CHAPTER XXI.THE DINNER.
True to her promise, Reinette drove round to see Margery the next morning, and carried a pile of dresses which scarcely needed a stitch, but which she insisted should be changed, as she knew Margery needed work. She found her friend well and delighted with the cottage,which suited her in every particular. Mrs. La Rue, too, was very calm and quiet, and only spoke to Reinette when spoken to, until the latter, in speaking of Hetherton Place and how lonely she was there at times, especially in the evening, when Phil was not with her, said:
“I am going to hunt up my old nurse, who was with mother when she died. She is alive, I am sure, and somewhere in England or France. I shall have her come to live with me.”
Mrs. La Rue was standing with her back to Reinette, picking the dead leaves from a pot of carnations, but she turned suddenly, and facing the girl, said quickly:
“Better leave the nurse where she is; you will be happier without her.”
“I don’t know why you should say that,” Reinette retorted, in a tone which showed her irritation that Mrs. La Rue should presume to dictate; “you certainly can know nothing of Christine Bodine.”
“Of course not, but I know that old nurses do not often add to the happiness of young ladies like you, so leave her alone; do not try to find her,” Mrs. La Rue replied, and there was a ring in her voice like a note of fear which Reinette would have detected had she been at all suspicious.
But she was only resentful and answered proudly, “I shall certainly find her if I can,” then with a few directions to Margery with regard to the dresses, she drove away to order some necessary articles for her dinner, which she meant to make a success. As the new summer-house on the plateau was not yet completed, the table was laid on the broad piazza overlooking the river and town beyond, and everything was in readiness by the time Grandma Ferguson arrived, for true to her promise, she came early, and in hersprigged muslinand lavender ribbons, was fanning herself in the large rocking-chair just as the clock was striking four. She had tried, shesaid, to bringLyddy Annand Anna with her, but Anna had got some highfalutin’ notions about not goin’ till the last minit; and so she presumed she wouldn’t come till the last gun was fired, but if she’s Reinette she wouldn’t wait for her.
Miss Anna was really putting on a great many airs and talking etiquette to her mother and grandmother until both were nearly crazy. She had been to the Knoll that morning to call upon her cousins, both of whom were struck with the accession of dignity and stiffness in her manner, but never dreamed that the splitting up of the sign had anything to do with it; they attributed it rather to the new and pretty muslin the young lady wore and the presence of Major Rossiter, who was presented to her, and who, with a freak of fancy most accountable, surrendered to her at once. The major was fifty, and bald and gray, and near-sighted and peculiar, and though he admired pretty women, he had never been known to pay one more attention than was required of him as a gentleman. He had thought his cousins, Ethel and Grace, very attractive and lady-like and sweet, while Reinette had taken his breath away with her flash and sparkle, but neither of the three had ever moved him as he was moved by Anna’s stately manner when she gave him the tips of her fingers and bowed so ceremoniously to him. The major liked a woman to be quiet and dignified, and Anna’s stiffness suited him, and he walked home with her and sat for half an hour in the parlor and talked with her of Europe, which she hoped one day to see, and sympathized with her when she deplored most eloquently the fate which tied her down to a little country place like Merrivale, when she was by nature fitted to enjoy so much. But poverty was a hard master and ruled its subjects with an iron rod, she said, and there were tears in the blue eyes which looked up at the major, who felt a great pity for and interest in this girl so gifted, so dignified, and so pretty, for he thoughther all these, and said to her at parting that he hoped to see her later in the day at Hetherton Place, where he was going with the Rossiters.
After the major left her Anna sat down to think, and the result of the thinking was that though Major Rossiter was old, and tiresome, and fidgety, and not at all like Mr. Beresford or Phil, he was rich and evidently pleased with her, and she resolved that nothing should be lacking on her part to increase his interest in her, and make him believe that whatever her surroundings were, she was superior to them and worthy to stand in the high places of the land. She was ashamed of her father and mother, especially the former, and when at noon he asked what time the dinner was to come off, she felt a fear lest he might be intending to go as he was. Reinette’s eyes and manner when she gave the invitation had done their work with him.
“I really b’lieve the girl wants me to come, odd and homespun as I am,” he thought, and he made up his mind to do so, and Anna felt a cold sweat oozing out from her finger tips, as she wondered what Major Lord Rossiter would think of him.
“Are you sure you will enjoy it?” she said. “You know how long it is since you have been anywhere, and Reinette is very particular how her guests comport themselves—foolishly so, perhaps. You cannot eat in your shirt sleeves there, no matter how warm you may be.”
“Who in thunder said I would eat in my shirt sleeves,” Mr. Ferguson said, doggedly, feeling intuitively that his daughter did not wish him to go, and feeling also determined that he would.
And so it happened that simultaneously with the major, in his elegant dinner costume, with his white neck-tie and button-hole bouquet, came honest Tom Ferguson, in the suit he had worn to church for at least six years or more, and which was anything but stylish and fashionable. But Tom was not a fashionable man, and made no pretenseof being other than he was, but he did not eat in his shirt sleeves or commit any marked blunders at the dinner table, where six or seven courses were served, with Pierre as chief waiter and engineer. Reinette was an admirable hostess, and so managed to make her incongruous guests feel at home, that the dinner was a great success, and the fastidious major, who was seated far away from both grandma and Tom, did not think the less of Anna because of any shortcomings in her father or mother, though he knew they were not like the people of his world. But the Rossiters were, and they were Anna’s relations, and she was refined and cultivated, if her parents were not, he thought, for the glamour of love at first sight was over and round him, and Anna was very pretty in her white muslin dress, and very quiet and lady-like, he thought, and when, after the dinner was over, he walked with her upon one of the finished terraces and saw how well she carried herself and how small and delicately-shaped were her hands and feet—for he was one to notice all these things—he began vaguely to wonder how old she was and what his bachelor friends at the club would say if he should present her to them as his wife. The major was unquestionably attacked with a disease, the slightest symptoms of which he had never before had in his life, and when at last it was time for the guests to leave, and the Hetherton carriage came round to take Grandma Ferguson and Mrs. Lydia and Anna home, he suggested to the latter that she walk with him, as there was a moon and the night was fine.
If there was anything Anna detested it was walking over a dusty dirt road in slippers, and she wore that day a dainty pair with heels so high that her ankles were in danger of turning over with every step. But slippers and dusty highways weighed as nothing against a walk with Major Rossiter down the winding hill, between hedges of sweet-brier and alder, and across the long causeway where the beeches and maples nearly met overhead,and the river wound like a silver thread through the green meadows to the westward. Such a walk would be very romantic, and Anna meant to take it if she spoiled a dozen pairs of slippers. So she acceded to the major’s proposition, and the two started together for home, while Phil looked curiously after them and said in an aside to Queenie: “The old chap is hard hit, and if I’m not mistaken, Anna will be my Lady Rossiter, and then won’t we second-class mortals catch it.”