Richard Vandermarck Part 18

Great alacrity was shown in getting ready and in getting off. I could not speak to any one, not even the dissatisfied man, but walked away by myself and tried to let no one see what I was feeling. After all was ready, I got into the carriage beside one of the Miss Lowders, and the dissatisfied man sat opposite. He wore canvas shoes and a corduroy suit, and sleeve-b.u.t.tons and studs that were all bugs and bees. I think I could make a drawing of the sleeve-b.u.t.ton on the arm with which he held the umbrella over us; there were five different forms of insect-life represented on it, but I remember them all.

"I'm afraid you haven't enjoyed yourself very much," said Miss Lowder, looking at me rather critically.

"I? why--no, perhaps not; I don't generally enjoy myself very much."

Somebody out on the front seat laughed very shrilly at this: of course it was Mary Leighton, who was sitting beside Kilian, who drove. I felt I would have liked to push her over among the horses, and drive on.

"Isn't her voice like a steel file?" I said with great simplicity to my companions. The dissatisfied man, writhing uncomfortably on his seat, four inches too narrow for any one but a child of six, a.s.sented gloomily. Miss Lowder, who was twenty-eight years old and very well bred, looked disapproving, and changed the subject. Not much more was said after this. Miss Lowder had a neuralgic headache, developed by the cold wind and an undigested dinner eaten irregularly. She was too polite to mention her sufferings, but leaned back in the carriage and was silent.

My vis-a-vis was at last relieved by the declining sun from his task, and so the umbrella-arm and its sleeve-b.u.t.ton were removed from my range of vision.

We counted the mile-posts, and we looked sometimes at our watches, and so the time wore away.

Kilian and Mary Leighton were chattering incessantly, and did not pay much attention to us. Kilian drove pretty fast almost all the way, but sometimes forgot himself when Mary was too seductive, and let the horses creep along like snails.

"There's our little tavern," cried Kilian at last, starting up the horses.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," murmured Mary Leighton, "we have had such a lovely drive."

My vis-a-vis groaned and looked at me as this observation reached us. I laughed a little hysterically: I was so glad to be at the half-way house--and Mary Leighton's words were so absurd. When we got out of the carriage, the dissatisfied man stretched his long English limbs out, and lighting his cigar, began silently to pace the bricks in front of the house.

Kilian took us into the little parlor (we were the first to arrive), and committed us to the care of a thin, tired-looking woman, and then went to see to the comfort of his horses.

The tired woman, who looked as if she never had sat down since she grew up, took us to some rooms, where we were to rest till tea was ready. The rooms had been shut up all day, and the sun had been beating on them: they smelled of paint and dust and ill-brushed carpets. The water in the pitchers was warm and not very clear: the towels were very small and thin, the beds were hard, and the pillows very small, like the towels: they felt soft and warm and limp, like sick kittens. We threw open the windows and aired the rooms, and washed our faces and hands: and Miss Lowder lay down on the bed and put her head on a pile of four of the little pillows collected from the different rooms. Mary Leighton spent the time in re-arranging her hair, and I walked up and down the hall, too impatient to rest myself in any way.

By-and-by the others came, and then there was a hubbub and a clatter, and poor Miss Lowder's head was overlooked in the melee; for these were all the rooms the house afforded for the entertainment of wayfarers, and as there were nine ladies in our party, it is not difficult to imagine the confusion that ensued.

Benny and Charley also came to have their hair arranged, and it devolved on Charlotte and me to do it, as their mamma had thrown herself exhausted on one of the beds, and with the bolsters doubled up under her head, was trying to get some rest.

It was fully half-past seven before the tea-bell rang. I seized Benny's hand, and we were the first on the ground. I don't know how I thought this would be useful in hurrying matters, for Benny's tea and mine were very soon taken, and were very insignificant fractions of the general business.

There were kerosene lamps on the table, and everything was served in the plainest manner, but the cooking was really good, and it was evident that the tired woman had been on her feet all her life to some purpose.

Almost every one was hungry, and the contrast to the cold meats, and the hard rocks, and the disjointed apparatus of the noonday meal, was very favorable.

Richard had put me between himself and Benny, and he watched my undiminished supper with disapprobation: but I do not believe he ate much more himself. He put everything that he thought I might like, before me, silently: and I think the tired woman (who was waitress as well as cook), must have groaned over the frequent changing of my plate.

"Do not take any more of that," he said, as I put out my hand for another cup of coffee.

"Well, what shall I take?" I exclaimed peevishly. But indeed I did not mean to be peevish, nor did I know quite what I said, I was so miserable. Richard sighed as he turned away and answered some question of Sophie; who was quite revived.

Charlotte and Henrietta each had an admirer, one of the Lowders, and a young Frenchman who had come with the Lowders.

It had evidently been a very happy day with all the young ladies from the house. After tea the gentlemen must smoke, and after the smoking there was to be dancing. The preparations for the dancing created a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt and consumed a great deal of time. Kilian and young Lowder went a mile and a half to get a man to play for them. When he came, he had to be instructed as to the style of music to be furnished, and the rasping and sc.r.a.ping of that miserable instrument put me beside myself with nervousness. Then the "ball-room" had to be aired and lighted; then the negro's music was found to be incompatible with modern movements; even a waltz was proved impossible, and n.o.body would consent to remember a quadrille but Richard. So they had to fall back upon Virginia reels, and everybody was made to dance.

The dissatisfied man was at my side when the order was given. He turned to me languidly, and offered me his hand.

"No," I exclaimed, biting my lips with impatience, and added, "You will excuse me, won't you?"

