Hope Benham Part 5

And father _did_ know. He knew that the little daughter was having her first experience of the world, and the way it made its separations, its cla.s.s distinctions between rich and poor and high and low. He was not envious or jealous or bitter, but he was very observant and thoughtful, and he could not help seeing how ignorantly made were some of these distinctions, and how unchristian. He knew that his little Hope was intelligent and refined,--the fit companion for any refined child, however placed in the world; and he knew that he himself was a fit companion for intelligent, thoughtful men, however placed,--for, though obliged to be a hard worker since he came a boy of fifteen from his father's farm, he had found time to think and read and study, and he was conscious that he had read and studied and thought to some purpose, and that his thought was worth something; yet because of this way that the world had of separating people without regard to their real natures or their real tastes, but solely in regard to the accidents of poverty or family influence, he was debarred from acquaintanceship on true, equal terms with many who would naturally have been his companions and friends, and whose companionship would have been of service to him, as his would have been of service to them, from the different knowledge that had come to each, from their different experiences. And here was Hope--he looked down at her as his thoughts came to this point--here was Hope, his cherished little daughter, so fine, so sweet. Was that girl of the world's so-called higher cla.s.s, whose blunt speech had hurt so deeply,--was _she_ a fit companion for his little daughter?

He bent down and put his lips to the sleek brown head, as he asked this question. Then he saw that the child was asleep; but his movement roused her, and, stirring uneasily, she murmured in her dreams, "Ten cents a bunch!" then, half awakening, cried, "Farver, farver, I don't ever want to see that girl again."

"No, no, you sha'n't. It's all over, dear. We're not going to have any more of that 'Ten cents a bunch!'--never any more of it," he repeated consolingly, but with an emphasis of indignation and self-reproach.

But he was mistaken. Neither he nor Hope had heard the last of that "Ten cents a bunch!"

CHAPTER VII.

To be a pupil in Miss Marr's school was a distinction in itself. "Why don't you give and write your name 'Mademoiselle Marr,' as you have a right to do?" asked one of Miss Marr's acquaintances, when the school was first started.

Miss Marr laughed; then she answered soberly, "When my father came to America, he made himself a legal citizen of the country and he fought in its battles. He never called himself, and he was never called by any one, 'Monsieur.'"

"Because he bore the t.i.tle of General."

"Not at first,--not until he had earned it here. But I--I was born and brought up here, and I have been always Miss Marr here. Why should I now suddenly change to Mademoiselle?"

"Because it would be of benefit to your school. Americans are attracted by anything foreign, and Mademoiselle Marr's school would sound so much more distinguished than Miss Marr's school."

"Oh!" and Miss Marr flung up her hands impatiently; "I am a better American than these foolish people who like foreign t.i.tles so much. But they shall come to me, they shall send their children to Miss Marr's school. I am not going to begin with any little tricks,--to throw out any little bait to catch silly folk, for it is not such folk's patronage that I want. I am going to keep an honest school, and I shall start as I mean to go on."

The acquaintance sighed, and shook her head, and told all her friends how obstinate Miss Marr was, how she had been advised and how she had gone against the advice, and that the school wouldn't come to anything, would get no start as Miss Marr's school, whereas as Mademoiselle Marr's it would at once impress everybody.

But Miss Marr went on in her own way, and at the end of five years there was no school in all New York that had the kind of high reputation that hers had. It was, in a certain sense, the fashion, and yet it was not fashionable.

"It's that French way of hers, after all," said the acquaintance whose advice had not been taken; "it's that French way that she inherited from the General. n.o.body had finer manners than General Marr, and he had the qualities of a leader, too, in some ways,--though he never could keep any money; and these qualities also his daughter inherits."

