 | CHAPTER XXI. Dollars and cents |  |
21. CHAPTER XXI.
I do not envy thee, Pamela; only I wish that being thy sister in nature, I were
not so far off akin in fortune.
—Sidney.
THREE months passed by, and how did we stand then?—
if standing it might be called. Another piece of plate
had followed the tea-set, and another debt had been paid off.
Our last city property we had let go, with all the money
paid on it, for just the comfort of untieing a weight from
our necks. The mill worked not, because some needful
machinery we could not buy; so the rest of the works rusted
like the money that had been spent on them, and the stream
babbled of our folly, for want of other employment. A
little more or a little less, and we had been richer. Our
cattle were diminished in size and numbers; our fruit-walls
done but wanting a gardener to make them productive;
while the stone cottages stood unroofed for the following
reason. Mr. McLoon had begun to add his unnecessary
aid to the discomposing of our affairs: had declared that
our selling out cottage lots would be an injury to him, and
that he would not give title. He had promised the contrary
—but it was not on paper, and he was not fully paid,—so
we went to law again.
Then came a judgment for the schooling of some poor
boy whom my father had tried to educate—a friend took
that off our hands. Then another for cattle feed—but that
too was settled.
Then Mr. Howard decided that he ought not to let Ezra
Barrington work for nothing—(which Ezra seemed inclined
to do), and that he could not afford to pay him proper
wages. So we began to live along with “help” that were
no help. Sometimes it was an Irishman who got offended,
humanity who was light-fingered. Honesty, in all its senses,
was never heard of; the best man we had would just
work while we looked at him. When my father left home
idleness was the order of the day: and we poor women saw
it with helpless discomfort. I say we—I was not a woman,
hardly was Kate that in years; but sympathy and circumstances
did the work of Time,—mowing down spring flowers
and ripening the grain.
“I shall not keep any servant this summer,” said Mrs.
Howard, when she had apparently resolved herself into a
committee of ways and means, and had sat thinking long
and silently.
“Not keep any servant mamma! why we want another
this minute.”
“Did you ever read Miss Taylor's `I can do without it'?”
she answered with a smile.
“That's all well enough mamma when you're talking of
inkstands and bonnets, but servants are another affair.”
“We will try how the rule will bear stretching,” said
Mrs. Howard.
“It won't bear it mamma—you needn't think it; and
you're not able—you are doing too much now.” And Kate
laid down her work and looked up earnestly.
“We had much better save in some other way, mamma.”
“What other? I can think of none Katie. No we will
try this; it is much pleasanter than owing money that we
cannot pay. Ezra Barrington is to live at the Lea you
know, and his wife will come and wash, or do anything else
that is needful.”
“But how”—said Kate, and she stopped.
“How it will look? Yes it will look a little odd, and
people will think less of us, but after all our own self-respect
is of more importance.”
“Mamma,” said Kate, “what do you think of giving up
sugar? we could do without that, and it would save something.”
My stepmother looked wistfully at the young proposer
of such retrenchments.
“It wouldn't save a great deal, dear Kate,” she answered
—“however, I am willing, but don't tell your father.”
So we drank our tea unsweetened, and felt that we were
doing something.
Nobody knew all this, and few suspected the half of it,
for we still kept up a cheerful appearance. Miss Easy
seemed quite taken aback by our asking if she knew of a
place for Caddie.
“Why dear me!” she said, “yes ma'am, I thought you
liked her so much.”
“I do like her,” said Mrs. Howard smiling, “but I don't
want her.”
Miss Easy looked perplexed.
“I am going to try how we can do without servants.”
“Without any servants?” said Miss Easy.
“Yes,” said my stepmother smiling, “I want to economize
a little—I think we ought to do all we can for ourselves.”
“Yes ma'am, to be sure—dear Mrs. Howard I feel as if
I must do all that I can: but you cannot do more than that,
—you cannot indeed.”
“Ah but you don't know us yet, Miss Easy,” I said;
“we can do a great deal when we set about it.”
“Dear Gracie, yes, I do know,” said Miss Easy—“I am
sure you can do a great deal, yes. But Mrs. Howard is
this really necessary? it seems to me, yes ma'am, that
you're doing too much now. And you don't know what it
is to be without anybody—I shouldn't think you could bear
it. It's well enough for strong country women that are
used to it, but you—and these girls—”
Mrs. Howard looked at us half in sorrow half in hesitation.
