18. CHAPTER XVIII.
OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.
Lawrence Newt had called at Bunker's, and found Mrs.
Dinks and Miss Hope Wayne. They were sitting at the window
upon Broadway watching the promenaders along that famous
thoroughfare; for thirty years ago the fashionable walk
was between the Park and the Battery, and Bunker's was
close to Morris Street, a little above the Bowling Green.
When Mr. Newt was announced Hope Wayne felt as if she
were suffocating. She knew but one person of that name.
Her aunt supposed it to be the husband of her friend, Mrs.
Nancy Newt, whom she had seen upon a previous visit to
New York this same summer. They both looked up and saw
a gentleman they had never seen before. He bowed pleasantly,
and said,
“Ladies, my name is Lawrence Newt.”
There was a touch of quaintness in his manner, as in his
dress.
“You will find the city quite deserted,” said he. “But I
have called with an invitation from my sister, Mrs. Boniface
Newt, for this evening to a small party. She incloses her card,
and begs you to waive the formality of a call.”
That was the way that Lawrence Newt and Hope Wayne
came to be sitting on the cane sofa under the great orange-tree
in Boniface Newt's conservatory.
They had entered the room and made their bows to Mrs.
Nancy; and Mr. Lawrence, wishing to talk to Miss Hope, had
led her by another way to the conservatory, and so Mr. Abel
had failed to see them.
As they sat under the tree Lawrence Newt conversed with
Hope in a tone of earnest and respectful tenderness that
touched her heart. She could not understand the winning
kindliness of his manner, nor could she resist it. He spoke of
her home with an accuracy of detail that surprised her.
“It was not the same house in my day, and you, perhaps,
hardly remember much of the old one. The house is changed,
but nothing else; no, nothing else,” he added, musingly, and
with the same dreamy expression in his eyes that was in them
when he leaned against his office window and watched the
ships—while his mind sailed swifter and farther than they.
“They can not touch the waving outline of the hills that
you see from the lawn, nor the pine-trees that shade the windows.
Does the little brook still flow in the meadow below?
And do you understand the pine-trees? Do they tell any tales?”
He asked it with a half-mournful gayety. He asked as if
he both longed and feared that she should say, “Yes, they
have told me: I know all.”
The murmurs of the singing came floating out to them as
they sat. Hope was happy and trustful. She was in the house
of Abel—she should see him—she should hear him! And
this dear gentleman—not exactly like a father nor an uncle—
well, yes, perhaps a young uncle—he is brother of Abel's
mother, and he mysteriously knows so much about Pinewood,
and his smiling voice has a tear in it as he speaks of old days.
I love him already—I trust him entirely—I have found a
friend.
“Shall we go in again?” said Lawrence Newt. But they
saw some one approaching, and before they arose, while they
were still silent, and Hope's heart was like the dawning summer
heaven, she suddenly heard Abel Newt's words, and
watched him, speechlessly, as he and his companion glided by
her into the darkness. It was the vision of a moment; but in
the attitude, the tone, the whole impression, Hope Wayne instinctively
felt treachery.
“Yes, let us go in!” she said to Lawrence Newt, as she
rose calmly.
Abel had passed. He could no more have stopped and
shaken hands with Hope Wayne than he could have sung like
a nightingale. He could not even raise his head erect as he
went by—something very stern and very strong seemed to
hold it down.
Miss Plumer's head was also bent; she was waiting to hear
the end of that sentence. She thought society opened beautifully.
Such a handsome fellow in such a romantic spot, beginning
his compliments in such a low, rich voice, with his hair
almost brushing hers. But he did not finish. Abel Newt
was perfectly silent. He glided away with Grace Plumer into
grateful gloom, and her ears, exquisitely apprehensive, caught
from his lips not a word further.
Lawrence Newt rose as Hope requested, and they moved
away. She found her aunt, and stood by her side. The
young men were brought up and presented, and submitted
their observations upon the weather, asked her how she liked
New York—were delighted to hear that she would pass the
next winter in the city—would show her then that New York
had some claim to attention even from a Bostonian—were
charmed, really, with Mr. Bowdoin Beacon and—and—Mr.
