Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

“But, Gracie! Now, John, I know she has associations with all the things in this house, and it would be cruel to her,” said Lillie, with a sigh.

  “Pshaw! Gracie is a good, sensible girl, and ready to make any rational change. I suppose we have been living rather behind the times, and are somewhat rusty, that’s a fact; but Gracie will enjoy new things as much as anybody, I dare say.”

  “Well, John, since you are set on it, there’s Charlie Ferrola, one of my particular friends; he’s an architect, and does all about arranging rooms and houses and furniture. He did the Folingsbees’, and the Hortons’, and the Jeromes’, and no end of real nobby people’s houses; and made them perfectly lovely. People say that one wouldn’t know that they weren’t in Paris, in houses that he does.”

  Now, our John was by nature a good solid chip of the old Anglo-Saxon block; and, if there was any thing that he had no special affinity for, it was for French things. He had small opinion of French morals, and French ways in general; but then at this moment he saw his Lillie, whom, but half an hour before, he found all pale and tear-drenched, now radiant and joyous, sleek as a humming-bird, with the light in her eyes, and the rattle on the tip of her tongue; and he felt so delighted to see her bright and gay and joyous, that he would have turned his house into the Jardin Mabille, if that were possible.

  Lillie had the prettiest little caressing tricks and graces imaginable; and she perched herself on his knee, and laughed and chatted so gayly, and pulled his whiskers so saucily, and then, springing up, began arraying herself in such an astonishing daintiness of device, and fluttering before him with such a variety of well-assorted plumage, that John was quite taken off his feet. He did not care so much whether what she willed to do were, “Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,” as feel that what she wished to do must be done at any rate.

  “Why, darling!” he said in his rapture; “why didn’t you tell me all this before? Here you have been growing sad and blue, and losing your vivacity and spirits, and never told me why!”

  “I thought it was my duty, John, to try to bear it,” said Lillie, with the sweet look of a virgin saint. “I thought perhaps I should get used to things in time; and I think it is a wife’s duty to accommodate herself to her husband’s circumstances.”

  “No, it’s a husband’s duty to accommodate himself to his wife’s wishes,” said John. “What’s that fellow’s address? I’ll write to him about doing our house, forthwith.”

  “But, John, do pray tell Gracie that it’s your wish. I don’t want her to think that it’s I that am doing this. Now, pray do think whether you really want it yourself. You see it must be so natural for you to like the old things! They must have associations, and I wouldn’t for the world, now, be the one to change them; and, after all, how silly it was of me to feel blue!”

  “Don’t say any more, Lillie. Let me see, — next week,” he said, taking out his pocket-book, and looking over his memoranda,—”next week I’ll take you down to Newport; and you write to-day to your mother to meet you there, and be your guest. I’ll write and engage the rooms at once.”

  “I don’t know what I shall do without you, John.”

  “Oh, well, I couldn’t stay possibly! But I may run down now and then, for a night, you know.”

  “Well, we must make that do,” said Lillie, with a pensive sigh.

  Thus two very important moves on Miss Lillie’s checker-board of life were skilfully made. The house was to be refitted, and the Newport precedent established.

  Now, dear friends, don’t think Lillie a pirate, or a conspirator, or a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, or any thing else but what she was, — a pretty little, selfish woman; undeveloped in her conscience and affections, and strong in her instincts and perceptions; in a blind way using what means were most in her line to carry her purposes. Lillie had always found her prettiness, her littleness, her helplessness, and her tears so very useful in carrying her points in life that she resorted to them as her lawful stock in trade. Neither were her blues entirely shamming. There comes a time after marriage, when a husband, if he be any thing of a man, has something else to do than make direct love to his wife. He cannot be on duty at all hours to fan her, and shawl her, and admire her. His love must express itself through other channels. He must be a full man for her sake; and, as a man, must go forth to a whole world of interests that takes him from her. Now what in this case shall a woman do, whose only life lies in petting and adoration and display?

