Ainslee's Magazine/The Lady on the Pedestal

by Owen Oliver

The LADY on the PEDESTAL

By OWEN OLIVER

TEDDIE HOLDER'S manner of announcing his engagement was, perhaps, a trifle tactless. He blundered into the library, where the three aunts, who had been three mothers to him—as they were fond of stating—were sitting like three prim statues. He blundered into a chair. Then he blundered into speech.

“I say,” he remarked, with an apologetic grin, “you've heard me speak of Lady Alice Kennerton? Well—er—I'm engaged to her.”

Aunt Sarah folded her embroidery and took off her spectacles, and said: “Oh!” Aunt Elizabeth closed her account book and took off her spectacles, and said: “What?” Aunt Jane blotted her letter carefully and wiped her pen, and said: “Indeed!” An interval of dubious silence followed.

“Considering that we have brought you up from the time that you were a baby,” Aunt Sarah said at last, “we might reasonably have expected to be consulted before matters proceeded so far.”

She looked to her sisters for support.

“Quite so,” Aunt Elizabeth agreed.

“Certainly,” said Aunt Jane.

“I didn't know I was going to do it till I did,” Teddie apologized. “In fact—I didn't think I'd ever dare, because, you see, they're a thousand years old—the family, I mean—and they think more of that sort of thing in England than we do in America, and she always seemed like a—well, like a lady on a pedestal, you know.”

“A lady on a pedestal!” Aunt Sarah repeated. She extended her hands as if she called upon those present to witness the statement.

“I mean—different from ordinary people like us.”

“I am not prepared,” said Aunt Sarah stiffly, “to admit that Lady Alice Kennerton is a superior being to your Aunt Elizabeth or your Aunt Jane. I leave myself out of the question.”

“I meant myself,” Teddie explained. “I never thought she'd look at me. I was in an awful funk after I'd blurted it out, and I—I told her that I knew I wasn't good enough, but she—— Well, she thought I was. I'll bring her round to see you to-morrow. You're sure to like her, because she's so—so ripping! You've been awfully good to me always. I've often meant to say so, only I'm not much of a chap for talking, you know. But I think it. Thank you, Aunt Sarah—and Aunt Betty—and Aunt Jane.”

He kissed the old ladies blunderingly, and then he blundered out. He had been described by his old tutor as a huge, good-humored young bear, who looked clumsy, but wasn't. “I find him singularly likable,” he had added. His aunt-mothers found him so, too,

All three aunt-mothers wiped their glasses carefully when he had gone, and put them on, and looked at one another. They shook their three heads.

“This will never do!” Aunt Sarah stated. “A perfect stranger!”

“No,” said Aunt Elizabeth, “It will never do.”

“To marry a stranger!” Aunt Jane bewailed.

They were always the chorus and Aunt Sarah the play.

“And go and live in England!” Aunt Elizabeth lamented.

“On our money,” Aunt Jane added, with a viciousness that was unusual in her.

“We aren't obliged to leave it to him,” Aunt Sarah pointed out, setting her thin, old lips in a straight line.

Aunt Elizabeth laughed bitterly.

“What's the use of talking like that, Sarah?” she protested. “You know perfectly well that, whatever he does, we shall leave what we have to him. After all—the boy was bound to be married some time.”

“He wasn't bound to be married for his money,” Aunt Sarah snapped. “Our money, as you said, Jane; or to go and do it without a word of warning or asking our advice; after what we've done for him! I know we shan't leave it away from him, but it would serve him right if we did.”

“Don't blame the boy, Sarah,” Aunt Jane entreated., “It's plain enough that he was trapped into it. He says himself that he did it without premeditation. 'A lady on a pedestal,' indeed! Every one knows that the Kennertons are as poor as they are stuck up. They brought her over here to marry money.”

“She must be clever to catch him like that,” Aunt Elizabeth observed. “She hasn't any looks to speak of; just a thin, pale, proud-looking girl. Teddie might have had a dozen who were better looking, but he never seemed to trouble about girls. She must be clever.”

“Other people can be clever, too,” Aunt Sarah remarked.

“It's easy enough to be clever,” said Aunt Elizabeth, “when you don't care for people. It's different when you do. And Teddie is cleverer than you would ever allow, Sarah. If we threaten to disinherit him, he'll only laugh at us, remember when he was a wee little chap”—she wiped her eyes furiously—“before we cut off his pretty curls—how Jane cried!”

“So did you!” Aunt Jane asserted. “I dare say Sarah did, too, if we'd known. I never saw such curls.”

“Golden!” said Aunt Sarah.

She turned her head away, and her sisters sniffed audibly. Each of the three kept a little golden curl among her precious relics.

“He used to say,” Aunt Elizabeth continued, “'When you say I s'an't, I know I s'all!' We never denied him anything; and he has been a good lad, a very good lad. We have never had the trouble with him that some people have with their children. I'm not going to quarrel with the boy and make him hate me.”

