A Literary Courtship/Chapter 8

by Anna Fuller

VIII.

Within the Portières.

AN hour later, having hung up our overcoats in Mrs. Ellerton's hall, we turned to see two figures coming through the portières, and while the elder lady greeted me without venturing a guess as to which of us was which, Miss Lamb met John with extended hand, saying very warmly: "You are Mr. Brunt, I am sure."

I thought it an unfair discrimination though it was accidentally correct. John, to be sure, is bigger than I, but why should a big man be any more likely than one of more modest proportions to be a literary light? The worst of it was that John, when I sounded him later, would not own to having felt flattered. He seemed to take it for granted that she should know him at sight—quite as though he had been labelled "distinguished author." But she was very nice to me too, and we both felt at home immediately. John took the aunt in to dinner and I the niece, but it really made no difference, as there were only four of us.

This would be the moment to describe the two ladies if descriptions were in my line. Mrs. Ellerton, I thought, would have been a trifle commonplace if she had not been so perfectly well-bred; but perfect breeding is perhaps too unusual to leave its possessor quite without distinction.

Miss Lamb, with the black hair and blue eyes she had described, was not an out-and-out beauty, and yet I thought her uncommonly good-looking. John said, afterward, that she had frank eyes and a reserved mouth, and that that was why he liked her. I was amused at his definiteness, for I privately believed that, with his preconceived ideas, a frank mouth and reserved eyes would have pleased him just as well. What I liked about her was her self-possession and her cordiality. You felt her good-breeding, while there was that in her manner which made you think that she thought as much of you as she did of herself. But all this splitting of hairs is not in my line, and I will endeavor to confine myself to facts,—one of which is that Miss Lamb had long black eyelashes, which were highly becoming to the blue eyes.

John's visit, thanks to Mrs. Ellerton, was not wholly untroubled by embarrassment, and I wish I could describe his face when that good lady said to him:

"Do tell us, Mr. Brunt, something about Miss Lamb."

"Miss Lamb that isn't," her niece explained. "Itis not fair, Mr. Brunt, to put your discretion to such a test."

"Thank you," Brunt answered gratefully. "Mr. Dickson and I are in rather a difficult position."

"Not at all," said I, cheerfully, thinking that the situation was worth working up. "We shall be happy to tell you anything about Miss Lamb which does not involve her identity. What would you like to know?"

"Oh, everything," said Mrs. Ellerton, hospitably. "Was Spoils her first novel?'"

"Yes."

"Remarkable young woman! And is she delighted with her success?"

"There can be no doubt of that."

"How old a woman is she?"

"About thirty-five."

"Come, Dick, do you think that's quite fair?" John remonstrated.

"Why not?" said I, airily. The age wont identify her. There are plenty of women of thirty-five."

"Is she handsome?" asked Miss Lamb, with a smile. She was evidently amused at John's discomfiture.

"That is a question for you to answer, John," said I. "You're a better judge than I."

But instead of embarrassing him, this bold-faced attack on my part seemed to put John on his mettle, and he answered composedly: "She is very beautiful."

"Dark or fair?" asked Miss Lamb.

"A delicate blonde," John replied, with a perfectly straight face. "She has dreamy dark eyes but her skin is fair as a lily, and her hair is of that exquisite gold which seldom lasts into middle life. I have known her for years, and it seems to me she is as absolutely beautiful as she was when she was a girl."

"Very unlike one's idea of a middle-aged authoress," Mrs. Ellerton remarked; while Miss Lamb gave John a furtively penetrating look. An inscrutable smile played about her lips. She clearly fancied that Mr. Brunt was betraying a deeper interest in the "delicate blonde" than he intended.

"Exactly," said John, in answer to Mrs. Ellerton's remark. "That is doubtless one reason why she has been so successful in maintaining her incognito."

"Is she of good family?" queried the genealogical aunt.

"I do not know much about her antecedents. She lives with an invalided father to whom she has devoted her life."

"Is she unmarried?" Mrs. Ellerton asked, with growing interest.

"Yes," said I, not wishing to be wholly left out of the conversation.

"She is much sought," Brunt answered. "Mr. Dickson, for instance, worships the ground she walks on. In fact, we are all more or less her slaves."

"John," said I, with emphasis, "I question whether my esteem for her is equal to yours."

"Possibly not," he admitted; "I only said that you adored her."

"And does any one besides yourselves suspect the authorship?" asked Miss Lamb.

"No," John answered. "Even her father is in ignorance of it. In fact," he went on, giving rein to his inventiveness, "it is out of consideration to him that she keeps the secret. Hehasa morbid horror of female celebrities. You could hardly deal him a more cruel blow than to tell him that it is his daughter who has written the book which is making such a stir."

"An aristocratic trait I am sure," said Mrs. Ellerton, complacently. "My father would have had the same feeling."

"Mine wouldn't have," said her niece. "I am sure, from what I remember of him, that papa would have been perfectly delighted with a talented daughter."

"My poor brother was very Western, you know," Mrs. Ellerton sighed. "Copper is so levelling," she added, turning to me for sympathy.

I have not mentioned it before, but I am said to have rather an aristocratic turn of countenance; a thing which probably invited the confidence of the genealogical aunt. I should, of course, prefer to be like Brunt, rugged and imposing, but if one must be on a smaller scale, one likes to have the qualities of one's defects.

