Boston Neighbours In Town and Out Part 19

Miss Caldwell had been receiving her guests in the drawing-room; but there were not many, and being a lady accustomed to do as she pleased, she had followed them down to the dining-room, which was just comfortably full. Conversation was, as it were, forced to be general, and the whole room heard Mrs. Spofford remark that "Malcolm Johnson would be a very poor match for Caroline Foster."

"Caroline Foster and Malcolm Johnson, is that an engagement?" asked the stout, good-natured Mrs. Manson, who was tranquilly eating her way through the whole a.s.sortment of biscuits and bonbons on the table.

"Well, Caroline is a dear, sweet girl--just the kind to make a good wife for a widower."

"With five children to start with, and no means that I know of!" said Miss Caldwell, scornfully. "I am sure I hope not!"

"I have heard it on the best authority," said the first speaker.

"It will take better authority than that to make me believe it."

"If he proposes to her," said Mrs. Manson, "I should say she would take him. I never knew Caroline to say no to anyone."

"Well," said Miss Caldwell, "I suppose it's natural for a woman to be a fool in such matters--for most women," she corrected herself; "but if Caroline marries Malcolm Johnson I shall think her _too_ foolish--and she has never seemed to me to be lacking in sense."

"Perhaps," said the pourer out of tea, a pretty damsel with large dark eyes, a little faded to match the room--"perhaps she wants a sphere."

"As if her aunt could not find her fifty spheres if she wanted them!"

"Too many, perhaps," said a tall lady with a sensible, school-teaching air. "I have sometimes thought that Mrs. Neal, with managing all her own children's families and her charities, had not much time or thought to spare for poor little Caroline. She is kind to her, but I doubt if she gives her much attention."

"A woman likes something of her own," said Mrs. Manson.

"Her own!" said Miss Caldwell. "How much good of her own is she likely to have if she marries Malcolm Johnson?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Spofford, "his motives would be plain enough; I dare say he's in love with her. Caroline is a lovely girl, but of course in such a case her money goes for something."

"But she has not so very much money," said Mildred, dropping a lump of sugar into a cup--"plenty, I suppose, for herself, but it would not support a large family like Mr. Johnson's."

"It would pay his taxes, my dear, and buy his coal," said Miss Caldwell, "and he has kept house long enough to appreciate the help _that_ would be."

"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Manson, "coal is so terribly high this winter!"

"It would be a saving for him to marry anybody," said a thin lady with a sweet smile, slightly soiled gloves, and her bonnet rather on one side.

"He tells me that his housekeepers are no end of trouble. He is always changing them, and his children are running wild with it all. He's a very old friend of mine," she added with a conscious air.

"They are very troublesome children," said Miss Caldwell. "I hear them crying a great deal."

"Poor little things!--they need training," said Mrs. Manson.

"Caroline would never train them; she is too amiable."

"They have so much illness," said Mrs. Eames, the "old friend." "Poor Malcolm tells me he is afraid that little Willie has incipient spine complaint; he is in pain most of the time. The poor child was always delicate, and his mother watched him most carefully. She was a most painstaking mother, poor thing, though I don't imagine there was much congeniality between her and Malcolm. I wish I could do something for them, but I have _such_ a family of my own."

"Someone ought to warn Caroline," said Miss Caldwell. "I wonder he has the audacity to ask her. If he wasn't a widower he wouldn't dare to."

"If he wasn't a widower," said Miss Mildred, "her loving him in spite of all his drawbacks would seem more natural."

"If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Manson, "he wouldn't have the drawbacks, you know."

"If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Eames, "he might not be so anxious to marry her. Good-by, dear Miss Caldwell. Such a delightful tea! I may take some little cakes to the dear children?"

"Good-by," said Mrs. Manson, swallowing her last macaroon. She turned back as she reached the doorway; and her ample figure, completely filling it up, gave opportunity for a young lady who had been standing in the shadow of the staircase to dart across the hall unseen. Miss Caroline Foster had sought her hostess in the drawing-room, but finding it empty, had come downstairs again, and had been obliged to listen to the conversation, which she had not the courage to interrupt; and she now threw on her wrap and rushed past the astonished maid out of the house before Mrs. Manson's slow progress could reach the cloak-room.

