A Flock of Girls and Boys Part 24

"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone on and declared that n.o.body could be more appreciative than herself, Laura had retorted,--

"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane Street didn't happen to please your taste."

These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when she followed Esther up the stairs,--for it was Esther who had answered her ring,--and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal fas.h.i.+on."

It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura, turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with the suns.h.i.+ne streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up a quant.i.ty of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils, and two or three fine etchings,--all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fas.h.i.+oned tea-service of china. The suns.h.i.+ne seemed actually to fill up the cups and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a 'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she _does_ live on McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,--a little New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know where to choose a home."

Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the windows, the group of sh.e.l.ls on the plant-stand, and several photographs of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,--bits of coral and ivory and mosses,--things grew plainer than ever, and she began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,--

[Ill.u.s.tration: A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting]

"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and b.u.t.ter that she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who--who was it she suggested?

All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where _had_ she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where _had_ she seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face, and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura answered eagerly,--

"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his library, and it is so like you, _so_ like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, _do_ you know the picture, Mrs. Bodn?"

"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."

"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"

"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,--I was the model."

"You were a--a--the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.

"Yes, I was a--a--the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own halting syllables, with an accent half of amus.e.m.e.nt, half of sarcasm.

Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in Munich."

"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.

"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"--a tall, good-looking boy of fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs.

Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying through Laura's mind,--

"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her daughter's and her nephew's names,--Esther, David,--these also Hebrew names!" What did it signify? Kitty--Kitty would say that it proved _she_ was right,--that they _were_ the very people she had said they were.

But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had cla.s.sed so scornfully! No matter if her mother _had_ been a model years ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be ashamed of it; and Esther,--Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her, no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her, as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple, when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it happened that her brother had pa.s.sed her as he drove by with one of his friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had pa.s.sed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.

What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly, that you seemed to like most of all,--

"'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth May bear the prize and a' that;'

"and yet now, now--"

"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,--"my dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,--it is because we don't know anything about them."

"I--I think it is because you _do_ know that--that they live on McVane Street," faltered Laura.

"Well, that _is_ to know nothing about them, in the sense that father means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that they are the kind of people that are out of our cla.s.s entirely,--people that we don't _want_ to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."

"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."

"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish face."

"He has _not_," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that of her nephew rose before her! If they--if they--her brother, her father, could see these faces,--these faces so fine and intelligent, and saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's library,--would they feel differently,--would they do justice to Esther and her relations, though they _were_ Jews,--would they admit that they were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no, she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind, and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one cla.s.s,--the lowest cla.s.s. What if all Americans were judged by the lowest cla.s.s? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there, Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and 'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius--"

"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush into any intimacy with such strangers."

There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart.

Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But, alas, for this scheme!

CHAPTER III.

Alas! because Kitty had already taken her stand on the other side. She had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then "made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura, airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn, in the half-frolic fas.h.i.+on that always had such effect upon the listeners. It had such effect on this occasion, that Laura found that every girl had pa.s.sed from indifference to an active prejudice against Esther. Kitty herself had not meant to produce this result. Indeed, Kitty had had no meaning whatever but that of amusing herself,--"making fun;" and when the girls, relis.h.i.+ng this "fun," laughed and applauded, she did not realize that she had done a mischievous thing. Poor Laura, however, realized everything as the days went by, and she saw Esther subjected to a certain critical observation. Her only hope was that the person most interested did not notice this; but one day she came upon Esther at recess, bending over a pile of exercises, at which she was apparently hard at work.

"What's the rush, Esther, that you've got to work at recess?" she asked.

Esther murmured an unintelligible reply, and bent her head still lower; and then it was that Laura, to her dismay, saw a tear drop to the exercises upon the desk.

"Esther, Esther, what is the matter? Tell me!"

"I--I don't know," faltered Esther, "but things seem different. I always knew that the girls didn't care very much for me, but they were not unkind. Now--they--seem unkind some way. Perhaps it's only my fancy, but--but they seem to look down on me as they didn't before, and--and sometimes they seem to avoid me, and--I'm just the same as ever, except--except I'm a good deal shabbier this spring. I've always been rather shabby, but this spring it's worse, because we've lost some money,--not much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn't have anything new; and--and there's another thing--one morning I overheard one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, 'McVane Street, that is enough!'

They must have been talking about me and where I live. n.o.body else here lives on McVane Street, and we--mother and I--wouldn't live there if we could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could pay. I know it's in a disagreeable part of the city; but it _isn't_ bad, it _isn't_ low, where we are, it's only run down and shabby. But I thought Boston people were above judging others by such things. I'd always heard that Boston girls--"

"Boston girls! oh, don't talk to me of Boston girls, don't talk to me of any girls anywhere," burst in Laura. "I'm sick--sick of girls. Girls will do things and say things--little, mean, petty things--that boys would be ashamed to do or say."

"Then you _do_ think it's because of my shabbiness and where I live that--that has made them--these girls so--so different; but why should they--all at once? I can't understand."

"Don't try to understand! Don't bother your head about them--they don't mean--they don't know--they are not worth your notice. You are a long, long way above them!"

"Mother didn't want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John Wybern, mother's brother, died three years ago,--he died in Munich; he was an artist, like my father, and we'd all lived together, since my father's death,--we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation. He didn't want David to be an artist. He said it was such an anxious, hand-to-mouth life, if one didn't make a quick success of it; and _he knew_, for _he_ hadn't made a success any more than my father had,--and--and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane Street, though my mother didn't want to come. But _I_ wanted to come from the first. I'd heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so n.o.ble and high-minded, and--" There was a pathetic little faltering break again at this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with, "and then I knew my father's people had once--" But at this point, "Esther," called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, "bring the exercises into my room, and we'll finish them together."

Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle, calling out, "Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art Club?"

"To hear Monsieur Baudouin? Yes."

"Well, we'll go together, then."

"Very well."

"Very well," mimicking Laura's cool tones; then with a change of voice, "Laura, what _is_ the matter? You are enough to freeze anybody. What have I done?"

"You've done a very cruel thing."

"Laura!"

"Yes, I sha'n't take back my words,--you have done a very cruel thing."