“I do know it all Miss Easy—all that you might say,
all that others will say, and still I think I am right. You
know unless we can save money enough to finish some of
our beginnings they will never be profitable. And it's
only for a time,—just now Mr. Howard is so harassed and
engrossed with one thing and another, that I would try
almost any means of relief; but in a few months all difficulty
may be over, and in the mean time a little more
exercise will not hurt us.”
“No,” said Miss Easy, “not while you can all smile
upon it so. But I think I can find Caddie a place—yes
back again any minute.”
“Is that why you want to take her Miss Easy?” said
Kate laughing.
“No,” she said with a smile—“not all the why,—I
really want her on my own account.”
“I intend to send Grace away till we get these matters
arranged,” said Mrs. Howard; “she is going to pay Stephanie
a visit.”
“Are you indeed!” said Miss Easy;—“well I am glad,
and sorry too—yes very. I think it will do her good.
But dear Gracie how we shall miss you.”
“I like to be missed ma'am, as Mr. Rodney says.”
“Have you heard from him lately?” said Mrs. Howard.
“No ma'am, not very lately. You know that his brother
is here?”
“Not absolutely come?”
“Yes indeed he is, and his wife too. I saw them yesterday.”
“And I must see them to-morrow!”
“What kind of a person is his wife, Miss Easy?” said
Kate.
“Not like you dear,” said Miss Caffery with an affectionate
smile, “nor like Grace—no not one bit. I don't
exactly know what she is like—very different from anything
I ever found at the Lea before,” she added sighing.
“It quite made me sad to go there again, yes. But Avarintha
liked her very much—thought her beautiful, yes
ma'am, and so polished. I don't know,” said Miss Easy—
“yes—I believe it's a kind of polish that makes my eyes
ache, and my heart too.”
“Mamma,” said Kate, “if she is such a sort of person
it is not worth our while to call upon her—she would not
care to see us. And then you know—”
“What do I know?”
“You know if we are to have no servants we could not
ask her here,” said Kate colouring a little.
“I should have paid but few visits in my life,” said Mrs.
Howard, “if I had waited to feel sure of my welcome;
and even if your last position be unapproachable, Katie,
we may at least do what we can.”
“Quite right,” said Miss Easy, “and you will think so
too, one of these days. One never regrets doing a polite
or a kind thing, no matter how it is received.”
“If this were either—” said Kate. “Now Miss Easy
what are you smiling at?”
“To see how little you know what is and what isn't, I
should think,” said Mrs. Howard.
“Something like that,” said Miss Easy,—“yes Katie, it
is both polite and kind—to the family.”
And there was no more to be said; though as Kate
remarked, “her forgetfulness had been very natural,—she
had but looked at Mr. Carvill where he had put himself,
and that was, out of his family.”
The next day we set forth to pay our respects to the
new comers. I certainly had none to pay, but the rest did
not want to leave me, and I did not want to be left—two
very obvious reasons for going.
What is there in some exquisitely fine weather to make
one feel sad? It was one of those days of which March
has a few, that seem to embody the very quintessence of
spring,—the sky of the fairest and calmest, the grass in
the yellow-green transition, the trees softened with the
swelling buds as with the lightest veil of clothing, and
showing green or red as flowers or leaves were to come
first. In sheltered fence-corners or bank-protected hollows,
there were tufts of grass that might have come from the
emerald isle itself; now and then a tuft of tiny white flowers—quiet,
insignificant little things—that the eye sought
and rested upon because it was March and not June. And
even one or two bright-faced dandelions, that had been
waked up by some extraordinary sunbeam, looked at us
smilingly from the wayside. The birds were in a twitter of
delight and consultation,—robins and song-sparrows excited
each other; and the phœbe's gentle note of reproof, and the
crow's loud “caw” of disdain as he sat on a cedar and
bowed his head mockingly, neither calmed the spirits nor
roused the ire of the warblers,—their dignity was safe
bound up in enthousiasm. On one bush sat a committee of
fifty robins,—in another, where two sparrows made mysterious
darts through the evergreen foliage, there might be
the nucleus of a nest. The scarce stirring air was as soft
of satin and sweetness;—but bouquet nor patchouli can approach
the unspeakable aroma of early flowers and leaves
—that indefinable perfume that spring compounds for itself.
