Read Ebook: Boston Neighbours In Town and Out by Poor Agnes Blake

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Ebook has 642 lines and 44269 words, and 13 pages

The men Margaret had danced with the last time asked her again; and she was introduced to so many more, that she was on the floor a very fair share of the time. Her reputation as a wall-flower seemed threatened; but it was too late, for she went home that night from her last girlish gayety. The attentions which would have been so delightful at her first ball were rather a bore now. They kept breaking up her talks with Mr. Smith, making them desultory and fitful; and then she had such a hurried parting from him at last! It was too bad! and she might not have such another chance to see him before she left. Their talks were becoming too absorbing to be carried on with any comfort in the street,--it would be hateful to say good-by there. Perhaps he felt that himself, and would not try to meet her there again. She almost hoped he would not; and yet, as she entered the Public Garden a little later than usual the next morning, what a bound her heart gave as she saw him, evidently waiting for her! As he advanced to meet her, he said at once,--

"Miss Parke, will you walk a little way on the Common with me? There are not so many people there, and I have something I wish very much to say to you."

Simple as Margaret was, it was impossible for her not to see that Mr. Smith "meant something"; only he did not have at all the air that she had supposed natural to the occasion. He looked neither confident nor doubtful, but calm, and a little sad. Perhaps it was not the great "something," after all, but an inferior "something else." She walked along with him in silence, her own face perplexed and doubtful enough. But when they reached the long walk across the loneliest corner of the Common, almost deserted at this season, he said, without further preface,--

"I don't think I ought to let you go home without telling you how great a happiness your stay here has been to me. I never thought I should enjoy anything--I mean anything of that kind--so much. It would not be fair not to tell you so, and it would not be fair to myself either. I must let you know how much I love you. I don't suppose there is much chance of your returning it, but you ought to know it."

Margaret's downcast eyes and blushes, according to the wont of girls, might mean anything or nothing; but her eyes were brimming over with great tears, that, in spite of all her efforts to check them, rolled slowly over her crimson cheeks.

"Don't, pray, feel so sorry about it," said her lover more cheerfully; "there is no need of that. I have been very happy since I first saw you,--happier than I ever was before. I knew it could not last long; but I shall have the memory of it always. You have given me more pleasure than pain, a great deal."

For the first and last time in her life, Margaret felt a little provoked with Mr. Smith. Was the man blind? Then, as she looked down at his face, pale with suppressed emotion, a great wave of mingled pity and reverence at their utmost height swept over her, and made her feel for a moment how near human nature can come to the divine. Had he, indeed, been blind, light must have dawned for him; though, as it was never his way to leave things at loose ends, he had probably intended all along to say just what he did. He stopped short, and said in tones that were now tremulous with a rising hope,--

"Margaret, tell me if you can love me ever so little?"

"How can I help it, when you have been so good to me?" Margaret contrived to stammer out, vexed with herself that she had nothing better to say. Her words sounded so inadequate--so foolish.

"Oh, but you mustn't take me merely out of gratitude," said he, rather sadly.

"Merely out of gratitude!" cried Margaret, her tongue loosened as if by magic, and exulting in her freedom as her words hurried over each other. "Why, what is there better than gratitude, or what more would you want to be loved for? If I had seen you behave to another girl as you have to me, I might have admired and respected you more than any man I ever saw; but I shouldn't have had the right to love you for it, as I do now. Oh!" she went on, all radiant now with beauty and happiness, "how I wish I could do something for you that would make you feel for one single moment to me as I feel to you, and then you would never, never talk of mere gratitude again!

"Darling, forgive me--only give yourself to me, and I'll feel it all my life."

There was no Art School for Margaret that day, nor any thought of it, as she and Mr. Smith walked up and down the long walk again and again, until she was frightened to find how late it was, and hurried home; but now he proudly walked with her to the very door. They had so much to say about the past and the future both, and it was hard to tell which was most delightful; whether they laughingly recalled their first meeting, or more soberly discussed their future plans. How fortunate it was, after all, that she was going back so soon, as now Mr. Smith could follow her in a few days to Royalston. Margaret said she must write to mamma that night--she could not wait; and Mr. Smith said he hoped that her parents would not want to have their engagement a very long one. Of course he had some means besides his books on which to marry. It was asking a great deal of her father and mother, but perhaps he need not take her so very much away from them. Would it not be pleasant to have their home at Royalston, where he could do a great deal of his work, and run down to Boston when necessary? Margaret was charmed with the idea, and said that living was so cheap there, and house rent--oh, almost nothing.