Alfred Dinks; at mention of which name they looked in her
face in the most gentlemanly manner to see the red result, as
if the remark had been a blister, but they saw only an unconscious
abstraction in her own thoughts, mingled with an air
of attention to what they were saying.
“Miss Hope,” said Lawrence Newt, who approached her
with a young woman by his side, “I want you to know my
friend Amy Waring.”
The two girls looked at each other and bowed. Then they
shook hands with a curious cordiality.
Amy Waring had dark eyes—not round and hard and black
—not ebony eyes, but soft, sympathetic eyes, in which you expect
to see images as lovely as the Eastern traveler sees when
he remembers home and looks in the drop held in the palm of
the hand of the magician's boy. They had the fresh, unworn,
moist light of flowers early in June mornings, when they are
full of sun and dew. And there was the same transparent,
rich, pure darkness in her complexion. It was not swarthy,
nor black, nor gloomy. It did not look half Indian, nor even
olive. It was an illuminated shadow.
The two girls—they were women, rather—went together
to a sofa and sat down. Hope Wayne's impulse was to lay
her head upon her new friend's shoulder and cry; for Hope
was prostrated by the unexpected vision of Abel, as a strong
man is unnerved by sudden physical pain. She felt the overwhelming
grief of a child, and longed to give way to it utterly.
“I am glad to know you, Miss Wayne!” said Amy Waring,
in a cordial, cheerful voice, with a pleasant smile.
Hope bowed, and thanked her.
“I find that Mr. Newt's friends always prove to be mine,”
continued Amy.
“I am glad of it; but I don't know why I am his friend,”
said Hope. “I never saw him until to-day. He must have
lived in Delafield. Do you know how that is?”
She found conversation a great relief, and longed to give
way to a kind of proud, indignant volubility.
“No; but he seems to have lived every where, to have seen
every thing, and to have known every body. A very useful
acquaintance, I assure you!” said Amy, smiling.
“Is he married?” asked Hope.
There was the least little blush upon Amy's cheek as she heard
this question; but so slight, that if any body had thought he
observed it, he would have looked again and said, “No, I was
mistaken.” Perhaps, too, there was the least little fluttering
of a heart otherwise unconscious. But words are like breezes
that blow hither and thither, and the leaves upon the most secluded
trees in the very inmost covert of the wood may sometimes
feel a breath, and stir with responsive music before they
are aware.
Amy Waring replied, pleasantly, that he was not married.
Hope Wayne said, “What a pity!” Amy smiled, and asked,
“Why a pity?”
“Because such a man would be so happy if he were married,
and would make others so happy! He has been in love,
you may be sure.”
“Yes,” replied Amy; “I have no doubt of that. We don't
see men of forty, or so, who have not been touched—”
“By what?” asked Lawrence Newt, who had come up silently,
and now stood beside her.
“Yes, by what?” interposed Miss Fanny, who had been
very busy during the whole evening, trying to get into her
hands the threads of the various interests that she saw flying
and streaming all around her. She had seen Mr. Alfred Dinks
devoted to Miss Wayne, and was therefore confirmed in her
belief that they were engaged. She had seen Abel flirting
with Grace, and was therefore satisfied that he cared nothing
about her. She had done the best she could with Alfred
Dinks, but was extremely dissatisfied with her best; and, seeing
Hope and Amy together, she had been hovering about
them for a long time, anxious to overhear or to join in.
“Really,” said Amy, looking up with a smile, “I was making
a very innocent remark.”
“Perfectly innocent, I'm sure!” replied Fanny, in her sweetest
manner. It was such a different sweetness from Amy
Waring's, that Hope turned and looked very curiously at Miss
Fanny.
“There are few men of forty who have not been in love,”
said Amy, calmly. “That is what I was saying.”
