Winter Evening Tales

“It is not either her money or her position that dashes me, Carrol; it is my own name.  Think of asking Eleanor Bethune to become Mrs. William Smith!  If it had been Alexander Smith—­”

“Or Hyacinth Smith.”

“Yes, Hyacinth Smith would have done; but plain William Smith!”

“Well, as far as I can see, you are not to blame.  Apologize to the lady for the blunder of your godfathers and godmothers.  Stupid old parties!  They ought to have thought of Hyacinth;” and Carrol threw his cigar into the fire and began to buckle on his spurs.

“Come with me, Carrol.”

“No, thank you.  It is against my principles to like anyone better than myself, and Alice Fontaine is a temptation to do so.”

“I don’t like Alice’s style at all.”

“Of course not.  Alice’s beauty, as compared with Mrs. Bethune’s settled income, is skin-deep.”

If sarcasm was intended, Smith did not perceive it.  He took the criticism at its face value, and answered, “Yes, Eleanor’s income is satisfactory; and besides that, she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments.  If I only could offer her, with myself, a suitable name for them!”

“Could you not, in taking Mrs. Bethune and her money, take her name also?”

“N-n-no.  A man does not like to lose all his individuality in his wife’s, Carrol.”

“Well, then, I have no other suggestion, and I am going to ride.”

So Carrol went to the park, and Smith went to his mirror.  The occupation gave him the courage he wanted.  He was undoubtedly a very handsome man, and he had, also, very fine manners; indeed, he would have been a very great man if the world had only been a drawing-room, for, polished and fastidious, he dreaded nothing so much as an indecorum, and had the air of being uncomfortable unless his hands were in kid gloves.

Smith had a standing invitation to Mrs. Bethune’s five-o’clock teas, and he was always considered an acquisition.  He was also very fond of going to them; for under no circumstances was Mrs. Bethune so charming.  To see her in this hour of perfect relaxation was to understand how great and beautiful is the art of idleness.  Her ease and grace, her charming aimlessness, her indescribable air of inaction, were all so many proofs of her having been born in the purple of wealth and fashion; no parvenu could ever hope to imitate them.

Alice Fontaine never tried.  She had been taken from a life of polite shifts and struggles by her cousin, Mrs. Bethune, two years before; and the circumstances that were to the one the mere accidents of her position were to the other a real holiday-making.

Alice met Mr. Smith with empressement, fluttered about the tea-tray like a butterfly, wasted her bonmots and the sugar recklessly, and was as full of pretty animation as her cousin Bethune was of elegant repose.

“I am glad you are come, Mr. Smith,” said Mrs. Bethune.  “Alice has been trying to spur me into a fight.  I don’t want to throw a lance in.  Now you can be my substitute.”

“Mr. Smith,” said Alice impetuously, “don’t you think that women ought to have the same rights as men?”

“Really, Miss Alice, I—­I don’t know.  When women have got what they call their ‘rights,’ do they expect to keep what they call their ‘privileges’ also?”

“Certainly they do.  When they have driven the men to emigrate, to scrub floors, and to jump into the East River, they will still expect the corner seat, the clean side of the road, the front place, and the pick of everything.”

“Ah, indeed!  And when all the public and private business of the country is in their hands, will they still expect to find time for five-o’clock teas?”

“Yes, sir.  They will conduct the affairs of this regenerated country, and not neglect either their music or their pets, their dress or their drawing-room.  They will be perfectly able to do the one, and not leave the other undone.”

“Glorious creatures!  Then they will accomplish what men have been trying to do ever since the world began.  They will get two days’ work out of one day.”

“Of course they will.”

“But how?”

“Oh, machines and management.  It will be done.”

“But your answer is illogical, Miss Alice.”

“Of course.  Men always take refuge in their logic; and yet, with all their boasted skill, they have never mastered the useful and elementary proposition, ‘It will be, because it will be.’”

Mr. Smith was very much annoyed at the tone Alice was giving to the conversation.  She was treating him as a joke, and he felt how impossible it was going to be to get Mrs. Bethune to treat him seriously.  Indeed, before he could restore the usual placid, tender tone of their tete-à-tete tea, two or three ladies joined the party, and the hour was up, and the opportunity lost.

