Читать книгу The Matrimonial Bureau - Carolyn Wells - Страница 6

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But where Is Kate? where is my lovely bride?—Taming of the Shrew.

Not that Miss Esther had preferred imaginary Romeos. Imagination was all very well in its place, but she would have gladly welcomed a hero who could have spoken his own lines. Although she had never consciously or definitely wished for a husband, yet she had often felt the lack of that companionship which she knew could only be afforded by association with one whose mentality was equal to her own, whose tastes were congenial, and whose temperament was similar.

Without reflection upon her own sex, but with total indifference to the lack of feminine comradeship, Miss Esther preferred masculine society. During their long and somewhat lonely life together, her association with her father had been a real friendship; and though not a whit mannish, indeed being herself the essence of femininity, men’s traits and characteristics appealed strongly to Esther Adams.

More than this, she had, and knew she had, the capability to be a great deal to some one man. Responsive, tactful, loyal, and possessed of an instant perception, she demanded these qualities in the man she could love.

No one in Whitfield had ever qualified.

The young men who had entered into Miss Esther’s girlhood life were not of inferior mental calibre, in the opinion of the best Whitfield society, but owing to Esther’s possibly unfortunate fastidiousness, they did not come up to her standards. Her mentally intimate association with Galahad, Romeo, and The Admirable Crichton had made her exacting. It is not that she was unreasonable, nor did she complain; her demeanor toward the young men of Whitfield was marked by a gentle courtesy and frank good comradeship. Whitfield society did not understand her attitude, and could not have done so had she explained it to them—which she did not. Indeed, so misleading was her apparent acceptance of their attentions, that more than one young man had put himself in a position to receive her gracious but decided refusal.

Through her girlhood years Miss Esther had thought it not impossible that she might yet meet a man who would be the realization of her ideals. But no strangers ever came to Whitfield, and her filial sense of duty would not allow her to leave her father alone, so she could not accept invitations to visit elsewhere, which would otherwise have given her great pleasure. Major Adams was so deeply occupied with his books that it never occurred to him that his daughter needed a change, or recreation of any sort other than that which was offered at home, although had she asked to go he would have gladly given consent. It had never occurred to him, either, but that she would sometime make a choice among the men of Whitfield, for he knew nothing of his daughter’s ideals and was himself amply content with the society of his native town.

Once, when Whistler was shooting at a Scotch country place, he deliberately shot a dog which was standing near by. Because, as he afterward explained, the dog was out of drawing. He should have been twenty feet further to the left, if in the landscape at all. And so it seemed to Miss Esther that the men who had come into her life had been “out of drawing.” She did not shoot them, but she put them out of her life as completely as if they had been shot.

This state of things, however, did not leave Miss Esther’s life as empty as might have been expected. The very qualities which induced this lack brought with them their own means of fulfilling it. Although without any definite acceptance of these facts, Miss Esther went on from day to day, living in the way which seemed to her to offer the best possible selection from all that life had to offer. The Romeos and Galahads of her happy fancies came nearer the perfection of her standards than did the men of Whitfield, and her dream-life with them was happier in its ideality than any real life she had seen. This play-life was begun by Esther Adams, sitting in prim frocks, silent, her foot tucked comfortably under her on the straight-backed sofa of her father’s library. It continued through the girlhood days when she was still known as Esther Adams; and now, after many years, when, a woman of fifty, she was called Miss Esther by everybody in Whitfield, the gentle, grayhaired lady still found in the atmosphere of her wonderful old books the realization of the ideals which had been denied her elsewhere.

And so this is the explanation of why Miss Esther Adams never married.

One morning Miss Esther sat in her broad-armed veranda chair with her hands idly folded in her lap. She rocked slowly as she gazed across the lawn at the riotous rose-garden.

“Ay, ‘t is as thou sayest, Rosalind; the blossoms be o’er-blown. They ought to have been cut earlier. They are really of no use now except to make potpourri. Heigh-ho, Rosalind, I wonder if your roses in the Forest of Arden ever bothered you as much as mine do me.”

Miss Esther’s attention was attracted from the roses by a stranger within her gates. This was an unusual occurrence; even more so in that this stranger was a man. And he was big and broad and black-bearded, and distinctly of Teutonic origin. His air was assured, yet deferential, and he approached the house with the look of one who was certain of a waiting welcome.

