 | CHAPTER IV. Dukesborough tales |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
But while these things were going on among the Spouters, what
had become of the Peas? Whoever supposes that Miss Georgiana
was buried in the country dead or alive, is simply mistaken. When
she heard that there was a new store in town she wanted to see it;
and when Uncle Ben heard that it was kept by a bachelor, he was
determined that he should see his daughter; for as he grew older, his
anxiety became more intense for Georgiana to find somebody, as he
expressed it, “to take keer of her when my head gits cold.” He
begged her several times to go before she was ready.
“Georgy, put on your yaller calliker, and go long.”
“Pap, do wait till I get ready. I do believe you will go distracted.”
Georgiana waited until she got ready, and when she did get ready
she went. Her plan was to go and spend the night with Miss
Spouter, and in company with her visit the new store the next morning.
Some persons believe in presentiments, and some do not. I hardly
know what to think of such things, and have never yet made up my
mind whether they are reliable or not. Sometimes they seem to foreshadow
coming events, and sometimes they are clearly at fault. I have
occasionally had dreams, and subsequent events were in such exact
sequence with them that I have been inclined to accord to them much
of the importance that by some persons it is maintained they have.
Then again, the dreams I have had (for I have always been a dreamer)
have been so entirely unreasonable, nay, absurd, and even ridiculous,
as to be impossible of fulfilment. For instance, I have more than once
dreamed that I was a woman; and I have since been much amused by
the recollection of some of the strange things that I did and said while
in that estate. I do not consider this an opportune place to mention
them, even if they were worthy of mention on any occasion, and I
allude to them for the purpose of saying that after such dreams I have
been disposed to reject the whole of the theory of dreams.
But all this is neither here nor there. The divergence from my
story, though natural, cannot with propriety be farther extended; and
I will return at once to my two heroines, in whose deportment will be
found the reason why such divergence was made.
No sooner had Miss Spouter determined fully in her mind that she
would catch Mr. Slack if she could, than she was conscious of a
was destined to be the greatest, if not the only barrier between her
and the object of her pursuit. She, Miss Spouter, had seen him first,
she thought. She had, as it were, found him, and when George was
not even looking for any such property. George did not have even a
shadow of the remotest claim to him. It was wrong and unkind in
George to interfere. She, Miss Spouter, wouldn't have treated her so.
Now all this was before Miss Pea had ever laid eyes on Mr. Slack,
and Miss Spouter knew it. That made no difference, she said to
herself. If anything, it made it worse. She was hurt, and she could
not help it.
Miss Pea might have had a presentiment of this state of things, and
she might not. But at all events, when she went upon her visit she
carried a bucket of butter as a present to Mrs. Spouter. It was just
before supper-time, and consequently too late for her to return that
evening. If it had not been, as she afterwards declared upon her
word and honor, she would have done so. The Spouters were as cold
as ice. Not even the bucket of butter could warm Mrs. Spouter a
single degree. Strange conduct for her! Miss Angeline at first
thought that she would not go in to the supper table. But then that
would be too plain, and upon reflection she thought she preferred to
be there.
Miss Pea and Mr. Slack, of course, had to be introduced. He
found her disposed to be chatty. Miss Spouter looked very grave,
and raised her pocket handkerchief to her mouth as an occasional
provincialism fell from the lips of her country visitress, while her dear
mother, taking the cue, would glance slyly at Mr. Slack and snicker.
“This is oncommon good butter, Mrs. Spouter,” he remarked to the
lady of the house; and oh, the quantities of butter that man did consume!
Now, it was from Miss Pea's bucket; they did not like to confess it,
but they had it to do.
“Want' know! Wal, Miss Pea's mother must be a noble housekeeper.”
Mrs. Pea had been dead several years.
“Dew tell! You, then?”
Miss Georgiana would have told a lie if she had not acknowledged
that it was.
Mr. Slack bestowed a look of intense admiration upon her, which
angry.
After supper the gentleman followed the ladies into the parlor.
Miss Spouter was pensive, and complained of headache. Miss Pea
did not believe she had it, and therefore she spoke freely of her
father's plantation, of what he was to her and she to him, and of how
he was always urging her to get married, a thing which she had made
up her mind never to do. When they retired for the night, Miss
Spouter being no better, but rather worse, they did what they had never
done in their lives before, whenever there had been an opportunity of
doing differently — they slept apart. This was capping the climax, and
Miss Pea went home the next morning, asking herself many times on
the way if friendship was anything but a name.
It seemed to be a sad thing that these young ladies should part.
Hand in hand they had traveled the broad road of life, and never
jostled each other when men were plentiful. But these animals had
broken from them like so many wild cattle, some dodging and darting
between them, some taking to by-paths, and some wildly leaping over
precipices, until now they were drawing nigh to the road of young
womanhood, and there was but one left for them both. If they could
have divided him it might have been well; but he was indivisible.
The fact is, Mr. Slack ought never to have come there, or he ought to
have brought his twin-brother with him.
“Wal, where's your friend?” he inquired at breakfast.
