Boston Neighbours In Town and Out Part 20

"The stationers who sent out the invitations will do that."

"Oh, well--I can only say I never came. But the waiter would swear to me, and very likely describe my dress. No, I shall wait a little longer.

Stay here and keep me company."

"Oh, it will be delightful!" quavered Miss Snow, though worrying at the prospect of getting away late on foot, and ill able to afford cab-hire.

"You've heard of the engagement, I suppose?"

"Which of them?" asked Miss Snow, skilfully hedging.

"Why, the only one, so far as I know. Why, haven't you heard? Ralph Underwood and Winnie Parke."

"Oh, yes! has that come out? I have been away from home for a few days, and had not heard. Very pleasant, I'm sure."

"Very--for her. It was her sister who did it, Mrs. Al Smith. She's a very clever young woman; fished for Al herself in the most barefaced way, and now she's caught Ralph for her sister; and she's not nearly so good-looking, either, Winnie Parke, though I should say she had a better temper than Margaret. You know Margaret Smith of course?"

"Not very well," said Miss Snow, deprecatingly. "I thought when you spoke of an engagement you meant Malcolm Johnson and Caroline Foster."

"That never will be an engagement!" said Mrs. Freeman scornfully.

"Oh! I am very glad to hear you say so--only I have met him so much there lately, and it quite worried me; it would be such a bad thing for dear Caroline; she is a sweet girl."

"You need not worry about it any longer, for I know positively that she has refused him."

"I am very glad. I was so afraid that Caroline--she is so amiable a girl, you know, and so apt to do what people tell her to--I was afraid she might say yes for fear of hurting his feelings."

"She would never dream of his having feelings--her position is so different. Why, Caroline is a cousin of my own."

"Oh, yes, of course--only he would doubtless be so much in love; and many people think him delightful--he _was_ very handsome."

"Before Caroline was born, maybe. No, no, Caroline has plenty of sense, though she looks so gentle--and then the family would never hear of it.

His affairs are in a shocking condition. Why, you know what he lost in Atchison--and I happen to know that his other investments are in a very shaky condition."

"He has that handsome house."

"Mortgaged, my dear, mortgaged up to its full value. No, he's badly off--and then there are such discreditable rumours about him; Thorndike knows all about it."

"Dear me! I never heard anything against his character."

"I could tell you plenty," said Mrs. Freeman, with a little shrug. "And then he drinks, or at least he probably will end in drinking--they always do when they are driven desperate. Oh, no, Caroline is a cousin of mine, and a most charming girl. Don't for heaven's sake hint at such a thing."

"Oh, I a.s.sure you, I never have. I am always so careful."

"Yes, I never say a thing that I am not certain is true," said Mrs.

Freeman, yawning. "Why, where do all these lovely youths come from? Ah!

I see; past six o'clock; the shop is closed, and they have turned the clerks on duty here. Well, now, I can get something to eat, for I never buy anything of them. Tell that one over there to come to me, the light-haired one, I mean; he looks strong and good-humoured."

As Miss Snow rose to obey this order, a fair-haired girl in a dark-blue velvet gown, who on entering had been pinned close against the wall within hearing by the crowd, made a frantic struggle for freedom, and succeeded in reaching the entrance hall, to the amazement of the other guests, who did not look for such a display of strength in so gentle-looking and painfully blushing a creature.

At half-past six a select party was a.s.sembling in Miss Grace Deane's own room, the prettiest room, it was said, in Boston, in the handsomest of the new Charlesgate houses; a corner room, with a bright sunny outlook over the long extent of waterside gardens. The high wainscot, the chimney-piece, the bed on its alcoved and curtained _haut pas_ were of cherry wood, the natural colour, carved with elaborate and unwearied fancy; and its rich hue showed here and there round the Persian rugs on the floor. At the top of the wall was a painted frieze of cherry boughs in bloom, with now and then one loaded with fruit peeping through, and the same idea was imitated in the chintzes. The wall s.p.a.ce left was papered in a shade of spring green so delicate and elusive that no one could decide whether it verged on gold or silver, almost hidden with close-hung water colours and autotypes; and the ceiling showed between cherry beams an even softer tint in daintily stained woods. The Minton tiles around the fireplace and lining the little adjoining bathroom were all in different designs of pale green and white sparingly dashed with coral pink. There were sofas and low chairs and bookcases and cabinets and a tiny piano and a writing-desk and a drawing-table, and a work-table and yet more tables, all covered with smaller objects.

