“WHY will not you come with us to London, Alice?” said I. “Mr. Crofton wishes it almost as much as I do. Such a change would do you good, and I do not need to tell you how pleasant it would be to me. Mrs. Harley and the young people at home can spare you. Kate, you know, is quite old enough to help your mother. Why are you so obstinate? You have not been in town in the season since the year after Clara’s marriage.”
“I went up to see the pictures last year,” said Alice demurely.
“Oh pray, Alice, don’t be so dreadfully proper!” cried Clara; “that’s what she’s coming to, Mrs. Crofton. The second week in May—to see all the exhibitions and hear an Oratorio in Exeter Hall—and make ‘mems.’ in her diary when she has got through them, like those frightful people who have their lives written! Oh dear, dear! to think our Alice should have stiffened into such a shocking old maid!”
“Well, Clara, dear, I am very glad you find your own lot so pleasant that you would like to see everybody the same as yourself,” said Alice, sententiously, and with no small amount of mild superiority; “for my part I think the rôle of old maid is quite satisfactory, especially when one has so many nephews and nieces—and why should I go to London, Mrs. Crofton? It is all very well for Clara—Clara is in circumstances, of course, that make it convenient and natural—but as for me, who have nothing at all to do with your grand life, why should I go and vex myself with my own? Perhaps I might not have strength of mind to return comfortably to the cottage, and look after the butcher’s bills, and see that there were no cobwebs in the corners—and though I am of very little importance elsewhere,” said Alice, coloring a little, and with some unnecessary fervor, “I am of consequence at home.”
“But then, you see,” said I, “Mrs. Harley has four daughters—and I have not one.”
“Ah! by-and-by,” said Alice, with a smile and a sigh, “Mrs. Harley will only have one daughter. Kate and little Mary will marry just as Clara has done. I shall be left alone with mamma and Johnnie; that is why I don’t want to do anything which shall disgust me with my quiet life—at least that is one reason,” added Alice, with a slight blush. “No, no—what would become of the world if we were all exactly alike—what a hum-drum, dull prospect it would be if everybody were just as happy, and as gay, and as much in the sun as everybody else. You don’t think, Clara, how much the gray tints of our household that is to be—mamma old, Johnnie, poor fellow, so often in trouble, and myself a stout housekeeper, will add to the picturesqueness of the landscape—much more than if our house were as gay as your own.”
“Why, Alice, you are quite a painter!” cried I, in a little surprise.
“No, indeed—I wish I were,” said Alice. “I wonder why it is that some people can do things, and some people, with all the will in the world, can only admire them when they’re done, and think—surely it’s my own fault—surely if I had tried I could have done as well! I suppose it’s one of the common troubles of women. I am sure I have looked at a picture, or read a book many a time, with the feeling that all that was in my heart if I could only have got it out. You smile, Mrs. Crofton—perhaps it’s very absurd—I daresay a woman ought to be very thankful when she can understand books, and has enough to live on without needing to work,” added this feminine misanthrope with a certain pang of natural spite and malice in her voice.
Spite and malice! I venture to use such ugly words, because it was my dear Alice, the purest, tenderest, and most lovable of women, who spoke.
“There are a great many people in this world who think it a great happiness to have enough to live on,” said I, besides women. “I don’t know if Maurice has your ambition, Alice—but, at least he’s a man, and has no special disadvantages; yet, begging your pardons, young ladies, I think Alice is good for something more than he is, as the world stands.”
“Ah, but then Maurice, you know, Mrs. Crofton—Maurice has doubts,” said Clara, with a slight pique at my boldness. “Poor Maurice! he says he must follow out his inquiries wherever they lead him, and however sad the issue may be. It is very dreadful—he may not be able to believe in anything before he is done—but then, he must not trifle with his conscience. And with such very serious things to trouble him, it is too bad he should be misunderstood.”
“Don’t, Clara! hush!” whispered Alice, looking a little ashamed of this argument.
“But why should I hush? Hugh says just the same as Mrs. Crofton—it’s very provoking—but these active people do not take into consideration the troubles of a thoughtful mind, Maurice says.”