However, he was not without consolation:  Eleanor’s hand had rested a moment very tenderly in his; he had seen her white cheek flush and her eyelids droop, and he felt almost sure that he was beloved.  And as he had determined that night to test his fortune, he was not inclined to let himself be disappointed.  Consequently he decided on writing to her, for he was rather proud of his letters; and, indeed, it must be confessed that he had an elegant and eloquent way of putting any case in which he was personally interested.

Eleanor Bethune thought so.  She received his proposal on her return from a very stupid party, and as soon as she saw his writing she began to consider how much more delightful the evening would have been if Mr. Smith had been present.  His glowing eulogies on her beauty, and his passionate descriptions of his own affection, his hopes and his despairs, chimed in with her mood exactly.  Already his fine person and manners had made a great impression on her; she had been very near loving him; nothing, indeed, had been needed but that touch of electricity conveyed in the knowledge that she was beloved.

Such proposals seldom or never take women unawares.  Eleanor had been expecting it, and had already decided on her answer.  So, after a short, happy reflection, she opened her desk and wrote Mr. Smith a few lines which she believed would make him supremely happy.

Then she went to Alice’s room and woke her out of her first sleep.  “Oh, you lazy girl; why did you not crimp your hair?  Get up again, Alice dear; I have a secret to tell you.  I am—­going—­to—­marry—­Mr.—­Smith.”

“I knew some catastrophe was impending, Eleanor; I have felt it all day.  Poor Eleanor!”

“Now, Alice, be reasonable.  What do you think of him—­honestly, you know?”

“The man has excellent qualities; for instance, a perfect taste in cravats and an irreproachable propriety.  Nobody ever saw him in any position out of the proper centre of gravity.  Now, there is Carrol, always sitting round on tables or easels, or if on a chair, on the back or arms, or any way but as other Christians sit.  Then Mr. Smith is handsome; very much so.”

“Oh, you do admit that?”

“Yes; but I don’t myself like men of the hairdresser style of beauty.”

“Alice, what makes you dislike him so much?”

“Indeed, I don’t, Eleanor.  I think he is very ‘nice,’ and very respectable.  Every one will say, ‘What a suitable match!’ and I dare say you will be very happy.  He will do everything you tell him to do, Eleanor; and—­oh dear me!—­how I should hate a husband of that kind!”

“You little hypocrite!—­with your talk of woman’s ‘rights’ and woman’s supremacy.’”

“No, Eleanor love, don’t call it hypocrisy, please; say many-sidedness—­it is a more womanly definition.  But if it is really to be so, then I wish you joy, cousin.  And what are you going to wear?”

This subject proved sufficiently attractive to keep Alice awake a couple of hours.  She even crimped her hair in honor of the bridal shopping; and before matters had been satisfactorily arranged she was so full of anticipated pleasures that she felt really grateful to the author of them, and permitted herself to speak with enthusiasm of the bridegroom.

“He’ll be a sight to see, Eleanor, on his marriage day.  There won’t be a handsomer man, nor a better dressed man, in America, and his clothes will all come from Paris, I dare say.”

“I think we will go to Paris first.”  Then Eleanor went into a graphic description of the glories and pleasures of Paris, as she had experienced them during her first bridal tour.  “It is the most fascinating city in the world, Alice.”

“I dare say, but it is a ridiculous shame having it in such an out-of-the-way place.  What is the use of having a Paris, when one has to sail three thousand miles to get at it?  Eleanor, I feel that I shall have to go.”

“So you shall, dear; I won’t go without you.”

“Oh, no, darling; not with Mr. Smith:  I really could not.  I shall have to try and manage matters with Mr. Carrol.  We shall quarrel all the way across, of course, but then—­”

“Why don’t you adopt his opinions, Alice?”

“I intend to—­for a little while; but it is impossible to go on with the same set of opinions forever.  Just think how dull conversation would become!”

