People of the Whirlpool by Mabel Osgood Wright
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Mabel Osgood Wright >> People of the Whirlpool
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* * * * *
The sidewalks being clear, we dined at the Laurent, giving Miss Lavinia
a resurrection of French cooking, manners, women, ogling, ventilation,
wine, and music. Then we took her, on the way home, to see some horrible
wax figures, listen to a good Hungarian band, and nearly put her eyes
out with a cinematograph show of the Coronation and Indian Durbar.
Finishing up by brewing French chocolate in the pantry and stirring it
with stick bread, and our guest, in her own house, went to bed fairly
giggling in Gallic gayety, declaring that she felt as if she had spent
the evening on the Paris boulevards, that she liked our New York, and
felt ten years younger.
VI
ENTER A MAN
If I weather my fourth day in town I am apt to grow a trifle waspish,
even though I may not be goaded to the stinging point. This is especially
the case if, as on this recent visit, I am obliged to do any shopping for
myself. Personally, I prefer the rapid transit shopping of ordering by
mail, it avoids so many complications. Having made up your mind what you
need, or perhaps, to speak more truthfully, what you want, for one can
hardly be quite content with mere necessities until one grows either so
old or shapeless that everything is equally unbecoming, samples are
forthcoming, from which an intelligent selection can be made without the
demoralizing effect of glib salespeople upon one's judgment.
I know my own shortcomings by heart, and I should never have
deliberately walked into temptation yesterday morning if Lavinia Dorman
had not said that she wished my advice. Last year I went with the
intention of buying substantial blue serge for an outing gown, and was
led astray by some gayly flowered muslins. I have a weakness for gay
colours, especially red. These when made up Evan pronounced "extremely
pretty--in the abstract"--which is his way of saying that a thing is
either unsuitable or very unbecoming. When I went to father, hoping for
consolation, he was even less charitable, remarking that he thought now
long lines were more suitable and graceful for me than bunches and
bowknots. True, the boys admired the most thickly flowered gown
immensely for a few minutes, Richard bringing me a posy to match for my
hair, while Ian walked about me in silence which he broke suddenly with
the trenchant remark--"Barbara, I think your dwess would be prettier if
it was weeded some!"
All of which is of course perfectly true. I have not been growing
thinner all these six years, but this morning, in stooping over one of
the cold frames to see how the plants within had weathered the storm, it
came quite as a shock to me to feel that, like Martin Cortright, I am
getting stout and in the way of myself when I bend, like an impediment
in a door hinge.
However, as Miss Lavinia desired guidance in buying some real country
clothes, I felt it my duty to give it. She is already making elaborate
preparations for her visit to me. It seems strange, that simplicity is
apparently one of the most laborious things in the world to those
unaccustomed to it, yet so it is.
She is about to make her initial venture in shirtwaists, and she
approaches them with as much caution as if she were experimenting with
tights and trunks. The poor little seamstress who is officiating has, to
my certain knowledge, tried one waist on five times, because, as Miss
Lavinia does not "feel it," she thinks it cannot fit properly.
Never mind, she will get over all that, of course. The plan that she has
formed of spending five or six months in the real country must appear
somewhat in the light of a revolution to her, and the preparation of a
special uniform and munitions for the campaign a necessary precaution.
Her present plan is to come to me for May, then, if the life suits her,
she will either take a small house that one of our farmer neighbours
often rents for the summer months, or else, together with her maid, Lucy,
board at one of the hill farms.
I have told her plainly (for what is friendship worth if one may not be
frank) that if after trial we agree with each other, I hope she will
stay with us all the season; but as for her maid, I myself will supply
her place, if need be, and Effie do her mending, for I could not have
Lucy come.
Perhaps it may be very narrow and provincial, but to harbour other
people's servants seems to me like inviting contagion and subjecting
one's kitchen to all the evils of boarding house atmosphere.
I used to think last summer, when I saw the arrival of various men and
maids belonging to guests of the Bluff Colony, that I should feel much
more at ease in the presence of royalty, and that I could probably
entertain Queen Alexandra at dinner with less shock to her nerves and
traditions than one of these ladies' maids or gentlemen's gentlemen.
