Читать книгу The Matrimonial Bureau - Carolyn Wells - Страница 7

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Did you ever see the picture of we three?—Twelfth Night.

After several trials Miss Esther succeeded in obtaining a maid who, while she was not another Tekla, seemed capable of following in her footsteps. In most respects the new maid was competent and satisfactory, but in the matter of afternoon tea Miss Esther had found some difficulty in having her instructions rightly carried out. Afternoon tea was rather unusual in Whitfield, except as a special function. It was only at the Adams house that tea was served every afternoon at five o’clock, whether guests were present or not, but the custom appealed to Miss Esther because in the English novels she had read it had been such an attractive feature. Consequently tea was served every day at five o’clock—in winter in the library, and in summer on the veranda.

The mistress of the house was punctilious as to the appointments of her tea service, and Tekla, who was after all but a reflection of Miss Adams, had found no difficulty in pleasing her. But Nora, the new maid, had not yet learned to appreciate the vital importance of synchronizing the time and the tea.

As a consequence of this, Miss Esther had sometimes to arrange or rearrange her own tea-table. And so when Jean Richards came flying across the lawn one warm afternoon, she found Miss Esther fussing over her alcohol lamp with her usual calm a little bit ruffled.

“Tea ready?” she called out.

“No, it is not. That good sister in the kitchen is making a bondmaid and a slave of me. She hasn’t toasted the muffins.”

“Let me take them out and toast them.”

“No, you can’t. They’re already buttered.”

“Oh, well, never mind. We’ll eat them as they are. What are you playing to-day, Miss Esther?”

“To-day I am Katherine. Nora is enough to make a shrew of anybody.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re Bonny Kate,and not Kate the Curst. May I take this chair or is Petruchio sitting in it?”

“He has already risen, that you may have it. Sit down.”

Jean sat down suddenly, as she always did everything, and took her cup of tea from Miss Esther.

“This is the very nicest part of the day’s work,” she said, “drinking tea here with you. I wonder if the other girls are coming.”

“I hope so,” said Miss Esther; “I haven’t seen Helen for a week.”

“Helen’s got the blues,” said Jean. “She’s had ‘em for three days.”

“What’s the matter this time?” asked Miss Esther; “or is she just having the blues from a sense of duty?”

“That’s it,” said Jean, cheerfully. “It’s her make-up, you know. She has to have the blues about once in so often to live up to that temperament of hers. I’m glad I haven’t any.”

“Yes. It is a fearful thing to have to entertain a temperament. Don’t ever acquire one, Jeanie.”

“No, ma’am,” said Jean, submissively; “I wouldn’t have one of the ridiculous things. People don’t like people with temperaments.”

“Nonsense,” replied Miss Esther; “everybody likes Helen.”

“Not as much as they like me,” said Jean, comfortably sipping her tea.

“Well, if they don’t,” said Miss Esther, stoutly, “it is Helen’s own fault. She likes so few people.”

“That’s just what I said; and that’s the fault of her everlasting temperament”

Jean leaned back in her chair and happily munched her untoasted muffin.

“Now just look at the two of them,” she said, as two girls came in at the gate. “Couldn’t you tell at a glance which one has the blues? Helen looks as though she owned all the indigo mines in India, or wherever it comes from. Anybody could see, though, that Lillian hasn’t a blue to her name.”

But if Helen Fairbanks had the blues they were certainly rather becoming to her than otherwise. As she approached the house, trailing her parasol listlessly along the walk, she was apparently paying no attention to her companion, who was pointing enthusiastically toward the distant landscape.

Helen Fairbanks’s sponsors in baptism had disagreed as to the child’s name. Her father had insisted on Pearl, but her mother had finally carried the day, and had given to her daughter the only name which absolutely fitted her. Tall, fair, graceful, statuesque, Helen Fairbanks’s beauty was of that classic perfection which is inevitably associated with the name of Helen. Her large, calm, gray eyes which had never yet lived up to the possibilities of their dark lashes, her golden hair which she wore a bit too smooth, her mouth which showed all too seldom the little curves at its corners, were trustworthy indexes of her beautiful but cold nature. Miss Esther had said of Helen that she reminded her of Cassius:

“Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort,

As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit

That could be mov’d to smile at any thing.”

