An Angel Unawares

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

AN ANGEL UNAWARES.

By Frances Hodgson Burnett

Not that he was an angel, or even that he looked very much like one; but the fact was, that circumstances made the quotation oddly apropos. But, really, he was a very presentable young man, as far as a strong, shapely form, a well-featured face and a pair of keen dark eyes go. Lettie Dallas thought so from the very moment she raised her head and saw him, to her astonishment, watching her as she weeded her geraniums, one late Summer morning.

If she had not been so busily employed, she might have noticed him when first he stopped at the gate; but, as she was thinking of nothing but her weeds, she did not notice him; so he was obliged—not much against his will, I imagine—to stand and look at her until she had finished.

On her first recognition of his presence, the young lady blushed a little through her berry-brown skin; but the next moment she recovered herself sufficiently to bow and say "Good-morning!" a thought confusedly, but still with great politeness.

"I ask pardon for—for alarming you, Miss Dallas," he said, with the least suspicion of amusement in his face. "but I am the bearer of a note from your rector, Mr. Clavering. My name is Mal—verson."

It was rather odd, Lettie thought, in some surprise, that he was not so ready with his own name as he was with hers; for he certainly hesitated over it, and added the final syllables as if from a sudden recollection. But his manner was so perfectly thoroughbred that it set her at ease.

"Oh, I was not alarmed," she said, frankly; "only surprised a little. Pray walk in. Mr. Clavering's friends are always welcome!" And she began to gather her light garden-tools together.

She was a decidedly piquant-looking girl, with a profusion of dark hair and a pair of large, brilliant black eyes. Really, there was more sparkle than prettiness in her face; but the gentleman's glance, as it took in her trim little figure and satirical little dark face, was full of admiration—which did not diminish when she led the way up the wide gravel-walk to the house.

He gave her the note when she had ushered him into the handsomely furnished parlor, and, as she read it, he watched her with an expression which had a kind of half-whimsical curiosity in it. The missive ran:

"Dear Miss Lettie: The bearer of this note is, I believe, a traveling artist, who is very desirous of making a stay of a few weeks at Amberside, for the purpose of sketching our fine scenery. I should be happy to receive him as a guest myself, but the state of Mrs. Clavering's health renders it impossible. May I recommend him to your hospitable hands? From my slight acquaintance with him, I should imagine any kindness will be gratefully regarded. Your sincere friend,

Marcus Clavering."

There was the faintest suspicion of a demure smile on her face when she folded the note and looked up at him; but if she had any inward misgivings, they were not displayed either in her tone or her words.

"We shall be very glad to accede to Mr. Clavering's request, I am sure," she said. "We country people are always glad to receive visitors. If you will excuse me a moment, I will tell mamma you are here."

The suspicion of a smile became a very decided one, as she crossed the hall to the family sitting-room, and she gave her shoulders a very dubious little shrug.

"Humph!" she ejaculated. "Recommended to our hospitable hands, is he? I wonder what Flo and Blanche will say?" And then she entered the room and explained her errand.

Flo and Blanche opened their aristocratic blue eyes when, after reading the note, their mother handed it to them, and Flo pushed her crayons aside with very emphatic irritation and impatience.

"The idea of such a thing!" she exclaimed. "What must we do, mamma? Just when the Norrises are coming, too?"

"We can't do anything but make the best of it," replied Mrs. Dallas, fretfully, settling herself in her invalid's chair. "We can't offend Mr. Clavering."

"But a traveling artist!" said Flo, scornfully.

Flo was the beauty of the family, and could afford to be scornful.

"I'll take care he don't distress the Norrises," put in Lettie, with the demure sharpness which was peculiar to her, and which was not a little dreaded by her elder sister. "And I don't think you need be alarmed. He might possibly be a passably well-conducted individual if he is a traveling artist, you know. One hears of such things occasionally."

Flo dropped her white eyelids contemptuously, and turned to her crayons again. Lettie always was too much for her when it came to words, even if she was the "ugly duckling" of the Dallas establishment, and the only refuge under her "impertinence," as they called it, was a magnificent disdain.

But, as their mother had said, they could not offend Mr. Clavering; so when Lettie suggested the propriety of some one's proceeding to receive the gentleman, to offer him some welcome, in default of an alternative Mrs. Dallas rose and went to the parlor prepared with even more than the usual amount of refined frostiness.

