Queechy Volume Ii Part 13

"Well," said the doctor, as they sat at breakfast the next morning, "where are you going next?"

"To the concert, I must, to-night," said Fleda. "I couldn't help myself."

"Why should you want to help yourself?" said the doctor. "And to Mrs. Thorn's to-morrow night?"

"No, Sir; I believe not."

"I believe you will," said he, looking at her.

"I am sure I should enjoy myself more at home, uncle Orrin.

There is very little rational pleasure to be had in these a.s.semblages."

"Rational pleasure!" said he. "Didn't you have any rational pleasure last night?"

"I didn't hear a single word spoken, Sir, that was worth listening to; at least, that was spoken to me; and the hollow kind of rattle that one hears from every tongue, makes me more tired than anything else, I believe. I am out of tune with it, somehow."

"Out of tune!" said the old doctor, giving her a look made up of humourous vexation and real sadness; "I wish I knew the right tuning-key to take hold of you!"

"I become harmonious rapidly, uncle Orrin, when I am in this pleasant little room alone with you."

"That wont do!" said he, shaking his head at the smile with which this was said ? "there is too much tension upon the strings. So that was the reason you were all ready waiting for me last night? Well, you must tune up, my little piece of discordance, and go with me to Mrs. Thorn's to-morrow night ?

I wont let you off."

"With you, Sir!" said Fleda.

"Yes," he said. "I'll go along and take care of you, lest you get drawn into something else you don't like."

"But, dear uncle Orrin, there is another difficulty ? it is to be a large party, and I have not a dress exactly fit."

"What have you got?" said he, with a comic kind of fierceness.

"I have silks, but they are none of them proper for this occasion ? they are ever so little old-fashioned."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, Sir," said Fleda; "for I don't want to go."

"You mend a pair of stockings to put on," said he, nodding at her, "and I'll see to the rest."

"Apparently you place great importance in stockings," said Fleda, laughing, "for you always mention them first. But, please don't get anything for me, uncle Orrin ? please don't!

I have plenty for common occasions, and I don't care to go to Mrs. Thorn's."

"I don't care either," said the doctor, working himself into his great coat. "By the by, do you want to invoke the aid of St. Crispin?"

He went off, and Fleda did not know whether to cry or to laugh at the vigorous way in which he trod through the hall, and slammed the front door after him. Her spirits just kept the medium, and did neither. But they were in the same doubtful mood still an hour after, when he came back with a paper parcel he had brought home under his arm, and unrolled a fine embroidered muslin; her eyes were very unsteady in carrying their brief messages of thankfulness, as if they feared saying too much. The doctor, however, was in the mood for doing, not talking, by looks or otherwise. Mrs. Pritchard was called into consultation, and with great pride and delight engaged to have the dress and all things else in due order by the following night; her eyes saying all manner of gratulatory things as they went from the muslin to Fleda, and from Fleda to Dr.

Gregory.

The rest of the day was, not books, but needlefuls of thread; and from the confusion of laces and draperies, Fleda was almost glad to escape, and go to the concert ? but for one item; that spoiled it.

They were in their seats early. Fleda managed successfully to place the two Evelyns between her and Mr. Thorn, and then prepared herself to wear out the evening with patience.

"My dear Fleda!" whispered Constance, after some time spent in restless reconnoitring of everything ? "I don't see my English rose anywhere!"

"Hush!" said Fleda, smiling. "That happened not to be an English rose, Constance."

"What was it?"

"American, unfortunately; it was a Noisette; the variety, I think, that they call 'Conque de Venus.' "

"My dear little Fleda, you're too wise for anything!" said Constance, with a rather significant arching of her eye-brows.

"You mustn't expect other people to be as rural in their acquirements as yourself. I don't pretend to know any rose by sight but the Queechy," she said, with a change of expression, meant to cover the former one.

Fleda's face, however, did not call for any apology. It was perfectly quiet.

"But what has become of him?" said Constance, with her comic impatience. "My dear Fleda! if my eyes cannot rest upon that development of elegance, the parterre is become a wilderness to me!"

"Hush, Constance!" Fleda whispered earnestly ? "you are not safe ? he may be near you."

"Safe!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Constance; but a half backward hasty glance of her eye brought home so strong an impression that the person in question was seated a little behind her, that she dared not venture another look, and became straightway extremely well-behave.

He was there; and being presently convinced that he was in the neighbourhood of his little friend of former days, he resolved with his own excellent eyes to test the truth of the opinion he had formed as to the natural and inevitable effect of circ.u.mstances upon her character; whether it could by possibility have retained its great delicacy and refinement, under the rough handling and unkindly bearing of things seemingly foreign to both. He had thought not.

Truffi did not sing, and the entertainment was of a very secondary quality. This seemed to give no uneasiness to the Miss Evelyns, for if they pouted, they laughed and talked in the same breath, and that incessantly. It was nothing to Mr.

Carleton, for his mind was bent on something else. And with a little surprise, he saw that it was nothing to the subject of his thoughts, either because her own were elsewhere, too, or because they were in league with a nice taste, that permitted them to take no interest in what was going on. Even her eyes, trained as they had been to recluse habits, were far less busy than those of her companions; indeed, they were not busy at all; for the greater part of the time, one hand was upon the brow, shielding them from the glare of the gas-lights.

Ostensibly ? but the very quiet air of the face led him to guess that the mind was glad of a shield too. It relaxed sometimes. Constance, and Florence, and Mr. Thorn, and Mr.

Thorn's mother, were every now and then making demands upon her, and they were met always with an intelligent well-bred eye, and often with a smile of equal gentleness and character; but her observer noticed that though the smile came readily, it went as readily, and the lines of the face quickly settled again into what seemed to be an habitual composure. There were the same outlines, the same characters, he remembered very well; yet there was a difference; not grief had changed them, but life had. The brow had all its fine chiselling and high purity of expression; but now there sat there a hopelessness, or rather a want of hopefulness, that a child's face never knows. The mouth was sweet and pliable as ever, but now often patience and endurance did not quit their seat upon the lip even when it smiled. The eye, with all its old clearness and truthfulness, had a shade upon it that, nine years ago, only fell at the bidding of sorrow; and in every line of the face there was a quiet gravity that went to the heart of the person who was studying it. Whatever causes had been at work, he was very sure, had done no harm to the character; its old simplicity had suffered no change, as every look and movement proved; the very unstudied careless position of the fingers over the eyes showed that the thoughts had nothing to do there.

On one half of his doubt Mr. Carleton's mind was entirely made up; but education? the training and storing of the mind ? how had that fared? He would know!

Perhaps he would have made some attempt that very evening towards satisfying himself; but noticing that, in coming out, Thorn permitted the Evelyns to pa.s.s him, and attached himself determinately to Fleda, he drew back, and resolved to make his observations indirectly, and on more than one point, before he should seem to make them at all.

CHAPTER VI.

"Hark: I hear the sound of coaches, The hour of attack approaches."

GAY.

Mrs. Pritchard had arrayed Fleda in the white muslin, with an amount of satisfaction and admiration that all the lines of her face were insufficient to express.

"Now," she said, "you must just run down and let the doctor see you, afore you take the shine off, or he wont be able to look at anything else when you get to the place."

"That would be unfortunate!" said Fleda, and she ran down, laughing, into the room where the doctor was waiting for her; but her astonished eyes encountering the figure of Dr.

Quackenboss, she stopped short, with an air that no woman of the world could have bettered. The physician of Queechy, on his part, was at least equally taken aback.

"Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda.