An Ambitious Woman Part 11

The distressed frown on Sophia's face instantly vanished. "Oh, Claire,"

she cried, "I'm so glad it _isn't_ true! Don't be angry. You see, my dear, we hadn't met for so long, and you looked as if--as if something horrible had happened, and it's such a funny, topsy-turvy world. So many queer things do happen in it. _Don't_ be angry, please!"

"I am angry," said Claire. In her shabby dress she gave, notwithstanding, a n.o.ble portrayal of disdain. She had taken several steps toward the door, though Sophia, having caught her arm, endeavored, with a mien contrite and even supplicating, to detain her within the chamber. "Why should I not be angry?" Claire went on, her voice dry and bitter. "Allow that I do look as if I were miserable. Is misery another name for sin?... No, Sophia, let me go, please.... Perhaps you may learn, some day, as I've learned already, that the unhappy people in life are not always the bad ones!"

But Sophia, whose impulsive and explosive nature had not altered very markedly since we last heard of her childish escapades, now replied by a most excited outburst of appeal. Her exuberant figure, which no dexterity of dressmaking and no splendor of combined satins and velvets could turn less unwieldy and c.u.mbrous, bowed and swayed till you almost heard the seams of its rich garb crack their st.i.tches under the fleshly disturbance to which she subjected them.

"Claire! Claire!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "I _have_ insulted you.... But you'll forgive me--I know you will. I've never forgotten you. You stood up against that horrid Ada Gerrard and her set so finely, years ago! You were good then--yes, just as good as gold,--and I'm sure you're just exactly as good still. Now, Claire, don't look that way! I was talking to Ma about you only a few days since. Pa's dead, you know--but I suppose you don't. Yes, I said to Ma that I'd give anything to find out what had become of you. Ma and I are dreadfully rich--I mean well off.

Poor Pa left ever so much money. He's been dead nearly three years.

There's n.o.body but Ma and I left. I hate Hoboken. I made her buy this house. Now, Claire, just stop! You shan't go. You're going to tell me all about your troubles. Yes, you shall! I'll be your friend. There, let me kiss you.... Do, Claire!... You know I was always awfully fond of you. I never knew any girl I was half so fond of as you. I've asked your pardon. You were always a lady. I remember about that dreadful dress you came to school in, first. But that didn't matter. You were a lady born, and you showed it afterward. Every girl thought so, too. Even those hateful sn.o.bs had to own it--I'm sure they did. I see some of them quite often. Ada Gerrard's a great swell, as they say, now. She gives me a little nod when I meet her, driving in the Park or on the Avenue. But you're twice the lady she is. Yes, Claire, I mean it. Kiss me, now, won't you? Kiss me, and be friends!"

Claire had succ.u.mbed several minutes before this eager tirade was ended.

Her anger had fled. She let Sophia put both arms about her. She returned Sophia's kiss. Then she leaned her head upon the shoulder of her companion, and gave way to another access of tears. But they were quiet tears, this time. The hysteric impulse had wholly pa.s.sed. A little later she told Sophia, with as much placid directness as she could manage, every important detail of the hard, dreary life lived since they two had last met.

While she thus spoke, the extraordinary charm of her manner and the distinct loveliness of her delicate yet notable beauty more than once thrilled her listener. Sophia's old worship, if the term be not too strong, returned in full force. She had sworn by Claire, as the phrase goes, in earlier days. She was prepared to swear by her still. The story of Mr. Twining's death and the disloyal deportment of his wife roused her vehement contempt. By the time that Claire had finished her gloomy recital, the two girls were seated close together. Sophia's large fat hand, in its fashionable glove, was fervidly clasping Claire's.

"You did perfectly right!" Sophia at length exclaimed, after the pause had come, and while her visitor sat with drooped head and pale, compressed lips. "Your poor father! To bury him that way! It was frightful! And you told her you'd do anything on earth for her if she only wouldn't! And I know how you loved your father. Don't you recollect telling me about him, one recess, when I gave you half my sardine-sandwich? You said he was a gentleman by birth, and had come of a fine family in England. That's where you get your swell looks from, Claire. Yes, you _are_ a swell, even though you've got on a frock that didn't cost, altogether, as much as one yard of mine.... Why, just look at me! I'm awkward and clumsy, exactly as I was at Mrs. Arcularius's.

I'll never be any different. And yet I spend loads and loads of money on my things. I do, really! But gracious goodness! there _you_ sit, with your sweet, pure face, shaped like a heart, and your hair that's got the same bright sparkle through its brown that it used to have, and those long eyelashes over those black-blue kind of eyes, and that cunning little dimple in your chin, and those long, slender, ladylike hands"--

Here Claire stopped her, with a sad smile and a shake of the head. She spread open one hand, holding it up for scrutiny at the same moment.