Mr. Clavering's protégé smiled the cool whimsical smile again, when Flo greeted him with the coldly well-bred inclination of her handsome blonde head, which Lettie most cordially detested; but he did not appear at all embarrassed, and set aside the snubbing in embryo in a quiet, non-recognizing style which was very amusing to one young lady at least That young lady was Miss Lettie. As I have said before, Lettie was the "ugly duckling" of the Dallas family. Flo and Blanche had been beauties from their cradles—"real Dallas beauties," as their mother said, sighing over the brunette skin and nez retroussi of her youngest daughter. Tall, fair girls they were, with delicate, creamy skins and quantities of fashionably blonde hair; but Lettie was nothing of the kind. She was merely quick-witted and piquant-looking, though certainly her black eyes were magnificent, and had a trick of opening themselves wide under their lashes, which was as universally admired as either Flo's pink and white or Blanche's gold.

This little girl's chief characteristic was energy (she was a little girl—the sort of a girl people call petite, because it suits them better than our English "little") and this same characteristic was the cause of much righteous horror in the family circle.

"It is of no use talking to Lettie," Flo and Blanche would say, when she had horrified them by some new declaration of independence. "You may as well, at once, give her her own way, for if you don't she will be sure to take it."

To tell the truth, the opinions of the three sisters were not unfrequently at variance. Lettie made friends wherever she found people whom she liked, whether in society or out of it, frequently calling down upon herself great indignation through her selections. Old Mr. Clavering was her prime minister and adviser, and she often mads him the confidant of her half-comical distress.

"You see, Mr. Clavering," she would say, with a little sparkle in her eyes, on coming out of an aristocratic fracas, "I am naturally democratic. I am ashamed to confess I don't like the Browns, Joneses and Robinsons any less because they are Browns, Joneses and Robinsons, instead of Fitzgeralds and De Burghs. It's awful, of course, but it's true."

But, whatever was said upon the subject, it generally ended in the young lady carrying her point. Neither Flo nor Blanche cared to face the sharp little battery of satire which she was so well able to turn upon them. If the beauty had been given to her sisters, the brains had certainly been bestowed upon Lettie, and she made good use of them in a diplomatic style which was, now and then, very refreshing to observing people.

On this occasion she was rather refreshing to Mr. Malverson. Apart from two or three country-seats, and Mr. Clavering's rectory, Amberside could boast of scarcely more than a few cottages to give it the name of a village, and, accordingly, any sojourners were obliged to be entertained at the different private establishments. In the manner the gentleman had been thrown into Mr. Clavering's hands, and I have already shown you how he was transferred to the Dallases.

The first evening of his experience was really not particularly encouraging. Flo was frostily polite, Blanche was gracefully indifferent, and poor Mrs. Dallas's efforts at preserving a medium of traveling-artist patronage were, on the whole, slightly ludicrous.

But when Lettie made her appearance matters altered. She had been obliged to go out after introducing him in the morning, but when the tea-tray was brought in she followed it.

She was quite a pleasant surprise to Mr. Malverson, with her scarlet cheeks and sparkling eyes, and before she had been in the room ten minutes his face had again brightened wonderfully, and he found himself comparing her with her Juno-like sisters, with a result which was not at all favorable to the Junos.

There was not an atom of affectation about her, either in her trim, coquettishly pretty dress, or her brilliant little face, and it amused him to see how she exercised her power in the family circle. She took a chair at the table, and upset Flo's dignity entirely with her first candid speech to their guest.

She talked to him just as she would have talked to the Emperor Napoleon if she had chanced to meet him—with a pleasant essence of demureness in her little satirical speeches, and the most natural little air in the world ruling her desire to please. Once or twice Mr. Malverson found himself smiling, it was so evident that she had taken him under her protection.

"I hope you won't be disappointed in Amberside," she said, regardless of Blanche's look of horror at her familiarity. "I know all the prettiest views, and I will show you the Cairn Stones to-morrow."

His eyes met hers with a sudden pleasure which a less natural girl would have blushed under, but which only made her smile frankly and feel pleased that she had spoken.