Martha Corkle expresses her opinion freely upon this subject, and I must
confess to being a willing listener, for she does not gossip, she
portrays, and often with a masterly touch. The woes of her countrywoman,
the Ponsonby's housekeeper, often stir her to the quick. The Ponsonby
household is perhaps one of the most "difficult" on the Bluffs, because
its members are of widely divergent ages. The three Ponsonby girls range
from six to twenty-two, with a college freshman son second from the
beginning, while Josephine, sister of the head of the family, though
quite Miss Lavinia's age, is the gayest of the gay, and almost outdoes
her good-naturedly giddy sister-in-law.
"It's just hawful, Mrs. Evan," Martha said one day, when, judging by the
contents of the station 'bus and baggage wagon, almost the entire
Ponsonby house staff must have left at a swoop; "my eyes fairly bleeds
for poor Mrs. Maggs" (the housekeeper), "that they do. 'Twas bad enough
in the old country, where we knew our places, even though some was
ambitioned to get out of them; but here it's like blind man's buff, and
enough to turn a body giddy. Mrs. Maggs hasn't a sittin' room of her own
where she and the butler and the nurse can have their tea in peace or
entertain guests, but she sets two tables in the servants' hall, and a
pretty time she has of it.
"The kitchen maid and the laundress's assistant wait on the first table;
but one day when, the maid of one of Miss Ponsonby's friends comin' down
over late, she was served _with_ instead o' _by_ them, she gave Mrs.
Maggs the 'orriblest settin' down, as not knowin' her business in puttin'
a lady's lady with servants' servants, the same which Mrs. Maggs does
know perfectly (accidents bein' unpreventable), bein' child of Lord
Peacock's steward and his head nurse, and swallowin' it all in with her
mother's milk, so to speak, not borrowin' it second hand as some of the
great folks on the Bluffs themselves do from their servants, not feelin'
sure of the kerrect thing, yet desirin' so to do. Mrs. Maggs, poor body,
she has more mess with that servants' hall first table than with all the
big dinners the master gives.
"'Mrs. Corkle,' says she, bein' used to that name, besides Corkle bein'
kin to her husband, 'what I sets before my own household, as it were,
they leaves or they eats, it's one to me; but company's got to be handled
different, be it upstairs or down, for the name of the 'ouse, but when
Mr. Jollie, the French valet that comes here frequent with the master's
partner, wants dripped coffee and the fat scraped clean from his chop
shank, else the flavour's spoiled for him, and Bruce the mistress'
brother's man wants boiled coffee, and thick fat left on his breakfast
ham, what stands between my poor 'ead and a h'assleyum? that's what I
wants to know. Three cooks I've had this very season, it really bein' the
duty of the first kitchen maid to cook for the servants' hall; but if a
cook is suited to a kitchen maid, as is most important, she'll stand by
her. No, Martha Corkle, wages is 'igh, no doubt,--fortunes to what they
were when we were gells,--but not 'igh for the worry; and bein' in
service ain't what it were.'"
Then I knew that Martha, even as her bosom heaves over her friend's
grievances, was also sighing with content at thought of Timothy Saunders
and her own lot; and I recalled the Lady of the Bluffs' passing remark,
and felt that I am only beginning to realize the deliciousness of
"comfortable poverty."
* * * * *
Miss Lavinia and I spent some time browsing among the shops, finally
bringing up at an old conservative dry goods concern in Broadway, the
most satisfactory place to shop in New York, because there is never a
crowd, and the salesmen, many of them grown gray in the service, take an
Old World interest in their wares and in you.
While I was trying to convince Miss Lavinia as to the need of the
serviceable, she was equally determined to decoy me toward the frivolous;
and I yielded, I may say fell, to the extent of buying a white crepey
sort of pattern gown that had an open work white lilac pattern
embroidered on it. It certainly was very lovely, and it is nice to have a
really good gown in reserve, even if a plainer one that will stand
hugging, sticky fingers, and dogs' damp noses is more truly enjoyable.
N.B.--I must get over apologizing to myself when I buy respectable
clothes. It savours too much of Aunt Lot's old habit of saying, every
time she bought a best gown, and I remonstrated with her for the colour
(it was always black in those days; since she's married the Reverend
Jabez she's taken to greens), "When I consider that a black dress would
be suitable to be buried in, it seems less like a vain luxury."
We were admiring the dainty muslins, but only in the "abstract," when I
looked up, conscious that some one was coming directly toward us, and saw
Sylvia Latham crossing the shop from the door, her rapid, swinging gait
bringing her to us before short-sighted Miss Lavinia had a chance to
raise her lorgnette.
Sylvia was genuinely glad to see us, and she expressed it both by look
and speech, without the slightest symptom of gush, yet with the confiding
manner of one who craves companionship. I had, in fact, noticed the same
thing during our call the afternoon before.
