-room just as Miss Sturtevant came from hers, costumed for "The Country Wooing."
"I must congratulate you," she said, "upon the decided hit you made in 'The Jewess.' You took the house by storm."
"Thank you," returned Tom. "You attribute to me the honor which was due to the ladies in the piece."
"It is very modest of you to say so," Flora smiled; "but you undervalue your own acting. I wonder if you will think me rude and presuming, if I make a request."
"Ladies are supposed never to be either," he answered.
"How satirical! I am afraid to ask you. But I will. Will it be too much to ask you to walk home with me to-night? I go to-morrow, and I want you to take those books I borrowed. I should have returned them before."
"Certainly I will," replied he. "I did not know you went so soon."
"I waited for these theatricals," she said. "My half-sister is to be married next week, and I ought to have gone before."
They had by this time reached the end of the stage, which served as a sort of green-room. Here direst confusion reigned. Burleigh Blood had made the dreadful announcement that the excitement had driven his part entirely out of his mind.
A dozen voices proffered in consternation several dozen suggestions at once.
"Never mind," Flossy said. "Make up something: nobody will know."
"But the cues?" exclaimed Miss Sturtevant in dismay.
"Oh, dear! I wish I were at home!" cried Dessie Farnum, almost in tears.
"I never could make up any thing," Burleigh said in despair. "I was a fool to take the part anyway!"
"You'll have to trust to the prompter," Patty said. "There's no help for it now. You are not in the first scene, and can look it over."
"Or hunt up your wits," added Emily Purdy.
"Are you ready?" Patty asked. "Ring up."
The bell sounded, bringing the orchestra to so sudden a stop, that one out of sight might have supposed an immense extinguisher suddenly clapped over it.
"Don't bother," Flossy said consolingly to Burleigh as he stood in the wing, vainly endeavoring to follow the advice of Patty. "If you forget, I'll prompt you. I know the whole of your part and mine too."
Had he known that few mortals were more liable to stage-fright than Flossy herself, he might have been less comforted: as it was, he placed implicit confidence in her ability, and this gave him sufficient self-control to fix for a little his attention upon his book. The next moment, in some way, without any exact knowledge of how he got there, he found himself upon the stage, and the other players one by one going away, and leaving him in the full gaze of that sea of faces. He longed to catch them and hold them back, as each slipped into the friendly obscurity of the wings; but he stood stiff and helpless alone upon the stage with Flossy. The scene which ensued was as follows, the italics indicating what was said in a tone inaudible to the audience.
Flossy(as Waitstill Eastman). "Won't you sit down, Jonathan?You say I don't mind if I do."
Burleigh(as Jonathan Cowboy). "You say I—I don't mind if I do."
F. "Why don't you then?I'm goin' to."
B. "I'm goin' to."
F. "Don't hold your arms so stiff!So is Christmas coming. You needn't, though, if you don't want to. (Sits.) I mean to make myself comfortable.I was waiting for you to sit down."
B. "For me to sit down?"
F. "Say that!"
B. "For me to sit down."
F. "Sit down!"
B. "Sit"—
F. "Goodness! Don't say that!Your chair don'tseem easy, somehow. Maybe the floor ain't even over there.I'll move it over there, then."
B. "I'll move it, then."
F. "Move nearer to me.Don't come any nearer me!"
B. "Which shall I do?"
F. "Move up!You'd better keep your distance!Move up! Yes, miss."
B. "Yes, miss."
F. "Keep moving nearer.Now get out, Jack Cowboy!Now don't"—
B. "I know it.Now don't be cross, Waitstill. It ain't often a feller has a chance to come and see you."
And, having thus got fairly launched, Burleigh recalled his lines, which he had faithfully committed, and went smoothly on to the end. Flossy had occasionally to direct his actions, for he fixed his attention so firmly upon the words, that his tendency was to repeat them like a parrot; but between them they came through safe. And, as Flossy had once jokingly predicted, her friend's awkwardness passed for clever acting, so that his success was so great as to astonish every one, particularly himself.
Miss Sturtevant'ssummer visit to Montfield usually ended with September, but this year she had remained for the theatricals. That she did not carry Tom Putnam's heart as a trophy of her summer's campaign was certainly no fault of hers. As she walked home from the exhibition, leaning upon his arm, she taxed him with his want of attention.
"I have scarcely seen you for the summer," she said. "You have been very sparing of your calls."
"I confess my remissness, but I have so little time."
"You might at least," Flora said, "have come to thank me for my hint about the Samoset and Brookfield. Almost everybody else sold out."
"To your gain," he returned. He had little respect for the woman beside him, and was annoyed at her intrusion.