Miss Marr laughed at this explanation when she was told of it,--laughed, and declared that the only secret of her success lay in the fact that she liked her work, and put her whole heart into it. And I'm inclined to think she was right. If she got a start at first because she was General Marr's daughter, she held it and made much of it because she had character and purpose. She put her heart into her work, and that meant that she put the magic of her lively sympathy and interest into it; and if she had not possessed this character and purpose, she couldn't have done what she did, even if she had been the daughter of an even more distinguished man than General Marr. She had said in the beginning: "I am not going to model my school after any fashionable pattern, for I don't care to have what is called a fashionable school, and I don't solicit fashionable patronage. There are plenty of quiet, cultivated people in New York and elsewhere who, I am sure, want just such a school as I mean to have,--a sensible, honest school, that shall give a sensible, honest, all-round education." And she was right, as events proved. The quiet, cultivated people came forth at once to her support; and then the queerest thing happened,--the fashionable folk began to come forward too, and in such numbers that she couldn't accommodate half of them, and they, instead of accepting the situation, and going elsewhere at this crisis, patiently bided their time, waiting until a vacancy occurred. It will readily be understood that when things had come to this pa.s.s, it was considered a most decided distinction to be a pupil at Miss Marr's school.

It was just at the climax of this popularity, just before the beginning of a new year, that a certain young lady said to her younger sister,--

"Now, Dorothy"--

"Doro_thea_! Doro_thea_! I'm going to have my whole name, every syllable of it, to start off in New York with."

"Well, Dorothea, then; you must remember one thing about Miss Marr,--she won't put up with any of your flippant smartness."

"She needn't."

"But, Dorothea, you won't be punished, and you won't be allowed to argue, as you did at Miss Maynard's. It will be like this,--Miss Marr will let you go on and reveal yourself and all your faults without a word of comment, as she would if you were a guest; then if she finds that you or your faults are of the kind that she doesn't care to have in her school, she'll send you home. She says, you know, that her school is neither an infant school, nor a reform school,--that by the time girls are fifteen, they are young ladies enough to have some idea of good breeding, and if they haven't, they are not the sort of girls that she wants in her school. Now remember that, Dorothea."

"I never heard of a school-teacher putting on such airs as this Miss Marr does, in my life. It's always what _she_ wants, what _she_ expects, what _she_ is going to do. I know I shall hate her!"

"Well, if this is the spirit that you propose to start with, it is very easy to foresee the result."

"I don't care."

"Now, Dorothea, you _do_ care. Just think--your name has been on the list for a whole year for this vacancy; and it was your own idea, you know. Nothing would satisfy you but to go to Miss Marr's."

"Oh, I know, I know; don't preach, you dear Molly Polly! I'm not going to fly at Miss Marr and call her an old cat, if I think she's one."

"No, I should say not, but you mustn't fly at a good many things,--at certain rules and regulations, for instance,--and you mustn't take any saucy little liberties, such as you have been in the habit of taking at Miss Maynard's."

"Oh, not a liberty!" smiling and nodding at her elder sister. "I shall pull my face down like this"--drawing down her lips and lowering her eyes--"when I meet the great Miss Marr, and I shall say, in a little bit of a frightened voice like this, 'Oh, Miss Marr, Miss Marr, _please_ don't shut me up in a dark closet and put me on bread and water, whatever I do.'"

"What a goose you are, Dorothy!" but the elder sister laughed.

"Doro_thea_! Doro_thea_! remember now it's to be Doro_thea_, and you must write Doro_thea_ on the envelopes of your letters to me," was the swift protest.

Three days after this conversation, Dolly, or Dorothea Dering, sat waiting with her mother in a handsome but rather old-fashioned-looking parlor in a rather old-fashioned house in New York, for the appearance of its hostess, Miss Marr. Dolly had been fidgeting about, examining the ornaments on the tables and the pictures on the walls, with a mingled expression of curiosity and irritability on her face, when she caught the sound of a firm even footfall on the polished oak floor of the hall.

The girl made a little face at this firm, even sound, and said to herself, "It's just like her,--old Madam Prim!"

In another moment the footsteps came to the threshold of the parlor, and Dolly looked across the room to see--Why, there was some mistake! This was one of the pupils, and no Madam Prim; and what a stylish girl, what a stunning plain gown! thought Dolly. The minute after, "the stylish girl in the stunning plain gown" was saying, "How do you do, Mrs.

Dering?" and Mrs. Dering was saying, "How do you do, Miss Marr?"

Dolly almost gasped with astonishment. "_This_, Miss Marr! Why, she didn't look any older than Mary."

