The Folly of Others/A Provident Woman/Part 2/Chapter 2
II.
A dinner was in prospect at the Hawleys' house in Brooklyn.
In the large, handsome dining-room, panelled with wood, lit by softened electric lights, and furnished with heavy, carved mahogany, the table was laid for six people. It was perhaps a little overladen. The massive silver bowls full of roses, the tall silver candelabra, the gold boats holding sweets, were all rather large for the present size of the table. But to the person now contemplating these decorations they seemed quite flawless.
Bertha, in a gauzy white dress that flared out in transparent frills above her white slippers, was circling about the table, studying the arrangement of the forks and spoons, which the waitress had just finished, and gloating over the glittering display. Now she leaned to snatch a sugared date from one of the golden dishes and hastily ate it; then, with a whirl on tiptoe that swung out all the airy frills of her skirt, she darted across the room to look into the mirror-back of a cabinet, which gave a partial but charming reflection of her face, her bare throat, her slender shoulders and arms covered by the gauze of the dress, and the perfumed white bow which she had fastened in her hair. She was looking wonderfully pretty, her face vivid with color and excitement, her slim body all alive with eagerness. And the dress which Cecilia had brought her from Paris, with its youthful effect,—its skirt swinging clear of the ground, its soft bows and ruffles,—was exactly the right thing. Bertha in delight whirled round again on tiptoe, and was making for another sugared date when Cecilia came into the room.
"Oh, is it time—have they come?" cried Bertha.
"No, five minutes yet. Is everything all right?"
"I should think so! Splendid! But what are all these things for? What is that one?"
"That's a fish fork, for the third course."
"And which is my place? Am I to sit by Mr. Seton?"
"No, he sits at my left, and you sit at Frederick's left."
"Ah! How is Fr—how is he?"
"He feels better. He's lying down till the last minute." Cecilia looked grave and frowned. "What I can't decide is this—are you to come in with Mr. Seton? You see, Frederick takes Mrs. Walker and Mr. Walker takes me, I suppose, and that leaves you two, but as you don't sit together"
"Well, I don't know, I'm sure. I suppose I can come out with him, anyway."
"Yes. I don't suppose it makes any great difference," and Cecilia sighed heavily.
"You look awfully pale—are you nervous?" Bertha inquired. "Why don't you rub your cheeks with a towel or something, or pinch 'em? I'm nervous,—feel how cold my hands are,—but it makes me red, not pale."
"I'm not nervous, I'm worried," Cecilia said curtly. "I wish there had been time to put them off."
"Oh, no! I mean—of course, if it's going to be bad for Mr. Haw—for him—but"
"I'm afraid it will tire him."
Cecilia appeared to be examining the table arrangements, but her worried look was not due to any concern with these. A brief inspection satisfied her that there was nothing to change. Indeed, in any case she might have hesitated to criticise the proceedings of the waitress, who was much more learned than herself in these matters. Yet she still lingered and looked, with the slight frown puckering her forehead.
Cecilia had grown much older in the four months since her marriage. She had quite a matronly look. For one thing, she dressed, though in rich materials, very soberly. Her dress now was black lace, cut only a little low about her fair neck, and with elbow sleeves. Her reddish hair was very simply done, without ornament, and she wore none of the diamonds Mr. Hawley had given her except a small pendant on a gold chain and her rings. Bertha could not but feel that Cecilia wasted her opportunities.
"I thought you would dress up more," she said disappointedly. "They are quite swell people, aren't they?"
"Oh, yes. But I don't like dressing up," Cecilia said gravely.
"You don't like it! Oh, my goodness! I only wish I had a chance, I'd have a hundred dresses as pretty as this, and if I had your neck and shoulders, I'd wear my dresses low—and I'd wear all the diamonds I could get."
"Yes, and people would laugh at you for trying to show off." Cecilia spoke now rather sharply and looked at Bertha disapprovingly. "They all know what our position was, and I'm not going to make myself ridiculous."
Cecilia was constantly putting this point of view before her sister, and Bertha as constantly resented it.
"I don't care, we're just as good as they are," she cried now, the quick tears smarting in her eyes. "I think it's silly to say you can't wear pretty things now, just because you were poor once. It's horrid of you"
"Well, no matter. It's the way I feel, that's all. And I wish, Bertha, that you wouldn't cut your finger-nails that way!" And Cecilia caught up the girl's slender hand.
Bertha had spent infinite pains to make her hands, according to her idea, beautiful, and to obliterate the traces left by dishwashing and similar tasks. She slept in gloves every night, and every day devoted half an hour to manicuring. Like everything else about her, her hands were delicate, finely made, and graceful. The nails on the pointed tips of her fingers were narrow as a child's. But Bertha would cut these nails into long points and over-polish them.