"I thought I answered your note," he continued. "I certainly intended doing so."
"Oh, you did!" Miss Sturtevant said, leaning upon his arm more heavily. "But a note is a poor substitute for a call from one to whom one is attached."
"I hope," the lawyer observed briskly, determinednot to be drawn into a scene, "that you have sold out. I see by the morning paper that the vote has been reconsidered, and the Branch is not to be bought, after all: I suspected it would be so, all the time. The whole thing was only the work of speculators, and I hope you were as lucky as I in getting rid of your paper at the flood."
"What!" cried his companion,—"reconsidered? You do not mean that the Branch isn't to be bought? Uncle Jacob promised"—
"The Branch certainly is not to be bought," Putnam repeated. "The corporation has no use for it, and never had. You haven't held your stock?"
"I have," she answered, pressing her thin lips together. "I am completely beggared. Good-night. I must have time to think."
"I wish I had known," Tom said, standing upon the step below her; for they had reached the Browns' door. "I supposed you knew all about the stock."
"I thought I did," she answered in a strained, thin voice. "It seems I was mistaken. Good-night."
She went in, and the door closed behind her. Tom walked home, kicking his boot-toes out against every pebble, divided between disapproval and pity.
Twenty-four hours later Miss Sturtevant was confronted with Mr. Jacob Wentworth in the library of his Beacon-street residence. The lawyer sat by a grate in which had been kindled a fire as a precaution against the autumnal chill in the air. On a small table at his hand lay the last number of "Punch," between a decanter of choice sherry and a well-furnished cigar-stand.Mr. Wentworth's family being out for the evening, he was enjoying himself in almost bachelor comfort, only the contrasting background of bachelor loneliness being needed to make his happiness complete. He was not well pleased at this late call from Flora, of whom he had never been fond, and who now came to mar the delightful ease of his evening with complaints of the inevitable. She looked worn and old and eager. She had been travelling a large part of the day, and the anxiety which Putnam's news had brought to her had told severely.
"I knew you would reproach me," Mr. Wentworth was saying. "But, when I found that you had deceived me, I felt under no further obligations to you."
"But I did not deceive you. Peter Mixon has the papers."
"I took the trouble to go to Montfield myself," the other answered judicially, "to prevent the possibility of a mistake; for the Mullen property is a large one, and my client's interests are my own. I saw the man personally, and he assured me that he had no papers whatever."
"So he did me," Flora burst out; "but I was not such a fool as to believe him."
The lawyer gave a sweeping wave of the hand as if to thrust completely aside the implication.
"You are imaginative," he said coolly.
"I had proof of it," she returned,—"proof, I tell you; and you have lied to me about the Branch, and ruined me."
She was ashy pale, and even Mrs. Gilfether wouldhave found no lack of expression in her blue eyes now.
"The turning of the road the other way," Wentworth said unmoved, "was for my interest; and, when Miss Mullen assured me that Frank Breck had the papers, I hardly felt under obligation to communicate further with you."
"Frank Breck?"
"Yes. He is the son of an old friend of the Clemens woman."
"Uncle Jacob," Miss Sturtevant said in her harshest voice, rising from her seat as she spoke, "you are a fool. I shall be even with you yet. Good-night."
When, on the night of the theatricals, Patty saw Tom Putnam give his arm to Miss Sturtevant, she accepted at once the proffered escort of Clarence Toxteth. To Toxteth's remarks she replied in monosyllables, pleading that she was very tired. She dismissed him at the piazza-steps, and, passing into the shadow, gave him the impression that she had entered the house. As a matter of fact she discovered her door-key to be missing; and, not caring to disturb any one, she sat down to wait for Will. He was long in coming, for he and Ease loitered that night.
But steps approached; and, to her surprise, Patty saw in the moonlight Bathalina and her quondam husband coming up the walk. They parted midway between the gate and house, Mrs. Mixon advancing alone.
"I thought, Bathalina," Patty said, "that you had given that man up."
"Law, Miss Patty, how you started me! I thought you would have been a ghost."
"Nonsense! Where have you been all this time?"
"Traipsin' up and down, up and down, like the Devil, seeking of somebody to devour. I'm worn almost out of my shoes, but Peter would argufy it out. So we've been traipsin' up and down; and this shawl's so thick, and the weather so warm, let alone it's bein' October and ought to be cool, that I am about melted to death."
"What makes you wear your shawl, then?"
"I'm not a young girl, miss, that I should walk in my figger. I won't go through the streets with my figger showin', if it kills me."
"What are you walking with Peter Mixon for, anyway? I thought you were done with him."