"Don't talk of my hands, Sophia," she said. "They've been doing hard work since you saw them last."

Sophia gazed down at the inner portion of her friend's hand, for a moment, and then suddenly exclaimed,--

"Work! Why, they're not hard a bit. Oh, Claire, you've worn gloves all the time you worked. Come, own up, now!"

Claire smiled in a furtive way. But she spoke with simple frankness the next instant. "Well, yes, Sophia," she said, "I _have_ worn gloves as often as I could. I wanted to save my hands. Some of the girls at Mrs.

Arcularius's used to call them pretty. I wanted them to stay pretty--if I could manage it. I don't mind telling you so. But I thought they must have lost every trace of nice looks by this time."

Sophia bent over the hand that she still held, and whose palm was turned upward to the light, so that all its inner details, from wrist to finger-tips, could not possibly escape notice.

"Why, there's a pink flush all round the edge, inside there," commented Sophia. "It's funny, Claire. I never saw it in any other girl's hand before. It's just like the rose-color at the edge of a sh.e.l.l. Upon my word it is! I don't care a straw what work you've been doing; you've got hands like--well, I was going to say like a queen. But I don't doubt a good many queens have awful hands, so I'll say like a lady.... There, kiss me again.... Here's Ma. Don't mind Ma. She'll be nice. She always _is_ nice when I want her to be. Isn't that so, Ma?"

A lady had just entered the small, brilliantly-appointed room in which Claire and Sophia had thus far held their rather noteworthy converse.

The lady was Mrs. Bergemann.

She was exceedingly stout; both in visage and form she looked like a matured and intensified Sophia. As far as features went, she wonderfully resembled her daughter. Every undue trait of plumpness in Sophia's countenance was reproduced by Mrs. Bergemann with a sort of facial compound interest. Flesh seemed to have besieged her, like a comic malady. Her good-natured eyes sparkled between two creases of it; her loose, full chin revealed more than one fold of it. She was by no means attired like a widow of recent bereavement. She wore a bonnet in which there was no violence of coloring; it was purple and brown, but at the same time so severely _a la mode_ that if any symbol lurked behind its decorative fantasies this must have signified the soothing influences of resignation and consolation.

She had heard her daughter's last words. She was devoted to Sophia; it was an allegiance wed with pride. She had been a poor German girl, years ago, and had drifted, through the chance of matrimony, into her present opulent place. She was by nature meek and conciliatory; all Sophia's temper and temerity had come from her father, who had combined large superficial good-humor with a notorious intolerance of the least fancied wrong. Sophia's last words had embarra.s.sed her. She had no idea who Claire was, but the evident cordiality of her daughter's deportment produced the effect of a gentle mandate.

"I shan't go driving, Ma!" Sophia exclaimed, after she had made Claire and her mother acquainted. "I'll stay at home and talk of old times with Claire Twining. Poor Claire's in trouble, Ma. I won't tell you about it yet. You go off in the carriage--that is, if it ever comes; but I'm afraid we'll have to discharge Thomas; he's always behind time."

"The carriage is here, Sophia," said Mrs. Bergemann. She spoke without the slightest German accent; this had perished long ago. She was looking at Claire with the manner of one who has been deeply attracted. "I've often heard you mention Miss Twining," she went on. "You was talking of her only the other day, wasn't you, Sophia?"

"Yes," said Sophia, rising. She went to her mother, and spoke a few low words, which Claire quite failed to hear. The prompt result of this intercourse was Mrs. Bergemann's exit from the room. Sophia followed her to the door, with one hand laid upon her shoulder.

"All right, Ma," she said, pausing a moment on the threshold. "You go and take your drive. I'll stay and chat with Claire."

A little while afterward Sophia had reseated herself at Claire's side.

"Ma likes you," she at once began, in her voluble, oddly frank way. "She told me she did. She's very funny about liking and disliking people. She takes fancies--or she doesn't. Ma isn't a swell. She's what they call vulgar. But she's ever so nice. She never had much education, but she has a large, warm heart. I wouldn't have her one bit different from what she is. I wouldn't give Ma for Queen Victoria. She and I are the dearest friends in the world. I know you'll like her, Claire. She likes you, as I said. And Claire, look here, now; I want to say something. It may surprise you. I hope, though, that it will please you, too. You're going to stay here in this house. You're going to live here as my friend. Yes, you are. You were always as smart as a steel trap. We'll read together, every morning. Yes, we will. You know what a perfect fool I used to be at Mrs. Arcularius's. Well, I'm the same fool still. But _you_ know a lot; you always did. And you shall help me to be less of an ignoramus than I am. We've got a library upstairs. Oh, there are a crowd of books. I got Mr. Thurston to buy them for me. He's a gentleman friend of ours, and he knows a tremendous amount. He just filled all the book-shelves for us. I'm sure he bought the right kind of books, too; he knows pretty much everything in that line. Now, Claire, if you'll do as I say, we'll get along splendidly together. And as for ... well, as for salary, you know, I'll"--