And yet as we breathed it in—and breaths seemed all too
short in such an atmosphere—the exceeding beauty of
everything brought no exhilaration, but rather sadness. It
might be the association with other spring days when our
hearts were lighter—a mind somewhat out of tone with
the season,—it might be that the beauty was too perfect.
Perfection of any kind is too near the contrast.
So we walked musingly to the Lea house, and there instead
of Mrs. Crown and her pleasant white apron we were
met by a man in an embroidered cap, which the weight of
responsibility, or its long tassel, had drawn very much to
one side. Following this gentleman's flourish of head and
hand and foot, we were ushered into the room that had
been Mr. Rodney's study, and where we had taken off our
cloaks on that first Christmas.
No study now.—A guitar in one corner, a flute and castanets
on the table; a cabinet that seemed to contain more
gilding and morocco than letter-press; a large worsted
frame with a St. Cecilia who had as yet but one eye and half
a nose; a French clock from which the dial-plate looked
forth timidly, as doubting its right to be there; and a pistol,
Izaak Walton and Dumas at hand for light literature.
On a stand near the window sat a beautiful scarlet
Lorius, who with his yellow breast-collar, orange bill, and
the mingling of green, purple, and violet-blue upon his
head and wings looked almost like some gay piece of patchwork.
Mrs. Carvill Collingwood—or to carry out my father's
“good riddance,” Mrs. Carvill—sat reading in a luxurious
easy-chair. No one could have mistaken her for anything
but French. A face that would have been handsome but
for its haughtiness, was displayed to the uttermost,—not
only was a strip of hair turned quite back, but the large
black bandeaux had also a retrograde twist, giving full
effect to the ear as well as the eye sparklers. A rather
pale complexion, and a mouth that might have been educated
to sweetness, were kept in order by a somewhat disdainful
light summer silk, the skirt of which opening at the waist
and stretching away over an embroidered petticoat, spread
its soft folds upon the floor for the nestling place of a little
King Charles. His gentle, lustrous eyes looked up at us as
we entered, but the long ears still lay silkily over the shaggy
feet; till his mistress drawing in her own satin slippers,
roused him with a somewhat impatient “otez-vous!” and
came forward to meet us.
It was a doubtful coming forward, too; and the book
was still held with one finger for a mark, as if she trusted
the interruption would be short. My stepmother's manner
was, however, hard to withstand; and Mrs. Carvill relaxed
into at least conventional pleasure at our visit, and listened
to all that was said with some attempt at interest.
“I have heard Mr. Rod-e-ney speak of you,” she said
with that deliberate accentuation which the voluble French
sometimes give to our mother tongue, and perhaps meaning
to explain the long stare with which Kate and I had been
honoured.
“Qui vive?” cried the Lorius,—“gare! gare! vive les
sans-culottes!”
“Chut!” cried his mistress impatiently. “It is not me
Madame Howard, who teach him such remark—je ne suis
point revolutioniste—it is Mr. Carvill.”
“Adieu perfide! adieu volage!” sang the bird. “Pain!
pain! à Versailles! à Versailles!—Vive le roi s'il est de
bon foi! Il y a long temps que je l'aimait. Plutôt la
mort que l'esclavage! Ah ça ira! ah ça ira!—Ah la belle
France!”
Mrs. Carvill's displeasure softened at these last words,
which she had doubtless taught the bird herself, and which
he pronounced so pathetically that we were all touched;
and with no further reproof than a muttered “si bête!” she
turned to us again, for the Lorius had seemingly had his
say. Stretching out one leg and wing to their utmost extent,
he shut up his eyes, gaped, and was mute.
“You live here always?” said Mrs. Carvill to Kate.
“No—only for the last three years.”
“And you never go away—never go anywhere?”
“Not often,” said Kate smiling.
“But what you do? there is not no societé in this place.”
“Liberté! egalité! fraternité!” cried the Lorius. “Qui
vive? à bas les aristocrats!”
“Cela passe!” said the lady jumping up and opening a
door,—
“Atanaise! otez cet oiseau et faite qu'il se taise!
Well,” she added, coming back to her seat, “it cannot be
that you like these person about here—in what you call
the neighbourhood?”