"Well, and what are we buying to-day?" asked Miss Lavinia, clearing her
voice by a little caressing sound halfway between a purr and a cluck, and
patting the hand that lingered affectionately on hers.
"I really--don't--know," answered Sylvia, smiling at her own hesitation.
"Mamma says that if I do not get my clothes together before people begin
to come back from the South, I shall be nowhere, so she took me with
her to Mme. Couteaux's this morning. Mamma goes there because she says
it saves so much trouble. Madame keeps a list of every article her
customers have, and supplies everything, even down to under linen and
hosiery, so she has made for mamma a plan of exactly what she would need
for next season, and after having received her permission, will at once
begin to carry it out. Of course the clothes will be very beautiful and
harmonious, and mamma has so much on her hands, now that father is
away,--the new cottage at Oaklands is being furnished, and me to
initiate in the way I'm supposed to go,--that it certainly simplifies
matters for her.
"Me? Ah, I do not like the system at all, or Madame Couteaux either, and
the feeling is mutual, I assure you. Without waiting to be asked, even,
she looked me over from head to foot and said that my lines are very bad,
that I curve in and out at the wrong places, that I must begin at once by
wearing higher heels to throw me forward!
"At first I was indignant, and then the ludicrous climbed uppermost, and
I laughed, whereat Madame looked positively shocked, and even mamma
seemed aghast and murmured something apologetic about my having been at
boarding-school in the country, and at college, where I had ridden
horseback without proper instruction, which had injured my figure. Only
imagine, Aunt Lavinia, those glorious gallops among the Rockcliffe Hills
hurting one's body in any way! But then, I suppose body and figure are
wholly different things; at any rate, Madame Couteaux gave a shrug, as if
shedding all responsibility for my future from her fat shoulders, and so,
while mamma is there, I am taking a run out in the cold world of raw
material and observing for myself.
"Of course I shall make mistakes, but I have had everything done for me
to such an extent, during the last four months, that I really must make a
point of picking and choosing for once. I've had a mad desire since the
last storm to stir up the pools in the gutters with my best shoes, as the
happy little children do with their rubber boots. How I shall enjoy it
when we go to Oaklands, and there is really something to _do_ instead of
merely being amused.
"By the way, Mrs. Evan, won't you and Miss Lavinia join us at luncheon?
We are to have it somewhere downtown, to-day,--the Waldorf, I
believe,--as mamma expects to spend most of the afternoon at the
decorators, to see the designs for the Oaklands hangings and furniture,
and," glancing at the big clock, between the lifts, as Miss Lavinia made
her last purchase, "it's high time for me to go and pick her up."
Having a feeling that possibly mamma might not be so cordial, in addition
to being due at home for more shirtwaist fittings, Miss Lavinia declined,
and reminding Sylvia that dinner would be at the old-fashioned hour of
half-past six, we drifted out the door together, Sylvia going toward
Fifth Avenue, while we turned the corner and sauntered down Broadway,
pausing at every attractive window.
Miss Lavinia's short-sightedness caused her to bump into a man, who was
intently gazing, from the height of six feet, at jewelled bugs, displayed
in the window of a dealer in Oriental wares.
The man, thinking himself to blame, raised his hat in apology, glancing
casually down as he did so, whereupon the hat remained off, and he and
Miss Lavinia grasped hands with sudden enthusiasm, followed by a medley
of questions and answers, so that before she remembered me, and turned to
introduce the stranger, I knew that it was Horace Bradford himself. A
strange, but positive, fact about New York is that one may at one time be
in it but a few hours and run across half the people of one's
acquaintance, gathered from all parts of the country, and at another,
wander about for weeks without seeing a familiar face.
I liked Bradford from the moment I shook hands with him. There is so much
in the mere touching of hands. His neither crushed as if to compel, nor
flopped equivocally, but said, as it enclosed yours in its bigness, "I am
here, command me."
Broadway, during shopping hours, is not an ideal place for the
interchange of either ideas, or more, even, than the merest
courtesies; but after thanking Miss Lavinia for the dinner invitation,
to which he had just sent the answer, and inquiring for Sylvia Latham,
as he walked beside us for a block or two, it was very evident that he
had something on his mind that he wished to say, and did not know how
to compass the matter.