"They look like claws! So affected!" said Cecilia.
Bertha snatched her hand away.
"You mind your own looks, and I'll attend to mine," she said angrily. "I think I look just as well as you do."
The waitress here came into the room, and the two sisters went out, Cecilia leading the way through the curtained archway into the library. Bertha walked to one of the windows and stood with her back to Cecilia, who could see the slight trembling of her shoulders, and knew that a fit of hysterical crying might be imminent. Bertha's extreme sensitiveness to criticism, together with her nervous temperament, often placed Cecilia in just this position.
"Bertha, please don't feel badly," she begged, after a moment. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I spoke harshly. But I am so worried and bothered."
Bertha could not respond for the moment; she was trying to control herself. She had no desire either to cry or to tell Cecilia she hated her, though she had the impulse to do both.
And now the guests arrived. First Mr. Seton, who was the son of the late senior partner of Mr. Hawley's firm; then the Walkers. Mrs. Walker was Mr. Hawley's sister. Cecilia went into the drawing-room to receive them, and Bertha followed five minutes later. Her high spirits of a few moments before had been severely dampened; her color was less bright. She entered the room quietly, timidly, and shook hands with Mr. Walker, whom she had met before, and with the new man, Mr. Seton. The rustling of Mrs. Walker's dress was heard as she descended the stairs, and she came in with Mr. Hawley. She was a handsome woman, dark, with thick hair and a fine figure, and she wore a white lace dress, cut lower than Cecilia's, and a good many jewels. She had an assured manner and a quick, fluent way of talking, a slightly careless and patronizing way of greeting the others. Immediately dinner was announced, and Bertha found herself following Mrs. Walker, on the arm of the young, the handsome, Mr. Seton. Young he was, at least, by comparison with the others, though Bertha guessed his age as thirty, and he was a little too stout. But at least he was on the border-line of youth, while the others, even Cecilia, were—in Bertha's eyes—irretrievably committed to that sad, drab region of married middle-age. Mrs. Walker had very handsome jewels, but her hair was gray and her husband looked dull. Cecilia was as far as possible from the idea of the young bride of a rich man. She seemed, Bertha thought wonderingly, much more like a housekeeper or a nurse. And poor Mr. Hawley himself looked gray and ill. Bertha glanced at the ruddy, cheerful face of Mr. Seton, and wished with all her heart that her place had been beside him. He was saying something to Cecilia with a radiant and gay smile.
The others began at once to talk politics. A campaign for the Mayoralty of New York had just been won by their party, and Mr. Walker, who was a lawyer, had taken an active part in it. Full of the news of the day, he laid down his opinions; Mrs. Walker agreed volubly with him; the other two men joined in; the conversation became brisk and animated, and obviously interested at least half the company.
Cecilia was apparently well content to listen, and responded briefly, though smilingly, to Mr. Seton's constant effort to draw her into the talk. Only Bertha herself was completely "out of it." Politics Bertha regarded as a fit subject of conversation for middle-aged people—that is to say, drab and dull. She did not even pretend to listen, but observed their looks and pursued her own thoughts, keenly conscious, also, of each material detail of the dinner and of the general atmosphere of comfort, even luxury, which lapped all these fortunate people round. It was a delight to her, at the same time that her thoughts were melancholy. The quick, noiseless service of the two waitresses, the elaborately prepared dishes that were offered to her next after Mrs. Walker, the food, the gold forks for the fish, the succession of beautiful plates placed before her, the scent of the roses, the golden bubbles of the champagne—all these were delicious to her, as well as the consciousness that she herself was behaving well and looked charming, and that she was quite as well-dressed as even Mrs. Walker, besides being young and pretty and aristocratic.
And yet—this was the melancholy part of it—she was an outsider, after all, as Cecilia persisted in reminding her. Cecilia would even regard herself as an outsider and on that ground would not take what she was entitled to. She let Mrs. Walker, for instance, patronize her. Bertha, in her place, would have been patronized by nobody. Bertha could not comprehend Cecilia's point of view. She felt only that Cecilia had spoiled her own pleasure by insisting on it, by reminding her of "the family's" poverty and dependence. Cecilia, the benefactress, could not forget that she was one. Bertha's expressive face, reflecting these thoughts, was childishly sad. Now and then Mr. Hawley spoke to her, with his invariable kindliness, noticing that she had no part in the talk, and she smiled as she answered him. But then the tiresome Mr. Walker, leaning her way, would propound another political question to the host, and again Bertha felt herself forgotten. At one point, when the discussion had waxed warm all round the table, Bertha, still in her brown study, glanced at Mr. Seton. He was looking at her with unmistakable interest, with admiration, with a sympathetic and amused smile. She became conscious that she was looking very dismal. She blushed furiously, and smiled too. And then Mr. Seton mercifully started the topic of the theatre.
