The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 143

"That's not always an advantage," retorted Uncle Jerry, seating himself, and depositing his hat beside his chair. "When do you expect your husband, Mrs. Henderson?"

"Tomorrow. But I don't mean to tell him that you are here--not at first."

"No," said Carmen; "we women want Mr. Henderson a little while to ourselves."

Why, I'm the idlest man in America. I tell Henderson that he ought to take more time for rest. It's no good to drive things. I like quiet."

"And you get it in Newport?" Margaret asked.

"Well, my wife and children get what they call quiet. I guess a month of it would use me up. She says if I had a place here I'd like it. Perhaps so. You are very comfortably fixed, Miss Esch.e.l.le."

"It does very well for us, but something more would be expected of Mr.

Hollowell. We are just camping-out here. What Newport needs is a real palace, just to show those foreigners who come here and patronize us. Why is it, Mr. Hollowell, that all you millionaires can't think of anything better to do with your money than to put up a big hotel or a great elevator or a business block?"

"I suppose," said Uncle Jerry, blandly, "that is because they are interested in the prosperity of the country, and have simple democratic tastes for themselves. I'm afraid you are not democratic, Miss Esch.e.l.le."

"Oh, I'm anxious about the public also. I'm on your side, Mr. Hollowell; but you don't go far enough. You just throw in a college now and then to keep us quiet, but you owe it to the country to show the English that a democrat can have as fine a house as anybody."

"I call that real patriotism. When I get rich, Miss Esch.e.l.le, I'll bear it in mind."

"Oh, you never will be rich," said Carmen, sweetly, bound to pursue her whim. "You might come to me for a start to begin the house. I was very lucky last spring in A. and B. bonds."

"How was that? Are you interested in A. and B.?" asked Uncle Jerry, turning around with a lively interest in this gentle little woman.

"Oh, no; we sold out. We sold when we heard what an interest there was in the road. Mamma said it would never do for two capitalists to have their eggs in the same basket."

"What do you mean, Carmen?" asked Margaret, startled. "Why, that is the road Mr. Henderson is in."

"Yes, I know, dear. There were too many in it."

"Isn't it safe?" said Margaret, turning to Hollowell.

"A great deal more solid than it was," he replied. "It is part of a through line. I suppose Miss Esch.e.l.le found a better investment."

"One nearer home," she admitted, in the most matter-of-fact way.

"Henderson must have given the girl points," thought Hollowell. He began to feel at home with her. If he had said the truth, it would have been that she was more his kind than Mrs. Henderson, but that he respected the latter more.

"I think we might go in partners.h.i.+p, Miss Esch.e.l.le, to mutual advantage --but not in building. Your ideas are too large for me there."

"I should be a very unreliable partner, Mr. Hollowell; but I could enlarge your ideas, if I had time."

Hollowell laughed, and said he hadn't a doubt of that. Margaret inquired for Mrs. Hollowell and the children, and she and Carmen appointed an hour for calling at the Ocean House. The talk went to other topics, and after a half-hour ended in mutual good-feeling.

"What a delightful old party!" said Carmen, after he had gone. "I've a mind to adopt him."

In a week Hollowell and Carmen were the best of friends. She called him "Uncle Jerry," and buzzed about him, to his great delight. "The beauty of it is," he said, "you never can tell where she will light."

Everybody knows what Newport is in August, and we need not dwell on it.

To Margaret, with its languidly moving pleasures, its well-bred scenery, the luxury that lulled the senses into oblivion of the vulgar struggle and anxiety which ordinarily attend life, it was little less than paradise. To float along with Carmen, going deeper and deeper into the s.h.i.+fting gayety which made the days fly without thought and with no care for tomorrow, began to seem an admirable way of pa.s.sing life. What could one do fitter, after all, for a world hopelessly full of suffering and poverty and discontent, than to set an example of cheerfulness and enjoyment, and to contribute, as occasion offered, to the less fortunate?

Would it help matters to be personally anxious and miserable? To put a large bill in the plate on Sunday, to open her purse wide for the objects of charity and relief daily presented, was indeed a privilege and a pleasure, and a satisfaction to the conscience which occasionally tripped her in her rapid pace.

"I don't believe you have a bit of conscience," said Margaret to Carmen one Sunday, as they walked home from morning service, when Margaret had responded "extravagantly," as Carmen said, to an appeal for the mission among the city pagans.

"I never said I had, dear. It must be the most troublesome thing you can carry around with you. Of course I am interested in the heathen, but charity--that is where I agree with Uncle Jerry--begins at home, and I don't happen to know a greater heathen than I am."