As he talked to Miss Lavinia in jerky monosyllables,--the only speech
that the noise made possible,--I had a chance to look at him. He did not
possess a single feature of classic proportions, and yet he was a
handsome man, owing to the illumination of his face. Brown, introspective
eyes, with a merry way of shutting; heavy, dark hair and brows, and a few
thoughtful lines here and there; mustache pulled down at the corners, as
if by the unconscious weight of a nervously strong hand; and a firm jaw,
but not squared to the point that suggests the dominance of the
physical. He wore a dark gray Inverness coat, evidently one of the fruits
of his English tour, and a well-proportioned soft felt hat, set on
firmly, the crown creased in the precise way necessary to justify the
city use of the article by a man of thirty. He seemed to be in excellent,
almost boyish spirits, and so natural and wholesome withal, that I am
sure I should not feel at all embarrassed at finding myself alone with
him on a desert island. This is one of my pet similes of approval.
Finally he blurted out: "Miss Lavinia, I do so wish your advice upon a
strictly woman's matter; one, however, that is of great importance to me.
I shall have to take the night express back, and this is the only time I
have left. Would you--could we go in somewhere, do you think, and have
something while I explain?"
Miss Lavinia looked dubious as to whether his invitation might mean
drinks, man fashion, or luncheon. But as at that moment we reached the
chief New York residence of well-born ice cream soda, for which I always
hanker, in spite of snow and slush, much to Evan's disgust, I relieved
the situation by plunging in, saying that I was even more thirsty in
winter than in summer. Whereat Miss Lavinia shivered, but cheerfully
resigned herself to hot chocolate. "The matter in point is," continued
Bradford, feeling boyishly of one of the blocks of ice that decorated the
counter to find if it was real, and speaking directly to Miss Lavinia,
"I've had a great happiness come into my life this last week; something
that I did not expect to happen for years. My chief has retired, and I
have been promoted. I will not take your time to go selfishly into
details now. I can tell you to-night, if you care to hear. I cannot go
home until the Easter holidays, and so I want to send something to my
mother by way of celebration. Would you select it for me?" and the big
fellow swept the shop with an indefinite sort of gaze, as if buying candy
for the universe would but feebly express his feelings.
"Certainly I will," replied Miss Lavinia, warming at once;--"but what
kind of something?"
"I think,"--hesitating a trifle,--"a very good gown, and an ornament of
some kind."
"Would she not prefer choosing the gown herself? People's tastes differ
so much about clothing," ventured Miss Lavinia, willing, even anxious, to
help the man, yet shrinking from the possibility of feminine criticism.
"No, I think not; that is, it doesn't work well. Beforetimes I've often
written her to buy some little finery to wear for my sake, but my gift
has generally been turned into flannels for poor children or to restock
the chickenyard of some unfortunate neighbour whose fowls have all died
of gapes. While if I send her the articles themselves, she will prize and
wear them, even if the gown was a horse blanket and the ornament a
Plymouth Rock rooster to wear on her head. You know how mothers are about
buying things for themselves, don't you, Mrs. Evan?" he said, turning to
me, that I need not consider myself excluded from the conversation.
"I have no mother, but I have two little sons," I answered.
"Ah, then you will know as soon as they grow old enough to wish to buy
things for you," and somehow the soda water flew up my nose, and I had to
grope for my handkerchief.
Miss Lavinia evidently did not like to ask Mrs. Bradford's age, so she
evaded it by asking, "Does your mother wear colours or black, Mr.
Bradford?"
"She has worn black ever since my father died; for the last ten years, in
fact. I wish I could persuade her to adopt something that looks more
cheerful, for she is the very essence of cheerfulness herself. Do you
think this would be a good time to give a sort of hint by choosing a
coloured gown,--a handsome blue silk, for instance?" "I know precisely
how you feel," said Miss Lavinia, laying her hand upon his sleeve
sympathetically, "men never like mourning; but still I advise you not to
try the experiment or force the change. A brocaded black silk gown, with
a pretty lace fichu to soften it about the shoulders, and a simple pin to
hold it together at the neck,--how would that suit you?" As she spoke she
waved her dainty hands about so expressively in a way of her own that I
could seem to see the folds of the material drape themselves.
"That is it! You have exactly the idea that I could not formulate. How
clever women are!" he exclaimed, and for a minute I really thought he was
going to hug Miss Lavinia.
"One other favour. Will you buy these things for me? I always feel so out
of place and cowardly in the women's shops where such things are sold.
Will $100 be enough, think you?" he added a trifle anxiously, I thought,
as he drew a small envelope from a compartment of his letter book, where
it had evidently been stowed away for this special purpose.