As for Lillian Hastings, she was as unlike Helen as Helen was unlike Jean. But the three were united in their friendship for each other and their admiration of Miss Esther, which amounted almost to adoration. Lillian was an artist; that is, she was by every implication of her being, by every wish and desire of her soul, and by every intent of her strong and somewhat stubborn character. The mere fact that owing to limited opportunities she had not as yet achieved much on canvas, in no way contradicts the statement that she was an artist. She had spent two blessed weeks one summer at Shinnecock, and there fallen under the direction of Chase and his associates. There the impulse had its beginnings—possibly from the inspiration of the instructors, possibly because of the fact that she met there other girls who, so they had told her, could paint no better than she did when they began, but who now, after three years of work, had had the distinction of really selling a picture. So her ambition formed itself into an absolute mania for definite accomplishment.

During those two weeks a great artist had asked her to pose for him, and he had painted her portrait. “Gad!” he had said to his friends, afterward, “she’s built like a greyhound. Her figure is the figure of a girl of eight—grown up. Her hair is Burne-Jones’s ladies’ hair, and her complexion—well, I tried to paint it here, but I haven’t got the transparency of it yet.”

“Who is this paragon?” his friends had asked him.

“By George!” he exclaimed, “I forgot to ask her name. She was just a painter girl, working with the others down there on Peconic Bay.”

And so Lillian had kept on painting. She had a studio which was an honest workroom, without draperies, plaster casts, or cosy corners, and here she worked doggedly, perseveringly, and without a moment’s doubt as to her ultimate success. She understood herself. She had no false or flattering opinions of her own ability, but she was sure that intelligent effort, properly directed, would lead her eventually to the Roman Road.

“Confide in us, Helen, dear,” cried Jean as the two came up the steps. “Why so blue and wan, fair lady? Is it your doll or tea-set that’s broken to-day?”

“Neither,” said Helen, briefly.

“Perhaps it’s her heart,” suggested Lillian.

“Not Helen’s,” returned Jean; “she hasn’t any heart.”

Helen sat down on the wicker settee beside Miss Esther, with a look of patient exasperation.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, “only another proposal; that’s all.”

“It’s a perfect shame,” said Miss Esther, “the way those men bother you.”

“It is,” said Jean. “Why don’t you hang out a sign, ‘No Others Need Apply’?”

“I think it’s awfully hard on Helen,” said Lillian, sympathetically; “she’s so kind-hearted, she hates to say ‘no’ to a goose.”

“And yet they keep her saying it most of the time,” said Jean.

“Who is it this time?” asked Miss Esther.

“Mr. Walker,” said Helen.

“The young man who is staying at Bradstreet’s?”

“Yes, that pretty boy with the glasses,” said Jean. “He came here for health, and he found Helen, and now he wants to take them both back to New York.”

“But you’ve always said you‘d like to live in New York, Helen.”

“Yes, Miss Esther, but I didn’t mean with Mr. Walker.”

“Why not?” asked Miss Esther, straightforwardly. “Why don’t you like Mr. Walker?”

“Because there’s nothing to like about him. He has no more to recommend him than—than—”

“Than any of the Whitfield men who have asked you to marry them?” queried Jean.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, Jeanie, as nobody knows better than you do.”

“Yes,” said Jean, with an exaggerated sigh. “I, too, have my troubles. It’s a fearful thing, girls, to be belles of society, with no society to be belles of.”

“And who are you, my girl,” asked Miss Esther, “that you scorn Whitfield society? Pray what sort of people would you like, if given your choice?”

“Oh, a lot of gay people,” said Jean, “at some kind of a summery place, with lovely clothes, and hops, and bathing-suits. And beautiful men in white flannels, and automobiles, and—and—everything!”

“Modest child! With such easily gratified tastes, it’s a pity they cannot be realized.”

“Oh, they will be, sometime,” said Jean. “What would you choose, Lillian?”

“Oh, I don’t care for a lot of people, but if I just had one—”

“A nearer one still, and a dearer one?” asked Jean.

“No, what I mean is some fairy godmother or grandmother or great-grandmother who would take me abroad and let me see pictures—and paint them.”

“It’s your turn next, Helen,” said Miss Esther.

“I,” said Helen, slowly, “want nothing more nor less than a castle in Spain, but it must be the largest and handsomest castle there is in Spain, and it must be my own.”

“Anybody there with you?” asked Jean.

“Yes, I think so; one of Miss Esther’s best Galahads or Romeos.”

“I hope you‘ll find your castle,” said Miss Esther, looking at Helen with keen appreciation. “You would make an admirable chatelaine.”