Here Claire rose, placing a hand on Sophia's arm. "No," she said, "I couldn't accept such a place as that. I'm not able to fill it. I have been living a life of hard work for three or four years past. I've scarcely looked into a book, Sophia, in all that time. I came here to ask you if you would get me work. I can sew very well; I was always clever with my needle. If you will give me something of that sort to do, I will gladly and thankfully remain. But otherwise, I can't."

IX.

Sophia consented to this plan, but only as a strategical manoeuvre. She had determined that Claire should fill precisely the position just proffered her, and no other. By seeming to yield she at length won her cause. She was quite in earnest about her wish for mental improvement.

Nor was Claire, in spite of latter years pa.s.sed under the gloom of toil, half as much at sea among the many smart-bound volumes of the library as she herself had expected. She had been, in her day, a diligent student; she found that she remembered this or that famous writer, as she examined book after book. Now and then a celebrated name recurred to her with sharp appeal of recollection; again she had a vivid sense of forgetfulness, and of ignorance as well. But she was of the kind who read swiftly and retain with force. It was not long before she had discovered certain volumes which guided and at the same time instructed her in just that literary direction needful for the task required by her would-be pupil. A great deal of her old intellectual method and industry soon came back to her. She turned the pages of the many good books stored on the shelves near by with a hand more composed and deliberate; she began to see just what Sophia wanted her to do, and realize her full capability of doing it.

Meanwhile a week or more had pa.s.sed. She was now clad in appropriate mourning. She was one of the family. Sophia, devoted and affectionate, was constantly at her side.

Now and then Claire said, with a nervous laugh, "I'm afraid I have never learned enough to be of the least use to you, Sophia, in the way you've proposed."

But Sophia would smile, and answer, "Oh, I'm not afraid, Claire dear.

You'll get it all back again, pretty soon."

She rapidly got it all back again, and a great deal more besides. The morning readings began. Sophia soon expressed herself as in raptures; but it was the teacher that charmed her far more than the teaching.

Claire's life was now one of easy luxury. She walked or drove with Sophia every afternoon; she ate delicate food; she slept in a s.p.a.cious bed-chamber that possessed every detail of comfort; all things moved along on oiled wheels; the machinery of her life had lost all its clogging rust. Greenpoint began to fade from her thoughts; it grew a dim, detested memory. Scarcely a day pa.s.sed, however, without she definitely recalled some incident connected with her father. Now that this softness and daintiness surrounded her, the refinement which no adverse years could alienate from his personality became for her a more distinct conception. She realized how complete a gentleman he had been.

At the same time, under these altered conditions, her own taste for the superfine niceties of cultivation increased with much speed. She was like a plant that has been borne back to its native soil and clime from some land where it has. .h.i.therto lived but as a dwarfed and partial growth; the foliage was expanding, the fibre was strengthening, the flowers were taking a warmer tint and a richer scent.

She soon perceived that the Bergemanns moved in a set of almost uniformly vulgar people. Many of them seemed very wealthy. Nearly all of them dressed handsomely and drove about in their private carriages. Not a few of them lived in fine adjacent houses on "the Avenue," as it is called. Sophia had a number of intimate friends, maidens of her own age, who constantly visited her. She had admirers, too, of the other s.e.x, who would sometimes call for her of an evening, and take her to a party, unattended by any chaperone. She went, during the winter months, to numerous parties. She belonged to an organization which she always spoke of as "our sociable," and which met at the various homes of its female members. One evening a "sociable" was given at the Bergemann mansion.

The music and dancing were kept up till two o'clock in the morning, and the house was effectively adorned with flowers. Claire, because of her mourning, abstained from this and all similar gayety. But as a matter of course she met many of Sophia's and Mrs. Bergemann's friends. Only one of all the throng had power pleasurably to interest her.

This exceptional person was Mr. Beverley Thurston, whom we have already heard Sophia mention as having selected the volumes of her mother's library. He was a man about forty years old, who had never married. His figure was tall and shapely; his face, usually grave, was capable of much geniality. He had traveled, read, thought, and observed. He stood somewhat high in the legal profession, and came, on the maternal side, of a somewhat noted family. He managed the large estate of Mrs.