"Well, miss," the servant answered with a great appearance of candor, "Amanda West wouldn't have him, seein' as he was sort of married to me; and I've been thinking very likely it was all my sinful pride refusing to live with him after the Lord had kind o' jined us."
"The Lord kind o' joined you, I should think!" Patty retorted contemptuously. "The Old Evil One had more to do with it."
Theplan which Mrs. Toxteth had once mentioned to Ease, of having a masquerade follow the exhibition, had not been forgotten; and the invitations had accordingly been issued. It was arranged that the actors should meet on the morning following the theatricals, and make some arrangement for the exchange of costumes. About ten o'clock Patty, Flossy, and Will walked over to the Hall together.
"I feel like the ashes of yesterday's cigar slopped with the dregs of last night's champagne," yawned Will, with some reminiscence of wicked college frolics.
"And I," Flossy said, "feel like this man, you know, that"—
"No, I don't know," he interrupted. "I never know 'this man,' Floss; but I'm sorry you feel like him."
"If you'd kept still, you might have found out who he was; but now you'll never know."
"Oh, tell us!"
"No, I shall not. 'Twasn't that other, you know, either."
Flossy's "this man," or "that other, you know," were as famous in her particular circle as SairyGamp's "Mrs. Harris, my dear," in a more general one. These allusions were seldom intelligible, and it is to be suspected that sometimes the little witch made them purposely obscure for her own amusement.
The company assembled in the Hall was rather a sleepy one, with scarcely energy enough for discussion. The talk naturally ran chiefly upon the performance, the various haps and mishaps, the successes and failures, the money obtained. Patty and Tom Putnam chanced to stand near each other, and a little apart from the others. She had taken a slight cold from her exposure upon the piazza the night before, and was coughing.
"I am very sorry you've taken cold," the lawyer said.
"It is nothing," she returned.
"But every time you cough," he said with mock-pathos, "one of my heart-strings snaps."
"I should think they'd be about all used up by this time, then."
"Oh! I tie them up again, after the fashion of guitar-strings."
"But a tied-up string cannot give a good sound."
"No," he laughed, "only a kind of melancholy 'bong.' But one gets accustomed to any thing."
"It is a pity," she said, "that these mortal frames cannot be made with less rigging. Think how much simpler it would be to grow like a crystal, without all 'the bother of all the fixin's inside on us,' as Bathalina says."
"But a crystal must have a rather cold existence,"he returned. "I prefer our present condition, thank you."
"Patty Sanford," called Dessie Farnam, "do come and tell us how to distribute these costumes!"
"It seems to me," Patience answered, "that the simplest way is to lay all the dresses out in one of the rooms, and draw lots for choice. Then each person can go and choose, and nobody be the wiser."
"I think that is best," Clarence Toxteth assented. "I wonder we didn't think of it. You remember our bet?"
"Oh, yes!" Patty replied. "I am as sure of those gloves as if I had them now."
Toxteth had somewhere seen or heard of the fashion of betting gloves; and the custom seemed to him the acme of high-bred gallantry. He had accordingly bet with Patty that he should be able to penetrate her disguise at the masquerade. She was determined to win this wager, and had already settled in her mind the costume she should, if possible, secure.
Some time was occupied in laying out the dresses, and then the lots were drawn from a hat. The first choice fell to Patty, and the second to Emily Purdy; Ease had the third, and Putnam the fourth.
"Now we shall see what we shall see," Patty said gayly. "I'm going to try on all the suits, and take the most becoming."
She disappeared into the dressing-room, and after a few moments emerged empty-handed.
"Where is your dress?" Emily Purdy asked.
"I put it into my trunk," was the reply. "It is all ready to take home that way."
Miss Purdy was absent far longer than Patience had been; but a large bundle in her arms furnished a ready excuse for the delay.
"If everybody is as long as this," Will said, "we that are at the bottom of the list had best go home, and come over to-morrow. I'm the fifteenth."
"I'm two worse than that," Burleigh Blood declared. "And between us, Will, there isn't a suit there I can get into, but my own."
"Take any one," was the reply, "and then get up any thing you choose."
Putnam stood alone by a window when Emily Purdy returned, and she advanced towards him.
"Oh!" she said in a confidential whisper, "how do you suppose Patty could take Clarence Toxteth's suit?"
"So you've spent your time discovering what she chose," he said aloud. "That was as kind of you as it was honorable."
"I couldn't help noticing, could I?" she stammered, abashed.
"No, probably not," he answered with quiet scorn.
"Of course I shouldn't tell anybody," she continued. "But it was so strange of her!"
"She took it as a blind, I presume," he said, "and means to make a new costume. Excuse me. It is my turn."