"Thank you," he said. "I am much indebted to you, Miss Lettie, and I am quite sure that Amberside won't disappoint me."

His thorough ease of manner pleased Lettie. His cool, indifferent amusement at any attempt at patronage proved that he was not accustomed to it but at the same time his well-bred self-poise made him simply indifferent, and nothing more.

If he had been awkward and uncultured, Lettie would have defended and protected him, from principle; but as it was, she had taken one of her sudden likings to him, and her heart was in her work.

She left the room at about ten o'clock, and did not return again; but Malverson could hear her passing up and down stairs, and once he caught a glimpse of her in the hall, with a bunch of bright little keys dangling at her waist and a very business-like expression on her face.

As he was going up to his room to retire for the night he met her coming down, holding the same little bunch of keys in her hand, and she nodded her shining black braids gayly.

"Pleasant dreams!" she said, and ran down the stairs, jingling the keys merrily.

But at the bottom of the flight she hesitated a moment, and at last turned her bright face upward to him and spoke:

"If there is anything I can do for you while you are here, will you be sure to tell me of it, please?" she said, straightforwardly. "I always take care of Frank, when he is at home, and I like to do it."

She did not blush over it; she said it quite frankly and unceremoniously. But the face on which the lamp-light shone was so tempting and bright-looking, that Malverson wished frantically that he might have had the right to stoop and kiss it as he thanked her.

But when he turned into his room and shut the door, there was a touch of amused mischief in his eyes.

"Jove!" he said, laughing softly to himself. "This is likely to prove even more interesting than I imagined. What would my lady mother say, I wonder? Bravo, little Miss Lettie!"

The first thing he saw in the morning was little Miss Lettie again; and little Miss Lettie, on the way from the garden, in a bewitching working costume of brown holland, and a still more bewitching hat, with a bright-blue ribbon tied round it and fluttering in her crisp black hair, was even more sparkling than ever.

"Go into the breakfast-room," she said, rolling her gloves together. "Flo and Blanche are not up yet, and mamma always breakfasts up-stairs; but I will pour your coffee out for you, as you wish to take advantage of the morning coolness."

He saw her through the open door hang her blue-ribboned hat up in the hall, and then she came into the room with cheeks like scarlet roses.

"I met Mr. Clavering when I was out yesterday," she said, taking a seat behind the coffee-urn, "and he said I must give you the benefit of my experience. I don't sketch much myself, but Frank does, and I always went with him on his wandering expeditions."

"Frank," repeated Malverson—"is that the Frank you take care of?"

"Yes. I forgot—you didn't know. He is my brother, but he is in Berlin now, studying medicine."

Mr. Malverson took another muffin and smiled. This was a very charming little girl, he told himself for the twentieth time, as his glance took in her trim figure and big black eyes. Frank was a lucky fellow. One would not object to see such an irresistible, brilliant little face as that at the head of one's table, even for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and there were not many women who would stand such an inexorable test as that.

How she could laugh, to be sure, and how white her little even teeth looked against her red, red lips when she did laugh! Her mouth and eyes were her best features, poor little, merry, "ugly duckling," and it took him some time to decide which were the most capricious in its power of expression. Once he decided that it was the mouth, but that was when he was not looking at the eyes; and before he rose from the table he had almost decided that her downy brown cheek, with the soft dusky red on it, was quite as lovely as her fairer sisters' cream and roses. Altogether, if ever a young lady served as sauce piquante to a gentleman's breakfast, Lettie Dallas did that morning.

When Flo entered the breakfast-room, the sight she saw from the opened window made her shrug her graceful shoulders again.

"Mamma!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "It is perfectly ridiculous. There is Lettie in the garden weeding the geraniums and talking to that man as if she had known him all her life. What would the Norrises say?"

Mrs. Dallas only sighed fretfully. She was not the strongest-minded woman in the world, and Lettie was too much for her as well as for other people.

The young offender in question made her appearance in the course of half an hour, bringing a letter, which she tossed on the table with a pleased face.

"It is from Munich, you see, mamma!" she exclaimed, drawing off her garden-gloves. "Frank left Berlin a month ago with that 'familiar' of his—Captain Pierre Malmaison. He says the captain is coming to America, and proposes to give us a call, and that we are to be sure to treat him well. You had better keep your frisettes in order, Flo and Blanche, in case of a surprise. He might come any time, you know, and he is only one remove from a peerage, and has a rent-roll of twenty thousand per annum besides."