Bergemann and her daughter, and solely on this account was a frequent guest at their house. He had one widowed sister, of very exclusive views, who possessed large means, and who placed great value upon her position as a fashionable leader. For several years this lady (still called by courtesy Mrs. Winthrop Van Horn) had haughtily refused her brother's urgent request that she should leave a card upon Mrs.

Bergemann, though several thousand a year resulted from his connection with the deceased brewer's property. But Mr. Thurston, while he succ.u.mbed to the arrogant obstinacy of his sister, had employed great tact in blinding his profitable patrons to the awkward truth of her disdain. He had been bored for three years past by his politic intimacy with Sophia and her mother, and he had always felt a lurking dread lest they should make a sudden appeal for his aid in the way of social advancement. But here he had committed a marked error. Mrs. Bergemann and Sophia understood nothing whatever about social advancement. They were both magnificently contented with their present places in society.

The inner patrician mysteries were quite unknown to them. Their ignorance, in this respect, was a serene bliss. They believed themselves valuably important. They saw no new heights to gain.

Mr. Thurston had long secretly smiled at their self-confidence. He was a clever observer; he had seen the world; the Bergemanns were sometimes a delicious joke to him, when he felt in an appreciative mood. At other times the bouncing, coltish manners of Sophia, and the educational deficiencies of her mother, grated harshly upon his nerves. But when Claire entered the household he at once experienced a new sensation. He watched her in quiet wonder. No points of her beauty escaped his trained eye. What he had learned of her past career made her seem to him remarkable, even phenomenal. By degrees an intimacy was established between them. At first it concerned literary subjects; Claire consulted him about the books appropriate for her readings with Sophia. But they soon talked of other things, and occasionally these chats took the form of very private _tete-a-tetes_. Claire was perfectly loyal to her new friends, but she could not crush a spirit of inquiry, of investigation and of valuation, so far as concerned the people with whom they a.s.sociated.

The gentlemen distressed her more than the ladies. The latter were often so full of grace and prettiness that their loud talk, shrill laughter, and faulty grammar could not wholly rid them of charm. But the gentlemen had no grace, and slight good looks as an offset to their haphazard manners. Some of them appeared to be quite uneducated; others would blend ignorance with conceit; still others were ungallant and ungracious, and not seldom pompously boastful of their wealth.

Mr. Thurston was at first cautious in his answers to Claire's rather searching questions. But by degrees he threw aside restraint; he grew to understand just why he was thus interrogated.

He had a slow yet significant mode of talk that was nearly sure of entertaining any listener. Shallow people had called him a cynic, but not a few clever ones had strongly denied this charge. Claire began to look upon him as one who was forever opening doors for her, and showing her glimpses of discovery that either surprised or impressed the gazer.

On the evening of Sophia's "sociable" Claire remained in a large chamber that was approached from the second hall of the house, and appointed with that admirable taste which clearly indicated that the Bergemanns had once confided devoutly in their upholsterer, just as they now did in their milliner. She was quite alone; she held a book open in her lap, but was not reading it; her black dress became her charmingly; it seemed to win a richer shade from the chestnut-and-gold of her tresses, and to increase the delightful fragility of her oval, soft-tinted face. The music below stairs kept her thoughts away from her book; it pealed up to her with a dulcet, provocative melody; it made her feel that she would love to go down and join the merry-makers. But this was only a kind of abstract emotion; there was n.o.body in the bright-lit, flower-decked drawing-rooms whom she would have cared to meet, with the possible exception of Mr. Thurston, although what she then considered his advanced age made him seem more suitable as a companion of less jubilant hours.

But it chanced that a knock presently sounded at the half-closed door, and that Mr. Thurston soon afterward presented himself. He sat down beside her. His evening dress had a felicity of cut and fit that gave his naturally stately figure an added distinction, even to the inexperienced eye of Claire. She thought how the white tie at his throat became him--how different he was, in spite of the gray at his temples and the crow's-feet under his hazel eyes, from the younger men clad in similar vesture, whom she had seen pa.s.s through the upper hall a little earlier in the evening.

By this time Mr. Thurston's acquaintance with Claire had grown to be a facile and agreeable intimacy. He had learned from Sophia that she was here alone, and he had sought her with the freedom of one wont to make himself wholly at home in the mansions of his clients. At the same time, as it happened, he came with a vastly fatigued feeling toward the guests below.

"I didn't want to leave," he began, with his nice, social smile, "until I had seen you for a few moments."

"Ah," said Claire, pleased at his coming, and with a little sweet-toned laugh, "I'm afraid you came up here only because it was too early to go just yet."