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Read Ebook: Lemorne Versus Huell by Stoddard Elizabeth
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Ebook has 240 lines and 9194 words, and 5 pages
"Are you suspicious?" she inquired.
"No; but the Uxbridge chaps are clever."
He dined with us; and at four o'clock Aunt Eliza graciously asked him to take a seat in the carriage with me, making some excuse for not going herself.
"Hullo!" said Mr. Van Horn when we had reached the country road; "there's Uxbridge now." And he waved his hand to him.
It was indeed the black horse and the same rider that I had met. He reined up beside us, and shook hands with Mr. Van Horn.
"We are required to answer this new complaint?" said Mr. Van Horn.
Mr. Uxbridge nodded.
"And after that the judgment?"
Mr. Uxbridge laughed.
"I wish that certain gore of land had been sunk instead of being mapped in 1835."
"The surveyor did his business well enough, I am sure."
"Nice beast that," said Mr. Van Horn.
"Yes," he answered, laying his hand on its mane, so that the action brought immediately to my mind the recollection that I had done so too. I would not meet his eye again, however.
"How long shall you remain, Uxbridge?"
"I don't know. You are not interested in the lawsuit, Miss Huell?" he said, putting on his hat.
"Not in the least; nothing of mine is involved."
"We'll gain it for your portion yet, Miss Margaret," said Mr. Van Horn, nodding to Mr. Uxbridge, and bidding William drive on. He returned the next day, and we settled into the routine of hotel life. A few mornings after, she sent me to a matinee, which was given by some of the Opera people, who were in Newport strengthening the larynx with applications of brine. When the concert was half over, and the audience were making the usual hum and stir, I saw Mr. Uxbridge against a pillar, with his hands incased in pearl-colored gloves, and holding a shiny hat. He turned half away when he caught my eye, and then darted toward me.
"You have not been much more interested in the music than you are in the lawsuit," he said, seating himself beside me.
"It makes one dreamy."
"A child."
"Yes, a child; not a man nor a woman."
"I teach music. I can not dream over 'one, two, three.'"
"For six years."
I was aware that he looked at me from head to foot, and I picked at the lace on my invariable black silk; but what did it matter whether I owned that I was a genteel pauper, representing my aunt's position for two months, or not?
"Where?"
"In Waterbury."
"Waterbury differs from Newport."
"I suppose so."
"You suppose!"
A young gentleman sauntered by us, and Mr. Uxbridge called to him to look up the Misses Uxbridge, his nieces, on the other side of the hall.
"Paterfamilias Uxbridge has left his brood in my charge," he said. "I try to do my duty," and he held out a twisted pearl-colored glove, which he had pulled off while talking. What white nervous fingers he had! I thought they might pinch like steel.
"You suppose," he repeated.
"I do not look at Newport."
"Have you observed Waterbury?"
"I observe what is in my sphere."
"Oh!"
He was silent then. The second part of the concert began; but I could not compose myself to appreciation. Either the music or I grew chaotic. So many tumultuous sounds I heard--of hope, doubt, inquiry, melancholy, and desire; or did I feel the emotions which these words express? Or was there magnetism stealing into me from the quiet man beside me? He left me with a bow before the concert was over, and I saw him making his way out of the hall when it was finished.
I had been sent in the carriage, of course; but several carriages were in advance of it before the walk, and I waited there for William to drive up. When he did so, I saw by the oscillatory motion of his head, though his arms and whiphand were perfectly correct, that he was inebriated. It was his first occasion of meeting fellow-coachmen in full dress, and the occasion had proved too much for him. My hand, however, was on the coach door, when I heard Mr. Uxbridge say, at my elbow,
"It is not safe for you."
"Oh, Sir, it is in the programme that I ride home from the concert." And I prepared to step in.
"I shall sit on the box, then."
"But your nieces?"
"They are walking home, squired by a younger knight."
Aunt Eliza would say, I thought, "Needs must when a lawyer drives"; and I concluded to allow him to have his way, telling him that he was taking a great deal of trouble. He thought it would be less if he were allowed to sit inside; both ways were unsafe.
Nothing happened. William drove well from habit; but James was obliged to assist him to dismount. Mr. Uxbridge waited a moment at the door, and so there was quite a little sensation, which spread its ripples till Aunt Eliza was reached. She sent for William, whose only excuse was "dampness."
"Uxbridge knew my carriage, of course," she said, with a complacent voice. "He knew me," I replied.
"You do not look like the Huells."
"I look precisely like the young woman to whom he was introduced by Mr. Van Horn."
"Oh ho!"
"He thought it unsafe for me to come alone under William's charge."
"Ah ha!"
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