“I do not intend to quarrel with the boy,” Aunt Sarah asserted.

“But if we have any unpleasantness with her——” Aunt Jane began.

“We shall not have any unpleasantness, Jane.”

“What do you mean to do, Sarah?”

“I mean that we shall give her to understand that there will be nothing for Teddie if he marries her; and she will release him from his engagement.”

“But when he finds out that we have done it?”

“I shall say: 'My boy, would you have wished her to marry you not loving you? Think over it before you judge those who do love you, and who have acted with no other thought than your interest. As for our money, Teddie, it is yours, whatever you do, even if you break our hearts.' Teddie is only thoughtless on the surface. He is a sensible, reasonable fellow at heart, and grateful. He was always a grateful little chap. Her action will be our justification. If I knew he would hate me for doing things for his good, I would do them. So would you.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “Yes.”

“You are right, as usual, Sarah,” Aunt Jane confessed.

“Besides,” said Aunt Sarah, “she will not tell him why she has broken it off. She has doubtless a sense of shame.”

“She will not tell him that she is breaking it off because we threaten to disinherit him,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “But she will probably say that the attitude of his family toward her renders the marriage impossible.”

“When Teddie brings her to-morrow,” Aunt Sarah retorted, “he will see that there is no cause for complaint in that respect. Our attitude will be pleasant; particularly pleasant, he will think. We can make her understand without letting him notice anything. Women are cleverer than men.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Jane. “That is the danger. She may be a little too clever for us, Sarah. If she could make him fall in love with her, considering how little he noticed women—and it isn't as if she were 'specially pretty—she is clever enough for anything. You may think she'll take in whatever we say. I think she will talk to Teddie about it, and find out that we are not likely to carry out the threat, and snap her fingers at us.”

“think so, too,” Aunt Elizabeth agreed.

Then,” said Aunt Sarah, “we will alter the plan. Instead of saying that we will not leave him our money, we will give her to understand that we have nothing—next to nothing—to leave. Then this—this 'woman on a pedestal' will jump down. We must be pleasant to her to-morrow, remember.”

“Quite pleasant,” said Aunt Elizabeth.

“Very pleasant,” echoed Aunt Jane.

The voices of the old ladies were unpleasantly grim, and they set their old faces sternly.

Teddie brought his fiancée the next afternoon; a pale slip of a girl, with a very calm face, and very large, still eyes; a statue lacking a marble pedestal.

“This is Lady Alice,” he announced. “Alice, I mean. I've told her all about you, and what you've done for me. You've only got to like one another, and that's easy.”

He smiled at the easiness of it. It had always been easy to him to like people. Perhaps that was why people found it easy to like him.

“Doubtless.” said Aunt Sarah, “it is easy to like Lady Alice; but I do not know that we are so easy to like. We are rather blunt people, Lady Alice, with a habit of speaking the truth.”

Lady Alice bowed, watching with her big eyes, as if waiting for truth to be told. She was under no misapprehension as to the feeling of Teddie's aunts toward her, they saw. She was very silent during the call, and looked straight before her. Her voice was pleasant when she spoke, and she always said the right thing; but she did not smile till the end of the visit, when Aunt Sarah asked her to come to see them again soon, She smiled faintly then.

“I will come,” she promised.

Her big eyes seemed to dare Aunt Sarah's for just the tenth of a second. Aunt Sarah noted that look.

“She is clever,” she observed, when she had gone.

“To me,” objected Aunt Elizabeth, “she seems a tongue-tied fool!”

“It doesn't matter,” said Aunt Jane, with a sound almost like a sob, “whether she is clever or foolish. She does not care for our Teddie, only his money; our money. I know the way a girl looks at the man she loves.”

Who should know if Aunt Jane did not? Aunt Jane, who had been the beauty of her time, and who had refused twenty offers, it was said, because one man had died.

“It matters in this way,” Aunt Sarah told them: “She is clever enough to take a hint. There will be no scene, and no unpleasantness afterward. I shall just speak of our losses and the struggle that Teddie will have; and the advantage to him of a wife who has not been used to wealth. I will have that slap at my lady on the pedestal. She will not make a sign, you'll find, to us. She'll just sit and stare and say, 'Yes,' and 'No,' and 'Is that so” There won't be a word about Teddie's fortune, or her disappointment, or about breaking off the engagement. She'll just give a little shrug, and smile scornfully over her shoulder as she goes. The next day she'll write to Teddie, and go away, probably. As Jane says, she doesn't care for him; or for anybody but herself, I should say. It will be easy enough to manage it when we get a chance to talk to her alone.”

The chance came the very next day. Lady Alice called in the afternoon when Teddie was out.

After the preliminary courtesies, she sat bolt upright and stared at them with her big eyes.

“So you have come to see us quickly,” Aunt Sarah said; and Lady Alice smiled her very faint smile.