Useless, and especially cheap, bric-a-brac was Miss Deane's abomination, but everything she used was exquisite. The bed and dressing-table were covered with finest linen, drawn and fretted by the needle, into filmy gossamer; and from the latter came a subdued glitter of a hundred silver trifles of the toilet, beaten and chiselled like the fine foamy crest of the wave.

Miss Deane, the owner of this pretty room, for whom and by whom it had been devised and decked with abundant means held well in check by taste, was very seldom in it. The Deanes had two country houses, and they spent a great deal of time abroad, and in the winter they often went to California or Florida or Bermuda; and when they were at their town houses they were usually out. But Miss Deane did sometimes sleep there, and when she had a cold and had to keep in she could not but look around it with gratification. It certainly was a pleasant room to give a little tea in. Its being her bedroom only made the effect more piquant. She believed the ladies of the last century used to have tea in their bedrooms; and this was quite in antique style--yes, the tea-table and some of the chairs were real antiques. By the time she had arranged the flowers to her taste and sat down arrayed in a tea-gown of rose-coloured China c.r.a.pe and white lace to make tea in a Dresden service with little rosebuds for handles, she felt quite well again, and ready to greet a dozen or so of her dearest friends, who ran upstairs unannounced and threw off their own wraps on the lace-covered bed.

Some of these young women were beautiful, and all looked pretty, their charms equalised by their clothes and manners. They had all been on the most intimate terms with each other from babyhood, and they had the eagerness to please anyone and everyone, characteristic of the American girl. Each talked to the other as if that other were a lover, and they had the sweetest smiles for the maid.

"So it was pleasant at the Bracketts'?" asked Grace, beginning to fill her cups.

"Oh, delightful!" exclaimed the whole circle; "that is"--with modified energy--"it was crowded of course, and very hot, and it was hard to get at people, and there was no time to talk when you did; but everybody was there," they concluded with revived spirit.

"I was not there," sighed Mildred; "I had to make tea for Miss Caldwell--mother said I must--and some of the people stayed so late that it was no use thinking of the other place, though I put on this gown to be all ready. I thought it would do to pour out at such a little tea"--surveying her pale fawn cloth gown dashed with dark velvet worked in gold.

"Oh, perfectly! most appropriate!" said the others.

"Who else poured out?" said Grace.

"Why, she told me that Caroline Foster was coming, and I was so delighted; but when I got there I found Mrs. Neal had sent a note saying she could not allow Caroline to give up the Bracketts' altogether; and Miss Caldwell had invited that Miss Leggett, whom I hardly know--wasn't it unpleasant? And she wore regular full dress, pink India silk and chiffon, cut very low--the effect was dreadful!"

"Horrid!" murmured her sympathising friends.

"Caroline was there, I suppose?" queried one.

"No--she never came at all."

"Probably she went to the Bracketts' first, and couldn't get away," said Grace. "I wonder she isn't here by this time. Who saw her there?"

General silence was the sole answer, and she looked round her only to have it re-inforced by a more emphatic "I didn't."

"Why, she must have been there! She told me she should surely go. How odd--" but her words died away, and the group regarded each other with looks of awe, till one daring young woman broke the spell with, "Do you think--can it be possible--that she's really engaged?"

"To Mr. Johnson?" broke out the whole number. "Oh! I hope not! It would be shocking--dreadful--too bad!"

"We shouldn't see a thing of her; she would be so tied down," murmured Dorothy Chandler, almost in tears.

"Everyone who marries is tied down, for that matter," cheerfully remarked a blooming young matron, who had been the rounds of the teas.

"I a.s.sure you," she went on, nibbling a chocolate peppermint with relish, "I am doing an awful thing myself in being here at this hour; aren't you, Anna?"--addressing a mate in like condition, who blushed, conscience-stricken as she said, "Perhaps Caroline is in love with Mr.

Johnson."

"I don't see how any one can fall in love with a widower," said Mildred.

"That depends on the widower," said the pretty Mrs. Blanchard. "I do think Mr. Johnson is rather too far gone."

"Oh, yes," said Mildred; "he looks so--so--I don't know how to express it."

"What you would call dowdy if he were a woman," said her more experienced friend. "He looks as if he wanted a wife; but I don't see why someone else would not do as well as Caroline--some respectable maiden lady who could sew on his b.u.t.tons and make his children stand round. I don't think Caroline would be of the least use to him."

"It would be almost impossible to keep her up," said Grace.