Margaret found Cousin Susan up and halfway through her lunch. She apologised in much confusion, but her cousin did not seem to mind. She, as well as Margaret, was occupied with some weighty affair of her own, and both were silent till Jenny had carried off the lunch tray, when both wanted to speak, but Margaret, always the quicker of the two, began first. Might not Mr. Smith call that evening? He had been saying--of course it could not be considered anything till her father and mother had heard--but she thought Cousin Susan ought to know it before he called at her house--only no one else must know a word till she had written home.

This rather incoherent confession was helped out by the prettiest smiles and blushes; but Mrs. Manton showed none of an older woman's usual prompt comprehension and pleasure in helping out a faltering love-tale. She listened in stolid silence, the most repellent of confidantes, and when it ended in an almost appealing cadence, she broke out with, "Margaret Parke, I am astonished at you!"

Margaret first started, then stared amazedly.

"I would not have believed it if anyone had told me!" went on Mrs. Manton. "I would never have thought that your mother's daughter could sell herself in that barefaced way."

"What do you mean?"

"As if you did not know perfectly well that you were taking that--that Smith--" she paused in vain for an epithet; but the mere name sounded more opprobrious than any she could have selected--"for his money!"

"What do you mean? Mr. Smith hasn't much money; he may have enough to live on; but I can't help that."

"Margaret, don't quibble with the truth. You know well enough that he will have it all. Who else is there for the old man to leave it to?"

"What old man?"

"Why, old Smith, of course! You can't pretend you don't know who he is, and you have been artful enough to keep it all from me! You knew if I heard his Christian name it would all come out! I don't know what your father and mother will say! Mrs. Champion Pryor has been calling here to-day, and told me the whole story, and how you have been seen walking the streets with him for hours. I would scarcely credit it."

"His Christian name! what's that got to do with it? He can't help it!" Margaret's first words rang out defiantly enough; but her voice faltered on the last, as her mind made another painful plunge after vanished memories. Cousin Susan rose, and rang the bell herself; more wonderful still, she went out into the entry, closing the door after her while she spoke to Jenny, and when the girl had run rapidly upstairs and down again, returned with something in her hand.

"I knew Jenny had some of the vile stuff," she said triumphantly; "she was taking it last Friday, when I tried to persuade her to send for the doctor, and be properly treated for her cough." And she thrust a large green glass bottle under Margaret's eyes with these words on the paper label:

"An Unfailing cure for

"Ague. Asthma. Bright's Disease. Bronchitis. Catarrh. Consumption. Colds. Coughs. Diphtheria. Dropsy.

"All genuine have the name of the inventor and proprietor blown on the bottle, thus:

"ALCIBIADES SMITH."

A sudden light flashed upon poor Margaret, showing her forgotten piles of bottles on the counters of village stores, and long columns of unheeded advertisements in the country newspapers. She stood silent and shamefaced.

"What will your father say?" reiterated Cousin Susan. Dr. Parke's reputation with the general public was largely founded on a series of letters he had contributed to a scientific journal exposing and denouncing quack medicines.

"I didn't know," said Margaret, helplessly, wondering that the truth could sound so like a lie, but unable to fortify it by any asseveration.

"No, I never did. Father never lets me read the daily papers," said Margaret, a little proudly.

"Well!" said Cousin Susan, with relaxing energy, "I don't often read such things myself; but one can't help noticing them; and Mrs. Champion Pryor has been telling me a great deal about it."

"And did Mrs. Pryor tell you anything about my--about young Mr. Smith?"

"Oh, she said he was always very well spoken of. He was younger than the rest and delicate in health, and took to study; and his father had a good deal of money in time to educate him. They say he's rather clever, and the old man is quite proud of him; but he can't be a gentleman, Margaret--it is not possible."

"Yes, he can!" burst out Margaret; "he's too much of a man not to be a gentleman, too!"

"Well," said Cousin Susan, suddenly collapsing, "I can't talk any longer. I have such a headache. If you have asked him to call, I suppose he must come; but I can't see him. What's that? a box for you? more flowers? Oh, dear, do take them away. If there is anything I cannot stand when I have a headache, it is flowers about, and I can smell those lilacs you carried last night all the way downstairs, and through two closed doors."

She craved some comfort in her turn, and after keeping the secret for a day and a night, told it in the strictest confidence to her intimate friend, Mrs. Thorndike Freeman, whose "dropping in" was an irresistible temptation.

"What!" cried Mrs. Freeman, "is it that large young woman with red cheeks, whom you brought one evening to Papanti's? I think it will be an excellent thing; why, the Smiths can use her photograph as an advertisement for the Elixir."

"Yes--but then her parents--you see, she's Mary Pickering's daughter."

"Mary Pickering has been married to a country doctor for five and twenty years, hasn't she? You may be sure her eyes are open by this time. Depend upon it, they would swallow Al Smith, if he were bigger than he is. The daughter seems to have found no difficulty in the feat."