“I have come to be told truths to,” she said.

She glanced at Aunt Elizabeth and at Aunt Jane, but her eyes stayed upon Aunt Sarah. They looked at each other for a long while; a steady-faced old woman, and a steady-faced girl.

“You are courageous,” Aunt Sarah said at length, with a kind of grudging respect.

“We have always been that,” the girl answered. “Our men were always soldiers; and, if need be, the women. Yes. I thought you wanted to say blunt truths to me. So I came.”

“There are ways of telling the truth,” said Aunt Sarah, “and ways. You see, Teddie was left with us when he was a very little boy. His father was drowned, and the shock killed his mother. So, of course, we brought him here. He was only a few months old then. It was rather trying at first to have a little baby to look after, but he was very good, and—we did our best. I remember how we bought books about bringing up children, and studied them at nights, and—— Well, we have all been mothers to him—three mothers. It is unnecessary to tell you all this, perhaps, but——”

“I understand,” the girl said.

“I wonder.” Aunt Sarah spoke half to herself.

“You want me to see that your nephew matters very much to you,” said Lady Alice, “and I matter very little. That truth is obvious, and natural. I do not complain. Yes?”

“He matters very much to us,” Aunt Sarah said. “We are women who have missed many things in life, Lady Alice. The love of a little child, now grown to a man, has been our all in all. Before God”—she raised her hands suddenly—“any one of us three would lie down and die for him as a mother would. We—— There are things that one cannot talk about. This emotion is somewhat unnecessary. Pardon me.”

Lady Alice bowed.

“I understand,” she acknowledged.

“When we heard that you and he were engaged, we were, of course, surprised,” Aunt Sarah went on.

“Why?” the girl asked calmly.

“Because—I must come to the blunt truth, Lady Alice—we did not think that you would marry a man who was—whom you would consider to be—out of your sphere; and who at the same time was—poor.”

Three pairs of eyes fixed on the girl's face at the word; and three women admired its steadiness. There was no sign that the blow had gone home.

“Afterward,” Aunt Sarah continued, “we wondered whether—Teddie is very—very optimistic. So long as he has sufficient for the day, he does not trouble very much about the future. We fancied that he hardly realized the great losses which we have suffered of late years, and the very little that we have to leave him. He would not intentionally deceive you upon the point, of course——”

“I think,” Lady Alice agreed, “he would not intentionally deceive me. I gather that he has been brought up by those who respect the truth. He would not deceive me—any more than you would.”

It was fortunate for the success of the scheme, Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Jane thought, that Lady Alice did not look at them. They were very conscious that their faces had reddened. Aunt Sarah was made of sterner stuff, and she did not flinch when the steel went home.

“We have brought him up with entire devotion to his good,” she said steadily. “I hope that your devotion to him will be able to take the place of ours, when—— We are not young, Lady Alice. You and he will have a struggle, of course, but—it is fortunate that you have been used to—that you have not been very rich, I understand.”

“You understand rightly,” the girl stated calmly. “I have been poor. I hate being poor.”

“I understand,” said Aunt Sarah.

“I wonder,” said the girl.

“Of course——” Aunt Sarah paused for a moment. “Of course, if there was any misapprehension, Teddie would not take advantage of it. He is not that kind.”

“No,” said Lady Alice. “He is not that kind.”

There was a long silence.

“Well,” said Aunt Sarah, “that is what was in my mind to tell you, I do not know if—if you will pardon an old woman who—who loves him like a son. I want to say something more than I intended.”

“Yes.” Lady Alice nodded quietly. “Yes, please?”

“Will you try to—to hurt him as little as possible in breaking off the engagement? You see, he—he puts you on a pedestal. That is how he spoke of you to us. 'A lady on a pedestal.'”

Lady Alice's pale face lit suddenly. It struck the three old ladies that, after all, she was beautiful.

“Please God,” she said, “he shall keep me there.”

Aunt Jane gave a sudden cry and put her hands on the girl's.

“You mean that—that you will marry him all the same?” she asked.

The girl took the old hands in her young hands.

“Yes, dear,” she said.

“I beg your pardon,” said Aunt Sarah. “I misjudged you, and—I have deceived you about our money. We——”

“No,” said Lady Alice, “you did not deceive me. I understood. I will not deceive you. If I had thought when I first met him that he was poor, I should have tried not to love him. I suppose I should have run away.” She laughed faintly. “Now I couldn't! If he is poor, I will be poor with him. If he is in trouble, I will be in trouble, too. I think it is foolish to love any one like that, but I do. If you will let me, I will love you, too!”

“Oh, my dear!” cried Aunt Sarah. “Oh, my dear!”

“It is so easy to love you,” said Aunt Elizabeth.

Aunt Jane kissed her twice.

 

“We have had a visitor,” Aunt Sarah told Teddie when he came in. “A very dear visitor. Your pretty lady on the pedestal. You are quite right to put her there.”