Flo flushed a little. Captain Pierre Malmaison was a hero among he Dallases in virtue of Frank's enthusiastic praises and his own aristocracy. They had never seen him, but they had heard quite enough of him to convince them that he was un bon parti in all respects, and it is just probable that Miss Dallas had some private plans of her own on hand.

But there again an idea presented itself. The idea of the Norrises meeting Mr. Clavering's protégé had been bad enough; but how could they introduce a traveling artist, even if he was a presentable one, to Captain Malmaison?

"That is easily settled," said Lettie, with no inconsiderable spirit, when Flo had finished her hospitable speech. "The gentleman has enough good taste and discrimination to discover how welcome he is. He told me this morning that he expected to shorten his stay to a few days."

"I hope he will," put in Blanche, complacently. "The Norrises will be here on Friday."

A little quiet arching of Lettie's satirical eyebrows was the only answer.

Mr. Malverson did not appear to have made much progress in his sketching when he returned home. Lettie was in the kitchen, making a cake for one of Mr. Clavering's pensioners, when he came back, and he walked coolly up the garden-walk and stood before the window watching her for a moment, as she stood at the dresser with her hands in the flour and her sleeves rolled up. She was slightly surprised to see him; for instead of a portfolio, he had a brace of birds in his hand and a gun over his shoulder, and he raised his hat, smilingly.

"May I lay my Nimrodian offering at your feet?" he said. "The pencil gave place to the gun this morning, Miss Lettie."

"But I thought you were going to sketch," said Lettie.

"So I was, but the birds tempted me so, I borrowed a gun from a good-natured individual, who was willing to lend it me for a pecuniary consideration. Will you receive the fruits?"

"With many thanks," she answered. "Bring them into the kitchen, if you please. I can't come out."

Her plump, tapering arms were floured to the elbow, and there was a very sensible-looking white apron tied round her pliant little waist; but the baking operations had brought out all the bright glow on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eves, that won an admiring glance from the gentleman as he handed her his spoils.

"I have been unfortunate," he said, pointing to a rent in his sleeve. "I must thank your sweet-brier for that."

She gave it a demure little glance of inspection.

"It can be mended," she said. "If you will wait until I have finished my cake, I will come into the parlor and darn it for you."

"A thousand thanks!" was his laughing reply. "My first speech was a mistake. I should have said I was fortunate."

"Frank was right," he said to himself, as he passed up the hall. "Little Miss Lettie is the dash of lemon in the Dallas negus."

She came into the parlor when her cake was baked, and mended his coat, as she had promised. It did not take her very long to do it; but if the truth was told, I think Mr. Malverson would not have been sorry if it had—the long, curling lashes drooped so darkly on the velvety cheeks, and the small brown fingers were so nimble.

The remainder of the day the visitor was absent He was going to make up for lost time, he said, as he took his portfolio, so he did not reappear until tea-time, and then he found Blanche and Flo discussing the Norrises. They had just received a letter announcing that their friends would be with them the next day, and the subject was in full flow when he entered.

"Norris, did you say?" he asked, quietly, at last. "Is it possible they are the Norrises of Clitheroe?"

Flo turned round and opened her blue eyes in a surprise which was anything but dignified; but she could not help it. What could a traveling Dick Tinto know of the Norrises?

"Mr. Norris's country-seat in "Virginia is called Clitheroe, I believe," she answered.

"Ah!" said Mr. Malverson, coolly, "I believe I know them. Met them at Baden last year. The youngest was quite a belle; they used to call her Lalla Rookh, for the sake of her dark eyes."

Flo looked slightly puzzled, and condescended a well-bred survey of the handsome face and fine figure of her incubus. Who could he be? Not a common artist, at least. "Traveling artist" had always signified to her something like a sign-painter who would paint your portrait, be paid for it, and sit "below the salt" But persons of that kind did not often spend their Summers at Baden-Baden, and would certainly not know so much of Annie Norris. Could she possibly have been making herself slightly ridiculous?