By this time I, for one, was quite in a daze. But I reflected that the best thing I could do was to try and believe in the mythical Miss Lamb John had so vividly depicted, and I think it was this distinct image in my mind which kept me from making a mess of the secret on several subsequent occasions.

Meanwhile it seemed a pity to let slip so good an opportunity of getting a little information ourselves, so I presently said: "I wish, Mrs. Ellerton, you would reciprocate by telling us something about Leslie Smith the coming poet."

"I only wish I could," said Mrs. Ellerton, "but Ireally haven't the least idea who she is. Lilian is so secret about it that I begin to suspect her of having written the poems herself, and to regret that I did not persevere in my attempt to read them all."

Miss Lamb listened without a shadow of self-consciousness, and said: "Don't be alarmed, Aunt Bessie. You will never have to blush over the discovery of a genius under your own roof."

We both pondered that speech and we both fitted it in our own minds with the same adjective; namely, enigmatical.

I was proud of John that evening. His little fiction about the other Miss Lamb seemed to have an exhilarating effect upon him, and I had never seen him more entertaining. Miss Lamb must have been interested, though she evinced her good breeding by showing me quite as much attention as she did John. Outwardly, indeed, I came out rather ahead, for while Miss Lamb's good manners led her to conceal the preference she must have felt for John, the aunt, with less tact, treated me with a marked consideration which John did not share. Perhaps that was why I liked Mrs. Ellerton better than John did. You can't very well help liking folks who like you, especially when they seem to be rather superior, critical sort of people. And when she offered us Nestor cigarettes in the parlor, even John softened and discovered, as he afterward admitted, that "the genealogical fiend" was not quite without humanity.

There was an open wood fire in the parlor and a generally homelike air which we footsore travellers found much to our taste.

"How Eastern it seems!" said I to Miss Lamb, as we lighted our cigarettes.

"Dick doesn't mean Oriental," John put in. "It is the Atlantic seaboard that he has in mind."

"It does seem like home," I maintained.

"We are so glad to hear you say so," said Miss Lamb. "We like, of all things, to hear any praise of our own hired house."

"It seems like our own house," Mrs. Ellerton added comfortably. "It is so full of our own things. We have lived here four years. I am sure I don't know why we don't go away."

"But I know why," said her niece. "It is because we have a genealogical neighbor next door."

"And you?" asked Brunt.

"I? oh! I can't leave Cheyenne Cañon,—to say nothing of Aunt Bessie. And I am afraid a change of climate might not agree with Tiger."

"Tiger is——?"

"My horse. His real name is Tiger-eye. When you see the gloss on his neck you will know how he came by the name. Tiger has never been lower down in the world than six thousand feet above sea-level. And, besides, he is very fond of the Cañon and of the Mesa. Do you like it?" she asked, abruptly.

"We hated it this morning," said John.

"I am glad of that. Every real Coloradoan hates it at first."

"But we didn't hate it long," I explained. "It was magnificent this afternoon, riding over the plains."

"Over the plains!" she cried. "And not over the Mesa! What remarkable tourists you are! How did you escape going first to the Garden of the Gods?"

"They told us we ought to, and so John wouldn't."

"I admire you. You are the great unprecedented."

"As a reward, we might take you through the Garden of the Gods to-morrow," said Mrs. Ellerton.

"Or as a punishment," her niece amended. "They would much prefer to ride or walk."

We protested, and the drive was arranged.

"Well," said I, as we closed the gate behind us—

"Well!" said John—

"Pike's Peak improves on acquaintance."

"Pike's Peak is great!"

And John lighted a cigar and nodded approvingly at the enormous hump of a mountain. The nightcap looked very pretty in the starlight.

I waited for, John to say something more, for I wished the expression of his views to be quite spontaneous. But he did not seem to feel communicative, and I had to begin.

"How about the cynicism, Jack?" said I, at last.

"It isn't visible to the naked eye."

"And the poems. Do you believe she wrote them?"

"She doesn't look it. But it is difficult to judge. What do you think about it, Dick?"

"Women are deep," said I, thinking it best to be non-committal.

We discussed the question off and on as we walked up to the north end of the town and back, but we did not get much enlightenment. It was clear which way our wishes went. John did not wish her to have written the poems, while I did. I was charmed with the idea of conversing with an agreeable young lady, who was apparently in the best of spirits, and of being at the same time aware that she was the prey to despair. There had been moments during the evening when I was almost able to fancy that I could hear the "worm i' the bud"; but while Miss Lamb's cheek was not exactly damask, it did not, on the other hand, look as though it had furnished many repasts. It was merely a very sound and normal specimen of its kind. All the better. It was, perhaps—nay, probably—a mask, behind which lurked who could say what chagrins and disenchantments. In our future intercourse with Miss Lamb I was eagerly on the look-out for signs of hidden anguish, while John was searching for proofs that she did not write poetry. It may as well be confessed that one of us was not much more successful than the other; that there was nothing in her appearance or behavior to make Miss Lamb seem other than rather a finished young woman of the world, with mind enough to have written good verses if Nature had given her the bent, and balance enough to keep her own counsel on any and every subject.