“He looks like Thor,” said Miss Esther, critically, “but I never saw a brunette Thor before.”

With the pleasant manner of childlike confidence characteristic of the people of his country, he said:

“Is this Tekla Klein’s house?”

“No,—not exactly—”

“That is too bad. I wished to marry her.”

“Is that so?” said Miss Esther, with interest. “In that case perhaps I had better call her.”

“If you will be so kind.”

The big man seated himself on the lowest of the stone steps, removed his wide-brimmed hat, and calmly wiped his forehead with a huge handkerchief.

Miss Esther looked at her brunette Thor steadily, with a dawning appreciation that here at last she was confronted by a dramatic situation quite to her taste. She went into the house and into the library. She rang the bell and in a moment Tekla appeared.

“There is a person inquiring for you at the front door,” said Miss Esther.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tekla.

The stranger had not moved since Miss Esther went into the house, but at the sound of a footstep behind him he rose and went up the steps to where Tekla Klein stood by one of Putnam Adams’s fluted pillars.

He took a letter from his pocket, and she saw that it was the one which she had written in answer to the advertisement.

“I have come,” he said, simply.

Tekla looked at him critically, and then with an air of satisfaction she said, “It is good. And you have the farm?”

“Yes, a half-section, many—three hundred and twenty acres—one hundred wheat, one hundred corn, one hundred and twenty in pasture.”

“Is it in America?” asked Tekla.

“It is in Nebraska.” he replied.

“Oh! I would rather it had been in America. But it does not matter. I will go.”

Again the pleased smile broke over the big, good-natured face.

“I was born near Breslau. I am a German. I have lived in America fifteen years—ten years in Nebraska. I own my farm there, and my cattle. I am thirty-five years old. My name is Adolf Hecksher.”

“Adolf is a nice name,” said Tekla.

“Yes, it is a good name. It was my father’s. Can you go soon?”

“Yes, soon; but first I must tell Miss Esther. She will not be pleased.”

“She will miss you?”

“Yes, I have lived with her for seven years, and she has been very kind to me.”

“But she will let you go?”

“Oh, yes; I will go. Come with me and we will tell her together.”

Leading her big captive, Tekla went straight to the library. Miss Esther smiled at the pair as they entered, and said indulgently, “Well?”

“He has come to marry me,” said Tekla.

“So he told me,” said Miss Esther. “Who is he?”

“I am Adolf Hecksher—” began the accepted suitor.

“And he has three hundred and twenty acres,” interrupted Tekla, “and he wants to marry me.”

“I understand that,” said Miss Esther, “but where did you find him or where did he find you?”

“It was an advertisement,” said Tekla, “and—”

“What!” exclaimed Miss Esther, “you answered an advertisement? a matrimonial advertisement!”

“It was in one of those papers Lieutenant Adams sent with the cast,” asserted Tekla, “and it cost but a dollar.”

Miss Esther smiled. “He’s big enough to be worth it,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” and Tekla looked at the giant beside her, “he is.”

“But I don’t understand,” pursued Miss Esther. “Did that dreadful matrimonial agency send this man to you? Have you ever seen him before? Do you know who he is?”

“Yes,” said Tekla; “he is Adolf Hecksher.”

“You are a little fool,” said Miss Esther. “Leave the room and I will talk with your Adolf Hecksher myself.”

Tekla left the room, smiling. Miss Esther invited her guest to be seated, and in the next half hour satisfied herself from the credentials which he produced in the shape of savings-bank books, deeds of property, and a draft which he had received from the last lot of cattle which had been shipped to Chicago, that he was at least in a position to take care of a wife. She promised to communicate with the people whom he had named as references in the little Nebraska town where he lived. This matter being disposed of, Miss Esther again rang the bell for Tekla. “It is all right,” she said, “and you may ask Mr. Hecksher to stay to dinner with you if you wish.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tekla.

As Miss Esther passed through the kitchen shortly before dinner, Tekla showed her the picture she had cut from the paper.

“That is what my farm will be like,” she said. “There will be cows and sheep and many, many acres—and Adolf.”

Miss Esther returned to the veranda. “It is very nice for them,” she thought; “but where can I find another Tekla?”