Queechy Volume Ii Part 18

The next day Fleda ran away, and spent a good part of the morning with her uncle in the library, looking over new books, among which she found herself quite a stranger, so many had made their appearance since the time when she had much to do with libraries or book stores. Living friends, male and female, were happily forgotten in the delighted acquaintance- making with those quiet companions, which, whatever their deficiencies in other respects, are at least never importunate nor variable. Fleda had come home rather late, and was dressing for dinner, with Constance's company and help, when Mrs. Evelyn came into her room.

"My dear Fleda," said the lady, her face and voice as full as possible of fun, "Mr. Carleton wants to know if you will ride with him this afternoon. I told him I believed you were, in general, shy of gentlemen that drove their own horses; that I thought I had noticed you were; but I would come up and see."

"Mrs. Evelyn! ? you did not tell him that?"

"He said he was sorry to see you looked pale yesterday when he was asking you; and he was afraid that embroidery is not good for you. He thinks you are a very charming girl ?"

And Mrs. Evelyn went off into little fits of laughter, which unstrung all Fleda's nerves. She stood absolutely trembling.

"Mamma, don't plague her!" said Constance. "He didn't say so."

"He did! ? upon my word!" said Mrs. Evelyn, speaking with great difficulty ? "he said she was very charming, and it might be dangerous to see too much of her."

"You made him say that, Mrs. Evelyn," said Fleda, reproachfully.

"Well, I did ask him if you were not very charming, but he answered ? without hesitation," said the lady ? "I am only so afraid that Lot will make his appearance ?"

Fleda turned round to the gla.s.s, and went on arranging her hair, with a quivering lip.

"Lot! Mamma," said Constance, somewhat indignantly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Evelyn, in ecstasies; "because the land will not bear both of them. But Mr. Carleton is very much in earnest for his answer, Fleda, my dear ? what shall I tell it him? You need be under no apprehensions about going ? he will perhaps tell you that you are charming, but I don't I think he will say anything more. You know, he is a kind of patriarch; and when I asked him if he didn't think it might be dangerous to see too much of you, he said he thought it might to some people, so, you see, you are safe."

"Mrs. Evelyn, how could you use my name so?" said Fleda, with a voice that carried a good deal of reproach.

"My dear Fleda, shall I tell him you will go? You need not be afraid to go riding, only you must not let yourself be seen walking with him."

"I shall not go, Ma'am," said Fleda, quietly.

"I wanted to send Edith with you, thinking it would be pleasanter; but I knew Mr. Carleton's carriage would hold but two to-day. So what shall I tell him?"

"I am not going, Ma'am," repeated Fleda.

"But what shall I tell him? I must give him some reason. Shall I say that you think a sea-breeze is blowing, and you don't like it? or shall I say that prospects are a matter of indifference to you?"

Fleda was quite silent, and went on dressing herself with trembling fingers.

"My dear Fleda," said the lady, bringing her face a little into order, "wont you go? I am very sorry ?"

"So am I sorry," said Fleda. "I can't go, Mrs. Evelyn."

"I will tell Mr. Carleton you are very sorry," said Mrs.

Evelyn, every line of her face drawing again ? "that will console him; and let him hope that you will not mind sea- breezes by and by, after you have been a little longer in the neighbourhood of them. I will tell him you are a good republican, and have an objection, at present, to an English equipage, but I have no doubt that is a prejudice which will wear off."

She stopped to laugh, while Fleda had the greatest difficulty not to cry. The lady did not seem to see her disturbed brow; but recovering herself after a little, though not readily, she bent forward and touched her lips to it in kind fashion. Fleda did not look up, and saying again, "I will tell him, dear Fleda," Mrs. Evelyn left the room.

Constance, after a little laughing and condoling, neither of which Fleda attempted to answer, ran off, too, to dress herself; and Fleda, after finishing her own toilette, locked her door, sat down, and cried heartily. She thought Mrs.

Evelyn had been, perhaps unconsciously, very unkind; and to say that unkindness has not been meant, is but to shift the charge from one to another vital point in the character of a friend, and one, perhaps, sometimes not less grave. A moment's pa.s.sionate wrong may consist with the endurance of a friendship worth having, better than the thoughtlessness of obtuse wits that can never know how to be kind. Fleda's whole frame was still in a tremor from disagreeable excitement, and she had serious causes of sorrow to cry for. She was sorry she had lost what would have been a great pleasure in the ride ?

and her great pleasures were not often ? but nothing would have been more impossible than for her to go after what Mrs.

Evelyn had said. She was sorry Mr. Carleton should have asked her twice in vain ? what must he think? ? she was exceeding sorry that a thought should have been put into her head that never before had visited the most distant dreams of her imagination, so needlessly, so gratuitously ? she was very sorry, for she could not be free of it again, and she felt it would make her miserably hampered and constrained, in mind and manner both, in any future intercourse with the person in question. And then again, what would he think of that? Poor Fleda came to the conclusion that her best place was at home, and made up her mind to take the first good opportunity of getting there.

She went down to dinner with no traces of either tears or unkindness on her sweet face, but her nerves were quivering all the afternoon ? she could not tell whether Mrs. Evelyn and her daughters found it out; and it was impossible for her to get back even her old degree of freedom of manner before either Mr. Carleton or Mr. Thorn, all the more, because Mrs.

