University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
A CONSULTATION.

The family tea was served in a small dining-room in the
rear. Mr. Blessing, who had become more and more cordial
with Joseph after formally accepting him, led the way thither,
and managed to convey a rapid signal to his wife before the
family took their seats at the table. Joseph was the only
one who did not perceive the silent communication of intelligence;
but its consequences were such as to make him
speedily feel at ease in the Blessing mansion. Even Clementina
relented sufficiently to say, in her most silvery tones,
“May I offer you the butter, Mr. Asten?”

The table, it is true, was very unlike the substantial suppers
of the country. There was a variety of diminutive
dishes, containing slices so delicate that they mocked rather
than excited the appetite; yet Julia (of course it was she!)
had managed to give the repast an air of elegance which was
at least agreeable to a kindred sense. Joseph took the little
cup, the thin tea, the five drops of milk, and the fragment
of sugar, without asking himself whether the beverage were
palatable: he divided a leaf-like piece of flesh and consumed
several wafers of bread, blissfully unconscious whether his
stomach were satisfied. He felt that he had been received
into The Family. Mr. Blessing was magnificently bland,
Mrs. Blessing was maternally interested, Clementina recognized
his existence, and Julia,—he needed but one look at
her sparkling eyes, her softly flushed cheeks, her bewitching
excitement of manner, to guess the relief of her heart. He

forgot the vague distress which had preceded his coming, and
the embarrassment of his first reception, in the knowledge
that Julia was so happy, and through the acquiescence of
her parents, in his love.

It was settled that he should pass the night there. Mrs.
Blessing would take no denial; he must now consider their
house as his home. She would also call him “Joseph,” but
not now,—not until she was entitled to name him “son.”
It had come suddenly upon her, but it was her duty to be
glad, and in a little while she would become accustomed to
the change.

All this was so simply and cordially said, that Joseph quite
warmed to the stately woman, and unconsciously decided to
accept his fortune, whatever features it might wear. Until
the one important event, at least; after that it would be in
his own hands—and Julia's.

After tea, two or three hours passed away rather slowly.
Mr. Blessing sat in the pit of a back yard and smoked until
dusk; then the family collected in the “drawing-room,” and
there was a little music, and a variety of gossip, with occasional
pauses of silence, until Mrs. Blessing said: “Perhaps
you had better show Mr. Asten to his room, Mr. Blessing.
We may have already passed over his accustomed hour for
retiring. If so, I know he will excuse us; we shall soon
become familiar with each other's habits.”

When Mr. Blessing returned, he first opened the rear
window, drew an arm-chair near it, took off his coat, seated
himself, and lit another cigar. His wife closed the front
shutters, slipped the night-bolts of the door, and then seated
herself beside him. Julia whirled around on her music-stool
to face the coming consultation, and Clementina gracefully
posed herself in the nearest corner of the sofa.

“How do you like him, Eliza?” Mr. Blessing asked, after
several silent, luxurious whiffs.

“He is handsome, and seems amiable, but younger than I
expected. Are you sure of his—his feelings, Julia?”

“O ma!” Julia exclaimed; “what a question! I can
only judge them by my own.”

Clementina curled her lip in a singular fashion, but said
nothing.

“It seems like losing Julia entirely,” Mrs. Blessing resumed.
“I don't know how she will be able to retain her
place in our circle, unless they spend a part of the winter in
the city, and whether he has means enough—”

She paused, and looked inquisitively at her husband.

“You always look at the establishment,” said he, “and
never consider the chances. Marriage is a deal, a throw, a
sort of kite-flying, in fact (except in our case, my dear), and,
after all I've learned of our future son-in-law, I must say
that Julia hasn't a bad hand.”

“I knew you'd like him, pa!” cried the delighted Julia.

Mr. Blessing looked at her steadily a moment, and then
winked; but she took no notice of it.

“There is another thing,” said his wife. “If the wedding
comes off this fall, we have but two months to prepare; and
how will you manage about the—the money? We can save
afterwards, to be sure, but there will be an immediate and
fearful expense. I've thought, perhaps, that a simple and
private ceremony,—married in travelling-dress, you know,
just before the train leaves, and no cards,—it is sometimes
done in the highest circles.”

“It won't do!” exclaimed Mr. Blessing, waving his right
hand. “Julia's husband must have an opportunity of learning
our standing in society. I will invite the Collector, and

the Surveyor, and the Appraiser. The money must be raised.
I should be willing to pawn—”

He looked around the room, inspecting the well-worn
carpet, the nankeen-covered chairs, the old piano, and finally
the two pictures.

“—Your portrait, my dear; but, unless it were a Stuart,
I couldn't get ten dollars on it. We must take your set of
diamonds, and Julia's rubies, and Clementina's pearls.”

He leaned back, and laughed with great glee. The ladies
became rigid and grave.

“It is wicked, Benjamin,” Mrs. Blessing severely remarked,
“to jest over our troubles at such a time as this. I see
nothing else to do, but to inform Mr. Asten, frankly, of our
condition. He is yet too young, I think, to be repelled by
poverty.”

“Ma, it would break my heart,” said Julia. “I could
not bear to be humiliated in his eyes.”

“Decidedly the best thing to do,” warbled Clementina,
speaking for the first time.

“That's the way with women,—flying from one extreme
to the other. If you can't have white, you turn around and
say there's no other color than black. When all devices are
exhausted, a man of pluck and character goes to work and
constructs a new one. Upon my soul, I don't know where
the money is to come from; but give me ten days, and Julia
shall have her white satin. Now, girls, you had better go
to bed.”