“She's gone to look after what she calls her father's plantation, I
reckon,” answered Mrs. Spouter, sharply.
“Be n't her father got no plantation, then?”
“He's got a little bit of two hundred acres of tolerble poor land.
That's all the plantation he's got.”
“Oh, Ma!” interceded Miss Angeline, “Georgiana is a very good
girl.”
“She may be good, but if you call her a girl I don't know what you
would call them that's fifteen or twenty years younger; and if she is
young that wouldn't make her daddy rich.”
“Oh, no! But, oh, Ma!” Miss Spouter persisted in a general way,
for she seemed to think that this was all that could be said in her
favor. Upon reflection she asked Mr. Slack if he did not think Miss
Pea had a good figger. Then she took a very small sip of water, wiped
her mouth carefully and coughed slightly.
“Wal, I — ah,” began Mr. Slack, but Ma laughed so immoderately
that he laughed too, and did not finish giving his opinion in words.
Alas, for Miss Pea! Big as she was, she was cut all to pieces and
salted away by Mrs. Spouter, while Miss Angeline could only look a
little reproachfully now and then, and say “Oh, Ma!”
“Two hundred acres,” mused Mr. Slack on his bed that night. “In
Maas'chewsetts that is a considerable farm; other property in proportion.
What would it bring in ready money if the old man (I cal'late
he's old) should take a notion tew give it up neow? Already some
money. He brought me a watermelon this morning, and asked me to
go out and see them all. I'm a going. Quick work, Adiel, quick
work.”
Mr. Slack was a hard man to catch; it had been tried before and
had failed. Nevertheless, Mrs. Spouter and Miss Spouter, about six
weeks later, actually caught him in the act of coming away from Mr.
Pea's. What made it worse, he had a bunch of pinks in his hand.
The next time Miss Spouter met Miss Pea she did not speak to her.
She only shook her curls and said to herself in words which were
audible, “Such is life!” Georgiana folded her hands over her bosom
and asked, if friendship was anything but a name, what was it?
But the man maintained his place at the table, to which he marched
with unusual confidence and good humor at the first meal after his
detection; what is more, the little plates maintained their places. In
spite of all his goings to the Peas and his returning with bunches of
pinks in his hands, his deportment in any other respect had not, at
least for the worst, changed. Indeed, he looked oftener and more
fondly at the curls. Yes, thought Miss Spouter, he may marry her,
but the image of Angeline Spouter is in his breast, and it will stay
there forever. But for her entreaties her Ma would have removed the
little plates and sent him back to the other end of the table, where he
came from.
“I'm jest the woman to do it,” she said. “That long-legged Yankee
has eat more than his worth in butter alone. The house'll break or
be eat up, it makes no difference which, and nary cent of money has
he paid yit. Settle hisself, indeed! He'll never settle his nasty self
except whar thar's money, or everlastin butter, and he not to pay for
it neither. And I'll move them plates to-morrow mornin. If I don't
you may —”
“Oh, Ma! he DON'T love her, I know he don't. Let them stay a
while longer.”
And the next morning the little plates would come in, take their
places and look as cheerful as if nothing had happened.
Mr. Slack did a cash business. Time rolled on; the faster it rolled
the cheaper he sold. His stock dwindled, and everybody asked why
it was not being replenished. It began to be rumored that he was
going to buy a plantation and settle himself. The rumor was traced
to Uncle Ben Pea. Miss Georgiana was asked about it and became
confused.
“She jest as well a give it up,” said Mr. Bill Williams, at Mr.
Spouter's table. Mr. Bill was gradually edging up towards “quality
eend,” as he termed the head. “In fac, she did give it up farly. I
axed her a plain question; she couldn't say nothin, and she didn't.
She merrily hung her head upon her bres, and she seemed monsous
comfortubble. She ar evidently scogitatin on the blessed joys of a
futur state.”
The next morning the little plates were absent, and Mr. Slack,
without seeming to notice that Mr. Bill Williams had usurped his
place, took his seat by Mr. Spouter and talked with him in the manner
of a man who had been on a journey of some weeks and had now
returned. That gentleman did not seem to be at all congratulatory on
the occasion, but immediately after breakfast brought within view of
his guest an account for three months' board. The latter looked over
it carefully, remarked that he thought it was correct, begged that it
might be considered as cash, and walked away. This was an eventful
day to Mr. Slack, for besides the aforementioned incident, he sold out
the remainder of his stock to Messrs. Bland & Jones, went without his
dinner, borrowed a gig from the Justice of the Peace, took him along
with him to Mr. Pea's, where, at three o'clock P. M. he was married to
Miss Georgiana.
“Wretched creature!” exclaimed Angelina, the forsaken, when her
mother informed her of the news at night. At first she thought she
would faint; but she did not. She retired to her room, undressed,
looked at her curls in the glass even longer than was her wont, put
them away tenderly, got into bed, apostrophised property and the other
sordid things of this world, and went to sleep with this thought upon
her mind: “Georgiana Pea may be by his side; but the image of
Angeline Spouter is in his breast, and it will stay there forever.”
| CHAPTER IV. Dukesborough tales | |