Hope Mills Part 4

And so at last Sylvie would consent to her friend's demands.

One evening she came over to discuss a costume for a fancy-dress garden-party. Mrs. Eastman had brought some fashion-plates up from New York, but they did not altogether suit her fancy: so the carriage was ordered, and in a few moments it rolled to Sylvie's door.

Sylvie and Jack were at the piano. There was a soft, drizzling, summer-night rain, that made all the air fragrant without any noisy patter. It was just the evening for an old Latin hymn; and Sylvie was playing the strong, rich chords that had in them mysterious hints of heavenly joy, coming up through waves of pa.s.sionate suffering. Jack's voice seemed toned to these sympathetic vibrations, and the grand old words rolled out simply, with none of the vicious taste of the more modern fashionable school. So engrossed were they, that they did not hear the carriage stop; but Sylvie caught her aunt's voice.

They had reached the end of a verse. "Let me see what auntie wants,"

said Sylvie, running into the next room; and then it was, "Oh, Irene!

oh, Sylvie!"

"Singing to yourself in the twilight!" laughed Irene. "How romantic! I'm going to interrupt you now, and put you in better business. I am just loaded down with the excellent fripperies of this world, and unable to make a choice. And the grand occasion is Mrs. Avery Langton's garden-party. Now, be good-natured, and help me decide."

Uttering this in a rapid breath, she had walked through the sitting-room to the parlor, and tumbled her parcel down on the great antique sofa, whose edges everywhere were studded with bra.s.s nails. And there stood Jack, thinking, if he had been quicker, he could have stepped out of the window into Miss Sylvie's pretty flower-bed, now purple with odorous heliotrope. But, as he had not, there was nothing to do but to stand his ground manfully.

He had often seen Irene Lawrence in the carriage and on horseback; but as she stepped into the room now, and stood there rather surprised, she might have been a daughter of Juno. Tall, slender, arrowy straight, but lithe and faultlessly rounded, her fleecy white shawl like a gossamer web falling off her shoulders, her haughty carriage, her wealth of purple-black hair coiled about her shapely head, a hundred times handsomer than any artifice of dressing, her brilliant complexion, her large eyes with their long sweeping lashes that veiled their depth, but seemed to add a certain imperiousness, her coral-red lips that shaped differently with every breath, her straight nose, with the nostrils thin as a bit of sh.e.l.l, and the softly rounded chin, made her a picture that Jack Darcy never forgot.

"Oh!" in a tone of surprise, "I thought you were alone: pardon me."

Sylvie was bringing in another lamp, and placed it on the great clawfoot centre-table. Then it occurred to her that Irene might not know Jack.

She should recognize him here socially, anyhow.

"My friend Miss Lawrence," she said with a world of dignity, "Mr.

Darcy."

Jack bowed, in no wise abashed by this proud and handsome Miss Lawrence, though as a child she had snubbed him many a time. And she glanced him over with a sudden interest. It was a manly face and a manly figure; and she wondered from what remote corner of the earth Sylvie Barry had summoned this fair, stout giant, who made her think of the Norse G.o.ds of her childish romances. She always liked strength: Sylvie was for tenderness, pathos, and beauty.

"Good-evening," inclining her proud head. "Did I interrupt? You were singing?"

"That is finished," returned Sylvie, with her peculiar manner, as if, being hostess here, she should have proper respect paid to her position; and each guest should be as deferent to the other as if she were a little queen, and this her court.

She picked up a stray piece of music that had fallen to the floor, seated Irene, and half turned to Jack. Any other woman might have been awkward.

"I will leave you two ladies to yourselves," began Jack; but Irene interrupted,--

"No, Mr. Darcy: I shall think I have driven you away;" with a beguiling smile. "If you understand music, you may have a taste in the fine arts of dress as well. At all events, look over these elegant women in their party-gowns, and tell me which is fairest and rarest."

The honesty of the glance, although it was coquettish, told Jack that Miss Irene did not remember him. For, of all the haughty Lawrence women, she had the name of being the haughtiest. She gathered up her skirts in other people's houses when the plebeian element came too near. Now she waved him to a chair, and gently sank into another, her trailing robe of thin filmy black with golden flecks falling about her like clouds in a gusty sky.

He took the seat indicated. Some strange feeling moved him, an enchantment that he had never before experienced. The very air about her was filled with a subtle, indescribable perfume that he should always a.s.sociate with a tall, dark-eyed woman,--a glimpse of the Orient and its sweetness, he fancied.