"If you were as bad as you make yourself out, I wouldn't walk with you another step."

"Well, you ask mother. She was in such a rage one day when I told Mr.

Lyon that he'd better look after Ireland than go pottering round among the neglected children. Not that I care anything about the Irish," added this candid person.

"I suppose you wanted to make it pleasant for Mr. Lyon?"

"No; for mother. She can't get over the idea that she is still bringing me up. And Mr. Lyon! Goodness! there was no living with him after his visit to Brandon. Do you know, Margaret, that I think you are just a little bit sly?"

"I don't know what you mean," said Margaret, looking offended.

"Dear, I don't blame you," said the impulsive creature, wheeling short round and coming close to Margaret. "I'd kiss you this minute if we were not in the public road."

When Henderson came, Margaret's world was full; no desire was ungratified. He experienced a little relief when she did not bother him about his business nor inquire into his operations with Hollowell, and he fancied that she was getting to accept the world as Carmen accepted it.

There had been moments since his marriage when he feared that Margaret's scruples would interfere with his career, but never a moment when he had doubted that her love for him would be superior to any solicitations from others. Carmen, who knew him like a book, would have said that the model wife for Henderson would be a woman devoted to him and to his interests, and not too scrupulous. A wife is a torment, if you can't feel at ease with her.

"If there were only a French fleet in the harbor, dear," said Margaret one day, "I should feel that I had quite taken up the life of my great-great-grandmother."

They were sailing in Hollowell's yacht, in which Uncle Jerry had brought his family round from New York. He hated the water, but Mrs. Hollowell and the children doted on the sea, he said.

"Wouldn't the torpedo station make up for it?" Henderson asked.

"Hardly. But it shows the change of a hundred years. Only, isn't it odd, this personal dropping back into an old situation? I wonder what she was like?"

"The accounts say she was the belle of Newport. I suppose Newport has a belle once in a hundred years. The time has come round. But I confess I don't miss the French fleet," replied Henderson, with a look of love that thrilled Margaret through and through.

"But you would have been an officer on the fleet, and I should have fallen in love with you. Ah, well, it is better as it is."

And it was better. The days went by without a cloud. Even after Henderson had gone, the prosperity of life filled her heart more and more.

"She might have been like me," Carmen said to herself, "if she had only started right; but it is so hard to get rid of a New England conscience."

When Margaret stayed in her room, one morning, to write a long-postponed letter to her aunt, she discovered that she had very little to write, at least that she wanted to write, to her aunt. She began, however, resolutely with a little account of her life. But it seemed another thing on paper, addressed to the loving eyes at Brandon. There were too much luxury and idleness and triviality in it, too much Carmen and Count Crispo and flirtation and dissipation in it.

She tore it up, and went to the window and looked out upon the sea. She was indignant with the Brandon people that they should care so little about this charming life. She was indignant at herself that she had torn up the letter. What had she done that anybody should criticise her? Why shouldn't she live her life, and not be hampered everlastingly by comparisons?

She sat down again, and took up her pen. Was she changing--was she changed? Why was it that she had felt a little relief when her last Brandon visit was at an end, a certain freedom in Lenox and a greater freedom in Newport? The old a.s.sociations became strong again in her mind, the life in the little neighborhood, the simplicity of it, the high ideals of it, the daily love and tenderness. Her aunt was no doubt wondering now that she did not write, and perhaps grieving that Margaret no more felt at home in Brandon. It was too much. She loved them, she loved them all dearly. She would write that, and speak only generally of her frivolous, happy summer. And she began, but somehow the letter seemed stiff and to lack the old confiding tone.

But why should they disapprove of her? She thought of her husband. If circ.u.mstances had altered, was she to blame? Could she always be thinking of what they would think at Brandon? It was an intolerable bondage. They had no right to set themselves up over her. Suppose her aunt didn't like Carmen. She was not responsible for Carmen. What would they have her do?

Be unhappy because Henderson was prosperous, and she could indulge her tastes and not have to drudge in school? Suppose she did look at some things differently from what she used to. She knew more of the world.

Must you shut yourself up because you found you couldn't trust everybody?

What was Mr. Morgan always. .h.i.tting at? Had he any better opinion of men and women than her husband had? Was he any more charitable than Uncle Jerry? She smiled as she thought of Uncle Jerry and his remark--"It's a very decent world if you don't huff it." No; she did like this life, and she was not going to pretend that she didn't. It would be dreadful to lose the love and esteem of her dear old friends, and she cried a little as this possibility came over her. And then she hardened her heart a little at the thought that she could not help it if they chose to misunderstand her and change.