  Springdale had no beau monde, no fashionable circle, no Bois de Boulogne, and no beaux, to make amends for a husband’s engrossments. Grace was sisterly and kind; but what on earth had they in common to talk about? Lillie’s wardrobe was in all the freshness of bridal exuberance, and there was nothing more to be got, and so, for the moment, no stimulus in this line. But then where to wear all these fine French dresses? Lillie had been called on, and invited once to little social evening parties, through the whole round of old, respectable families that lived under the elm-arches of Springdale; and she had found it rather stupid. There was not a man to make an admirer of, except the young minister, who, after the first afternoon of seeing her, returned to his devotion to Rose Ferguson.

  You know, ladies, Aesop has a pretty little fable as follows: A young man fell desperately in love with a cat, and prayed to Jupiter to change her to a woman for his sake. Jupiter was so obliging as to grant his prayer; and, behold, a soft, satin-skinned, purring, graceful woman was given into his arms.

  But the legend goes on to say that, while he was delighting in her charms, she heard the sound of mice behind the wainscot, and left him forthwith to rush after her congenial prey.

  Lillie had heard afar the sound of mice at Newport, and she longed to be after them once more. Had she not a prestige now as a rich young married lady? Had she not jewels and gems to show? Had she not any number of mouse-traps, in the way of ravishing toilets? She thought it all over, till she was sick with longing, and was sure that nothing but the sea-air could do her any good; and so she fell to crying, and kissing her faithful John, till she gained her end, like a veritable little cat as she was.

  CHAPTER XI.

  NEWPORT; OR, THE PARADISE OF NOTHING TO DO.

  Behold, now, our Lillie at the height of her heart’s desire, installed in fashionable apartments at Newport, under the placid chaperonship of dear mamma, who never saw the least harm in any earthly thing her Lillie chose to do.

  All the dash and flash and furbelow of upper-tendom were there; and Lillie now felt the full power and glory of being a rich, pretty, young married woman, with oceans of money to spend, and nothing on earth to do but follow the fancies of the passing hour.

  This was Lillie’s highest ideal of happiness; and didn’t she enjoy it?

  Wasn’t it something to flame forth in wondrous toilets in the eyes of Belle Trevors and Margy Silloway and Lottie Cavers, who were not married; and before the Simpkinses and the Tomkinses and the Jenkinses, who, last year, had said hateful things about her, and intimated that she had gone off in her looks, and was on the way to be an old maid?

  And wasn’t it a triumph when all her old beaux came flocking round her, and her parlors became a daily resort and lounging-place for all the idle swains, both of her former acquaintance and of the newcomers, who drifted with the tide of fashion? Never had she been so much the rage; never had she been declared so “stunning.” The effect of all this good fortune on her health was immediate. We all know how the spirits affect the bodily welfare; and hence, my dear gentlemen, we desire it to be solemnly impressed on you, that there is nothing so good for a woman’s health as to give her her own way.

  Lillie now, from this simple cause, received enormous accessions of vigor. While at home with plain, sober John, trying to walk in the quiet paths of domesticity, how did her spirits droop! If you only could have had a vision of her brain and spinal system, you would have seen how there was no nervous fluid there, and how all the fine little cords and fibres that string the muscles were wilti
ng like flowers out of water; but now she could bathe the longest and the strongest of any one, could ride on the beach half the day, and dance the German into the small hours of the night, with a degree of vigor which showed conclusively what a fine thing for her the Newport air was. Her dancing-list was always over-crowded with applicants; bouquets were showered on her; and the most superb “turn-outs,” with their masters for charioteers, were at her daily disposal.

  All this made talk. The world doesn’t forgive success; and the ancients informed us that even the gods were envious of happy people. It is astonishing to see the quantity of very proper and rational moral reflection that is excited in the breast of society, by any sort of success in life. How it shows them the vanity of earthly enjoyments, the impropriety of setting one’s heart on it! How does a successful married flirt impress all her friends with the gross impropriety of having one’s head set on gentlemen’s attentions!