Mr. Blessing smoked silently until the sound of his
daughters' footsteps had ceased on the stairs; then, bringing
down his hand emphatically upon his thigh, he exclaimed,
“By Jove, Eliza, if I were as sharp as that girl, I'd have
had the Collectorship before this!”

“What do you mean? She seems to be strongly attached
to him.”

“O, no doubt! But she has a wonderful talent for reading
character. The young fellow is pretty green wood still;
what he'll season into depends on her. Honest as the day,
—there's nothing like a country life for that. But it's a
pity that such a fund for operations should lie idle; he has
a nest-egg that might hatch out millions!”

“I hope, Benjamin, that after all your unfortunate experience—”

“Pray don't lament in advance, and especially now, when
a bit of luck comes to us. Julia has done well, and I'll
trust her to improve her opportunities. Besides, this will
help Clementina's chances; where there is one marriage in a
family, there is generally another. Poor girl! she has
waited a long while. At thirty-three, the market gets v-e-r-y
flat.”

“And yet Julia is thirty,” said Mrs. Blessing; “and
Clementina's complexion and manners have been considered
superior.”

“There's just her mistake. A better copy of Mrs. Halibut's
airs and attitudes was never produced, and it was all
very well so long as Mrs. Halibut gave the tone to society;
but since she went to Europe, and Mrs. Bass has somehow
crept into her place, Clementina is quite—I may say—obsolete.
I don't object to her complexion, because that is a
standing fashion, but she is expected to be chatty, and witty,
and instead of that she stands about like a Venus of Milo.
She looks like me, and she can't lack intelligence and tact.
Why couldn't she unbend a little more to Asten, whether
she likes him or not?”

“You know I never seemed to manage Clementina,” his

wife replied; “if she were to dispute my opinion sometimes,
I might, perhaps, gain a little influence over her: but she
won't enter into a discussion.”

“Mrs. Halibut's way. It was new, then, and, with her
husband's money to back it, her `grace' and `composure' and
`serenity' carried all before her. Give me fifty thousand a
year, and I'll put Clementina in the same place! But,
come,—to the main question. I suppose we shall need five
hundred dollars!”

“Three hundred, I think, will be ample,” said Mrs.
Blessing.

“Three or five, it's as hard to raise one sum as the other.
I'll try for five, and if I have luck with the two hundred
over—small, careful operations, you know, which always
succeed—I may have the whole amount on hand, long before
it's due.”

Mrs. Blessing smiled in a melancholy, hopeless way, and
the consultation came to an end.

When Joseph was left alone in his chamber, he felt no
inclination to sleep. He sat at the open window, and looked
down into the dim, melancholy street, the solitude of which
was broken about once every quarter of an hour by a forlorn
pedestrian, who approached through gloom and lamplight, was
foreshortened to his hat, and then lengthened away on the
other side. The new acquaintances he had just made
remained all the more vividly in his thoughts from their
nearness; he was still within their atmosphere. They were
unlike any persons he knew, and therefore he felt that he
might do them injustice by a hasty estimate of their character.
Clementina, however, was excluded from this charitable
resolution. Concentrating his dislike on her, he found that
her parents had received him with as much consideration as

a total stranger could expect. Moreover, whatever they
might be, Julia was the same here, in her own home, as
when she was a guest in the country. As playful, as winning,
and as natural; and he began to suspect that her
present life was not congenial to such a nature. If so, her
happiness was all the more assured by their union.

This thought led him into a pictured labyrinth of anticipation,
in which his mind wandered with delight. He was
so absorbed in planning the new household, that he did not
hear the sisters entering the rear room on the same floor,
which was only separated by a thin partition from his
own.

“White satin!” he suddenly heard Clementina say: “of
course I shall have the same. It will become me better
than you.”

“I should think you might be satisfied with a light silk,”
Julia said; “the expenses will be very heavy.”

“We'll see,” Clementina answered shortly, pacing up and
down the room.

After a long pause, he heard Julia's voice again. “Never
mind,” she said, “I shall soon be out of your way.”

“I wonder how much he knows about you!” Clementina
exclaimed. “Your arts were new there, and you
played an easy game.” Here she lowered her voice, and
Joseph only distinguished a detached word now and then.
He rose, indignant at this unsisterly assault, and wishing to
hear no more; but it seemed that the movement was not
noticed, for Julia replied, in smothered, excited tones, with
some remark about “complexion.”

“Well, there is one thing,” Clementina continued,—“one
thing you will keep very secret, and that is your birthday.
Are you going to tell him that you are—”

Joseph had seized the back of a chair, and with a sudden
impulse titled it and let it fall on the floor. Then he
walked to the window, closed it, and prepared to go to rest,
—all with more noise than was habitual with him. There
were whispers and hushed movements in the next room, but
not another audible word was spoken. Before sleeping he
came to the conclusion that he was more than Julia's lover:
he was her deliverer. The idea was not unwelcome: it gave
a new value and significance to his life.

However curious Julia might have been to discover how
much he had overheard, she made no effort to ascertain the
fact. She met him next morning with a sweet unconsciousness
of what she had endured, which convinced him that
such painful scenes must have been frequent, or she could
not have forgotten so easily. His greeting to Clementina
was brief and cold, but she did not seem to notice it in the
least.

It was decided, before he left, that the wedding should
take place in October.