"Yes, I can manage nicely with it," replied Miss Lavinia, cheerfully;
"and now you must leave us at once, so that we can do this shopping, and
not be too late for luncheon. Remember, dinner to-night at 6:30." "One
thing more," he said, as we turned to leave, "I shall not now have time
to present my respects to Miss Latham's mother as I intended; do you
think that she will hold me very rude? I remember that Miss Sylvia once
said her mother was very particular in matters of etiquette,--about her
going out unchaperoned and all that,--and should not wish her to feel
slighted." Miss Lavinia assured him very dryly that he need not worry
upon that score, that no notice would be taken of the omission. Not
saying, however, that in all probability he was entirely unconsidered,
ranked as a tutor and little better than a governess by the elder woman,
even if Sylvia had spoken of him as her instructor.
So, after holding open the heavy doors for us, he strode off down town,
the bright smile still lingering about his eyes, while we retraced our
steps to the shop we had visited early that morning, and then down
again to a jeweller's. The result was a dress pattern of soft black
silk, brocaded with a small leafy design, a graceful lace-edged, muslin
fichu, and an onyx bar pin upon which three butterflies were outlined
by tiny pearls.
"Isn't he a dear fellow?" asked Miss Lavinia, apparently of a big gray
truck horse that blocked the way as we waited at the last crossing before
reaching home. And I replied, "He certainly is," with rash but
unshakable feminine conviction.
VII
SYLVIA LATHAM
Sylvia came that afternoon well before dark, a trim footman following
from the brougham with her suitcase and an enormous box of forced early
spring flowers, hyacinths, narcissi, tulips, English primroses,
lilies-of-the-valley, white lilacs, and some yellow wands of Forsythia,
"with Mrs. Latham's compliments to Miss Dorman."
"What luxury!" exclaimed Miss Lavinia, turning out the flowers upon the
table in the tea room where she kept her window garden, "and how pale and
spindling my poor posies look in comparison. Are these from the Bluffs?"
"Oh no, from Newport," replied Sylvia. "There is to be no glass at the
Bluffs, only an outdoor garden, mamma says, that will not be too much
trouble to keep up. Mrs. Jenks-Smith was dining at the house last night,
and told me what a lovely garden you have, Mrs. Evan, and I thought
perhaps, if we do not go to California to meet father, but go to Oaklands
early in April, you might be good enough to come up and talk my garden
over with me. The landscape architect has, I believe, made a plan for the
beds and walks about the house, but I am to have an acre or two of
ground on the opposite side of the highway quite to myself.
"Oh, please don't squeeze those tulips into the tight high vases, Aunt
Lavinia," she said, going behind that lady and giving her a hug with one
arm, while she rescued the tulips with the other hand; for Miss Lavinia,
feeling hurried and embarrassed by the quantity of flowers, was jumbling
them at random into very unsuitable receptacles.
"May I arrange the dinner table," Sylvia begged, "like a Dutch garden,
with a path all around, beds in the corners, and those dear little silver
jugs and the candlesticks for a bower in the middle?
"A month ago," she continued, as she surveyed the table at a glance and
began to work with charming enthusiasm, "mamma was giving a very
particular dinner. She had told the gardener to send on all the flowers
that could possibly be cut, so that there were four great hampers full;
but owing to some mistake Darley, the florist, who always comes to
decorate the rooms, did not appear. We telephoned, and the men flew
about, but he could not be found, and mamma was fairly pale with anxiety,
as Mrs. Center, who gives the swell dinner dances, was to dine with her
for the first time, and it was important to make an impression, so that
_I_ might be invited to one or possibly more of these affairs, and so
receive a sort of social hall mark, without which, it seems, no young New
York woman is complete. I didn't know the whole of the reason then, to be
sure, or very possibly I should not have worked so hard. Still, poor
mamma is so in earnest about all these little intricacies, and thinks
them so important to my happiness and fate, or something else she has in
view, that I am trying not to undeceive her until the winter is over."
Sylvia spoke with careless gayety, which was to my mind somehow belied by
the expression of her eyes.
"I asked Perkins to get out the Dutch silver, toys and all, that mamma
has been collecting ever since I can remember, and bring down a long
narrow mirror in a plain silver frame that backs my mantel shelf. Then I
begged mother to go for her beauty sleep and let me wrestle with the
flowers, also to be sure to wear her new Van Dyck gown to dinner.
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