The Girl at Cobhurst Part 32

Her spirits were rising, and she walked still slower. This tete-a-tete was very delightful to Ralph, but he had no desire to trample on all social customs, and his feelings of courteous hospitality urged him to go as rapidly as possible to greet the special visitor who was waiting for him; but to desert that gentleman's sister, or make her walk quickly when she did not wish to, was equally opposed to his ideas of courtesy, and so it happened that Dora and Ralph entered the parlor so much later than the others that a decided impression was made on the minds of Mrs. and Miss Drane. And this was what Dora wished. She felt that it would be a very good thing in this case to a.s.sert some sort of a preemption claim. It could do no harm, and might be of great service.

After the manner of the country gentlemen who in mixed society are apt to prefer their own s.e.x for purposes of converse, Herbert Bannister monopolized Ralph. His sister talked with Cicely Drane, and in spite of her natural courage and the reasons for self-confidence which she had just received, Dora's spirits steadily fell as she conversed with this merry, attractive girl, who knew so well how to make herself entertaining, even to other girls, and who was actually living in Ralph Haverley's house.

Dora made the visit shorter than it otherwise would have been. She had come, she had seen, and she wanted to go home and think about the rest of the business. The drive home was, in a degree, pleasant because Herbert had a great deal to say about Mr. Haverley, whom he had found most agreeable, and because Mrs. Bannister spoke in praise of Ralph's manly beauty, but it would depend upon future circ.u.mstances whether or not remarks of this kind could be considered entirely satisfactory.

That evening, in her own room, in a loose dressing-gown, and with her hair hanging over her shoulders, Dora devoted herself to an earnest consideration of her relations with Ralph Haverley. At first sight it seemed odd that there should be any relations at all, for she had known him but a short time, and he had made few or no advances toward her--not half so many or such p.r.o.nounced ones as other men had made, during her few visits to fashionable resorts. But she settled this part of the question very promptly.

"I like him better than anybody I have ever seen," she said to herself.

"In fact, I love him, and now--" and then she went on to consider the rest of the matter, which was not so easy to settle.

Cicely Drane was terribly hard to settle. There was that girl,--all the more dangerous because, being charming and little, a man would be more apt to treat her as a good comrade than if she were charming and tall,--who was with him all the time. And how she would be with him, Dora's imagination readily perceived, because she knew how she herself would be with him under the circ.u.mstances. Before breakfast in the dewy gra.s.s, gathering apples; during work hours, talking through the open window as he chanced to pa.s.s; after five o'clock, walks in the orchard, walks over the farm, in the woods everywhere, and always those two together, because there were four of them. How much worse it was that there were four of them! And the evenings, moonlight, starlight; on the piazza; good-night on the stairs--it was maddening to think of.

But, nevertheless, she thought of it hour after hour, with no other result than to become more and more convinced that she was truly in love with a man who had never given any sign that he loved her, and that there was every reason to believe that when he gave a sign that he loved, it would be to another woman, and not to her.

She rose and looked out of the window. A piece of the moon, far gone in the third quarter, was rising above a ma.s.s of evergreens. She had a courageous young soul, and the waning brightness of the lovers' orb did not affect her as a disheartening sign.

"It is not right," she said to herself. "I will not do it. I will not hang like an apple on a tree for any one to pick who chooses, or if n.o.body chooses, to drop down to the chickens and pigs. A woman has as much right to try to do the best for herself as a man has to try to do the best for himself. I can't really trample on customs as a man can, but I can do it in my mind, and I do it now. I love him, and I will get him if I can."

With this Dora sat down, and left the bit of moon to shed what luminousness it could over the landscape.

Her resolution shed a certain luminousness over Dora's soul. To determine to do a thing is nearly always inspiriting.

"Yes," she thought, "I will do what I can. He has promised to come very soon, and he shall not have Congo the first time he comes. He shall come, and I shall go, and I shall be great friends with Miriam. There will be nothing false in that, for I like her ever so much, and I shall remember to think more of what she likes. No one shall see me break down any customs of society,--especially, he shall not,--but out of my mind they are swept and utterly gone."

Having thus shaped her course, Dora thought she would go to bed. But suddenly an idea struck her, and she stood and pondered.

"I believe," she said, speaking aloud in her earnestness, "I believe that that is what Miss Panney meant. She has spoken so well of him to me; she has heard about that girl, and she said, yes, she certainly did say, 'It shall be done.' She wants it, I truly believe; she wants me to marry him."

For a few minutes she stood gazing at her ring, and then she said,--

"I will go to her; I will tell her everything. It will be a great thing to have Miss Panney on my side. She does not care for customs, and she will never breathe a word to a soul."

Dr. Tolbridge was not mistaken in his estimate of the sort of mind Dora Bannister would have when she should shed her old one.

CHAPTER XXVII

"IT COULDN'T BE BETTER THAN THAT"

The Haverleys could not expect that the people of Thorbury would feel any general and urgent desire to recognize them as neighbors. They did not live in the town, and moreover newcomers, even to the town itself, were usually looked upon as "summer people," until they had proved that they were to be permanent residents, and the leading families of Thorbury made it a rule not to call on summer people.

But the example of the Tolbridges and Bannisters had a certain effect on Thorbury society, and people now began to drive out to Cobhurst; not very many of them, but some of them representative people. Mr. Ames, the rector of Grace Church, came early because the Haverleys had been to his church several times, and Mr. Torry, the Presbyterian minister, came afterwards because the Haverleys had stopped going to Grace Church, and he did not know that it was on account of the gig shafts.