With much laughter and fun the selection continued until all the dresses had been taken. Burleigh Bloodconfided to Flossy, that, when his turn came, the only male costume remaining was that of little Tim Bawlin, and that he had taken it.
"What on earth will you do?" she asked.
"I must get up something, but I am sure I don't know what."
"I'd be glad to help you," she said. "If I can, that is."
"Of course you can," he replied. "I shall depend upon you."
As Patty left the hall, she was joined by the lawyer.
"I am going to see your grandmother," he said. "This famous pension business is about settled, and I wish to tell her."
"I am glad if it has at last come to something," she returned. "I doubted if it ever would."
"I want to ask a favor of you," he said as they gained the street.
"What is it?"
"I had the misfortune," he said slowly, "to be forced to take for myself the dress Dessie Farnum wore last night. It is evident enough that I cannot wear it, and I want to change for the one you have."
"What do you mean?" she asked in astonishment.
"As I say."
"How do you know what dress I have?"
"What does that signify, since I do know?"
"It signifies a great deal. I never thought you so dishonorable as to play the spy."
"Do you think me so now?"
"What else can I think?" she demanded hotly.
"As you please: let the insult pass," he said. "The main thing is that you exchange with me."
"I will not exchange with you!"
"You will not?"
"No."
"But, Patty, just consider the talk and the scandal it will make if you wear a man's dress, to say nothing of the indelicacy."
"Indelicacy! Thanks! We are quits on the score of insults."
The costume Patty had chosen was an old-fashioned dress-suit, with knee-breeches and swallow-tailed coat. In selecting it, she had only considered how perfectly it would answer as a disguise, and had acted upon the impulse of the moment.
"It was not like a public mask," she had said to herself, "but a small party of intimate friends." The words of the lawyer set the matter in wholly a new light before her. She tried to feel that all her anger was against him, but was secretly conscious of the imprudence of the thing she had planned to do. The fact that he was right, and yet wrong by not considering the innocence of her intentions, incensed the girl the more.
"I do not see that you have the right to be my mentor in any case," she exclaimed. "But nothing seems to make you so happy as to see me miserable. Why must you be prying about to discover what dress I mean to wear at all? One would expect you to be sufficiently ashamed of that to keep from betraying yourself. But no: you cannot let slip an opportunityof correcting me, even at the expense of smirching yourself. Oh, and this is the love you professed for me!"
"Patty," he said quietly, as she paused to choke back the sobs which strangled her, "will you be kind enough to tell me what all this is about?"
"About? As if you did not"—
"I beg pardon," he interrupted. "I was not done. Is it, then, proof of a want of love that I hurt myself to save you from a foolish thing you will not be willing to do when you come to think of it, and of which you would be ashamed if you did it thoughtlessly?"
"Hurt yourself!" she returned scornfully. "It may hurt you: I do not know. But you cannot wonder if I find it a little hard to believe. But you do not seem to consider whether it hurts me, or not."
"Why should it hurt you to do me a favor, and exchange costumes?"
"The fact that you know what costume I have hurts me. I do not enjoy finding I have been deceived in my friends."
"The faith you have in your friends cannot be very robust to be so easily shaken."
"Thank you again. I am unfortunately accustomed to believe my senses."
"As you please," he said coldly, holding open the gate for her to enter. "But you have not answered my question."
"What question?"
"Will you do me the favor of exchanging dresses with me?"
"I have answered that."
"But you must reconsider."
"Must!" she flashed out,—"must! You have no right to saymustto me, thank Heaven! and you never will have!"
"You will say it to yourself in this case," he said, pale and self-contained.
"If I do, I shall not need your interference."
She turned her back upon him, and walked between the leafless shrubs towards the house, setting her heels determinedly upon the walk. It was not until she had entered the door that she remembered his errand to her grandmother; and by that time he had taken the path across the orchard to his home.
"I have done it now," he muttered to himself. "The society of women will make a fool of the most sensible of men. But what an ass I was to set to work so clumsily! I wish Emily Purdy were in Tophet!"
"Ifit makes you feel bad to have me cross," Patty said one morning, in answer to a remonstrance of Flossy's, "think how much worse it is for me to be cross. I have to endure my own company all the time, you know."
"Well, Patty-pat," Flossy answered meditatively, "be happy and you'll be virtuous. And that reminds me of Bathalina's room. Don't you think that when it's papered—aunt Britann, didn't you say it was to be done this week?—it might have a frieze, or a dado, or something, of mottoes?"
"Of mottoes?"
"Yes. I've thought up some lovely ones. 'A woman is known by the company she forsakes' is a good one. Then, 'The early bird dreads the fire,'—you know how she hates to get up and build the fire."
"Water is more her element," said Will. "Can't you have—