Evelyn was every now and then bringing out some sly allusion, which afforded herself intense delight, and wrought Fleda to the last degree of quietness. Unkind ? Fleda thought now it was but half from ignorance of the mischief she was doing, and the other half from the mere desire of selfish gratification.

The times and ways in which Lot and Abraham were walked into the conversation were incalculable, and unintelligible, except to the person who understood it only too well. On one occasion, Mrs. Evelyn went on with a long rigmarole to Mr.

Thorn about sea-breezes, with a face of most exquisite delight at his mystification and her own hidden fun, till Fleda was absolutely trembling. Fleda shunned both the gentlemen, at length, with a kind of nervous horror.

One steamer had left New York, and another, and still Mr.

Carleton did not leave it. Why he staid, Constance was as much in a puzzle as ever, for no mortal could guess. Clearly, she said, he did not delight in New York society, for he honoured it as slightly and partially as might be; and it was equally clear, if he had a particular reason for staying, he didn't mean anybody should know it.

"If he don't mean it, you wont find it out, Constance," said Fleda.

"But it is that very consideration, you see, which inflames my impatience to a most dreadful degree. I think our house is distinguished with his regards, though I am sure I can't imagine why, for he never condescends to anything beyond general benevolence when he is here, and not always to that.

He has no taste for embroidery, or Miss Ringgan's crewels would receive more of his notice ? he listens to my spirited conversation with a self-possession which invariably deprives me of mine! ?and his ear is evidently dull to musical sensibilities, or Florence's harp would have greater charms. I hope there is a web weaving somewhere that will catch him ? at present he stands in an att.i.tude of provoking independence of all the rest of the world. It is curious," said Constance, with an indescribable face ? "I feel that the independence of another is rapidly making a slave of me!" ?

"What do you mean, Constance?' said Edith, indignantly. But the others could do nothing but laugh.

Fleda did not wonder that Mr. Carleton made no more efforts to get her to ride, for the very next day after his last failure he had met her driving with Mr. Thorn. Fleda had been asked by Mr. Thorn's mother, in such a way as made it impossible to get off; but it caused her to set a fresh seal of unkindness to Mrs. Evelyn's behaviour.

One evening, when there was no other company at Mrs. Evelyn's Mr. Stackpole was entertaining himself with a long dissertation upon the affairs of America, past, present, and future. It was a favourite subject; Mr. Stackpole always seemed to have more complacent enjoyment of his easy chair when he could succeed in making every American in the room sit uncomfortably. And this time, without any one to thwart him, he went on to his heart's content disposing of the subject as one would strip a rose of its petals, with as much seeming _nonchalance_ and ease, and with precisely the same design, to make a rose no rose. Leaf after leaf fell under Mr.

Stackpole's touch, as if it had been a black frost. The American government was a rickety experiment ? go to pieces presently; American inst.i.tutions an alternative between fallacy and absurdity, the fruit of raw minds and precocious theories; American liberty a contradiction; American character a compound of quackery and pretension; American society (except at Mrs. Evelyn's) an anomaly; American destiny the same with that of a cactus, or a volcano ? a period of rest followed by a period of excitement; not, however, like the former, making successive shoots towards perfection, but, like the latter, grounding every new face of things upon the demolition of that which went before. Smoothly and pleasantly Mr. Stackpole went on compounding this cup of entertainment for himself and his hearers, smacking his lips over it, and all the more, Fleda thought, when they made wry faces; throwing in a little truth, a good deal of fallacy, a great deal of perversion and misrepresentation; while Mrs. Evelyn listened and smiled, and half parried and half a.s.sented to his positions; and Fleda sat impatiently drumming upon her elbow with the fingers of her other hand, in the sheer necessity of giving some expression to her feelings. Mr. Stackpole at last got his finger upon the sore spot of American slavery, and pressed it hard.

"This is the land of the stars and the stripes!" said the gentleman, in a little fit of virtuous indignation; ? "this is the land where all are brothers! where 'All men are born free and equal!' "

"Mr. Stackpole," said Fleda, in a tone that called his attention; "are you well acquainted with the popular proverbs of your country?"

"Not particularly," he said. He had never made it a branch of study.

"I am a great admirer of them."

He bowed, and begged to be excused for remarking that he didn't see the point yet.

"Do you remember this one, Sir," said Fleda, colouring a little; " 'Those that live in gla.s.s houses shouldn't throw stones?' "

"I have heard it; but, pardon me, though your remark seems to imply the contrary, I am in the dark yet. What unfortunate points of vitrification have I laid open to your fire?"

"I thought they were probably forgotten by you, Sir."

"I shall be exceedingly obliged to you if you will put me in condition to defend myself."

"I think nothing could do that, Mr. Stackpole. Under whose auspices and fostering care was this curse of slavery laid upon America?"

"Why, of course ? but you will observe, Miss Ringgan, that at that day the world was unenlightened on a great many points; since then, we have cast off the wrong which we then shared with the rest of mankind."

"Ay, Sir, but not until we had first repudiated it, and Englishmen had desired to force it back upon us at the point of the sword. Four times ?"

"But, my dear Fleda," interrupted Mrs. Evelyn, "the English nation have no slaves, nor slave-trade; they have put an end to slavery entirely, everywhere under their flag."

"They were very slow about it," said Fleda. "Four times the government of Ma.s.sachusetts abolished the slave-trade under their control, and four times the English government thrust it back upon them. Do you remember what Burke says about that, in his speech on Conciliation with America?"