“Well, dear, you may go to sleep now, for mind, I shall want you down to breakfast before eleven.  I have given ‘Somebody’ permission to call at five o’clock to-morrow—­or rather to-day—­and we shall have a tete-à-tete tea.”

Alice determined that it should be strictly tete-à-tete. She went to spend the afternoon with Carrol’s sisters, and stayed until she thought the lovers had had ample time to make their vows and arrange their wedding.

There was a little pout on her lips as she left Carrol outside the door, and slowly bent her steps to Eleanor’s private parlor.  She was trying to make up her mind to be civil to her cousin’s new husband-elect, and the temptation to be anything else was very strong.

“I shall be dreadfully in the way—­his way, I mean—­and he will want to send me out of the room, and I shall not go—­no, not if I fall asleep on a chair looking at him.”

With this decision, the most amiable she could reach, Alice entered the parlor.  Eleanor was alone, and there was a pale, angry look on her face Alice could not understand.

“Shut the door, dear.”

“Alone?”

“I have been so all evening.”

“Have you quarreled with Mr. Smith?”

“Mr. Smith did not call.”

“Not come!”

“Nor yet sent any apology.”

The two women sat looking into each other’s faces a few moments, both white and silent.

“What will you do, Eleanor?”

“Nothing.”

“But he may be sick, or he may not have got your letter.  Such queer mistakes do happen.”

“Parker took it to his hotel; the clerk said he was still in his room; it was sent to him in Parker’s sight and hearing.  There is not any doubt but that he received it.”

“Well, suppose he did not.  Still, if he really cares for you, he is hardly likely to take your supposed silence for an absolute refusal.  I have said ‘No’ to Carrol a dozen times, and he won’t stay ‘noed.’  Mr. Smith will be sure to ask for a personal interview.”

Eleanor answered drearily:  “I suppose he will pay me that respect;” but through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white feather of mistrust.  She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr. Smith.  If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when she had—­however innocently—­given him the keenest personal slight?

Still she wished to accept Alice’s cheerful view of the affair, and what is heartily wished is half accomplished.  Ere she fell asleep she had quite decided that her lover would call the following day, and her thoughts were busy with the pleasant amends she would make him for any anxiety he might have suffered.

But Mr. Smith did not call the following day, nor on many following ones, and a casual lady visitor destroyed Eleanor’s last hope that he would ever call again, for, after a little desultory gossip, she said, “You will miss Mr. Smith very much at your receptions, and brother Sam says he is to be away two years.”

“So long?” asked Eleanor, with perfect calmness.

“I believe so.  I thought the move very sudden, but Sam says he has been talking about the trip for six months.”

“Really!—­Alice, dear, won’t you bring that piece of Burslam pottery for Mrs. Hollis to look at?”

So the wonderful cup and saucer were brought, and they caused a diversion so complete that Mr. Smith and his eccentric move were not named again during the visit.  Nor, indeed, much after it.  “What is the use of discussing a hopelessly disagreeable subject?” said Eleanor to Alice’s first offer of sympathy.  To tell the truth, the mere mention of the subject made her cross, for young women of the finest fortunes do not necessarily possess the finest tempers.

Carrol’s next visit was looked for with a good deal of interest.  Naturally it was thought that he would know all about his friend’s singular conduct.  But he professed to be as much puzzled as Alice.  “He supposed it was something about Mrs. Bethune; he had always told Smith not to take a pretty, rich woman like her into his calculations.  For his part, if he had been desirous of marrying an heiress, and felt that he had a gift that way, he should have looked out a rich German girl; they had less nonsense about them,” etc.

That was how the affair ended as far as Eleanor was concerned.  Of course she suffered, but she was not of that generation of women who parade their suffering.  Beautiful and self-respecting, she was, above all, endowed with physical self-control.  Even Alice was spared the hysterical sobbings and faintings and other signs of pathological distress common to weak women.

Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor Bethune’s heartache for love never led her to the smallest social impropriety.  Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise and cummin due to her position.

Eleanor’s reticence, however, had this good effect—­it compelled Alice to talk Smith’s singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all, it was Alice’s and not Eleanor’s bridal shopping that was to do.  And there is something very assuaging to grief in this occupation.  Before it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny temper.

“Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!” said Alice, thankfully, to herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.

At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol’s influence was paramount.  “We have got a better idea, Eleanor—­quite a novel one,” she said, one morning.  “We are going to make our bridal trip in Carrol’s yacht!”

“Whose idea is that?”

“Carrol’s and mine too, of course.  Carrol says it is the jolliest life.  You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you.  You issue your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy conscience”

“But I thought you were bent on a European trip?”

“The yacht will be ever so much nicer.  Think of the nuisance of ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome letters waiting for you at your banker’s, and disagreeable paragraphs in the newspapers.  I think Carrol’s idea is splendid.”

So the marriage took place at the end of the season, and Alice and Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown.  Eleanor was at a loss what to do with herself.  She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them together.  It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was out of the question.

While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid—­a beautiful girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid.  “I am going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune,” she said.  “Papa has heard wonderful stories about it.  Come with our party.  We shall have a special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty.”

“And I love the mountains, Celeste.  I will join you with pleasure.  I was dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be delightful.”

Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver.  It was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver.  Suddenly the look of intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and annoyance.  It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never thought of shirking it.

So she immediately inquired her way to the telegraph office, and even quickened her steps into as fast a walk as she ever permitted herself.  The message she had to send was a peculiar and not a pleasant one.  At first she thought it would hardly be possible for her to frame it in such words as she would care to dictate to strangers; but she firmly settled on the following form: 

“Messrs. Locke & Lord: 

“Tell brother Edward that Bloom is in Denver.  No delay.  The matter is of the greatest importance.”

When she had dictated the message, the clerk said, “Two dollars, madam.”  But greatly to Eleanor’s annoyance her purse was not in her pocket, and she could not remember whether she had put it there or not.  The man stood looking at her in an expectant way; she felt that any delay about the message might be fatal to its worth; perplexity and uncertainty ruled her absolutely.  She was about to explain her dilemma, and return to her hotel for money, when a gentleman, who had heard and watched the whole proceeding, said: 

“Madam, I perceive that time is of great importance to you, and that you have lost your purse; allow me to pay for the message.  You can return the money if you wish.  My name is William Smith.  I am staying at the ‘American.’”

“Thank you, sir.  The message is of the gravest importance to my brother.  I gratefully accept your offer.”

Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor’s party; so that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands.  It was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which, even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger’s offer of money for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted.  She had seen in the door of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother’s, and his speedy arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.

This Mr. William Smith was a totally different man to Eleanor’s last lover—­a bright, energetic, alert business man, decidedly handsome and gentlemanly.  Though his name was greatly against him in Eleanor’s prejudices, she found herself quite unable to resist the cheery, pleasant influence he carried with him.  And it was evident from the very first day of their acquaintance that Mr. William Smith had but one thought—­the winning of Eleanor Bethune.

When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result.  For she was quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that she had never been with the other.  The first had been a sentimental ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate affection.  She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.

But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to find its native air.  It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to her that no change could make her happier.

But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking.  Eleanor and he were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he whispered this opinion to her.

“It is only four months since we met, dear.”

“Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four months before that.  Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you.  On the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to look after the Silver Cliff Mine.  My carriage was ordered, and I was waiting at my hotel for it.  A servant brought me a letter—­the dearest, sweetest little letter—­see, here it is!” and this William Smith absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first William Smith’s offer.

Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.

“What did you think, dear?”

“That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me.  It was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands.  I was not going to seek up any other W. Smith.”

“But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you did not know ‘Eleanor Bethune.’”

“Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it was intended for me.  I can imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W. Smith.  Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible.  I was coming back to New York to look for you.”

“And, instead, she went to you in Colorado.”

“Only think of that!  Why, love, when that blessed telegraph clerk said, ‘Who sends this message?’ and you said, ‘Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,’ I wanted to fling my hat to the sky.  I did not lose my head as badly when they found that new lead in the Silver Cliff.”

“Won’t you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William?  It was written to the wrong Smith.”

“It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith.  Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what you like with the letter.”

Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.