"Well," said Mrs. Underwood, with a sigh, "perhaps I ought to be glad that poor Al has got some respectable girl to take him for his money. I never dreamed one would."

"It isn't likely that he ever asked one before," said Mrs. Freeman, with a double-edged sneer.

The door-bell rang, and the butler ushered in Margaret, who had come to make her farewell call. Mrs. Underwood looked at her in astonishment. Was this the shy, blushing girl who had come from Royalston three short months ago? With such gentle sweetness did she express her gratitude for the elder lady's kind attentions, with such graceful dignity did she wave aside a few awkwardly hinted apologies, above all, so regally beautiful did she look, that Mrs. Underwood felt more than ever that she would be called to account by the parents of such a creature. Margaret had quite forgiven Mrs. Underwood, for, she reasoned, if that lady had done as she ought to have done by her, she would never have had the chance of knowing Al, a contingency too dreadful to contemplate; and her forgiveness added to the superiority of her position. Mrs. Underwood could only reiterate the eternal useless regret of the tempted and fallen: "If things had not happened just when, and how, and as they did!" She envied Mrs. Freeman, who was now in the easiest manner possible plying the young girl with devoted attentions, with large doses of flattery thrown in. Mrs. Freeman, meanwhile, was mentally resolving to call on Margaret before she left town, in which case they could hardly avoid sending her wedding-cards. She foresaw that, as two negatives make an affirmative, Mr. and Mrs. Alcibiades Smith, Jr., might yet be worthy of the honor of her acquaintance.

Margaret's engagement was no primrose path. It was easier for her when her lover was away, for he wrote delightful letters, but they rarely had one happy and undisturbed hour together. Dr. and Mrs. Parke, of course, gave their consent to the marriage; but they did not like it, and did not pretend to. Dr. Parke, who, as is the wont of his profession, placed a high value on physical attractions, and who cared as little for money as any sane man could, hardly restrained his expressions of dislike. "What business," he growled, "had the fellow to ask her?" Mrs. Parke, while trying hard to keep her husband in order, was cold and constrained herself. Being a woman, she thought less of looks, and had learned in her married life to appreciate the value of money. She would have liked Margaret to make a good match; but here was more money by twenty times than she would have asked, had it only been offered by a lover more worthy of her beautiful daughter! And yet, if Margaret would only have been open with her! If she would have frankly said that she was tired of being poor, and could not forego the opportunity of marrying a rich man, who was a good sort of man enough, Mrs. Parke could have understood, and pitied, and forgiven; but to see her put on such an affectation of attachment for him drove her mother nearly wild. Why, she acted as if she were more in love than he was!

The boys had been duly respectful on hearing that their sister's betrothed was a "Harvard man," but grew contemptuous when they found him so unfit for athletics. Relations and friends, and acquaintances of every degree, believed, and still believe, and always will believe, that Margaret's was one of the most mercenary of mercenary marriages. Some blamed her parents for allowing it; others thought that their opposition was feigned, and that they were really forcing poor Margaret into it.

The two younger children, Harry and Winnie, at once adopted their new brother, and stood up stanchly for him on all occasions, and their sister was eternally grateful to them for it. Her only other support came, of all the people in the world, from Ralph Underwood. He could not be best man at the wedding, as he was going abroad with his mother, who was sadly run down and needed change; but he wrote Margaret a straightforward, manly letter, in which he said that he trusted, unworthy as he was, she would admit him to her friendship for Al's sake. He spoke of all he owed to his friend in such a way that Margaret perceived that more had passed in their college days than she ever had been or ever should be told.

Margaret, in after years, could appreciate the comedy of the situation. It is no wonder if it seemed to her at the time the most gloomily tragical that perverse ingenuity could devise. Al's manner to his parents was perfect. He was very silent; not more, perhaps, than he always was in a room full, but she thought he looked fagged and tired, and wondered how he could bear it. She longed intensely to say something sympathetic to him; but, like most girls on the eve of their marriage, she felt overpowered with shyness. If this dreadful evening ever came to an end, and they were ever married, then she would tell him, once for all, that she loved him all the better for all and everything that he had to bear.

"They will spoil the whole effect," said Mrs. Parke, despondently, as she put the last careful touches to Margaret's wedding-dress. It was a very simple but becoming one of rich plain silk, with a little lace, and the pearl daisies with diamond dewdrops, sent by the bridegroom, accorded with it well. But Mr. Smith, senior, had begged that his gift, or part of it, should be worn on the occasion, and Mrs. Parke now slowly opened a velvet box, in which lay a crescent and a cross. Neither she nor Margaret was accustomed to estimate the price of diamonds, and had they been, they would have seen that these were far beyond their mark.

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