Sylvie took her place, and began to tumble over the colored plates.

"I'm so tired of those Watteau things!" began Miss Lawrence disdainfully. "They all savor of bread-and-b.u.t.ter girls,--a shepherdess with her crook,--bah! And I've been Marie Stuart so many times. If it were a masquerade; but garden-parties are beginning to prove bores, after all. There is nothing new about them, only to out-shine every other woman. A high ambition, is it not, Mr. Darcy?"

"A temptation perhaps."

The tone had in it a bit of delicate homage. Irene understood. She knew at once that this man was a little dazed by her beauty, just as many other men had been. Puny, delicate, namby-pamby men she despised, and always gave them a cut with her sharp tongue. Where had Sylvie picked up this Saul among his peers?

They were all interested in the pictures, and soon fell to making merry comments on them. Sylvie had a quick eye and a bright wit, and something made Jack Darcy brilliant. They selected bits of fine taste here, they made an elegant costume of no particular style, and Irene was struck with what she knew would be its becomingness.

"Mr. Darcy, are you an artist?" She remembered just then what an odd way the Barrys had of picking up people with some gift or grace.

"No," and Jack flushed boyishly.

"Then you must have a houseful of sisters."

"No, I never had a sister."

"When all things else fail with you, you can set up opposition to Worth.

I shall come to you for designs. Now, this will be a peculiar source of gratification to me, because no one can possibly have the same combination. And you never can depend upon a modiste. Mr. Darcy, what makes women so faithless to one another?"

"Are they?" he asked with a man's simplicity.

She laughed gayly, and met Jack's fun-loving, shady blue eyes. How handsome they were!

Miss Barry entered the room, and joined in the pleasant chat: then a rumble of carriage-wheels was heard.

"It has stopped raining," said Sylvie, going to the window. "A few soft, melancholy stars have come out."

"You have been very obliging, Sylvie," said Miss Lawrence. "Miss Barry, I shall send the carriage over to-morrow. Good-night."

Jack Darcy handed her out, pushing aside a trailing rose that it might not catch her shawl. Then she half turned, and said "Good-night" in a softer tone.

Sylvie was standing on the porch. "It has been as good as a play, Jack,"

she said with her gay-humored laugh. "I don't believe she ever thought"--

"That I worked in her father's mill!" and Jack laughed; but it was a rather pained, jarring sound.

"Jack--why do you? You are a puzzle to me!" and Sylvie's voice sharpened unconsciously. "You do not like it. Why did you not go on at the academy, or"--

"Raise myself in the social scale? That's what you mean, Sylvie; although we pa.s.s just as pleasant hours as if I were a prince, and you the lady of high degree. Well, we have gone over the ground a good many times, and it is always the same thing. I have no fancy for a profession; I have no genius for art, though Miss Lawrence suggests that I might become a man-milliner--is that what you call it? You know, I am staying here because mother and grandmother will not go anywhere else.

And I dare say I make as much money as young Dr. Romer or Ned Remington.

And somehow, now that I'm in it, I go on with a stubborn, plucky feeling. Some day I'll be a great manufacturer."

This time his laugh was cheerful and ringing.

"You see, Sylvie, your good-nature places you on the debatable ground.

You and your aunt could be hand-in-glove with all these great people, and yet you open your generous heart to take in everybody."

"No, not everybody, Jack. And what a little coward I am just this minute! No, it is not that either. Jack, you _do_ know that I should never be a bit ashamed of you before any one. I feel vexed when I think that you could take the high places, and yet you let people put you down,--people not half as worthy or half as good as you. There's Horace Eastman. He came here a comparatively poor man; and now he owns half Yerbury, and talks of the mill-hands as if they were--well, a flock of sheep."

"An apt comparison, Sylvie. To my mind, they are shorn pretty close to make broadcloth for their masters."

"And there is Fred--have you seen him since his return?"

"Not to speak to him, of course." And then Jack flushed deeply, with a little hurt feeling.

"And what friends you were! Is it the way of the world? Then it is a mean, hateful world!"

"Sylvie, you are talking wildly. Don't you see there is no point of union in our lives? Now, I do not feel so badly over an outgrown friendship. When I was a little boy, I remember having a wonderful fancy for Tom Deane. We traded jack-knives; we told each other of the best nut-trees; we hunted squirrels; we coasted together; and, I dare say, he was as much of a hero in my childish eyes as I used to be in Fred's. But think of any friendship between us now! There isn't a greater loafer in all Yerbury than Tom Deane. Why, we have not a feeling in common."