Mr. Hampton, the Methodist, who was a pedestrian, walked out to Cobhurst one day, but as neither the brother or sister could be found, he good-humoredly resolved to postpone a future call until cooler weather.

Lately, when a lady had called, it happened that there had been no one to receive her but Mrs. Drane; and although there could be no doubt that that lady performed the duties of hostess most admirably, Miriam resolved that that thing should never happen again. She did not wish the people to think that there was a regent in rule at Cobhurst, and she now determined to make it a point to be within call during ordinary visiting hours. Or, if she felt strongly moved to a late afternoon ramble, she would invite the other ladies to accompany her. She still wore her hair down her back, and her dresses did not quite touch the tops of her boots, and it was therefore necessary to be careful in regard to her prerogatives as mistress of the house.

Early one afternoon, much sooner than there was reason to expect visitors, a carriage came in at the Cobhurst gate, driven by our friend Andy Griffing. Miriam happened to be at a front window, and regarded with some surprise the shabby equipage. It came with a flourish to the front of the house, and stopped. But instead of alighting, its occupant seemed to be expostulating with the driver. Andy shook his head a great deal, but finally drove round at the back, when an elderly woman got out, and came to the hall door. Miriam, who supposed, of course, that she would be wanted, was there to meet her, and there was no necessity for ringing or knocking.

"My name," said the visitor, "is La Fleur, if you please. I came to see Mrs. Drane and Miss Drane, if you please. Thank you very much, I will come in. I will wait here, or, if you will be so good as to tell me where I can find Mrs. Drane, I will go to her. I used to live with her: I was her cook."

Miriam had been gazing with much interest on the puffy face and shawl-enwrapped body of the old woman who addressed her with a smiling obsequiousness to which she was not at all accustomed.

The thought struck her that with servants like this woman, it would be easy to feel herself a mistress. She had heard from the Dranes a great deal about their famous cook, and she was glad of the opportunity to look upon this learned professor of kitchen lore.

"What would she have said to my tall raspberry tarts?" involuntarily thought the girl.

But it was when La Fleur had gone to Mrs. Drane's room, and Cicely, wildly delighted when informed who had come to see them, had run to meet the dear old woman, that Miriam pondered most seriously upon this visit from a cook. She had not known anything of the ties between families and old family servants. At school, servants had been no more than machines; she was nothing to them, and they were nothing to her; and now she felt that the ignorance of these ties was one of the deprivations of her life.

That old woman upstairs had not lived very long with the Dranes, and yet she regarded them with a positive affection. Miriam knew this from what she had heard. If they were in trouble, and needed her, she would come to them and serve them wherever they were. This she had told them often. How different was such a woman from Phoebe or Molly Tooney! How happy would she be if there had been such a one in her mother's family, and were she with her now!

"But I have only Ralph," thought Miriam; "no one else in the world."

Ralph was good,--no human being could be better; but he was only one person, and knew nothing of many things she wanted to know, and could not help her in many ways in which she needed to be helped.

With a feeling that from certain points of view she was rather solitary and somewhat forsaken, she went to look for her brother. It would be better to talk to what she had than to think about what she had not.

As she walked toward the barn and pasture fields, Ralph came up from the cornfield by the woods on the other side of the house. As he went in he met Mrs. Drane and La Fleur, who had just come downstairs. Cicely had already retired to her work. At the sight of the gentleman, who, she was informed, was the master of the house, La Fleur bowed her head, cast down her eyes, smiled and courtesied.

Mrs. Drane drew Ralph aside.

"That is La Fleur, who used to be our cook. She is a kind old body, who takes the greatest interest in our welfare. She is greatly pleased to find us in such delightful quarters, but she has queer notions, and now she wants very much to call on your cook. I don't know that this is the right thing, and I have been looking for your sister, to ask her if she objects to it, but I think she is not in the house."

"Oh, bless me!" exclaimed Ralph, "she will not mind in the least. Let the good woman go down and see Molly Tooney, and if she can give her some points about cooking, I am sure we shall all be delighted."

"Oh, she would not do that," said Mrs. Drane. "She is a very considerate person; but I suppose, in any house, her instincts would naturally draw her toward the cook."

When Ralph turned to La Fleur, and a.s.sured her that his sister would be glad to have her visit the kitchen, the old woman, who had not taken her eyes from him for an instant, thanked him with great unction, again bowed, courtesied, smiled, and, being shown the way to the kitchen, descended.

Molly Tooney, who was sitting on a low stool, paring potatoes, looked up in amazement at the person who entered her kitchen. It was not an obsequious old woman she saw, but a sedate, dignified, elderly person, with her brows somewhat knitted. Throwing about her a glance, which was not one of admiration, La Fleur remarked,--

"I suppose you are the cook of the house."

"Indade, an' I am," said Molly, still upon the stool, with a knife in one hand, and a potato, with a long paring hanging from it, in the other; "an' the washer-woman, an' the chambermaid, an' the butler, too, as loike as may be. An' who may you be, an' which do you want to see?"

"I am Madame La Fleur," said the other, with a stateliness that none of her mistresses ever supposed that she possessed. "I came to see Mrs.

Drane, in whose service I was formerly engaged, and I wish to know for myself what sort of a person was cooking for the ladies whose meals I used to prepare."

Molly put down her knife and her half-pared potato, and arose. She had heard of La Fleur, whose fame had spread through and about Thorbury.

"Sit down, mum," said she. "This isn't much of a kitchen, for I haven't had time to clane it up, an' as for me, I'm not much of a cook, nather; for when ye have to be iverything, ye can't be anything to no great ixtent."

La Fleur, still standing, looked at her severely.

"How often do you bake?" she asked.

"Three times a week," answered Molly, lying.