“Some of them I like very much,” said Kate.
“You do not know them yet, Mrs. Carvill,” said my
stepmother.
“C'est ce que je ne ferai jamais!” said she with a shrug
of the shoulders; and with this hopeful remark we “tumbled
into a well,” as Dickens has it. The little King Charles
had jumped into his mistress's lap, and lay stretched upon
the worked petticoat; while Mrs. Carvill passed his long
ears through her dainty fingers, and called him “mignon”
and “petit aimant” and “mon beau Chevalier”; and the
dog just moved his little fringed tail by way of answer.
“You know Mr. Rod-e-ney much?” said Mrs. Carvill.
“Yes, we have seen a good deal of him.”
“And you like him?”
“Oh yes!” said we all.
Again we were treated to a comprehensive stare; and
finding the well rather too deep to be pleasant, we were
about to come away, when the master of the house entered.
He was a good specimen of strong family likeness combined
with a great want of it,—the resemblance in feature
and voice being almost nullified by the difference in
character; which gave a gay, heartless, matter of course
expression, to what in his father and brother had been grave,
kind, and full of meaning. He looked good-natured, too—
and rather prepossessing, but neither straightforward nor
reliable. Salutations so demure that they almost made us
laugh, a very quick, keen survey through a veil of carelessness,
and Mr. Carvill sat down with a look that said his
mind was made up—about something.
“Well ma'am,” he said, “I am glad you have come to
prove the truth of my assertion that we should have some
pray Mr. Howard are your daughters a fair representation
of the county?”
“Really sir,” said my father, who had hardly spoken
hitherto, “I doubt whether the county would choose them
to that office.”
“It ought to, I'm certain of it—Miss Howard is colouring
with displeasure that I should even have asked the
question. Clemence, where's Louis Quatorze?”
“In the other room.”
“Why isn't he here?”
“I did not want him—he make too much noise, Mr.
Carvill.”
“What—has he been talking politics? ha, ha, he shall
have a bit of cake for that.”
“For to have disturbed me?” said the lady raising her
eyebrows.
“No my dear, for pleasing me.”
“When did you see your brother, Mr Carvill?” said my
father.
“Who, Rodney? I declare I don't know sir,—of course
I saw him the minute I landed, but since then—I think it
was two weeks ago—an interview with him always stands
out in such bold relief, that it's hard to locate it precisely.”
“He was well?”
“Well? yes I hope so,—rather pale too, now I think of
it. Not alarmingly so, ladies—only enough to be interesting,—fatigued
perhaps—he's going to be the greatest
savant of the age I suppose, so we have a chance of one
star in the family.”
“Only a chance?” said my father smiling.
“Why,” said Mr. Carvill answering him but looking
quietly at us, “I suppose you know best—I have seen so
little of the gentleman since he was a boy, and then you
know,—in the moral firmament of course, but I was speaking
of the mental. Can't tell what sort of a star it will be,
neither,—Rodney looked prodigiously grave, but upon my
soul I couldn't tell whether it was philosophy or mathematics.”
“I daresay not,” said my father dryly—“I think it
would puzzle any one to settle the question.”
“Miss Howard,” said Mr. Carvill rightly interpreting
the slight compression of Kate's under lip, “is the honour
of amusing you due to Rodney or to me?”
My father saved her reply.
“How do you like this country life, Mr. Carvill?” he
said; “it must be a novelty at least.”
“Yes sir, and that's a charm it shall never lose. It was
a dull season in town and so I just came here to see what
wanted doing for September. You don't suppose I'm keeping
this place for anything but a shooting lodge Mr. Howard?”
“I did hope so,” said my father.
“My dear sir! a man of your sense and experience to
imagine such a thing! Live here? why I'd pocket the
whole concern in five minutes, if I didn't want to bag the
birds separately.”
“As to sense and experience, Mr. Carvill,” said my
father, “men with more than I pretend to, have not only
imagined such a thing possible, but have actually done
it.”