The fact was, that Miss Marr was seven years older than Mary Dering, who was only twenty-three; but Angelique Marr was one of those persons who never look their age. Though not childish or immature, she had a fresh girl's aspect. In looking at her, Dolly forgot all her little plans for saying or doing this or that. Miss Marr looking at _her_ said to herself: "Poor child! how shy and awkward and overgrown she is!" and forthwith concluded that it would be better not to notice her much for a time, and therefore gave all her attention to the mother, bestowing a swift fleeting smile now and then upon the girl,--a _young_ smile, like that of a comrade in pa.s.sing. Dolly was out of all her reckoning; her program of word and action which she had so carefully arranged being completely destroyed by this surprise of personality,--this subst.i.tution of the "stylish girl in a stunning plain gown" for an old Madam Prim. So absorbed was she in these thoughts, she heard but vaguely what her mother was saying, and was quite startled when the moment of parting from her came, forgetting all the fine little airs and good-bye messages she had arranged. She was so dazed, indeed, that she seemed stupid, and impressed Miss Marr more than ever as shy and awkward and overgrown; and it was out of pity for this shyness that Angelique Marr, as the door closed upon Mrs. Dering, turned to Mrs. Dering's daughter with her sweetest and friendliest of young smiles, and said to her,--

"Would you like to come up to my little parlor and have a cup of chocolate with me before I show you your room?"

As Dolly accepted the invitation, she had an odd subdued sort of feeling, as if she had been invited to lunch with one of Mary's fine young lady friends; and this feeling, instead of wearing off, increased, as she found herself in the little parlor drinking the most delicious foamy chocolate from a delicate Sevres cup, while her entertainer helped her to biscuit or extra lumps of sugar, telling, as she did so, a droll little story about her first lesson in chocolate brewing from an old French soldier,--a friend of her father.

Dolly listened and laughed, and felt more and more that she was being treated in a very grown-up way by a very grown-up young lady, and that she must be equal to the occasion; so she sat up in her chair with a great deal of dignity, and endeavored to say the proper things in the proper places, with a delightful sense that she was doing the thing as well as Mary. It was at this moment that some one knocked at the door; and at Miss Marr's "Come in," there appeared a tall youth, who cried out as he entered,--

"Well, Aunt Angel!"

"What! Victor?"

Then followed embraces and inquiries; and Dolly began to feel out of place, and the stranger that she was, when Miss Marr turned, smiled, begged her pardon, and introduced her to her nephew,--Victor Graham, who was just back from his vacation at Moosehead Lake. With the grace and tact that people called "that French way" of hers, Miss Marr managed to include Dolly in the conversation, and, finding that she had spent several summers at Kineo, the Moosehead Lake region, drew her out by clever questions to tell what she knew about it. And Dolly knew a great deal about it; she had paddled a canoe on the lake, she had caught fish and helped cook them on the sh.o.r.e, and she had camped out in the Kineo woods.

Victor Graham, tall as he was, was only sixteen,--a real boy who loved out-of-door sports,--and, delighted to find somebody who was so familiar with the charmed region he had just reluctantly left, was soon in the full swing of reminiscences and questions. Had she been to this place, did she know that point, etc., etc.? In short, he felt as if he had met a comrade, and he treated her as such,--as a boy like himself; and Dolly for the moment responded in the same spirit, and forgot her stiff dignity and young lady manners, patterned after her sister Mary's.

Miss Marr sat back in her chair, looking and listening and smiling.

Dolly had not the least idea that she was reading, as one would read in a book, a little page of Dorothea Dering. But she was. Dolly, in talking to Victor, forgot, as I have said, her dignity and young-lady manners, and was the Dolly Dering who romped and raced and paddled and cooked at Moosehead Lake.

"Not so very awkward, and not shy at all, but a big overgrown girl, who may one day be an attractive woman, when she is toned down and less crude and hoydenish."

This was part of Miss Marr's reading as she looked and listened; and as Dolly, getting more excited with her subject, went on more glibly, her silent smiling listener thought,--

"A good deal of a spoiled child evidently, who has been used to having her own way and been laughed at for her smart sayings until she is quite capable, I fear, of being rude and overbearing, if not unfeeling on occasions. But I think there is good material underneath. We'll see, we'll see."

What would Dolly have said if she could have heard this criticism of Dorothea Dering? What would Mrs. Dering have said if she could have heard her daughter called capable of being rude and overbearing? What would Mary have said to the whole summing up,--Mary, who was not of the kind ever to have been spoiled by indulgence, who was finer and had better instincts than Dolly? Mary would have said, "Oh, Dolly, Dolly, what have I always told you?"