That was something that Bertha had an opinion about, and afterwards, in the drawing-room, it supplied a theme on which Mr. Seton might address her. But meantime there was a rather purgatorial interval. After the dessert the men were left to smoke by themselves, and Bertha found herself still a listener while Cecilia's sister-in-law asked patronizing questions about the difficulties of housekeeping.
Mrs. Walker was not unkind—did not mean to be, in the least; but she could not help having this attitude of mind towards her brother's marriage and its consequences. She could not help regarding with keen, if half-humorous, criticism the young woman who had been elevated from the key-board of a typewriter to her present position, and had brought her family along with her. Mrs. Walker had to confess to herself that the young woman seemed to have kept her head—seemed, indeed, a very steady, responsible sort of person.
While they drank their coffee the talk dealt with housekeeping details, markets, and cooks, then, with just a glance at the European hotels visited during the brief honeymoon, passed to Mr. Hawley's health. Cecilia's disquietude found voice.
"He has been ill to-day, you could see," she said. "He would go to the office, though this morning I could see he was not feeling well. I tried to prevent him. To-night after he got home he had an attack of faintness—and the pain, you know."
Mrs. Walker nodded gravely.
"Why didn't you telephone us? I don't think he ought to be up."
"He wouldn't let me."
"Well, my dear"—it was the first endearment—"you must just insist the next time. It's your business to keep him quiet—you must control him."
Cecilia looked heavily oppressed. "I try," she said, sighing. "I tried, you know, to keep him abroad longer. But he was so miserable. It really was stupid for him, with nothing to do. Sight-seeing tired him too much, and—there wasn't anything else."
Bertha gave an involuntary gasp. She was sitting near the elder ladies—now studying covertly the fashion of Mrs. Walker's gown, now glancing at her own snowy outspread skirts, the points of her small slippers, or her offending finger-nails. Mrs. Walker looked at her rather severely. She did not approve of Bertha or her presence; thought her too "striking," too well-dressed, and generally too much in evidence—considering "the circumstances."
"I did not think it a good idea, his going to Europe," she resumed. "I didn't agree with the doctors. Myself, I think there's nothing more trying than Europe. Going about from one hotel to another, and, as you say, sight-seeing—no, really, I think he was wise to come home."
"Yes, if he would be quiet here," murmured Cecilia. "If I could keep him away from the office."
"Oh, these men," sighed Mrs. Walker. "‘Business' is their one idea. For years now I've been telling Frederick that he ought to retire. He has enough, certainly. And this young Seton, I understand, has a very good head—has taken hold of things wonderfully."
"Yes," said Cecilia dubiously, "but—he's young, and rather—rather gay, perhaps."
She reserved Mr. Hawley's remarks on the subject of young Seton's racing and general "sporting" tendency.
"Well, it's unfortunate that his father should have died just now. Of course, that leaves this young fellow the largest stockholder in the business. I suppose its natural Frederick feels more tied—but—it's very unfortunate."
Bertha had not missed these references to the handsome Mr. Seton. "Young, and rather gay." What could be imagined more natural, more delightful? and what an owl Cecilia was to shake her head solemnly at this fascinating combination! Bertha began to dream.
It seemed not so long after that before the gentlemen came in, fragrant of the weed and genial over their white shirt-bosoms. Mr. Seton sat down beside Bertha. The theatre was the topic. Bertha could be animated if not eloquent on that subject. She went every Saturday to the play; had her special adorations among the actors and actresses; loved the romantic: Beau Brummel—Prince Carl—Cyrano! She was going the next day to see "A Royal Family."
"Does your sister go with you?" Mr. Seton asked, looking at Cecilia where she sat, dignified and gently smiling, while politics still surged round her.
"Yes. My other sister, not Cecilia. She is too busy, with the house, and marketing—and she always wants to be at home when Mr. Hawley comes back from the office, because he isn't very well, you know."
"Yes, I know."
"Cecilia is very conscientious," said Bertha pensively. "She always was so, but now she is more than ever. That's the reason she seems so much older than she is. It makes you old to be always thinking about your duty, don't you think so? Cecilia is only five years older than me!"
"‘Only' five? Five years is a good deal."
"Yes, but it seems more. It is queer—Cecilia didn't enjoy Europe!" And Bertha looked for sympathy in her emotion at this statement. "Imagine going to Europe and not enjoying it!"
