Golden Stories Part 19

He had reached twenty-one years, when, one morning, a brilliant carriage stopped before the two cottages. A young gentleman, with a gold watch chain, got out, giving his hand to an aged, white-haired lady. The old lady said to him: "It is there, my child, at the second house." And he entered the house of the Vallins, as if he were at home.

The old mother was was.h.i.+ng her ap.r.o.ns; the infirm father slumbered at the chimney-corner. Both raised their heads, and the young man said:

"Good morning, papa; good morning, mamma!"

They both stood up, frightened. In a flutter, the peasant woman dropped her soap into the water, and stammered:

"Is it you, my child? Is it you, my child?"

He took her in his arms and hugged her, repeating: "Good morning, mamma," while the old man, all in a tremble, said, in his calm tone which he never lost: "Here you are, back again, Jean," as if he had seen him a month before.

When they had got to know one another again the parents wished to take their boy out through the neighborhood, and show him. They took him to the mayor, to the deputy, to the cure, and to the schoolmaster.

Charlot, standing on the threshold of his cottage, watched him pa.s.s.

In the evening, at supper, he said to the old people: "You must have been stupid to let the Vallins's boy be taken."

The mother answered, obstinately: "I wouldn't sell _my_ child."

The father said nothing. The son continued:

"It is unfortunate to be sacrificed like that." Then Father Tuvache, in an angry tone, said:

"Are you going to reproach us for having kept you?" And the young man said, brutally:

"Yes, I reproach you for having been such simpletons. Parents like you make the misfortune of their children. You deserve that I should leave you."

The old woman wept over her plate. She moaned, as she swallowed the spoonfuls of soup, half of which she spilled: "One may kill one's self to bring up children."

Then the boy said, roughly: "I'd rather not have been born than be what I am. When I saw the other my heart stood still. I said to myself: 'See what I should have been now!'" He arose: "See here, I feel that I would do better not to stay here, because I should bring it up against you from morning till night, and I should make your life miserable. I shall never forgive you that, you know!"

The two old people were silent, downcast, in tears.

He continued: "No, the thought of that would be too hard. I'd rather go look for a living somewhere else."

He opened the door. A sound of voices entered. The Vallins were celebrating the return of their child.

XI

PROVIDENCE AND MRS. URMY

The Story of an International Marriage

By ARMIGER BARCLAY and OLIVER SANDYS

LADY HARTLEY (_nee_ Miss Persis Van Ness) gave a little gasp. In her excitement the paper rustled noisily to her knee.

"O-h! Have you seen this?" She shot the _Morning Post_ across the breakfast table to Mrs. Rufus P. Urmy, with her finger marking a paragraph.

Mrs. Urmy glanced at it. "I guess it ought to corral him right away,"

she said, with the merest suspicion of embarra.s.sment. "You see, it's Jeannette's last chance. Two seasons in England and never a catch, so I----"

"_You_ did it?" Lady Hartley looked at her friend in round-eyed wonder.

"I--I had to do something," allowed Mrs. Urmy, with a dawning suspicion that perhaps she had, after all, run afoul of British conventions, which she found as difficult of comprehension as her regular morning study of Debrett.

"But Jeannette!"

"That's so. Jeannette'll raise Cain." Mrs. Urmy got up from the table.

"It's this a-way, Persis. I reckon I fixed your little affair up with Lord Hartley to home, and you've got to thank me for it. Now, I'm trying to do the same for my girl. She can't, or she won't, play her own hand.

Every chance she's had she's let slide, and I allow she's got to marry a t.i.tle before I go back to the States. Some one's got to hustle when Providence isn't attending to business, and as there's n.o.body else to do it, I've taken on the contract." She pointed to the paragraph. "I own up I don't see just how, but there wasn't much time, and it was the best I could do."

Lady Hartley slowly reread the incriminating paragraph:

"A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place between the Earl of Chilminster, of Sapworth Hall, Wilts, and Miss Jeannette L.

Urmy, of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts."

"It knocks me out!" she murmured, lapsing into the Western idiom which a whole week spent in the society of her bosom friend was bound to call up. "But why Lord Chilminster?" She p.r.o.nounced the name Chilster.

"Why won't he do? Isn't he the real thing? I picked him out in my sample book of the aristocracy, and when I fitted the name on to Jeannette--the Countess of Chilminster--it sounded quite elegant."

"Then it wasn't because you knew I knew him?" demanded Mrs. Urmy's hostess with growing amazement.

Mrs. Urmy's face took on a blank expression.

"You've heard me mention the name. That's how it's p.r.o.nounced,"

explained Lady Hartley. "His place isn't far from here."

"You don't say! The way these British t.i.tles are p.r.o.nounced is enough to make you doubt your own eyesight. I didn't know. But if he's a friend of yours that'll likely make it all the easier."

"Lord Chilminster!" Lady Hartley spoke in an awed tone.

She felt it would be useless to make Mrs. Urmy understand the enormity of her offence against good taste, and presently her astonishment gave way to amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Lavinia," she rippled, "as a matchmaker you take the cake! I don't believe----" She paused, listening. "Hus.h.!.+ Here's Jeannette!"

Miss Jeannette Urmy came in through the open French window. She was dressed in a natty little cotton frock, looked fresh and chic, and only pleasantly American. Perhaps she inherited her good looks and refined tastes from "popper" Urmy, deceased, in which case that gentleman must have committed one serious error of taste and judgment when he selected Jeannette's mother for his better half.

"My! You're late, Jeannette!" observed Mrs. Urmy, shooting a quick glance at Lady Hartley.

At the same moment, both ladies, by common consent, sauntered toward the door. They knew Jeannette's temperament. A crisis, such as the announcement in the _Morning Post_ was sure to evoke, was one at which they were not anxious to a.s.sist.

"Oh, I'm ahead of time," answered Jeannette. "I've been up since six looking for eggs."