“O you mean my father,” said the young man; and for
a moment there was a shade upon his face that quite came
in aid of the family likeness,—then shaking it off he said
gaily,
“All right in the abstract sir—I can comprehend how
Rodney thinks you such paragons—but you are wrong as
regards me, I assure you,—I never was meant to live at
Daisy Lea. In the first place I have some little regard for
my wife's liking and a most tender one for my own. Now
I do suppose that brother of mine could establish himself
here, and probably,” said Mr. Carvill speaking slow and as
if he were contemplating possibilities, “probably he might
find all the society he would care about. But as for me—
well, I couldn't exist—that's enough. I shouldn't have
lived through these five days but for my precious Lorius,
whom my wife has consigned to temporary banishment
because he's a little too much of a republican.”
“I am afraid our neighbours would share that fault with
him,” said my father—“perhaps some of them may have
a trifle more education.”
“Everything in proportion you know sir,” said Mr. Carvill.
to my wife—like it very much—Squire Suydam especially,
fine old gentleman enough,—but as to living here! bless
me, I'd shoot myself first—would indeed, as gladly as I'd
shoot a woodcock.”
“I have just been wondering,” said Kate, “whether you
kill the woodcock for the same reason that you say you
would kill yourself—if you were condemned to their
habitat.”
“Hardly worth while to let 'em live when it takes so
little to put 'em out of their misery,” said Mr. Carvill.
“You don't mean to say that you like this place Miss
Howard?”
“No sir, I don't mean to say anything about it,” replied
Kate.
“Incroyable!” muttered our host. “I suppose you, Mr.
Howard, get along by means of your daughters, but how
on earth they support life, is more than I can understand.”
“You need not try,” said Mrs. Carvill whose cold eye
had watched the laugh with which Kate and I indulged ourselves,
“it is none of your affair.”
“Don't look dismal either,” pursued her husband,—
“well it's a comfort to one's philanthropy to know that
handsome young ladies can exist and be happy anywhere.
I always thought the line about `full many a flower,' was a
poetical fiction,—but the man must have had second sight
—and have drawn from the Miss Howards.”
“It would be hard to prove that anything is wasted sir,
merely because God has put it in one place instead of
another,” said my father gravely. And with that we took
leave, and released Mrs. Carvill's forefinger.
“Let us go home by the lake,” said my father; and
quitting the field road for a little path that yet was hardly
a path, we skirted the bright water, which sent one and
another of its tiny waves almost to our very feet to greet
us. We sat down and watched them as they came up,
each sparkling and swelling with importance, then making
its low obeisance, and with a soft word of welcome retiring
again behind its fellows.
“Kate,” said my father suddenly, “it matters very little
riches rolled from instead of towards him.”
She looked inquiringly but said nothing.
“Don't you think so daughter? is he any the less
happy?”
“No indeed papa—the happier, if contrast has any
power out of this world.”
“And may we not suppose that he looks back upon all
the circumstances of his life as the best possible, for him?
that his `day and night and summer and winter' (they must
succeed each other, Kate) were of just the right temperature
and proportion?”
“Yes, of course, papa. But why do you ask me?”
“Merely because `if these things are so' we may as well
take the comfort of them. There is no latitude on this
earth my dear, where the sun shines unceasingly, but neither
is there any where he never comes: and it is well to remember
that `the sailing of a cloud hath Providence to
its pilot.'”
“But papa you do not answer my question—I do not
quite understand you.”
“I thought,” said my father with a look of more sympathy
than reproof, “I thought Katie, that you both came
from the Lea feeling a little sober,—I was afraid the power
of contrast had been too strong.”
“I believe it had some effect, papa,” said Kate, her eyes
filling as she spoke,—“I would not change place with the
Carvills for anything in the world, and yet there seems to
be a great deal of comfort in the abundance of means—
the perfect freedom from all embarrassments.”
“I have thought so very often,” said my father.
“And never to hear of a judge or a lawsuit—” said I.
“Dear Gracie,” said Kate, “don't think of them now,—
I am too glad to have you go away for a while beyond their
reach.”
“Come,” said Mr. Howard getting off his stone,
“haven't you sat here long enough? I believe if I am to
take the benefit of my own lessons,” he added, “we had
better not pursue the subject.”
“I am sure we have as much happiness—on the whole
—as we used to have,” said my stepmother.
“More,” he answered. “For my own sake I would not
change places with myself as a rich man.”
But there was an expression in each speaker's face, that
said faith and sense had many an encounter upon that
dearer point—“for the sake of the children.”
| CHAPTER XXI. Dollars and cents | |