"You think you would?"
"Oh, I don't think, I know I should love it. I adore seeing things and travelling. Don't you?"
"Well—yes, I like it. If one can get off the beaten track a little. I don't like going around with crowds of tourists."
"No-o. I suppose I should be a tourist, though—at first, anyway."
"Not the ordinary sort, at least. The sort that does things as a duty, you know."
"Oh, duty, no! I hate duty," murmured Bertha. Then she hoped she had not said anything shocking.
He didn't look shocked, but amused simply. Bertha saw him look at her dress, she felt his eyes on her face—and felt he approved her looks. On the whole, and in spite of his stoutness, she approved of his, and wanted nothing better than to go on talking with him. But here, unfortunately, Mrs. Walker spoke to him, and he was drawn into the conversation of the elders.
And very soon Mrs. Walker got up to go, requesting that a message should be sent down to her coachman. Her brusque statement that Frederick required rest of course broke up the party. Mr. Seton also took his leave. But before he went he had asked the Hawleys to go to the play with him on Monday night, including Bertha in the party. Mr. Hawley accepted cordially, in spite of Cecilia's protesting glance, and then added, "I'll go if I can. At any rate, you may count on the ladies." And Bertha, as she gave him her hand for good-night, was radiant with pleasure.
"Oh Cecilia, how lovely of him! Isn't he too lovely for anything! Oh, you won't let anything prevent us from going, will you?" she cried when he had gone.
Cecilia put her hand through her husband's arm and looked at him. "If Frederick is well enough," she said.
Frederick laid his hand over hers and smiled at her.
"Nonsense, you must go, anyway. We mustn't deprive the little girl of her pleasure. Have you had a good time, Bertha?"
"Oh, splendid! Indeed I have!"
"I thought you were finding it a little dull "
"Oh, no, I've enjoyed it tremendously!"
"Well, we have too—having you here, I mean. You must come soon again."
And Bertha, as she brushed out her hair before the mirror in her pretty bedroom, meditated on Frederick's kindness, and decided it was Cecilia's own fault if she didn't get more pleasure out of life. With such a house too—so many beautiful things! Bertha loved the room she had occupied for the week past. It was all in blue and white, with charming enamelled furniture, silk, and lace. She sighed at the thought of leaving it to go back to her mother's house. But, after all, there was Monday night to look forward to.
Cecilia came in, wrapped in a white dressing-gown, to bid her good-night. Bertha kissed her warmly.
"How good he is—Frederick—isn't he!" she cried. "He is just as kind as he can be."
"Yes, he is," said Cecilia. "He likes you, Bertha. You looked very sweet to-night. I've been thinking about Monday night. This white dress will be right for you to wear. Mr. Seton has a box, he said. But you'll need a hat, won't you? We can go to-morrow morning and buy one."
"Oh, thanks, Cecilia! How sweet of you! You're awfully good to me."
The two sisters kissed again.
"Good-night, dear," Cecilia said with her motherly air—rather grave and burdened, but with a definite pleasure in this youthful joy of Bertha's.
And yet the real cause of Bertha's rejoicing, though it had come through Cecilia herself, gave her a new anxiety. Part of Cecilia's duty to her family, as she saw it, lay in giving the girls all "the chance" possible. As to chances, Mabel was rather hopeless; but Bertha was pretty and fetching enough to need only opportunity. Cecilia meant to give her the opportunity, so far as was consistent with a scrupulous regard for her husband's comfort. Fortunately he liked Bertha's prettiness and vivacity; he was willing that she should be a frequent guest at their house.
When it came to inviting prospective acquaintances for Bertha, though, Cecilia found herself rather limited. There were very few young people available. At this evening's dinner, the first they had given, Mr. Hawley had indicated the people to be asked, not with a view to Bertha. But supposing Mr. Seton were struck with her, as seemed possible, Cecilia felt that she must find out about Mr. Seton. Frederick was rather dubious about him.
"Oh, a good fellow enough—about town a good deal, I hear. I've heard of his gambling—once or twice. Keeps a couple of race-horses. He has the money, of course, if he wants to spend it that way. And he's straight enough. Not a drinking man."
"I should prefer not to go on Monday, unless you wanted to," said Cecilia after a moment.
"Oh, that's all right. Bertha'll enjoy it. He wants to show you some attention—natural enough. You mustn't be tied to me every minute, dear. You must have some pleasure too. You were beautiful to-night, I thought."
Cecilia's eyes filled with tears as he kissed her.
"I cannot have any pleasure while you are ill," she said.
"Oh, my dear," he protested sadly.
And they were both silent, with the thought unuttered between them, that he could never be anything else.