  “I must say,” said Belle Trevors, “that dear Lillie does astonish me. Now, I shouldn’t want to have that dissipated Danforth lounging in my rooms every day, as he does in Lillie’s: and then taking her out driving day after day; for my part, I don’t think it’s respectable.”

  “Why don’t you speak to her?” said Lottie Cavers.

  “Oh, my dear! she wouldn’t mind me. Lillie always was the most imprudent creature; and, if she goes on so, she’ll certainly get awfully talked about. That Danforth is a horrid creature; I know all about him.”

  As Miss Belle had herself been driving with the “horrid creature” only the week before Lillie came, it must be confessed that her opportunities for observation were of an authentic kind.

  Lillie, as queen in her own parlor, was all grace and indulgence. Hers was now to be the sisterly rôle, or, as she laughingly styled it, the maternal. With a ravishing morning-dress, and with a killing little cap of about three inches in extent on her head, she enacted the young matron, and gave full permission to Tom, Dick, and Harry to make themselves at home in her room, and smoke their cigars there in peace. She “adored the smell;” in fact, she accepted the present of a fancy box of cigarettes from Danforth with graciousness, and would sometimes smoke one purely for good company. She also encouraged her followers to unveil the tender secrets of their souls confidentially to her, and offered gracious mediations on their behalf with any of the flitting Newport fair ones. When they, as in duty bound, said that they saw nobody whom they cared about now she was married, that she was the only woman on earth for them, — she rapped their knuckles briskly with her fan, and bid them mind their manners. All this mode of proceeding gave her an immense success.

  But, as we said before, all this was talked about; and ladies in their letters, chronicling the events of the passing hour, sent the tidings up and down the country; and so Miss Letitia Ferguson got a letter from Mrs. Wilcox with full pictures and comments; and she brought the same to Grace Seymour.

  “I dare say,” said Letitia, “these things have been exaggerated; they always are: still it does seem desirable that your brother should go there, and be with her.”

  “He can’t go and be with her,” said Grace, “without neglecting his business, already too much neglected. Then the house is all in confusion under the hands of painters; and there is that young artist up there, — very elegant gentleman, — giving orders to right and left, every one of which involves further confusion and deeper expense; for my part, I see no end to it. Poor John has got ‘the Old Man of the Sea’ on his back in the shape of this woman; and I expect she’ll be the ruin of him yet. I can’t want to break up his illusion about her; because, what good will it do? He has married her, and must live with her; and, for Heaven’s sake, let the illusion last while it can! I’m going to draw off, and leave them to each other; there’s no other way.”

  “You are, Gracie?”

  “Yes; you see John came to me, all stammering and embarrassment, about this making over of the old place; but I put him at ease at once. ‘The most natural thing in the world, John,’ said I. ‘Of course Lillie has her taste; and it’s her right to have the house arranged to suit it.’ And then I proposed to take all the old family things, and furnish the house that I own on Elm Street, and live there, and let John and Lillie keep house by themselves. You see there is no helping the thing. Married people must be left to themselves; nobody can help them. They must make their own discoveries, fight their own battles, sink or swim, together; and I have determined that not by the winking of an eye will I interfere between them.”

  “Well, but do you think John wants you to go?”

  “He feels badly about it; and yet I have convinced him that it’s best. Poor fellow! all these changes are not a bit to his taste. He liked the old place as it was, and the old ways; but John is so unselfish. He has got it in his head that Lillie is very sensitive and peculiar, and that her spirits require all these changes, as well as Newport air.”

  “Well,” said Letitia, “if a man begins to say A in that line, he must say B.”

  “Of course,” said Grace; “and also C and D, and so on, down to X, Y, Z. A woman, armed with sick-headaches, nervousness, debility, presentiments, fears, horrors, and all sorts of imaginary and real diseases, has an eternal armory of weapons of subjugation. What can a man do? Can he tell her that she is lying and shamming? Half the time she isn’t; she can actually work herself into about any physical state she chooses. The fortnight before Lillie went to Newport, she really looked pale, and ate next to nothing; and she managed admirably to seem to be trying to keep up, and not to complain, — yet you see how she can go on at Newport.”