“That is very likely,” said I, with a little complacency—“but remember this is all a digression—Alice, will you come to London or will you not?”
Alice got up and made me a very pretty curtsey. “No, please, Mrs. Crofton, I will not,” said that very unmanageable young lady. She looked so provokingly pretty, piquant, and attractive at the moment that I longed to punish her. And Bertie was coming home! and her mind was irretrievably prejudiced against him; it was almost too much for human patience—but to be sure, when a woman is seven-and-twenty, she has some sort of right to know her own mind.
At that moment little Clary Sedgwick, all in a flutter of pink ribbons, came rustling into the room, her very brief little skirt inflated with crinoline, and rustling half as much as her mamma’s—a miniature fine lady, with perfect little gloves, a miraculous little hat, and ineffable embroideries all over her; but with a child’s face so sweet, and a little princess’s air so enchanting, that one could no more find fault with her splendor than one could find fault with the still more exquisite decorations of a bird or a flower. Clary came to tell her mamma that the carriage was at the door, and little Mrs. Sedgwick swept off immediately, followed by Alice, to get ready for her drive. They were going to call upon somebody near. Clary remained with me till they came back, and Derwie was not long of finding out his playfellow. Derwie (my boy was a vulgar-minded boy, with a strong preference for things over thoughts, as I have before said) stood speechless, lost in admiration of Clary’s grandeur. Then he cast a certain glance of half-comical comparison upon his own coat, worn into unspeakable shabbiness by three weeks of holidays, and upon his brown little hands, garnished with cuts and scratches, and I am grieved to say not even so clean as they might have been. When he had a little recovered his first amazement, Derwie turned her round and round with the tips of his fingers. Clary was by no means unwilling; she exhibited her Easter splendor with all the grace of a little belle.
“Mamma, isn’t she grand?” said Derwie—“isn’t she pretty? I never saw her look so pretty before.”
“Oh, Derwie, for shame!” said Clary, holding down her head with a pretty little affectation of confusion wonderful to behold.
“For shame?—Why?—For you know you are pretty,” said my straightforward son, “whether you are dressed grand or not. Mamma, did you ever see her like this before?—I never did. I should just like to have a great big glass case and put you in, Clary, so that you might always look just as you look now.”
“Oh, Derwie!” cried Clary, again, but this time with unaffected horror, “I’d starve if you put me in there!”
“No, because I’d bring you something every day,” said Derwie—“all my own pudding, and every cake I got, and the poor women in the village would be so pleased to come and look at you, Clary. Tell me what’s the name of this thing; I’ll tell Susan Stubbs, the dressmaker, all about you. They like to see ladies in grand dresses, all the cottage people; so do I; but I like to see you best of all. Here, Clary, Clary! don’t go away! Look at her pink little gloves, mamma!—and I say, Clary, haven’t you got a parasol?”
“You silly boy! what do you suppose I want with a parasol when I’m going to drive with mamma?” cried Clary, with that indescribable little toss of her head.
At that interesting moment the mamma, of whom this delightful little beauty was a reproduction, made her appearance, buttoning pink gloves like Clary’s, and rustling in her rosy, shining, silken draperies, like a perfect rose, all dewy and fragrant, not even quite full-blown yet, in spite of the bud by her side. Alice came after her, a little demure, in her brown silk gown, very affectionate, and just a little patronizing to the pretty mother and daughter—on the whole rather superior to these lovely fooleries of theirs, on her eminence of unmarried woman. My pretty Alice! Her gravity, notwithstanding she was quite as much a child as either of them, was wonderfully amusing, though she did not know it. They went down-stairs with their pleasant feminine rustle, charming the echoes with their pleasant voices. My boy Derwie, entirely captivated by Mrs. Sedgwick’s sudden appearance on the scene—an enlarged edition of Clary—followed them to the door, vainly attempting to lay up some memoranda in his boyish mind for the benefit of Susan Stubbs. Pleased with them all, I turned to the window to see them drive away, when, lo! there suddenly emerged out of the curtains the dark and agitated face of Johnnie Harley. Had we said anything in our late conversation to wound the sensitive mind of the cripple? He had been there all the time.