As there was only one man of forty, or near that age, in the
little group, the appeal was evidently to him. Lawrence
Newt looked at the three girls, with the swimming light in his
eyes, half crushing them and smiling, so that every one of
them felt, each in her own way, that they were as completely
blinded by that smile as by a glare of sunlight—which also,
like that smile, is warm, and not treacherous.
They could not see beyond the words, nor hope to.
“Miss Amy is right, as usual,” said he.
“Why, Uncle Lawrence, tell us all about it!” said Fanny,
with a hard, black smile in her eyes.
Uncle Lawrence was not in the slightest degree abashed.
“Fanny,” said he, “I will speak to you in a parable. Remember,
to you. There was a farmer whose neighbor built a
curious tower upon his land. It was upon a hill, in a grove.
The structure rose slowly, but public curiosity rose with fearful
rapidity. The gossips gossiped about it in the public
houses. Rumors of it stole up to the city, and down came
reporters and special correspondents to describe it with an
unctuous eloquence and picturesque splendor of style known
only to them. The builder held his tongue, dear Fanny. The
workmen speculated upon the subject, but their speculations
were no more valuable than those of other people. They received
private bribes to tell; and all the great newspapers announced
that, at an enormous expense, they had secured the
exclusive intelligence, and the exclusive intelligence was always
wrong. The country was in commotion, dear Fanny,
about a simple tower that a man was building upon his land.
But the wonder of wonders, and the exasperation of exasperations,
was, that the farmer whose estate adjoined never so
much as spoke of the tower—was never known to have asked
about it—and, indeed, it was not clear that he knew of the
building of any tower within a hundred miles of him. Of
course, my dearest Fanny, a self-respecting Public Sentiment
could not stand that. It was insulting to the public, which
manifested so profound an interest in the tower, that the immediate
neighbor should preserve to strict a silence, and such
a perfectly tranquil mind. There are but two theories possible
in regard to that man, said the self-respecting Public Sentiment:
he is either a fool or a knave—probably a little of
each. In any case he must be dealt with. So Public Sentiment
accosted the farmer, and asked him if he were not aware
that a mysterious tower was going up close to him, and that
the public curiosity was sadly exercised about it? He replied
that he was blessed with tolerable eyesight, and had seen the
tower from the very first stone upward. Tell us, then, all
about it! shrieked Public Sentiment. Ask the builder, if you
want to know, said the farmer. But he won't tell us, and we
want you to tell us, because we know that you must have
asked him. Now what, in the name of pity!—what is that
tower for? I have never asked, replies the farmer. Never
asked? shrieked Public Sentiment. Never, retorted Rusticus.
And why, in the name of Heaven, have you never asked?
cried the crowd. Because, said the farmer—”
Lawrence Newt looked at his auditors. “Are you listening,
dear Fanny?”
“Yes, Uncle Lawrence.”
“—because it's none of my business.”
Lawrence Newt smiled; so did all the rest, including Fanny,
who remarked that he might have told her in fewer words
that she was impertinent.
“Yes, Fanny; but sometimes words help us to remember
things. It is a great point gained when we have learned to
hoe the potatoes in our own fields, and not vex our souls
about our neighbor's towers.”
Hope Wayne was not in the least abstracted. She was
nervously alive to every thing that was said and done; and
listened with a smile to Lawrence Newt's parable, liking him
more and more.
The general restless distraction that precedes the breaking
up of a party had now set in. People were moving, and rustling,
and breaking off the ends of conversation. They began
to go. A few said good-evening, and had had such a charming
time! The rest gradually followed, until there was a universal
departure. Grace Plumer was leaning upon Sligo Moultrie's
arm. But where was Abel?
Hope Wayne's eyes looked every where. But her only
glimpse of him during the evening had been that glimmering,
dreadful moment in the conservatory. There he had remained
ever since. There he still stood gazing through the door into
the drawing-room, seeing but not seen—his mind a wild whirl
of thoughts.
“What a fool I am!” thought Abel, bitterly. He was
steadily asking himself, “Have—I—lost—Hope Wayne—before—I—had—won—her?”