At half-past five o'clock the Brackett tea was in full swing. The occupants of the carriages at the end of the long file were getting out and walking to the door, and some of the more prudent were handing in their cards and departing, judging from the crush that if their chance of getting in was but small, their chance of getting away was none at all. The Bracketts were at home; but of their home there was nothing to be seen for the crowd, except the blazing chandeliers overhead, the high-hung modern French pictures in heavy gilded frames, the intricate draperies of costly stuffs and laces at the tops of the tall windows, here and there the topmost spray of some pyramid or bank of flowers, and the upper part of the immense mirrors which reflected over and over what they could catch of the scene. The hostess was receiving in the middle drawing-room; but it was a work of time and pains to get so far as to obtain a view of the sparkling aigret in her hair. A meagre, carefully dressed woman had accomplished this duty, and might now fairly be getting off and leaving her place for someone else; yet she lingered near the door of the outer room, loath to depart, looking with an anxious eye for familiar faces, with an uneasy incipient smile waiting for the occasion to call out. Sometimes it grew more marked, and she made a tentative step forward; and if the person went by with scant greeting or none at all, she would draw back and patiently repair it for future use. For the one or two who stopped to speak to her she kept it carefully up to, but not beyond, a certain point, while still her restless eye strayed past them in search of better game. Just as she had exchanged a warmer greeting than her wont with a quiet, lady-like woman who was forced on inward by the crowd, she was startled by a smart tap on her shoulder, and as she turned sharp round towards the wall, the rich brocade window-curtains waved, and a low voice was heard from behind them.

"Come in here, won't you, Miss Snow?"

Miss Martha Snow, bewildered, drew aside the heavy folds, and found herself face to face with a richly arrayed, distinguished-looking, though _pa.s.see_ woman, who had settled herself comfortably on the cushioned seat between the lace curtains without and the silk within.

"My dear Mrs. Freeman! how do you do? How you did frighten me!"

"I have been trying to get at you for an age," said Mrs. Thorndike Freeman, laughing. "I thought you would never have done falling into the arms of that horrid Hapgood woman."

"I could not help it. She would keep me. She is one of those people you can't shake off, you know."

"I! _I_ don't know her."

"But why are you here, out of sight of everyone? Are you waiting for a chance to get at Mrs. Brackett?" hurried on Miss Snow.

"I'm waiting for a chance to get away from her. I would not be seen speaking to her for any consideration whatever."

"I--I _was_ surprised to meet you here!"

"I came because I wanted to see what it would be like, but I had no conception it would be so bad. Did you ever see such a set as she has collected?"

"It does seem mixed."

"Unmixed, I should call it. I have been waiting for half an hour to see a soul of my acquaintance. Sit down here, and let us have a nice talk."

A nice talk with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman foreboded a dead cut from her the next time you met her; for she never took anyone up without as violently putting them down again--and then there was no one now to see and envy. However, Miss Snow dared not refuse, and seating herself with a conciliatory, frightened air, somewhat like a little dog in the cage of a lioness, asked in timid tones:

"Why do you stay? Is not your carriage here?"

"I want to get something to eat first," said Mrs. Freeman, "for I suppose their spread is something indescribable."

"Oh, quite! The whole middle of the table is a ma.s.s of American Beauty roses as large as--as cabbages, and around that a bank of mignonette like--like small cauliflowers, and all over beneath it is covered with hothouse maiden-hair ferns, and----"

"And what's the grub?"

"I--did not eat much; I only wanted to see it; but I had a delicious little _pate_--chicken done in cream, somehow; and I saw aspic jelly with something in it handed round; and the ices--they are all in floral devices, water lilies floating on spun sugar, and roses in gold baskets, and cherries tied in bunches with ribbons, and grapes lying on tinted Bohemian gla.s.s leaves--and------"

"It sounds appetising. I'll wait till I see a man that doesn't know me, and he shall get me some. I don't want it known that I ever entered their doors."

"Shall I not go back to the dining-room and send a waiter to you?"

"No, indeed--he would be sure to know me, and I should get put on the list."