He said, with grave philosophy, "I really think it will seem shorter than if we were looking on."

I accepted this wise counsel, and went to dance with him. And what a dance it was! The blinking kerosene lamps at the sides of the room, the asparagus boughs overhead, the grinning negro on the little platform by the door: the amused faces looking in at the open windows: the romping, well-dressed, pretty women: the handsome men who were trying to act like clowns: the noise of laughing and the calling out of the figures: all this, I am sure, I never shall forget. And, strange to say, I somewhat enjoyed it after all. The coffee had stimulated me: the music was merry: I was reckless, and my companions were full of glee. Even the _ennuye_ skipped up and down the room like a school-boy: I never shall forget Richard's happy and relieved expression, when I laughed aloud at somebody's amusing blunder.

Then came the reaction, when the dancing was over, and we were getting ready to go home. It was a good deal after ten o'clock, and the night was cold. There were not quite shawls enough, no preparations having been made for staying out after dark. Richard went up to Sophie (I was standing out by the steps to be ready the moment the carriages should come), and I heard him negotiating with her for a shawl for me. She was quite impatient and peremptory, though _sotto voce_. The children needed both her extra ones, and there was an end of it.

I did not care at all, and feeling warm with dancing, did not dread what I had not yet felt. I pulled my light cloak around me, and only longed for the carriage to arrive. But after we had started and were about forty rods from the door, quite out of the light of the little tavern, just within a grove of locust-trees (the moon was under clouds), Richard's voice called out to Kilian to stop, and coming up to the side of the carriage, said, "Put this around you, Pauline, you haven't got enough." He put something around my shoulders which felt very warm and comfortable: I believe I said, Thank you, though I am not at all sure, and Kilian drove on rapidly.

By-and-by, when I began to feel a little chilly, I drew it together round my throat: the air was like November, and, August though it was, there was a white frost that night. I was frightened when I found what I had about my shoulders. It was Richard's coat. I called to Kilian to stop a moment, I wanted to speak to Richard. But when we stopped, the carriage in which he was to drive was just behind us--and some one in it said, Richard had walked. He had not come back after he ran out to speak to us--must have struck across the fields and gone ahead. And Richard walked home, five miles, that night! the only way to save himself from the deadly chill of the keen air, without his coat.

When we drove into the gate, at home, I stooped eagerly forward to get a sight of the house through the trees. There was a light burning in the room over mine: that was all I wanted to know, and with a sigh of relief I sank back.

When we went into the hall, I remembered to hang Richard's coat upon a rack there, and then ran to my room. I could not get any news of Mr.

Langenau, and could not hear how the day had gone with him: could only take the hope that the sight of the little lamp conveyed.

CHAPTER XV.

I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM.

Go on, go on: Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserved All tongues to talk their bitterest.

_Winter's Tale_.

Of course, the night was entirely sleepless after such, a day. I was over-tired, and the coffee would have been fatal to rest in any case. I tossed about restlessly till three o'clock, and then fell into a heavy sleep.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning into the room, and I heard the voices of people on the lawn when I awoke. When I went down, after a hurried and nervous half-hour of dressing, I found the morning, apparently, half gone, and the breakfast-table cleared.

Mary Leighton, with a croquet mallet in her hand, was following Kilian through the hall to get a drink of water. She made a great outcry at me and my appearance.

"What a headache you must have," she cried. "But ah! think what you've missed, dear! The tutor has been down at breakfast, or rather at the breakfast-table, for he didn't eat a thing. He is a, little paler than he was at dinner day before yesterday--and he's gone up-stairs; and we've voted that we hope he'll stay there, for he depresses us just to look at him."

And then, with an unmeaning laugh, she tripped on after Kilian to get that drink of water, which was nothing but a ticket for a moment's _tete-a-tete_ away from the croquet party. Richard had seen me by this time, and came in and asked how I felt, and rang the bell in the dining-room, and ordered my breakfast brought. He did not exactly stay and watch it, but he came in and out of the dining-room enough times to see that I had everything that was dainty and nice (and to see, alas!

that I could not eat it); for that piece of news from Mary Leighton had levelled me with the ground again.

That I had missed seeing him was too cruel, and that he looked so ill; how could I bear it?

After my breakfast was taken away, I went into the hall, and sat down on the sofa between the parlor doors. Pretty soon the people came in from the croquet ground, talking fiercely about a game in which Kilian and Mary had been cheating. Charlotte Benson was quite angry, and Charley, who had played with her, was enraged. I thought they were such, fools to care, and Richard looked as if he thought they were all silly children. The day was warm and close, such a contrast to the day before.

The sudden cold had broken down into a sultry August atmosphere. The sun, which had been bright an hour ago, was becoming obscured, and the sky was grayish. Every one felt languid. We were all sitting about the hall, idly, when a servant brought a note. It was an invitation; that roused them all--and for to-day. There was no time to lose.

The Lowders had sent to ask us all to a croquet party there at four o'clock.

"What an hour!" cried Sophie, who was tired; "I should think they might have let us get rested from the picnic."

But Charlotte and Henrietta were so much charmed at the prospect of seeing so soon the Frenchman and the young devoted Lowder, that they listened to no criticism on the hour or day.

"How nice!" they said, "we shall get there a little before five--play for a couple of hours--then have tea on the lawn, perhaps--a little dance, and home by moonlight." It was a ravis.h.i.+ng prospect for their unemployed imaginations, and they left no time in rendering their answer.

For myself, I had taken a firm resolve. I would never repeat the misery of yesterday; nothing should persuade me to go with them, but I would manage it so that I should be free from every one, even Richard.