Nothing but the indefatigable Lettie's coolness saved the sudden silence from being absurd. She went on talking, as she loitered over her chocolate, with the easiest air in the world; but, for all that, she was barely able to hide the flash of irresistible fun which would dance under her lashes when she met Mr. Malverson's quizzical eyes.

But when the young ladies retired for the night, the restrained curiosity broke forth.

"Who in the world is he?" said Flo. "Lettie, have you an idea?"

Lettie was at the mirror, "doing" her hair, and she shook the gypsy-veil over her shoulders.

"He is a 'traveling artist' my dear," was her somewhat malicious reply. "Don't be too rash, Flo; traveling artists might go to Baden accidentally without being gentlemen; and, as to knowing Annie Norris, perhaps he painted her portrait."

"I don't believe him!" said Blanche, who didn't often say anything. "It's arrant nonsense. He know the Norrises, indeed!"

"Well, we shall find out to-morrow," said Flo, with a dubious expression. And she went to bed, and dreamed that Captain Malmaison had turned out to be an itinerant peddler, and had eloped with the Bride of Abydos to Baden-Baden.

And on the morrow they did find out.

Mr. Malverson was absent when the Norrises came, and accordingly the young ladies had an excellent opportunity to pursue their investigations. They were sitting together at the parlor-window when Flo broached the subject

"By the way," she said to Annie Norris, "I believe we have an acquaintance of yours here—a Mr. Malverson, who met you at Baden last Summer."

"Malverson!" said Annie. "I don't remember him, I'm sure. Maude"—turning to her sister—"did we meet a Mr. Malverson at Baden?"

"We met Captain Malmaison," said Maude. "Why do you ask?"

"This gentleman's name is Malverson," said Flo, "and he is an—artist"

"Then we don't know him," answered Maude, decidedly. "We met no one of that name."

Blanche and Flo exchanged glances; but before they had time to speak, the door opened and the obnoxious guest made his entrance.

He came forward smiling, and with outstretched hand, and both the fair visitors rose with exclamations of pleasure.

"Captain Malmaison!" exclaimed pretty Annie, gayly. "Who in the world thought of meeting you? Why didn't you tell us, Blanche, or was it a surprise?"

The gentleman shook hands cordially, his handsome face as cool as ever, and then he turned to Flo.

"I must ask your pardon for my unintentional deception," he said, with just a touch of quiet satire in his voice. "Mr. Clavering made a mistake—though a slight one. I am Pierre Malmaison."

Flo only bowed. She could do nothing more.

Maude and Annie had so much to say that it was fully half an hour before Pierre Malmaison found an opportunity of excusing himself to Lettie, but he managed it at last.

As they passed out of the room to go to dinner, he detained her a moment on his arm.

"Ought I to ask pardon?" he asked, mischievously "You shall judge."

Lettie colored.

"I think you ought," she said, laughing in spite of herself. "But I think it possible you are excusable."

"Frank sent me," he explained, taking the tips of the pretty fingers he had drawn through his arm, and looking down into her brilliant face. "He told me to come and 'see Lettie.' I came to see Lettie, and behold the result! A friend of Mr. Clavering's had sent word to him that a young artist was coming to Amberside, and would be glad of his patronage, etc.; and because I chanced to carry a portfolio, and make some inquiries about the scenery, he arrived at the natural conclusion that I was his friend's protégé. Now, Miss Lettie, am I to blame for Mr. Clavering's mistakes, and the sudden spirit of mischief which prompted me to encourage them? Perhaps I may sometime explain to you that I had a deeper motive—if you will give me permission—but before we go to dinner, please to say you will forgive me."

Now, it is not a natural thing to suppose that she would say she didn't forgive him, so she looked up from under her black eyelashes, and laughed and said, "Yes!" And Captain Pierre Malmaison led her in to dinner, quite forgetting to release the little finger-tips until the last moment at the dining-room door.

Of course you know the end. Without such an end it would not have been necessary to write the story. Six months after the Norrises' visit, Frank came home to hand over Lottie to Captain Malmaison, only one remove from a peerage, and with twenty thousand per annum besides.

Flo and Blanche acted as bridesmaids, and looked beautiful—"real Dallas beauties!" But to this day they have not forgotten the dreadful mistake they made when they entertained an Angel Unawares.