  “It seems a pity John couldn’t understand her.”

  “My dear, I wouldn’t have him for the world. Whenever he does, he will despise her; and then he will be wretched. For John is no hypocrite, any more than I am. No, I earnestly pray that his soap-bubble may not break.”

  “Well, then,” said Letitia, “at least, he might go down to Newport for a day or two; and his presence there might set some things right: it might at least check reports. You might just suggest to him that unfriendly things were being said.”

  “Well, I’ll see what I can do,” said Grace.

  So, by a little feminine tact in suggestion, Grace despatched her brother to spend a day or two in Newport.

  His coming and presence interrupted the lounging hours in Lillie’s room; the introduction to “my husband” shortened the interviews. John was courteous and affable; but he neither smoked nor drank, and there was a mutual repulsion between him and many of Lillie’s habitués.

  “I say, Dan,” said Bill Sanders to Danforth, as they were smoking on one end of the veranda, “you are driven out of your lodgings since Seymour came.”

  “No more than the rest of you,” said Danforth.

  “I don’t know about that, Dan. I think you might have been taken for master of those premises. Look here now, Dan, why didn’t you take little Lill yourself? Everybody thought you were going to last year.”

  “Didn’t want her; knew too much,” said Danforth. “Didn’t want to keep her; she’s too cursedly extravagant. It’s jolly to have this sort of concern on hand; but I’d rather Seymour’d pay her bills than I.”

  “Who thought you were so practical, Dan?”

  “Practical! that I am; I’m an old bird. Take my advice, boys, now: keep shy of the girls, and flirt with the married ones, — then you don’t get roped in.”

  “I say, boys,” said Tom Nichols, “isn’t she a case, now? What a head she has! I bet she can smoke equal to any of us.”

  “Yes; I keep her in cigarettes,” said Danforth; “she’s got a box of them somewhere under her ruffles now.”

  “What if Seymour should find them?” said Tom.

  “Seymour? pooh! he’s a muff and a prig. I bet you he won’t find her out; she’s the jolliest little humbugger there is going. She’d cheat a fellow out of the sight of his eyes. It’s perfectly wonderful.”

  “How came Seymour to marry her?”
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  “He? Why, he’s a pious youth, green as grass itself; and I suppose she talked religion to him. Did you ever hear her talk religion?”

  A roar of laughter followed this, out of which Danforth went on. “By

  George, boys, she gave me a prayer-book once! I’ve got it yet.”

  “Well, if that isn’t the best thing I ever heard!” said Nichols.

  “It was at the time she was laying siege to me, you see. She undertook the part of guardian angel, and used to talk lots of sentiment. The girls get lots of that out of George Sand’s novels about the holiness of doing just as you’ve a mind to, and all that,” said Danforth.

  “By George, Dan, you oughtn’t to laugh. She may have more good in her than you think.”

  “Oh, humbug! don’t I know her?”

  “Well, at any rate she’s a wonderful creature to hold her looks. By George! how she does hold out! You’d say, now, she wasn’t more than twenty.”

  “Yes; she understands getting herself up,” said Danforth, “and touches up her cheeks a bit now and then.”

  “She don’t paint, though?”

  “Don’t paint! Don’t she? I’d like to know if she don’t; but she does it like an artist, like an old master, in fact.”

  “Or like a young mistress,” said Tom, and then laughed at his own wit.

  Now, it so happened that John was sitting at an open window above, and heard occasional snatches of this conversation quite sufficient to impress him disagreeably. He had not heard enough to know exactly what had been said, but enough to feel that a set of coarse, low-minded men were making quite free with the name and reputation of his Lillie; and he was indignant.

  “She is so pretty, so frank, and so impulsive,” he said. “Such women are always misconstrued. I’m resolved to caution her.”

  “Lillie,” he said, “who is this Danforth?”

  “Charlie Danforth — oh! he’s a millionnaire that I refused. He was wild about me, — is now, for that matter. He perfectly haunts my rooms, and is always teasing me to ride with him.”